MS made a bad hardware choice last gen and as such cannot use hardware compatibility. The competition offers compatibility so MS saw itself fored to do something as well.
Why they bother to list it on the BC list is beyond me, though.
Perhaps because they have a script that adds anything that has been confirmed as working? Doesn't the emulator use a list of compatible titles internally as well?
Just because you suck and they are good doesn't mean there is anything wrong with them killing you.
In many games getting killed by an opponent repeatedly usually stems from a difference in skill, yes, but in MMORPGs your combat ability is directly related to the level of your character. Even if you deliver a perfect play you will not defeat an opponent that's 2-3 times your level, even if he's as smart as a brick. In an FPS the analogy would be having ten health points and a peashooter while the other guy has 2000 health, an instagib rifle and server-side autoaim.
Justifying anything with roleplaying will be hard when you've got such huge level differences. I mean, how do you explain that some low-level guy can ram his sword into your chest and not even leave a scratch?
Not necessarily. Killing everyone on board and stealing any valuables (in this case cargo, in real life that stuff's too difficult to deal with and they prefer stealing the money from the safe) is a typical pirate action as well.
Wasn't it two hours until a developer had his character die late in the night just before he wanted to quit and catch some sleep, forcing him to put in an extra hour or so to recover his stuff?
The fundamental problem is the existence of high-level and low-level. Because the level is influenced mostly by the time spent in the game you can't just react by increasing your level to match the griefer's and because combat is more influenced by the level than any player skill the griefer will not be defeated as long as his number is bigger. So any high-level character can be a total dick to low-level characters without fear of retribution because the game system makes him ~5000 times stronger than the victim. A bully in real life is nowhere close to that much stronger.
Considering that most geeks merely mirror the sentiments codified in the highest law of the land which courts have regularly upheld to invalidate laws like this I'd say the politicians know or should have known better than making these laws. Except they're just a PR stunt anyway.
Even perfect self-enforcement (as I understand it the vast majority of stores is already self-enforcing) wouldn't prevent these games from getting to the kids. What's the clerk going to say when the kid's mother comes along and buys the game for them? "Sorry maam, I can't sell you that because you'd give it to your kid"? The parents shouting for regulations are the same ones that will buy any game their kid asks for regardless of rating. In the end they'll still curse the evil game industry for selling their kid a violent videogame and only writing "graphic violence, not suitable for persons under 18 years of age" on the box in big letters.
Yes but in this case there is no way for a citizen to know when he is in violation of the law. The grey zone is as large as the friggin Atlantic ocean here. They're basically allowing judges to arbitrarily declare a person guilty or innocent on the same evidence. Uncertain laws work for totalitarian governments in order to be able to find any person guilty of a crime but in any society that demands freedom these standards MUST be spelled out to allow other people than the judge that ends up with the case to determine whether a given action is a crime.
Interesting, that's a clear violation of fundamental human rights (basic rights: life, liberty and security of person according to the UN, none of these may be taken away without a judge's authorisation) in many countries.
Yes, that claim is as implausible as a videogame storyline these days. Why the hell would anybody attempt or even bother to supply unsuitable material to children? I mean, even a Bond villain usually has a reason, some benefit he gets out of the deal but what benefit would this have?
Courts have found sales restrictions enforced by the government to be a violation of free speech. There is no law that prevents a minor from seeing or buying a movie he's too young for, all enforcement of that is voluntary (how else do you explain "unrated" DVDs?). If the government is getting between the speaker and the intended listener without the listener or the speaker desiring such measures (i.e. no intrusion on secret information or stuff like that) that's a restriction of free speech. Preventing people from hearing what you say is no different from stopping you from saying things in first place. Should the govt be able to confiscate all copies of a book you intend to ship out because they don't like what you say? Because once the book is being copied the original act of writing is over and by your logic you'd have execides your free speech already and the govt can censor as it pleases.
Not true, training takes time and qualified personell isn't as common as you may think. The idea that there are ten people willing to take your job for a dollar a day is nice to keep employees under control but usually those ten people together couldn't do what one really qualified person does. EA loves to treat entry-level positions as disposable but from what I've heard once you're beyond the entry level that stops.
This is a voluntary certification. I'm sure this isn' the only agency giving those out. The fines are in case someone misrepresents his product in order to receive a certification the good is not suitable for. If you wanted a 100% organic certification you should be liable if you managed to hide those ingredients brewed in a chem lab in order to wrongfully acquire the certification.
Ack, the BPjM link doesn't work on Slashdot. No way to work around that so you have to click the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien link in the USK article.
Gestapo? Nope, Germany has the USK and BPjM for restricting minors' access to violent videogames (there are laws for all media but the USK only covers videogames). No secrecy necessary. The BPjM can order a ban on advertising (which includes shelf space) in venues accessible to minors but only if the USK refused to rate a game. The ratings are legally binding, unrated means 18+ and selling a game to a minor he isn't cleared for can end with two years of jailtime.
I'm both supporting this and rejecting any laws regarding the ESRB out of two reasons: 1. The German constitution has a special restriction on free speech to enable youth protection. Since the US contitution does not have such a restriction it is unconstitutional to ban selling a game to minors there. If the govt wants to protect the children they have to change the first amendment and I have this vague feeling that the populace values unrestricted free speech higher than youth protection. 2. In Germany the ratings for all media are legally binding and the BPjM can index any form of media, including books and complete bans can apply to any form of media. Videogames aren't being singled out.
Maybe a third would be the lower resistance to rate a game 18+ leading to retailers carrying games rated 18 without questions. Most don't carry indexed games but that's mostly becauee it's not economically viable to sell games noone can know you have.
(Realtime) Tesselation was a feature in Ati cards since the 8500. How many games made use of it and how many don't look ugly when they do? Tesselation reduces the artist's control over the mesh and only makes sense if you have a severe bottleneck in the system preventing you from having models use this many polygons right away without any post processing beyond what's found in the file. From what I heard the 360 does suffer from bottlenecks like the relatively slow DVD drive, overall tesselation is not the future, it's a workaround.
Slashdot Mirror
MS made a bad hardware choice last gen and as such cannot use hardware compatibility. The competition offers compatibility so MS saw itself fored to do something as well.
Why they bother to list it on the BC list is beyond me, though.
Perhaps because they have a script that adds anything that has been confirmed as working? Doesn't the emulator use a list of compatible titles internally as well?
Or "ibility", for that matter.
Just because you suck and they are good doesn't mean there is anything wrong with them killing you.
In many games getting killed by an opponent repeatedly usually stems from a difference in skill, yes, but in MMORPGs your combat ability is directly related to the level of your character. Even if you deliver a perfect play you will not defeat an opponent that's 2-3 times your level, even if he's as smart as a brick. In an FPS the analogy would be having ten health points and a peashooter while the other guy has 2000 health, an instagib rifle and server-side autoaim.
Justifying anything with roleplaying will be hard when you've got such huge level differences. I mean, how do you explain that some low-level guy can ram his sword into your chest and not even leave a scratch?
Not necessarily. Killing everyone on board and stealing any valuables (in this case cargo, in real life that stuff's too difficult to deal with and they prefer stealing the money from the safe) is a typical pirate action as well.
Wasn't it two hours until a developer had his character die late in the night just before he wanted to quit and catch some sleep, forcing him to put in an extra hour or so to recover his stuff?
The fundamental problem is the existence of high-level and low-level. Because the level is influenced mostly by the time spent in the game you can't just react by increasing your level to match the griefer's and because combat is more influenced by the level than any player skill the griefer will not be defeated as long as his number is bigger. So any high-level character can be a total dick to low-level characters without fear of retribution because the game system makes him ~5000 times stronger than the victim. A bully in real life is nowhere close to that much stronger.
they really need to work on their animation.
The cutscenes in GTA3 looked pretty good animation wise, I wouldn't worry too much.
Both the PS3 and 360 have VPUs - USE THEM!
What's that got to do with a person's ability to make convincing animation?
Well, we're talking about very different purposes here so the engine would be very flexible.
But goddamnit they should know how we feel!
Considering that most geeks merely mirror the sentiments codified in the highest law of the land which courts have regularly upheld to invalidate laws like this I'd say the politicians know or should have known better than making these laws. Except they're just a PR stunt anyway.
Even perfect self-enforcement (as I understand it the vast majority of stores is already self-enforcing) wouldn't prevent these games from getting to the kids. What's the clerk going to say when the kid's mother comes along and buys the game for them? "Sorry maam, I can't sell you that because you'd give it to your kid"? The parents shouting for regulations are the same ones that will buy any game their kid asks for regardless of rating. In the end they'll still curse the evil game industry for selling their kid a violent videogame and only writing "graphic violence, not suitable for persons under 18 years of age" on the box in big letters.
Yes but in this case there is no way for a citizen to know when he is in violation of the law. The grey zone is as large as the friggin Atlantic ocean here. They're basically allowing judges to arbitrarily declare a person guilty or innocent on the same evidence. Uncertain laws work for totalitarian governments in order to be able to find any person guilty of a crime but in any society that demands freedom these standards MUST be spelled out to allow other people than the judge that ends up with the case to determine whether a given action is a crime.
Interesting, that's a clear violation of fundamental human rights (basic rights: life, liberty and security of person according to the UN, none of these may be taken away without a judge's authorisation) in many countries.
I thought that was the plot to Fahrenheit 451?
Yes, that claim is as implausible as a videogame storyline these days. Why the hell would anybody attempt or even bother to supply unsuitable material to children? I mean, even a Bond villain usually has a reason, some benefit he gets out of the deal but what benefit would this have?
I think that's what he was talking about.
Courts have found sales restrictions enforced by the government to be a violation of free speech. There is no law that prevents a minor from seeing or buying a movie he's too young for, all enforcement of that is voluntary (how else do you explain "unrated" DVDs?). If the government is getting between the speaker and the intended listener without the listener or the speaker desiring such measures (i.e. no intrusion on secret information or stuff like that) that's a restriction of free speech. Preventing people from hearing what you say is no different from stopping you from saying things in first place. Should the govt be able to confiscate all copies of a book you intend to ship out because they don't like what you say? Because once the book is being copied the original act of writing is over and by your logic you'd have execides your free speech already and the govt can censor as it pleases.
If the hardware is pretty much the same, then how come Sony is putting uber-expensive cell processors that nobody knows how to program for?
Marketing.
Not true, training takes time and qualified personell isn't as common as you may think. The idea that there are ten people willing to take your job for a dollar a day is nice to keep employees under control but usually those ten people together couldn't do what one really qualified person does. EA loves to treat entry-level positions as disposable but from what I've heard once you're beyond the entry level that stops.
Many people acquire the necessary skills without modding and AFAIK modding is not seen as important in the HR department.
This is a voluntary certification. I'm sure this isn' the only agency giving those out. The fines are in case someone misrepresents his product in order to receive a certification the good is not suitable for. If you wanted a 100% organic certification you should be liable if you managed to hide those ingredients brewed in a chem lab in order to wrongfully acquire the certification.
Ack, the BPjM link doesn't work on Slashdot. No way to work around that so you have to click the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien link in the USK article.
Gestapo? Nope, Germany has the USK and BPjM for restricting minors' access to violent videogames (there are laws for all media but the USK only covers videogames). No secrecy necessary. The BPjM can order a ban on advertising (which includes shelf space) in venues accessible to minors but only if the USK refused to rate a game. The ratings are legally binding, unrated means 18+ and selling a game to a minor he isn't cleared for can end with two years of jailtime.
I'm both supporting this and rejecting any laws regarding the ESRB out of two reasons:
1. The German constitution has a special restriction on free speech to enable youth protection. Since the US contitution does not have such a restriction it is unconstitutional to ban selling a game to minors there. If the govt wants to protect the children they have to change the first amendment and I have this vague feeling that the populace values unrestricted free speech higher than youth protection.
2. In Germany the ratings for all media are legally binding and the BPjM can index any form of media, including books and complete bans can apply to any form of media. Videogames aren't being singled out.
Maybe a third would be the lower resistance to rate a game 18+ leading to retailers carrying games rated 18 without questions. Most don't carry indexed games but that's mostly becauee it's not economically viable to sell games noone can know you have.
(Realtime) Tesselation was a feature in Ati cards since the 8500. How many games made use of it and how many don't look ugly when they do? Tesselation reduces the artist's control over the mesh and only makes sense if you have a severe bottleneck in the system preventing you from having models use this many polygons right away without any post processing beyond what's found in the file. From what I heard the 360 does suffer from bottlenecks like the relatively slow DVD drive, overall tesselation is not the future, it's a workaround.