Re:Just like there will never be another Doom
on
Can Anyone Beat WoW?
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· Score: 1
MUD = Ancienct Art of War UO = Dune 2 EQ = C&C WoW = Starcraft
Re:Just like there will never be another Doom
on
Can Anyone Beat WoW?
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· Score: 1
I would suggest that subscription numbers disagree with your conclusion. At, what, 6...6.5 million subscribers currently, it pretty much means EQ is now only a pre-cursor to the true, defining game of this genre: World of Warcraft.
If you are going by subscription numbers only then Lineage would have been the genre defining game, given it had 3M+ subscribers 5 years ago (Lineage I suppose is the genre defining title for the Asian market). Total popularity does not necessarily mean genre defining, nor the first title in a genre (as you point out), it's the title that brings a genre into general public. Terms like "Evercrack" and "MMO-addiction" were coined and brought into public discussion by Everquest. Even though non-gamers didn't play EQ, they were aware of it; just as most people didn't play Doom but they were aware of it.
My opinion is that World of Warcraft's popularity is due to its original base in the hugely popular Warcraft series of games. Without that, it would be just another EQ clone like the rest of the games. For 3 million people, the name Warcraft introduced them to the MMORPG, something a new title like Everquest or Dark Age of Camelot wouldn't do.
WoW's popularity was also due to the fact the game was accessable to a wider audience. In EQ if you were to log in for 1 hour you couldn't really accomplish anything. This makes it unattractive to mainstream audiences who have things to do other than play a game for 6 hours straight.
Would Spiderman the movie have been nearly as popular if it was called "Webman" and was loosely based off of Spider-man? I'd say not.
Isn't "Webman" the superhero who solves crime with Google and never leaves the house?
Re:Just like there will never be another Doom
on
Can Anyone Beat WoW?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
There will always be that one game that defines a genre. Doom was not the first FPS, but it was the FPS that made the genre a sensation. Command & Conquer did the same for RTS. WoW is just that defining game for MMORPGs; it built upon the pioneers and has reached that critical mass where MMOs stop being a niche genre and have become mainstream.
WoW was not the game that defined the MMORPG genre. EQ was the game that developed the critical mass for wide appeal to take that crown. It is more like StarCraft and Counterstrike... a game that has been refined to the point of wide lasting appeal.
Who are these people, and how do they get jobs commenting on such things, when their whole approach to analysis is flawed from the start? What is the benefit to such analysis?
Because it makes communication easier to general audiences. Qualitative terms such as "casual gamer," are applied based on quantitative surveys. The actual marketting data and analysis is based on numbers, but most audiences don't want to hear specifics like "65% of gamers who play 0-5 hours, 45% of gamers who play 5-10 hours, 15% of gamers who play 10-15 hours a week, etc." So the information is condensed into groups such as hardcore gamer, that gives the audience an idea of the market, without the excrutiating details of the numbers.
Thinking in terms of two markets or six markets can only achive one outcome - limiting innovation and ways of thinking about how to produce games/products.
Limitation can also mean focus and predictability. If I am creating a game that I expect will require a dedication of 40+ hours a week, I want to know the size of the market (to create a budget) and what players generally expect (so I don't incorporate fatal flaws in the game design). Does it guarantee success? Of course not, but at least upfront I will avoid any big mistakes that would doom the game from the beginning.
In reality, customers buy what they want to buy, and try to meet their own needs or desires. Real human beings (you know, the ones who actually buy things) do not think of themselves as "markets."
Individual people buy what they want to buy, but that doesn't make the overall population unpredictable.
Has any other US president ever done as much damage to the US as Bush has?
Lincoln - Abuse of the Constitution Civil War Invasion and repression of Native Americans
In the end all was forgiven because his legacy advancing Civil Rights overshadows the abuses of power. You can not judge historical significance during the time of events. If by some miracle Bush's actions bring stabability to the middle east, then all his issues will be ignored by history.
Re:Maybe Joe Schmoe shouldn't be using a computer.
on
AOL 9.0 Called Badware
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· Score: 2, Informative
but I just can't remember what I use my actual washingmachine for!
Making giant batches of koolaid. Pour the mix in set the machine, and it automagically adds the water and stirs.
This is what happens to the currency of debtor nations, and it turns into an endless spiral, till eventually, no americans can afford the '$100 laptop', simply because thier peso's are worthless.
Yes, it's so sad how the people of the US suffer compared to the good ol' days of... of... umm... before the US existed. There has always been a national debt, it is not necessarily a bad thing.
Capitalism is about maximizing the return on capital (profit), growth is a means to an end. For an individual investor, growth of a company represents an increase in the value of their assets, thus if you own a share of a company the value of your share has increased.
Whether you agree with this or not (I don't think this is true any more), it's the idea of growth for the sake of growth that has driven the US economy for the past century or so...
Growth arises from efficiency and creation of new markets which are needed for survival given an increasing population.
even if the punishment were to be set successfully at +$10 million, be willing to attempt to break the law anyway because of the microscopic likelihood of being caught, simply because human beings are not completely "rational" creatures, despite what Econ 101 might try to argue.:)
Actually that is rational. The risk of getting caught is sufficiently low to justify taking a chance. People are rational, its just that they are so complex that we can't fully understand and predict their actions.
After all, when you buy a stock, the only businessman who clearly benefits from that is the broker. And when confidence in the market evaporates, the confidence scam ends and all that phantom wealth disappears with it. What a house of cards to build an economic system around.
With that definition all economics is gambling. If I build gadgets or grow corn, I'm "gambling" that I can trade it; if the market for the item dries up all the value disappears. When you buy stock you are purchasing part of a company. If the stock market collapses, you are not denied the ownership of the company, it means there is no market for exchanging item.
Sure you can gamble on stock price gains, but the same could be said about oil, coffee, real estate, or any other tradeable item.
i'm basically saying that as we discover more and more exotic extrasolar orbital arrangements out there, the meaning of "planet" will come under ever-increasing fluidity
Which means the term "planet" has very little meaning and is realistically only useful as a means to determine research funding.
Check where things are manufactured, it can tell you a lot about what level quality to expect. Different countries have different cultures and different governments and different labor laws and quality assurance programs and work ethics and wages, etc.
It's not the people or culture, it's the company. Manufacturing in lower cost countries is part of cutting costs, which also tends to include reductions in the quality of incoming materials, reduced training, less stringent outgoing quality control, etc. Failure of electronic equipment is more often due to low quality materials or an issue with the manufacturing process, not with operator error.
Over the years, I've gotten the vague feeling that AMD has better engineers who can do more with less.
It seems like Intel has better manufacturing engineers, while AMD has better design engineers... or at least design engineers who aren't held back by marketing
Exactly -- It's just like corporate taxes. Corporations don't pay them, they count them as part of the cost of doing business and recoup those expenses by raising prices on their products. But I expect to be modded down, as the Slashdot crowd doesn't like the natural end result of that line of reasoning.:)
It all depends on the nature of the tax, competition, and what the market can absorb. If, for example, there was a tax on MP3 players, the price of iPods wouldn't necessarily go up. Apple would have to evaluate the impact on sales of raising prices vs the profit loss of absorbing some or all of the tax. Companies can't always pass through costs, sometimes they have to just accept them as part of the cost of doing business.
The history of the prohibition of drugs is the history of shitting on blacks and mexicans.
The history of drug prohibition in the US is rooted in the fear of all foreigners, mixed with "social awareness." Morality is a double-edged sword. Those who promoted protection for workers and protection of the poor, also wanted to protect the people from the dangers of drugs; especially impressionable young women who could fall victim in Chinese opium dens.
Today, the real issue is all the revenue that creates all those jobs; plus, the more money is moved around, the more of it can be siphoned off into the pocketbooks of the powerful.
Prohibition has always been about control. Drug addicts are not productive workers and their allegience is with their drug supplier rather than their government. The wealthy would find ways to make money no matter what the system is. They'll cash in selling drugs if they are legal, or fighting drugs if they are illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
MUD = Ancienct Art of War
UO = Dune 2
EQ = C&C
WoW = Starcraft
If you are going by subscription numbers only then Lineage would have been the genre defining game, given it had 3M+ subscribers 5 years ago (Lineage I suppose is the genre defining title for the Asian market). Total popularity does not necessarily mean genre defining, nor the first title in a genre (as you point out), it's the title that brings a genre into general public. Terms like "Evercrack" and "MMO-addiction" were coined and brought into public discussion by Everquest. Even though non-gamers didn't play EQ, they were aware of it; just as most people didn't play Doom but they were aware of it.
WoW's popularity was also due to the fact the game was accessable to a wider audience. In EQ if you were to log in for 1 hour you couldn't really accomplish anything. This makes it unattractive to mainstream audiences who have things to do other than play a game for 6 hours straight.
Isn't "Webman" the superhero who solves crime with Google and never leaves the house?
WoW was not the game that defined the MMORPG genre. EQ was the game that developed the critical mass for wide appeal to take that crown.
It is more like StarCraft and Counterstrike... a game that has been refined to the point of wide lasting appeal.
Because it makes communication easier to general audiences. Qualitative terms such as "casual gamer," are applied based on quantitative surveys. The actual marketting data and analysis is based on numbers, but most audiences don't want to hear specifics like "65% of gamers who play 0-5 hours, 45% of gamers who play 5-10 hours, 15% of gamers who play 10-15 hours a week, etc." So the information is condensed into groups such as hardcore gamer, that gives the audience an idea of the market, without the excrutiating details of the numbers.
Limitation can also mean focus and predictability. If I am creating a game that I expect will require a dedication of 40+ hours a week, I want to know the size of the market (to create a budget) and what players generally expect (so I don't incorporate fatal flaws in the game design). Does it guarantee success? Of course not, but at least upfront I will avoid any big mistakes that would doom the game from the beginning.
Individual people buy what they want to buy, but that doesn't make the overall population unpredictable.
Lincoln -
Abuse of the Constitution
Civil War
Invasion and repression of Native Americans
In the end all was forgiven because his legacy advancing Civil Rights overshadows the abuses of power. You can not judge historical significance during the time of events. If by some miracle Bush's actions bring stabability to the middle east, then all his issues will be ignored by history.
Making giant batches of koolaid. Pour the mix in set the machine, and it automagically adds the water and stirs.
Yes, it's so sad how the people of the US suffer compared to the good ol' days of... of... umm... before the US existed. There has always been a national debt, it is not necessarily a bad thing.
Capitalism is about maximizing the return on capital (profit), growth is a means to an end. For an individual investor, growth of a company represents an increase in the value of their assets, thus if you own a share of a company the value of your share has increased.
Growth arises from efficiency and creation of new markets which are needed for survival given an increasing population.
Here's a definition I pulled off the web:
3. in accordance with reason and logic: presented or understandable in terms that accord with reason and logic or with scientific knowledge
It is generally accepted that the weather behaves in a logical manner. Its unpredictability is due to our lack of understanding of the mechanics.
Actually that is rational. The risk of getting caught is sufficiently low to justify taking a chance.
People are rational, its just that they are so complex that we can't fully understand and predict their actions.
We're talking about IM, all girls claim to be 14.
Because they are still growing, the losers are those who grow slower than inflation.
With that definition all economics is gambling. If I build gadgets or grow corn, I'm "gambling" that I can trade it; if the market for the item dries up all the value disappears. When you buy stock you are purchasing part of a company. If the stock market collapses, you are not denied the ownership of the company, it means there is no market for exchanging item.
Sure you can gamble on stock price gains, but the same could be said about oil, coffee, real estate, or any other tradeable item.
Which means the term "planet" has very little meaning and is realistically only useful as a means to determine research funding.
It would be more acurate to say that heroin was self-prescribed to anybody with a Sears Catalog, even came with the syringe.
It's not the people or culture, it's the company.
Manufacturing in lower cost countries is part of cutting costs, which also tends to include reductions in the quality of incoming materials, reduced training, less stringent outgoing quality control, etc. Failure of electronic equipment is more often due to low quality materials or an issue with the manufacturing process, not with operator error.
The original single player game was boring and uninspired, the expansion packs were much better.
It seems like Intel has better manufacturing engineers, while AMD has better design engineers... or at least design engineers who aren't held back by marketing
The only winning move is not to play.
It all depends on the nature of the tax, competition, and what the market can absorb. If, for example, there was a tax on MP3 players, the price of iPods wouldn't necessarily go up. Apple would have to evaluate the impact on sales of raising prices vs the profit loss of absorbing some or all of the tax.
Companies can't always pass through costs, sometimes they have to just accept them as part of the cost of doing business.
The history of drug prohibition in the US is rooted in the fear of all foreigners, mixed with "social awareness."
Morality is a double-edged sword. Those who promoted protection for workers and protection of the poor, also wanted to protect the people from the dangers of drugs; especially impressionable young women who could fall victim in Chinese opium dens.
Prohibition has always been about control. Drug addicts are not productive workers and their allegience is with their drug supplier rather than their government. The wealthy would find ways to make money no matter what the system is. They'll cash in selling drugs if they are legal, or fighting drugs if they are illegal.
Limited counterfeiting increases supply. Widespread (or even the perception of widespread) counterfeiting erodes consumer confidence, reducing demand.
Counterfeiting. If people print their own money, it devalues actual money because demand drops.
I tried that game, the cards are way over powered. Play any of them and your average slashdot or WoW geek will be knocked down to zero life instantly.