1. SWG, even before NGE, was/is an abomination against the gaming gods and should never, ever have been released. For one, it fails the "interesting combat" test. For two, it was just atrocious.
2. I thought UO was great *then*, regardless of what it is now.
3. There wasn't a "minority that actually likes UO." You're mistaking the vastly increased MMO market of now from what it was 11 years ago. ~12 million people didn't try UO and decide they didn't like it.
The "cold hard fact" is that UO was really, really popular at the time. It grew the MMO fanbase, and EQ grew it even more with a generic fantasy world and true 3D graphics.
The fact that it STILL has players is proof enough that it is fun.
4. You're wrong.:) I'm happy to argue with you about that, because you're the one making the incorrect assertions.
"UO didn't _have_ to invent everything. There were already thousands of text-based MUDs, and whole discussions, correlations and theories (e.g., Bartle's) as to what works and how it works. You could tell from the start why a whole bunch of Lord British's ideas won't work, or won't make players happy, because the exact same had happened a thousand times before on MUDs."
I'm confused by this; are you saying that UO was rife with ideas that didn't work, or didn't make players happy?
Because 11 years later, it's still alive, and still above the 100k subscriber mark. And regardless of the ravenous hordes that have descended upon the industry, none of them have reached the level of interesting immersion UO has. I challenge you to name one MMO without classes that has player made housing, player made shops, and still a full combat experience.
3-2-1 Contact (and encouragement from my father) got me started programming Basic on our family's Apple IIe computer. In elementary school, Logo helped it along.
Either of those, or their modern equivalent, should be great. Basically anything where you start off seeing direct, tangible results and then move on to the theoretical stuff.
Wow. That really took me back. Is there still good media like 3-2-1 Contact and Square One for kids?
Re:Can't rely on homeowners' associations
on
Houses With Tails
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· Score: 1
Nah, I just go to all my HOA meetings. And in every one, we have to go over how 5-6 houses in the clusters still haven't paid, have no intention to pay, and yet complain when their area isn't serviced (lawn cut, trees trimmed, etc). It's compounded when a house in the cluster goes up for sale.
Unfortunately, we've also had a couple cases of liens. One of the homeowners are about to lose their place, so the lien is just one more bill for them. As far as we can tell, the other guy just doesn't care.
I'm just not sure that "service provider" is a great role for HOAs to fill. I like the concept of fiber fiefdoms, I just want to see it work before I consider it for my neighborhood.
Can't rely on homeowners' associations
on
Houses With Tails
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"Once constructed, each home would own its own fiber strand, while the shared costs of maintaining the "trunk" cable from the individual homes to a central switching location would be managed in the same way that condominium and homeowners' associations currently manage the shared areas of condos and gated communities."
So, that is to say - not at all? We have a hard enough time collecting homeowner's fees as it is. I can only speculate that it would be harder at a higher cost.
And what are you supposed to do if/when one home stops paying its part? Not upkeep that portion of fiber? Have everyone else absorb the costs?
"I have yet to turn on my 360, put in a game, and have it tell me I've only got two activations left before I need to call the developer and beg to have one more."
You're right; instead, you have to hope your 360 turns on and doesn't Red Ring. And when it inevitably dies (because, let's face it, you'll go through two+ every three years), you have to call the manufacturer and beg to have it fixed. On the bright side, the entire repair process only takes a month!
Oh, wait; I'm sorry. You were saying something about how it just WORKS?
You can't compare Palin's "credentials" with Obama's. The most experience she can claim is being governor to an incredibly rich, homogeneous state with a population of a half million. That's about as much experience as being elected to your high school's SGA.
Things will absolutely "swing back." We'll get out of a illegitimate war started by lies. Better regulation will help bring our economy back in control. You think that McCain will let that happen? We'll be in Iraq for a hundred years if he has his way. How high does the death toll have to get before people like him realize that there are no "winners" in a war?
A will to compromise must be had for anything to be done with a conflicting executive and legislature. We've seen how well that works with a Republican in charge (ie, not at all). Bush policies got us into this mess, and another scion of Bush will just make things four more years worse. We can't afford that.
And this is somehow worse than electing a man who will say and do anything to be elected - including putting a woman with absolutely no business being a VP candidate within a heartbeat of the Presidency?
We just came out of a Republican Presidency who had absolutely no checks placed on him. Things have swung so far to the "Right", a swing back towards center can only help.
Putting the make-believe maverick at the helm of a Democratic congress will just deadlock the government when we need action.
Except, I don't give a shit if it's their marketing geek or lead developer. I provided that quote as a means of stating what the grandparent was asking: has Bethesda acknowledged that it's not their series, and it's not TES. The answer's yes.
Whether or not Fallout 3 is what NMA wants it to be - or bears any real resemblance to the previous titles in the series - is irrelevant to me. I want Fallout 3 to be enjoyable to me, not the rabid 0.01% of the community who think they know *EXACTLY* what Fallout 3 must be like (or else it will be horrible).
That doesn't interest me.
I liked Oblivion and Shivering Isles. I really enjoyed Morrowind, Tribunal, and Bloodmoon. I thought Daggerfall was awesomely ambitious, if not perfectly executed.
For me, Bethesda gets a free shot at Fallout. I hope they do the legacy justice. If not, I at least hope it's a great game.
To quote Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing Pete Hines:
"Internally, we're a bunch of Fallout geeks. There is nobody [here] who hasn't played that game and enjoyed it. I have that game on my laptop, I take it with me and play it. But it's definitely different, because it's not really considered ours, the franchise. We didn't start it. There is a little bit of that sentiment out there that we have to prove that we're worthy to be the guys to make Fallout 3. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, because we have very high expectations for ourselves."
So, yes, they have acknowledge that it's not a series that they created, and that they have a lot to live up to.
You're just setting yourself up for failure with comments like that. Rhetorically, one can understand your sentiment - that you didn't like Oblivion, and that you consider the Fallout games to be drastically different than the content featured in Oblivion.
Regardless, it's an incredibly stupid thing to say. I can come up with broad similarities in both games that I'm sure you'd want to see in Fallout 3.
It's worse than the PS3 needing just AAA exclusives - there's a general dearth of quality games available. Check out Game Rankings / Metacritic / GameStats / the rating grouper of your choice; the only game above 90% is Oblivion. There are four exclusives in the Top 20: Resistance, Motorstorm, Virtual Fighter 5, and flOw.
And once you get out of the Top 20, the ratings has already dropped below 80%. That's a serious, serious issue.
I'm a huge fan of the West End d6 system, and it sounds like the Saga edition is hearkening back to that simpler time. That plus a sub-$30 price tag online is enough for me to give it a shot.
Note on the article: the "traits" system reminiscent of WoW's talent trees was included in d20 Modern. It might have been included before that, too - but comparing it to something internally consistent (like a RPG) might have been a better analogy than stretching for WoW (though the WoW reference will undoubtedly reach more gamers).
SWG one of the best MMOs around? When was that? Back in Beta or Pre-Beta?
Because when I was testing the game, it was a wretched abomination unto the Star Wars license.
Oh, I agree with you that SoE ruins everything it touches. I canceled my Vanguard account when they purchased Sigil. But SWG retains the #2 position of my All Time Most Disappointing Games list, so... it's a sore spot for me.
Yeah, let me reiterate something - the top three issues, for me, are:
1) Increase reliability 2) Increase reliability 3) Don't gouge us so much for DLC
My 360 crapped out on me (Ring of Death) after six months. SIX MONTHS. A $400 piece of hardware dies after six months of fairly heavy use? I've had a $500 video card, running nearly constantly, last for well over three years now.
It's great that it fell under the warranty. Fix it for free. But this can take a month or more, and you're not guaranteed a working console when you get it back.
The games on the system, and the Xbox Live multiplayer experience, is awesome. It might be my favorite console of all time. Making it unreliable and taking it away from people for months at a time is an excellent way to generate really, really hurt feelings and outrage.
Yes, but the NY Senate is thinking of the children. That's more important than any study, or even the proven fact that the courts will knock this bill down faster than you can say "waste of taxpayer dollars."
Considering that the Wii is *STILL* extremely difficult to find in stores, I think it's safe to say that the majority of gamers have not played *any* Wii games.
Jedi Knight 2 had a map of the Raven offices. Same for Blood and Monolith.
FTA: "Speakers at the FBISD Board's April 23 meeting alluded to the Clements senior's punishment, and drew a connection to the April 16 shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, in which a Korean student shot and killed 32 people."
In which video games *WERE NOT INVOLVED*. But that clearly doesn't matter. Something bad happened involving people under the age of 21, and as such video games must be at the heart of it.
Jacko's not going to care if it doesn't make the Top 10 Bestsellers list. Its not like he's gone after *any* of the really gory, exploitive games - just the ones that had extremely deep pockets and met his narrow view of "what's bad".
Slashdot Mirror
I'd prefer if the high priorities went to voice/game/TV (in that order). The number of latency-sensitive games out there are legion.
Starcraft has sold 11 million units worldwide. That's pretty good, it's one of the best selling games of all time.
World of Warcraft has over 11.5 million monthly subscribers. More people play WoW in one month than the copies of SC sold in a decade.
So, when you consider target audience, and whether or not they're likely to have an internet connection... yeah. SC2 is going to sell really well.
Not including LAN play is a calculated risk that I think will pay off just fine. Reduce the pirates, increase revenue. Works for me!
It's a big deal if he divulged information that was actually classified. The nature of the information is less important.
Yeah, I also found it tasteless. Center-of-mass hits are much more reliable than head shots.
1. SWG, even before NGE, was/is an abomination against the gaming gods and should never, ever have been released. For one, it fails the "interesting combat" test. For two, it was just atrocious.
2. I thought UO was great *then*, regardless of what it is now.
3. There wasn't a "minority that actually likes UO." You're mistaking the vastly increased MMO market of now from what it was 11 years ago. ~12 million people didn't try UO and decide they didn't like it.
The "cold hard fact" is that UO was really, really popular at the time. It grew the MMO fanbase, and EQ grew it even more with a generic fantasy world and true 3D graphics.
The fact that it STILL has players is proof enough that it is fun.
4. You're wrong. :) I'm happy to argue with you about that, because you're the one making the incorrect assertions.
"UO didn't _have_ to invent everything. There were already thousands of text-based MUDs, and whole discussions, correlations and theories (e.g., Bartle's) as to what works and how it works. You could tell from the start why a whole bunch of Lord British's ideas won't work, or won't make players happy, because the exact same had happened a thousand times before on MUDs."
I'm confused by this; are you saying that UO was rife with ideas that didn't work, or didn't make players happy?
Because 11 years later, it's still alive, and still above the 100k subscriber mark. And regardless of the ravenous hordes that have descended upon the industry, none of them have reached the level of interesting immersion UO has. I challenge you to name one MMO without classes that has player made housing, player made shops, and still a full combat experience.
"Are they the best of hobbies that have great value in the end?"
Out of curiosity, what are the best of hobbies that have great value in the end?
3-2-1 Contact (and encouragement from my father) got me started programming Basic on our family's Apple IIe computer. In elementary school, Logo helped it along.
Either of those, or their modern equivalent, should be great. Basically anything where you start off seeing direct, tangible results and then move on to the theoretical stuff.
Wow. That really took me back. Is there still good media like 3-2-1 Contact and Square One for kids?
Nah, I just go to all my HOA meetings. And in every one, we have to go over how 5-6 houses in the clusters still haven't paid, have no intention to pay, and yet complain when their area isn't serviced (lawn cut, trees trimmed, etc). It's compounded when a house in the cluster goes up for sale.
Unfortunately, we've also had a couple cases of liens. One of the homeowners are about to lose their place, so the lien is just one more bill for them. As far as we can tell, the other guy just doesn't care.
I'm just not sure that "service provider" is a great role for HOAs to fill. I like the concept of fiber fiefdoms, I just want to see it work before I consider it for my neighborhood.
"Once constructed, each home would own its own fiber strand, while the shared costs of maintaining the "trunk" cable from the individual homes to a central switching location would be managed in the same way that condominium and homeowners' associations currently manage the shared areas of condos and gated communities."
So, that is to say - not at all? We have a hard enough time collecting homeowner's fees as it is. I can only speculate that it would be harder at a higher cost.
And what are you supposed to do if/when one home stops paying its part? Not upkeep that portion of fiber? Have everyone else absorb the costs?
"I have yet to turn on my 360, put in a game, and have it tell me I've only got two activations left before I need to call the developer and beg to have one more."
You're right; instead, you have to hope your 360 turns on and doesn't Red Ring. And when it inevitably dies (because, let's face it, you'll go through two+ every three years), you have to call the manufacturer and beg to have it fixed. On the bright side, the entire repair process only takes a month!
Oh, wait; I'm sorry. You were saying something about how it just WORKS?
You can't compare Palin's "credentials" with Obama's. The most experience she can claim is being governor to an incredibly rich, homogeneous state with a population of a half million. That's about as much experience as being elected to your high school's SGA.
Things will absolutely "swing back." We'll get out of a illegitimate war started by lies. Better regulation will help bring our economy back in control. You think that McCain will let that happen? We'll be in Iraq for a hundred years if he has his way. How high does the death toll have to get before people like him realize that there are no "winners" in a war?
A will to compromise must be had for anything to be done with a conflicting executive and legislature. We've seen how well that works with a Republican in charge (ie, not at all). Bush policies got us into this mess, and another scion of Bush will just make things four more years worse. We can't afford that.
And this is somehow worse than electing a man who will say and do anything to be elected - including putting a woman with absolutely no business being a VP candidate within a heartbeat of the Presidency?
We just came out of a Republican Presidency who had absolutely no checks placed on him. Things have swung so far to the "Right", a swing back towards center can only help.
Putting the make-believe maverick at the helm of a Democratic congress will just deadlock the government when we need action.
Except, I don't give a shit if it's their marketing geek or lead developer. I provided that quote as a means of stating what the grandparent was asking: has Bethesda acknowledged that it's not their series, and it's not TES. The answer's yes.
Whether or not Fallout 3 is what NMA wants it to be - or bears any real resemblance to the previous titles in the series - is irrelevant to me. I want Fallout 3 to be enjoyable to me, not the rabid 0.01% of the community who think they know *EXACTLY* what Fallout 3 must be like (or else it will be horrible).
That doesn't interest me.
I liked Oblivion and Shivering Isles. I really enjoyed Morrowind, Tribunal, and Bloodmoon. I thought Daggerfall was awesomely ambitious, if not perfectly executed.
For me, Bethesda gets a free shot at Fallout. I hope they do the legacy justice. If not, I at least hope it's a great game.
To quote Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing Pete Hines:
"Internally, we're a bunch of Fallout geeks. There is nobody [here] who hasn't played that game and enjoyed it. I have that game on my laptop, I take it with me and play it. But it's definitely different, because it's not really considered ours, the franchise. We didn't start it. There is a little bit of that sentiment out there that we have to prove that we're worthy to be the guys to make Fallout 3. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, because we have very high expectations for ourselves."
So, yes, they have acknowledge that it's not a series that they created, and that they have a lot to live up to.
You're just setting yourself up for failure with comments like that. Rhetorically, one can understand your sentiment - that you didn't like Oblivion, and that you consider the Fallout games to be drastically different than the content featured in Oblivion.
Regardless, it's an incredibly stupid thing to say. I can come up with broad similarities in both games that I'm sure you'd want to see in Fallout 3.
It's worse than the PS3 needing just AAA exclusives - there's a general dearth of quality games available. Check out Game Rankings / Metacritic / GameStats / the rating grouper of your choice; the only game above 90% is Oblivion. There are four exclusives in the Top 20: Resistance, Motorstorm, Virtual Fighter 5, and flOw.
And once you get out of the Top 20, the ratings has already dropped below 80%. That's a serious, serious issue.
I'm a huge fan of the West End d6 system, and it sounds like the Saga edition is hearkening back to that simpler time. That plus a sub-$30 price tag online is enough for me to give it a shot.
Note on the article: the "traits" system reminiscent of WoW's talent trees was included in d20 Modern. It might have been included before that, too - but comparing it to something internally consistent (like a RPG) might have been a better analogy than stretching for WoW (though the WoW reference will undoubtedly reach more gamers).
SWG one of the best MMOs around? When was that? Back in Beta or Pre-Beta?
Because when I was testing the game, it was a wretched abomination unto the Star Wars license.
Oh, I agree with you that SoE ruins everything it touches. I canceled my Vanguard account when they purchased Sigil. But SWG retains the #2 position of my All Time Most Disappointing Games list, so... it's a sore spot for me.
Yeah, let me reiterate something - the top three issues, for me, are:
1) Increase reliability
2) Increase reliability
3) Don't gouge us so much for DLC
My 360 crapped out on me (Ring of Death) after six months. SIX MONTHS. A $400 piece of hardware dies after six months of fairly heavy use? I've had a $500 video card, running nearly constantly, last for well over three years now.
It's great that it fell under the warranty. Fix it for free. But this can take a month or more, and you're not guaranteed a working console when you get it back.
The games on the system, and the Xbox Live multiplayer experience, is awesome. It might be my favorite console of all time. Making it unreliable and taking it away from people for months at a time is an excellent way to generate really, really hurt feelings and outrage.
Why do you think Bethesda would do this? It's not like their TES titles were bastions of moral absolutism.
Yes, but the NY Senate is thinking of the children. That's more important than any study, or even the proven fact that the courts will knock this bill down faster than you can say "waste of taxpayer dollars."
Considering that the Wii is *STILL* extremely difficult to find in stores, I think it's safe to say that the majority of gamers have not played *any* Wii games.
Jedi Knight 2 had a map of the Raven offices. Same for Blood and Monolith.
FTA: "Speakers at the FBISD Board's April 23 meeting alluded to the Clements senior's punishment, and drew a connection to the April 16 shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, in which a Korean student shot and killed 32 people."
In which video games *WERE NOT INVOLVED*. But that clearly doesn't matter. Something bad happened involving people under the age of 21, and as such video games must be at the heart of it.
-lw
Jacko's not going to care if it doesn't make the Top 10 Bestsellers list. Its not like he's gone after *any* of the really gory, exploitive games - just the ones that had extremely deep pockets and met his narrow view of "what's bad".