Reading the press release, it has a lot of doubletalk and (IMHO) never actually denies that the material was included. TFA just makes it sound like eeeeevil hackers went to a lot of trouble on their own.
How hard would it have been to explicitly say "This wasn't in the game, and all of it is user-created material"? (Making the assumption that the sex minigame wasn't just commented out).
You raise a lot of good points, but I'd like to mention that backing up media files offsite isn't a bad idea.
Homeowners and renters insurance may limit how much they'll pay to replace lost media. Even then, you have to contend with finding the media: CDs go out of print, Disney stops selling certain movies for a time... even the companies themselves go out of business. (I've got CDs from labels that don't exist anymore, and were never re-released.)
I don't think you meant it that way, but talk about condemning FOSS software as only being worthwhile since it's initial price is low. Even worse, those low-budget companies have less ability to avoid vendor lock-in, since they would lack the resources for a conversion.
FOSS shouldn't be relegated to "bargain bin" software. It should appeal based on quality, TCO, and/or political reasons.
I'd like to know where you're getting your CFL bulbs. The only ones I've seen use 1/3 - 1/4 the wattage of a standard incandescent. The brighter bulbs are more efficient, but even then the CFLs may not have the same lumen rating as an "equivalent" incandescent.
And you get what you pay for. The GE CFLs I bought start quickly, have a decent color rendition, and are bright. The generics I purchased are dim, take up to two minutes to brighten fully, and the quality of light is poor.
"Question 4: Why announce this chip swap a year before it will even begin for customers? For developers... ?"
I can think of a few other possibilities:
1. Parts issue. Either something is thought to be defective (liquid-cooling systems?), or the CPUs are in short supply. Steve solves the issue by making the announcement, and everyone holds off.
2. Letting the shock wear off. All of the fanboys are buzzing right now over an announcement and demo. Objectivity would be hard to find if production units available now.
3. Money. Apple has the iTunes and iPod revenues to keep revenue coming in, and a large cash supply as well. That's not going to change in the short term, and not change drastically in a year.
If it's true... they'd be foolish not to use only 64-bit processors (maybe dual-cores only). Then again, some site reported that Intel was adding DRM to their CPUs and chipsets.
I usually look at the negative comments in reviews, and look at why people complain. If it's a problem I can overlook or ignore, then I don't factor it in.
Unfortunately, that won't work; all of their computers do duty as game machines. And knowing my friends, the Linux install would never get used: they'd view rebooting as an inconvenience, despite having to do the same thing to their XBox to switch games...
Linux is cheaper and more secure than Windows. If governments (at the national or local level) adopt Linux or other FOSS packages (OpenOffice.org, etc) any contractors may be dragged along. Firefox and Mozilla have gained popularity because they're not only more secure than the browser that comes pre-installed, but they have more features.
Likewise, government regulations may make Linux installations preferable. To bring up a previous "Ask Slashdot", securely wiping a hard drive isn't as problematic when the filesystem has been encrypted as the OS level.
The more MS tightens its licensing fist, the more people slip away. Just recently a friend of mine was disappointed that Windows XP on her new computer couldn't be copied to all of her family's PCs (the way Win98 and Win2K were). If not for having certain needs -- her kids being able to run games out of the box -- I may have had a convert.
I've had a number of outages where the cable modem just "goes offline" for 10-15 minutes or so. Calling tech support results in a recorded message of problems in the area, or a warm body saying "they're working on it." More than once I've had to drop and restart my ethernet connection to renew the DHCP lease... sometimes after a week of uptime, sometimes after a day.
This week Comcast's DNS servers were unavailable. I wouldn't even be online if not for AlterNIC DNS servers.
TV service (expanded cable with no pay channels) has been fairly solid, and is up when the data service has been down. Bandwidth in the area has been increased with no increase in cost (although it's still not back to the "uncapped" @Home days).
I've seen companies that go to both extremes. As other posters have said, branded PCs make a lot of sense for larger companies in the US.
One small place I worked at was notoriously penny-pinching, and bought assembled PCs from the cheapest dealer they could. There were constant problems with differences in hardware, driver support, etc to the point that the systems could barely use the same image, and each PC had its own set of driver CDs. The PCs even came with a warning sticker along the lines of "Individual components are tested, system not tested as a whole".
In the short term, the company saved money. Once you figure in support, better-performing systems could have been purchased from a "name brand" for a similar cost.
Live CDs like Knoppix would be good to mirror. At 100-700 MB each, the extra bandwidth would help everyone. If in doubt, the Distrowatch rankings aren't a bad place to start.
I hate to be a party pooper, but if you work at a bigger company you should check with someone first: either Human Resources or Maintenance.
One large company I was with had very specific rules about what could and could not be kept in the office. While it seemed really petty and controlling on the surface, I was told that problems with insect infestation (especially ants) and allergy-causing plants were the reason.
Or you could always get a silk flower, and impress the ladies with your gardening skill. Just remember to dust it every week or so.;)
RPGs are meant to be played -- I've seen some really dry text "come alive" when it's actually used. And I've seen wonderful writing, background, and rules wasted in poor gaming sessions.
What you're doing is watching football (soccer for us Americans), and not understanding why the players don't just pick up the ball.
"None of those things had any impact on us. We knew that TSR wasn't calling them "Devils" or "Demons" any more because they were scared of the parents. That didn't change the way we played the game."
Demons and devils weren't reintroduced until Monstrous Compendium #8, a couple of years after 2E was published. (Unlike 1st and 3rd edition, where they were included from the get-go.) So that little bit of self-censorship did hurt the early adopters.
"# The second edition PHB was published in 1989. # The world wide web came into existence in 1992. # I got a copy of Netscape for my Power Mac in 1995...
My point was that if the web as it exists today had been around then, I would have been able to share the rule expansions that my group had developed with millions of people around the world."
If the WWW had existed back then, lots of things would be very different. And it's too bad you didn't have the initiative to self-publish a fanzine. They weren't glamourous by today's standards, but they did spread the word to offline folks.
BTW, there were plenty of people online. Government, military, college students, faculty, and (IIRC) telecom folks had Internet access. But I guess that doesn't count, since you weren't there to grace us with your 18 wisdom. [/sarcasm]
"It seems like a lot of old school D&D players share this sentiment that the AD&D 2E ruined the game with all its extra rules and complexity."
Second Edition was successful in several respects -- it was very compatible with First Edition, but it also streamlined the rules. For instance, THAC0 was unwieldy, but better than the charts in the 1e DMG. 2E expanded nicely on First Edition's rules (specialist wizards, clerical domains, non-weapon skills)
Second edition failed in three big ways. Political correctness neutered the game; the terms "demons" and "devils" couldn't be used, assassins were gone, and "evil" wasn't an option any more. Because the core system was clunky, later expansions didn't work as well as they do with D20 games. Finally, TSR's production values slipped so badly in the end that page margins and font sizes became an online joke.
(And TSR's Internet presence and policies didn't help either!)
"In hindsight it would have been nice to have had a forum like the internet..."
The Internet was around back then. I was in college shortly after 2E was released, and was on several mailing lists. Usenet was a good resource back too.
"Can the Open Source community ever accept closed source paid programming?"
While I can't speak for the community, I paid $40 to CodeWeavers for CrossOver Office. Considering how well it works, I have no regrets spending the cash. And I use OpenOffice almost all the time -- I just have some spreadsheets that only work in Excel. (The latest versions of Gnumeric, Kspread, and OpenOffice Calc fail to work properly)
Instead of porting games, Apple should take a page from the early days of 3D cards. IIRC, 3DFX paid developers to include GLIDE support in games. The fact that GLIDE was better than the existing version of DirectX (2 or 3?) made a good deal that much better.
If Apple made some tools to help keep games cross-platform, and paid a "promotional" fee, it would work out much better than trying to port already-completed games.
Hell, if Apple wanted to make Macs a serious player, they would arrange for the Macintosh version of games to be released first, if not simultaneously.
If you hadn't included your last sentenance, then you would have had a valid point and been informative. Unfortunately, now, it's sounds just like one big put down.
You left off the smiley. Changes the context, IMHO.:)
Besides... in my opinion, a lot of the reasons people have for not wanting to compile packages are "uninformed" at best, and "bogus" at worst. I've had people say they switched because 2-3 minute compile times (measured on my "old" system) would take too long on their cutting edge boxes. Or that they don't want to compromise desktop performance. Or that they don't have the free CPU cycles, thanks to Seti@home or other distributed packages.
I've actually played Unreal Tournament with a compile running in the background. There weren't any framerate problems, and I didn't even realize I had done it until after I'd quit the game. (The compile hadn't progressed, but once I exitted UT it picked right back up.)
Disclaimer: I'm a Gentoo fan, and have been running it since the 1.1 release.
The main thing that sets people off is the lack of instant gratification. You can't just download an RPM or apt-get and have a program working instantly. Most of these people don't understand (or don't want to understand) that compiles can run in the background at a low priority -- even for things you're running (X, KDE, Mozilla, etc). Most programs compile in a couple of minutes.
It's really annoying to see people with decently powerful hardware complaining about compile times. I guess their versions of *nix don't have the ability to set priorities with "nice".:)
I paid $500 for a Nomad Jukebox (6 GB, USB 1.1, MP3 and WAV only, and heavy) back in 2000. While I could have waited for prices to come down, I really wanted something capable of storing all my music for a cross-country drive.
Considering that since purchasing the Nomad, I use it on almost every drive, and sometimes during the day (either with headphones or hooked to my stereo), it's made up for its price.
The moral of the story: $600 is a lot for a toy that doesn't get used. $600 is not a lot of money for something that'll be used 10+ hours a week -- especially if it replaces other equipment (CD changer, etc)
WotC's stores could have really helped push RPGs toward the mainstream. They had great locations, yuppie-friendly decor, large floorplans, etc.
Instead, they put all the RPGs in the back corner, which was sometimes out of view of the entrance. In the early days, computer games (and computers to play them on!) had more shelf space than WotC's own products. Pretty much everyone I knew said the stores were thought up by designers who "just didn't get it".
The closure of WotC's stores (combined with dropping all other games a couple years earlier) probably set gaming back 5-10 years. A lot of stores either closed or stopped carrying RPGs because of WotC.
I'd rather see them use the Icewind Dale 2 engine. Not only is it the final incarnation of the Infinity Engine (with the latest features), it also supports D&D 3rd edition rules. A lot of P:T's clunkiness involved in levelling and skills would be handled much more gracefully.
Still, I am _very_ much looking forward to see what the team produces.
Slashdot Mirror
Reading the press release, it has a lot of doubletalk and (IMHO) never actually denies that the material was included. TFA just makes it sound like eeeeevil hackers went to a lot of trouble on their own.
How hard would it have been to explicitly say "This wasn't in the game, and all of it is user-created material"? (Making the assumption that the sex minigame wasn't just commented out).
You raise a lot of good points, but I'd like to mention that backing up media files offsite isn't a bad idea.
:)
Homeowners and renters insurance may limit how much they'll pay to replace lost media. Even then, you have to contend with finding the media: CDs go out of print, Disney stops selling certain movies for a time... even the companies themselves go out of business. (I've got CDs from labels that don't exist anymore, and were never re-released.)
It's all a matter of priorities.
I don't think you meant it that way, but talk about condemning FOSS software as only being worthwhile since it's initial price is low. Even worse, those low-budget companies have less ability to avoid vendor lock-in, since they would lack the resources for a conversion.
FOSS shouldn't be relegated to "bargain bin" software. It should appeal based on quality, TCO, and/or political reasons.
I'd still like to know the brand that uses 87% less electricity than incandescents. Otherwise I'm calling BS -- none of the CFLs are that efficient.
I'd like to know where you're getting your CFL bulbs. The only ones I've seen use 1/3 - 1/4 the wattage of a standard incandescent. The brighter bulbs are more efficient, but even then the CFLs may not have the same lumen rating as an "equivalent" incandescent.
And you get what you pay for. The GE CFLs I bought start quickly, have a decent color rendition, and are bright. The generics I purchased are dim, take up to two minutes to brighten fully, and the quality of light is poor.
"Question 4: Why announce this chip swap a year before it will even begin for customers?
For developers... ?"
I can think of a few other possibilities:
1. Parts issue. Either something is thought to be defective (liquid-cooling systems?), or the CPUs are in short supply. Steve solves the issue by making the announcement, and everyone holds off.
2. Letting the shock wear off. All of the fanboys are buzzing right now over an announcement and demo. Objectivity would be hard to find if production units available now.
3. Money. Apple has the iTunes and iPod revenues to keep revenue coming in, and a large cash supply as well. That's not going to change in the short term, and not change drastically in a year.
If it's true... they'd be foolish not to use only 64-bit processors (maybe dual-cores only). Then again, some site reported that Intel was adding DRM to their CPUs and chipsets.
Maybe the DRM was the clincher for Apple.
I usually look at the negative comments in reviews, and look at why people complain. If it's a problem I can overlook or ignore, then I don't factor it in.
Unfortunately, that won't work; all of their computers do duty as game machines. And knowing my friends, the Linux install would never get used: they'd view rebooting as an inconvenience, despite having to do the same thing to their XBox to switch games...
Linux is cheaper and more secure than Windows. If governments (at the national or local level) adopt Linux or other FOSS packages (OpenOffice.org, etc) any contractors may be dragged along. Firefox and Mozilla have gained popularity because they're not only more secure than the browser that comes pre-installed, but they have more features.
Likewise, government regulations may make Linux installations preferable. To bring up a previous "Ask Slashdot", securely wiping a hard drive isn't as problematic when the filesystem has been encrypted as the OS level.
The more MS tightens its licensing fist, the more people slip away. Just recently a friend of mine was disappointed that Windows XP on her new computer couldn't be copied to all of her family's PCs (the way Win98 and Win2K were). If not for having certain needs -- her kids being able to run games out of the box -- I may have had a convert.
I've had a number of outages where the cable modem just "goes offline" for 10-15 minutes or so. Calling tech support results in a recorded message of problems in the area, or a warm body saying "they're working on it." More than once I've had to drop and restart my ethernet connection to renew the DHCP lease... sometimes after a week of uptime, sometimes after a day.
This week Comcast's DNS servers were unavailable. I wouldn't even be online if not for AlterNIC DNS servers.
TV service (expanded cable with no pay channels) has been fairly solid, and is up when the data service has been down. Bandwidth in the area has been increased with no increase in cost (although it's still not back to the "uncapped" @Home days).
I've seen companies that go to both extremes. As other posters have said, branded PCs make a lot of sense for larger companies in the US.
One small place I worked at was notoriously penny-pinching, and bought assembled PCs from the cheapest dealer they could. There were constant problems with differences in hardware, driver support, etc to the point that the systems could barely use the same image, and each PC had its own set of driver CDs. The PCs even came with a warning sticker along the lines of "Individual components are tested, system not tested as a whole".
In the short term, the company saved money. Once you figure in support, better-performing systems could have been purchased from a "name brand" for a similar cost.
Live CDs like Knoppix would be good to mirror. At 100-700 MB each, the extra bandwidth would help everyone. If in doubt, the Distrowatch rankings aren't a bad place to start.
I hate to be a party pooper, but if you work at a bigger company you should check with someone first: either Human Resources or Maintenance.
;)
One large company I was with had very specific rules about what could and could not be kept in the office. While it seemed really petty and controlling on the surface, I was told that problems with insect infestation (especially ants) and allergy-causing plants were the reason.
Or you could always get a silk flower, and impress the ladies with your gardening skill. Just remember to dust it every week or so.
RPGs are meant to be played -- I've seen some really dry text "come alive" when it's actually used. And I've seen wonderful writing, background, and rules wasted in poor gaming sessions.
What you're doing is watching football (soccer for us Americans), and not understanding why the players don't just pick up the ball.
"None of those things had any impact on us. We knew that TSR wasn't calling them "Devils" or "Demons" any more because they were scared of the parents. That didn't change the way we played the game."
Demons and devils weren't reintroduced until Monstrous Compendium #8, a couple of years after 2E was published. (Unlike 1st and 3rd edition, where they were included from the get-go.) So that little bit of self-censorship did hurt the early adopters.
"# The second edition PHB was published in 1989.
# The world wide web came into existence in 1992.
# I got a copy of Netscape for my Power Mac in 1995...
My point was that if the web as it exists today had been around then, I would have been able to share the rule expansions that my group had developed with millions of people around the world."
If the WWW had existed back then, lots of things would be very different. And it's too bad you didn't have the initiative to self-publish a fanzine. They weren't glamourous by today's standards, but they did spread the word to offline folks.
BTW, there were plenty of people online. Government, military, college students, faculty, and (IIRC) telecom folks had Internet access. But I guess that doesn't count, since you weren't there to grace us with your 18 wisdom. [/sarcasm]
"It seems like a lot of old school D&D players share this sentiment that the AD&D 2E ruined the game with all its extra rules and complexity."
Second Edition was successful in several respects -- it was very compatible with First Edition, but it also streamlined the rules. For instance, THAC0 was unwieldy, but better than the charts in the 1e DMG. 2E expanded nicely on First Edition's rules (specialist wizards, clerical domains, non-weapon skills)
Second edition failed in three big ways. Political correctness neutered the game; the terms "demons" and "devils" couldn't be used, assassins were gone, and "evil" wasn't an option any more. Because the core system was clunky, later expansions didn't work as well as they do with D20 games. Finally, TSR's production values slipped so badly in the end that page margins and font sizes became an online joke.
(And TSR's Internet presence and policies didn't help either!)
"In hindsight it would have been nice to have had a forum like the internet..."
The Internet was around back then. I was in college shortly after 2E was released, and was on several mailing lists. Usenet was a good resource back too.
You also need to restrict local access. Joe User can just download infected files on his home PC and installs them with a floppy or CDR sneakernet.
"Can the Open Source community ever accept closed source paid programming?"
While I can't speak for the community, I paid $40 to CodeWeavers for CrossOver Office. Considering how well it works, I have no regrets spending the cash. And I use OpenOffice almost all the time -- I just have some spreadsheets that only work in Excel. (The latest versions of Gnumeric, Kspread, and OpenOffice Calc fail to work properly)
(I know, somewhat offtopic...)
Instead of porting games, Apple should take a page from the early days of 3D cards. IIRC, 3DFX paid developers to include GLIDE support in games. The fact that GLIDE was better than the existing version of DirectX (2 or 3?) made a good deal that much better.
If Apple made some tools to help keep games cross-platform, and paid a "promotional" fee, it would work out much better than trying to port already-completed games.
Hell, if Apple wanted to make Macs a serious player, they would arrange for the Macintosh version of games to be released first, if not simultaneously.
If you hadn't included your last sentenance, then you would have had a valid point and been informative. Unfortunately, now, it's sounds just like one big put down.
:)
You left off the smiley. Changes the context, IMHO.
Besides... in my opinion, a lot of the reasons people have for not wanting to compile packages are "uninformed" at best, and "bogus" at worst. I've had people say they switched because 2-3 minute compile times (measured on my "old" system) would take too long on their cutting edge boxes. Or that they don't want to compromise desktop performance. Or that they don't have the free CPU cycles, thanks to Seti@home or other distributed packages.
I've actually played Unreal Tournament with a compile running in the background. There weren't any framerate problems, and I didn't even realize I had done it until after I'd quit the game. (The compile hadn't progressed, but once I exitted UT it picked right back up.)
Disclaimer: I'm a Gentoo fan, and have been running it since the 1.1 release.
:)
The main thing that sets people off is the lack of instant gratification. You can't just download an RPM or apt-get and have a program working instantly. Most of these people don't understand (or don't want to understand) that compiles can run in the background at a low priority -- even for things you're running (X, KDE, Mozilla, etc). Most programs compile in a couple of minutes.
It's really annoying to see people with decently powerful hardware complaining about compile times. I guess their versions of *nix don't have the ability to set priorities with "nice".
I paid $500 for a Nomad Jukebox (6 GB, USB 1.1, MP3 and WAV only, and heavy) back in 2000. While I could have waited for prices to come down, I really wanted something capable of storing all my music for a cross-country drive.
Considering that since purchasing the Nomad, I use it on almost every drive, and sometimes during the day (either with headphones or hooked to my stereo), it's made up for its price.
The moral of the story: $600 is a lot for a toy that doesn't get used. $600 is not a lot of money for something that'll be used 10+ hours a week -- especially if it replaces other equipment (CD changer, etc)
WotC's stores could have really helped push RPGs toward the mainstream. They had great locations, yuppie-friendly decor, large floorplans, etc.
Instead, they put all the RPGs in the back corner, which was sometimes out of view of the entrance. In the early days, computer games (and computers to play them on!) had more shelf space than WotC's own products. Pretty much everyone I knew said the stores were thought up by designers who "just didn't get it".
The closure of WotC's stores (combined with dropping all other games a couple years earlier) probably set gaming back 5-10 years. A lot of stores either closed or stopped carrying RPGs because of WotC.
I'd rather see them use the Icewind Dale 2 engine. Not only is it the final incarnation of the Infinity Engine (with the latest features), it also supports D&D 3rd edition rules. A lot of P:T's clunkiness involved in levelling and skills would be handled much more gracefully.
Still, I am _very_ much looking forward to see what the team produces.