I bought this game as soon as it came out, and yes, I noticed many bugs at first. At least patches can fix that. My biggest gripe is with the entire multiplayer gameplay system. Never before have I had so much trouble playing a multiplayer computer game. Four of us got together for a LAN party and immediately started frusting each other to the point where one of us just up and left.
One example: if one member of your party starts a conversation with someone a mile away, everyone else's screen is suddenly useless as they wait for you to finish talking with that person. Apparently no one in this game is allowed to move while someone else is chatting.
Another conversation problem: it's difficult to tell what answers your party members give to NPCs. Once they click an answer, the NPC immediately responds, giving you no time to figure out what your party member just said.
Or how about this: every clickable doorway "warps" your party without warning. This is really irritating when you're managing your inventory or collecting treasure and suddenly interrupted with a "LOADING..." screen. I can't say how many time we've had to go back (LOAD), walk ALL the way to the missed treasure, reprimand the party member for strolling off, and then go ALL the way back to the exit, only RELOAD the next map again.
Then there's pausing. Ugh. NWN2 is not a turn-based strategy game. It does not have a mode for pausing after each round. In general, I like the ability to pause. But for some reason, people that play tabletop DnD want to pause ALL the time. I have 3 problems with this: 1. At least with tabletop role playing there's stuff to talk about and decisions to be made before each person's turn. In NWN2, however, everyone is just stuck waiting for that cleric to pick a spell to drop in favor of a healing spell. 2. Pausing mars the 3D animation effects. And especially for fighters who usually just slash the nearest enemy, pausing ruins the experience. 3. The "Woah, what's going on?!" factor. You can't tell who paused or why. It's frustrating.
So why not just turn off pausing altogether? You can, but believe it or not, there are actually good times to pause. So I think a better solution would be that players have to agree to the pause. Kind of like a votekick.
A word of advice: be sure that you don't get a TV with pixels so small that your computer's text will become unreadable. I'm running Windows XP on a 50" DLP at native 720p and even with large fonts enabled I have a tough time reading my file names from 20 feet away. My browser is viewable but only because I enlarge the fonts, but even that doesn't work on some pages and causes others to lose their formatting.
If you do the math, a 1080p TV needs to be 75" or more just to have as big of pixels as my current TV. Therefore, I will not upgrade to 1080p until I can afford an 80" TV (or switch to an HD projector). The pixels are just too small to read normal sized text across a living room.
When it comes to video cards, size does not matter:-)
Contrary to what you might think, HDTVs actually have pretty low resolutions and refresh rates when compared to regular old desktop CRTs. If you're trying to make a ridiculous case for someone that would need this, say they have a high res CRT.
They ALL win. Seriously, you KNOW this is great design if there are hundreds of/. comments about it and virtually no bitching. Great job on ALL models.
Aside from being a Flickr knockoff (and being slashdotted), zooomr sounds like it has some serious potential. If and when their servers get back online I'm definitely going to try it out. I'm salivating over GPS data within pictures, associating pictures from different users based on time and place.
Linking users to faces in a picture sounds like the perfect blend of Facebook and Flickr, hopefully without the obsessive/compulsive behavior found on the Facebook social network. I wonder how long before Flickr turns up the heat??
You could also try some cube modding to find out when people are behind you!
The low-tech solution is to set up a rear-view mirror. But this is slashdot, so...
Write an app to lower your volume and/or play a sound when one of the following inputs are detected:
- your doorbell is pressed - your touch-sensitive welcome mat is stood upon - your door-mounted IR/laser beam is broken - your cube-mounted microphone picks up an audio pattern that matches your "knock-knock" or "ahem" signature. - your directional light sensor detects a shadow between it and a certain ceiling light above and outside of your door. - your digital IR camera detects a body mass of close to 98.6 degrees fahrenheit standing in the doorway.
OK, so maybe ALL of these is overkill. But I haven't been snuck up on in years!!!
If your ISP advertises per-month bandwidth limits or charges per gigabyte, that's fine. TFA has nothing to do with that. The problem is unfair treatment of a specific type of traffic. Encryption aims to put bitTorrent on equal footing with other protocols, that's all.
This may or may not have been a clear case. The issue I have with the punishment is that Google should defer such a financially damning decision to a neutral third party.
My point was that a good system wouldn't be fooled so easily. Instead of punishing people for exposing its flaws, address the REAL issue and fix the system.
Slashdot Mirror
âoeOthers implied that Scott Kelly had become a different person from his twin brother.â
How ridiculous. /s
"'No one should be blamed for the spread of viruses,' Worobey said."
In related news, Worobey has been giving his partners herpes.
Proof that releasing your source code makes it worthless?
(farewell, sweet karma)
I bought this game as soon as it came out, and yes, I noticed many bugs at first. At least patches can fix that. My biggest gripe is with the entire multiplayer gameplay system. Never before have I had so much trouble playing a multiplayer computer game. Four of us got together for a LAN party and immediately started frusting each other to the point where one of us just up and left.
One example: if one member of your party starts a conversation with someone a mile away, everyone else's screen is suddenly useless as they wait for you to finish talking with that person. Apparently no one in this game is allowed to move while someone else is chatting.
Another conversation problem: it's difficult to tell what answers your party members give to NPCs. Once they click an answer, the NPC immediately responds, giving you no time to figure out what your party member just said.
Or how about this: every clickable doorway "warps" your party without warning. This is really irritating when you're managing your inventory or collecting treasure and suddenly interrupted with a "LOADING..." screen. I can't say how many time we've had to go back (LOAD), walk ALL the way to the missed treasure, reprimand the party member for strolling off, and then go ALL the way back to the exit, only RELOAD the next map again.
Then there's pausing. Ugh. NWN2 is not a turn-based strategy game. It does not have a mode for pausing after each round. In general, I like the ability to pause. But for some reason, people that play tabletop DnD want to pause ALL the time. I have 3 problems with this:
1. At least with tabletop role playing there's stuff to talk about and decisions to be made before each person's turn. In NWN2, however, everyone is just stuck waiting for that cleric to pick a spell to drop in favor of a healing spell.
2. Pausing mars the 3D animation effects. And especially for fighters who usually just slash the nearest enemy, pausing ruins the experience.
3. The "Woah, what's going on?!" factor. You can't tell who paused or why. It's frustrating.
So why not just turn off pausing altogether? You can, but believe it or not, there are actually good times to pause. So I think a better solution would be that players have to agree to the pause. Kind of like a votekick.
That's my two cents.
A word of advice: be sure that you don't get a TV with pixels so small that your computer's text will become unreadable. I'm running Windows XP on a 50" DLP at native 720p and even with large fonts enabled I have a tough time reading my file names from 20 feet away. My browser is viewable but only because I enlarge the fonts, but even that doesn't work on some pages and causes others to lose their formatting.
If you do the math, a 1080p TV needs to be 75" or more just to have as big of pixels as my current TV. Therefore, I will not upgrade to 1080p until I can afford an 80" TV (or switch to an HD projector). The pixels are just too small to read normal sized text across a living room.
When it comes to video cards, size does not matter :-)
Contrary to what you might think, HDTVs actually have pretty low resolutions and refresh rates when compared to regular old desktop CRTs. If you're trying to make a ridiculous case for someone that would need this, say they have a high res CRT.
Excellent rebuttal. I'm glad someone had the mind to point these things out, especially on slashdot.
If you favored the idea that God created the whole world and its inhabitants as adults you obviously thought the chicken came first.
And if you favor the idea that God created animals in egg form?
No matter how you define the boundary of the species, there was a "first chicken". By definition, that chicken hatched from an egg. Question answered.
Would those be our Zerg-ferrying Overlords? ;-)
They ALL win. Seriously, you KNOW this is great design if there are hundreds of /. comments about it and virtually no bitching. Great job on ALL models.
The summary completely skimped on the best part of the article. The author cited a link when he mentioned how emails contain time wasting games!
If you only have N of something, you can charge a premium.
Only have N? When do you not have N of something?
The show ain't over 'til the fat lady sings.
The makers of Fat Tire, for example, use a cogeneration process that involves anaerobic bacteria turning wastewater into...
Dude, don't freak me out like that! I was really worried where that was going. Thank god they just use the shit for power.
The question was:
"Should gamers pay for the privilege of having to be subjected to in-game advertising on a monthly basis?"
The answer is:
No, but they WILL. (Stupid gamers. Mumble, mumble...)
Aside from being a Flickr knockoff (and being slashdotted), zooomr sounds like it has some serious potential. If and when their servers get back online I'm definitely going to try it out. I'm salivating over GPS data within pictures, associating pictures from different users based on time and place.
Linking users to faces in a picture sounds like the perfect blend of Facebook and Flickr, hopefully without the obsessive/compulsive behavior found on the Facebook social network. I wonder how long before Flickr turns up the heat??
I, for one, welcome our new Super Spectral Space Camera wielding, advanced plasma-thruster engine driving Israeli-French overlords.
"...the world's longest (in length) flight, ever."
As opposed to longest in...not length? Thanks for clearing that up!
I would just aim for the middle and hope we hit it!
You could also try some cube modding to find out when people are behind you!
The low-tech solution is to set up a rear-view mirror. But this is slashdot, so...
Write an app to lower your volume and/or play a sound when one of the following inputs are detected:
- your doorbell is pressed
- your touch-sensitive welcome mat is stood upon
- your door-mounted IR/laser beam is broken
- your cube-mounted microphone picks up an audio pattern that matches your "knock-knock" or "ahem" signature.
- your directional light sensor detects a shadow between it and a certain ceiling light above and outside of your door.
- your digital IR camera detects a body mass of close to 98.6 degrees fahrenheit standing in the doorway.
OK, so maybe ALL of these is overkill. But I haven't been snuck up on in years!!!
If your ISP advertises per-month bandwidth limits or charges per gigabyte, that's fine. TFA has nothing to do with that. The problem is unfair treatment of a specific type of traffic. Encryption aims to put bitTorrent on equal footing with other protocols, that's all.
This may or may not have been a clear case. The issue I have with the punishment is that Google should defer such a financially damning decision to a neutral third party.
My point was that a good system wouldn't be fooled so easily. Instead of punishing people for exposing its flaws, address the REAL issue and fix the system.