The objective is to profit. Trying to get everyone interested in playing video games is not profitable, since there is a large chunk of the population that is simply never going to be interested in video games. Whether or not the majority of that chunk is made up of women is an exercise left up to the reader.
So where's the push to even out the gender imbalances in those areas?
Many universities actually give preference to male nursing students. I think it's a stupid idea (just like all race and gender discrimination in the university), but it's there.
I generally agree with the rest of your post, though. Someone said that the reason why there are so few women programmers is because females aren't pushed to work hard in math and science. That's silly; no one is pushed to work hard in math and science during formative years any more, at least not in America. The reason why you see so few women in math and math-based science careers is because women generally don't like math as much as men do. It's not that they're worse at it or are pressured away from it, they just don't like it as much as they do more verbal and social subjects. If it were the stereotypical line of thought that deems women bereft of scientific ability, then why are there so many female biology students?
And yet we see a comment made by this critic , mocking an image saying "There are at least 1000 polygons in this scene". This should have given most readers away that this guy is all about action/graphics FPS and the likes.
Or about Myst-like adventures with all graphics and no substance. What, you thought that everyone who likes graphics has to be an FPS junkie? Sorry, pal, but your precious computer adventure genre is no longer separate from the graphical revolution.
BTW, saying that a guy like tsr is all about graphics is amusing to say the least.
I haven't played Spartan, but I have played its predecessors, Legion and Chariots of War. Neither of them are very special, and the only real difference between them and Spartan (and, by extension, Gates of Troy) that I can see is that Spartan has bland-looking pseudo-3D battle graphics while the others have 2D battle graphics. So this news really only matters to the few Slitherine fans out there and the hardcore pirates that download and play every PC game that comes out.
Final Fantasy Tactics, one of the most overrated games of the Playstation era, is #2. Dynasty Tactics is good, and I'm a big Koei fanboy, but I don't think even I would rate it #3. Ogre Battle is better than Tactics Ogre, seeing as how Tactics Ogre is just an earlier version of FFT. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance shouldn't be on the list. No Shining Force, Langrisser, or Dark Wizard. No PC games (Jagged Alliance 2 should at least be in the top three, and there are several great RPG/RTS fusions out there right now).
Well, at least he mentioned Front Mission 3, which is like FFT but good.
I can't stand puzzle games that force you to solve puzzles for nothing more than plot advancement, where it feels like half of the puzzles were only put in for the sake of having puzzles, with no thought to how they relate to anything.
You mean like Myst? Though that game didn't even have plot advancement, really.
Myst singlehandedly ended the LucasArts/Sierra Golden Age of computer adventure, and we're all the worse for it.
Don't you think it's a little stupid to draw lines in general? It's natural to favor one flavor of things over another, but it's the lowest form of human behavior to start arguments and wars over it.
Yeah, God forbid we actually try to understand through argument why others have the opinions and beliefs that they do. Far better to assume that everyone is exactly the same, holding hands and singing songs under a bright rainbow.
To sum it up: who the fuck cares?
Who the fuck cares about anything on the Internet? Why are you even posting to Slashdot?
It seems the only way to escape such an immature stereotype is to either own all three current systems, or none at all.
Actually, the way to not be a fanboy is to realize that your game developers of choice are not the end-all and be-all of gaming, that not everything that they touch turns into gold, and that their competitors are not complete trash. It's really not that hard.
You should be siding with consumers in general, and not You should be siding with consumers in general, and not voluntarily giving more power to an already overwhelming and controlling entity.
Funny; I thought that being a fanboy was "voluntarily giving more power to an already overwhelming and controlling entity."
To be fair, this seems like it would be a difficult bug for the Microsoft guidelines people to catch.
1. Check settings of game (if the testers are given proper tools, this wouldn't be too hard). 2. Save game. 3. Load game. 4. Check settings of game.
Seems to me like checking to make sure the settings of the game haven't changed after it's been reloaded would be part of the routine checklist. Maybe it wouldn't have been as ridiculously obvious as that Pandora Tomorrow bug someone mentioned, but it probably should've been caught.
all anyone seems to care about are crashes and legal/licensing issues.
Off the top of my head, I recall that Final Fantasy 3 had some game-killing and save-destroying (!) bugs involving the sketch ability of one of the characters.
Since the bug generally only occurred when Relm sketched an invisible creature, it was pretty rare. A lot of people didn't even use Relm's sketching ability in the first place, much less go around sketching everything in sight. Compare that to a game that has a bug that has a 100% chance of occurring when one saves his game; just about everyone uses the save feature.
Another example of a major bug in the middle years of console gaming is at the end of the optional Ancient Cave in Lufia 2. The graphics are competely gliched up on the 99th level of the cave, though it is still possible to blindly make your way to the boss at the end. Of course, most people who played that game (before emulation, anyway) never got that far, so this is another example of a bug that really didn't mean much.
I think you'd better take off the tinfoil hat before the mercury that's been added by the government to all tinfoil supplies in the US leaches into your brain.
Yeah, but those 20 computers are only 1.8 GHz each. Desktops can currently go twice that fast, so take off 1.5 years or so from that total assuming that you go with the best commercially-available desktop technology.
On another note, what does Peter ask that guy who wants to play "Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2, Final Fantasy stuff" online? It sounded like "How about [Japanese name]?" and got a big laugh from the audience.
"The whole online thing has been a complete and total disaster"--well, except for that little thing called "Final Fantasy XI," anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
The objective is to profit. Trying to get everyone interested in playing video games is not profitable, since there is a large chunk of the population that is simply never going to be interested in video games. Whether or not the majority of that chunk is made up of women is an exercise left up to the reader.
Rob
So where's the push to even out the gender imbalances in those areas?
Many universities actually give preference to male nursing students. I think it's a stupid idea (just like all race and gender discrimination in the university), but it's there.
I generally agree with the rest of your post, though. Someone said that the reason why there are so few women programmers is because females aren't pushed to work hard in math and science. That's silly; no one is pushed to work hard in math and science during formative years any more, at least not in America. The reason why you see so few women in math and math-based science careers is because women generally don't like math as much as men do. It's not that they're worse at it or are pressured away from it, they just don't like it as much as they do more verbal and social subjects. If it were the stereotypical line of thought that deems women bereft of scientific ability, then why are there so many female biology students?
Rob
If you think SH2 and 3 are good, you should get the original, which is better than either one of them despite the weaker graphics.
Rob
Maybe it's that 3DO porn game based on Night Trap.
Rob
And people wonder why Sega never really made it in the hardware business.
Rob
And yet we see a comment made by this critic , mocking an image saying "There are at least 1000 polygons in this scene". This should have given most readers away that this guy is all about action/graphics FPS and the likes.
Or about Myst-like adventures with all graphics and no substance. What, you thought that everyone who likes graphics has to be an FPS junkie? Sorry, pal, but your precious computer adventure genre is no longer separate from the graphical revolution.
BTW, saying that a guy like tsr is all about graphics is amusing to say the least.
Rob
I know exactly what you mean.
Rob (Am I a hardcore pirate? No, no, of course not)
I haven't played Spartan, but I have played its predecessors, Legion and Chariots of War. Neither of them are very special, and the only real difference between them and Spartan (and, by extension, Gates of Troy) that I can see is that Spartan has bland-looking pseudo-3D battle graphics while the others have 2D battle graphics. So this news really only matters to the few Slitherine fans out there and the hardcore pirates that download and play every PC game that comes out.
Rob
Final Fantasy Tactics, one of the most overrated games of the Playstation era, is #2.
Dynasty Tactics is good, and I'm a big Koei fanboy, but I don't think even I would rate it #3.
Ogre Battle is better than Tactics Ogre, seeing as how Tactics Ogre is just an earlier version of FFT.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance shouldn't be on the list.
No Shining Force, Langrisser, or Dark Wizard.
No PC games (Jagged Alliance 2 should at least be in the top three, and there are several great RPG/RTS fusions out there right now).
Well, at least he mentioned Front Mission 3, which is like FFT but good.
Rob
No further explanation needed.
Rob
I can't stand puzzle games that force you to solve puzzles for nothing more than plot advancement, where it feels like half of the puzzles were only put in for the sake of having puzzles, with no thought to how they relate to anything.
You mean like Myst? Though that game didn't even have plot advancement, really.
Myst singlehandedly ended the LucasArts/Sierra Golden Age of computer adventure, and we're all the worse for it.
Rob (Sam & Max 2, RIP)
Don't you think it's a little stupid to draw lines in general? It's natural to favor one flavor of things over another, but it's the lowest form of human behavior to start arguments and wars over it.
Yeah, God forbid we actually try to understand through argument why others have the opinions and beliefs that they do. Far better to assume that everyone is exactly the same, holding hands and singing songs under a bright rainbow.
To sum it up: who the fuck cares?
Who the fuck cares about anything on the Internet? Why are you even posting to Slashdot?
It seems the only way to escape such an immature stereotype is to either own all three current systems, or none at all.
Actually, the way to not be a fanboy is to realize that your game developers of choice are not the end-all and be-all of gaming, that not everything that they touch turns into gold, and that their competitors are not complete trash. It's really not that hard.
You should be siding with consumers in general, and not You should be siding with consumers in general, and not voluntarily giving more power to an already overwhelming and controlling entity.
Funny; I thought that being a fanboy was "voluntarily giving more power to an already overwhelming and controlling entity."
Rob
Viacom could then leverage its many brands--including MTV and Nickelodeon--to become a significant publisher.
No bad games could possibly come out of that!
Rob
To be fair, this seems like it would be a difficult bug for the Microsoft guidelines people to catch.
1. Check settings of game (if the testers are given proper tools, this wouldn't be too hard).
2. Save game.
3. Load game.
4. Check settings of game.
Seems to me like checking to make sure the settings of the game haven't changed after it's been reloaded would be part of the routine checklist. Maybe it wouldn't have been as ridiculously obvious as that Pandora Tomorrow bug someone mentioned, but it probably should've been caught.
all anyone seems to care about are crashes and legal/licensing issues.
Yeah, now.
Rob
I don't think it was quite as simple as you're suggesting to create a good 8-bit game fifteen years ago. But I see your point.
Even so, it makes you wonder why console licensing systems still exist. Well, besides old fashioned capitalism, of course.
Rob
What's more significant--the likelihood of a bug or it's severity?
The FF3 bug was severe. The Thief bug is severe and likely.
Rob
He's trying to say that Relm was already useless.
Rob
Off the top of my head, I recall that Final Fantasy 3 had some game-killing and save-destroying (!) bugs involving the sketch ability of one of the characters.
Since the bug generally only occurred when Relm sketched an invisible creature, it was pretty rare. A lot of people didn't even use Relm's sketching ability in the first place, much less go around sketching everything in sight. Compare that to a game that has a bug that has a 100% chance of occurring when one saves his game; just about everyone uses the save feature.
Another example of a major bug in the middle years of console gaming is at the end of the optional Ancient Cave in Lufia 2. The graphics are competely gliched up on the 99th level of the cave, though it is still possible to blindly make your way to the boss at the end. Of course, most people who played that game (before emulation, anyway) never got that far, so this is another example of a bug that really didn't mean much.
Rob
The PC version should be relatively easy to patch, but fixing the Xbox version would be trickier, perhaps requiring a full recall
Remember when console games that had serious bugs just didn't get licensed? Boy, those were the days.
Rob
I think you'd better take off the tinfoil hat before the mercury that's been added by the government to all tinfoil supplies in the US leaches into your brain.
Rob
20 computers running.
You have one computer.
log(20)/log(2) * 1.5 yrs = ~6.5 yrs
Yeah, but those 20 computers are only 1.8 GHz each. Desktops can currently go twice that fast, so take off 1.5 years or so from that total assuming that you go with the best commercially-available desktop technology.
Rob
When the XBox came out, I figured that it would be killed by the PC, not the other way around.
Microsoft might not be too popular around here, but they sure aren't stupid or lacking in business sense, either way.
Rob
Uh, your save file should've been fine. Maybe you got screwed by the notoriously finicky battery in the Dragon Warrior cart.
Rob
That was his point. Why would Trump go with MS over Sony when Sony is the one with a successful MMORPG already on its system?
Rob
I'd play it!
On another note, what does Peter ask that guy who wants to play "Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2, Final Fantasy stuff" online? It sounded like "How about [Japanese name]?" and got a big laugh from the audience.
"The whole online thing has been a complete and total disaster"--well, except for that little thing called "Final Fantasy XI," anyway.
Rob (NFL Fever? Give me a break!)