Personally, I'm 100% in favour of hardware companies being pressured to make energy efficient video cards, CPU's and consoles. This can only be a good thing, unless of course, your mom is currently paying your electricity bills.
Well, see, there's a lot of irony there. I don't think the big problem here is with companies actually doing what they can to be environmentally friendly, there's a problem with the sensationalist nature of this thing. You mention energy efficiency, but the only one of the three console manufacturers that puts forward an effort to produce efficient devices gets the lowest score possible in the report.
Not just the lowest of the bunch, the lowest score possible. A zero.
I don't think the initial flurry of wiimote-powered titles was really anything to be proud of. The majority of them were rushed games that were little more than tech demos. Not even good tech demos. I think that the really good titles are still on the way. Nintendo's games (and a few others, like the RE4 port) prove that Red Steel is not a good example of what's possible on the system.
As for worrying about Nintendo's ability to keep producing, well, I wouldn't. I've had some issues with a few of the more recent Zelda games (Mask, Waker and Hourglass all had a horrifying amount of repetition) their other franchises are still getting better and better, in my estimation.
You can use the word 'rehash' but I think that's pretty unfair. What does it even mean? I always see it used in regards to things like the Mario series, which maintains a cast of characters and a tone, but each game brings something new to the table. People use the derogatoty word 'rehash' to describe this, whereas the same people have no such term for, say, the Halo series, where the gameplay of all three is nearly identical.
I realize that there's probably not a single company in the world that reuses IP as much as Nintendo, but I can't help but think "bullshit" when I see or hear somebody comment that they don't want to play another game with Mario in it. Does that specific set of polygons and textures actually make the gameplay less fun for some people? I might as well say that I'm tired of playing games with AK-47's. Or, if you want to stick to the playable characters, soldiers.
Two paragraph rant that hinges on a single word in original post: over.
In contrast, other parts of the world are much more diverse. Just take a look at India. Almost every state has it's own language/culture/history. Rajasthan is nothing like northern or southern India. Even a relatively small country like Ukraine has a quite a lot of cultural variety. From the Russian speaking east to the Ukrainian-speaking west.
The difference is not in the degree of cultural spread, it's in the way the people are scattered. There are thousands of enclaves in this country. Yeah, okay, so the Ukraine has all kinds of variety. That's great. I'm willing to bet that there are actually groups of both Russian- and Ukranian-speaking Ukranians here. I'm pretty certain that you'll find many different categories of Indians. There are Irish communities, there are African communities (especially in the east). There are very large Asian communities (especially in the west).
It seems ridiculous that you can say there's zero culture in the U.S., then go and talk about all the variety to be found in the rest of the world. The truth is that this is a country filled with groups from everywhere. You might think that this at least means that the U.S. has no culture of its own, but I think that's wrong too. I think that the interactions between all these groups creates something new.
And, by the way, I think that's something that you really only notice if you're a resident, a member of the community. You seem to be seeing a lot of things from the eyes of a tourist -- you see the veneer, but not the nitty-gritty underneath.
I think you're misunderstanding. Warden has nothing to do with 'patching' or 'repairing'. It has nothing to do with ease-of-use. It has everything to do with preventing bots and keyloggers.
To trust warden is to trust that: they will never hire a bad dishonest employee, never hire someone with an alternative motive. Like if a memeber of Scientology was asked to get information for there religion. never be asked by a police agency to scan your system, and for the program to be bug free and not exploitable in any way by anyone else.
You do realize that even without Warden, they already have a MASSIVE program on your hard drive, and your credit card info in their database, right?
I have to agree. People act like this is a massive invasion of people's privacy. Well, maybe. It has potential to be, I suppose. But nobody cares. Even if you explained it to people, I would expect that something like 1% of players would have a problem with it.
Compare that to the number of people that would have a problem with Blizzard NOT doing everything possible to stop cheating and botting.
Blizzard's doing the right thing for their customers by providing the best game experience possible. That's what they want, first and foremost. Also, as far as we can tell, there's no privacy violation actually happening -- it's all hypothetical. While I admit that a hypothetical problem is one that is still worth closely examining when it comes to, say, government intrusion...well, come on. This is a freaking video game. You don't have to play it if you don't want to.
Earlier this year, I started noticing that my computer (which I hadn't upgraded since I bought a $260 graphics card and $80 worth of RAM three years ago) was starting to have some trouble with the newest games. They could definitely run, and almost always were pretty playable, but Supreme Commander really chugged once heavy battles started. That was actually the only game I had trouble with, mind you; as an example, Oblivion ran quite well with middling graphics settings.
Anyway, I decided to go crazy, and get a complete overhaul. I spent a little under $1000 to upgrade everything -- new mobo, CPU, completely new RAM, new video card, and even a new PSU to make sure it would all work. It now easily outmatches the consoles. So, in four years, I spent about $1340. In the next two or more years, I probably won't spend a dime. That comes out to be a little more expensive than the consoles, sure, even after you consider the peripherals that get pushed on you. However, the difference isn't even close to what people who haven't actually tried it seem to think it is.
"$3k gaming rig"? I don't even know where I would go to find one.
People like you are the reason that we're not living in that "dream world" any more.
Your logic is completely off. He returned the product elsewhere because the point of sale had already denied him. They were ALREADY treating him like an asshole, therefore, due to the unidirectional movement of time, his elsewhere-return can't be the cause. In fact, if you REVERSE your cause and effect, you have a much more accurate relationship.
I agree, the taboo on certain words is ridiculous. Once, during a short stint in a retail position, I had a customer go off on me. Crazy. Huge rant, including phrases like, "you probably can't read," "mental defective," and many others. (In case you're wondering, it ultimately turned out that she had misread a price label.) The crazy (well, craziest) thing is this: as I stood there, somewhat stunned and very much unsure of how to react, a coworker came up and said something like, "Hey, don't you think that was pretty disrespectful and rude?" She responded, "No! I kept my language clean!" I laughed a little.
Some people say that using 'bad' language is some kind of crutch. As I watch people, I see that it's more common for people use the avoidance of certain words as a justification for (sometimes intense) rudeness.
To me, the funniest thing about Vista's gadget system is that (still, in 2007!) when your resulotion gets changed (by a game, for example -- happens to me far more than once a day ) the gadgets in the lower and right-most portions of your screen get pushed up/left, and have to be moved back manually. For the love of god, people, anchor the things to the nearest edges.
I really don't think that's fair. Might want to check him out when he's playing a part that wasn't written by a very very stupid monkey. Munich's pretty good. After all, I can't really think of any actors or actresses that haven't been bad in something. (Look to the Star Wars prequels for examples.)
Well, I think there's a bit of a practical problem, there. If all the old people are replaced with new people, and there's no actual record of what promises were made, then...what do you do? What can you do? You can either do whatever somebody else tells you you're supposed to, or you can do whatever all the documents tell you to do.
Ah, well, you said SS2. It's been way too long since I've played SS1 to say anything about that. It may be sprites.
If you ARE interested in better SS2 graphics, there's actually two projects that improve them: Improved AI models Improved objects I haven't tried either of them myself, but I'm downloading both of them right now.
You cite Wolf3D, Doom, and Blake Stone as examples of 3D games, but they're only HALF 3D. That's probably the difference. It's 'easy' to make sprites look better than low-poly models with low-res textures.
There's a mod that replaces the textures with higher-res versions. The models themselves are still hideous, but it hides them a little.
Slashdot Mirror
So the first step is slandering the company, okay.
What's the second step? Is it just reading a press release and believing it blindly?
Because if there's gonna be some verification in there somewhere, well, shit, that should probably just be the first step, shouldn't it?
So, you fail to deny that you collect child pornography!
See, now, in the future, maybe you'll remember to list all the things that you don't do wrong.
Well, see, there's a lot of irony there. I don't think the big problem here is with companies actually doing what they can to be environmentally friendly, there's a problem with the sensationalist nature of this thing. You mention energy efficiency, but the only one of the three console manufacturers that puts forward an effort to produce efficient devices gets the lowest score possible in the report.
Not just the lowest of the bunch, the lowest score possible. A zero.
I don't think the initial flurry of wiimote-powered titles was really anything to be proud of. The majority of them were rushed games that were little more than tech demos. Not even good tech demos. I think that the really good titles are still on the way. Nintendo's games (and a few others, like the RE4 port) prove that Red Steel is not a good example of what's possible on the system.
As for worrying about Nintendo's ability to keep producing, well, I wouldn't. I've had some issues with a few of the more recent Zelda games (Mask, Waker and Hourglass all had a horrifying amount of repetition) their other franchises are still getting better and better, in my estimation.
You can use the word 'rehash' but I think that's pretty unfair. What does it even mean? I always see it used in regards to things like the Mario series, which maintains a cast of characters and a tone, but each game brings something new to the table. People use the derogatoty word 'rehash' to describe this, whereas the same people have no such term for, say, the Halo series, where the gameplay of all three is nearly identical.
I realize that there's probably not a single company in the world that reuses IP as much as Nintendo, but I can't help but think "bullshit" when I see or hear somebody comment that they don't want to play another game with Mario in it. Does that specific set of polygons and textures actually make the gameplay less fun for some people? I might as well say that I'm tired of playing games with AK-47's. Or, if you want to stick to the playable characters, soldiers.
Two paragraph rant that hinges on a single word in original post: over.
The difference is not in the degree of cultural spread, it's in the way the people are scattered. There are thousands of enclaves in this country. Yeah, okay, so the Ukraine has all kinds of variety. That's great. I'm willing to bet that there are actually groups of both Russian- and Ukranian-speaking Ukranians here. I'm pretty certain that you'll find many different categories of Indians. There are Irish communities, there are African communities (especially in the east). There are very large Asian communities (especially in the west).
It seems ridiculous that you can say there's zero culture in the U.S., then go and talk about all the variety to be found in the rest of the world. The truth is that this is a country filled with groups from everywhere. You might think that this at least means that the U.S. has no culture of its own, but I think that's wrong too. I think that the interactions between all these groups creates something new.
And, by the way, I think that's something that you really only notice if you're a resident, a member of the community. You seem to be seeing a lot of things from the eyes of a tourist -- you see the veneer, but not the nitty-gritty underneath.
Way to ruin the ending for everybody who hasn't seen it.
Why don't you just disable the page file altogether?
I think you're misunderstanding. Warden has nothing to do with 'patching' or 'repairing'. It has nothing to do with ease-of-use. It has everything to do with preventing bots and keyloggers.
You do realize that even without Warden, they already have a MASSIVE program on your hard drive, and your credit card info in their database, right?
Apply some perspective.
By 'less extreme' he didn't quite mean getting about seven people together and all saying "Hey, there!" at approximately the same time.
The real problem that you're facing is that you're like the Judean People's Front and the rest of the WoW population is the Roman Empire.
What I'm saying is that you may care, but over nine million people don't.
I have to agree. People act like this is a massive invasion of people's privacy. Well, maybe. It has potential to be, I suppose. But nobody cares. Even if you explained it to people, I would expect that something like 1% of players would have a problem with it.
Compare that to the number of people that would have a problem with Blizzard NOT doing everything possible to stop cheating and botting.
Blizzard's doing the right thing for their customers by providing the best game experience possible. That's what they want, first and foremost. Also, as far as we can tell, there's no privacy violation actually happening -- it's all hypothetical. While I admit that a hypothetical problem is one that is still worth closely examining when it comes to, say, government intrusion...well, come on. This is a freaking video game. You don't have to play it if you don't want to.
Nitpick: They're up to 9.3 million active accounts now.
Insanity. Mine's no longer one of them; so much the better for my meatspace social life.
Earlier this year, I started noticing that my computer (which I hadn't upgraded since I bought a $260 graphics card and $80 worth of RAM three years ago) was starting to have some trouble with the newest games. They could definitely run, and almost always were pretty playable, but Supreme Commander really chugged once heavy battles started. That was actually the only game I had trouble with, mind you; as an example, Oblivion ran quite well with middling graphics settings.
Anyway, I decided to go crazy, and get a complete overhaul. I spent a little under $1000 to upgrade everything -- new mobo, CPU, completely new RAM, new video card, and even a new PSU to make sure it would all work. It now easily outmatches the consoles. So, in four years, I spent about $1340. In the next two or more years, I probably won't spend a dime. That comes out to be a little more expensive than the consoles, sure, even after you consider the peripherals that get pushed on you. However, the difference isn't even close to what people who haven't actually tried it seem to think it is.
"$3k gaming rig"? I don't even know where I would go to find one.
http://images.despair.com/products/demotivators/consistency.jpg
Your logic is completely off. He returned the product elsewhere because the point of sale had already denied him. They were ALREADY treating him like an asshole, therefore, due to the unidirectional movement of time, his elsewhere-return can't be the cause. In fact, if you REVERSE your cause and effect, you have a much more accurate relationship.
You must really hate magazines. A lot.
I agree, the taboo on certain words is ridiculous. Once, during a short stint in a retail position, I had a customer go off on me. Crazy. Huge rant, including phrases like, "you probably can't read," "mental defective," and many others. (In case you're wondering, it ultimately turned out that she had misread a price label.) The crazy (well, craziest) thing is this: as I stood there, somewhat stunned and very much unsure of how to react, a coworker came up and said something like, "Hey, don't you think that was pretty disrespectful and rude?" She responded, "No! I kept my language clean!" I laughed a little.
Some people say that using 'bad' language is some kind of crutch. As I watch people, I see that it's more common for people use the avoidance of certain words as a justification for (sometimes intense) rudeness.
Well, doing things 'exactly right' is really the whole point of the advanced maps.
Heh. Yes.
To me, the funniest thing about Vista's gadget system is that (still, in 2007!) when your resulotion gets changed (by a game, for example -- happens to me far more than once a day ) the gadgets in the lower and right-most portions of your screen get pushed up/left, and have to be moved back manually. For the love of god, people, anchor the things to the nearest edges.
I really don't think that's fair. Might want to check him out when he's playing a part that wasn't written by a very very stupid monkey. Munich's pretty good. After all, I can't really think of any actors or actresses that haven't been bad in something. (Look to the Star Wars prequels for examples.)
Well, I think there's a bit of a practical problem, there. If all the old people are replaced with new people, and there's no actual record of what promises were made, then...what do you do? What can you do? You can either do whatever somebody else tells you you're supposed to, or you can do whatever all the documents tell you to do.
You would be correct.
Because the cheapest ticket will cost you $50?
Ah, well, you said SS2. It's been way too long since I've played SS1 to say anything about that. It may be sprites.
If you ARE interested in better SS2 graphics, there's actually two projects that improve them:
Improved AI models
Improved objects
I haven't tried either of them myself, but I'm downloading both of them right now.
You cite Wolf3D, Doom, and Blake Stone as examples of 3D games, but they're only HALF 3D. That's probably the difference. It's 'easy' to make sprites look better than low-poly models with low-res textures.
There's a mod that replaces the textures with higher-res versions. The models themselves are still hideous, but it hides them a little.