I conceded that point in my comment, and that's one of the reasons the single player mode sucked so much. In multi-player mode, you still had to unlock each level in strict category order, but it did not matter so much because the point of a multi-player mode is the challenge and fun of interacting with your friends, not the specific level that you play.
Or you could complain to the game manufacturer about your experience, and if enough users do, they would probably listen to you and improve the gameplay on a sequel.
This is pretty much what happened with Boom Blox for the Wii; the game was primarily a single player game with a "party mode" tacked on. Although innovative and fun, the single player game required you to go through repetitive stages in order to advance to other levels, and after a while it became boring. However, the "party mode" turned out to be the best of it, allowing you to play casually with friends in an interactive manner, though it was mostly a secondary or terciary feature of the original game.
The support and review fora where filled with comments from users stating how fun it was to play in "party mode"--though you still had to finish each level in order to "unlock" the next, with a friend this wasn't such a necessity, as the challenge and fun of the multiplayer interaction made the selection of a particular level less important.
And now a sequel is out, and what is it? It's essentially an expanded version of the "party mode" as a full-blown game. Designed from the start as a multiplayer party game, you do not need to grind in order to "unlock" every single level.
Believe it or not, some game designers actually want to make games other people enjoy, so letting them know what works or doesn't is usually a good idea.
You have a very valid point, as do others who have said the same thing about other games. However, as also stated by other commenters, such highly difficult and frustrating parts are signs of a poorly design game.
It's one thing to look online for "cheats" or walkthroughs to aid you in overcoming some unreasonably difficult part of an otherwise enjoyable game, which you already purchased; you probably couldn't tell such challenge was part of the game until you encountered it, and therefore had no recourse except that, or stop playing altogether and forfeit part of your investment in the game.
It is another thing entirely to build this facility into the game itself--in essence making "cheating" part of the experience of playing, ab initio. At such, the game designer has little incentive in correcting his practice and invest resources into making a better gaming experience for the user. They are, to all intent and purposes, accepting as a matter of course that the game experience is going to irritate or frustrate you, and so it is easier to offer you a crutch or "cheat" than to actually improve it.
And I think that's part of the point. Opera is trying to make "social networking" a more personal affair, as opposed to just publishing anonymously to millions of strangers.
I tried it. Me and my wife were very excited over it, and we're both of the "techie" kind.
We immediately saw the potential of our parents and other people without a technical background, to be able to share pictures and music with their immediate circle of friends and family, without having to upload their media assets to a third-party server.
And that's the key: It's not intended for the majority of the blog/mybook/facespace/tweetery crowd, who wants to show off pictures of drunken friends or cats to strangers, or write a rant for the whole world to read. It is geared more towards the individual who wants to share his personal assets--pictures, music, files, and even comments--with close friends and family, to whom perhaps the hassles of uploading data to a centralized server is overkill.
Keep in mind that it is still an early Beta release, so it is bound to evolve and get better; but what I've seen of it so far is pretty nice. It is very simple and easy to use--and more importantly, lots of fun!
Wow. I typically type in the name directly on the address bar for precisely the same reasons; you don't know what the heck you're going to get in the search results, unless you trust Google implicitly as knowing it all accurately.
The area I described is not the typical broken terrain map, where you go behind walls or under the floor and see half-rendered rooms. It is actually quite beautiful, perhaps in ways that the developers never considered; yet still appealing in their own strange ways. You need to remember that the terrain in World of Warcraft, for the most part at least, is complete, even those places were you are not supposed to enter. Sure, some of the textures may at times appear incongruent, but they are still pretty to look at and are recognizable enough to maintain consistency.
When I play WoW, I am fully aware I am playing a game. I have no pretenses that it is supposed to render real life. My immersion comes from the feeling of exploring a strange and foreign land, which, to a large extent, is consistent within its own rules. All the physical laws--and even most of the textural consistency--still apply.
With that in mind, what I encounter in these incomplete areas does not necessarily jar me out of this immersion so much as it offers a new land to explore, far off from the beaten path. I'll grant that the immersion is perhaps at a different level than when I play the game normally. In the experience I recounted, my wife and I felt ourselves tourists on a trip in that strange land: We stood in front of mountains and strange terrain features and took snap^H^H^H^Hscreen-shots while posing or pointing; we walked over to the edge of cliffs and yelled "echo!" and laughed; and we taped the entire experience with the in-game video recorded.
When we left the place, we went straight to a dungeon and hacked away at critters and NPCs as normal. All in good fun.
In Stonetalon Peak, slightly south-west of the Inn, my wife and I tricked-jumped on a spot of the mountain side that looked the most accessible, and we eventually reached the top. Right there, you get to a plateau on top of some of the highest mountains in the area, with a nice and beautiful view of the mountain ranges as far as your GPU will render. You can see various map areas all around.
Anyway, that's not the coolest part. The best part is what lies beyond. There is a cliff at the edge which brings you to a "secret" area. If you jump down from the left-most edge of the cliff, you'll fall down and die; but with persistence you can then come back the same way as a spirit, jump down and reclaim your body. Et voilá, you're in!
This area is a wide expanse of unfinished terrain between the various world sections that intersect there. It seems to be completely uninhabited and serene. It is vast and pretty, with a weird mélange of texture maps. you can explore this huge area and marvel at the beautiful collage of colors, textures, and terrain elements.
Eventually, you'll find a rather large, rectangular pit, where various areas coincide. It is like a huge deep pool drained of water. Its floor is composed of texture tiles from the different areas that meet at that point. But be careful! If you decide to jump in, know that there is no way out of it. You'll have to use your hearthstone (or call a game master). There is plenty more beyond that point which I haven't explored yet (as you may imagine, we dropped into the pit and got stuck).
All in all, it is one of the most strangely beautiful areas--hidden or not--of the World of Warcraft. So, be sure to pack plenty of sandwiches, your beverage of choice, and your video camera!
I've used Camino and it seems to be nice and even snappier than Firefox. However I require AdBlock on my browser (and to some extent, NoScript, though I can live with just disabling JavaScript in general in the browser preferences). Is there a reasonable facsimile for Camino? Because if there is, I'll switch in a heartbeat.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you talking about the original or the sequel?
I conceded that point in my comment, and that's one of the reasons the single player mode sucked so much. In multi-player mode, you still had to unlock each level in strict category order, but it did not matter so much because the point of a multi-player mode is the challenge and fun of interacting with your friends, not the specific level that you play.
This was made better in the sequel.
-dZ.
>> and Os^Hbama doesn't make change
I saw what you did there. I bet you feel so proud and clever.
It's not like, you know, I've ever seen that before.
-dZ.
Or you could complain to the game manufacturer about your experience, and if enough users do, they would probably listen to you and improve the gameplay on a sequel.
This is pretty much what happened with Boom Blox for the Wii; the game was primarily a single player game with a "party mode" tacked on. Although innovative and fun, the single player game required you to go through repetitive stages in order to advance to other levels, and after a while it became boring. However, the "party mode" turned out to be the best of it, allowing you to play casually with friends in an interactive manner, though it was mostly a secondary or terciary feature of the original game.
The support and review fora where filled with comments from users stating how fun it was to play in "party mode"--though you still had to finish each level in order to "unlock" the next, with a friend this wasn't such a necessity, as the challenge and fun of the multiplayer interaction made the selection of a particular level less important.
And now a sequel is out, and what is it? It's essentially an expanded version of the "party mode" as a full-blown game. Designed from the start as a multiplayer party game, you do not need to grind in order to "unlock" every single level.
Believe it or not, some game designers actually want to make games other people enjoy, so letting them know what works or doesn't is usually a good idea.
-dZ.
You have a very valid point, as do others who have said the same thing about other games. However, as also stated by other commenters, such highly difficult and frustrating parts are signs of a poorly design game.
It's one thing to look online for "cheats" or walkthroughs to aid you in overcoming some unreasonably difficult part of an otherwise enjoyable game, which you already purchased; you probably couldn't tell such challenge was part of the game until you encountered it, and therefore had no recourse except that, or stop playing altogether and forfeit part of your investment in the game.
It is another thing entirely to build this facility into the game itself--in essence making "cheating" part of the experience of playing, ab initio. At such, the game designer has little incentive in correcting his practice and invest resources into making a better gaming experience for the user. They are, to all intent and purposes, accepting as a matter of course that the game experience is going to irritate or frustrate you, and so it is easier to offer you a crutch or "cheat" than to actually improve it.
-dZ.
So, did you give your FaceSpace/MyTweet/BlogTube password when you applied?
-dZ.
+1 Informative
+1 Insightful
+1 Funny
---------------
+3 Fscking awesome!
I'd moderate you up in a heartbeat, if I had the points.
-dZ.
And I think that's part of the point. Opera is trying to make "social networking" a more personal affair, as opposed to just publishing anonymously to millions of strangers.
-dZ.
I tried it. Me and my wife were very excited over it, and we're both of the "techie" kind.
We immediately saw the potential of our parents and other people without a technical background, to be able to share pictures and music with their immediate circle of friends and family, without having to upload their media assets to a third-party server.
And that's the key: It's not intended for the majority of the blog/mybook/facespace/tweetery crowd, who wants to show off pictures of drunken friends or cats to strangers, or write a rant for the whole world to read. It is geared more towards the individual who wants to share his personal assets--pictures, music, files, and even comments--with close friends and family, to whom perhaps the hassles of uploading data to a centralized server is overkill.
Keep in mind that it is still an early Beta release, so it is bound to evolve and get better; but what I've seen of it so far is pretty nice. It is very simple and easy to use--and more importantly, lots of fun!
-dZ.
Wow. I typically type in the name directly on the address bar for precisely the same reasons; you don't know what the heck you're going to get in the search results, unless you trust Google implicitly as knowing it all accurately.
-dZ.
OMG! The future is Minority Report, and the whole thing is running Microsoft's software?
I'm scared.
Well, at least we can be thankful that self-aware machines running Windows will not be stable or consistent enough to take over.
-dZ.
>> That's embrace, extend, extinguish. You are talking in terms of proprietary vendor lock in.
Actually, if I understand your point correctly, that's "embrace, extend, pay and retract." Java went on for a while after that.
-dZ.
I'm curious. To what "obnoxious shit" are you referring, to my comment describing a hidden area in WoW?
-dZ.
>> Fun! Who's got the next one?
No. Who Declared H1N1's Spread Officially a Pandemic.
Pay attention!
-dZ.
Yes, I did take pictures! I'll try to post them online this week and respond here.
-dZ.
The area I described is not the typical broken terrain map, where you go behind walls or under the floor and see half-rendered rooms. It is actually quite beautiful, perhaps in ways that the developers never considered; yet still appealing in their own strange ways. You need to remember that the terrain in World of Warcraft, for the most part at least, is complete, even those places were you are not supposed to enter. Sure, some of the textures may at times appear incongruent, but they are still pretty to look at and are recognizable enough to maintain consistency.
When I play WoW, I am fully aware I am playing a game. I have no pretenses that it is supposed to render real life. My immersion comes from the feeling of exploring a strange and foreign land, which, to a large extent, is consistent within its own rules. All the physical laws--and even most of the textural consistency--still apply.
With that in mind, what I encounter in these incomplete areas does not necessarily jar me out of this immersion so much as it offers a new land to explore, far off from the beaten path. I'll grant that the immersion is perhaps at a different level than when I play the game normally. In the experience I recounted, my wife and I felt ourselves tourists on a trip in that strange land: We stood in front of mountains and strange terrain features and took snap^H^H^H^Hscreen-shots while posing or pointing; we walked over to the edge of cliffs and yelled "echo!" and laughed; and we taped the entire experience with the in-game video recorded.
When we left the place, we went straight to a dungeon and hacked away at critters and NPCs as normal. All in good fun.
-dZ.
In Stonetalon Peak, slightly south-west of the Inn, my wife and I tricked-jumped on a spot of the mountain side that looked the most accessible, and we eventually reached the top. Right there, you get to a plateau on top of some of the highest mountains in the area, with a nice and beautiful view of the mountain ranges as far as your GPU will render. You can see various map areas all around.
Anyway, that's not the coolest part. The best part is what lies beyond. There is a cliff at the edge which brings you to a "secret" area. If you jump down from the left-most edge of the cliff, you'll fall down and die; but with persistence you can then come back the same way as a spirit, jump down and reclaim your body. Et voilá, you're in!
This area is a wide expanse of unfinished terrain between the various world sections that intersect there. It seems to be completely uninhabited and serene. It is vast and pretty, with a weird mélange of texture maps. you can explore this huge area and marvel at the beautiful collage of colors, textures, and terrain elements.
Eventually, you'll find a rather large, rectangular pit, where various areas coincide. It is like a huge deep pool drained of water. Its floor is composed of texture tiles from the different areas that meet at that point. But be careful! If you decide to jump in, know that there is no way out of it. You'll have to use your hearthstone (or call a game master). There is plenty more beyond that point which I haven't explored yet (as you may imagine, we dropped into the pit and got stuck).
All in all, it is one of the most strangely beautiful areas--hidden or not--of the World of Warcraft. So, be sure to pack plenty of sandwiches, your beverage of choice, and your video camera!
-dZ.
Isn't that Gamera?
-dZ.
What about a pony?
-dZ.
I think he meant through UseNet. BBS downloads do not count, unless you were receiving pr0n through FidoNet.
-dZ.
>> Perhaps it's a bit vain, but what of it?
Vain. I has it.
-dZ.
Bravo! My thoughts exactly, even as soon as I read the first sentence of the summary.
-dZ.
>> to see if there is a way to encourage parents to be good parents and if that affects kids' scores
Why don't they pay the $500.00 to the parent, then? I bet you that'll work too.
-dZ.
Fantastic! Did you really write all that yourself?
+5 Fucking Amazing
-dZ.
Actually, a link within the article claims that OS X has 12% of the UNIX server market.
-dZ.
I've used Camino and it seems to be nice and even snappier than Firefox. However I require AdBlock on my browser (and to some extent, NoScript, though I can live with just disabling JavaScript in general in the browser preferences). Is there a reasonable facsimile for Camino? Because if there is, I'll switch in a heartbeat.
-dZ.