Excellent point! I did not realize that Bethesda was also providing (and charging) for the offical PC mod. Shame on you, Bethesda!;)
In my earlier post, I pointed out that, on the Xbox 360, there are no player mods available. However, for contrast, I should have linked to one of the mod lists for the PC version. Note: these are unofficial, but are also free.
Thanks Zonk! I'm glad this submission was accepted, but feel the original "tone" was lost in translation, so I'm posting it here just "for the record". Note: I was quite angry when I submitted it.
------------------ Micro$oft's marketing droids have fired the first salvo in the latest round of Digital Restrictions Management Warfare. Oblivion, by Bethesda, widely believed to be the strongest candidate for 2006 Game Of The Year, has begun providing downloadable content via XBOX Live. This could be great news, but at roughly $2.50 for downloadable Horse Armor a mere two weeks after the game shipped, we all know this was carved from the game to be sold separately. Bethesda is also to blame here, with other similarly priced content on the way. How long until "essential" game content is withheld from a game release, only to be downloaded in Pay-Per-Play chunks? ------------------
Please note that I'm definitely not against pay-per-play as a viable model, however, for these guys to charge $2.50 for what basically amounts to a few texture maps and a mesh is a big step over the edge onto a slippery slope that could (will?) lead to more egregious violations of player trust. And, before everyone says "if you don't like it, don't buy it"...believe me, I won't. However, it's important to understand that without public backlash over this, the folks behind these machinations will continue forward, "innovating" online gaming to the point where you won't be able to complete a $60 game you purchased until you've spent another $40 on pseudo-essential add-ons. (Not picking on you, Bethesda, we love you guys!!!)
Why did I mention Digital Restrictions Management? Glad you asked. If player contributed content were available via XBOX Live, the "power" of this type of marketing ploy would be diffused against other, more affordable (even free in some cases) mods. Why no player contributed content? Well, first you need Micro$oft's permission to provide anything via Live. And, well, we'll just leave the DRM issue right there...it's just beating a dead horse with armor.
But, I digress...
Thank You, Bethesda, for Oblivion! You've restored my faith in immersive, interactive storytelling! Please use your amazing success with this game to help protect the future of downloadable content. I suppose that one way to do that would be to ensure that the price of content is in-line with the value of the content. And, it would be really nice if it were also tied to the actual "cost" of the content...but, hey, we can always dream.
The Blender UI is no longer that difficult, just different to 3DS or your other favourite 3D editor. I'd be surprised if your comment applies to the most recent version unless by "a bit" you mean 5 minutes.
Agreed. Admittedly, my first two experiences with Blender lead to me throwing in the towel. However, I once read an encouraging post on a message board somewhere (hey, I think it was/.) that basically said "if you haven't worked through the basic tutorials, then you don't have room to discuss the UI"... hence, I revisited Blender once again, and lo and behold, I saw the light.
Also, I'd like to mention (as others have already) that the Elysiun Forums are a great place to learn about Blender along-side other Blenderheads!
IMHO, I think you should just install Knoppix 3.4 to the harddrive, (hint: use the 'knx2hd' utility from a root prompt once you've booted from the cd)
Then, send along a few live educational CD's, such as Freeduc. Freeduc appeals to a broad age group and includes quite a bit of nice packages on a bootable cd. For instance, it includes gcompris and the aforementioned Celestia.
But, if you really want to torment them with dealing with an old version of windows and allowing it to be turned into a spam zombie the moment it's connected to the net without a firewall, then you'll not be doing them any favors, nor any of us for that matter. 8)
Here's an excerpt from the release notes for Blender 2.32...
"- Blender Meshes now have a limit of 2 Billion faces (instead of 64k). This doesn't break backward or upward compatibility, but will cause.blend files to grow about 30% in size. "
Also, in case you're interested, they've recently released Blender 2.33a which can be downloaded here.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent point! I did not realize that Bethesda was also providing (and charging) for the offical PC mod. Shame on you, Bethesda! ;)
In my earlier post, I pointed out that, on the Xbox 360, there are no player mods available. However, for contrast, I should have linked to one of the mod lists for the PC version. Note: these are unofficial, but are also free.
Oblivion Mods
Thanks Zonk! I'm glad this submission was accepted, but feel the original "tone" was lost in translation, so I'm posting it here just "for the record". Note: I was quite angry when I submitted it.
------------------
Micro$oft's marketing droids have fired the first salvo in the latest round of Digital Restrictions Management Warfare. Oblivion, by Bethesda, widely believed to be the strongest candidate for 2006 Game Of The Year, has begun providing downloadable content via XBOX Live. This could be great news, but at roughly $2.50 for downloadable Horse Armor a mere two weeks after the game shipped, we all know this was carved from the game to be sold separately. Bethesda is also to blame here, with other similarly priced content on the way. How long until "essential" game content is withheld from a game release, only to be downloaded in Pay-Per-Play chunks?
------------------
Please note that I'm definitely not against pay-per-play as a viable model, however, for these guys to charge $2.50 for what basically amounts to a few texture maps and a mesh is a big step over the edge onto a slippery slope that could (will?) lead to more egregious violations of player trust. And, before everyone says "if you don't like it, don't buy it"...believe me, I won't. However, it's important to understand that without public backlash over this, the folks behind these machinations will continue forward, "innovating" online gaming to the point where you won't be able to complete a $60 game you purchased until you've spent another $40 on pseudo-essential add-ons. (Not picking on you, Bethesda, we love you guys!!!)
Why did I mention Digital Restrictions Management? Glad you asked. If player contributed content were available via XBOX Live, the "power" of this type of marketing ploy would be diffused against other, more affordable (even free in some cases) mods. Why no player contributed content? Well, first you need Micro$oft's permission to provide anything via Live. And, well, we'll just leave the DRM issue right there...it's just beating a dead horse with armor.
But, I digress...
Thank You, Bethesda, for Oblivion! You've restored my faith in immersive, interactive storytelling! Please use your amazing success with this game to help protect the future of downloadable content. I suppose that one way to do that would be to ensure that the price of content is in-line with the value of the content. And, it would be really nice if it were also tied to the actual "cost" of the content...but, hey, we can always dream.
The Blender UI is no longer that difficult, just different to 3DS or your other favourite 3D editor. I'd be surprised if your comment applies to the most recent version unless by "a bit" you mean 5 minutes.
/.) that basically said "if you haven't worked through the basic tutorials, then you don't have room to discuss the UI" ... hence, I revisited Blender once again, and lo and behold, I saw the light.
If you go through the blender3d.org tutorials then get back on the "cumbersome" UI.
Agreed. Admittedly, my first two experiences with Blender lead to me throwing in the towel. However, I once read an encouraging post on a message board somewhere (hey, I think it was
Also, I'd like to mention (as others have already) that the Elysiun Forums are a great place to learn about Blender along-side other Blenderheads!
-Vizionary
IMHO, I think you should just install Knoppix 3.4 to the harddrive, (hint: use the 'knx2hd' utility from a root prompt once you've booted from the cd)
Then, send along a few live educational CD's, such as Freeduc. Freeduc appeals to a broad age group and includes quite a bit of nice packages on a bootable cd. For instance, it includes gcompris and the aforementioned Celestia.
See the Educational group of Live CD's for other cd's that you may be interested in cooking up and sending them.
But, if you really want to torment them with dealing with an old version of windows and allowing it to be turned into a spam zombie the moment it's connected to the net without a firewall, then you'll not be doing them any favors, nor any of us for that matter. 8)
-Vizionary
Here's an excerpt from the release notes for Blender 2.32...
"- Blender Meshes now have a limit of 2 Billion faces (instead of 64k). This doesn't break backward or upward compatibility, but will cause .blend files to grow about 30% in size. "
Also, in case you're interested, they've recently released Blender 2.33a which can be downloaded here.
There are TONS of new features...
Enjoy!