While product developement isn't perfect, many of their problems come from ridiculous requirements from disconnected marketers and management. Kaz Hirai or Ken Kutaragi may have some technical know-how, but most of the people in the chain won't, or if they do it's likely out of date. As such, requirements not "mired" in reality will be given to the developers.
I'm pretty sure at some point the marketers angrily summmoned the hardware folks to a meeting, asking them how the hell they thought a system costing $900 to manufacture was satisfactory. The only answer to which was "Well, the only other options were all $1200 or more because of all the features you wanted".
Considering what they had to work with, the developers did a great job. However, this wasn't what PR wanted. PR wanted everything the PS3 is and more, and probably wanted it cheaper. As such, they haven't the faintest idea how to market it. They likely had brilliant and intricate strategies planned before reality hit them like a runaway train.
Sony's biggest problem isn't their console, its their PR. The PS3 isn't a bad system, though quite expensive. It's just a poorly marketed one, and it shocks me that Sony hasn't fired their PR staff yet.
Anyway, is WoW uniquely "hackable", or are "hacked" accounts still the result of some moron who gave away his password to a phishing site, or snagged by a keylogger, or set it to "LeroyJenkins123"?
I don't know how feasible it is to literally hack accounts in WoW. To the best of my knowledge most "hacked" accounts are usually the result of phishing, kelogging, ridiculously bad passwords, or from giving out passwords/account information for power-leveling services.
This is a case of grey area if ever there was one.
We can argue that Kotaku was foolish and that Sony was harsh, but really it looks to me like both companies were doing their jobs.
It's in Kotaku's interest to publish rumors, to not be "under the thumb" of any one company they report on, and to do their journalism in as unbiased and unthreatened a fashion as possible.
It's in Sony's interest to dodge rumors, save important features for display at key media events, and handle their PR in the fashion they feel is best for their image.
Could Kotaku have tried harder to get Sony's blessing on the article? Maybe. Could Sony have been less harsh? Maybe. I don't think this constitutes a mistake on either's part, just a sad end.
Our children are ultimately our legacy on this planet. Some people get to be in history books, but most of us don't. Whether or not there is an afterlife is irrelevant, what remains behind are our children and grandchildren.
In effect, many people feel as though their children are the measuring stick of their lives. This may not be concious, but it is there. When you are dead and gone people will look at your children and judge you by them.
Thus, what happens when things go wrong? Even the best of parents can have terrible offspring. Suddenly, good and incompetant people alike are presented with the possibility that their only legacy on this world will be a serial killer, a school shooter, or any other socially damaging aberration.
It doesn't matter whether or not they were loving or negligent, people have an inherently cruel judgement built in. They will see James Q. Killer in the paper, and assume much about Mr. and Mrs. Killer. They could be the sweetest and wisest people in the world, but the callous eye of society will comdemn them with their child.
This principle works even on lesser problems, such as stubbornness, bad grades, and direputable behaviour. Whatever is wrong with a child can gnaw at their parents.
While the wisest and kindest of parents may not turn desperately for a scapegoat, most people aren't that strong. 40-50 years into life, no one wants to hear they've been doing it all wrong. Facing this would mean accepting that, on some level, you've wasted half your years.
And so we have our "Folk Devils". These are comforting because they delude people to the truth and the difficulty of dealing with it. That this doesn't solve the problem means nothing, only that it takes the burden of responsibility off the shoulders of parents.
It's a flawed way of dealing with reality to be sure. The moment one engages in scapegoating, it is inherently admitted that one was never in control. This premise is essential, or else the scapegoat isn't sufficient. With control, some blame still rests on the parents. Without control, are we not blameless?
It also only compounds the problem. Scapegoating isn't a solution. Anything that might actually be causing or contributing to whatever issue there is with the child will remain unchecked. The parents are only concerned with Bad Influence(TM) X.
It's a lie, but a comforting one. To admit the truth is painful.
Jokes aside, I think that statement is indicative of the mindset the industry is set in.
The issue to them is that we are set in our piratey ways of pillaging their product. They posit that we have become "used" to not paying for things, and they need to change this.
I'm no expert, but my experience is quite different. Most of my college friends downloaded music through legal services at a cost. The remainder largely sampled music before deciding if/what to buy, or to get mp3s of things you can't buy. I don't download any music not made availible by the artist/company themselves. I did recently buy the Absolution album by Muse from a store.
What the music industry doesn't see is that consumers are willing to buy music, but DRM has made that too much of a hassle. When it comes to movies it's easy to find reviews in a paper, watch a trailer online, see it in theatres, rent a copy, and then come to a conclusion of whether to buy it or not. For music, all of that faces significant hurdles because of pirating paranoia.
It disturbs me that these people are absolutely certain we don't want to give them money for good music.
I disagree. So long as there are disparate formats there is hope. Once we have a standard we'll likely be stuck with it.
I don't buy music that has DRM, and the prospect of a single standard basically means I won't have music to buy anymore. So long as there is in-fighting, there will be the possibility for someone important to come out and say, "Hey, DRM sucks. Let's just get rid of it."
Lo and behold, Steve Jobs and the Yahoo executive came out and said just that.
It's no surprise Jobs wasn't popular at the meeting. He basically insulted the entire industry with his statement. True or not, he told the vast majority they were wrong, and had been wrong for years. There aren't many people who take kindly to that kind of statement.
They offer NO drm free music on iTMS, regardless of what the apologists claim about the difficulty in adding that function, oddly enough, they added movies, video, and podcasts and about 20 different ways to pay for music but a drm free addition is something they can not figure out how to do? Right...
Apple has the technical knowledge, but you are ignoring the business side of the situation. In order for their to be any music in the iTMS, Apple has to have contracts with the appropriate labels. These contracts have terms to which Apple must adhere or else forfeit their ability to sell the music. As the labels are crazy about DRM, it is very likely their requirement in the contract that Apple do so.
As Apple is intent on an experience that is easy to use for those not technically inclined, adding two fundamentally different kinds of mp3s (and something else for people to think about) only serves to confuse many users. They could technically add functionality for some mp3s being DRM free, but this would harm the end user experience if they are restricted from applying this to all mp3s.
The "fanbois" fail to see it for a very good reason, Jobs delivers. He delivers what people want, and how they want it. His products work and work well. They are easy to understand, to use and to fix.
Microsoft delivers what they want first and foremost. They deliver it how they want it. These products "work" in the most basic sense, and detereorate over time. They are excessively complicated, confusing, and require more than a layman's knowledge to properly repair.
People make fun of Jobs and his Reality Distortion Field quite often. I'd posit that many of the people who do so are, like myself, technical types who are "in the know". We know how to use computers, even build them, and an easy to use interface and end-to-end experience aren't as important to use when installing complicated distrubutions of Linux is second hand to us.
However, for the vast majority of people who use Apple products that simplicity and ease of use is absolutely everything. Computers are hideously complicated compared to type writers and calculators. They are magical black boxes which perplex and baffle non-techies young and old. To have availible something that removes vast amounts of that complexity is valuable.
Jobs not only delivers, but has excellent delivery. His public appearances are masterfully executed, in both speech and presentation. Despite being a techie, he comes off as an artist and a dreamer. These are two things the layman can relate to.
Perhaps he is sneakier than Bill Gates, but I'd argue that this isn't hard to achieve. If even Microsoft's "fanbois" admit Bill is full of it, how sneaky can he really be?
For all intents and purposes, Steve Jobs has put his very reputation on the line with his statement. He's even put Apple on the line. To retract his statement would be a crushing blow to the Apple/Jobs mystique. It would be, in effect, to affirm what you claim. Apple would no longer be above other companies, they would simply be another giant spinning words at every turn in vain damage control attempts. Jobs has fully committed Apple by his statement, either to a DRMless future or to irrelevance.
If the "fanbois" are blind, it is because Apple has built up trust over the years. This doesn't mean Apple is flawless or perfect, but is instead genuine.
The problem with screenshots is that they are limited. This is a fault of every single console post 16-bit era.
When you take a screenshot of polygonal models in motion, you are missing out on a lot of the finer points of what makes polygons so useful. Namely, animation. This is an often overlooked, yet absolutely paramount, component of a game's graphics.
With a still image you can selectively choose a moment/viewing point where none of a model's flaws are apparent. In screenshots for FPSs since their dawn did we ever see official screenshots displaying how weapons and limbs could clip through doors? Of course not!
It will always be every company's goal to make their product look as good as possible. This is true of Sony, of Microsoft and of Nintendo.
The problem is we're seeing the death of Gamestop.
Before anyone cheer or wails, let me explain.
In America convenience sells. Yes, there are people who will go out of their way to make sure what they're getting is a quality product. However, the majority of consumers won't seek out that small, family run business no matter how good it is. Whatever's closest to home or on the way back from work is what gets their business.
Now a lot of people buy groceries, clothes, and other things at Walmart and similar stores. A lot of people go to Best Buy for music and movies. A lot of people have multiple errands to do on a Saturday morning when they'd rather be relaxing at home. Why go to 8 individual stores for specific task X when you can go to one or two which cover all of them?
It all boils down to Hardcore versus Casual again. Before Walmart and others caught on that video games were good sellers, everyone had to go to places like Funcoland, Babbages, EBX etc. to get games. It was a good time to be a specialty store. However, once the giants entered the scene they took away a large portion of casual gamers. The casual gamers aren't likely to have enough motivation to seek out a GameStop if there's a closer Walmart or Best Buy.
Meanwhile, hardcore gamers still know that Gamestop is the best bet for finding game X, used or new. Best Buy and Walmart will only rarely have a game over a year old, and that's only if it was either really popular or really bad. The only better option is the internet, but that requires shipping. Sadly, in the very near future it may be the only recourse for titles marketed but little.
What we see here is GameStop's desperate attempt to remain relevant. With Best Buy thinking about reselling used games, the niche Gamestop fills is shrinking. They need a tangible edge over the giants in order to compete, and the giants have been eating away those for some time. The better selection isn't tangible to most casual gamers, so that isn't enough. Gamestop needs something obvious.
Hence, exclusive titles.
As people have already pointed out, this is akin to suicide for developers. When the purchasing power of the casual gamer is becoming paramount, why would you restrict your title to a single store more known for its hardcore crowd. Unless A) your game sucks, B) your game is specifically directed at the hardcore crowd, C) your game is an AAA title that will sell bajillions anyway or D) you've been offered more money than you could ever make on the title, I just don't see the incentive.
So we're left with a fangless GameStop, fighting off bigger predators in a desperate bid for survival. Personally, I'm sad. Gamestop may not be the best thing ever, but losing it will leave a gap in gamer culture. We're no longer special enough to warrant our own store.
Eventually, whether or not GameStop survives, games will finally be recognized as mass media and will receive the attention they deserve. At which point specialty stores will return to viability (ala Suncoast Video). Until then, it'll be a struggle for GameStop to compete.
Indeed. At face value it seems shallow. Why not just give up WoW entirely? I do have my reasons.
1) Discipline - My weakness is not doing things, but focusing on one thing. I have no level 60s because of my Altitus, and this is an exercise in focusing on one thing and sticking with it without breaking down and playing someone else.
2) Boredom - If I get bored of the one character, I'll be forced to do someone other than play WoW.
If 1 or 2 or both happen, I think I will have improved myself. Maybe that isn't exactly in line with what Lent is aimed to do, but that's what I felt I should do.
A lot of my experience as a warlock was rather frustrating as regards to summoning. In almost every group I've been in as/with a warlock one of the following has been true.
1) The warlock is last/next to last to arrive at the place people need to be summoned to. 2) The warlock is first to arrive, but there is at most one other person there to assist in summoning. The others all arrive at the same time. 3) The warlock forgets to have soulstones. 4) The warlock burns all their soulstones summoning one idiot who keeps getting in combat, or saying they're ready when they aren't. 5) The warlock burns soulstones because their assistants don't know how to keep still.
This isn't to say that summoning was a skill I rued having, but especially in regards to instances it was almost overrated.
Now, warlock summoning is still good for a large number of things despite the meeting stone changes.
1. Summoning within Instances - If your healer dies without a Soul Stone or a new player is added to the group just outside the instance, it's extremely helpful to be able to summon them from just inside the door all the way through to the current party position.
2. Summoning within Cities - Half the raids on major cities involve sneaking a warlock and a couple rogues into some uninhabited part of the city and summoning in the rest of the raid.
3. Summoning to Remote Places - There are far more places in the world without portals, flight paths or meeting stones than those which have such things. Desolace sucks to get to, having a friendly warlock with the flight path already helps greatly.
4. Fun with Mages - Pulling the old portal/summoning swap is hilarious.
There are things for a Warlock to do. Honestly I'm much happier without the pressure to rush to the instance to summon everyone.
This is the first time I've heard mention of Web Design since the 90s. Maybe I'm oblivious, but I was beginning to think people forgot it existed.
Back in the days of tiling backgrounds, embedded Midi files, and blue/red hyperlinks there was a term coined. "Web Design" was a buzzword for anyone who knew how to take a few gifs, some HTML, and make a crappy website. I even had a webpage dedicated to Chocobos from Final Fantasy, each page with it's own Chocobo Midi and prominent image, background a tiling of starry gifs.
At first, Web Design was a skill anyone who knew how to move beyond grey background, black text, and web rings could claim to have. Before long, it became pretty evident what constituted a well designed webpage and what didn't. 56k was the name of the game, which severely limited how much crap you could throw on a page before it simply took forever to load.
Whether by skill or by the 56k barrier, web pages were much simpler then than now.
Somewhere towards the end of the 90s we forgot about Web Design. We knew how to make web pages, there wasn't a point in talking about it anymore unless it was your job. There were no more secrets, only skill and good aestetic sense.
Then came broadband and dynamic content.
Something about these things has created the burgeoning hordes of extremely poorly designed web pages. I've seen this all before 15 years ago, people cramming far too much into websites, distilling purpose and functionality in a sea of confusion. Only this time, load times hardly suffer thanks to cable and DSL. Apparently we have goldfish like minds, forgetting the past all too easily.
Or maybe it's just that the internet has grown so quickly that the people persent for the horrors of the 90s are a minority. With a new generation of internet addicts, the lessons of the past are buried.
Perhaps I'm just an old geezer at age 23 ranting and raving about the kids no my lawn, but I'm trying to figure out why web pages like Google are the exception and not the rule. Why Slashdot is better organized than ebay and Amazon. Why keeping your customers lost in a swampy morass of a website is good.
It seems to me the message is there. Every web designer worth their salt knows simplicity is paramount, that extraneous options and features only clutter, that 20 equally flashy and complicated things will only bewilder. Somehow, this message is being ignored.
Perhaps it's that management has finally stopped assuming web designers know what they're doing and are going "hands on". Maybe web designers no longer know what they're doing, coming out of lackluster art or cs majors with only a little skill and a lot of "education". Maybe I'm just picky.
In any case, I think I'd take missarranged Beatles Midis over some of the crappy websites we're force fed these days.
The biggest downer of the LFG tool is the artificial limits that have been put in place.
1) Altruism - There have been times in the past where I see a grammatically correct and polite request for a VC group sent out for an hour or more. I like to reward people for these things, and so I'll bring in a high level character and get them through the dungeon or a hard quest. The new LFG tool has absolutely no support for friendly, high level players.
2) Multiple Characters - I tend to have multiple characters on a single server. A habit of mine with the LFG channel was to play one character while monitoring the channel for a dungeon another character needed. The LFG tool has no functionality supporting this.
3) Craziness - Sometimes people want to group for odd things. Whether it's a roleplaying parade, a raid on an enemy city, or a counter-offensive to an enemy attack the LFG channel allowed groups for non-standard events. The LFG tool has no functionality for people joining groups unassociated with predefined directives.
4) Automation - While much of the LFG tool is automatic, using it isn't. Most players by default would join the LFG channel on login. People must personally open the LFG tool and set what they need. The result is a crippling effect on participation.
5) Simple Limits - One of the major problems with the LFG tool is the limited amount of LFGing you can do with it at any one time. Despite the fact that I might be looking for several wings of SM, RFD, some elite Arathi quests and perhaps a general Zone group for the Badlands I must pick and choose between a maximum of three things. SM alone can eat 3 of those without even covering the whole instance. As instances generally fulfil many quests, they take higher priority than individual quests. This makes it extremely difficult to use the LFG tool for anything that isn't a dungeon, as people naturally select what will give them their "money's worth".
6) LFM - The LFM portion of the tool is simply bad. Three was limiting enough, but at most you can LFM for one dungeon, quest, raid, zone at a time. If you're doing quests outside of dungeons, you might suffer from the "ships passing in the night" syndrome as you flutter through the relevant quests looking for people who might be interested.
Those are my criticisms of the tool. It has great potential, but I think Blizzard jumped the gun. It's going to be twice as hard to convince people to adopt it because of the perception that it sucks. Even if it is improved to the ease of use and functional level of the LFG channel, people won't be convinced. It would have been better if they had waited and expanded it before replacing the flawed but undeniably useful LFG channel.
Even casual players aren't going to take more than a few months to get to level 58.
That is unless...
...you keep rolling alts instead of sticking with the same character.
I'm a fairly hardcore WoW player, although other interests and a 40hr/week job reduces how much freetime I have to dedicate to the game. However, despite having the game for over a year I have not one 60 yet.
This is, as you stated, because I keep rolling alts. I have approxmiately 30 characters most of whom are low level alts, although about a fourth to a third are over 20. I've a couple level 50s, a couple 40s, three 30s (a fourth deleted), three 20s, and 17 at level 19 and below (another four deleted). The Burning Crusade certainly didn't help me curb my Altoholic nature.
Given over a year, that may strike you as pretty low, but I do/did spend half or more of my time PvPing which greatly reduces how quickly one levels.
I did the same thing in Diablo 2, although an account limited to 8 characters generally helped me get much further.
In an attempt to train some discipline and focus, I've given up all my charcters save one for Lent. I'm interested in how far I can take a character in 40 days of play.
The DS isn't a Hardware Revision. Nintendo has stated in the past that it's a different beast than the Gameboy. I believe they referred to the Gamecube/Wii, the GBA and the DS as their "three pillars" or some similar term.
That the DS plays GBA games is just icing on the cake apparently.
Although we can probably expect at some point support for original Gameboy/GBC carts drops off even from the direct Gameboy line.
I am not a baseball nut, but I will tell you that my limited knowledge indicates winning teams don't aim for homers on every pitch. That's a surefire way to lose games.
A well managed team aims to get men on bases, and then bat them in. Homers are wonderful when they happen, and slugging the ball with all your might isn't bad, but very few players are good enough to make aiming for homers worth the risks.
Slashdot Mirror
Given the absence of any hot chicks loving me out of choice, I'll take one with no choice in the matter.
Blind faith requires a lack of reasoning.
The fine poem above delivers,
its truth can give one the shivers,
how I wish to annoint,
you with a mod point,
but alas, empty are my quivers.
I think you're spot on.
While product developement isn't perfect, many of their problems come from ridiculous requirements from disconnected marketers and management. Kaz Hirai or Ken Kutaragi may have some technical know-how, but most of the people in the chain won't, or if they do it's likely out of date. As such, requirements not "mired" in reality will be given to the developers.
I'm pretty sure at some point the marketers angrily summmoned the hardware folks to a meeting, asking them how the hell they thought a system costing $900 to manufacture was satisfactory. The only answer to which was "Well, the only other options were all $1200 or more because of all the features you wanted".
Considering what they had to work with, the developers did a great job. However, this wasn't what PR wanted. PR wanted everything the PS3 is and more, and probably wanted it cheaper. As such, they haven't the faintest idea how to market it. They likely had brilliant and intricate strategies planned before reality hit them like a runaway train.
Sony's biggest problem isn't their console, its their PR. The PS3 isn't a bad system, though quite expensive. It's just a poorly marketed one, and it shocks me that Sony hasn't fired their PR staff yet.
Care to share some of those sources? It sounds like it would be interesting reading.
I don't know how feasible it is to literally hack accounts in WoW. To the best of my knowledge most "hacked" accounts are usually the result of phishing, kelogging, ridiculously bad passwords, or from giving out passwords/account information for power-leveling services.
This is a case of grey area if ever there was one.
We can argue that Kotaku was foolish and that Sony was harsh, but really it looks to me like both companies were doing their jobs.
It's in Kotaku's interest to publish rumors, to not be "under the thumb" of any one company they report on, and to do their journalism in as unbiased and unthreatened a fashion as possible.
It's in Sony's interest to dodge rumors, save important features for display at key media events, and handle their PR in the fashion they feel is best for their image.
Could Kotaku have tried harder to get Sony's blessing on the article? Maybe. Could Sony have been less harsh? Maybe. I don't think this constitutes a mistake on either's part, just a sad end.
Strangely enough, I can almost understand it.
Our children are ultimately our legacy on this planet. Some people get to be in history books, but most of us don't. Whether or not there is an afterlife is irrelevant, what remains behind are our children and grandchildren.
In effect, many people feel as though their children are the measuring stick of their lives. This may not be concious, but it is there. When you are dead and gone people will look at your children and judge you by them.
Thus, what happens when things go wrong? Even the best of parents can have terrible offspring. Suddenly, good and incompetant people alike are presented with the possibility that their only legacy on this world will be a serial killer, a school shooter, or any other socially damaging aberration.
It doesn't matter whether or not they were loving or negligent, people have an inherently cruel judgement built in. They will see James Q. Killer in the paper, and assume much about Mr. and Mrs. Killer. They could be the sweetest and wisest people in the world, but the callous eye of society will comdemn them with their child.
This principle works even on lesser problems, such as stubbornness, bad grades, and direputable behaviour. Whatever is wrong with a child can gnaw at their parents.
While the wisest and kindest of parents may not turn desperately for a scapegoat, most people aren't that strong. 40-50 years into life, no one wants to hear they've been doing it all wrong. Facing this would mean accepting that, on some level, you've wasted half your years.
And so we have our "Folk Devils". These are comforting because they delude people to the truth and the difficulty of dealing with it. That this doesn't solve the problem means nothing, only that it takes the burden of responsibility off the shoulders of parents.
It's a flawed way of dealing with reality to be sure. The moment one engages in scapegoating, it is inherently admitted that one was never in control. This premise is essential, or else the scapegoat isn't sufficient. With control, some blame still rests on the parents. Without control, are we not blameless?
It also only compounds the problem. Scapegoating isn't a solution. Anything that might actually be causing or contributing to whatever issue there is with the child will remain unchecked. The parents are only concerned with Bad Influence(TM) X.
It's a lie, but a comforting one. To admit the truth is painful.
Jokes aside, I think that statement is indicative of the mindset the industry is set in.
The issue to them is that we are set in our piratey ways of pillaging their product. They posit that we have become "used" to not paying for things, and they need to change this.
I'm no expert, but my experience is quite different. Most of my college friends downloaded music through legal services at a cost. The remainder largely sampled music before deciding if/what to buy, or to get mp3s of things you can't buy. I don't download any music not made availible by the artist/company themselves. I did recently buy the Absolution album by Muse from a store.
What the music industry doesn't see is that consumers are willing to buy music, but DRM has made that too much of a hassle. When it comes to movies it's easy to find reviews in a paper, watch a trailer online, see it in theatres, rent a copy, and then come to a conclusion of whether to buy it or not. For music, all of that faces significant hurdles because of pirating paranoia.
It disturbs me that these people are absolutely certain we don't want to give them money for good music.
I disagree. So long as there are disparate formats there is hope. Once we have a standard we'll likely be stuck with it.
I don't buy music that has DRM, and the prospect of a single standard basically means I won't have music to buy anymore. So long as there is in-fighting, there will be the possibility for someone important to come out and say, "Hey, DRM sucks. Let's just get rid of it."
Lo and behold, Steve Jobs and the Yahoo executive came out and said just that.
It's no surprise Jobs wasn't popular at the meeting. He basically insulted the entire industry with his statement. True or not, he told the vast majority they were wrong, and had been wrong for years. There aren't many people who take kindly to that kind of statement.
Apple has the technical knowledge, but you are ignoring the business side of the situation. In order for their to be any music in the iTMS, Apple has to have contracts with the appropriate labels. These contracts have terms to which Apple must adhere or else forfeit their ability to sell the music. As the labels are crazy about DRM, it is very likely their requirement in the contract that Apple do so.
As Apple is intent on an experience that is easy to use for those not technically inclined, adding two fundamentally different kinds of mp3s (and something else for people to think about) only serves to confuse many users. They could technically add functionality for some mp3s being DRM free, but this would harm the end user experience if they are restricted from applying this to all mp3s.
The "fanbois" fail to see it for a very good reason, Jobs delivers. He delivers what people want, and how they want it. His products work and work well. They are easy to understand, to use and to fix.
Microsoft delivers what they want first and foremost. They deliver it how they want it. These products "work" in the most basic sense, and detereorate over time. They are excessively complicated, confusing, and require more than a layman's knowledge to properly repair.
People make fun of Jobs and his Reality Distortion Field quite often. I'd posit that many of the people who do so are, like myself, technical types who are "in the know". We know how to use computers, even build them, and an easy to use interface and end-to-end experience aren't as important to use when installing complicated distrubutions of Linux is second hand to us.
However, for the vast majority of people who use Apple products that simplicity and ease of use is absolutely everything. Computers are hideously complicated compared to type writers and calculators. They are magical black boxes which perplex and baffle non-techies young and old. To have availible something that removes vast amounts of that complexity is valuable.
Jobs not only delivers, but has excellent delivery. His public appearances are masterfully executed, in both speech and presentation. Despite being a techie, he comes off as an artist and a dreamer. These are two things the layman can relate to.
Perhaps he is sneakier than Bill Gates, but I'd argue that this isn't hard to achieve. If even Microsoft's "fanbois" admit Bill is full of it, how sneaky can he really be?
For all intents and purposes, Steve Jobs has put his very reputation on the line with his statement. He's even put Apple on the line. To retract his statement would be a crushing blow to the Apple/Jobs mystique. It would be, in effect, to affirm what you claim. Apple would no longer be above other companies, they would simply be another giant spinning words at every turn in vain damage control attempts. Jobs has fully committed Apple by his statement, either to a DRMless future or to irrelevance.
If the "fanbois" are blind, it is because Apple has built up trust over the years. This doesn't mean Apple is flawless or perfect, but is instead genuine.
The problem with screenshots is that they are limited. This is a fault of every single console post 16-bit era.
When you take a screenshot of polygonal models in motion, you are missing out on a lot of the finer points of what makes polygons so useful. Namely, animation. This is an often overlooked, yet absolutely paramount, component of a game's graphics.
With a still image you can selectively choose a moment/viewing point where none of a model's flaws are apparent. In screenshots for FPSs since their dawn did we ever see official screenshots displaying how weapons and limbs could clip through doors? Of course not!
It will always be every company's goal to make their product look as good as possible. This is true of Sony, of Microsoft and of Nintendo.
I think you need to revise that statement. I can guarantee you there isn't much of that last verb/noun pair occuring here.
Does anyone know how many titles there are for the PS2, specifically in Europe? I'm interested in the % of titles 1000 would constitute.
The problem is we're seeing the death of Gamestop.
Before anyone cheer or wails, let me explain.
In America convenience sells. Yes, there are people who will go out of their way to make sure what they're getting is a quality product. However, the majority of consumers won't seek out that small, family run business no matter how good it is. Whatever's closest to home or on the way back from work is what gets their business.
Now a lot of people buy groceries, clothes, and other things at Walmart and similar stores. A lot of people go to Best Buy for music and movies. A lot of people have multiple errands to do on a Saturday morning when they'd rather be relaxing at home. Why go to 8 individual stores for specific task X when you can go to one or two which cover all of them?
It all boils down to Hardcore versus Casual again. Before Walmart and others caught on that video games were good sellers, everyone had to go to places like Funcoland, Babbages, EBX etc. to get games. It was a good time to be a specialty store. However, once the giants entered the scene they took away a large portion of casual gamers. The casual gamers aren't likely to have enough motivation to seek out a GameStop if there's a closer Walmart or Best Buy.
Meanwhile, hardcore gamers still know that Gamestop is the best bet for finding game X, used or new. Best Buy and Walmart will only rarely have a game over a year old, and that's only if it was either really popular or really bad. The only better option is the internet, but that requires shipping. Sadly, in the very near future it may be the only recourse for titles marketed but little.
What we see here is GameStop's desperate attempt to remain relevant. With Best Buy thinking about reselling used games, the niche Gamestop fills is shrinking. They need a tangible edge over the giants in order to compete, and the giants have been eating away those for some time. The better selection isn't tangible to most casual gamers, so that isn't enough. Gamestop needs something obvious.
Hence, exclusive titles.
As people have already pointed out, this is akin to suicide for developers. When the purchasing power of the casual gamer is becoming paramount, why would you restrict your title to a single store more known for its hardcore crowd. Unless A) your game sucks, B) your game is specifically directed at the hardcore crowd, C) your game is an AAA title that will sell bajillions anyway or D) you've been offered more money than you could ever make on the title, I just don't see the incentive.
So we're left with a fangless GameStop, fighting off bigger predators in a desperate bid for survival. Personally, I'm sad. Gamestop may not be the best thing ever, but losing it will leave a gap in gamer culture. We're no longer special enough to warrant our own store.
Eventually, whether or not GameStop survives, games will finally be recognized as mass media and will receive the attention they deserve. At which point specialty stores will return to viability (ala Suncoast Video). Until then, it'll be a struggle for GameStop to compete.
That as meant to be something.
You may now point and laugh.
Indeed. At face value it seems shallow. Why not just give up WoW entirely? I do have my reasons.
1) Discipline - My weakness is not doing things, but focusing on one thing. I have no level 60s because of my Altitus, and this is an exercise in focusing on one thing and sticking with it without breaking down and playing someone else.
2) Boredom - If I get bored of the one character, I'll be forced to do someone other than play WoW.
If 1 or 2 or both happen, I think I will have improved myself. Maybe that isn't exactly in line with what Lent is aimed to do, but that's what I felt I should do.
Playing virtually everything, I also play a Lock.
A lot of my experience as a warlock was rather frustrating as regards to summoning. In almost every group I've been in as/with a warlock one of the following has been true.
1) The warlock is last/next to last to arrive at the place people need to be summoned to.
2) The warlock is first to arrive, but there is at most one other person there to assist in summoning. The others all arrive at the same time.
3) The warlock forgets to have soulstones.
4) The warlock burns all their soulstones summoning one idiot who keeps getting in combat, or saying they're ready when they aren't.
5) The warlock burns soulstones because their assistants don't know how to keep still.
This isn't to say that summoning was a skill I rued having, but especially in regards to instances it was almost overrated.
Now, warlock summoning is still good for a large number of things despite the meeting stone changes.
1. Summoning within Instances - If your healer dies without a Soul Stone or a new player is added to the group just outside the instance, it's extremely helpful to be able to summon them from just inside the door all the way through to the current party position.
2. Summoning within Cities - Half the raids on major cities involve sneaking a warlock and a couple rogues into some uninhabited part of the city and summoning in the rest of the raid.
3. Summoning to Remote Places - There are far more places in the world without portals, flight paths or meeting stones than those which have such things. Desolace sucks to get to, having a friendly warlock with the flight path already helps greatly.
4. Fun with Mages - Pulling the old portal/summoning swap is hilarious.
There are things for a Warlock to do. Honestly I'm much happier without the pressure to rush to the instance to summon everyone.
This is the first time I've heard mention of Web Design since the 90s. Maybe I'm oblivious, but I was beginning to think people forgot it existed.
Back in the days of tiling backgrounds, embedded Midi files, and blue/red hyperlinks there was a term coined. "Web Design" was a buzzword for anyone who knew how to take a few gifs, some HTML, and make a crappy website. I even had a webpage dedicated to Chocobos from Final Fantasy, each page with it's own Chocobo Midi and prominent image, background a tiling of starry gifs.
At first, Web Design was a skill anyone who knew how to move beyond grey background, black text, and web rings could claim to have. Before long, it became pretty evident what constituted a well designed webpage and what didn't. 56k was the name of the game, which severely limited how much crap you could throw on a page before it simply took forever to load.
Whether by skill or by the 56k barrier, web pages were much simpler then than now.
Somewhere towards the end of the 90s we forgot about Web Design. We knew how to make web pages, there wasn't a point in talking about it anymore unless it was your job. There were no more secrets, only skill and good aestetic sense.
Then came broadband and dynamic content.
Something about these things has created the burgeoning hordes of extremely poorly designed web pages. I've seen this all before 15 years ago, people cramming far too much into websites, distilling purpose and functionality in a sea of confusion. Only this time, load times hardly suffer thanks to cable and DSL. Apparently we have goldfish like minds, forgetting the past all too easily.
Or maybe it's just that the internet has grown so quickly that the people persent for the horrors of the 90s are a minority. With a new generation of internet addicts, the lessons of the past are buried.
Perhaps I'm just an old geezer at age 23 ranting and raving about the kids no my lawn, but I'm trying to figure out why web pages like Google are the exception and not the rule. Why Slashdot is better organized than ebay and Amazon. Why keeping your customers lost in a swampy morass of a website is good.
It seems to me the message is there. Every web designer worth their salt knows simplicity is paramount, that extraneous options and features only clutter, that 20 equally flashy and complicated things will only bewilder. Somehow, this message is being ignored.
Perhaps it's that management has finally stopped assuming web designers know what they're doing and are going "hands on". Maybe web designers no longer know what they're doing, coming out of lackluster art or cs majors with only a little skill and a lot of "education". Maybe I'm just picky.
In any case, I think I'd take missarranged Beatles Midis over some of the crappy websites we're force fed these days.
The biggest downer of the LFG tool is the artificial limits that have been put in place.
1) Altruism - There have been times in the past where I see a grammatically correct and polite request for a VC group sent out for an hour or more. I like to reward people for these things, and so I'll bring in a high level character and get them through the dungeon or a hard quest. The new LFG tool has absolutely no support for friendly, high level players.
2) Multiple Characters - I tend to have multiple characters on a single server. A habit of mine with the LFG channel was to play one character while monitoring the channel for a dungeon another character needed. The LFG tool has no functionality supporting this.
3) Craziness - Sometimes people want to group for odd things. Whether it's a roleplaying parade, a raid on an enemy city, or a counter-offensive to an enemy attack the LFG channel allowed groups for non-standard events. The LFG tool has no functionality for people joining groups unassociated with predefined directives.
4) Automation - While much of the LFG tool is automatic, using it isn't. Most players by default would join the LFG channel on login. People must personally open the LFG tool and set what they need. The result is a crippling effect on participation.
5) Simple Limits - One of the major problems with the LFG tool is the limited amount of LFGing you can do with it at any one time. Despite the fact that I might be looking for several wings of SM, RFD, some elite Arathi quests and perhaps a general Zone group for the Badlands I must pick and choose between a maximum of three things. SM alone can eat 3 of those without even covering the whole instance. As instances generally fulfil many quests, they take higher priority than individual quests. This makes it extremely difficult to use the LFG tool for anything that isn't a dungeon, as people naturally select what will give them their "money's worth".
6) LFM - The LFM portion of the tool is simply bad. Three was limiting enough, but at most you can LFM for one dungeon, quest, raid, zone at a time. If you're doing quests outside of dungeons, you might suffer from the "ships passing in the night" syndrome as you flutter through the relevant quests looking for people who might be interested.
Those are my criticisms of the tool. It has great potential, but I think Blizzard jumped the gun. It's going to be twice as hard to convince people to adopt it because of the perception that it sucks. Even if it is improved to the ease of use and functional level of the LFG channel, people won't be convinced. It would have been better if they had waited and expanded it before replacing the flawed but undeniably useful LFG channel.
That is unless...
I'm a fairly hardcore WoW player, although other interests and a 40hr/week job reduces how much freetime I have to dedicate to the game. However, despite having the game for over a year I have not one 60 yet.
This is, as you stated, because I keep rolling alts. I have approxmiately 30 characters most of whom are low level alts, although about a fourth to a third are over 20. I've a couple level 50s, a couple 40s, three 30s (a fourth deleted), three 20s, and 17 at level 19 and below (another four deleted). The Burning Crusade certainly didn't help me curb my Altoholic nature.
Given over a year, that may strike you as pretty low, but I do/did spend half or more of my time PvPing which greatly reduces how quickly one levels.
I did the same thing in Diablo 2, although an account limited to 8 characters generally helped me get much further.
In an attempt to train some discipline and focus, I've given up all my charcters save one for Lent. I'm interested in how far I can take a character in 40 days of play.
Am I a lonely nerd? Yes I am.
The Good News is Sony has enough honesty to come out and say this before Europeans are royally screwed.
The Bad News is, that really sucks.
The DS isn't a Hardware Revision. Nintendo has stated in the past that it's a different beast than the Gameboy. I believe they referred to the Gamecube/Wii, the GBA and the DS as their "three pillars" or some similar term.
That the DS plays GBA games is just icing on the cake apparently.
Although we can probably expect at some point support for original Gameboy/GBC carts drops off even from the direct Gameboy line.
I am not a baseball nut, but I will tell you that my limited knowledge indicates winning teams don't aim for homers on every pitch. That's a surefire way to lose games.
A well managed team aims to get men on bases, and then bat them in. Homers are wonderful when they happen, and slugging the ball with all your might isn't bad, but very few players are good enough to make aiming for homers worth the risks.