I use to work for one of the larger defense contractors and the information that was considered vital to system to design or classified as at least secret were usually on separate servers that were not connected to the internet.
I know on several occasions when sensitive information was sent across the internet it was done on a special computer.
I've also seen instances where the information was not allowed to be on a computer at all.
I have no idea why my immediate parent posted as an AC, but I agree with him 100%. I wanted to add though is that you never really know which IT people are knowledgeable until they actually do some work on your workstation. With that said, farming out the IT work makes it impossible for any client to know who is working on their workstation. At my current job, they use DameWare to assist with the quick problems and I have no issues with that, but when something even semi-major happens they send down Leroy and it's always Leroy. I like this because not only do I trust him, but everyone else around here does too because we A) know who he is B) know he gets the job done and C) will bend over backwards if we ask him to so we can make a deadline. To me, this is invaluable, especially when your hardware goes kaput one week before a huge deadline. Leroy was at my desk within 15 minutes our emergency and he had us back up in running within a half day. No way someone could have fixed that particular software problem from a remote terminal in a half a day. To answer the parent's article question, I say, getting rid of any company's or department's Leroy is a bad idea and in a way it's taking away a company benefit. Instead of farming out to remote terminals, mabe they should get a better IT manager who can effectively use 3 people to do 10 peoples jobs.
The Live Arcade is something that interest me. I haven't bought a console since Super Nintendo. Reason being, the console market never really interest me since the games I mostly like to play are usually built for the computer. I really enjoyed Street Fighter II, Super Mario Brothers 3, Mario Kart, etc. I did play a lot of James Bond, FFVII, and Zelda a bunch, but that was in college on other people's consoles.
The Arcade idea is something that might bring me to buying a console as it is something a computer does not give me, or atleast give it to me effeciently. I say that because for about every 10 demos I download to my computer, I'd say one is worth a damn. I'm gonna wait until the Revolution comes out before I really make a decision on if I want a console or not. With the severe lack of fun computer software (only WoW, BF2, and HL2 come to mind out of a 3 year span that were good games) over the last two years and this Arcade idea, I might succomb and return back to the darkside.
I finally realized that it (reward) wasn't worth the stress
This is exactly what has happened to the corporation I work for. The rewards are not worth the extra effort you have to put in to get it. It's amazing what my corporation expects just to get a 5% raise. No one is going to work 40% more to get a 5% raise. Especially when the person next to you is doing half as much as you and gets a 2% raise. So in reality, if you work 40% more, you only get 3% more.
I think it is very important to have the scaling of the rewards to be correct, if you don't, it could have a reverse effect and make your best workers turn to worthless employees or even worst, make them quit. To find out what's a equal medium for rewards, simply ask your employees. They will tell you if they think the rewards are motiviating them or not. My manager asked me recently if the company's current atmosphere motivates employees. I told him that I am very disappointed with myself right now because I'm the least productive that I have been in a long time because I now feel that the extra effort is not worth the rewards. He was taken back by what I said because he knows that I am considered as highly productive. The real catch to it is that I still am relative to everyone else, which means that the whole team as a whole was alot less productive (reason why he had this meeting with me).
I wanted to back up my parent thread holder here and say you can add the ship building industry in there too. Almost the entire Northrop Grumman sector I work in uses AutoCAD and ShipContructor (an AutoCAD add-on). That's an engineering core of over 400. Add in the other Northrop Grumman sectors I have worked with, whom also use AutoCAD, now you have well over 5000. As a defense contracting company, we work with other defense contractors, like, Lockheed Martin, guess what they primarily use......AutoCAD. I'm not done yet, in the ship building industry, an engineer has to deal with over 5-6 vendors...each. I'd say over 90% of the information we receive from them is ported to, if not created in, AutoCAD, before sent to NGSS. Just the defense industry alone uses enough AutoCAD to say that my parent's parent thread is incorrect.
I was born and raised in the New Orleans metro area. I have a house in a N.O. suburb that was damaged during the hurricane (no flooding in my neighborhood) and I have many family member, friends, and co-workers whom have suffered extensive damage, including complete losses to flooding. I returned to the city 2 weeks after the storm and I have been here working at my job ever since.
I am a casual gamer and I wanted to add that video games has been a main form of therapy for myself and a few of my colleagues. You have to understand, this city use to have so many forms of entertainment, especially for a male in his mid-20s. I use to play volleyball and flag football, go bar-hopping etc, and almost all of that is gone now. So that leaves me with a lot more free time. Granted, I use a lot of that to fix up my house, but using all my free time just to do work will drive anyone crazy. In comes gaming. World Of Warcraft, Battlefield 2, and a few other games have been a main source of relaxation and entertainment. Not to mention, it can act as a small social network, which helps relieve the stress of not having the same social oppurtunities than before. I know this is not directly related to the article, but thought it had some relevance.
As for the article, the book has potential, because it's not just the buildings, Bourbon St, and Mardi Gras that make up New Orleans, but the attitude of the people that live here is probably the most important. There is a reason we can have a big open party for 2 weeks straight here. It's because the people are laid back and fun driven enough to allow their town to be turned into one big party. Otherwise, Mardi Gras would turn into one big riot of locals against tourists. There aren't many cities that could open up their doors like we do down here on a yearly basis. It's a ashame that so many people and regions have already closed their doors to us after Katrina after our city has kept it's arms open to everyone for so long.
I'm not sure if you have played SWG before, but I did for about 6 months some time before the first revamp. SWG actually does have political and economical competition. More so than any other MMORPG I have played. The very fact that players in SWG can setup their own stores and market their own crafted items through those stores makes it unique. The political arena in the game is different too. Player created towns have their own mayors that are actually elected upon by the citizens who belong to that particular town. I have seen on many occassions in the town my toon lived in having a very active mayor race. I can't tell you how many times the the players in the race would chat with me about what I wanted the town to be and what they would do as mayor. You really picked a bad topic/game to make a point about how games are combat centric.
I was also suprised by the percent of players who have bought online gold/gil. Almost a quarter of the players? Wow. I have been playing WoW since December and I just received my epic mount (this is a faster one than the normal). It's not easy to get due to its price being so high. I worked my butt off to earn enough money to buy it and I must say it was worth it. It's very disappointing to me that so many people have probably bought their epic mounts from places like IGN (by bought, I mean got the gold from IGN, then used it to buy their epic mounts). It sort of takes away from my accomplishment knowing that others have "cheated" their way to get their epic mounts. Atleast I have the satisfaction every time I mount up (which is a lot in WoW).
I use to play FFXI back in the day. Good game, but it doesn't mix well with casual gamers like myself. I agree with you 100% about Balista. I felt there was little to no griefing in FFXI, but it was near impossible to do it when I played and that's probably why there wasn't any griefing.
Will there be any limitations on the moddablity of the units in the game? This ranges from the textures (the way they look), the abilities (can new ones be added), and stats (A/D/B). Or to rephrase the question, what do you expect modders will look forward to the most when it comes to modding the units in the game?
It's not a common thing for large companies to sponsor players, but it is common for them to sponsor the actual LANs that the players compete at. It does happen of course, just look at Jonathan "Fata1ity" Wendell. He has had sponsorship for quite some time now.
I'm sure it will become more common, but the poster of the article makes it seem like video games is going to explode into a major sport. I do not see this happening in the US anytime soon. People have been perdicting that it will in the US for a few years now and there are no signs of a major increase in the sport. I say this from my experience writing for Amped News for about a year. LANs are fun, but I personally do not find watching others play video games to be that exciting.
If all I did with my computer was play games on it, I would say you have a valid point. My computer, which costs me less than $1000 to build, has atleast 10 times the functionality of any gaming console.
I do not like when people try to compare computer prices to console prices. Consoles have very limited functionality, so they should be cheaper, whereas computers have almost unlimited software capablities. The day I can do my taxes, run my finances, browse the web, check my email, run AutoCAD (or other 3D modeling), check the weather, play games online with over 1000 other people at the same time (MMORPG) or just 32 for that matter (BF2 fan here), keep large databases together, and talk online with anyone in the world who has a telephone, with a gaming console, then you can compare prices together to me.
That's just listing the things I mostly use my computer for. Just by myself, I am able to list more uses for the computer than everyone in the world combined could list for what a console can do that a computer cannot.
You make some good points, but what you are expecting is impossible. You are expecting Blizzard to make a game that formats to all YOUR needs. Unfortunately, what you want will conflict with what someone else wants. If your expecting every class to play like you want, then you will always be disappointed. You need to have a reality check before you go off and say something is completely broken. That's the problem, people see one issue and then call the whole game broken.
I think your analogy with Windows was a poor one, as you are comparing apples and oranges. You appear to be calling a design in WoW that you don't like a "bug." Just because something wasn't designed to your favor doesn't make it a "bug." A better comparison would have been someone trying to decide whether to use Linux or Windows. If this person is a gamer, they better do there research before they decide, otherwise, they will be just like the person who is looking to play an aggressive class in WoW and chooses to play a Paladin. Now is it Linux's fault that a gamer chose to use Linux, and non-gaming platform, to try and play games?
One thing to remember is that MMORPGs will always be full of teenagers and people with nothing else to do. Teenagers and people with lots of time on their hands have a very easy time of pointing out flaws in things while having no idea how the thing works. I'm an engineer, I know making something 100% efficient is impossible. Anyone that says it is, doesn't understand that "thing" enough to know any better. In this case, WoW has way more good things than bad things. The day that changes, I will just unsubscribe. Remember, you have that choice too. You also have the choice to just complain and never give any good solutions. Personally, I rather give good feedback to help fix the problem. If the money I am paying isn't giving me enough of what I want, I simply stop giving them my money and find a different game to play.
The highly overpowered Shaman class badly needs to be nerfed to make the two factions balanced.
This is a very vague statement. You have no examples to back up your theory. You make it sound like Shamans turn the tide of battle, which I have yet to see on my server. On my server, the Alliance are usually winning every time I jump on and the numbers stay pretty even (Horde have a good bit of Shamans too). In CTF, the matches are pretty even and are very back and forth. Maybe you should consider that the Horde on your server are just better players than the Alliance. I'm not gonna claim that the Alliance needs to be nerfed just because we are winning a lot on my server. Comments like yours are the very problem with the forums. People making extremely vague statements with no proof who are "usually" trying to make up for their own lack of skill.
You make some very good points and I would like to add that the people you usually see complaining are all the same people. You have been hearing "nerf shamans" probably from the same 1% that just keep saying it over and over in every thread. Add that to the fact that less than half of the WoW players visit the forums regularly on top of the fact that people usually only post to complain. Most of these issues people talk about come directly from the WoW forums and any mature person who isn't an idiot knows that those forums are trolled by immature kids with nothing else to do, but play WoW and post in the forums.
Is having all the classes balanced really that essential? I don't think so. I believe it is important to have most classes well balanced, but having one or two classes that are "weaker" isn't such a bad thing. I personally like a challenge of playing a slightly weaker class. When you beat an opponent with the weaker class, there is a greater since of accomplishment.
I'll agree that playing against the overpowered class can be frustrating, but it just forces me to do something out of the ordinary to win. People complain about Shamans being overpowered. I agree, they have some advantages, but they aren't big enough to ruin the game. I have a 60 Warrior and I have killed shamans lots of times. Granted, in a duel, I'll only win about 35% of the time, but those wins sure do feel good.
The problems with the Paladin, Warlock, and Hunter classes is that people are trying to use the class incorrectly. These three classes are very passive/solo classes. Yet people wonder why they don't do well in group settings. This is because the class is meant to be more solo friendly. Problem is, everyone wants every class to be how THEY want it. This is impossible, since some like to solo, some like PvE, some like PvP. If people are so worried about being the best, then simply play the class that suits your needs.
The only valid complaint people can have I think is that they have already put tons of time into their class and don't want to go back. Well, guess what, people of been complaining about the same stuff since launch. It's the players fault for not doing a little research on a class before putting tons of time into it. I hope they don't nerf any of the classes. I don't want to lose that extra since of accomplishment when I kill a shaman and I enjoy PvE with my Warlock when I get burnt out playing with my warrior.
I agree with llevity, the paladin is more passive based class. Most paladins complain because before the first real patch (1.1), there was a bug in one of the Paladins skills (it made them increase in attack rate & damage, instead of increasing attack rate and decreasing damage). This change took away the biggest part of the Paladins aggressive abilities. So the people who liked paladins at first liked them because they were so aggressive (due to this bug), when the patch fixed it, the class then went back to its correct, passive design.
I'd also like to note that this bug made the paladin an extremely affective dueler. Lots of people rushed to build up a paladin, thinking that class was going to be a PvP machine due to the classes high success rate in dueling. Now Paladins are finding out this is not the best class for PvP, especially after the bug fix. It's typical to see lots of players start a character in a bugged class so they get the most advantages possible. Finally, people are starting to realise what the class is suppose to be about, and not a class better than all others.
With continious loading, like WoW, people should start looking into better harddrives. In WoW, the 1 minute delay referenced to in parent post, is due to the delay in loading the characters' textures from off the harddrive. This is why once they load, it runs very smoothly. Some people think it's their processor or RAM, but the 1 minute delay has to do with the speed of the harddrive. I recommend getting two harddrives and running them in RAID 0, it did wonders for me. If UT2007 is going to be of this type, I'd recommend looking into a harddrive upgrade before purchasing UT2007.
I wanted to add to the other two replies you have about the system. I have played in PvP based MMOs before and when WoW first launched I was shocked on how little PvP was going on in PvP servers. The peeps who did not know better who are playing in a PvP server are not realising what a PvP server is suppose to be like. Lots of people are complaining, because well, they did not know any better. The PvP servers, with the addition of the Honor system, are now like what I would expect a PvP server to be like. I personally play on a PvE server most of the time because that's what I want. All the people complaining can simply start up a character on a PvE server and their problems go away. It's free to create up to ten characters on any server you want with just the regular subscription.
I am personally enjoying the honor system. I am glad I had the MMO experience to play my main character on a PvE server, but even if I didn't, I would just switch servers with no complaints as leveling in WoW is fairly easy. It's not like these people are losing time with characters that took them 6 months to build up. It took me 4 months to get to level 48 and I am an extremely casual player.
I played SWG for about 3 months starting back in October. It is true, the game had serious combat issues. PvPing was very boring and was based around who had the best macros. Towards the end of my play period I started to see more and more people playing one of two professions (Rifleman and Tera Kasi Master). This is because they were heavly favored in winning in PvP due to the combat imbalance.
The PvE system was quite messed up too. SWG was by far the most boring for leveling out of the 4 MMORPGs I have played. Like PvP, there was zero skill required and was merely about pushing the same two buttons over and over again. That and finding someone to buff you. You will not see me returning to SWG. The severe lack of support and the fact it took them until now to attempt to fix something they promised to fix 1.5 years ago will keep me out of this game forever. I looked over the changes and they are very drastic.. I just do not see this overhaul making people go back to the game. If anything, it could make the people who have stayed this long quit.
I have only purchased one game that was at or over the $40 mark, and that was HL2. I have over thirty games and only maybe two or three of them I would say is worth $50. I do however own 2-3 games that were worth $50 at retail, but I recieved them as gifts. By no stretch do I consider a static game to be worth $60, that's just ridiculious, especially with the overall lack of gameplay quality in games nowadays. I believe $60 is too much and any game put at that price will see a reduction in overall profit of that title. I would like to add that I can easily afford a $60 game a month if I wanted. I don't buy them at that price because I can buy other entertainment equal in value for half the cost.
Your statement is true, but I think you missed the point the article poster was trying to get across. Currently games are writeen to use computer resources that way. If the code was written differently for games, they could allocate some of the graphic responsiblities to the 2nd CPU instead of all of it going to the GPU. The 2nd CPU could be used to help the GPU. Allocating more of the now available (2nd CPU) resources to graphics allows more potential in graphics. That's what the article poster wants to see, that game resoure allocation written in the games code be changed to use the 2nd CPU to help enhance graphics in the video game.
I have to say, you summed up the major difference between fast and fastest quite well. I played ladder for awhile and got pretty good at it, but in the end I found the same old tatics being abused. Players would use one of three strategies for each map and in the end it came out to who build the quickest, even on fast settings.
This then adapted to the micro managing battles. Tatics of the 2 marine vs 1 zergling is a good example you gave. Another is the supply depot wall, which created opposing units to run around aimlessly while being killed. I got old of this fast and thought it took the real fun out of the game. I know others got more enjoyment out of the micro management than the macro. I personally perfer macro as it deals more with battle strategies instead finding ways to use the games code to your advantage (units attack their attacker by default).
I was quite skilled in all evolutions of SC. From the beginning, to the ladder movement, to the unladder "fastest" setting, to the money maps. The different stages that the game took is what kept me in it for so long. In the end, the map hacks made me quit too...that and the cheap rush tatics some people used (see the SCV, marine rush posted).
You could have easily switched to a PvE server instead of playing on a PvP server. The information you posted is misleading since you can play without having to deal with the nuisance of opposing faction players. In PvE servers, no player can attack you unless you enable Player versus Player. You could be in the heart of the orc home lands as a human and not worry about being injured in a PvE server.
Slashdot Mirror
The government does fund research, but not always for direct projects. NIH Grants http://grants.nih.gov/grants/oer.htm provide funding for lots of research related things, such as laboratory improvements, new equipment, etc. One of the stimulus packages included added more funding for NIH Grants. You can see all the active ones at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/search_results.htm?year=active&scope=pa
I use to work for one of the larger defense contractors and the information that was considered vital to system to design or classified as at least secret were usually on separate servers that were not connected to the internet. I know on several occasions when sensitive information was sent across the internet it was done on a special computer. I've also seen instances where the information was not allowed to be on a computer at all.
I have no idea why my immediate parent posted as an AC, but I agree with him 100%. I wanted to add though is that you never really know which IT people are knowledgeable until they actually do some work on your workstation. With that said, farming out the IT work makes it impossible for any client to know who is working on their workstation. At my current job, they use DameWare to assist with the quick problems and I have no issues with that, but when something even semi-major happens they send down Leroy and it's always Leroy. I like this because not only do I trust him, but everyone else around here does too because we A) know who he is B) know he gets the job done and C) will bend over backwards if we ask him to so we can make a deadline. To me, this is invaluable, especially when your hardware goes kaput one week before a huge deadline. Leroy was at my desk within 15 minutes our emergency and he had us back up in running within a half day. No way someone could have fixed that particular software problem from a remote terminal in a half a day. To answer the parent's article question, I say, getting rid of any company's or department's Leroy is a bad idea and in a way it's taking away a company benefit. Instead of farming out to remote terminals, mabe they should get a better IT manager who can effectively use 3 people to do 10 peoples jobs.
The Live Arcade is something that interest me. I haven't bought a console since Super Nintendo. Reason being, the console market never really interest me since the games I mostly like to play are usually built for the computer. I really enjoyed Street Fighter II, Super Mario Brothers 3, Mario Kart, etc. I did play a lot of James Bond, FFVII, and Zelda a bunch, but that was in college on other people's consoles.
The Arcade idea is something that might bring me to buying a console as it is something a computer does not give me, or atleast give it to me effeciently. I say that because for about every 10 demos I download to my computer, I'd say one is worth a damn. I'm gonna wait until the Revolution comes out before I really make a decision on if I want a console or not. With the severe lack of fun computer software (only WoW, BF2, and HL2 come to mind out of a 3 year span that were good games) over the last two years and this Arcade idea, I might succomb and return back to the darkside.
ZOMG, nerf Shamans!
I really liked what the parent's thread said:
I finally realized that it (reward) wasn't worth the stress
This is exactly what has happened to the corporation I work for. The rewards are not worth the extra effort you have to put in to get it. It's amazing what my corporation expects just to get a 5% raise. No one is going to work 40% more to get a 5% raise. Especially when the person next to you is doing half as much as you and gets a 2% raise. So in reality, if you work 40% more, you only get 3% more.
I think it is very important to have the scaling of the rewards to be correct, if you don't, it could have a reverse effect and make your best workers turn to worthless employees or even worst, make them quit. To find out what's a equal medium for rewards, simply ask your employees. They will tell you if they think the rewards are motiviating them or not. My manager asked me recently if the company's current atmosphere motivates employees. I told him that I am very disappointed with myself right now because I'm the least productive that I have been in a long time because I now feel that the extra effort is not worth the rewards. He was taken back by what I said because he knows that I am considered as highly productive. The real catch to it is that I still am relative to everyone else, which means that the whole team as a whole was alot less productive (reason why he had this meeting with me).
I wanted to back up my parent thread holder here and say you can add the ship building industry in there too. Almost the entire Northrop Grumman sector I work in uses AutoCAD and ShipContructor (an AutoCAD add-on). That's an engineering core of over 400. Add in the other Northrop Grumman sectors I have worked with, whom also use AutoCAD, now you have well over 5000. As a defense contracting company, we work with other defense contractors, like, Lockheed Martin, guess what they primarily use......AutoCAD. I'm not done yet, in the ship building industry, an engineer has to deal with over 5-6 vendors...each. I'd say over 90% of the information we receive from them is ported to, if not created in, AutoCAD, before sent to NGSS. Just the defense industry alone uses enough AutoCAD to say that my parent's parent thread is incorrect.
I was born and raised in the New Orleans metro area. I have a house in a N.O. suburb that was damaged during the hurricane (no flooding in my neighborhood) and I have many family member, friends, and co-workers whom have suffered extensive damage, including complete losses to flooding. I returned to the city 2 weeks after the storm and I have been here working at my job ever since.
I am a casual gamer and I wanted to add that video games has been a main form of therapy for myself and a few of my colleagues. You have to understand, this city use to have so many forms of entertainment, especially for a male in his mid-20s. I use to play volleyball and flag football, go bar-hopping etc, and almost all of that is gone now. So that leaves me with a lot more free time. Granted, I use a lot of that to fix up my house, but using all my free time just to do work will drive anyone crazy. In comes gaming. World Of Warcraft, Battlefield 2, and a few other games have been a main source of relaxation and entertainment. Not to mention, it can act as a small social network, which helps relieve the stress of not having the same social oppurtunities than before. I know this is not directly related to the article, but thought it had some relevance.
As for the article, the book has potential, because it's not just the buildings, Bourbon St, and Mardi Gras that make up New Orleans, but the attitude of the people that live here is probably the most important. There is a reason we can have a big open party for 2 weeks straight here. It's because the people are laid back and fun driven enough to allow their town to be turned into one big party. Otherwise, Mardi Gras would turn into one big riot of locals against tourists. There aren't many cities that could open up their doors like we do down here on a yearly basis. It's a ashame that so many people and regions have already closed their doors to us after Katrina after our city has kept it's arms open to everyone for so long.
Trading, creative construction, logic, politics
I'm not sure if you have played SWG before, but I did for about 6 months some time before the first revamp. SWG actually does have political and economical competition. More so than any other MMORPG I have played. The very fact that players in SWG can setup their own stores and market their own crafted items through those stores makes it unique. The political arena in the game is different too. Player created towns have their own mayors that are actually elected upon by the citizens who belong to that particular town. I have seen on many occassions in the town my toon lived in having a very active mayor race. I can't tell you how many times the the players in the race would chat with me about what I wanted the town to be and what they would do as mayor. You really picked a bad topic/game to make a point about how games are combat centric.
I was also suprised by the percent of players who have bought online gold/gil. Almost a quarter of the players? Wow. I have been playing WoW since December and I just received my epic mount (this is a faster one than the normal). It's not easy to get due to its price being so high. I worked my butt off to earn enough money to buy it and I must say it was worth it. It's very disappointing to me that so many people have probably bought their epic mounts from places like IGN (by bought, I mean got the gold from IGN, then used it to buy their epic mounts). It sort of takes away from my accomplishment knowing that others have "cheated" their way to get their epic mounts. Atleast I have the satisfaction every time I mount up (which is a lot in WoW).
I use to play FFXI back in the day. Good game, but it doesn't mix well with casual gamers like myself. I agree with you 100% about Balista. I felt there was little to no griefing in FFXI, but it was near impossible to do it when I played and that's probably why there wasn't any griefing.
Will there be any limitations on the moddablity of the units in the game? This ranges from the textures (the way they look), the abilities (can new ones be added), and stats (A/D/B). Or to rephrase the question, what do you expect modders will look forward to the most when it comes to modding the units in the game?
It's not a common thing for large companies to sponsor players, but it is common for them to sponsor the actual LANs that the players compete at. It does happen of course, just look at Jonathan "Fata1ity" Wendell. He has had sponsorship for quite some time now.
I'm sure it will become more common, but the poster of the article makes it seem like video games is going to explode into a major sport. I do not see this happening in the US anytime soon. People have been perdicting that it will in the US for a few years now and there are no signs of a major increase in the sport. I say this from my experience writing for Amped News for about a year. LANs are fun, but I personally do not find watching others play video games to be that exciting.
If all I did with my computer was play games on it, I would say you have a valid point. My computer, which costs me less than $1000 to build, has atleast 10 times the functionality of any gaming console.
I do not like when people try to compare computer prices to console prices. Consoles have very limited functionality, so they should be cheaper, whereas computers have almost unlimited software capablities. The day I can do my taxes, run my finances, browse the web, check my email, run AutoCAD (or other 3D modeling), check the weather, play games online with over 1000 other people at the same time (MMORPG) or just 32 for that matter (BF2 fan here), keep large databases together, and talk online with anyone in the world who has a telephone, with a gaming console, then you can compare prices together to me.
That's just listing the things I mostly use my computer for. Just by myself, I am able to list more uses for the computer than everyone in the world combined could list for what a console can do that a computer cannot.
You make some good points, but what you are expecting is impossible. You are expecting Blizzard to make a game that formats to all YOUR needs. Unfortunately, what you want will conflict with what someone else wants. If your expecting every class to play like you want, then you will always be disappointed. You need to have a reality check before you go off and say something is completely broken. That's the problem, people see one issue and then call the whole game broken.
I think your analogy with Windows was a poor one, as you are comparing apples and oranges. You appear to be calling a design in WoW that you don't like a "bug." Just because something wasn't designed to your favor doesn't make it a "bug." A better comparison would have been someone trying to decide whether to use Linux or Windows. If this person is a gamer, they better do there research before they decide, otherwise, they will be just like the person who is looking to play an aggressive class in WoW and chooses to play a Paladin. Now is it Linux's fault that a gamer chose to use Linux, and non-gaming platform, to try and play games?
One thing to remember is that MMORPGs will always be full of teenagers and people with nothing else to do. Teenagers and people with lots of time on their hands have a very easy time of pointing out flaws in things while having no idea how the thing works. I'm an engineer, I know making something 100% efficient is impossible. Anyone that says it is, doesn't understand that "thing" enough to know any better. In this case, WoW has way more good things than bad things. The day that changes, I will just unsubscribe. Remember, you have that choice too. You also have the choice to just complain and never give any good solutions. Personally, I rather give good feedback to help fix the problem. If the money I am paying isn't giving me enough of what I want, I simply stop giving them my money and find a different game to play.
The highly overpowered Shaman class badly needs to be nerfed to make the two factions balanced.
This is a very vague statement. You have no examples to back up your theory. You make it sound like Shamans turn the tide of battle, which I have yet to see on my server. On my server, the Alliance are usually winning every time I jump on and the numbers stay pretty even (Horde have a good bit of Shamans too). In CTF, the matches are pretty even and are very back and forth. Maybe you should consider that the Horde on your server are just better players than the Alliance. I'm not gonna claim that the Alliance needs to be nerfed just because we are winning a lot on my server. Comments like yours are the very problem with the forums. People making extremely vague statements with no proof who are "usually" trying to make up for their own lack of skill.
You make some very good points and I would like to add that the people you usually see complaining are all the same people. You have been hearing "nerf shamans" probably from the same 1% that just keep saying it over and over in every thread. Add that to the fact that less than half of the WoW players visit the forums regularly on top of the fact that people usually only post to complain. Most of these issues people talk about come directly from the WoW forums and any mature person who isn't an idiot knows that those forums are trolled by immature kids with nothing else to do, but play WoW and post in the forums.
Is having all the classes balanced really that essential? I don't think so. I believe it is important to have most classes well balanced, but having one or two classes that are "weaker" isn't such a bad thing. I personally like a challenge of playing a slightly weaker class. When you beat an opponent with the weaker class, there is a greater since of accomplishment.
I'll agree that playing against the overpowered class can be frustrating, but it just forces me to do something out of the ordinary to win. People complain about Shamans being overpowered. I agree, they have some advantages, but they aren't big enough to ruin the game. I have a 60 Warrior and I have killed shamans lots of times. Granted, in a duel, I'll only win about 35% of the time, but those wins sure do feel good.
The problems with the Paladin, Warlock, and Hunter classes is that people are trying to use the class incorrectly. These three classes are very passive/solo classes. Yet people wonder why they don't do well in group settings. This is because the class is meant to be more solo friendly. Problem is, everyone wants every class to be how THEY want it. This is impossible, since some like to solo, some like PvE, some like PvP. If people are so worried about being the best, then simply play the class that suits your needs.
The only valid complaint people can have I think is that they have already put tons of time into their class and don't want to go back. Well, guess what, people of been complaining about the same stuff since launch. It's the players fault for not doing a little research on a class before putting tons of time into it. I hope they don't nerf any of the classes. I don't want to lose that extra since of accomplishment when I kill a shaman and I enjoy PvE with my Warlock when I get burnt out playing with my warrior.
I agree with llevity, the paladin is more passive based class. Most paladins complain because before the first real patch (1.1), there was a bug in one of the Paladins skills (it made them increase in attack rate & damage, instead of increasing attack rate and decreasing damage). This change took away the biggest part of the Paladins aggressive abilities. So the people who liked paladins at first liked them because they were so aggressive (due to this bug), when the patch fixed it, the class then went back to its correct, passive design.
I'd also like to note that this bug made the paladin an extremely affective dueler. Lots of people rushed to build up a paladin, thinking that class was going to be a PvP machine due to the classes high success rate in dueling. Now Paladins are finding out this is not the best class for PvP, especially after the bug fix. It's typical to see lots of players start a character in a bugged class so they get the most advantages possible. Finally, people are starting to realise what the class is suppose to be about, and not a class better than all others.
With continious loading, like WoW, people should start looking into better harddrives. In WoW, the 1 minute delay referenced to in parent post, is due to the delay in loading the characters' textures from off the harddrive. This is why once they load, it runs very smoothly. Some people think it's their processor or RAM, but the 1 minute delay has to do with the speed of the harddrive. I recommend getting two harddrives and running them in RAID 0, it did wonders for me. If UT2007 is going to be of this type, I'd recommend looking into a harddrive upgrade before purchasing UT2007.
I wanted to add to the other two replies you have about the system. I have played in PvP based MMOs before and when WoW first launched I was shocked on how little PvP was going on in PvP servers. The peeps who did not know better who are playing in a PvP server are not realising what a PvP server is suppose to be like. Lots of people are complaining, because well, they did not know any better. The PvP servers, with the addition of the Honor system, are now like what I would expect a PvP server to be like. I personally play on a PvE server most of the time because that's what I want. All the people complaining can simply start up a character on a PvE server and their problems go away. It's free to create up to ten characters on any server you want with just the regular subscription.
I am personally enjoying the honor system. I am glad I had the MMO experience to play my main character on a PvE server, but even if I didn't, I would just switch servers with no complaints as leveling in WoW is fairly easy. It's not like these people are losing time with characters that took them 6 months to build up. It took me 4 months to get to level 48 and I am an extremely casual player.
I played SWG for about 3 months starting back in October. It is true, the game had serious combat issues. PvPing was very boring and was based around who had the best macros. Towards the end of my play period I started to see more and more people playing one of two professions (Rifleman and Tera Kasi Master). This is because they were heavly favored in winning in PvP due to the combat imbalance.
The PvE system was quite messed up too. SWG was by far the most boring for leveling out of the 4 MMORPGs I have played. Like PvP, there was zero skill required and was merely about pushing the same two buttons over and over again. That and finding someone to buff you. You will not see me returning to SWG. The severe lack of support and the fact it took them until now to attempt to fix something they promised to fix 1.5 years ago will keep me out of this game forever. I looked over the changes and they are very drastic.. I just do not see this overhaul making people go back to the game. If anything, it could make the people who have stayed this long quit.
I have only purchased one game that was at or over the $40 mark, and that was HL2. I have over thirty games and only maybe two or three of them I would say is worth $50. I do however own 2-3 games that were worth $50 at retail, but I recieved them as gifts. By no stretch do I consider a static game to be worth $60, that's just ridiculious, especially with the overall lack of gameplay quality in games nowadays. I believe $60 is too much and any game put at that price will see a reduction in overall profit of that title. I would like to add that I can easily afford a $60 game a month if I wanted. I don't buy them at that price because I can buy other entertainment equal in value for half the cost.
Your statement is true, but I think you missed the point the article poster was trying to get across. Currently games are writeen to use computer resources that way. If the code was written differently for games, they could allocate some of the graphic responsiblities to the 2nd CPU instead of all of it going to the GPU. The 2nd CPU could be used to help the GPU. Allocating more of the now available (2nd CPU) resources to graphics allows more potential in graphics. That's what the article poster wants to see, that game resoure allocation written in the games code be changed to use the 2nd CPU to help enhance graphics in the video game.
I have to say, you summed up the major difference between fast and fastest quite well. I played ladder for awhile and got pretty good at it, but in the end I found the same old tatics being abused. Players would use one of three strategies for each map and in the end it came out to who build the quickest, even on fast settings.
This then adapted to the micro managing battles. Tatics of the 2 marine vs 1 zergling is a good example you gave. Another is the supply depot wall, which created opposing units to run around aimlessly while being killed. I got old of this fast and thought it took the real fun out of the game. I know others got more enjoyment out of the micro management than the macro. I personally perfer macro as it deals more with battle strategies instead finding ways to use the games code to your advantage (units attack their attacker by default).
I was quite skilled in all evolutions of SC. From the beginning, to the ladder movement, to the unladder "fastest" setting, to the money maps. The different stages that the game took is what kept me in it for so long. In the end, the map hacks made me quit too...that and the cheap rush tatics some people used (see the SCV, marine rush posted).
You could have easily switched to a PvE server instead of playing on a PvP server. The information you posted is misleading since you can play without having to deal with the nuisance of opposing faction players. In PvE servers, no player can attack you unless you enable Player versus Player. You could be in the heart of the orc home lands as a human and not worry about being injured in a PvE server.