Bungie is one of the few great gaming companies out there, despite now being owned by Microsoft. Bungie, much like id and Blizzard, care what people think about their games. They are not in it solely to make money. I've been a big fan of Bungie since I was a beta tester for Myth, and I'm still a fan of them today.
Second, any first year economy major can tell you that repeat customers are worth more than one-shot customers. People that enjoy a game and keep playing it are more likely to come back and purchase its sequel. If you create your product correctly, repeat customers shouldn't be a problem, and those are the ones that cost less (in advertising, promoting, etc.)
I think a perfect example of how vital mods are to a game is to look at Halo on the Xbox. I've been playing it for months, but it's starting to feel a little long in the tooth. Being accustomed to games like Unreal Tourney and Quake I/II/III, where there are literally thousands of add-on maps, characters, etc. online for the taking, I'm used to adding stuff to my games, keeping them forever fresh. Since Halo isn't (officially) online yet, there's no way to add mods or functionality. My use of Halo has started to taper off, while I still play Unreal Tourney pretty regularly. Not bad for a game I've had for over 2 years.
Are you telling me that wireless devices advertised as inexpensive and aimed at home consumers don't have super-secure encryption built in?? I am shocked and amazed! I mean, If I'm paying 50 bucks for a wireless color video camera, I'd expect some government-level security on those things!!
Next thing you tell me, it will be easy to eavesdrop on cordless phones and walkie-talkies!!
Why is it ludicrous? Microsoft is one of the biggest companies in the world, and they have shown in the past that they will stop at nothing to win. If MS wants to rule the console market, they will rule the console market. There's no stopping the 900 lb gorilla, even if they are up against another gorilla (Sony).
It doesn't matter right now. Look at MS's track record. When have they ever succeeded with a 1.0 release? MS has the resources, budget, and tenacity to stay out there and slowly eat up the market share until it eventually comes out on top.
It always takes Microsoft until at least version 3 of its products to work all the kinks out, as well as learn how to crush the competition (legality be damned). By the time Xbox 3.0 comes out, MS will either be at the top of the console heap or very close to it.
Regardless of your opinion of Blizzard and their actions, I really don't appreciate the negative, biased tone of this article. Not only do you slam every one of Blizzard's claims, but you go on to suggest purchasing different (non-Win2K compliant) software because of Bungie's behavoir.
A commentary is one thing. A news article is quite another. I think a much better practice would have been to post the news article in a non-biased form first, and then follow up with your opinions in the comments section. At least that way, myself and the rest of the unwashed masses would be able to form our own opinions first, rather than having it shoved down our throats.
Posting in the manner that you did only takes away from Slashdot's credibility as a news source, and makes it look like every other "big-companies-is-bad!" website out there.
Go disable ACPI in your BIOS, re-install Windows, and tell me what happens. Your machine will not power off upon shutdown. APM is generally a subset of ACPI in most motherboards.
First, this is totally insane - no ACPI? This means that I'm greeted by "it is now safe to shut down your computer" every time I tell Windows to shut down? Talk about circa '97. I absolutely refuse to use any PC that doesn't support ACPI in this day and age.
And second, don't totally blame Dragon for this. Win XP wreaks havoc with motherboards, IRqs, etc. It's almost as bad as the old Dos days, but at least back then, with ISA and Win95, we had more of a fighting chance via trial and error.
Case in point: I have an Epox 8KHA motherboard. Works great with Win2K. I added a second partition and installed XP. Once I installed the drivers for my Geforce2 card (from Windows Update, no less), WHAM! Blue Screen of Death. After hours of flashing my BIOS, and trying other drivers (both WHQL and Nvidia beta), I gave up and went back to 2K. I don't know what the hell MS did, but it sure screwed me up.
Quote: "Considering it's setting -- Las Vegas -- and it's subject matter..."
I hate it when people spell the word 'its' wrong! Especially people that claim to be smart, like Katz here. Look... if the word is posessive, there is no apostrophe!! How hard is it to remember that?
Sorry for the rant... that shit just bothers me...
Dell has cooled its laptops via water for at least a year now. Take apart any Latitude or Inspiron over 800MHZ and look at the small copper pipes that sit in front of the cooling fan. Those pipes circulate water over the CPU, helping to cool it.
I had a rip of the live action pilot (which ended up being the first episode) on my PC for over a year before the show actually made it to Fox. That alone should say that the TV executives didn't know what the hell to do with the show. Perhaps Comedy Central will be wise enough to purchase the rights and market the show the way it's supposed to be?
For the record, they listed the MGS-based action figures as dangerous, not the game itself. This was due to the fact that the figures were recommended for ages 5 and up.
Ars Technica implemented a "rewards for subscribers" service similar to the one you mention. It seems to work pretty well for them. Hell, they even got my subscription, and I'm a cheap bastard!
I've got a Samsung N2000 DVD player. The deck is great - user friendly controls, nice quality, and it only cost in the range of $200 US. It came with a game controller and some sample games, as well. I actually wanted the Nuon proc because if its enhanced DVD capabilities (viewing a DVD at 2x is much smoother than my expensive Sony deck that broke after 8 months), but I thought the games were a nice bonus. That is, until I played them. The included sample games are horrible - gaudy colors, and terrible gameplay - but maybe with this development that will all change. It would be nice to see somebody port a NES or SNES emulator to this platform. I could conceivably stick in a CD with every NES game known to man on it and play Excitebike till my thumbs fall off!
One other warning - the N2000 is a successor to the N501 player. Since the N501 could handle CD-Rs, I assumed that the N2000 could as well. I was wrong. CD-Rs aren't recognized at all, and VCDs burned onto CD-RWs will display "VCD" on the display, but they won't play. Buyer beware.
Hopefully this isn't too oftopic - I thought it was informative enough for the current discussion...
I just came across this on Yahoo... looks like Sony's new Handicams will have Bluetooth chips built in:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010820/tc/tech _s ony_handycam_dc_1.html
Comparing Bluetooth to Wi-Fi is a little unfair. Bluetooth is meant to go small distances, not the ~100 feet Wi-Fi is capable of. It's better to compare Bluetooth to infrared - both are intended for short distances, and less permanent data sharing. Infrared is so rarely used that most people forget it's even there, but it would be nice if Bluetooth could change that.
It was posted on Slashdot back in January, so I figured I'd point to it here. Suelette Dreyfus' book "underground" is available in its entirety online. Read the book (or download it to your palm) at this page
Ok, let's see...
-Bread, check.
-Milk, check.
-As many 3Com Audreys as I can possibly afford to put on Ebay (at triple the price) once 3Com renders them unflashable, check!
I say go with the Dell Latitude. My last two employers both made the switch to Dell Latitudes, and they are by far the best, IMHO. My last employer was previously an IBM Thinkpad shop, and we had nothing but problems - ever try to get serial, parallel, and infrared all working on a TP600 under NT? DON'T. Just burn the damn thing. The machines are a little better with Win2K, but they are still far from perfect (install Win2K on a TP 390. I dare you...).
You can do a fresh install of NT or 2K on a latitude, load up the correct drivers, and you're off and running - with Thinkpads you had to install the TP utility (it's bundled with Win2K but still barely works) and then spend FOREVER tweaking the resources to get everything to play happy.
However, if price is an issue, the Latitudes do come at a premium... they are geared for the corporate world, so they are on the pricey side. I had a Lat C600 with a PIII 750, 256MB, 10GB, and built in NIC/modem, and it cost roughly 3 grand when brand new (>6 months ago). However, Redhat 6.2 and 7.x ran flawlessly on the machine - once the 2.4 kernel came out, I didn't need to install drivers for anything on the box (unlike NT and 2K). Plus, the head of the Latitude design team previously worked on Apple's PowerBooks, so you know that they're gonna be more sexy than most other laptops, save the VAIO.
You could go with a Dell Inspiron instead, as they are cheaper, and generally have more bells and whistles than the Latitudes (I believe you can get them with Geforce video), but in my experience they just aren't as stable as the Latitude.
Just last night I looked into the possibility of running slashcode on my website. So, I read the FAQ and saw that I needed mysql installed. I instinctively went to www.mysql.org and downloaded the source. Now this morning I read this article, and I have no idea if I downloaded the 'official' mySQL or not! This is name dilution at its worst, and something needs to be done to stop confusing clueless newbies such as myself.
This seems a little unbelievable to me. A console's bread and butter has always been its games. Sony paid a fortune to obtain exclusive rights to Final Fantasy, and a recent Wired article talked about how Nintendo used to bully software designers into not developing for Sega. Cross-console games are something of a rarity these days - Sony and MS both sell their consoles at a loss, making their money from the games. I can see Sega working together with the other companies now that its console is dead, but I can't see Nintendo, MS, and Sony teaming up in this regard.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, not exactly.
Bungie is one of the few great gaming companies out there, despite now being owned by Microsoft. Bungie, much like id and Blizzard, care what people think about their games. They are not in it solely to make money. I've been a big fan of Bungie since I was a beta tester for Myth, and I'm still a fan of them today.
Second, any first year economy major can tell you that repeat customers are worth more than one-shot customers. People that enjoy a game and keep playing it are more likely to come back and purchase its sequel. If you create your product correctly, repeat customers shouldn't be a problem, and those are the ones that cost less (in advertising, promoting, etc.)
Interesting dialect, by the way.
I think a perfect example of how vital mods are to a game is to look at Halo on the Xbox. I've been playing it for months, but it's starting to feel a little long in the tooth. Being accustomed to games like Unreal Tourney and Quake I/II/III, where there are literally thousands of add-on maps, characters, etc. online for the taking, I'm used to adding stuff to my games, keeping them forever fresh.
Since Halo isn't (officially) online yet, there's no way to add mods or functionality. My use of Halo has started to taper off, while I still play Unreal Tourney pretty regularly. Not bad for a game I've had for over 2 years.
Are you telling me that wireless devices advertised as inexpensive and aimed at home consumers don't have super-secure encryption built in?? I am shocked and amazed! I mean, If I'm paying 50 bucks for a wireless color video camera, I'd expect some government-level security on those things!!
Next thing you tell me, it will be easy to eavesdrop on cordless phones and walkie-talkies!!
Why is it ludicrous? Microsoft is one of the biggest companies in the world, and they have shown in the past that they will stop at nothing to win. If MS wants to rule the console market, they will rule the console market. There's no stopping the 900 lb gorilla, even if they are up against another gorilla (Sony).
It doesn't matter right now. Look at MS's track record. When have they ever succeeded with a 1.0 release? MS has the resources, budget, and tenacity to stay out there and slowly eat up the market share until it eventually comes out on top.
It always takes Microsoft until at least version 3 of its products to work all the kinks out, as well as learn how to crush the competition (legality be damned). By the time Xbox 3.0 comes out, MS will either be at the top of the console heap or very close to it.
Err, did I say Bungie? I shoulda proofread it more than twice. I'm an ass.
Regardless of your opinion of Blizzard and their actions, I really don't appreciate the negative, biased tone of this article. Not only do you slam every one of Blizzard's claims, but you go on to suggest purchasing different (non-Win2K compliant) software because of Bungie's behavoir.
A commentary is one thing. A news article is quite another. I think a much better practice would have been to post the news article in a non-biased form first, and then follow up with your opinions in the comments section. At least that way, myself and the rest of the unwashed masses would be able to form our own opinions first, rather than having it shoved down our throats.
Posting in the manner that you did only takes away from Slashdot's credibility as a news source, and makes it look like every other "big-companies-is-bad!" website out there.
Go disable ACPI in your BIOS, re-install Windows, and tell me what happens. Your machine will not power off upon shutdown. APM is generally a subset of ACPI in most motherboards.
And don't criticize my posting style, ass.
First, this is totally insane - no ACPI? This means that I'm greeted by "it is now safe to shut down your computer" every time I tell Windows to shut down? Talk about circa '97. I absolutely refuse to use any PC that doesn't support ACPI in this day and age.
And second, don't totally blame Dragon for this. Win XP wreaks havoc with motherboards, IRqs, etc. It's almost as bad as the old Dos days, but at least back then, with ISA and Win95, we had more of a fighting chance via trial and error.
Case in point: I have an Epox 8KHA motherboard. Works great with Win2K. I added a second partition and installed XP. Once I installed the drivers for my Geforce2 card (from Windows Update, no less), WHAM! Blue Screen of Death. After hours of flashing my BIOS, and trying other drivers (both WHQL and Nvidia beta), I gave up and went back to 2K. I don't know what the hell MS did, but it sure screwed me up.
Quote: "Considering it's setting -- Las Vegas -- and it's subject matter..."
I hate it when people spell the word 'its' wrong! Especially people that claim to be smart, like Katz here. Look... if the word is posessive, there is no apostrophe!! How hard is it to remember that?
Sorry for the rant... that shit just bothers me...
Dell has cooled its laptops via water for at least a year now. Take apart any Latitude or Inspiron over 800MHZ and look at the small copper pipes that sit in front of the cooling fan. Those pipes circulate water over the CPU, helping to cool it.
I had a rip of the live action pilot (which ended up being the first episode) on my PC for over a year before the show actually made it to Fox. That alone should say that the TV executives didn't know what the hell to do with the show. Perhaps Comedy Central will be wise enough to purchase the rights and market the show the way it's supposed to be?
A Duron 1.2GHZ costs $79, while a 1.2GHZ Athlon costs $72... someone explain to me why the Duron is the 'budget' CPU.
For the record, they listed the MGS-based action figures as dangerous, not the game itself. This was due to the fact that the figures were recommended for ages 5 and up.
Ars Technica implemented a "rewards for subscribers" service similar to the one you mention. It seems to work pretty well for them. Hell, they even got my subscription, and I'm a cheap bastard!
-JC
I've got a Samsung N2000 DVD player. The deck is great - user friendly controls, nice quality, and it only cost in the range of $200 US. It came with a game controller and some sample games, as well. I actually wanted the Nuon proc because if its enhanced DVD capabilities (viewing a DVD at 2x is much smoother than my expensive Sony deck that broke after 8 months), but I thought the games were a nice bonus. That is, until I played them. The included sample games are horrible - gaudy colors, and terrible gameplay - but maybe with this development that will all change. It would be nice to see somebody port a NES or SNES emulator to this platform. I could conceivably stick in a CD with every NES game known to man on it and play Excitebike till my thumbs fall off!
One other warning - the N2000 is a successor to the N501 player. Since the N501 could handle CD-Rs, I assumed that the N2000 could as well. I was wrong. CD-Rs aren't recognized at all, and VCDs burned onto CD-RWs will display "VCD" on the display, but they won't play. Buyer beware.
-JC
Anybody notice how much the big blue guy in Space Ace looks like the genie in Aladdin?
Hopefully this isn't too oftopic - I thought it was informative enough for the current discussion...
h _s ony_handycam_dc_1.html
I just came across this on Yahoo... looks like Sony's new Handicams will have Bluetooth chips built in:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010820/tc/tec
Comparing Bluetooth to Wi-Fi is a little unfair. Bluetooth is meant to go small distances, not the ~100 feet Wi-Fi is capable of. It's better to compare Bluetooth to infrared - both are intended for short distances, and less permanent data sharing. Infrared is so rarely used that most people forget it's even there, but it would be nice if Bluetooth could change that.
It was posted on Slashdot back in January, so I figured I'd point to it here. Suelette Dreyfus' book "underground" is available in its entirety online. Read the book (or download it to your palm) at this page
Ok, let's see...
-Bread, check.
-Milk, check.
-As many 3Com Audreys as I can possibly afford to put on Ebay (at triple the price) once 3Com renders them unflashable, check!
Oh... Goatsex... how nice... Aren't you a boon to the Slashdot community...
I say go with the Dell Latitude. My last two employers both made the switch to Dell Latitudes, and they are by far the best, IMHO. My last employer was previously an IBM Thinkpad shop, and we had nothing but problems - ever try to get serial, parallel, and infrared all working on a TP600 under NT? DON'T. Just burn the damn thing. The machines are a little better with Win2K, but they are still far from perfect (install Win2K on a TP 390. I dare you...).
You can do a fresh install of NT or 2K on a latitude, load up the correct drivers, and you're off and running - with Thinkpads you had to install the TP utility (it's bundled with Win2K but still barely works) and then spend FOREVER tweaking the resources to get everything to play happy.
However, if price is an issue, the Latitudes do come at a premium... they are geared for the corporate world, so they are on the pricey side. I had a Lat C600 with a PIII 750, 256MB, 10GB, and built in NIC/modem, and it cost roughly 3 grand when brand new (>6 months ago). However, Redhat 6.2 and 7.x ran flawlessly on the machine - once the 2.4 kernel came out, I didn't need to install drivers for anything on the box (unlike NT and 2K). Plus, the head of the Latitude design team previously worked on Apple's PowerBooks, so you know that they're gonna be more sexy than most other laptops, save the VAIO.
You could go with a Dell Inspiron instead, as they are cheaper, and generally have more bells and whistles than the Latitudes (I believe you can get them with Geforce video), but in my experience they just aren't as stable as the Latitude.
Just last night I looked into the possibility of running slashcode on my website. So, I read the FAQ and saw that I needed mysql installed. I instinctively went to www.mysql.org and downloaded the source. Now this morning I read this article, and I have no idea if I downloaded the 'official' mySQL or not! This is name dilution at its worst, and something needs to be done to stop confusing clueless newbies such as myself.
This seems a little unbelievable to me. A console's bread and butter has always been its games. Sony paid a fortune to obtain exclusive rights to Final Fantasy, and a recent Wired article talked about how Nintendo used to bully software designers into not developing for Sega. Cross-console games are something of a rarity these days - Sony and MS both sell their consoles at a loss, making their money from the games. I can see Sega working together with the other companies now that its console is dead, but I can't see Nintendo, MS, and Sony teaming up in this regard.