It's actually something that affects all the emusic stores. It's a bizarre way to sell the service, but in the US, in order to browse their catalog, you need to go to the homepage, click "log in," and then the menu changes to allow you to browse. I'm now a subscriber, as of a week ago, so I can't check to see if that's also the case in the UK.
I'm not at all sure why they hide their catalog like that, as they're far more likely to get people to sign up for the more expensive subscription right off the bat if people know what they're getting into.
I'm hardly a Microsoft apologist, but I'm pretty sure that the "certain" files can be shared means that some files can have it turned off. Otherwise, they're all shareable. Some majors are probably still afraid that people will send a whole album, and the receiver will simply plug their Zune into a tape deck or their computer's line-in and dub the whole thing off.
I'm gonna laugh if the files that share the easiest are the ones that are ripped by users from their own CDs or "indie" mp3.s
That's actually become something very noticeable for me. A lot of my friends have very small cameras or brand new 7+mp cameras, yet their shots look worse than mine at 5. Hell, my wife's camera is a 3.2 and some of her shots are better than mine, mostly because her lens is a little better. Her camera is quite a bit larger than mine, though, and mine's small but still not as small as the super-thin ones. Yet my noise level is very low. Looking at some of my friend's shots, though, any black is covered in noise. Especially if they don't have a flash. If the light is questionable on my 5mp, the shot usually is OK. On the newer ones, it's not worth if it's just OK lighting.
To me, that just says it's not worth upgrading unless I want a really nice camera. Which is nice for my wallet, but probably not what the camera companies want to hear.
Yeah, and yet the majority of games played on PCs are puzzle games and ROMs. Ignoring all other aspects, both have the advantage of being quick to play and quick to understand. They basically *always* work on a computer.
Compared to the big games, it's night and day. Something quick and easy to download and play, compared to, essentially, buying an entire new console to play each new game.
That means that there's currently 0 Playstation 3s created? Various devkits that may feature final hardware are out there, but not in huge numbers, and they expect not only for the system to hit in, what, 2 months, and have enough to satiate demand? And have lots of fun games so people are excited to own one?
Oh wait, they're planning on selling out, touting how it's a huge success even with the high price, and will happily ignore the lack of good launch titles.
Doesn't sound like they're really trying to match demand; just hype it to death. Which is good for people planning on selling on eBay, I suppose. At least seeing the system sell for $700 won't seem like such a huge profit this time around.
I think PC games will have to stop focusing on having the most whiz-bang graphics and actually try to be innovative. The recent spat of high quality FPSs have explored new ways of story telling... but are still, very obviously, FPSs.
With the constant push for fancier and fancier graphics, the push for new hardware keeps people from really getting into gaming on PCs. There are PC gamers, and then there's people who play old games and puzzle games. Sure, you can drop your graphics down a notch and play some of the newest games, but even then they don't often work (and often the graphics that are reduced truly affect the gameplay or ambience, making the game no longer all that fun).
We just had a super-cheesy "article" about why consoles are better, but regardless of subjectivity, it's very true that with consoles people only need to buy one thing, and then are free to play any game for that system. People aren't afraid of gaming on consoles. If Microsoft succeeds in making Vista a "stable target" for game development, with any game that's "Vista-approved" playable to high standards, then I think it could come back. But playing with a mouse/kb is limiting as well, and the gamepad market is all but extinct. If nothing major changes, then PC gaming will likely remain a niche for the forseeable future.
I was of the impression that everyone had pretty much decided whether they were a "pc fanboy," a "console fanboy," or just "someone who likes video games."
Does it matter what platform a game comes out for? If a game is based on using the mouse or internet, it's currently served best by PCs. Hence the still-high number of RTS and FPS games. If it's adaptable to both PCs and consoles, a game tends to come out for both. And if it's made for a controller, it's a console game. The only real difference is the interface.
This article just trots out the same tired "reasons" that everyone's heard already, and attempts to justify them as valid rationale for choosing consoles at the expense of PC gaming. Woohoo. Or you could not click on it, and save yourself from 4 pages of ad-heavy journalism practice. I don't think I've seen an article with more of that "intelliTXT" crap.
I think easily 75% of people want to "max out." Look at SWG. On one hand, everyone wants to be a Jedi. But even the non-jedis picked classes that were very powerful.
If you had a class that took longer and was somewhat more difficult to play as, but was inherently stronger, I'd say that definitely 75% of people would choose that class, regardless of the other classes. Why? Because they play games to be strong and powerful. Sure, there's always some people who like to role play, but for them the idea of leveling is mostly moot. People level their characters up to make them more powerful so they can do more stuff in the game. And if you have a set of classes that level up with better attributes compared to the "regular" classes, everyone would pick the "hero" roles.
It's not so much about grinding, but about few people intentionally choosing a "gimped" class.
The funny thing is that it still took both formats over 5 years before they actually surpassed the older format. Huge advantages, and they were still adopted somewhat slowly, given the advances in technology over that time.
And make sure that unmatched feedback doesn't contribute to someone's score. That way they can't just ignore feedback yet end up with a high rating -- they have to contribute.
Which the Zune doesn't do. I hear you on the formats; to me, the only real competitor out there to the iPod are the products by iRiver. Which, not surprisingly, also cost more than equivalent iPods (due to the bevy of extra features).
I'm an iPod guy cos I've got a mac, but if I just wanted to play some OGGs and FLACs, iRiver would be the way to go.
P.S. to people who do trust the current administration: just consider that someone you don't like will eventually be in charge. Maybe another Republican, maybe a Democrat, maybe the balance of power will realign and we'll be looking at Republicans vs. Greens or something for the next few decades. However it works out, someone you disagree with will be in the Oval Office at some point. Would you want them to have the powers that this administration has been insisting on?
That's already the case. Pretty much everyone who has rallied behind Bush and his administration for the advances of executive power that he's pushed for criticized Clinton for the same attempts. They granted the line item veto, only to have Clinton use it once and have it taken away. Bush has used signing statements to accomplish the same thing. Clinton's ties to industry were scrutinized; Bush's are clear, yet it's OK because it shows he supposedly knows what's going on.
Directly related to FISA and the wiretapping, Clinton's administration conducted a few physical searches w/o warrants, which was legal at the time. When it was discovered, and a law was passed saying that a warrant was needed... they stopped.
It's just a case of "When our guys do it, it's OK, but if your guys do it it's not" syndrome. What they really want to have happen is have a law that only takes effect when members of a certain party are elected. So there would be a "Republican Only" law that only works when the president's party is Republican. And so on.
Apple's keyboard design doesn't include many of the old unix/windows standards, for precisely that reason. The "6 keys" include help, home (top of page), delete, end, and page up/down. Similarly, OS X handles capslock differently -- it doesn't reverse caps, it makes everything all-caps (SO TEXT WILL ALWAYS LOOK LIKE THIS, nOT lIKE tHIS).
I'm far from a zealot (Apple replaced most of the functionality with funky hotkeys and doesn't have full keyboard-only control), but it's surprisingly refreshing to look at my keyboard and see that every key has a purpose that's actually useful in generally day to day stuff, without deciphering old features that may or may not work.
I've only been in the professional workforce for 4 years, but I've never heard anyone use "xerox" as a verb. Similarly, the only people who use "kleenex" instead of tissue seem to be over 40, and even then it's selective.
Granted, the people who write these articles about how common certain terms are and how they're used everywhere in the US are also likely over 40, but using the brand name for everyday items certainly doesn't seem to be as common as it used to be. I personally chalk it up to the fact that competing companies have stepped up their own brand advertising and calling products by what they are -- "bandage," "tissue," etc.
Lately, the only times I've heard people use brand names for verbs or in general conversation is when the product is specifically intended. Such as "just swiffer it up," meaning to use a swiffer broom-thing.
The stealth elements killed it for me. I was really into the game and was having a lot of fun with it, and then hit the trial-and-error section of the game. I got bored trying the same part over and over again and put the game down. Whenever I was interested in picking up again, I was reminded that I was in the middle of the stealth section and lost interest again.
Yeah. Witness Halo 1 vs 2 for example. Halo 1 everyone claimed to love the story, because it was a truly evil race. Halo 2 gives them more motivation and backstory and shows how tragic the race is. Subsequently, many disliked the extra politics involved.
It can work in sci-fi; it's just not what sci-fi is always known for. For every "Alien" there's a "Star Trek." And having the borg in every episode gets boring.
But it doesn't have to be.
Yeah, nothing is set in stone. It's just that historically, when you think of a genre, fantasy involves dragons and monsters that are obviously "bad guys," and you upgrade swords and armor. Sci-fi historically focuses on the "ambiguous future," where bad guys may not be bad guys and reality may not be reality, etc. You can have Xenomorphs and other bio-weapon style enemies, but typically you don't.
Most fantasy takes the easy way out, as people are familiar with kingdoms, villages, gold coins, etc. With sci-fi, they need to start from scratch and introduce how people travel, how they fight, who they fight, what the situations are. Often they're entirely novel and interesting, but that doesn't draw a large crowd.
I'm a sucker for a good sci-fi story and I tend to enjoy RPGs that have a techno-noir tinge to them, vs. the pure fantasy style RPGs. But I'm also not drawn to MMOs, since there's typically little story. With fantasy, you don't really need story. For sci-fi? To me, that's almost the whole point.
Not to mention that "fantasy" already has long distance -- magic. Magic is cast from across the room, and often the caster needs to maintain line-of-sight, similar to firearms or other projectile weaponry.
I think the big reason is that the setting for fantasy is often simpler -- kingdoms and big bad monsters from "hell" or whatever. Sci-fi is usually burdened with politics and trade routes and other exceedingly deep backstory (not necessarily interesting, mind). That appeals to some gamers, but certainly not all.
It doesn't help that it was initially hyped as being a hyper-sandbox, where everything you do is unique. Really the only unique thing was character customization, which triggered different scripted events. I know lots of people who would try to make a character a certain extreme way, only to get sick of dealing with the same thing over and over again (constant marriage requests, or the inability to enter any town at all, all with the same time-consuming results).
Lionhead's problem, and Molyneux's especially, is that they hype their games as if they were something entire new and unique. They're not. Black & White was an updated Populous game, only really short. Fable was similar to a Baldur's Gate/Zelda hybrid, only really short. They've got good ideas, but they spend so long fleshing them out that they end up chopping up half the game and the only thing left is a very short adventure for the amount of enjoyment people are supposed to have. 4 real worlds in B&W for a "play god and have complete customized control" game? 10 hours for a "create a unique character that exists in a unique world" game?
If Fable developed the story at half the rate it did, focused less on the characters reaching their more-or-less finished state, and gave the user some in-depth exploration, it would've been tons better. But, more than likely, Fable 2 will suffer the same fate as B&W 2 did -- it'll fix a lot of things wrong with the first game while presenting a bunch more problems that make the game plain unfun.
It's not too surprising that they would be more interested in the portable music and media player rather than portable video games. There's more money in getting a format licensed and having other people support it, paying licensing fees, compared to maintaining and supporting a portable video game player and games.
They also seem to be embracing Nintendo for this generation, but not just the Wii, but the DS as well. They're letting Rare develop games for the system, which would be unheard of if they were planning their own system.
Still, I don't see how they plan on offering a "better iPod." The iPod succeeds due to simplicity, and having a system that "will always work" with iTunes. Not supporting dozens of different configurations and media organization tools. I wish the iPod would support more formats both for video and audio, but at least the target formats are relatively simple and straightforward for most people to understand -- not "set VBR off and max resolution to less than 480x352 with trellis quantization turned on for best results" or other lingo-riddled instructions. Quicktime has an option "Save for iPod" that works, and even I'm pleased with the results.
While I do think it's funny that you're so passive aggressive about your applications ("I hate what the companies did to me but will happily use their old applications"), you do have a good advantage in both staying with win2k and ReactOS -- your setup works for you.
I've got a dual G5 mac and while I've drooled and gawked as the new machines continue to come out, at the end of the day I use my computer and I'm perfectly happy with it. It goes very fast and performs very well for the music needs that I have. In your case, it sounds the same -- why bother upgrading when the old stuff already works? And since upgrading one aspect of your system would involve overhauling the whole bunch, including likely relearning much of what you're used to, you're right -- why bother when you can just get to business?
Often when I've spoken with musicians who use a computer a lot of it is about upgrades and the next big thing. Yet it always makes me wonder how much more productive they could be if they just sucked it up and made do with what they had, and then upgrade out of absolute necessity instead of just being bored. Probably would be a lot more music being made.
Now the word is officially "archived." Without some historical archive on words and the uses of words, the idea of language changing over time could be easily overlooked by some in the future. Think about young kids whose only use for "gay" is for homosexuality and "bad." Without some archive that actually defines the word, the idea that at one point it meant "happy" could be forgotten. Looking back at historical text from the 30s and 40s, without that understanding one would end up quite confused.
Besides that, dictionaries do have some authority that people put trust in. As you mention, it's already colloquially used, but that only helps for people in those circles. Now that there's a trusted resource, people outside of those lexical circles can peer inside and figure out what those words mean, without getting a run around online. A parent hearing their kid use these words may feel stupid asking the kid what those words meant (and wouldn't likely get a straight answer), but now, rather than trying to do searches online (since their lack of understanding means they likely don't get a lot of internet exposure), they have a trusted resource they can refer to.
You may not care since you see these words all the time, but it's like any archiving; it's there for people who need it.
On the other hand, Hamill was so typecast that the only way he could probably get work was as a voice actor. He was so big that he was probably only offered certain roles that he didn't want, and the only way to get out of it was to only use his voice -- and not "his" voice, at that.
They used Donkey because donkey has connotations of being stubborn. And in Japan, they associate Kong with monkey, just like we do here to some degree. Hence, "stubborn monkey" becomes Donkey Kong.
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It's actually something that affects all the emusic stores. It's a bizarre way to sell the service, but in the US, in order to browse their catalog, you need to go to the homepage, click "log in," and then the menu changes to allow you to browse. I'm now a subscriber, as of a week ago, so I can't check to see if that's also the case in the UK.
I'm not at all sure why they hide their catalog like that, as they're far more likely to get people to sign up for the more expensive subscription right off the bat if people know what they're getting into.
I'm gonna laugh if the files that share the easiest are the ones that are ripped by users from their own CDs or "indie" mp3.s
That's actually become something very noticeable for me. A lot of my friends have very small cameras or brand new 7+mp cameras, yet their shots look worse than mine at 5. Hell, my wife's camera is a 3.2 and some of her shots are better than mine, mostly because her lens is a little better. Her camera is quite a bit larger than mine, though, and mine's small but still not as small as the super-thin ones. Yet my noise level is very low. Looking at some of my friend's shots, though, any black is covered in noise. Especially if they don't have a flash. If the light is questionable on my 5mp, the shot usually is OK. On the newer ones, it's not worth if it's just OK lighting.
To me, that just says it's not worth upgrading unless I want a really nice camera. Which is nice for my wallet, but probably not what the camera companies want to hear.
Yeah, and yet the majority of games played on PCs are puzzle games and ROMs. Ignoring all other aspects, both have the advantage of being quick to play and quick to understand. They basically *always* work on a computer.
Compared to the big games, it's night and day. Something quick and easy to download and play, compared to, essentially, buying an entire new console to play each new game.
Oh wait, they're planning on selling out, touting how it's a huge success even with the high price, and will happily ignore the lack of good launch titles.
Doesn't sound like they're really trying to match demand; just hype it to death. Which is good for people planning on selling on eBay, I suppose. At least seeing the system sell for $700 won't seem like such a huge profit this time around.
With the constant push for fancier and fancier graphics, the push for new hardware keeps people from really getting into gaming on PCs. There are PC gamers, and then there's people who play old games and puzzle games. Sure, you can drop your graphics down a notch and play some of the newest games, but even then they don't often work (and often the graphics that are reduced truly affect the gameplay or ambience, making the game no longer all that fun).
We just had a super-cheesy "article" about why consoles are better, but regardless of subjectivity, it's very true that with consoles people only need to buy one thing, and then are free to play any game for that system. People aren't afraid of gaming on consoles. If Microsoft succeeds in making Vista a "stable target" for game development, with any game that's "Vista-approved" playable to high standards, then I think it could come back. But playing with a mouse/kb is limiting as well, and the gamepad market is all but extinct. If nothing major changes, then PC gaming will likely remain a niche for the forseeable future.
Does it matter what platform a game comes out for? If a game is based on using the mouse or internet, it's currently served best by PCs. Hence the still-high number of RTS and FPS games. If it's adaptable to both PCs and consoles, a game tends to come out for both. And if it's made for a controller, it's a console game. The only real difference is the interface.
This article just trots out the same tired "reasons" that everyone's heard already, and attempts to justify them as valid rationale for choosing consoles at the expense of PC gaming. Woohoo. Or you could not click on it, and save yourself from 4 pages of ad-heavy journalism practice. I don't think I've seen an article with more of that "intelliTXT" crap.
If there's no advantage to Vista, why bother releasing it anywhere?
If you had a class that took longer and was somewhat more difficult to play as, but was inherently stronger, I'd say that definitely 75% of people would choose that class, regardless of the other classes. Why? Because they play games to be strong and powerful. Sure, there's always some people who like to role play, but for them the idea of leveling is mostly moot. People level their characters up to make them more powerful so they can do more stuff in the game. And if you have a set of classes that level up with better attributes compared to the "regular" classes, everyone would pick the "hero" roles.
It's not so much about grinding, but about few people intentionally choosing a "gimped" class.
The funny thing is that it still took both formats over 5 years before they actually surpassed the older format. Huge advantages, and they were still adopted somewhat slowly, given the advances in technology over that time.
And make sure that unmatched feedback doesn't contribute to someone's score. That way they can't just ignore feedback yet end up with a high rating -- they have to contribute.
I'm an iPod guy cos I've got a mac, but if I just wanted to play some OGGs and FLACs, iRiver would be the way to go.
That's already the case. Pretty much everyone who has rallied behind Bush and his administration for the advances of executive power that he's pushed for criticized Clinton for the same attempts. They granted the line item veto, only to have Clinton use it once and have it taken away. Bush has used signing statements to accomplish the same thing. Clinton's ties to industry were scrutinized; Bush's are clear, yet it's OK because it shows he supposedly knows what's going on.
Directly related to FISA and the wiretapping, Clinton's administration conducted a few physical searches w/o warrants, which was legal at the time. When it was discovered, and a law was passed saying that a warrant was needed... they stopped.
It's just a case of "When our guys do it, it's OK, but if your guys do it it's not" syndrome. What they really want to have happen is have a law that only takes effect when members of a certain party are elected. So there would be a "Republican Only" law that only works when the president's party is Republican. And so on.
I'm far from a zealot (Apple replaced most of the functionality with funky hotkeys and doesn't have full keyboard-only control), but it's surprisingly refreshing to look at my keyboard and see that every key has a purpose that's actually useful in generally day to day stuff, without deciphering old features that may or may not work.
Granted, the people who write these articles about how common certain terms are and how they're used everywhere in the US are also likely over 40, but using the brand name for everyday items certainly doesn't seem to be as common as it used to be. I personally chalk it up to the fact that competing companies have stepped up their own brand advertising and calling products by what they are -- "bandage," "tissue," etc.
Lately, the only times I've heard people use brand names for verbs or in general conversation is when the product is specifically intended. Such as "just swiffer it up," meaning to use a swiffer broom-thing.
Of course, unless you actually want a pen made by Sharpie. They're a heck of a lot better than most indelible ink brands.
The stealth elements killed it for me. I was really into the game and was having a lot of fun with it, and then hit the trial-and-error section of the game. I got bored trying the same part over and over again and put the game down. Whenever I was interested in picking up again, I was reminded that I was in the middle of the stealth section and lost interest again.
Yeah. Witness Halo 1 vs 2 for example. Halo 1 everyone claimed to love the story, because it was a truly evil race. Halo 2 gives them more motivation and backstory and shows how tragic the race is. Subsequently, many disliked the extra politics involved.
It can work in sci-fi; it's just not what sci-fi is always known for. For every "Alien" there's a "Star Trek." And having the borg in every episode gets boring.
But it doesn't have to be.
Yeah, nothing is set in stone. It's just that historically, when you think of a genre, fantasy involves dragons and monsters that are obviously "bad guys," and you upgrade swords and armor. Sci-fi historically focuses on the "ambiguous future," where bad guys may not be bad guys and reality may not be reality, etc. You can have Xenomorphs and other bio-weapon style enemies, but typically you don't.
Most fantasy takes the easy way out, as people are familiar with kingdoms, villages, gold coins, etc. With sci-fi, they need to start from scratch and introduce how people travel, how they fight, who they fight, what the situations are. Often they're entirely novel and interesting, but that doesn't draw a large crowd.
I'm a sucker for a good sci-fi story and I tend to enjoy RPGs that have a techno-noir tinge to them, vs. the pure fantasy style RPGs. But I'm also not drawn to MMOs, since there's typically little story. With fantasy, you don't really need story. For sci-fi? To me, that's almost the whole point.
I think the big reason is that the setting for fantasy is often simpler -- kingdoms and big bad monsters from "hell" or whatever. Sci-fi is usually burdened with politics and trade routes and other exceedingly deep backstory (not necessarily interesting, mind). That appeals to some gamers, but certainly not all.
Lionhead's problem, and Molyneux's especially, is that they hype their games as if they were something entire new and unique. They're not. Black & White was an updated Populous game, only really short. Fable was similar to a Baldur's Gate/Zelda hybrid, only really short. They've got good ideas, but they spend so long fleshing them out that they end up chopping up half the game and the only thing left is a very short adventure for the amount of enjoyment people are supposed to have. 4 real worlds in B&W for a "play god and have complete customized control" game? 10 hours for a "create a unique character that exists in a unique world" game?
If Fable developed the story at half the rate it did, focused less on the characters reaching their more-or-less finished state, and gave the user some in-depth exploration, it would've been tons better. But, more than likely, Fable 2 will suffer the same fate as B&W 2 did -- it'll fix a lot of things wrong with the first game while presenting a bunch more problems that make the game plain unfun.
They also seem to be embracing Nintendo for this generation, but not just the Wii, but the DS as well. They're letting Rare develop games for the system, which would be unheard of if they were planning their own system.
Still, I don't see how they plan on offering a "better iPod." The iPod succeeds due to simplicity, and having a system that "will always work" with iTunes. Not supporting dozens of different configurations and media organization tools. I wish the iPod would support more formats both for video and audio, but at least the target formats are relatively simple and straightforward for most people to understand -- not "set VBR off and max resolution to less than 480x352 with trellis quantization turned on for best results" or other lingo-riddled instructions. Quicktime has an option "Save for iPod" that works, and even I'm pleased with the results.
I've got a dual G5 mac and while I've drooled and gawked as the new machines continue to come out, at the end of the day I use my computer and I'm perfectly happy with it. It goes very fast and performs very well for the music needs that I have. In your case, it sounds the same -- why bother upgrading when the old stuff already works? And since upgrading one aspect of your system would involve overhauling the whole bunch, including likely relearning much of what you're used to, you're right -- why bother when you can just get to business?
Often when I've spoken with musicians who use a computer a lot of it is about upgrades and the next big thing. Yet it always makes me wonder how much more productive they could be if they just sucked it up and made do with what they had, and then upgrade out of absolute necessity instead of just being bored. Probably would be a lot more music being made.
Besides that, dictionaries do have some authority that people put trust in. As you mention, it's already colloquially used, but that only helps for people in those circles. Now that there's a trusted resource, people outside of those lexical circles can peer inside and figure out what those words mean, without getting a run around online. A parent hearing their kid use these words may feel stupid asking the kid what those words meant (and wouldn't likely get a straight answer), but now, rather than trying to do searches online (since their lack of understanding means they likely don't get a lot of internet exposure), they have a trusted resource they can refer to.
You may not care since you see these words all the time, but it's like any archiving; it's there for people who need it.
On the other hand, Hamill was so typecast that the only way he could probably get work was as a voice actor. He was so big that he was probably only offered certain roles that he didn't want, and the only way to get out of it was to only use his voice -- and not "his" voice, at that.
Miyamoto's said as much in his interviews.