Paying a gold farmer $50 to get enough gold to buy all the epic items you can fit on your character is loosely equivalent to paying EA for better weapons etc.
The people who have played longer may still have the chance to defeat the people who bought every "upgrade" for real $$ don't get me wrong... But it's very similar to cheating, except EA is making it part of the game. Instead of making cheating "against the game rules", they will just have people pay for an abstracted form of it.
EA is taking 2 steps that I completely disagree with:
-Ripping off other games and making weaker versions of something that has already been successful for another company. Great, you go make a buck, let other companies steer the course of gaming and out(last/earn) you...
-Taking a problematic issue with current games such as MMORPGs, and making it a new feature. That is, if you aren't good enough you spend money and then you are at least a little better in some respects. (Gold farming in WoW etc..) Forget a game that pits raw skill vs skill, let people pay if they suck, no thank you... I prefer games where being good counts for something. Sure it will be fun to knock around the idiots who spent $100... It's not a true skill based competition, which is the fundamental root of any good multi-player game.
I like the joystick functionality, but I find it hard to believe the "belt" actions are as versitile as my mouse on a desktop. I think a better design might use a flattened oval-shaped device (no 90 degree corners), as it would allow free-er transition between directions. Is this design strictly limited to one type of click, it seems so to me...
True, My professor in my "History of Life" class gave us a very clear picture of how we have been able to construct a pattern on how the warming and cooling cycles are correlated with the earth's orbit, wobble of axis etc. (Milankovitch Cyclicity). We saw a great chart illustrating where predictions put us, and where we are thanks to CO2 from fossil fuels. Currently CO2 levels are going up exponentially compared to the predctions that were made based on a verified pattern of these cycles, (in fact if remember well there should actually be a slump in CO2 levels, not a rise at this point in time).
P.S. Apparently the parent poster ignored the fact that regardless how much CO2 we are producing, it has been a *!HUGE!* factor in how the world/life has evolved. Messing with something so influential in evolution isn't going to be rubbed out by a couple of studies and a magical solution, wake the **** up people.
P.P.S. As far as changes in sea levels, we have been told that it might rise as much as 50-100 meters in the next century, perhaps even our lifetimes. To put that in perspective we could lose a large amount of coastal land to the rising levels, book your trips to Venice now!!!
I could imagine playing something like this on a graphing calculator in class, and trying to keep from yelling... it might make a good tool for anger management classes..?
The store link posted earlier contains CLEAR descriptions of each of the units, the first generation unit is available in BOTH 5 hour or 10 hour versions. The second generation unit provides 5 hours or a total of 10 WITH EXPANSION UNIT. I'm assuming the author had the old 10 hour version, about 300$, and purchased the new second generation base unit (rated to run for 5 hours), which is about $150. To get the same duration as the $300 (10hr) first generation unit, you would have to buy the $150 second generation unit, and add on to it the expander which is another $150.
Store with info:
http://store.yahoo.com/valencetech-store/
This looks like a great idea for student houses. I'm going to seriously consider setting one of these up, but does anyone know from a phone-line connection aspect weather I could use my existing telephone line or would there be any sort of "call the phone company to talk it over" type configuration (does it work like answering machine on first ring with a supported modem card or will I need to set up another sort of line?). I wouldnt mind the bottleneck of just one phoneline for 6 people on a pbx, I'm assuming that there is a busy signal etc for every other caller after the first and some sort of warning for someone who picks up to try to call out on a busy line. This would be amazing for those "somebody called for you, I forgot who it was and where I wrote the number" situations, along with the classic case of nobody answering because theres a 1 in 6 chance its for them etc etc.... anyways just some brainstorming, time to hunt down an old clunker to install it on...
Does this program have any internet connectivity? I was thinking of running it on my media drive for laughs, will probably unplug ethernet cable first:-P
Blizzard already took this idea and applied it to their whole game...WOW an "offline" MMORPG.... now if only we could play it while it was offline.....
these server downtimes are driving me nuts
I'm a US citizen going to school in Canada and when I was flying back to visit my family in Florida I had to deal with similar song and dance... Though I was from the US I still had to give them the address of where I was staying and with who. The funny part was that we were going on a houseboating trip.. apparently US customs couldn't grasp the concept of my situation. It's only added to my list of reasons why I'm planning on living in Canada after I'm done school:-P
Stuff that matters?
sorry, I was just rather surprised to see this on slashdot...
maybe someone will get linux running on it....?
hmm tricky choice...
on
Gaming Does Good
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Multi-tasking/problem solving (possibly somewhat graphic and violent) versus staring lifelessly down the barrel of an electron gun getting the scoop on the latest shit to buy for 50% of the 30min slot your trying to watch....
I gave up on tv when it stopped informing me and became the loudest most abnoxious billboard known to man. Oh and btw on the occasions that I am watching it and the commercials come on 10x louder, it just motivates me to go back to my computer, and feel like I have some control over what I'm being fed
Television and newspapers will always be more likely to publish anti-video game articles, its one way to try to win back viewers/readers! As for me its Google news and 23.75 hours of world of warcraft!:-P
Personally I blame the greed/need for income that large companies often show as their main drive for game development (not that theres a better way). Many business models call for improvments upon past ideas, tried and true methods etc. The ideas for new games are, for the most part, blatantly tied to other sucessful ideas. Examples of this are pretty much everything released these days, seeing as how rarely is such a unique idea ever trusted enough to take a chance at becoming the next big hit. The not so old game Sacrifice was a great example, a very unique idea, and fun, however it just didnt sell. Naturally any company is going to want to generate revenue somehow, and so they stick to the god-awful recreations of past games that sold.
These big compnaies using the models that only call for refinement of past ideas will of course make a bit more than companies trying new ideas (companies like this were more plentiful in the early days of 3d graphics and even before). With competition like that, its hard for anyone to invest any time and money into a new and novel idea afraid that it will just be snuffed out by (SuperDuper Sports Game 2000,2001,2002,2003 etc...).
I personally notice this in the fact that a couple years ago with the beginning of the Quake series, if you had put me in a store and told me to pick 5 computer games to take home, I would have done it on a whim. Now, I'd be lucky if there was more than one that really stood out or enticed me.
The same engine that drives the video game industry is apparently suffocating its creativity and will ultimately produce year upon year of ho-hum generic 3d this, or cutscene that, or new-little-feature-in-how-the-players-can-shoot-th e-ball-through-the-goal games.
I recently transferred from a Computer Engineering program into Computer Science for a couple of reasons. Computer Engineering seems to be much more oriented around getting people ready for cubicle work on team projects, alot of emphasis goes into group work and labs. However the subject matter covered in my second year computer engineering courses was quite questionable in terms of how much computer education you get with the degree. I would say, at least at my school, the engineering programs are sold as highly structured, rigorous and competitive programs. The biggest problem I had with computer engineering was the subject coverage, we were in 90% of the electrical engineering courses, including electromagnetics. You work hard for the degree taking harder *base* knowledge courses but get less involved in specialized areas. Computer science, at least where I go to school (Queen's University, in ontario), seems to be a much more involving program that deals with alot of in-depth material that actually covers the wider spectrum of the computer world.
To sum it up, *in my opinion*, Computer Science covers the theory to application process and is closely tied to the real world of Computing, whereas Computer Engineering gives you a broad view of the possibilities while crunching through alot of busy work to "build character". When I added up the pros and cons of transferring I was almost in tears of joy to learn that playing with the linux kernel, tinkering with OpenGL were courses, and not distractions as such activities were in computer eng. Then again, I am a person who benifits exponentially from applying knowledge and not just memorizing and reading till the cows come home.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry for not clarifying:
Paying a gold farmer $50 to get enough gold to buy all the epic items you can fit on your character is loosely equivalent to paying EA for better weapons etc.
The people who have played longer may still have the chance to defeat the people who bought every "upgrade" for real $$ don't get me wrong... But it's very similar to cheating, except EA is making it part of the game. Instead of making cheating "against the game rules", they will just have people pay for an abstracted form of it.
Seems they decided to go with characters that look like clear ripoffs of TF2's new look.... See the picture at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/technology/21game.html?ref=technology.
EA is taking 2 steps that I completely disagree with:
-Ripping off other games and making weaker versions of something that has already been successful for another company. Great, you go make a buck, let other companies steer the course of gaming and out(last/earn) you...
-Taking a problematic issue with current games such as MMORPGs, and making it a new feature. That is, if you aren't good enough you spend money and then you are at least a little better in some respects. (Gold farming in WoW etc..) Forget a game that pits raw skill vs skill, let people pay if they suck, no thank you... I prefer games where being good counts for something. Sure it will be fun to knock around the idiots who spent $100... It's not a true skill based competition, which is the fundamental root of any good multi-player game.
Doh! This article just reminded me to install adblock on my work copy of firefox!
I like the joystick functionality, but I find it hard to believe the "belt" actions are as versitile as my mouse on a desktop. I think a better design might use a flattened oval-shaped device (no 90 degree corners), as it would allow free-er transition between directions. Is this design strictly limited to one type of click, it seems so to me...
True, My professor in my "History of Life" class gave us a very clear picture of how we have been able to construct a pattern on how the warming and cooling cycles are correlated with the earth's orbit, wobble of axis etc. (Milankovitch Cyclicity). We saw a great chart illustrating where predictions put us, and where we are thanks to CO2 from fossil fuels. Currently CO2 levels are going up exponentially compared to the predctions that were made based on a verified pattern of these cycles, (in fact if remember well there should actually be a slump in CO2 levels, not a rise at this point in time).
P.S.
Apparently the parent poster ignored the fact that regardless how much CO2 we are producing, it has been a *!HUGE!* factor in how the world/life has evolved. Messing with something so influential in evolution isn't going to be rubbed out by a couple of studies and a magical solution, wake the **** up people.
P.P.S.
As far as changes in sea levels, we have been told that it might rise as much as 50-100 meters in the next century, perhaps even our lifetimes. To put that in perspective we could lose a large amount of coastal land to the rising levels, book your trips to Venice now!!!
I could imagine playing something like this on a graphing calculator in class, and trying to keep from yelling... it might make a good tool for anger management classes..?
The store link posted earlier contains CLEAR descriptions of each of the units, the first generation unit is available in BOTH 5 hour or 10 hour versions. The second generation unit provides 5 hours or a total of 10 WITH EXPANSION UNIT. I'm assuming the author had the old 10 hour version, about 300$, and purchased the new second generation base unit (rated to run for 5 hours), which is about $150. To get the same duration as the $300 (10hr) first generation unit, you would have to buy the $150 second generation unit, and add on to it the expander which is another $150. Store with info: http://store.yahoo.com/valencetech-store/
This looks like a great idea for student houses. I'm going to seriously consider setting one of these up, but does anyone know from a phone-line connection aspect weather I could use my existing telephone line or would there be any sort of "call the phone company to talk it over" type configuration (does it work like answering machine on first ring with a supported modem card or will I need to set up another sort of line?). I wouldnt mind the bottleneck of just one phoneline for 6 people on a pbx, I'm assuming that there is a busy signal etc for every other caller after the first and some sort of warning for someone who picks up to try to call out on a busy line. This would be amazing for those "somebody called for you, I forgot who it was and where I wrote the number" situations, along with the classic case of nobody answering because theres a 1 in 6 chance its for them etc etc.... anyways just some brainstorming, time to hunt down an old clunker to install it on...
Does this program have any internet connectivity? I was thinking of running it on my media drive for laughs, will probably unplug ethernet cable first :-P
Blizzard already took this idea and applied it to their whole game...WOW an "offline" MMORPG.... now if only we could play it while it was offline..... these server downtimes are driving me nuts
I'm a US citizen going to school in Canada and when I was flying back to visit my family in Florida I had to deal with similar song and dance... Though I was from the US I still had to give them the address of where I was staying and with who. The funny part was that we were going on a houseboating trip.. apparently US customs couldn't grasp the concept of my situation. It's only added to my list of reasons why I'm planning on living in Canada after I'm done school :-P
Stuff that matters? sorry, I was just rather surprised to see this on slashdot... maybe someone will get linux running on it....?
Multi-tasking/problem solving (possibly somewhat graphic and violent) versus staring lifelessly down the barrel of an electron gun getting the scoop on the latest shit to buy for 50% of the 30min slot your trying to watch.... I gave up on tv when it stopped informing me and became the loudest most abnoxious billboard known to man. Oh and btw on the occasions that I am watching it and the commercials come on 10x louder, it just motivates me to go back to my computer, and feel like I have some control over what I'm being fed
Television and newspapers will always be more likely to publish anti-video game articles, its one way to try to win back viewers/readers! As for me its Google news and 23.75 hours of world of warcraft! :-P
ORANGE MOCHA FRAPPUCCINO!!!
Why not just boot up a windows sesh in VMWare and then run the game from the emulated instance of windows :-P
Now Microsoft is even competing for a monopoly on software piracy... through pirating their own software...!?
Personally I blame the greed/need for income that large companies often show as their main drive for game development (not that theres a better way). Many business models call for improvments upon past ideas, tried and true methods etc. The ideas for new games are, for the most part, blatantly tied to other sucessful ideas. Examples of this are pretty much everything released these days, seeing as how rarely is such a unique idea ever trusted enough to take a chance at becoming the next big hit. The not so old game Sacrifice was a great example, a very unique idea, and fun, however it just didnt sell. Naturally any company is going to want to generate revenue somehow, and so they stick to the god-awful recreations of past games that sold.
h e-ball-through-the-goal
These big compnaies using the models that only call for refinement of past ideas will of course make a bit more than companies trying new ideas (companies like this were more plentiful in the early days of 3d graphics and even before). With competition like that, its hard for anyone to invest any time and money into a new and novel idea afraid that it will just be snuffed out by (SuperDuper Sports Game 2000,2001,2002,2003 etc...).
I personally notice this in the fact that a couple years ago with the beginning of the Quake series, if you had put me in a store and told me to pick 5 computer games to take home, I would have done it on a whim. Now, I'd be lucky if there was more than one that really stood out or enticed me.
The same engine that drives the video game industry is apparently suffocating its creativity and will ultimately produce year upon year of ho-hum generic 3d this, or cutscene that, or new-little-feature-in-how-the-players-can-shoot-t
games.
Thats the problem IMHO
I recently transferred from a Computer Engineering program into Computer Science for a couple of reasons. Computer Engineering seems to be much more oriented around getting people ready for cubicle work on team projects, alot of emphasis goes into group work and labs. However the subject matter covered in my second year computer engineering courses was quite questionable in terms of how much computer education you get with the degree. I would say, at least at my school, the engineering programs are sold as highly structured, rigorous and competitive programs. The biggest problem I had with computer engineering was the subject coverage, we were in 90% of the electrical engineering courses, including electromagnetics. You work hard for the degree taking harder *base* knowledge courses but get less involved in specialized areas. Computer science, at least where I go to school (Queen's University, in ontario), seems to be a much more involving program that deals with alot of in-depth material that actually covers the wider spectrum of the computer world.
To sum it up, *in my opinion*, Computer Science covers the theory to application process and is closely tied to the real world of Computing, whereas Computer Engineering gives you a broad view of the possibilities while crunching through alot of busy work to "build character". When I added up the pros and cons of transferring I was almost in tears of joy to learn that playing with the linux kernel, tinkering with OpenGL were courses, and not distractions as such activities were in computer eng. Then again, I am a person who benifits exponentially from applying knowledge and not just memorizing and reading till the cows come home.
We need another space race, CMON people, pilgrims didn't send boats to america to collect soil, they populated it!