It'd be up to the EU countries to enforce the laws that respect MS's copyright law...and I don't think they'd give a damn about protecting MS's copyrights if MS went and bailed on them and left all their businesses high and dry. They'd just declare MS to be freeware and then just get their MS updates from alternative sources until companies setup a new non-MS infrastructure and then abandon MS on their own schedule.
MS for all its might needs to be on the side of the people who have the most guns in order(which is usually, but not always, the government) to do business.
The first new model batch was 8/23. So two-and-half months ago, you probably got an older model pulled from stock. Google around and there's a picture guide showing what to look for to tell if you have a new one or not. Look inside your xbox360's vent, you should see a heatpipe leading away from the GPU.
The shrink from 90nm to 65nm on the processor may have little to no effect since the design flaw is in the X-clamp on the GPU. The new repair service that went in hand with the warranty extension involves an installation of a new heatpipe on the GPU. So there is something being done, but in a passive form, rather than an active product recall. That's what supposed to fix the issue, the idea of the new Falcon chip solving the RROD was pure speculation, and as parent has mentioned there is NO proof. Not even a claim from MS that this is the case.
However, there are rumors of a GPU shrink coming in late 2008 from 90nm to 65nm as well: http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20070430PB208.html . This would be more likely to affect the RROD issue since this is the source of the heat that causes the board flexing under the X-clamps.
Something to note is that Perfect Dark 2 is underway with rumors of a late 2008 release.
I agree that PDZ's controls were poor and the core flaw of this launch title. What I don't get, is why this was allowed to happen. Halo is an MS franchise and Bungie was MS-owned at the time. Shadowrun's console controls were stellar because they were taken directly from Halo 2. Why didn't they carry over the same aiming scheme from Halo like they did for Shadowrun? Or was PDZ's failure the lesson that taught them to bring Halo's controls over to Shadowrun.
Perhaps PD2 will be able to make up for it's predecessor.
I had concerns about power draw when setting up a new PC to replace my aging setup. I've already piled on a considerable amount of electronics in the small room I live in. Having both A/Cs activate on the same breaker causes the breaker to trip, so even the added burden of a computer upgrade was worrisome.
Having the additional information would have taken off a good bit of stress, and would help a bit in calculating how much headroom I needed in the PSU to keep the PC itself running smoothly.
I read the title "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig". I did not what that phrase was a reference to. I clicked the link, and got the information that answered my curiousity. Looks like the entry did it's job.
In what world does it make sense to have a Wikipedia that's edited to keep people from getting the information they're looking for?
If no articles are added or updated, then that may increase pressure on a reader to contribute and bring up the rate of contribution.
When people read a wiki article and find that it's gone out of date or need new additions that person can potentially be the one to rectify the situation. If they read it and find that it knows as much or more than them, they of course won't have anything to add and won't contribute.
If people get tired of background politics and excess bureaucracy in wikipedia, they'll leave...which frees up the landscape, correcting the situation and so on and so forth.
There's a potential equilibrium here and a decline in contributions does not necessarily represent a fundamental change to the forces that maintain it, it's probably just normal fluctuation. I don't see anything replacing wikipedia or eliminating the benefit that is gained from its existence. I don't believe wikipedia has run out of money yet.
Human history in halo diverges into two sets. The "Forerunners" who built the Halos were also human, and this discovery is why Halo 3 takes place on Earth which housed the controls underground. So two FTL discoveries and two first contacts are possible since apparently they'd managed to wipe out historical record between the two when the Forerunners apparently toasted themselves with a Halo before getting inside a shield world like they'd planned.
*End spoilers*
So there may be other reasons why Halo wouldn't be compatible with Marathon, but the timeline and technology levels aren't necessary among them.
Per an interview long ago, back before the major revamp of the game to a gun-emphasis, Richard Garriott commented that the title stemmed from the development outline. They wanted to design an MMO first, so they have a blank slate to work from, then build the story into it afterwards. Thus, "Tabula Rasa" (blank slate).
Heh, COH/V and UO are the only MMOs that held my attention as well.
Anyway, to elaborate on the parent post, the reason he's pointing at COH/V is that while the end-game does have a massive boss monster for the server to fight(It's not instanced, anyone on the server can join in and get rewarded, and everyone gets rewarded each time). The end-game of City of Villains (not yet implemented in CoH by the time I had left the game) consisted of an 8 person team embarking on a set of missions against the canon heroes of City of Heroes, sometimes one at a time, sometimes several of these heroes at once.
Consoles get their visuals with a highly specialized application, PCs can potentially blow them out of the water, but the bang-to-buck ratio isn't quite as good.
Macs needed gaming hardware which was mostly developed for the larger PC customer base. Now that they have a similar architecture this isn't much of a problem, but developers are using DirectX rather than OpenGL so it still doesn't crossover easily to the Mac. Network effects are important for this market, and MS's deep pockets and heavy spending were needed to make the Xbox a profitable contender, and it's still struggling to post a profit at this point.
I can definitely see Apple being able of producing a good console, but they may not want to. I'm dubious as to whether or not it'd be worth their time making macs into a gaming platform. It'd definitely require an adjustment in their marketing concept, and they may not want to risk ruining a good thing, since their marketing has been pretty darned important to their success thus far.
"After so many years of Quake having a freely usable game finder, why is it that Microsoft decided to charge for their service?"
Short answer? Because they can.
Long answer is that the Xbox360 is a closed system and is subject to their policies. The PC is an open system and is open to anyone who can put code on that hardware. PC gamers won't want to pay for game finding when other services can ofter comparable alternatives or the individual in-game browsers themselves.
However on the Xbox360, you have to pay for multiplayer, or you don't get to play online. There are advantages to the closed console system, this is just an example of a disadvantage. Whether or not you feel that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages as a whole determines which platform you're on, but clearly since both platforms have a player base there are those who feel they receive benefits from both.
I saw the demonstrations for Little Big Planet, and don't get me wrong, I would definitely like to get a crack at this game.
But it's not the kind of play that I'd throw down 600 bucks for. It's a seriously cool casual play game, but I mean casual play as in playing it when I don't have anything else to do. That kind of appeal doesn't make people throw down big bucks in a huge payout. It works/great/ getting a lot of people to spend a small amount of money repeatedly, but it's not the sort of thing that clears the huge mental hurdle of 600 bucks.
No, the mandate is 30 average FPS from MS, but hiccups can still occur. Some games offer some choice, Bioshock for a recent example, that toggles between a best quality and a best speed setting.
Most games manage a good bit above the 30fps minimum, but not all.
That's the advantage/disadvantage of consoles. The standardization produces both consistency and mediocrity. Simplicity at the cost of complexity and vice versa. Not necessarily bad choices, just dependent on consumer preferences.
Shadowrun player here too. I played it on my 360(but I would definitely prefer kb/m if I could afford to keep my PC gaming-class). I have to add that the 360 players weren't just aided by auto-aim, they also had slightly magnetic crosshairs(enemies drag the crosshairs onto them), plus one of the abilities amplifies the magnetism for those who choose to sacrifice an ability slot for it. The PC version had mouse lag implemented, recoil increases, and inaccuracy for fast turning, so there were tweaks on both ends. Gameplay did turn out even in the end, but the game was heavily, heavily, tuned to that result. The volume of damage needed for a kill was high, and hits come easy. The game revolved more on offensive/defensive manuevers rather than keeping people under a dot(A refreshing change of gameplay after more than a decade of aim-centric game balancing). However, UT3 is a sequel in a franchise series and they aren't able to take the same liberty under the same title(at least not without severe backlash).
I'm...content to play on a controller. I am extremely good with kb/m, but I'm distinctly average with a controller. And I'll admit it, I definitely prefer winning to losing. But the reason why I don't have a problem with being so much worse on a controller is because it's an even playing field. I'm not at a disadvantage because I don't have kb/m, the use of a controller is how a controller-based console game is/meant/ to be played, and everyone else is dealing with the same interface as I am.
If unrestricted kb/m players showed up in a server where I'm stuck with a controller, then I would be annoyed.
Rated by the best implementation thus far of the 3 control interfaces(IMHO):
1) Keyboard + Mouse: Pretty much any that allows mouse sensitivity adjusting 2) Dual analog: Halo2/3/Shadowrun(Who all use the same input scheme), and R6:Vegas 3) Wiimote: Metroid Prime 3
KB/m just needs to allow sensitivity adjustment which is already provided for in pretty much all modern DX games.
Dual Analog needs sensitivity tuning so that the distance from the center results in an appropriate speed of acceleration, also, auto-aim and magnetic crosshair tuning balanced for ease-of-use against trivializing skill. It's all about the tuning, Dead rising crosshairs were pure crap, while the aforementioned games handle quite competently.
Wiimote I feel should be rated above Dual Analog, but MP3 really needed better turning sensitivity, takes too long to turn around. Make the far edges of the screen turn at a faster pace and leave the rest as is. As with the Dual Analog, tuning is crucial, and this game would easily put the Wiimote in 2nd for me with just a small tweak. I don't like the lock-on targeting, but I do like the lock-strafe that the button applies when there's no target under the crosshairs. I expect future Wii titles to hit the right feel.
It's much more impressive and less irritating when people discover what these good qualities are. It also gives the added bonus of "mystery" in finding out why this guy is able to be so sure of himself.
I don't think 15 months is required to generate the content for 6-odd hours of gameplay on a completed engine. I think the extra time stems from the technology updates they've been incorporating and in the case of Ep2, bundling it with two ofter software products that have all-new implementations, so the the timing here is all wrong.
If they had just made content, I suspect they would have met their original timeline, but trying to cram in additional engine work on this product and bundled products has bogged it down. I think they could still deliver comparable quality in the shorter intervals if they saved the new tech for later.
Hell if I know. But as a failure in both math and programming, I can tell you that I think it is a description of the efficiency of the formula that the workload is going through. I think he means to say that the gains in efficiency will increase relative to rasterization as the detail of the scene increases.
Heh, well so long as the Xbox360 gets itself into enough hands before a new console completely destroys it's appeal, they can still reap profit from releasing on the Xbox360 instead of the next-gen console(that's right, I'm calling the Wii, Xbox360, PS3 current-gen now). The Xbox360 doesn't need to be better than the new consoles to sell more copies, since although the new consoles will undoubtedly have neat features going for it, the new consoles will also need a good userbase and rate of adoption while the Xbox360 may have already established itself.
The PS2 is an extreme example(and I seriously doubt the Xbox360 will do as well), but it does show that a console can potentially hang in there to survive against the following generation for a while.
Still, it does seem a little optimistic to declare the hardware you'll release the 3rd game on before even the 1st is gold. Poor Advent Rising...they blew their budget and didn't leave enough to strain out all those horrendous bugs. It was a pretty fun game otherwise, I wish it could have done better.
Slashdot Mirror
It'd be up to the EU countries to enforce the laws that respect MS's copyright law...and I don't think they'd give a damn about protecting MS's copyrights if MS went and bailed on them and left all their businesses high and dry. They'd just declare MS to be freeware and then just get their MS updates from alternative sources until companies setup a new non-MS infrastructure and then abandon MS on their own schedule.
MS for all its might needs to be on the side of the people who have the most guns in order(which is usually, but not always, the government) to do business.
The first new model batch was 8/23. So two-and-half months ago, you probably got an older model pulled from stock. Google around and there's a picture guide showing what to look for to tell if you have a new one or not. Look inside your xbox360's vent, you should see a heatpipe leading away from the GPU.
Program the AI to make "being entertaining" their ultimate purpose in the game. Program their death to be satisfying and rewarding.
Sort of like the livestock in the restaurant at the end of time. They walk up and happily self-carve onto your plate.
Takes alot of the "icky" out of blowing them away.
Ditto,
.odf knowing they don't have it and don't want it. But I just send .doc to save time.
I could be a dick and send them
Pushing OO is great when people don't have microsoft office to begin with, but once they have it, they don't want to try it.
The shrink from 90nm to 65nm on the processor may have little to no effect since the design flaw is in the X-clamp on the GPU. The new repair service that went in hand with the warranty extension involves an installation of a new heatpipe on the GPU. So there is something being done, but in a passive form, rather than an active product recall. That's what supposed to fix the issue, the idea of the new Falcon chip solving the RROD was pure speculation, and as parent has mentioned there is NO proof. Not even a claim from MS that this is the case.
However, there are rumors of a GPU shrink coming in late 2008 from 90nm to 65nm as well: http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20070430PB208.html . This would be more likely to affect the RROD issue since this is the source of the heat that causes the board flexing under the X-clamps.
Something to note is that Perfect Dark 2 is underway with rumors of a late 2008 release.
I agree that PDZ's controls were poor and the core flaw of this launch title. What I don't get, is why this was allowed to happen. Halo is an MS franchise and Bungie was MS-owned at the time. Shadowrun's console controls were stellar because they were taken directly from Halo 2. Why didn't they carry over the same aiming scheme from Halo like they did for Shadowrun? Or was PDZ's failure the lesson that taught them to bring Halo's controls over to Shadowrun.
Perhaps PD2 will be able to make up for it's predecessor.
I had concerns about power draw when setting up a new PC to replace my aging setup. I've already piled on a considerable amount of electronics in the small room I live in. Having both A/Cs activate on the same breaker causes the breaker to trip, so even the added burden of a computer upgrade was worrisome.
Having the additional information would have taken off a good bit of stress, and would help a bit in calculating how much headroom I needed in the PSU to keep the PC itself running smoothly.
I read the title "An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig". I did not what that phrase was a reference to. I clicked the link, and got the information that answered my curiousity. Looks like the entry did it's job.
In what world does it make sense to have a Wikipedia that's edited to keep people from getting the information they're looking for?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World perhaps?...
If no articles are added or updated, then that may increase pressure on a reader to contribute and bring up the rate of contribution.
When people read a wiki article and find that it's gone out of date or need new additions that person can potentially be the one to rectify the situation. If they read it and find that it knows as much or more than them, they of course won't have anything to add and won't contribute.
If people get tired of background politics and excess bureaucracy in wikipedia, they'll leave...which frees up the landscape, correcting the situation and so on and so forth.
There's a potential equilibrium here and a decline in contributions does not necessarily represent a fundamental change to the forces that maintain it, it's probably just normal fluctuation. I don't see anything replacing wikipedia or eliminating the benefit that is gained from its existence. I don't believe wikipedia has run out of money yet.
*Spoilers ahead*
Human history in halo diverges into two sets. The "Forerunners" who built the Halos were also human, and this discovery is why Halo 3 takes place on Earth which housed the controls underground. So two FTL discoveries and two first contacts are possible since apparently they'd managed to wipe out historical record between the two when the Forerunners apparently toasted themselves with a Halo before getting inside a shield world like they'd planned.
*End spoilers*
So there may be other reasons why Halo wouldn't be compatible with Marathon, but the timeline and technology levels aren't necessary among them.
Per an interview long ago, back before the major revamp of the game to a gun-emphasis, Richard Garriott commented that the title stemmed from the development outline. They wanted to design an MMO first, so they have a blank slate to work from, then build the story into it afterwards. Thus, "Tabula Rasa" (blank slate).
Heh, COH/V and UO are the only MMOs that held my attention as well.
Anyway, to elaborate on the parent post, the reason he's pointing at COH/V is that while the end-game does have a massive boss monster for the server to fight(It's not instanced, anyone on the server can join in and get rewarded, and everyone gets rewarded each time). The end-game of City of Villains (not yet implemented in CoH by the time I had left the game) consisted of an 8 person team embarking on a set of missions against the canon heroes of City of Heroes, sometimes one at a time, sometimes several of these heroes at once.
So it's not necessarily the same.
Consoles get their visuals with a highly specialized application, PCs can potentially blow them out of the water, but the bang-to-buck ratio isn't quite as good.
Macs needed gaming hardware which was mostly developed for the larger PC customer base. Now that they have a similar architecture this isn't much of a problem, but developers are using DirectX rather than OpenGL so it still doesn't crossover easily to the Mac. Network effects are important for this market, and MS's deep pockets and heavy spending were needed to make the Xbox a profitable contender, and it's still struggling to post a profit at this point.
I can definitely see Apple being able of producing a good console, but they may not want to. I'm dubious as to whether or not it'd be worth their time making macs into a gaming platform. It'd definitely require an adjustment in their marketing concept, and they may not want to risk ruining a good thing, since their marketing has been pretty darned important to their success thus far.
"After so many years of Quake having a freely usable game finder, why is it that Microsoft decided to charge for their service?"
Short answer? Because they can.
Long answer is that the Xbox360 is a closed system and is subject to their policies. The PC is an open system and is open to anyone who can put code on that hardware. PC gamers won't want to pay for game finding when other services can ofter comparable alternatives or the individual in-game browsers themselves.
However on the Xbox360, you have to pay for multiplayer, or you don't get to play online. There are advantages to the closed console system, this is just an example of a disadvantage. Whether or not you feel that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages as a whole determines which platform you're on, but clearly since both platforms have a player base there are those who feel they receive benefits from both.
I saw the demonstrations for Little Big Planet, and don't get me wrong, I would definitely like to get a crack at this game.
/great/ getting a lot of people to spend a small amount of money repeatedly, but it's not the sort of thing that clears the huge mental hurdle of 600 bucks.
But it's not the kind of play that I'd throw down 600 bucks for. It's a seriously cool casual play game, but I mean casual play as in playing it when I don't have anything else to do. That kind of appeal doesn't make people throw down big bucks in a huge payout. It works
No, the mandate is 30 average FPS from MS, but hiccups can still occur. Some games offer some choice, Bioshock for a recent example, that toggles between a best quality and a best speed setting.
Most games manage a good bit above the 30fps minimum, but not all.
That's the advantage/disadvantage of consoles. The standardization produces both consistency and mediocrity. Simplicity at the cost of complexity and vice versa. Not necessarily bad choices, just dependent on consumer preferences.
Shadowrun player here too. I played it on my 360(but I would definitely prefer kb/m if I could afford to keep my PC gaming-class). I have to add that the 360 players weren't just aided by auto-aim, they also had slightly magnetic crosshairs(enemies drag the crosshairs onto them), plus one of the abilities amplifies the magnetism for those who choose to sacrifice an ability slot for it. The PC version had mouse lag implemented, recoil increases, and inaccuracy for fast turning, so there were tweaks on both ends. Gameplay did turn out even in the end, but the game was heavily, heavily, tuned to that result. The volume of damage needed for a kill was high, and hits come easy. The game revolved more on offensive/defensive manuevers rather than keeping people under a dot(A refreshing change of gameplay after more than a decade of aim-centric game balancing). However, UT3 is a sequel in a franchise series and they aren't able to take the same liberty under the same title(at least not without severe backlash).
/meant/ to be played, and everyone else is dealing with the same interface as I am.
I'm...content to play on a controller. I am extremely good with kb/m, but I'm distinctly average with a controller. And I'll admit it, I definitely prefer winning to losing. But the reason why I don't have a problem with being so much worse on a controller is because it's an even playing field. I'm not at a disadvantage because I don't have kb/m, the use of a controller is how a controller-based console game is
If unrestricted kb/m players showed up in a server where I'm stuck with a controller, then I would be annoyed.
Rated by the best implementation thus far of the 3 control interfaces(IMHO):
1) Keyboard + Mouse: Pretty much any that allows mouse sensitivity adjusting
2) Dual analog: Halo2/3/Shadowrun(Who all use the same input scheme), and R6:Vegas
3) Wiimote: Metroid Prime 3
KB/m just needs to allow sensitivity adjustment which is already provided for in pretty much all modern DX games.
Dual Analog needs sensitivity tuning so that the distance from the center results in an appropriate speed of acceleration, also, auto-aim and magnetic crosshair tuning balanced for ease-of-use against trivializing skill. It's all about the tuning, Dead rising crosshairs were pure crap, while the aforementioned games handle quite competently.
Wiimote I feel should be rated above Dual Analog, but MP3 really needed better turning sensitivity, takes too long to turn around. Make the far edges of the screen turn at a faster pace and leave the rest as is. As with the Dual Analog, tuning is crucial, and this game would easily put the Wiimote in 2nd for me with just a small tweak. I don't like the lock-on targeting, but I do like the lock-strafe that the button applies when there's no target under the crosshairs. I expect future Wii titles to hit the right feel.
Confidence is knowing you are ______.
Cockiness is telling other people you are ______.
It's much more impressive and less irritating when people discover what these good qualities are. It also gives the added bonus of "mystery" in finding out why this guy is able to be so sure of himself.
I love pussy!
I don't think 15 months is required to generate the content for 6-odd hours of gameplay on a completed engine. I think the extra time stems from the technology updates they've been incorporating and in the case of Ep2, bundling it with two ofter software products that have all-new implementations, so the the timing here is all wrong.
If they had just made content, I suspect they would have met their original timeline, but trying to cram in additional engine work on this product and bundled products has bogged it down. I think they could still deliver comparable quality in the shorter intervals if they saved the new tech for later.
I'm ashamed to admit that the idea excites me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation
Hell if I know. But as a failure in both math and programming, I can tell you that I think it is a description of the efficiency of the formula that the workload is going through. I think he means to say that the gains in efficiency will increase relative to rasterization as the detail of the scene increases.
We require more vespene gas. There is not enough energy. Additional supply of depots required.
Heh, well so long as the Xbox360 gets itself into enough hands before a new console completely destroys it's appeal, they can still reap profit from releasing on the Xbox360 instead of the next-gen console(that's right, I'm calling the Wii, Xbox360, PS3 current-gen now). The Xbox360 doesn't need to be better than the new consoles to sell more copies, since although the new consoles will undoubtedly have neat features going for it, the new consoles will also need a good userbase and rate of adoption while the Xbox360 may have already established itself.
The PS2 is an extreme example(and I seriously doubt the Xbox360 will do as well), but it does show that a console can potentially hang in there to survive against the following generation for a while.
Still, it does seem a little optimistic to declare the hardware you'll release the 3rd game on before even the 1st is gold. Poor Advent Rising...they blew their budget and didn't leave enough to strain out all those horrendous bugs. It was a pretty fun game otherwise, I wish it could have done better.