Actually, population is a singular collective noun. The plural would be "populations", e.g., "The populations of China and India *are* rapidly growing." I guess by that account I consider "data" to be a singular collective noun, as in a collection of information, generally 1s and 0s in a pattern that represents something. Is the correct definition of "data" a 1 or a 0 (or some other singular "bit")?
In my experiences with computers over the last 20 years that is how I have heard the term used without exception.
So the Viking probe data is ALIVE?!!!
So the Viking probe data are ALIVE?!!!
(data is plural, not singular)
Are you saying I could not use the phrase "The human population of Earth is alive"? Surely the "human population of Earth" consists of multiple entities, and is therefore plural.
Just like the data on my flash drive consists of multiple files and JPGs, and I would preferably say "The data on this flash drive is mine", versus "are mine"... that just sounds awkward and wrong.
Unfortunately, there's no way to punch someone in the face over the net.
If you're talking about a game then the only way to "punch them in the face" is to win over them, in whatever the game you're playing is.
Nothing will tick them off more than being "pnwed" by some "n00b". Once you've made them your whipping boy in the game there isn't much more they can really "say" and they'll log off in a frustrated huff.
At some point there is an arbitrary "decision" as to how things work which cannot be explained by pre-determined rules - unless it's just elephants all the way down...
I would love to have that level of Artificial Life going on in a game, but it just wouldn't work in an MMO. Griefing is real part of MMO life. There will always be some kid, or some guy who had a bad day at work, or just a plain old jerk who wants to log into the game and make other people suffer for their amusement.
You'd inevitably have some group go through an entire town and kill every single NPC "just for fun"... then what? That town is just a ghost town now? That might be kind of cool, but what happens when every town in the game becomes a ghost town?
Even now in WoW a group of high level characters can go to a lower level zone, kill off all the quest givers in an area, and make it impossible for the low level players to finish their quests or get new ones in that zone. If those NPCs stayed dead then I predict the game itself would follow shortly after it.
Everyone's going to have their own take on what was influential to them. I grew up playing games on my dad's Amiga (500 through 4000 over the years). My shoddy descriptions won't do them justice, but two games that were very important to me are missing:
Faery Tale Adventure:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faery_Tale_Adventure
A giant, continuous world full of quests and tasks to run. Like most old games it was very unforgiving... you could die quickly and easily if you weren't careful. I spent hours exploring that world. I remember finding a flying goose and being able to fly across the land. Ah the memories.
Dungeon Master:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Master_(compu ter_game)
The first real-time, first person dungeon crawling game. Casting spells involved clicking a series of runes in a particular order, Fireball was Fire then Wing. On the 13th level of the dungeon was the boss, whom you had to capture in a forcecage, a very challenging battle. You could also go down to the 14th level whose only resident was a huge dragon. Food was a big issue in the game, you had to manage your food stocks carefully. The dragon at the bottom of the dungeon could be killed for a heaping pile of Dragon Steaks. To me this was the most influential game on the Amiga, it is my favorite Amiga game of all time.
Assuming your employees only "need" a finite, relatively small number of web site to do their jobs, why not approach this problem from the other direction and avoid a lot of the hassle.
Instead of trying to keep up with every potential "myspace bypass" and blocking every site like it, just block all access to the internet by default, and then allow them out into only those few sites they actually need.
I can't imagine actually working at a company that did this, I treasure my ability to mindlessly surf from time to time when I get stuck/bored, but I believe this would solve your issue. This way you'd only occasionally need to allow access to another "good" website, instead of trying to keep up with countless "bad" ones.
And to your point about 32" TVs starting at $600-$700: Do you recall what 32" CRTs started at 5 years ago? LCDs have gotten MUCH cheaper in the past year or so.
For some people TV is a high priority in their lives. They have no problem dropping $500+ on a single TV set, but I, and seemingly the other American households that have not yet purchased an HDTV, cannot justify spending that much for a Television.
Today I could go out and spend 1/3 of that price and get a TV that works just fine.
It will still display the images my game console sends it.
It will still display the images my DVD player sends it.
It will still display the images coming across my cable hookup.
And while my movies/games may not look as crisp as they possibly could, they will still be equally entertaining for me, and that, to me, is the main function of a TV.
So you say that five years ago 32" CRTs were very expensive and are now afforidable... then perhaps in 5 years I will consider an LCD HDTV. The future is a few years off... for those of us who don't want to spend more than $250 on a TV set anyway.
There is always the possibility that it's only our current universe that is 10 billion years old.
Maybe the big bang wasn't a bang at all, but was instead the "bottom" of a black hole from a neighboring universe (A white hole)... their balck hole sucks up a "universe-load" of matter, condenses it, and funnels it down a spout... then all that matter comes out the other end into our universe. No longer under the influence of astronomical gravity the matter quickly expands and cools and, tada, here's a new universe.
Under that scenario the meta-verse could have been around for who knows how many years and could contain umpteen million universes spewing matter around amongst themselves and/or spawning off completely new "spaces". If a civilization could figure out a way to ride through one of these and into a fresh new universe they could potentially persist for billions or trillions of years.
The book Macrolife includes many of these concepts and is an all-around great SF book.
I'm struggling to see the attraction in waving a remote control at the screen in order to play new versions of games I've already played, and a few other gimmicky titles.
Along that same vein... I fail to see the attraction of using the same controller I've been using for years to play new versions of games I've already played with some nicer looking graphics, and have no gimmicky titles to play around with... and pay a lot more to do it.
At least with Wii something is new... and you just can't know, maybe it will catch on and become the new way all consoles work in the future, maybe not. At least it isn't the same thing we've always had.
And if anything, I'd suggest the feeling of an advanced level of control is going to be lacking greatly through the fact that you don't actually make contact with anything with the Wii controller.
This will hurt the sword-play a bit I imagine, but there isn't much we can do about that yet. On the other hand, I think this interface will really shine with first-person shooters, and other games that require an aim and click style of play. Maybe it's because I grew up with the mouse and keyboard FPS interface, but using the thumb-sticks to move/aim in a FPS just feels horrible to me, so unnatural. What could be better than pointing your controller (gun) at the target and pressing B (pulling the trigger)? It almost exactly duplicates the real way that tool functions... advanced level of control, no need to make contact with anything.
I'm quite dismayed to not see Mario Party on the Wii release list. What a perfect venue to show off the capabilities of the Wii controller, and to get family members, young and old, to play together.
I'm also sad not to see an odler version on the virtual console... a new version with minigames that fully utilize the Wii-mote will be incredible, but until they produce that they could at least offer an older version... still promotes the idea of young and old playing together.
Death is always a tricky subject in an MMORPG. What kind of death system are you planning that will deter us from dying, but not set us back 3 hours worth of play if we do?
I would revise that to say "Wii is targeting non-gamers..." but I have seen countless posts from active gamers who are also very excited about the prospect of Nintendo's new control scheme. Finally something different and more enticing than "shinier graphics" and "more Hi-Def cutscenes".
Ok, so let's say yes, it is the sun getting hotter that is causing the climate change we're seeing. Does that actually change anything? It's still a threatening scenario to human kind.
We have a pretty good understanding of how CO2 manages heat on earth: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_accum ulation_in_Earth's_atmosphere) and we can see that too much of it is a bad thing. If the sun is in fact heating up and sending more UV rays our way we'd be wise to not pump more CO2 into the atmosphere than we need to.
Even if we're not the cause of the rising heat we will be affected by it.
It is being created by Mythic, the guys who made one of the early PvP MMORPGs, Dark Age of Camelot. It has a long, detailed history of material to work from. And it has had a long time to observe what World of Warcraft has done with its MMORPG, and how fans have responded to those decisions.
I am holding out hope that this is the game PvPers have been waiting for. Logging into WoW and killing wandering, scripted mobs gets old quickly. And joining one of the WoW battlegrounds and killing other WoWers is... okay, but is obviously not the main focus of WoW.
Warhammer, on the other hand, is built with PvP in mind first. You can level from 1 to whatever the level cap is completely through quests and missions to kill other PCs and capture live, enemy towns. The potential is huge, they just need a compelling PvP system that rewards skill over gear... that's the tricky part.
From the looks of it: http://wii.nintendo.com/software_warioware.html
This is basically just a random collection of mini-games? And from the page above "Players: 1-player, some 2-5 players", not everything would even include everyone?
I think Mario Party is superior because it is all placed within the context of a board game, which everyone can immediately understand and relate to. If you prefer, Mario Party also has the option of just randomly selecting a mini-game and playing it, so it can emulate Warior Ware, but some of the game boards in previous Mario Parties have really been cool and they addss a whole level of fun on top of just competing in various mini-games.
The potential for this with the new controller is huge! This was one of the most frequently played games on my Game Cube and the possibilities for mini games is nearly endless with the Wii-mote.
But I haven't heard a peep about this game, not even that someone is working on it and will put it out in X months. It seems like such a natural game for this new system... would have been a killer bundled app.
Talk about bringing the whole family into the video game experience, it's perfect. I just have to think they're going to spring this game on us, fully finished and ready to go, close to relase.
According to the Wii Sports Fact Sheet page: http://wii.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7666
Baseball will let one person pitch and one person bat. Boxing will allow 2 players as well. It doesn't specify if bowling will be simultanious or not, but the picture on that page suggests it might be that way.
It's true though, for golf (and probably bowling) you will only have one person acting at a time. I guess I'm just longing for the days when the box you bought had everything you needed for you and friend to play together. The original NES came with Super Mario Brothers and 2 controllers, despite the fact that you had to take turns to play that game together.
It does make me happy they went back to including a game with the system though, I was just hoping for the old "2 controllers" too. So in my mind the base price of the Wii is going to be more like $310 + tax (+ another $50 for Zelda of course). Bundling Zelda and one controller would have made for a much more exciting package, but I can understand why they wouldn't want to do that.
The $250 would be a lot easier to swallow if there was a second controller in the package.
I mean come on, it is the Wii ("We") right? Play together? Wii Sports and one controller makes no sense.
I can see parents buying this for their kids. The kid opens the box, sets everything up and then wants to play baseball, or tennis, with dad. Oops, we can't experience this fun new system together because the system only came with one controller. You can sit still on the couch and watch daddy play though.
It is the authorization that makes it legal. Just like if you hire someone to pop the lock on your car, or to pick the lock on your house because you lost/forgot your key.
...Or Vampires. It's okay for them to come into your house, but only if you invite them.
Slashdot Mirror
In my experiences with computers over the last 20 years that is how I have heard the term used without exception.
Just like the data on my flash drive consists of multiple files and JPGs, and I would preferably say "The data on this flash drive is mine", versus "are mine"... that just sounds awkward and wrong.
Nothing will tick them off more than being "pnwed" by some "n00b". Once you've made them your whipping boy in the game there isn't much more they can really "say" and they'll log off in a frustrated huff.
I would love to have that level of Artificial Life going on in a game, but it just wouldn't work in an MMO. Griefing is real part of MMO life. There will always be some kid, or some guy who had a bad day at work, or just a plain old jerk who wants to log into the game and make other people suffer for their amusement.
You'd inevitably have some group go through an entire town and kill every single NPC "just for fun"... then what? That town is just a ghost town now? That might be kind of cool, but what happens when every town in the game becomes a ghost town?
Even now in WoW a group of high level characters can go to a lower level zone, kill off all the quest givers in an area, and make it impossible for the low level players to finish their quests or get new ones in that zone. If those NPCs stayed dead then I predict the game itself would follow shortly after it.
Everyone's going to have their own take on what was influential to them. I grew up playing games on my dad's Amiga (500 through 4000 over the years). My shoddy descriptions won't do them justice, but two games that were very important to me are missing:
u ter_game)
Faery Tale Adventure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faery_Tale_Adventure
A giant, continuous world full of quests and tasks to run. Like most old games it was very unforgiving... you could die quickly and easily if you weren't careful. I spent hours exploring that world. I remember finding a flying goose and being able to fly across the land. Ah the memories.
Dungeon Master: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Master_(comp
The first real-time, first person dungeon crawling game. Casting spells involved clicking a series of runes in a particular order, Fireball was Fire then Wing. On the 13th level of the dungeon was the boss, whom you had to capture in a forcecage, a very challenging battle. You could also go down to the 14th level whose only resident was a huge dragon. Food was a big issue in the game, you had to manage your food stocks carefully. The dragon at the bottom of the dungeon could be killed for a heaping pile of Dragon Steaks. To me this was the most influential game on the Amiga, it is my favorite Amiga game of all time.
Assuming your employees only "need" a finite, relatively small number of web site to do their jobs, why not approach this problem from the other direction and avoid a lot of the hassle.
Instead of trying to keep up with every potential "myspace bypass" and blocking every site like it, just block all access to the internet by default, and then allow them out into only those few sites they actually need.
I can't imagine actually working at a company that did this, I treasure my ability to mindlessly surf from time to time when I get stuck/bored, but I believe this would solve your issue. This way you'd only occasionally need to allow access to another "good" website, instead of trying to keep up with countless "bad" ones.
Today I could go out and spend 1/3 of that price and get a TV that works just fine.
It will still display the images my game console sends it.
It will still display the images my DVD player sends it.
It will still display the images coming across my cable hookup.
And while my movies/games may not look as crisp as they possibly could, they will still be equally entertaining for me, and that, to me, is the main function of a TV.
So you say that five years ago 32" CRTs were very expensive and are now afforidable... then perhaps in 5 years I will consider an LCD HDTV. The future is a few years off... for those of us who don't want to spend more than $250 on a TV set anyway.
Sony Execs say some hilarious things sometimes.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/02/10
> Why Do Games Sell?
Because they're sitting in stores with price tags on them?
There is always the possibility that it's only our current universe that is 10 billion years old.
Maybe the big bang wasn't a bang at all, but was instead the "bottom" of a black hole from a neighboring universe (A white hole)... their balck hole sucks up a "universe-load" of matter, condenses it, and funnels it down a spout... then all that matter comes out the other end into our universe. No longer under the influence of astronomical gravity the matter quickly expands and cools and, tada, here's a new universe.
Under that scenario the meta-verse could have been around for who knows how many years and could contain umpteen million universes spewing matter around amongst themselves and/or spawning off completely new "spaces". If a civilization could figure out a way to ride through one of these and into a fresh new universe they could potentially persist for billions or trillions of years.
The book Macrolife includes many of these concepts and is an all-around great SF book.
At least with Wii something is new... and you just can't know, maybe it will catch on and become the new way all consoles work in the future, maybe not. At least it isn't the same thing we've always had.
This will hurt the sword-play a bit I imagine, but there isn't much we can do about that yet. On the other hand, I think this interface will really shine with first-person shooters, and other games that require an aim and click style of play. Maybe it's because I grew up with the mouse and keyboard FPS interface, but using the thumb-sticks to move/aim in a FPS just feels horrible to me, so unnatural. What could be better than pointing your controller (gun) at the target and pressing B (pulling the trigger)? It almost exactly duplicates the real way that tool functions... advanced level of control, no need to make contact with anything.
I'm quite dismayed to not see Mario Party on the Wii release list. What a perfect venue to show off the capabilities of the Wii controller, and to get family members, young and old, to play together.
I'm also sad not to see an odler version on the virtual console... a new version with minigames that fully utilize the Wii-mote will be incredible, but until they produce that they could at least offer an older version... still promotes the idea of young and old playing together.
Death is always a tricky subject in an MMORPG. What kind of death system are you planning that will deter us from dying, but not set us back 3 hours worth of play if we do?
Ok, so let's say yes, it is the sun getting hotter that is causing the climate change we're seeing. Does that actually change anything? It's still a threatening scenario to human kind.
m ulation_in_Earth's_atmosphere) and we can see that too much of it is a bad thing. If the sun is in fact heating up and sending more UV rays our way we'd be wise to not pump more CO2 into the atmosphere than we need to.
We have a pretty good understanding of how CO2 manages heat on earth:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_accu
Even if we're not the cause of the rising heat we will be affected by it.
One PvP game with a lot of potential coming out next year is Warhammer Online:w s.html?sid=6147072&mode=recent w s.html?sid=6154042&mode=recent
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/warhammeronline/ne
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/warhammeronline/ne
It is being created by Mythic, the guys who made one of the early PvP MMORPGs, Dark Age of Camelot. It has a long, detailed history of material to work from. And it has had a long time to observe what World of Warcraft has done with its MMORPG, and how fans have responded to those decisions.
I am holding out hope that this is the game PvPers have been waiting for. Logging into WoW and killing wandering, scripted mobs gets old quickly. And joining one of the WoW battlegrounds and killing other WoWers is... okay, but is obviously not the main focus of WoW.
Warhammer, on the other hand, is built with PvP in mind first. You can level from 1 to whatever the level cap is completely through quests and missions to kill other PCs and capture live, enemy towns. The potential is huge, they just need a compelling PvP system that rewards skill over gear... that's the tricky part.
From the looks of it:
http://wii.nintendo.com/software_warioware.html
This is basically just a random collection of mini-games? And from the page above "Players: 1-player, some 2-5 players", not everything would even include everyone?
I think Mario Party is superior because it is all placed within the context of a board game, which everyone can immediately understand and relate to. If you prefer, Mario Party also has the option of just randomly selecting a mini-game and playing it, so it can emulate Warior Ware, but some of the game boards in previous Mario Parties have really been cool and they addss a whole level of fun on top of just competing in various mini-games.
Where is "Mario Party Wii"?
The potential for this with the new controller is huge! This was one of the most frequently played games on my Game Cube and the possibilities for mini games is nearly endless with the Wii-mote.
But I haven't heard a peep about this game, not even that someone is working on it and will put it out in X months. It seems like such a natural game for this new system... would have been a killer bundled app.
Talk about bringing the whole family into the video game experience, it's perfect. I just have to think they're going to spring this game on us, fully finished and ready to go, close to relase.
According to the Wii Sports Fact Sheet page:
http://wii.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7666
Baseball will let one person pitch and one person bat. Boxing will allow 2 players as well. It doesn't specify if bowling will be simultanious or not, but the picture on that page suggests it might be that way.
It's true though, for golf (and probably bowling) you will only have one person acting at a time. I guess I'm just longing for the days when the box you bought had everything you needed for you and friend to play together. The original NES came with Super Mario Brothers and 2 controllers, despite the fact that you had to take turns to play that game together.
It does make me happy they went back to including a game with the system though, I was just hoping for the old "2 controllers" too. So in my mind the base price of the Wii is going to be more like $310 + tax (+ another $50 for Zelda of course). Bundling Zelda and one controller would have made for a much more exciting package, but I can understand why they wouldn't want to do that.
The $250 would be a lot easier to swallow if there was a second controller in the package.
I mean come on, it is the Wii ("We") right? Play together? Wii Sports and one controller makes no sense.
I can see parents buying this for their kids. The kid opens the box, sets everything up and then wants to play baseball, or tennis, with dad. Oops, we can't experience this fun new system together because the system only came with one controller. You can sit still on the couch and watch daddy play though.