There's a big difference between being educated, and being educated by Microsoft. Educated would be "it's against the law to infringe copyright". Microsoft's so-called education would probably be "large corporations have the natural right to the ideas produced by their employees, it's perfectly acceptable to cripple software and mandate constant surveillance to make sure that your copy of Windows BS is completely above the board, trusted computing is only to protect content creators and only denies access to your computer you don't really need anyway..." and so on and so forth.
Microsoft educating children about copyright makes about as much sense as letting wolves teach sheep about nutrition.
"(the more profit, the more useful it is)"
So a treatment for cancer taken three times daily for the rest of your life is more useful than a cure for cancer? I'll keep that in mind.
At first, I thought this was completely awesome. I'm an obsessive perfectionist. Then I saw "be best Quake player ever" as on of the ways to get points.
Yeah, I don't think this system is for me.
"If druids could heal as well, who would ever want a cleric?"
People who would like to be rezzed in the probable event that someone dies during the course of the group.
You took out a chopper with 2 AT rockets and a shotgun? Must've been some pretty darned noob opponents. Contrary to popular belief, just because you can hover and hose a spawn point with machine gun fire doesn't mean you should. Hovering means you're vulnerable.
There are approximately three ways to take out a helicopter with a decent pilot. The first and least likely is with AT rockets. Don't get me wrong, I love playing anti-tank, but you'll never hit a moving helicopter unless you get the perfect shot lined up. And because helicopters are infinitely more mobile than you are on foot, you'll never be able to outmaneuver a chopper pilot. You just have to hope they place themselves in your sights, essentially. Rockets are slow compared to helicopters.
Secondly, there are anti-aircraft emplacements. I know people who claim they're awesome with them, but I've never seen them used effectively. Maybe I'm just too unskilled to use them and play with a bunch of rookies, but it seems to me there are two many flaws with them to justify using them. They make you defenseless against ground targets, they give the pilot a warning, and they're just stupidly inaccurate. I've had 12+ miss streaks against pilots too dumb to hit the countermeasures button. That brings me to the next flaw, you get two missiles and then about a half hour of reloading.
The final, and in my opinion most likely method of taking down a helicopter is with a vehicle-mounted machine gun or anti-air platform. With a properly concealed Vodnik, it's not too hard to take down a helicopter using only the machine gun. Step into a linebacker or something similar, and suddenly you can down a helicopter almost as easily as they can snuff you out. Helicopters still have the advantage due to their superior speed and ability to move in three dimensions, as well as their ability to fire more missiles before reloading.
The above was written keeping attack helicopters in mind. The blackhawk is a different bird all together. My main beef with BF2 balance is that there are no efficiant counters to aircraft besides other aircraft? Tanks crush infantry. Choppers maul tanks. Jets destroy choppers. What takes down jets? Other jets. But only if they feel like antagonizing each other. It's more practical to ignore the other jets and just fly around eating vehicles. Anti-air vehicles have great difficulty hitting with missiles, while aircraft can bomb them with impunity.
Personally, I think it'd kill even more of the Warcraft flavor if you could play as the Burning Legion. I mean, it's bad enough that you have proud orc warriors going "cna u spair sum gold plx???", I don't want to see newbie demons running away from level 2 scorpions.
And curse them for giving the Horde blood elves. It's the lack of a pretty horde race that keeps most of the twelve year olds on the Alliance.
Yes, I was glad when Aeris died. She had no personality, and the game revolved around her for an annoyingly long time. I was more moved by Final Fantasy 3, and Shadow Hearts/Shadow Hearts: Covenant. I'm not callous, I just hated Aeris.
Get a life - verb phrase - To put on a hawaiian shirt, go to a frat party, hold a bottle in each hand and yell "Eeeeeeeeeeeey!", or alternatively, "Yeaaaaaaaaaah!". It's far more productive, enjoyable, rewarding, and ultimately spiritually superior to playing games. Drinking is The One True Hobby, and this is a Fact, and proven several times in The Bible.
Yes, someone made a comment like this a few stories back, but that person was also ME. And I'm going to keep at it until people stop saying "get a life", or are at least modded down as trolls for it. People who are secure in the validity of their lives don't have the need to look down their noses at other people whose lives are different. Sidenote: you are advising someone to get a life on the games section of Slashdot. The irony slays me.
Here's my two cents: Yes, games are getting easier both in content and in terms of when you can save (or if you can save, even). People are demanding more value for their gaming dollar today than ever because they know they can. Value regarding time anyway, not sure about quality. If you have a 10 hour long FPS/S (shooter/sneaker) like Metal Gear, or Hitman, or Chronicles of Riddick, that's ten times longer than the old classic Contra. You couldn't save in Contra, but that's because you could beat it in an hour, if you were practiced enough. Nobody would want to play for 9 hours and then die and lose it all.
I think someone referenced Mario 64 in their comment, and then only mentioned that it was good because it taught them to backflip. The game was not a perfect one by any measure, but when you're talking about difficulty of games, I think it's a great game to talk about. On the one hand, you saved (automatically, I think?) after every star you got (read: specific goal you completed). Most stars could be obtained in about 15 minutes or less. The game demanded exploration, creative thinking, and patience. What it didn't demand was machine-like perfection where you only get three mistakes in an hour long sequence before you're sent back to the start.
Know what else it didn't do? It didn't let you save inside a level. If you wanted to do something, you had to do it legit. You couldn't quicksave, pop out, shoot a thug, and quicksave again once you reach cover, and load every time you get hurt, a la Max Payne and every other shooter ever. It also didn't fall into the trap of trying to get you to soldier on just for the sake of the "story" (cutscenes), or to just let it be over. It tried to make each level and goal its own reason to play. It had its share of poorly designed areas, but you never had to dodge 200 lightning bolts.
The balance that I'd like to see struck is this: allow saving, but only after some significant milestone. Too many people advocate "save anywhere", because you can't always be right at a save point when you have to stop for whatever reason. You can just leave your computer/console on, you know, and if you're a doctor on call, it won't be that bad to lose 5 minutes of progress, or just play solitaire until you're offduty. Better that than saving every 5 feet. But the milestones also have to have some degree of difficulty to get. If you're tempted to do a second or a third before going back and saving, they're too easy. And don't make it so to complete a set, there's one or two near impossible ones, like driving school in GTA:SA. 5 laps in under 30 something seconds was next to impossible. The 90 was pretty tough too.
The other thing about games (though this is mostly RPGs), is that by the time you reach the endboss, you completely outclass him. Every game should continue past the last boss, so that you can still wrap up all the loose ends and get the Ultimate Uber Sword +509190 without having to go back to an old save, or starting a new game. Was anybody actually challenged by the last boss in Final Fantasy X? Not if they beat Pandemonium, or Pennance.
Those are my thoughts on the matter. Now that I've discussed game difficulty and the role of saves, I suppose I'd better start searching for my hawaiian shirt.
Actually, the constitution does mention your right to play WoW 16 hours a day:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Furthermore, the constitution only very roundaboutly addresses human rights, which are different. In addition, China doesn't have the US constitution, but I'm sure you know that. Also, I doubt you speak for "most" MMO players.
Original poster has a good point: we cry foul because the RIAA sues you into oblivion for downloading Britney Spears, but we cheer them on when access to MMOs are limited? What gives? I can't buy it's "the current mmo rat race...sucks", it's beside the point. Most of the people cheering probably don't even play MMOs anyway.
Believe it or not, gaming is not unique in the sense that it leads to a sedentary lifestyle. TV, chess, playing guitar, cooking, socializing, and reading are all rather non-physical pursuits. Furthermore, one could game for 20 hours on a weekend, and exercise for 4. Also, you may have been unaware of this, but there a great many people out there who have no obsessive tendancies whatsoever, and live a sedentary lifestyle anyway, simply because they don't enjoy exercise.
Gaming is no more harmful than sleeping. You can game for any length of time and not suffer any harm as a result of gaming (as opposed to as a result of neglecting to do something else), but this is not true with drinking. Maybe carpal tunnel, depending on your physiology, your keyboard/mouse setup, and the game you play. Maybe.
Yes, being obsessed with gaming is definitely not a good thing, but obsession in any of its forms is a dangerous state to be in. Blame the sickness, not the patient nor the subject.
Definitely. Drinking is the one universal, healthy hobby. Unless you live in a part of the universe outside North America. When people say you should "get a life", what they really mean is you should put on a hawaiian shirt, go to a party, hold a bottle of booze in each hand and yell "eeeey!". Because that's way more productive than playing games, and the hangover is less severe.
Slashdot Mirror
A) Clearly it's legal, because he has the right of first sale, and can give his copy to anybody he wants to.
There's a big difference between being educated, and being educated by Microsoft. Educated would be "it's against the law to infringe copyright". Microsoft's so-called education would probably be "large corporations have the natural right to the ideas produced by their employees, it's perfectly acceptable to cripple software and mandate constant surveillance to make sure that your copy of Windows BS is completely above the board, trusted computing is only to protect content creators and only denies access to your computer you don't really need anyway..." and so on and so forth.
Microsoft educating children about copyright makes about as much sense as letting wolves teach sheep about nutrition.
"(the more profit, the more useful it is)" So a treatment for cancer taken three times daily for the rest of your life is more useful than a cure for cancer? I'll keep that in mind.
Is that a terribly obscure reference to Spycraft card The Gamer? Or does the quote come from elsewhere?
Spam is, actually, an immediate cause of the POUTS.
At first, I thought this was completely awesome. I'm an obsessive perfectionist. Then I saw "be best Quake player ever" as on of the ways to get points. Yeah, I don't think this system is for me.
Irony'd!
"If druids could heal as well, who would ever want a cleric?" People who would like to be rezzed in the probable event that someone dies during the course of the group.
You took out a chopper with 2 AT rockets and a shotgun? Must've been some pretty darned noob opponents. Contrary to popular belief, just because you can hover and hose a spawn point with machine gun fire doesn't mean you should. Hovering means you're vulnerable.
There are approximately three ways to take out a helicopter with a decent pilot. The first and least likely is with AT rockets. Don't get me wrong, I love playing anti-tank, but you'll never hit a moving helicopter unless you get the perfect shot lined up. And because helicopters are infinitely more mobile than you are on foot, you'll never be able to outmaneuver a chopper pilot. You just have to hope they place themselves in your sights, essentially. Rockets are slow compared to helicopters.
Secondly, there are anti-aircraft emplacements. I know people who claim they're awesome with them, but I've never seen them used effectively. Maybe I'm just too unskilled to use them and play with a bunch of rookies, but it seems to me there are two many flaws with them to justify using them. They make you defenseless against ground targets, they give the pilot a warning, and they're just stupidly inaccurate. I've had 12+ miss streaks against pilots too dumb to hit the countermeasures button. That brings me to the next flaw, you get two missiles and then about a half hour of reloading.
The final, and in my opinion most likely method of taking down a helicopter is with a vehicle-mounted machine gun or anti-air platform. With a properly concealed Vodnik, it's not too hard to take down a helicopter using only the machine gun. Step into a linebacker or something similar, and suddenly you can down a helicopter almost as easily as they can snuff you out. Helicopters still have the advantage due to their superior speed and ability to move in three dimensions, as well as their ability to fire more missiles before reloading.
The above was written keeping attack helicopters in mind. The blackhawk is a different bird all together. My main beef with BF2 balance is that there are no efficiant counters to aircraft besides other aircraft? Tanks crush infantry. Choppers maul tanks. Jets destroy choppers. What takes down jets? Other jets. But only if they feel like antagonizing each other. It's more practical to ignore the other jets and just fly around eating vehicles. Anti-air vehicles have great difficulty hitting with missiles, while aircraft can bomb them with impunity.
Yes, I do play a lot of Strike at Karkand.
Personally, I think it'd kill even more of the Warcraft flavor if you could play as the Burning Legion. I mean, it's bad enough that you have proud orc warriors going "cna u spair sum gold plx???", I don't want to see newbie demons running away from level 2 scorpions.
And curse them for giving the Horde blood elves. It's the lack of a pretty horde race that keeps most of the twelve year olds on the Alliance.
Yes, I was glad when Aeris died. She had no personality, and the game revolved around her for an annoyingly long time. I was more moved by Final Fantasy 3, and Shadow Hearts/Shadow Hearts: Covenant. I'm not callous, I just hated Aeris.
Get a life - verb phrase - To put on a hawaiian shirt, go to a frat party, hold a bottle in each hand and yell "Eeeeeeeeeeeey!", or alternatively, "Yeaaaaaaaaaah!". It's far more productive, enjoyable, rewarding, and ultimately spiritually superior to playing games. Drinking is The One True Hobby, and this is a Fact, and proven several times in The Bible.
Yes, someone made a comment like this a few stories back, but that person was also ME. And I'm going to keep at it until people stop saying "get a life", or are at least modded down as trolls for it. People who are secure in the validity of their lives don't have the need to look down their noses at other people whose lives are different. Sidenote: you are advising someone to get a life on the games section of Slashdot. The irony slays me.
Here's my two cents: Yes, games are getting easier both in content and in terms of when you can save (or if you can save, even). People are demanding more value for their gaming dollar today than ever because they know they can. Value regarding time anyway, not sure about quality. If you have a 10 hour long FPS/S (shooter/sneaker) like Metal Gear, or Hitman, or Chronicles of Riddick, that's ten times longer than the old classic Contra. You couldn't save in Contra, but that's because you could beat it in an hour, if you were practiced enough. Nobody would want to play for 9 hours and then die and lose it all.
I think someone referenced Mario 64 in their comment, and then only mentioned that it was good because it taught them to backflip. The game was not a perfect one by any measure, but when you're talking about difficulty of games, I think it's a great game to talk about. On the one hand, you saved (automatically, I think?) after every star you got (read: specific goal you completed). Most stars could be obtained in about 15 minutes or less. The game demanded exploration, creative thinking, and patience. What it didn't demand was machine-like perfection where you only get three mistakes in an hour long sequence before you're sent back to the start.
Know what else it didn't do? It didn't let you save inside a level. If you wanted to do something, you had to do it legit. You couldn't quicksave, pop out, shoot a thug, and quicksave again once you reach cover, and load every time you get hurt, a la Max Payne and every other shooter ever. It also didn't fall into the trap of trying to get you to soldier on just for the sake of the "story" (cutscenes), or to just let it be over. It tried to make each level and goal its own reason to play. It had its share of poorly designed areas, but you never had to dodge 200 lightning bolts.
The balance that I'd like to see struck is this: allow saving, but only after some significant milestone. Too many people advocate "save anywhere", because you can't always be right at a save point when you have to stop for whatever reason. You can just leave your computer/console on, you know, and if you're a doctor on call, it won't be that bad to lose 5 minutes of progress, or just play solitaire until you're offduty. Better that than saving every 5 feet. But the milestones also have to have some degree of difficulty to get. If you're tempted to do a second or a third before going back and saving, they're too easy. And don't make it so to complete a set, there's one or two near impossible ones, like driving school in GTA:SA. 5 laps in under 30 something seconds was next to impossible. The 90 was pretty tough too.
The other thing about games (though this is mostly RPGs), is that by the time you reach the endboss, you completely outclass him. Every game should continue past the last boss, so that you can still wrap up all the loose ends and get the Ultimate Uber Sword +509190 without having to go back to an old save, or starting a new game. Was anybody actually challenged by the last boss in Final Fantasy X? Not if they beat Pandemonium, or Pennance.
Those are my thoughts on the matter. Now that I've discussed game difficulty and the role of saves, I suppose I'd better start searching for my hawaiian shirt.
Actually, the constitution does mention your right to play WoW 16 hours a day: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Furthermore, the constitution only very roundaboutly addresses human rights, which are different. In addition, China doesn't have the US constitution, but I'm sure you know that. Also, I doubt you speak for "most" MMO players. Original poster has a good point: we cry foul because the RIAA sues you into oblivion for downloading Britney Spears, but we cheer them on when access to MMOs are limited? What gives? I can't buy it's "the current mmo rat race...sucks", it's beside the point. Most of the people cheering probably don't even play MMOs anyway.
Believe it or not, gaming is not unique in the sense that it leads to a sedentary lifestyle. TV, chess, playing guitar, cooking, socializing, and reading are all rather non-physical pursuits. Furthermore, one could game for 20 hours on a weekend, and exercise for 4. Also, you may have been unaware of this, but there a great many people out there who have no obsessive tendancies whatsoever, and live a sedentary lifestyle anyway, simply because they don't enjoy exercise. Gaming is no more harmful than sleeping. You can game for any length of time and not suffer any harm as a result of gaming (as opposed to as a result of neglecting to do something else), but this is not true with drinking. Maybe carpal tunnel, depending on your physiology, your keyboard/mouse setup, and the game you play. Maybe. Yes, being obsessed with gaming is definitely not a good thing, but obsession in any of its forms is a dangerous state to be in. Blame the sickness, not the patient nor the subject.
Definitely. Drinking is the one universal, healthy hobby. Unless you live in a part of the universe outside North America. When people say you should "get a life", what they really mean is you should put on a hawaiian shirt, go to a party, hold a bottle of booze in each hand and yell "eeeey!". Because that's way more productive than playing games, and the hangover is less severe.
You need to be married before getting pussy? Is this Slashdot, or church?