And like every DRM scheme before it, this stops piracy... how exactly?
The people buying the games are choosing to do so. It's best not to cripple the game to the point that the pirate version is inherently superior to the one that costs money.
Which is honestly quite strange, because most games I know require you have the latest uber-$500 graphics card to run properly. I would argue that there is something else involved (eye candy important, multi-core not) in the design process.
This is completely false and has been for years. Most games released today run perfectly well on $200 cards from two years ago. The trend to cross platform games has made it a requirement that things can run on the 360, which has largely frozen PC system requirements. Hell, my wife runs with no problem on a 9800GT, which is a relic by the standard you're trying to use, and it works just fine.
There's less thread support because threads are complicated to use correctly in a game, and game developers didn't all stampede into it. Some games have used threads for a while, World of Warcraft is capable of using all four cores on an i7 (whereas Sins of a Solar Empire is effectively a single threaded game, that's just how it was designed).
It's an increasing trend, more and more games are using multithreading effectively all the time.
Or are they using Zamboni in place of "ice resurfacer" like Kleenex and Frisbee?
'Zamboni' is the common name for an ice resurfacer. Particularly in Canada, that is what almost everybody calls them. People not in the know don't even realize that it's a brand name.
Yeah, seriously. The board makers don't take this problem as seriously as they should. The GTX 260 I have now barely fit in my case, and I only got that because the ATI card I wanted outright wouldn't fit.
It doesn't matter how good the card is if nobody has a case capable of actually holding it.
I guess the issue here is how big is the "casual" market on the 360? The Wii does pretty good in that space, how many of those people are going to buy a 360 and the Natal addon?
I mean in theory Natal should be able to do anything the Wii can, only do it with most of the power of the 360 behind it, which could be pretty awesome for some types of games. I'm just not that convinced the actual market of 360 customers is all that interested, or that the "casual" market of Wii users is going to pick up a 360.
Hopefully MS is commited a serious advertising budget to reach those people.
I didn't think of that. If they stick with it long enough, that makes sense. Peripherals often don't do very well on consoles though, so what if it doesn't sell well on the 360 and MS just gives up on it?
With word coming out that they removed Natal's processor and it'll now use anywhere from 10% to 33% of the 360's own processing power, just how good will the games be? There's going to be a price in what developers can you do when you chop that much CPU time out of the system compared to a standard game.
I dunno, I like the idea, but it seems like something Microsoft should bundle with their next system and not tack on to the 360.
Nah, Windows 7 is more like a point release. 6.1 if you will to Vista's 6.0. They had to give it a new name because "Vista" became marketing poison. But that's why 7 has done pretty well out of the gate stability wise, it's not really a new OS at all. It's a refined version of the last one.
When I graduated CS, 75% of the students graduating were male. The CS program has all kinds of incentives, grants, scholarships, programs, and other things to try and get more female students. They consider it a "problem" that needs fixing that its slanted.
Right in front of me was the nursing graduates. 97% female. They have no such programs for males, and nobody considers this a "problem". They consider it a choice of men to not go into nursing.
Oddly, nobody questions that, while people constantly question women in CS. Go around ask them. I work with lots of women all the time, none of them want to be programmers. They're doing what they actually want to do, which is something else.
This isn't a real problem. This is stats not lining up in a way some people think they should, so they create a problem out of it.
You have no idea. People who say this is the worst TV ever made are NOT exaggerating.
You can't deliberately make something this bad. I don't think you can even accidentally do it again. This is a once in a civilization mass failure that transcends ordinary failure and sets a new standard.
Yeah, seriously. It even says so clearly on the page:
"The What's Your Type? program is a recruitment program with information provided for the participants' enjoyment. You should seek medical supervision for all matters regarding your health."
Honestly getting cards to fit has been a problem for a while, and this is just a worse then usual example. I'm glad they are bringing it up. My GTX 260 barely fits in my case, and it's not exactly a small case.
The board manufacturers seem to have lost touch with people who want hardware that can actually be installed without requiring substantial case modification.
Re:Evolutionary Prototyping
on
Becoming Agile
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· Score: 1
Yeah, this is the only type of approach that really works at my job. Most of the time the system owners and end users don't *know* what they really want at the start. They have a vague idea of a few things, and thats it. Trying to develop detailed specs has never worked out based on that, they agree to anything you put under their nose then in 6 months realize its all wrong.
Instead, start building based on what you do know. Refine that. Get a lot of feedback. People may not know what they want, but they know what they don't like.
At the end of the day, we've found that people are much happier with systems devleoped this way then ones done using a waterfall method. So it works well for us. YMMV.
Well that wouldn't be anything new. In the past Intel licensed out x86 not particularly because they wanted to, but to deny a license to AMD and force it out of the market would bring the DOJ down on them like a ton of bricks.
So this is a good deal for both of them. They get x86-64 licenses renewed and keep a competitor around which they need for regulatory reasons. AMD gets a cash infusion that it seriously needs and its x86 licenses renewed.
Wait... so you bought an iPhone despite not liking the terms and conditions that you agreed to when buying the iPhone? So you go out and pirate some independent developers game as a means of getting back at Apple for those terms that you voluntarily agreed to... and this somehow makes you not a pirate?
This is quite possibly the dumbest explanation for piracy I've ever heard.
"Just evil" is the first thing I thought as soon as I saw the headline too. So its easy to see how it could be posted twice so fast.:)
Activision is the shining example right now of everything wrong with publishers. "Evil" definitely applies to them. "Necessary"? Not so much. Most of what a publisher does is try to take stranglehold control over things they didn't actually create, to profit from somebody elses work, and to run franchises into the ground in the name of short term gain.
In this day and age, we can get along without them just fine.
The adaptation in Oblivion was terrible. When I first played it, I had no idea it would do that. So I'm in some crypt smaking around thieves. Hey I can level. So I do.
Suddenly these thieves I had been beating got levelled up as well as new gear (which I didn't), and they beat the snot out of me. That was such a WTF moment that I never played the game again.
Its telling that Oblivion's most popular ones are rebalancing mods that either change or scrap the adaptation entirely.
Because Apple is a big corporation primarly interested in making money. Getting $10000 in design fees is a handy way of making $10000 more then if they just let you put it up for free.
Slashdot Mirror
And like every DRM scheme before it, this stops piracy... how exactly?
The people buying the games are choosing to do so. It's best not to cripple the game to the point that the pirate version is inherently superior to the one that costs money.
Which is honestly quite strange, because most games I know require you have the latest uber-$500 graphics card to run properly. I would argue that there is something else involved (eye candy important, multi-core not) in the design process.
This is completely false and has been for years. Most games released today run perfectly well on $200 cards from two years ago. The trend to cross platform games has made it a requirement that things can run on the 360, which has largely frozen PC system requirements. Hell, my wife runs with no problem on a 9800GT, which is a relic by the standard you're trying to use, and it works just fine. There's less thread support because threads are complicated to use correctly in a game, and game developers didn't all stampede into it. Some games have used threads for a while, World of Warcraft is capable of using all four cores on an i7 (whereas Sins of a Solar Empire is effectively a single threaded game, that's just how it was designed). It's an increasing trend, more and more games are using multithreading effectively all the time.
Or are they using Zamboni in place of "ice resurfacer" like Kleenex and Frisbee?
'Zamboni' is the common name for an ice resurfacer. Particularly in Canada, that is what almost everybody calls them. People not in the know don't even realize that it's a brand name.
35 customers paying $5 a week? Why, that's going to make a profit in 439 years! It's long term investing, people!
This same issue has already been raised three times in this same post.
It'd be neat if people actually read a few comments.
Meet the new government. It's the old one, with different colored lawn signs.
Because blue is a change over red.
Yeah, seriously. The board makers don't take this problem as seriously as they should. The GTX 260 I have now barely fit in my case, and I only got that because the ATI card I wanted outright wouldn't fit.
It doesn't matter how good the card is if nobody has a case capable of actually holding it.
I guess the issue here is how big is the "casual" market on the 360? The Wii does pretty good in that space, how many of those people are going to buy a 360 and the Natal addon?
I mean in theory Natal should be able to do anything the Wii can, only do it with most of the power of the 360 behind it, which could be pretty awesome for some types of games. I'm just not that convinced the actual market of 360 customers is all that interested, or that the "casual" market of Wii users is going to pick up a 360.
Hopefully MS is commited a serious advertising budget to reach those people.
I didn't think of that. If they stick with it long enough, that makes sense. Peripherals often don't do very well on consoles though, so what if it doesn't sell well on the 360 and MS just gives up on it?
With word coming out that they removed Natal's processor and it'll now use anywhere from 10% to 33% of the 360's own processing power, just how good will the games be? There's going to be a price in what developers can you do when you chop that much CPU time out of the system compared to a standard game.
I dunno, I like the idea, but it seems like something Microsoft should bundle with their next system and not tack on to the 360.
Nah, Windows 7 is more like a point release. 6.1 if you will to Vista's 6.0. They had to give it a new name because "Vista" became marketing poison. But that's why 7 has done pretty well out of the gate stability wise, it's not really a new OS at all. It's a refined version of the last one.
From what I've read, that was due to executives interfering in the process because they wanted more villians. Raimi didn't.
Similar problems this time, only with more interference.
If it works or not is a minor detail. It creates more security theatre, is incredibly invasive, and no doubt costs a fortune.
Those are the three things the security bureaucracy cares about. Actual security is kind of a side thing that's nice if you achieve it.
When I graduated CS, 75% of the students graduating were male. The CS program has all kinds of incentives, grants, scholarships, programs, and other things to try and get more female students. They consider it a "problem" that needs fixing that its slanted.
Right in front of me was the nursing graduates. 97% female. They have no such programs for males, and nobody considers this a "problem". They consider it a choice of men to not go into nursing.
Oddly, nobody questions that, while people constantly question women in CS. Go around ask them. I work with lots of women all the time, none of them want to be programmers. They're doing what they actually want to do, which is something else.
This isn't a real problem. This is stats not lining up in a way some people think they should, so they create a problem out of it.
You have no idea. People who say this is the worst TV ever made are NOT exaggerating.
You can't deliberately make something this bad. I don't think you can even accidentally do it again. This is a once in a civilization mass failure that transcends ordinary failure and sets a new standard.
Yeah, seriously. It even says so clearly on the page:
"The What's Your Type? program is a recruitment program with information provided for the participants' enjoyment. You should seek medical supervision for all matters regarding your health."
Gogo stupidity in idle?
Honestly getting cards to fit has been a problem for a while, and this is just a worse then usual example. I'm glad they are bringing it up. My GTX 260 barely fits in my case, and it's not exactly a small case.
The board manufacturers seem to have lost touch with people who want hardware that can actually be installed without requiring substantial case modification.
Yeah, this is the only type of approach that really works at my job. Most of the time the system owners and end users don't *know* what they really want at the start. They have a vague idea of a few things, and thats it. Trying to develop detailed specs has never worked out based on that, they agree to anything you put under their nose then in 6 months realize its all wrong.
Instead, start building based on what you do know. Refine that. Get a lot of feedback. People may not know what they want, but they know what they don't like.
At the end of the day, we've found that people are much happier with systems devleoped this way then ones done using a waterfall method. So it works well for us. YMMV.
Well that wouldn't be anything new. In the past Intel licensed out x86 not particularly because they wanted to, but to deny a license to AMD and force it out of the market would bring the DOJ down on them like a ton of bricks.
So this is a good deal for both of them. They get x86-64 licenses renewed and keep a competitor around which they need for regulatory reasons. AMD gets a cash infusion that it seriously needs and its x86 licenses renewed.
Wait... so you bought an iPhone despite not liking the terms and conditions that you agreed to when buying the iPhone? So you go out and pirate some independent developers game as a means of getting back at Apple for those terms that you voluntarily agreed to... and this somehow makes you not a pirate?
This is quite possibly the dumbest explanation for piracy I've ever heard.
TFA is about a small company and a $2 game.
Try again.
"Just evil" is the first thing I thought as soon as I saw the headline too. So its easy to see how it could be posted twice so fast. :)
Activision is the shining example right now of everything wrong with publishers. "Evil" definitely applies to them. "Necessary"? Not so much. Most of what a publisher does is try to take stranglehold control over things they didn't actually create, to profit from somebody elses work, and to run franchises into the ground in the name of short term gain.
In this day and age, we can get along without them just fine.
The adaptation in Oblivion was terrible. When I first played it, I had no idea it would do that. So I'm in some crypt smaking around thieves. Hey I can level. So I do.
Suddenly these thieves I had been beating got levelled up as well as new gear (which I didn't), and they beat the snot out of me. That was such a WTF moment that I never played the game again.
Its telling that Oblivion's most popular ones are rebalancing mods that either change or scrap the adaptation entirely.
Because Apple is a big corporation primarly interested in making money. Getting $10000 in design fees is a handy way of making $10000 more then if they just let you put it up for free.
No, they work fine after the conversion.