"Everybody" is people who follow IGN
on
The New Zelda
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· Score: 1
Over at IGN, for a while now, there's been a preview of Zelda. It was shown at E3 in 2000. They show an incredibly dark, incredibly detailed, and incredibly lifelike personage for both Link and Ganondorf (also called Ganon). The stills for the preview are just phenomenal (I can't say that enough). Go over and take a look at what the original concept was.
Everybody's bitching because it feels like the old bait-and-switch. Miyamoto dangles these beautiful carrots in front of everybody, showcasing exactly what the Gamecube is capable of, and then he says, "No, sorry, we've completely re-designed the game, and now it looks cartoony. Sorry." He has even admitted that the change was made before E3 of 2000, and the shots were of a game that was not in the works
It's not that the new game is different from other Zeldas... It's that the new game is not the game we were shown.
I have never really been a huge fan of the Zelda series but I do enjoy it. I played the SNES incarnations and they were good and I found them fun to play however when I bought the N64 Zelda's I just didn't and couldn't get in to them like how I did with the SNES games - I didn't like the seriousness of the game so I never actually got around to completing them as they just bored me.
When I first saw the The Legend of Zelda for the GCN, it was a picture, and I did think for a split second, oh my god, what on earth has Nintendo done (around this time I had only had about 3 hours of sleep as I stayed up for Spaceworld as I live in the UK). I could not picture Zelda to look like this after seeing last years Spaceworld footage and the N64 versions. However after a lot of thought I realised Nintendo is going back to their roots and that is when I finally understood Miyamoto's reasons for making the changes - he doesn't want to make rehashes of the same old game with just prettier graphics, he doesn't want to do what most other developers out there would be afraid to do and that is to try something different and go along the same lines that made the Zelda series great in the first place.
I believe that the reasons why many people are upset about this change in Zelda is because the videogame industry hasn't had a wake up call (I apologise if I offend anyone when I say this) and that the Sony Playstation has done something to this industry that Nintendo is trying to prevent from happening - and that (Playstation) is preventing developers from making new and original games and stopping them from making new ideas - instead they just release game after game after game which don't have any different gameplay in them and yes, I know you shouldn't fix something that ain't broke but Miyamoto knows that if he doesn't do something to the Zelda series soon, then that too will follow the path of say the Tomb Raider series.
People complaining should think long and hard and try and understand that what Miyamoto is doing is for the good of the Zelda series as Im sure none of you would like to see Zelda dry up, cause if it did, Im pretty damn sure you would be begging for a change in the series like this to happen.
With respect to the growing debates over "client" versus "server", I think that in the future we'll see a much larger shift back towards the "server" side. Let's look at the history:
Initially, we have bare-bones, thin clients which are no more than glorified typewriters that can output their characters over copper wire to mainframes. The structure was very simple: if it could fit on a desk, it was a client. If it took a room to hold it, it was a server.
Then came the personal computer. Soon people were setting up their own web servers, their own FTP servers, etc. This, IMHO, is when the definition began to be blurred, as clients started behaving as servers and servers faded away.
Recently, though, the shift has changed back to a dedicated server because of the increasingly high demand necessary on upkeep. Joe Q. User doesn't want to be bothered to keep up with updates (Code Red, anyone?) and so he decides to let other people deal with it through proxy servers.
Everything runs in cycles; eventually, it will shift back, but for now, servers are here to stay.
I'm gonna get bitchslapped for this, but I wonder...
With all the recent articles about "astroturfing" (I'd link to them, but search is down right now) here on Slashdot, why is it that when a Linux group does it, it's the responsiblity of a single person who is quickly singled out, but when the group from Redmond does it, suddenly it's the entire corporation that is to blame?
All we know is that we have a single person, perhaps more, sending invalid letters to the Utah Attorney General. For all we know, it could be just one person within Microsoft sending them because of a mis-interpreted order.
Actually, the more I think about it, for all we know, it is actually a Linux supporter who is trying to discredit any valid grass-roots campaign that has sprung up for Microsoft.
Let's not jump to conclusions here, folks; Let's wait for the facts before we start grandstanding about how terrible the Big Bad Corporation Microsoft is, mmmkay?
Come on, everybody knows that those tests are culturally biased. When are people going to learn that computers who don't have a beige box are economically and societally discriminated against? Non-beige boxes have a higher crime rate, higher drop-out rate, and generally are used for menial tasks.
It's not the number that matters... it's the fact that you get the first post on a story that counts. You hit "Submit", then look, and see that there's only one comment, and that is yours...
Even better is the fact that Slashdot uses retroactive signatures, so you can put the violating link into your.sig, then have a bunch of idiots bite on it, then just change the.sig, and all evidence is erased. Cool, huh?
I should change my.sig before I get bitchslapped too hard... I've already dropped 10 hard-whored karma points today, so I should stop soon...
It's not that tough, man. Just make a damn account
I've had this account for a couple years, and have gotten tired of it. It's not at all hard to karma whore yourself up until you're at the +1 level (just write anything pro-linux and have links to back them up) and get yourself up to a default of 2, then start trolling away.
The moderators catch on eventually, but who cares? It's all about fucking with the geeks.
I think that I remember reading something like this on a couple of other websites... There was a study done about people cybersquatting and being misdirected to sites that they really did NOT want to go to... Like the old whitehouse.com trick... Let me see if I can find it...
In the article, there was a discussion between two "cave-men" trying to discuss the basic processes of booting up a system, including the infamous "C:" being misinterpreted as "see prompt". That struck home for all of those in tech support, trying to guide undereducated computer users through the confusing world of computers using only the English language
There's a good collection of these kinds of things at Computer Stupidities on rinkworks.com.
For those of us who really don't know a whole helluva lot about the two technologies (I know that I don't) there's a good article about it over on Network World Fusion. The article is here.
It concludes that Bluetooth has the edge currently, but it's still way too early in the ballgame to know for sure.
Loki took games that had already been released for Windows -- games that had been out for months -- and ported them to Linux.
Linux doesn't have many games for it, so if you like to play computer games, you've already got another computer that runs Windows for them, or you dual boot your Linux computer. And if there's a game that you really wanted, you've already bought the Windows version -- months before the Linux port comes out. When the Linux port does finally come out, you may have moved on to the next game, or you may just not feel like paying for the game *again*.
Had Loki been able to release Linux ports of games at the same time as the Windows versions, things may have been very different. I'd certainly have bought some of the games if I didn't have to wait.
Also note that Mac ports for games are similar, but they have one big difference -- a Mac cannot run modern PC games (PC emulators aren't quite good enough) but a Linux PC could always be dual booted into Windows. So a Linux user with a PC could always install Windows on another partition if he *really* needed it.
Because of this, the market for Mac games, even Mac ports of games that have been out for months on Windows boxes, is a good deal larger than the market for Linux ports of old Windows games.
Did you even read my fucking post? Since you talked to me in such a condescending way, let me do the same to you.
Here's what I see happening. I post something that offends the moderators on the site (be it Simms, Taco, or anybody else). They use their infinite moderator points to moderate my initial post to -1 using a combination of offtopic and troll.
Then they go into my comment history and mark EVERY FUCKING ONE OF MY PAST POSTS as -1, using the same moderation scheme. Let me say that again. EVERY FUCKING ONE OF MY PAST POSTS. Even posts that I made 2 weeks ago get moderated down to -1.
Fortunately, I avoided the guillotine this time, but I have had this done to me before.
Now, is there anything else you want to say that will further illustrate your ignorance?
All the delay would have done was postpone the inveitable. As it is, there's going to be a long, drawn-out trial while Microsoft dances its lawyers around and circles the wagons, trying to protect the money that they fought so hard to earn.
A delay would have put this trial off by what, a couple of weeks? Wonderful. This trial, and mark my words, will last longer than the O.J. debacle. This will be a 3-year long trial, while Microsoft calls in experts, and the DoJ calls in rebuttal experts, on and on ad absurdium.
We're never going to see a just resolution to this, so what does it matter if they aren't delayed a few weeks?
I also realize that I'm gonna get bitchslapped by an editor for this. I don't fucking care.
For those of you who don't know what a bitchslap is, it's when an editor with unlimited moderator points goes through every fucking one of your posts and tosses several "Troll" and "Offtopic" moderations until they're at -1. Then, because of the terrible hit to Karma that comes from it, your IP gets banned and you are basically fucked.
Don't believe me? I've had it happen before. Fortunately, I only had 4 posts, and so my karma stayed positive.
Check the moderation totals, and you'll see that I'm posting at +1 right now. But if you look at my past posts (if I get bitchslapped) then they'll all be at -1, regardless of how good they were.
I wish I had known about this interview, because I would have asked him how he feels about Ulrich Drepper simply bashing RMS in a recent changelog for glibc.
If you scroll down to the bottom of that page (or just search for the words "not so nice things") you'll see Ulrich Drepper, a Red Hat programmer, discussing his own personal involvement with Stallman.
I submitted this as an article and it got rejected, but I really think that it's a good glimpse into the behind-the-scenes power struggles that go on.
Come on, people, didn't you see Frequency? I mean, this guy could talk to his dead father over a span of 30 years, and now we think it's some great revelation that radiation causes communication?
I mean, if it's in a movie, it has to be true, right?
I, for one, am glad to see that more effort is being put into initiating new members into the "fold", so to speak. The sheer volume of information that needs to be assimilated just to get a version of BSD/Linux installed is enormous to the average user.
I've always said that one of the biggest problems with the BSD/Linux community was the high level-of-entry that was required. I mean, just to start into a text-only operating system is intimidating enough, but trying to decode cryptic interfaces and even more cryptic man pages is often too much for John Q Computer User.
Tell me, if this discussion had taken place in, say, a business board room, and I had suggested that the lack of accountability online could be solved by identification trackers, would you have stood up and called me a moron?
The fact that you can hide behind your screen and type insults to me without worrying about the person on the other end of the line means that you are not taking responsiblities for your own actions, because you don't have to.
It's the obvious problem that comes up whenever the Internet is used. The very nature of the beast is that anonymity is virtually assured. I can go online and make a Hotmail account and claim to be Joe Blow who graduated from Harvard at the age of 16, and nobody can prove me otherwise (at least, not easily)
Whenever you have a medium that is so completely anonymous, you're going to have problems proving credibility. After all, IPs can be spoofed, so if I trace a Virus e-mail back to the alledged sender and it comes up at an address at McAffee, I'm likely to believe that the virus is true, when it was just spoofed.
What we need is some kind of identification verification procedure online. Not only would this destroy the virus scares, but it would also limit spam and help to track down child molestors. I'm all for tying real-life identities to online personas because it would mean accountability for actions, and if you've been in an IRC chat room recently, you know how stupid people can be when there are no repercussions for their actions.
I was not admitting that it was flamebait. I was saying that Slashdot group-think mentality will moderate me as Flamebait. I was merely resigning to the obvious (though, for some reason, I've been modded up. Who knows?)
And you're right, these kinds of articles are good, because they show that it can be done. However, the point of my comment was that it does no good to sit around and mentally masturbate about this "victory" when people in the mainstream still see Linux as a bunch of pimply-faced communists who want to steal everything (like it or not, that's the general image behind Linux).
We have to take articles like this and publish them. Not on a Linux-oriented site, and not to a group of people who already understand the benefits of Linux.
I'm gonna get modded down to hell for this comment, but here goes anyways
This story is nothing but mental Linux masturbation. It's an article posted on a Linux oriented website (dot.kde.org), linked to on an admittedly pro-Linux weblog, and being discussed by a group of pro-Linux computer users.
That's great. Let me know when somebody offers up a different opinion, ok?
Nobody can tell me that this story, as good as it may be, is nothing more than screaming "Look, we're great! Let's preach to the choir!!!". Who would even think of visiting dot.kde.org, besides people who already know the benefits of Linux over other OSes? Nobody.
My point is this: We can write all the pro-Linux articles we want on all the pro-Linux websites we want, and it's not going to do a DAMN bit of good because the information is not getting out to the people who need it. You wanna rant and rave about how great Linux is because it saves time and money? Great. Go out there into the real world and try selling that to a company who relies on NT for their technology.
If you can change their views and switch them over to Linux, then and only then can you claim some sort of victory.
Until then, there is no point to these articles, as no new information is being spread and no new minds are being informed. We're talking amongst ourselves, while the world passes us by.
I expect this to be (-1, Flamebait) within 20 seconds of hitting "Submit". Do your worst.
This is getting a bit ridiculous. First it was Code Red, which was actually a pretty nice piece of code. Then Code Red II, which was a hack job by somebody who barely knew how to use a text editor. Now we have Code Red III? I'm willing to bet that it's an even worse job than II!
This is the same damn thing that happened to the I Love You worm that spread around. About a week after it was calmed down, some 1337 5kr1p7 K1dd13 got a hold of it and changed 2 lines, re-releasing it. Stupid copycating, that's all it is.
I'm willing to bet that whoever edited the virus this time is reading slashdot right now and is getting a boner off the fact somebody submitted it (if he didn't submit it himself).
Get over it. Code Red is dead. And all the editing and all the 1337 references in the world are not going to help it; Just let it die.
This was quite obviously a political decision on the part of the President. He knew that if he fully supported the stem cell research, then conservative religious people would come down on him so hard his head would roll.
On the other hand, if he opposed research (as he said he would in his campaign) then the liberals and all science-oriented people would label him as a luddite who can't deal with the new technologies.
Instead, he says that he'll allow research, but not if the embryos are killed. Brilliant move. That's like telling a computer geek that "It's ok to mess around with your computer, but you had better not do anything that might damage the operation of the system," which is exactly the message he's sending.
Imagine if you were allowed to develop on a Cray supercomputer that has the potential to do some incredibly great things (like stem cell research is going to be doing). Imagine the possiblities... But your boss, who signs your checks, says "Ok, go ahead and program, but if you cause a GPF on the damn thing, you're fired and you get no more money".
Do you think that you'd be able to develop good programs? Of course not; you'd be too worried about losing your job. That's the same way with these stem cell researchers. They'll lose their funding if they kill any embryos, so they're not going to do anything that could even remotely harm them.
Slashdot Mirror
Everybody's bitching because it feels like the old bait-and-switch. Miyamoto dangles these beautiful carrots in front of everybody, showcasing exactly what the Gamecube is capable of, and then he says, "No, sorry, we've completely re-designed the game, and now it looks cartoony. Sorry." He has even admitted that the change was made before E3 of 2000, and the shots were of a game that was not in the works
It's not that the new game is different from other Zeldas... It's that the new game is not the game we were shown.
When I first saw the The Legend of Zelda for the GCN, it was a picture, and I did think for a split second, oh my god, what on earth has Nintendo done (around this time I had only had about 3 hours of sleep as I stayed up for Spaceworld as I live in the UK). I could not picture Zelda to look like this after seeing last years Spaceworld footage and the N64 versions. However after a lot of thought I realised Nintendo is going back to their roots and that is when I finally understood Miyamoto's reasons for making the changes - he doesn't want to make rehashes of the same old game with just prettier graphics, he doesn't want to do what most other developers out there would be afraid to do and that is to try something different and go along the same lines that made the Zelda series great in the first place.
I believe that the reasons why many people are upset about this change in Zelda is because the videogame industry hasn't had a wake up call (I apologise if I offend anyone when I say this) and that the Sony Playstation has done something to this industry that Nintendo is trying to prevent from happening - and that (Playstation) is preventing developers from making new and original games and stopping them from making new ideas - instead they just release game after game after game which don't have any different gameplay in them and yes, I know you shouldn't fix something that ain't broke but Miyamoto knows that if he doesn't do something to the Zelda series soon, then that too will follow the path of say the Tomb Raider series.
People complaining should think long and hard and try and understand that what Miyamoto is doing is for the good of the Zelda series as Im sure none of you would like to see Zelda dry up, cause if it did, Im pretty damn sure you would be begging for a change in the series like this to happen.
The Legend will live on!
Initially, we have bare-bones, thin clients which are no more than glorified typewriters that can output their characters over copper wire to mainframes. The structure was very simple: if it could fit on a desk, it was a client. If it took a room to hold it, it was a server.
Then came the personal computer. Soon people were setting up their own web servers, their own FTP servers, etc. This, IMHO, is when the definition began to be blurred, as clients started behaving as servers and servers faded away.
Recently, though, the shift has changed back to a dedicated server because of the increasingly high demand necessary on upkeep. Joe Q. User doesn't want to be bothered to keep up with updates (Code Red, anyone?) and so he decides to let other people deal with it through proxy servers.
Everything runs in cycles; eventually, it will shift back, but for now, servers are here to stay.
With all the recent articles about "astroturfing" (I'd link to them, but search is down right now) here on Slashdot, why is it that when a Linux group does it, it's the responsiblity of a single person who is quickly singled out, but when the group from Redmond does it, suddenly it's the entire corporation that is to blame?
All we know is that we have a single person, perhaps more, sending invalid letters to the Utah Attorney General. For all we know, it could be just one person within Microsoft sending them because of a mis-interpreted order.
Actually, the more I think about it, for all we know, it is actually a Linux supporter who is trying to discredit any valid grass-roots campaign that has sprung up for Microsoft.
Let's not jump to conclusions here, folks; Let's wait for the facts before we start grandstanding about how terrible the Big Bad Corporation Microsoft is, mmmkay?
Come on, everybody knows that those tests are culturally biased. When are people going to learn that computers who don't have a beige box are economically and societally discriminated against? Non-beige boxes have a higher crime rate, higher drop-out rate, and generally are used for menial tasks.
Stop the cultural profiling!
A truly beautious vision, if ever there was one.
Idiot.
I should change my .sig before I get bitchslapped too hard... I've already dropped 10 hard-whored karma points today, so I should stop soon...
I've had this account for a couple years, and have gotten tired of it. It's not at all hard to karma whore yourself up until you're at the +1 level (just write anything pro-linux and have links to back them up) and get yourself up to a default of 2, then start trolling away.
The moderators catch on eventually, but who cares? It's all about fucking with the geeks.
I think that I remember reading something like this on a couple of other websites... There was a study done about people cybersquatting and being misdirected to sites that they really did NOT want to go to... Like the old whitehouse.com trick... Let me see if I can find it...
There's a good collection of these kinds of things at Computer Stupidities on rinkworks.com.
It concludes that Bluetooth has the edge currently, but it's still way too early in the ballgame to know for sure.
Had Loki been able to release Linux ports of games at the same time as the Windows versions, things may have been very different. I'd certainly have bought some of the games if I didn't have to wait.
Also note that Mac ports for games are similar, but they have one big difference -- a Mac cannot run modern PC games (PC emulators aren't quite good enough) but a Linux PC could always be dual booted into Windows. So a Linux user with a PC could always install Windows on another partition if he *really* needed it.
Because of this, the market for Mac games, even Mac ports of games that have been out for months on Windows boxes, is a good deal larger than the market for Linux ports of old Windows games.
So YOU'RE the one who's been breaking into my boxen...
Did you even read my fucking post? Since you talked to me in such a condescending way, let me do the same to you.
Here's what I see happening. I post something that offends the moderators on the site (be it Simms, Taco, or anybody else). They use their infinite moderator points to moderate my initial post to -1 using a combination of offtopic and troll.
Then they go into my comment history and mark EVERY FUCKING ONE OF MY PAST POSTS as -1, using the same moderation scheme. Let me say that again. EVERY FUCKING ONE OF MY PAST POSTS. Even posts that I made 2 weeks ago get moderated down to -1.
Fortunately, I avoided the guillotine this time, but I have had this done to me before.
Now, is there anything else you want to say that will further illustrate your ignorance?
A delay would have put this trial off by what, a couple of weeks? Wonderful. This trial, and mark my words, will last longer than the O.J. debacle. This will be a 3-year long trial, while Microsoft calls in experts, and the DoJ calls in rebuttal experts, on and on ad absurdium.
We're never going to see a just resolution to this, so what does it matter if they aren't delayed a few weeks?
For those of you who don't know what a bitchslap is, it's when an editor with unlimited moderator points goes through every fucking one of your posts and tosses several "Troll" and "Offtopic" moderations until they're at -1. Then, because of the terrible hit to Karma that comes from it, your IP gets banned and you are basically fucked.
Don't believe me? I've had it happen before. Fortunately, I only had 4 posts, and so my karma stayed positive.
Check the moderation totals, and you'll see that I'm posting at +1 right now. But if you look at my past posts (if I get bitchslapped) then they'll all be at -1, regardless of how good they were.
If you scroll down to the bottom of that page (or just search for the words "not so nice things") you'll see Ulrich Drepper, a Red Hat programmer, discussing his own personal involvement with Stallman.
I submitted this as an article and it got rejected, but I really think that it's a good glimpse into the behind-the-scenes power struggles that go on.
Thoughts?
I mean, if it's in a movie, it has to be true, right?
I've always said that one of the biggest problems with the BSD/Linux community was the high level-of-entry that was required. I mean, just to start into a text-only operating system is intimidating enough, but trying to decode cryptic interfaces and even more cryptic man pages is often too much for John Q Computer User.
The fact that you can hide behind your screen and type insults to me without worrying about the person on the other end of the line means that you are not taking responsiblities for your own actions, because you don't have to.
Thank you for so succinctly proving my point.
Whenever you have a medium that is so completely anonymous, you're going to have problems proving credibility. After all, IPs can be spoofed, so if I trace a Virus e-mail back to the alledged sender and it comes up at an address at McAffee, I'm likely to believe that the virus is true, when it was just spoofed.
What we need is some kind of identification verification procedure online. Not only would this destroy the virus scares, but it would also limit spam and help to track down child molestors. I'm all for tying real-life identities to online personas because it would mean accountability for actions, and if you've been in an IRC chat room recently, you know how stupid people can be when there are no repercussions for their actions.
And you're right, these kinds of articles are good, because they show that it can be done. However, the point of my comment was that it does no good to sit around and mentally masturbate about this "victory" when people in the mainstream still see Linux as a bunch of pimply-faced communists who want to steal everything (like it or not, that's the general image behind Linux).
We have to take articles like this and publish them. Not on a Linux-oriented site, and not to a group of people who already understand the benefits of Linux.
We need to get this information mainstream
This story is nothing but mental Linux masturbation. It's an article posted on a Linux oriented website (dot.kde.org), linked to on an admittedly pro-Linux weblog, and being discussed by a group of pro-Linux computer users.
That's great. Let me know when somebody offers up a different opinion, ok?
Nobody can tell me that this story, as good as it may be, is nothing more than screaming "Look, we're great! Let's preach to the choir!!!". Who would even think of visiting dot.kde.org, besides people who already know the benefits of Linux over other OSes? Nobody.
My point is this: We can write all the pro-Linux articles we want on all the pro-Linux websites we want, and it's not going to do a DAMN bit of good because the information is not getting out to the people who need it. You wanna rant and rave about how great Linux is because it saves time and money? Great. Go out there into the real world and try selling that to a company who relies on NT for their technology.
If you can change their views and switch them over to Linux, then and only then can you claim some sort of victory.
Until then, there is no point to these articles, as no new information is being spread and no new minds are being informed. We're talking amongst ourselves, while the world passes us by.
I expect this to be (-1, Flamebait) within 20 seconds of hitting "Submit". Do your worst.
This is the same damn thing that happened to the I Love You worm that spread around. About a week after it was calmed down, some 1337 5kr1p7 K1dd13 got a hold of it and changed 2 lines, re-releasing it. Stupid copycating, that's all it is.
I'm willing to bet that whoever edited the virus this time is reading slashdot right now and is getting a boner off the fact somebody submitted it (if he didn't submit it himself).
Get over it. Code Red is dead. And all the editing and all the 1337 references in the world are not going to help it; Just let it die.
On the other hand, if he opposed research (as he said he would in his campaign) then the liberals and all science-oriented people would label him as a luddite who can't deal with the new technologies.
Instead, he says that he'll allow research, but not if the embryos are killed. Brilliant move. That's like telling a computer geek that "It's ok to mess around with your computer, but you had better not do anything that might damage the operation of the system," which is exactly the message he's sending.
Imagine if you were allowed to develop on a Cray supercomputer that has the potential to do some incredibly great things (like stem cell research is going to be doing). Imagine the possiblities... But your boss, who signs your checks, says "Ok, go ahead and program, but if you cause a GPF on the damn thing, you're fired and you get no more money".
Do you think that you'd be able to develop good programs? Of course not; you'd be too worried about losing your job. That's the same way with these stem cell researchers. They'll lose their funding if they kill any embryos, so they're not going to do anything that could even remotely harm them.
Stifling innovation, the President is...