One problem with this is that while that dynamic makes sense historically, in-game it doesn't always work like that. A civilization that has been my best friend throughout the entire game and the worst-enemy of my own worst-enemy civilization does not, suddenly, because that worst enemy gave them a technology that is functionally obsolete, turn on a dime and attack their long-time friend; the people wouldn't be for it, it wouldn't make any sense at all, and the leader would almost certainly be deposed.
Imagine if the US decided to carpet bomb England because North Korea sold us a few surplus MiGs. It's completely absurd, and any example of it in the real world would be the exception rather than the rule.
Yet, it happens with some frequency in Civ - even Civ IV, which has some of the most sophisticated diplomacy to date. Civilizations that have been buddy-buddy for *thousands* of years suddenly say screw it and start lobbing nukes; empires that have been waging wars of genocide (burning cities, lobbing nukes at each other) can suddenly become *permanent allies* just because another civilization might land on Alpha Centauri. Granted, I understand them teaming together to prevent someone else from winning the game, but to try and pretend that Civ remotely follows real-world historical examples is a bit disingenuous.
I don't think it was a PC move - it just isn't that compelling a feature in the game and in the view of the designers removed more than it added. If they were remotely worried about being PC they wouldn't have had Stalin - a mass murderer surpassing even Adolph Hitler for body-count - as one of the leaders in the game since the first iteration, and certainly wouldn't have put religion into the game in the first place.
I thought the religious and corporate aspects of Civ IV were somewhat interesting, but other than just rushing to found a religion so that I could culture bomb my nearby opponents I didn't really care much for it as a gameplay mechanic.
What I did love about it was when Suleiman threatened to war if my Islamic civilization did not convert to Judaism, or when Ghandi insisted that I renounce Hinduism, or Stalin suggesting that I should convert to Buddhism if I didn't want him to slaughter everyone in my empire.
It looks really interesting, though their site has mystery meat navigation and no info on the game that I can find. I sure hope their game-developer skills are superior to their web-developer skills...
Obviously, you are wrong. I mean, that's why the iPod failed, why iTunes hasn't sold more than a handful of songs, and why Linux has 95% of the desktop marketshare.
It's like you live in an alternate reality or something!
They are people who have different priorities and interests, and want different things than you might, or many people might.
There are lots of people who "waste" their time (in my opinion) on silly things, but that doesn't make them idiots - it makes them people who don't have the same priorities as I do.
If it's fair to call people rich "idiots" because they want a simple Apple device to do certain things and will pay a bit more to do that or give up certain (irrelevant to them) features to do it, then isn't it also fair to call Linux users "idiots" in many cases because they "waste" time fiddling with their OS rather than just getting work done, or because they're willing to put up with a shitty interface in a lot of cases?
People here on slashdot (and in the geek world in general) need to get over the idea that anyone who disagrees or differs in values from them is somehow less intelligent. It is - sorry - pretty damn stupid to think that a difference in opinion about the value of something is somehow proof of lesser intellect, and it probably goes a long, long way towards explaining why many people simply don't like geeks.
You'd like to get paid for your work. I'd like to get the work I paid for. Maybe you can help me understand something, since you seem to be in the industry?
I paid for a copy of Spore - $59 or whatever it was when it launched. I got it home, tried to install it, and it just totally and completely failed to install due to the DRM used. When I called tech support and spent half an hour on hold to get through, they helped me find a couple of things that I could change that let me install it - but it wouldn't run. Somehow, whatever DVD drive I have, they say, was making it not work. When I tried to return it to the store I bought it from, I was told that because it was open I couldn't return it for anything but another copy. After arguing with the manager for about half an hour (and pulling up the myriad complaints that were posted all over the net by that point on my iPhone as proof), he finally, grudgingly, agreed to give me store credit to buy another game. I said fuck it and called my credit card company and contested the charge, and will never buy another product from that store, or from the publisher of the game, or anything that has to do with Will Wright again. The total cost to me was $0 dollars (once the charge was reversed) and quite a bit of my time (which is worth quite a bit, in my opinion) and frustration. The total cost to the publisher was 1 customer who will *never* buy another of their products, the cost of tech support time for my call, some very bad word of mouth (because of my experience and mentioning it to people I know, at least a dozen people didn't buy the game; from what I've seen on the net there were even more people like me than I might have thought). The retailer has lost me as a customer (and possibly several other people I mentioned the issue to). And Will Wright has lost a fan.
Perversely, I did want to try an experiment - I got a torrent of Spore downloaded (in about an hour, in the background, while I did other things) and it installed and worked flawlessly as I played a single game up to the galactic level, at which point I deleted it from my system. But it proved the point - as a paying customer I was treated like a criminal, but when I went the criminal route, I had an extremely smooth experience.
As an aside, I used to spend $100-150 on games a month before this experience; a $50 game was an impulse buy. Now, however, it isn't - where before I'd pick up a game after work, I now look at the box, say "Hm, is it worth the likely hassle?" and the answer tends to be "No." Spore was the last game I paid full price for. I've actually started doing more console gaming and I'm only buying used games since, ironically, the return policy on those is FAR better than on new ones - you guys aren't getting paid for those copies. I don't think I've bought a "new" game since Spore, but maybe I spent $10 on a jewelcase copy of something.
The thing I'd like to understand is how this kind of situation is a good thing and how you (or people in your industry) think this situation is remotely a good one? Literally the only people who are even inconvenienced by DRM are the initial cracker and paying customers. Everyone else gets either a cracked copy (no hassle) or they pay for a game that works - I honestly cannot begin to imagine someone who is willing to spend an hour torrenting something, but sees it needs a crack (usually included in the torrent) and says "Curses! I guess I have to buy it!" going to buy a copy. How does this ridiculous situation help you get paid? To me it seems like it would make it much less likely that you would be able to get paid - gamers move on to other hobbies or refuse to buy anything but used copies or refuse to buy until the price drops, while pirates still get what they want for free. Maybe I'm missing something.
Because, in my experience on slashdot, there are essentially two people who would respond to seeing "G-d" in a post and ask who that is and why they were being thanked:
Someone who genuinely didn't know what "G-d" meant - so I provided an explanation.
or
Someone who was being disingenuous and taking issue with someone thanking god for something in a post.
As to why the atheist aspect was relevant - It's pretty illogical to think someone who believes in god or gods would feel the need to question thanking god for something like the Nazis not getting the bomb, so I went with the assumption that, if the second case were true, it was an atheist making that comment. I doubted it was someone genuinely asking, as after all it would be quicker to type "what is 'g-d'" into google and get the first result rather than post the question here and wait for a response that may never come. It made more sense to assume that the person in question was being disingenuous rather than genuinely asking the question, thus my second paragraph.
So, for the first paragraph, I explained it, and for the second paragraph I asked them to play nicely rather than be a strident atheist. Is that sufficiently clear?
G-d is a way of saying "God" without actually writing the name in a medium in which it will eventually be destroyed. Presumably, the poster was thanking their god for not allowing the Nazi's to get the bomb.
Unless you were just being intentionally obtuse, as so many strident atheists are, and trying to draw attention to it - in which case, I ask you, please stop doing that. It makes it really easy for everyone to get pissed off at the rest of us who are atheist but don't feel the need to be jerks about it.
I make "off-label" use of social networking sites:
When live.yahoo.com was up (basically you broadcast a webcam to whoever comes into your channel), I used it to practice several dozen voices, dialects and accents - everything from something simple like a "public school british" accent to insane cartoon voices. I did this by reading books aloud in those voices. I think I had something like 400 people in my channel once when I was reading Mein Kampf doing on the fly translation to pig-latin with an elmer fudd voice. Another time I got over 1000 hits when it was just me staring at the screen (in fact, I was reading on another monitor but people couldn't see that) while drinking beer. What could possibly interest 1000 people in that? Call it performance art.
On facebook, I use that ONLY for work related people and don't friend anyone who isn't related to work, even if they are friends of mine in real life. It's interesting, to me, to see just how much personal shit people at work are willing to share with me despite our not having a "real" friendship.
With linked in I do exactly the opposite - I only make links to people I don't work with.
With chat roulette, it's fantastic as a way to try out different kinds of things. I've done things like pretended my microphone couldn't pick up my voice despite it having no problem picking up the music in the background and a friend off-camera talking to me (most people don't get it - they just think my mic is broken when it obviously isn't), or I just ask questions of people that I would never ask of someone else - usually about bodily functions, their income, things like picking their nose - and it's interesting the responses I get.
Of course, I also use some of these things (with alternate accounts) in the way that they are intended - as a way to meet and stay in touch with friends - but I think I have more fun being strange than I do otherwise.
I could see them trying to improve the anti-cheating protection, and I'm sure it will help to reduce piracy, but it does seem to be a decidedly un-Blizzard-like approach. Thanks for providing that.
Except you pretty much did. You stated that Blizzard made this move without doing any research, and as support for that statement you put forth that you and a dozen buddies play the game only via LANs. Oh, and one of them sometimes plays with a few people in his church via LAN as well. I'm really pretty sure they did spend at least a couple of bucks looking into what a pretty major decision like this might cost them, and I'm more confident that the numbers of an organization that has potentially billions of dollars riding on something are going to be a little more reliable than random slashdot guy, ya know?
Where are the public statements about only pirates wanting LAN play, by the way? If they did make that statement, then I do agree, THAT is a major misunderstanding of the market, and pretty stupid on top of it.
And, for the record, Blizzard has ALWAYS been about making as much money as possible. In the past (and still, as far as I can tell) they try to do that by providing the best/most polished experience to their customers - I'm willing to wait and see how they do this before I begin the doomcrying. I'm willing to bet that they took into consideration some of the more frequent problems people face with their internet connections.
Wow, you suck at statistics. If I were to take the same absurdly self-centered approach to stats that you do, 100% of/. posters are city-dwelling white females in their late 30's who surf the web with their feet resting on a dog. Oh, and 50% of all dogs are female grayhounds, 50% are male pitbulls, and 100% of them love it when I use them as ottomans.
Pretty much everyone who matters to Blizzard as a customer is going to have always-on Internet access, and the whole Battle.net thing isn't a worry. Blizzard is, generally speaking, not a groundbreaking company - they take things everyone else has done and make it REALLY shiny; I don't imagine, given their track record, that they're putting out one of the most anticipated sequels in gaming history and making it bnet only as a kind of trial; I'm reasonably sure that they've spent some of their buckets of cash on researching the likely outcome of the multi-player bnet only decision.
Except that is NOT the case. It automatically added a picassa album and a blog of mine - BOTH of which were set to "private" or "invite only" - and several people who were set to automatically follow me sent me emails about some of the pictures in my album and comments about the blog posts. I NEVER enabled Buzz (I said "Not right now" when it asked me if I wanted to do it) and I NEVER enabled either the blog or the album to be added.
This was a total clusterfuck on Google's part. Because of their stupid and thoughtless approach to implementing this - not even giving people a choice! - I will never, ever use a Google offering again. I nuked my blogs, removed 2 sites from their directory, closed AdSense, nuked my Gmail account, sold my few shares of GOOG, and will just use whatever other search engines out there.
Whoever was responsible for Buzz should be canned, and I mean from the lowest level implementation up to the people who approved it and their bosses for not providing proper oversight.
Oh, *bonks self* you were getting back to your original comment - yes, I get what you mean about the bioware and single player game. I was being way more general. Sorry:)
Considering that this is about Blizzard, and battle.net is only required if you want to play the games multi-player (as far as I know), I'm not sure where you're going with this comment.
However, even were it to be people playing single-player games using a social networking site - and I would hardly call it "forcing" since I'm pretty sure you can just not participate with it - it could be one way of putting people with similar hobbies (playing certain kinds of games) into contact with other people who have those hobbies.
It wouldn't hurt, and could be a good thing; why would people be down on something voluntary like this, you know?
Except it really isn't inexplicable. Some people make friends with people they've met online in various ways, even if "making friends" wasn't their primary reason for going into that online venue.
Years ago, when I played Diablo II on battle.net, I wound up meeting some people during random runs who seemed cool - we chatted a bit, and played together regularly. When Star Wars: Galaxies came out, a bunch of us got together and made characters there, and met more people in that game and over a year or two a group of about 40 of us became pretty tight. When City of Heroes came out, and then World of Warcraft, we pretty much moved en masse to the new games, and it'd now been over 10 years that the core group of 6 of us from the Diablo days met, and at least 5-6 years for everyone else in the group that we've all known each other. I've met everyone from this group easily half a dozen times IRL over the years, some more than that.
Social networking tools in this venue makes absolute sense - it makes explicit (people are getting together to game in part for the social aspect) what was unsaid before, and gives people better tools for keeping track of people.
Actually, there's something to this, though not necessarily from dreaming.
I often find that in the 9-10 minutes between my alarm going off the first time and after I've hit the snooze button waiting for the alarm to go off again, I spend what feels like hours thinking about things. My brain slows down again when I have to deal with physical stimulus.
So, if I could have my brain connected into a body/device that could work at the speed of my thoughts rather than the speed of my meat self, that would likely make me more productive.
I never said it was definitively better - just better for some people.
What's the average time a Windows machine needs to be connected to the internet and used regularly - in its default configuration - before it gets pwnt?
Now, how long does it take for me using an iPhone connected to the internet and used regularly - in its default configuration - before it gets pwnt?
The internet actually is like a ridiculously dangerous neighborhood, and someone who goes into it without knowing what faces them is exactly like a naive Windows user who makes a wrong turn while out for a walk and gets taken by surprise. The person on the iPhone or iPad or whatever is more like the person who is driving through a shitty neighborhood and, by and large, isn't going to get robbed unless someone figures out a way to flatten their tires or pry open their door, etc.
The person going for a walk might actually see an awful lot of interesting stuff that the person in the car won't, and for some people the chance of seeing really cool stuff is actually worth the risk. For some people, they would go into that neighborhood on foot, armed to the teeth and wearing a bullet-proof vest and really hyper vigilant - that's an example of a user who knows how to set themselves up to be reasonably securely.
The problem isn't Fujitsu or Toshibas fault, of course - it's entirely a Microsoft issue - but the point is that to your average consumer it's essentially just one provider. If they discover that something's wrong they'll call Fujitsu or Toshiba (who will likely walk them through a few steps and then tell them to call Microsoft) and then Microsoft will do whatever it is that they will do before suggesting they turn on some settings, buy some AV software, etc. Because it's multiple vendors, there's really nobody accountable. Toshiba or Fujitsu say "hey, we just make the hardware, call Microsoft" and Microsoft says "Well, you bought this from someone else, but we'll half-ass helping you, but it'll cost..."
So how the walled garden can be a better experience - from the vantagepoint of some users - is that they never have to deal with any of that stuff. It just works. They want to just drive from point A to point B, and they really don't care about seeing everything that might be interesting on the way.
As to the whole "people should change the way they do stuff" - why? If they're happy with what they have, why change? It isn't like they're making it somehow impossible for people to make open platforms, is it? Heck, it's actually giving the people who make open platforms some REALLY GOOD ideas for how to get people interested in the open stuff!
I say, instead of people who use technology having to adapt to the weaknesses of various systems, manufacturers of technology should learn the lesson that most people really don't want to learn that stuff and just want their stuff to work. Why hasn't someone come out with an Open version of the iPhone (or close enough)? Don't tell me Android - every Android phone I've messed with has either had a laggy, non-multi-touch interface or has been a usability hassle; it isn't there yet.
You seem to want to put the burden on people who *clearly* don't want to be bothered with this stuff, and who are willing to pay money to avoid bothering with it; I say put the burden on the people who sell poorly done systems that require users to learn all that stuff.
Why is it so wrong for consumers to want the makers of things to make them well?
Absolutely not - I think there are plenty of devices that are not locked down that can be truly great devices. I use quite a few of them, in fact. I never said otherwise. My iPhone is jailbroken, my MacBook Pro runs OS X/Windows 7/Ubuntu (the latter 2 in virtualization, usually) as well as emulators for some older platforms. There is very unlikely a piece of software I want to use that I couldn't get running on my machine (other than stuff that would require beefier hardware than I have).
That aside, if a user wants a specific kind of user experience, and they want to be absolutely sure that whatever they get for their device will meet minimum quality standards or usability guidelines at are set by a company they feel they can trust, and they want to have to learn the least amount about the workings of the device, then a closed platform is going to make that easier for them to do because they know that no matter what they download, it's pretty much guaranteed to work in a way they're familiar with. To a lot of people that's worth quite a bit. It's easier to design because there's basically only one way it'll need to work (one configuration of hardware/OS and they can make assumptions about how the thing will work for every user) etc. It obviously isn't impossible to make an open device that can offer the same things, but it isn't as easy to do, and most companies seem to think "reasonably good" is "good enough" so they don't try very hard.
Look at Windows as an example - because Windows must accommodate pretty much any piece of hardware out there (which is a good thing, IMO), the overall user experience of Windows can suffer quite a bit because some manufacturers don't write good drivers. Some applications just completely blow up because they were poorly programmed and don't play well with others, or make assumptions about a "default" Windows configuration that might or might not be true. To someone who knows nothing about this stuff, all they see is "shit don't work" and it's a frustrating experience.
Look at the OS X as a counter example - because it doesn't need to support every piece of hardware ever, drivers are mostly a non-issue. There can still be applications that don't play well with others, but generally the usability guidelines Apple sets out help reduce quite a bit of crazy shit like you see quite a bit with Windows apps and ALL THE TIME with stuff for Linux. Locking things down even further - going to an unjailbroken iPod Touch - you wind up with a situation where other than maybe having a shitty network connection sometimes, the user experience will be generally predictable and users will know that if they try to do something it will generally work the same way across apps, and work when they want it to.
The iPad isn't for me - it doesn't have cameras/video/microphone (and it's closed, which isn't a deal-breaker at all, as the thing will be jailbroken almost instantly) - but I can see a lot of people who would want to have it and find it met (and exceeded their needs). These people aren't sheep, they're just people who have different needs than I do, and don't care if the device is open or closed, just that it works.
The device doesn't even *have* to be closed to give them that primary provider - obviously - but calling human being sheep, devaluing their humanity because they don't really care about open vs. closed and just see a device that'll meet their needs is just twisted and serves absolutely no purpose.
My, that's an awfully nice strawman you've constructed - too bad you had to go and kick it over like that.
I never said that closed platforms were the only way to go, or that people shouldn't be able to use their tools in any way they see fit. I simply said that if one thinks someone who doesn't want to fuck around with maintenance, doesn't want to have to learn how to do anything with their computer other than use it, one is wrong to do so.
So, it takes you 10-15 seconds to check for anti-virus at boot? Awesome! I'm assuming, since you didn't mention it, that your computer also must know what software to download and install in the first place, and how to set itself up to do the whole background automation process? It must have done that right out of the box - which is pretty cool, since I've never known Windows to do that! I guess it also only took you 10-15 seconds to learn enough about anti-virus software to know you need it and how to work with it on your system, how to disable it when you install some software, and so on?
With installation, sometimes, yes, it can be as easy as that, but often times - I know this will shock you - people make craptacular installers that don't make it easy to install. "What do they mean 'custom' installation?" "Why is it telling me that folder doesn't exist?" "It wants to know if I want to install this toolbar thing, well duh of course I do because isn't that what I'm trying to do?" Don't make the mistake of thinking that because these things are obvious to you or many people who deal with tech regularly that they aren't still somewhat confusing to people who just want these things to work.
With driver updates, yeah, that's *brilliant* - I'm sure the average person knows how to do that and isn't remotely confused by what a driver is, where to get it, or any of that. I, for one, was born with that knowledge in my racial memory. I'm being sarcastic, in case you couldn't tell. My point is even that having to do that kind of thing is often actually outside the scope of what people want to do with their computers. A well designed device would make it easy - "Hey, there's a bunch of new stuff that might make your computer work a little better and be a little more secure. It could mess it up, too, so you have a choice if you want to install it or not. And if you do install it, if you don't like the way it works you can go back to how it works now by clicking a button. Ok?"
Bottom line is this:
Most people would prefer it if the manufacturers of the stuff they use took care of all that maintenance shit for them. Especially if they're looking for a device that's billed as easy to use and just works. When it isn't easy to use (even if it is something as trivial as just knowing how to install or uninstall an application can be), or it doesn't "just work" people who wanted those things are bothered. But the fact that they want such a device - even one that is closed - does not make them sheep. It just makes them "people who don't care about a device being open or closed and just want to use it."
Calling them sheep devalues their humanity. It's demented and disgusting.
The person I was responding to was essentially saying that people are sheep because they don't want to fuck around with doing maintenance on their gadgets, and because most people generally want something that just does whatever it is that it does, without them needing to be arsed with learning more.
My point is that no, this doesn't make people sheep, it just makes them people who don't really care about all of that stuff, and who just want to use their gadgets, and could really not care less if the device is "open" or "closed" as long as it works.
I think closed platforms can have much greater quality control over user experiences and ensure a consistent experience than open platforms, certainly, if done well: not allowing shitty design, shitty interfaces and buggy apps to be put on the App Store will, on a closed platform, keep those shitty designs, shitty interfaces and buggy apps off of the devices that use that store.
I think open platforms are fantastic - I use a jailbroken iPhone and have all kinds of good stuff on it that Apple doesn't want me to have - but I certainly don't think that somehow makes people who use a locked iPhone because they have no need or interest in the kinds of things they could get on a jailbroken one into sheep. It just makes them people who want different things from their gadgets than I have.
Is someone who uses a modern car replete with computerized control systems that they can't easily modify a sheep? Is someone who buys clothing off the rack and doesn't modify it a sheep? Are people who buy frozen dinners, cook and consume them as the directions say sheep? No, they're just people who don't care about modding their car, clothing or frozen dinner cooking times because they have other priorities. So why is it OK to call people sheep because they see a device that does what they want, does it well enough for their purposes, and happens to be locked down sheep?
They aren't sheep. They're people. Devaluing their humanity because they like a different gadget is demented.
That depends on what you mean by "smart" doesn't it?
Right now there are genetic algorithms that come up with designs that work better than man-made designs (in some cases) and operate in ways that the person who programmed the original algorithms often cannot even begin to figure out.
In a very limited way, that program is thus "smarter" (or "better") than the person who programmed it.
On the black-box issue, no, you cannot calculate it perfectly, but you can certainly come up with a reasonably close simulation of it - which is actually what we do with the universe right now via physics. Our simulations have been getting better all the time. While we will never be able to come up with a 100% perfect simulation of the universe (due to infinite recursion among other things), we may well be able to come up with simulations that are as perfect as need be for any arbitrary sub-set of the universe. Not the same thing, of course, but close enough for most purposes.
Maybe I'm looking at this in a weird way, but I really wasn't thinking of the iPad as a device intended to replace netbooks, but more as the equivalent of a "gaming console" except instead of taking over gaming, it's more aimed at casual surfing, simple document creation, email, and tasks like that.
If I am looking at the iPad as a computer, it's AWFUL because it's locked down and when I think "computer" I really think "general device that lets me do whatever I want, however I want." If I am looking at the iPad as a console, it's great because it is optimized (mostly) to do the things that it replaces really well and to make that experience pretty seamless.
While I'm not excited by the iPad (the lack of front/back cameras & a microphone so no video conferencing with it was a big disappointment; no flash was another - if it had those capabilities, I'd have probably got one) I can definitely see the market for it - an extremely easy to use device that will let most people do all of the things they want to do online or with a computer very easily, and with a nice user experience in the process. Just as consoles streamlined gaming, so, too, this kind of device can streamline internet use for the more casual user.
I don't know that I buy that - I mean, Apple releases 1 version of OS X with all features enabled, vs. Microsoft releasing however many versions of their OS with various features.
I *could* see Apple replacing the Mini with the Pad - the keyboard doc + pad is at the same price-point. But I just don't see them saying "Okay, this OS that we've been pushing for years, that is by and large thought to be one of the best OSes around from a usability AND capability standpoint - fuck that, we're going to cripple it and you have to pay us more money to uncripple it." It makes no sense from any perspective.
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One problem with this is that while that dynamic makes sense historically, in-game it doesn't always work like that. A civilization that has been my best friend throughout the entire game and the worst-enemy of my own worst-enemy civilization does not, suddenly, because that worst enemy gave them a technology that is functionally obsolete, turn on a dime and attack their long-time friend; the people wouldn't be for it, it wouldn't make any sense at all, and the leader would almost certainly be deposed.
Imagine if the US decided to carpet bomb England because North Korea sold us a few surplus MiGs. It's completely absurd, and any example of it in the real world would be the exception rather than the rule.
Yet, it happens with some frequency in Civ - even Civ IV, which has some of the most sophisticated diplomacy to date. Civilizations that have been buddy-buddy for *thousands* of years suddenly say screw it and start lobbing nukes; empires that have been waging wars of genocide (burning cities, lobbing nukes at each other) can suddenly become *permanent allies* just because another civilization might land on Alpha Centauri. Granted, I understand them teaming together to prevent someone else from winning the game, but to try and pretend that Civ remotely follows real-world historical examples is a bit disingenuous.
I don't think it was a PC move - it just isn't that compelling a feature in the game and in the view of the designers removed more than it added. If they were remotely worried about being PC they wouldn't have had Stalin - a mass murderer surpassing even Adolph Hitler for body-count - as one of the leaders in the game since the first iteration, and certainly wouldn't have put religion into the game in the first place.
I thought the religious and corporate aspects of Civ IV were somewhat interesting, but other than just rushing to found a religion so that I could culture bomb my nearby opponents I didn't really care much for it as a gameplay mechanic.
What I did love about it was when Suleiman threatened to war if my Islamic civilization did not convert to Judaism, or when Ghandi insisted that I renounce Hinduism, or Stalin suggesting that I should convert to Buddhism if I didn't want him to slaughter everyone in my empire.
It looks really interesting, though their site has mystery meat navigation and no info on the game that I can find. I sure hope their game-developer skills are superior to their web-developer skills...
Obviously, you are wrong. I mean, that's why the iPod failed, why iTunes hasn't sold more than a handful of songs, and why Linux has 95% of the desktop marketshare.
It's like you live in an alternate reality or something!
Why must they be idiots?
They are people who have different priorities and interests, and want different things than you might, or many people might.
There are lots of people who "waste" their time (in my opinion) on silly things, but that doesn't make them idiots - it makes them people who don't have the same priorities as I do.
If it's fair to call people rich "idiots" because they want a simple Apple device to do certain things and will pay a bit more to do that or give up certain (irrelevant to them) features to do it, then isn't it also fair to call Linux users "idiots" in many cases because they "waste" time fiddling with their OS rather than just getting work done, or because they're willing to put up with a shitty interface in a lot of cases?
People here on slashdot (and in the geek world in general) need to get over the idea that anyone who disagrees or differs in values from them is somehow less intelligent. It is - sorry - pretty damn stupid to think that a difference in opinion about the value of something is somehow proof of lesser intellect, and it probably goes a long, long way towards explaining why many people simply don't like geeks.
You'd like to get paid for your work. I'd like to get the work I paid for. Maybe you can help me understand something, since you seem to be in the industry?
I paid for a copy of Spore - $59 or whatever it was when it launched. I got it home, tried to install it, and it just totally and completely failed to install due to the DRM used. When I called tech support and spent half an hour on hold to get through, they helped me find a couple of things that I could change that let me install it - but it wouldn't run. Somehow, whatever DVD drive I have, they say, was making it not work. When I tried to return it to the store I bought it from, I was told that because it was open I couldn't return it for anything but another copy. After arguing with the manager for about half an hour (and pulling up the myriad complaints that were posted all over the net by that point on my iPhone as proof), he finally, grudgingly, agreed to give me store credit to buy another game. I said fuck it and called my credit card company and contested the charge, and will never buy another product from that store, or from the publisher of the game, or anything that has to do with Will Wright again. The total cost to me was $0 dollars (once the charge was reversed) and quite a bit of my time (which is worth quite a bit, in my opinion) and frustration. The total cost to the publisher was 1 customer who will *never* buy another of their products, the cost of tech support time for my call, some very bad word of mouth (because of my experience and mentioning it to people I know, at least a dozen people didn't buy the game; from what I've seen on the net there were even more people like me than I might have thought). The retailer has lost me as a customer (and possibly several other people I mentioned the issue to). And Will Wright has lost a fan.
Perversely, I did want to try an experiment - I got a torrent of Spore downloaded (in about an hour, in the background, while I did other things) and it installed and worked flawlessly as I played a single game up to the galactic level, at which point I deleted it from my system. But it proved the point - as a paying customer I was treated like a criminal, but when I went the criminal route, I had an extremely smooth experience.
As an aside, I used to spend $100-150 on games a month before this experience; a $50 game was an impulse buy. Now, however, it isn't - where before I'd pick up a game after work, I now look at the box, say "Hm, is it worth the likely hassle?" and the answer tends to be "No." Spore was the last game I paid full price for. I've actually started doing more console gaming and I'm only buying used games since, ironically, the return policy on those is FAR better than on new ones - you guys aren't getting paid for those copies. I don't think I've bought a "new" game since Spore, but maybe I spent $10 on a jewelcase copy of something.
The thing I'd like to understand is how this kind of situation is a good thing and how you (or people in your industry) think this situation is remotely a good one? Literally the only people who are even inconvenienced by DRM are the initial cracker and paying customers. Everyone else gets either a cracked copy (no hassle) or they pay for a game that works - I honestly cannot begin to imagine someone who is willing to spend an hour torrenting something, but sees it needs a crack (usually included in the torrent) and says "Curses! I guess I have to buy it!" going to buy a copy. How does this ridiculous situation help you get paid? To me it seems like it would make it much less likely that you would be able to get paid - gamers move on to other hobbies or refuse to buy anything but used copies or refuse to buy until the price drops, while pirates still get what they want for free. Maybe I'm missing something.
Because, in my experience on slashdot, there are essentially two people who would respond to seeing "G-d" in a post and ask who that is and why they were being thanked:
Someone who genuinely didn't know what "G-d" meant - so I provided an explanation.
or
Someone who was being disingenuous and taking issue with someone thanking god for something in a post.
As to why the atheist aspect was relevant - It's pretty illogical to think someone who believes in god or gods would feel the need to question thanking god for something like the Nazis not getting the bomb, so I went with the assumption that, if the second case were true, it was an atheist making that comment. I doubted it was someone genuinely asking, as after all it would be quicker to type "what is 'g-d'" into google and get the first result rather than post the question here and wait for a response that may never come. It made more sense to assume that the person in question was being disingenuous rather than genuinely asking the question, thus my second paragraph.
So, for the first paragraph, I explained it, and for the second paragraph I asked them to play nicely rather than be a strident atheist. Is that sufficiently clear?
G-d is a way of saying "God" without actually writing the name in a medium in which it will eventually be destroyed. Presumably, the poster was thanking their god for not allowing the Nazi's to get the bomb.
Unless you were just being intentionally obtuse, as so many strident atheists are, and trying to draw attention to it - in which case, I ask you, please stop doing that. It makes it really easy for everyone to get pissed off at the rest of us who are atheist but don't feel the need to be jerks about it.
I make "off-label" use of social networking sites:
When live.yahoo.com was up (basically you broadcast a webcam to whoever comes into your channel), I used it to practice several dozen voices, dialects and accents - everything from something simple like a "public school british" accent to insane cartoon voices. I did this by reading books aloud in those voices. I think I had something like 400 people in my channel once when I was reading Mein Kampf doing on the fly translation to pig-latin with an elmer fudd voice. Another time I got over 1000 hits when it was just me staring at the screen (in fact, I was reading on another monitor but people couldn't see that) while drinking beer. What could possibly interest 1000 people in that? Call it performance art.
On facebook, I use that ONLY for work related people and don't friend anyone who isn't related to work, even if they are friends of mine in real life. It's interesting, to me, to see just how much personal shit people at work are willing to share with me despite our not having a "real" friendship.
With linked in I do exactly the opposite - I only make links to people I don't work with.
With chat roulette, it's fantastic as a way to try out different kinds of things. I've done things like pretended my microphone couldn't pick up my voice despite it having no problem picking up the music in the background and a friend off-camera talking to me (most people don't get it - they just think my mic is broken when it obviously isn't), or I just ask questions of people that I would never ask of someone else - usually about bodily functions, their income, things like picking their nose - and it's interesting the responses I get.
Of course, I also use some of these things (with alternate accounts) in the way that they are intended - as a way to meet and stay in touch with friends - but I think I have more fun being strange than I do otherwise.
I could see them trying to improve the anti-cheating protection, and I'm sure it will help to reduce piracy, but it does seem to be a decidedly un-Blizzard-like approach. Thanks for providing that.
Except you pretty much did. You stated that Blizzard made this move without doing any research, and as support for that statement you put forth that you and a dozen buddies play the game only via LANs. Oh, and one of them sometimes plays with a few people in his church via LAN as well. I'm really pretty sure they did spend at least a couple of bucks looking into what a pretty major decision like this might cost them, and I'm more confident that the numbers of an organization that has potentially billions of dollars riding on something are going to be a little more reliable than random slashdot guy, ya know?
Where are the public statements about only pirates wanting LAN play, by the way? If they did make that statement, then I do agree, THAT is a major misunderstanding of the market, and pretty stupid on top of it.
And, for the record, Blizzard has ALWAYS been about making as much money as possible. In the past (and still, as far as I can tell) they try to do that by providing the best/most polished experience to their customers - I'm willing to wait and see how they do this before I begin the doomcrying. I'm willing to bet that they took into consideration some of the more frequent problems people face with their internet connections.
Wow, you suck at statistics. If I were to take the same absurdly self-centered approach to stats that you do, 100% of /. posters are city-dwelling white females in their late 30's who surf the web with their feet resting on a dog. Oh, and 50% of all dogs are female grayhounds, 50% are male pitbulls, and 100% of them love it when I use them as ottomans.
Pretty much everyone who matters to Blizzard as a customer is going to have always-on Internet access, and the whole Battle.net thing isn't a worry. Blizzard is, generally speaking, not a groundbreaking company - they take things everyone else has done and make it REALLY shiny; I don't imagine, given their track record, that they're putting out one of the most anticipated sequels in gaming history and making it bnet only as a kind of trial; I'm reasonably sure that they've spent some of their buckets of cash on researching the likely outcome of the multi-player bnet only decision.
Except that is NOT the case. It automatically added a picassa album and a blog of mine - BOTH of which were set to "private" or "invite only" - and several people who were set to automatically follow me sent me emails about some of the pictures in my album and comments about the blog posts. I NEVER enabled Buzz (I said "Not right now" when it asked me if I wanted to do it) and I NEVER enabled either the blog or the album to be added.
This was a total clusterfuck on Google's part. Because of their stupid and thoughtless approach to implementing this - not even giving people a choice! - I will never, ever use a Google offering again. I nuked my blogs, removed 2 sites from their directory, closed AdSense, nuked my Gmail account, sold my few shares of GOOG, and will just use whatever other search engines out there.
Whoever was responsible for Buzz should be canned, and I mean from the lowest level implementation up to the people who approved it and their bosses for not providing proper oversight.
Oh, *bonks self* you were getting back to your original comment - yes, I get what you mean about the bioware and single player game. I was being way more general. Sorry :)
Considering that this is about Blizzard, and battle.net is only required if you want to play the games multi-player (as far as I know), I'm not sure where you're going with this comment.
However, even were it to be people playing single-player games using a social networking site - and I would hardly call it "forcing" since I'm pretty sure you can just not participate with it - it could be one way of putting people with similar hobbies (playing certain kinds of games) into contact with other people who have those hobbies.
It wouldn't hurt, and could be a good thing; why would people be down on something voluntary like this, you know?
Except it really isn't inexplicable. Some people make friends with people they've met online in various ways, even if "making friends" wasn't their primary reason for going into that online venue.
Years ago, when I played Diablo II on battle.net, I wound up meeting some people during random runs who seemed cool - we chatted a bit, and played together regularly. When Star Wars: Galaxies came out, a bunch of us got together and made characters there, and met more people in that game and over a year or two a group of about 40 of us became pretty tight. When City of Heroes came out, and then World of Warcraft, we pretty much moved en masse to the new games, and it'd now been over 10 years that the core group of 6 of us from the Diablo days met, and at least 5-6 years for everyone else in the group that we've all known each other. I've met everyone from this group easily half a dozen times IRL over the years, some more than that.
Social networking tools in this venue makes absolute sense - it makes explicit (people are getting together to game in part for the social aspect) what was unsaid before, and gives people better tools for keeping track of people.
Actually, there's something to this, though not necessarily from dreaming.
I often find that in the 9-10 minutes between my alarm going off the first time and after I've hit the snooze button waiting for the alarm to go off again, I spend what feels like hours thinking about things. My brain slows down again when I have to deal with physical stimulus.
So, if I could have my brain connected into a body/device that could work at the speed of my thoughts rather than the speed of my meat self, that would likely make me more productive.
I never said it was definitively better - just better for some people.
What's the average time a Windows machine needs to be connected to the internet and used regularly - in its default configuration - before it gets pwnt?
Now, how long does it take for me using an iPhone connected to the internet and used regularly - in its default configuration - before it gets pwnt?
The internet actually is like a ridiculously dangerous neighborhood, and someone who goes into it without knowing what faces them is exactly like a naive Windows user who makes a wrong turn while out for a walk and gets taken by surprise. The person on the iPhone or iPad or whatever is more like the person who is driving through a shitty neighborhood and, by and large, isn't going to get robbed unless someone figures out a way to flatten their tires or pry open their door, etc.
The person going for a walk might actually see an awful lot of interesting stuff that the person in the car won't, and for some people the chance of seeing really cool stuff is actually worth the risk. For some people, they would go into that neighborhood on foot, armed to the teeth and wearing a bullet-proof vest and really hyper vigilant - that's an example of a user who knows how to set themselves up to be reasonably securely.
The problem isn't Fujitsu or Toshibas fault, of course - it's entirely a Microsoft issue - but the point is that to your average consumer it's essentially just one provider. If they discover that something's wrong they'll call Fujitsu or Toshiba (who will likely walk them through a few steps and then tell them to call Microsoft) and then Microsoft will do whatever it is that they will do before suggesting they turn on some settings, buy some AV software, etc. Because it's multiple vendors, there's really nobody accountable. Toshiba or Fujitsu say "hey, we just make the hardware, call Microsoft" and Microsoft says "Well, you bought this from someone else, but we'll half-ass helping you, but it'll cost..."
So how the walled garden can be a better experience - from the vantagepoint of some users - is that they never have to deal with any of that stuff. It just works. They want to just drive from point A to point B, and they really don't care about seeing everything that might be interesting on the way.
As to the whole "people should change the way they do stuff" - why? If they're happy with what they have, why change? It isn't like they're making it somehow impossible for people to make open platforms, is it? Heck, it's actually giving the people who make open platforms some REALLY GOOD ideas for how to get people interested in the open stuff!
I say, instead of people who use technology having to adapt to the weaknesses of various systems, manufacturers of technology should learn the lesson that most people really don't want to learn that stuff and just want their stuff to work. Why hasn't someone come out with an Open version of the iPhone (or close enough)? Don't tell me Android - every Android phone I've messed with has either had a laggy, non-multi-touch interface or has been a usability hassle; it isn't there yet.
You seem to want to put the burden on people who *clearly* don't want to be bothered with this stuff, and who are willing to pay money to avoid bothering with it; I say put the burden on the people who sell poorly done systems that require users to learn all that stuff.
Why is it so wrong for consumers to want the makers of things to make them well?
Absolutely not - I think there are plenty of devices that are not locked down that can be truly great devices. I use quite a few of them, in fact. I never said otherwise. My iPhone is jailbroken, my MacBook Pro runs OS X/Windows 7/Ubuntu (the latter 2 in virtualization, usually) as well as emulators for some older platforms. There is very unlikely a piece of software I want to use that I couldn't get running on my machine (other than stuff that would require beefier hardware than I have).
That aside, if a user wants a specific kind of user experience, and they want to be absolutely sure that whatever they get for their device will meet minimum quality standards or usability guidelines at are set by a company they feel they can trust, and they want to have to learn the least amount about the workings of the device, then a closed platform is going to make that easier for them to do because they know that no matter what they download, it's pretty much guaranteed to work in a way they're familiar with. To a lot of people that's worth quite a bit. It's easier to design because there's basically only one way it'll need to work (one configuration of hardware/OS and they can make assumptions about how the thing will work for every user) etc. It obviously isn't impossible to make an open device that can offer the same things, but it isn't as easy to do, and most companies seem to think "reasonably good" is "good enough" so they don't try very hard.
Look at Windows as an example - because Windows must accommodate pretty much any piece of hardware out there (which is a good thing, IMO), the overall user experience of Windows can suffer quite a bit because some manufacturers don't write good drivers. Some applications just completely blow up because they were poorly programmed and don't play well with others, or make assumptions about a "default" Windows configuration that might or might not be true. To someone who knows nothing about this stuff, all they see is "shit don't work" and it's a frustrating experience.
Look at the OS X as a counter example - because it doesn't need to support every piece of hardware ever, drivers are mostly a non-issue. There can still be applications that don't play well with others, but generally the usability guidelines Apple sets out help reduce quite a bit of crazy shit like you see quite a bit with Windows apps and ALL THE TIME with stuff for Linux. Locking things down even further - going to an unjailbroken iPod Touch - you wind up with a situation where other than maybe having a shitty network connection sometimes, the user experience will be generally predictable and users will know that if they try to do something it will generally work the same way across apps, and work when they want it to.
The iPad isn't for me - it doesn't have cameras/video/microphone (and it's closed, which isn't a deal-breaker at all, as the thing will be jailbroken almost instantly) - but I can see a lot of people who would want to have it and find it met (and exceeded their needs). These people aren't sheep, they're just people who have different needs than I do, and don't care if the device is open or closed, just that it works.
The device doesn't even *have* to be closed to give them that primary provider - obviously - but calling human being sheep, devaluing their humanity because they don't really care about open vs. closed and just see a device that'll meet their needs is just twisted and serves absolutely no purpose.
My, that's an awfully nice strawman you've constructed - too bad you had to go and kick it over like that.
I never said that closed platforms were the only way to go, or that people shouldn't be able to use their tools in any way they see fit. I simply said that if one thinks someone who doesn't want to fuck around with maintenance, doesn't want to have to learn how to do anything with their computer other than use it, one is wrong to do so.
So, it takes you 10-15 seconds to check for anti-virus at boot? Awesome! I'm assuming, since you didn't mention it, that your computer also must know what software to download and install in the first place, and how to set itself up to do the whole background automation process? It must have done that right out of the box - which is pretty cool, since I've never known Windows to do that! I guess it also only took you 10-15 seconds to learn enough about anti-virus software to know you need it and how to work with it on your system, how to disable it when you install some software, and so on?
With installation, sometimes, yes, it can be as easy as that, but often times - I know this will shock you - people make craptacular installers that don't make it easy to install. "What do they mean 'custom' installation?" "Why is it telling me that folder doesn't exist?" "It wants to know if I want to install this toolbar thing, well duh of course I do because isn't that what I'm trying to do?" Don't make the mistake of thinking that because these things are obvious to you or many people who deal with tech regularly that they aren't still somewhat confusing to people who just want these things to work.
With driver updates, yeah, that's *brilliant* - I'm sure the average person knows how to do that and isn't remotely confused by what a driver is, where to get it, or any of that. I, for one, was born with that knowledge in my racial memory. I'm being sarcastic, in case you couldn't tell. My point is even that having to do that kind of thing is often actually outside the scope of what people want to do with their computers. A well designed device would make it easy - "Hey, there's a bunch of new stuff that might make your computer work a little better and be a little more secure. It could mess it up, too, so you have a choice if you want to install it or not. And if you do install it, if you don't like the way it works you can go back to how it works now by clicking a button. Ok?"
Bottom line is this:
Most people would prefer it if the manufacturers of the stuff they use took care of all that maintenance shit for them. Especially if they're looking for a device that's billed as easy to use and just works. When it isn't easy to use (even if it is something as trivial as just knowing how to install or uninstall an application can be), or it doesn't "just work" people who wanted those things are bothered. But the fact that they want such a device - even one that is closed - does not make them sheep. It just makes them "people who don't care about a device being open or closed and just want to use it."
Calling them sheep devalues their humanity. It's demented and disgusting.
You're missing my point, but that's cool.
The person I was responding to was essentially saying that people are sheep because they don't want to fuck around with doing maintenance on their gadgets, and because most people generally want something that just does whatever it is that it does, without them needing to be arsed with learning more.
My point is that no, this doesn't make people sheep, it just makes them people who don't really care about all of that stuff, and who just want to use their gadgets, and could really not care less if the device is "open" or "closed" as long as it works.
I think closed platforms can have much greater quality control over user experiences and ensure a consistent experience than open platforms, certainly, if done well: not allowing shitty design, shitty interfaces and buggy apps to be put on the App Store will, on a closed platform, keep those shitty designs, shitty interfaces and buggy apps off of the devices that use that store.
I think open platforms are fantastic - I use a jailbroken iPhone and have all kinds of good stuff on it that Apple doesn't want me to have - but I certainly don't think that somehow makes people who use a locked iPhone because they have no need or interest in the kinds of things they could get on a jailbroken one into sheep. It just makes them people who want different things from their gadgets than I have.
Is someone who uses a modern car replete with computerized control systems that they can't easily modify a sheep? Is someone who buys clothing off the rack and doesn't modify it a sheep? Are people who buy frozen dinners, cook and consume them as the directions say sheep? No, they're just people who don't care about modding their car, clothing or frozen dinner cooking times because they have other priorities. So why is it OK to call people sheep because they see a device that does what they want, does it well enough for their purposes, and happens to be locked down sheep?
They aren't sheep. They're people. Devaluing their humanity because they like a different gadget is demented.
That depends on what you mean by "smart" doesn't it?
Right now there are genetic algorithms that come up with designs that work better than man-made designs (in some cases) and operate in ways that the person who programmed the original algorithms often cannot even begin to figure out.
In a very limited way, that program is thus "smarter" (or "better") than the person who programmed it.
On the black-box issue, no, you cannot calculate it perfectly, but you can certainly come up with a reasonably close simulation of it - which is actually what we do with the universe right now via physics. Our simulations have been getting better all the time. While we will never be able to come up with a 100% perfect simulation of the universe (due to infinite recursion among other things), we may well be able to come up with simulations that are as perfect as need be for any arbitrary sub-set of the universe. Not the same thing, of course, but close enough for most purposes.
Maybe I'm looking at this in a weird way, but I really wasn't thinking of the iPad as a device intended to replace netbooks, but more as the equivalent of a "gaming console" except instead of taking over gaming, it's more aimed at casual surfing, simple document creation, email, and tasks like that.
If I am looking at the iPad as a computer, it's AWFUL because it's locked down and when I think "computer" I really think "general device that lets me do whatever I want, however I want." If I am looking at the iPad as a console, it's great because it is optimized (mostly) to do the things that it replaces really well and to make that experience pretty seamless.
While I'm not excited by the iPad (the lack of front/back cameras & a microphone so no video conferencing with it was a big disappointment; no flash was another - if it had those capabilities, I'd have probably got one) I can definitely see the market for it - an extremely easy to use device that will let most people do all of the things they want to do online or with a computer very easily, and with a nice user experience in the process. Just as consoles streamlined gaming, so, too, this kind of device can streamline internet use for the more casual user.
I don't know that I buy that - I mean, Apple releases 1 version of OS X with all features enabled, vs. Microsoft releasing however many versions of their OS with various features.
I *could* see Apple replacing the Mini with the Pad - the keyboard doc + pad is at the same price-point. But I just don't see them saying "Okay, this OS that we've been pushing for years, that is by and large thought to be one of the best OSes around from a usability AND capability standpoint - fuck that, we're going to cripple it and you have to pay us more money to uncripple it." It makes no sense from any perspective.