Yeah I agree with this one too... I have the 65" HDTV and a PS3 to play BR discs on, but so far I've only bought 2 BR movies, and both are recent releases. The PS3 upsamples my DVDs to the point that it looks great already, so I haven't been itching to re-buy even my all-time favorite DVDs yet. New releases I consider on BR, but the price is usually too high to bother with. Also the other factor is, I have NetFlix, which sends me all the BR movies I want (well, the ones that are released on it anyway). If there were any decent new movies worth buying in BR, I'd pick them up, but there just isn't anything I'd want to spend the money on when I can get DVDs at Best Buy or Circuit City on sale for $5.
I'm in the exact same situation as you... we just bought a $400 PS3, mostly because I had to try Rock Band (which is friggin' cool, and I hate console games), and all the other features you mentioned helped me justify the price. The upconverting is noticeably better than the upcon DVD player I had, and the media server feature is something I'd been considering for quite a while anyway. Now with the upconversion as good as it is, I really don't plan to upgrade any of my current DVD collection, except *maybe* a few select favorites (LotR Trilogy?;)) I currently own 1 Blu-Ray movie, Kingdom of Heaven, since it was one I'd been planning to buy the Director's Cut of anyway, which is $25+, so for an extra $10 I got it in HD.
Of course, I also switched my NetFlix account to BR, so that'll be cool too...:)
Then explain why the last time I seriously considered buying CDs (just last year), I found 10- to 15-year-old Iron Maiden CDs, not in any means a mainstream popular act for the most part, were still priced around $17 each? I'm not even talking about the recent albums either, but their back catalog that I still had only on cassette (which I got for about $9 back in the 80's, by the way). I had planned to finally update my collection from when I was a teenager, figuring "Ah hell, they can't cost more than $10-12 each, I should be able to buy the whole discography for about $150 or so". I left without buying anything, reminded why I hadn't bought music in about 10 years.
But if you read even a little (I know, I know, it's Slashdot), he points out he isn't using ANY of their property or images, he's using his original work and just making references to Serenity/Firefly in the text on the site. Their objection includes even MENTIONING their property on his website... which is, of course, ridiculous.
Society helping to reccommend these sort of things to parents, fine. We already have this with the *voluntary* ratings systems in place for movies and games already. Parents generally understand movie ratings just fine... they just need to take a little time to understand the games ratings as well, if their kids want to play them.
Letting Government control it, on the other hand, is asking for trouble. Once it's no longer voluntary and becomes a law, we're stepping into uncharted, slippery-slope territory.
I have 2 6600GT's SLI'd... the first cost me about $175, the 2nd was about $130. You don't necessarily have to buy the super-expensive cards to do SLI. Even today, you could buy a pair of 7600's for about $400, and those are brand new.
Precisely... I'm in the market for a HDTV in the next few months, and I decided right off the bat that Sony was NOT an option. Not that they'll ever know it, but I know I'm not contributing a few grand to their assholery. The Samsungs are better anyway.
When I was in college I didn't even know I was interested in computers yet... of course the only thing available at the time to me was Apple IIs until after I graduated...
Been a PC tech for about 12 years now, no certs yet... not much desire to get them either.
My thoughts exactly... Games are the ONLY reason I'm still running Windows... and they're just now thinking about making it a priority?
The day Linux can run all PC games with zero hassle will be a sad day for Microsoft, I would think. That will be the day I download a distro and really start playing with it. All I use my home PC for is games and internet (usually both at the same time). I do work on PCs all day long at my job, when I'm at home I just want to play!
How does the US FTC have any jurisdiction over what they make anyway? Sure they can get upset with TakeTwo for publishing and marketing, but I would think Rockstar could thumb their noses at them.
Then again I don't know how the Rockstar-Rockstar North relationship goes either... maybe the parent company is American, I dunno.
The problem in this case is, they're implementing it into an already-running MMORPG game, Asheron's Call... so if someone's already a subscriber and has invested tons of time and money into the game, they will have to put up with this lame new marketing crap if they want to keep playing.
Hopefully we'll see a mass exodus of players from AC as a result, maybe then these morons will forget this idea before it gets off the ground.
True, the default character skins in the game have no "naughty bits", but any kid with access to the internet could download new skins/clothing to change that.
But wait, that would require downloading a 3rd-party file to enable the content...hmmm...
Get a couple characters with detailed realistic skins, and have them "Make Out" on a sofa while wearing skimpy lingerie or nude outfits... instant digital softcore, call Congress!!!
If you rename all the movie intro files, it speeds things up dramatically... mine jumps directly from ASE to the login screen, where I just have to click "Connect", and after a few seconds it begins loading the map. Granted, the map load and client verificiation still take a while, but I've rarely not gotten into a server that showed even one open slot on ASE that way.
If you have to click through all the intro movies, then yeah, I can see how you'd have problems. I just add a.bak extension to the files, I've read PB may complain if you delete them.
Ctrl-Shift C for the console, then "intprop censorgridsize 0"... it's a built-in command in the game, no external software/hack required. They found this about a day after the game came out.
We wouldn't want millions and millions of copies floating around out there being played by innocent children everywhere, now would we?
I got my copy for PC, found out about Hot Coffee about 3 days later... still haven't tried it, there's so much more interesting stuff to do in the game. I can't believe they folded this easy.
As the OP mentions, the ingame server browser sucks donkey balls... even after the 1.02 patch. However, the last few updates of the ASE server browser work perfectly with the patched version of the game, so my only real compliant with the game is solved for me.
I've got a pretty mid-range system, and the game runs excellent for me at almost all high settings... if you're into online FPS games, by all means check this one out.
I'm so glad we have these politicians to tell me I've been hypnotized by playing these games all these years... here I thought I was just having a good time, but really I'm not... they just make me think I am! Ooooh the horror!
50's - 70's -- Rock Music
80's -- Dungeons&Dragons
90's+ -- Video Games
Will the scapegoats never end?
Yes, actually you can... they're not quite as efficient as they would be if you direct them, but from what I've seen so far they'll eventually get around to doing what they need or want to. Left to their own devices, they can get into quite a bit of trouble depending on what sort of personality you give them, and it can really be hilarious.
I'm a hard-core gamer of all types, FPS, RTS, RPG (never MMORPG however), and I admit, I like the Sims... and Sims2 is even better so far. Can't wait to see what the community comes up with for custom content. My Sims install was over 10gb...
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah I agree with this one too... I have the 65" HDTV and a PS3 to play BR discs on, but so far I've only bought 2 BR movies, and both are recent releases. The PS3 upsamples my DVDs to the point that it looks great already, so I haven't been itching to re-buy even my all-time favorite DVDs yet. New releases I consider on BR, but the price is usually too high to bother with. Also the other factor is, I have NetFlix, which sends me all the BR movies I want (well, the ones that are released on it anyway). If there were any decent new movies worth buying in BR, I'd pick them up, but there just isn't anything I'd want to spend the money on when I can get DVDs at Best Buy or Circuit City on sale for $5.
I'm in the exact same situation as you... we just bought a $400 PS3, mostly because I had to try Rock Band (which is friggin' cool, and I hate console games), and all the other features you mentioned helped me justify the price. The upconverting is noticeably better than the upcon DVD player I had, and the media server feature is something I'd been considering for quite a while anyway. Now with the upconversion as good as it is, I really don't plan to upgrade any of my current DVD collection, except *maybe* a few select favorites (LotR Trilogy? ;)) I currently own 1 Blu-Ray movie, Kingdom of Heaven, since it was one I'd been planning to buy the Director's Cut of anyway, which is $25+, so for an extra $10 I got it in HD.
:)
Of course, I also switched my NetFlix account to BR, so that'll be cool too...
Then explain why the last time I seriously considered buying CDs (just last year), I found 10- to 15-year-old Iron Maiden CDs, not in any means a mainstream popular act for the most part, were still priced around $17 each? I'm not even talking about the recent albums either, but their back catalog that I still had only on cassette (which I got for about $9 back in the 80's, by the way). I had planned to finally update my collection from when I was a teenager, figuring "Ah hell, they can't cost more than $10-12 each, I should be able to buy the whole discography for about $150 or so". I left without buying anything, reminded why I hadn't bought music in about 10 years.
But if you read even a little (I know, I know, it's Slashdot), he points out he isn't using ANY of their property or images, he's using his original work and just making references to Serenity/Firefly in the text on the site. Their objection includes even MENTIONING their property on his website... which is, of course, ridiculous.
Wow, you'll make a fabulous parent...
/not a parent myself, but I hear it doesn't quite work that way
"Eh, let 'em play in the street... we can make more..."
Society helping to reccommend these sort of things to parents, fine. We already have this with the *voluntary* ratings systems in place for movies and games already. Parents generally understand movie ratings just fine... they just need to take a little time to understand the games ratings as well, if their kids want to play them.
Letting Government control it, on the other hand, is asking for trouble. Once it's no longer voluntary and becomes a law, we're stepping into uncharted, slippery-slope territory.
I have 2 6600GT's SLI'd... the first cost me about $175, the 2nd was about $130. You don't necessarily have to buy the super-expensive cards to do SLI. Even today, you could buy a pair of 7600's for about $400, and those are brand new.
Precisely... I'm in the market for a HDTV in the next few months, and I decided right off the bat that Sony was NOT an option. Not that they'll ever know it, but I know I'm not contributing a few grand to their assholery. The Samsungs are better anyway.
Fascinating... see posts above and below yours... :D
OK, how about a Fine Arts degree? :)
When I was in college I didn't even know I was interested in computers yet... of course the only thing available at the time to me was Apple IIs until after I graduated...
Been a PC tech for about 12 years now, no certs yet... not much desire to get them either.
My thoughts exactly... Games are the ONLY reason I'm still running Windows... and they're just now thinking about making it a priority?
The day Linux can run all PC games with zero hassle will be a sad day for Microsoft, I would think. That will be the day I download a distro and really start playing with it. All I use my home PC for is games and internet (usually both at the same time). I do work on PCs all day long at my job, when I'm at home I just want to play!
How does the US FTC have any jurisdiction over what they make anyway? Sure they can get upset with TakeTwo for publishing and marketing, but I would think Rockstar could thumb their noses at them.
Then again I don't know how the Rockstar-Rockstar North relationship goes either... maybe the parent company is American, I dunno.
The problem in this case is, they're implementing it into an already-running MMORPG game, Asheron's Call... so if someone's already a subscriber and has invested tons of time and money into the game, they will have to put up with this lame new marketing crap if they want to keep playing.
Hopefully we'll see a mass exodus of players from AC as a result, maybe then these morons will forget this idea before it gets off the ground.
True, the default character skins in the game have no "naughty bits", but any kid with access to the internet could download new skins/clothing to change that. But wait, that would require downloading a 3rd-party file to enable the content...hmmm... Get a couple characters with detailed realistic skins, and have them "Make Out" on a sofa while wearing skimpy lingerie or nude outfits... instant digital softcore, call Congress!!!
If you rename all the movie intro files, it speeds things up dramatically... mine jumps directly from ASE to the login screen, where I just have to click "Connect", and after a few seconds it begins loading the map. Granted, the map load and client verificiation still take a while, but I've rarely not gotten into a server that showed even one open slot on ASE that way.
.bak extension to the files, I've read PB may complain if you delete them.
If you have to click through all the intro movies, then yeah, I can see how you'd have problems. I just add a
Ctrl-Shift C for the console, then "intprop censorgridsize 0"... it's a built-in command in the game, no external software/hack required. They found this about a day after the game came out.
We wouldn't want millions and millions of copies floating around out there being played by innocent children everywhere, now would we?
I got my copy for PC, found out about Hot Coffee about 3 days later... still haven't tried it, there's so much more interesting stuff to do in the game. I can't believe they folded this easy.
As the OP mentions, the ingame server browser sucks donkey balls... even after the 1.02 patch. However, the last few updates of the ASE server browser work perfectly with the patched version of the game, so my only real compliant with the game is solved for me.
http://gamesdomain.yahoo.com/ase/register is a link to download it. Yahoo bought them out sometime last year, but it hasn't changed any that I've noticed.
I've got a pretty mid-range system, and the game runs excellent for me at almost all high settings... if you're into online FPS games, by all means check this one out.
I'm so glad we have these politicians to tell me I've been hypnotized by playing these games all these years... here I thought I was just having a good time, but really I'm not... they just make me think I am! Ooooh the horror! 50's - 70's -- Rock Music 80's -- Dungeons&Dragons 90's+ -- Video Games Will the scapegoats never end?
Yes, actually you can... they're not quite as efficient as they would be if you direct them, but from what I've seen so far they'll eventually get around to doing what they need or want to. Left to their own devices, they can get into quite a bit of trouble depending on what sort of personality you give them, and it can really be hilarious. I'm a hard-core gamer of all types, FPS, RTS, RPG (never MMORPG however), and I admit, I like the Sims... and Sims2 is even better so far. Can't wait to see what the community comes up with for custom content. My Sims install was over 10gb...