When that happened while I played, I was said to my friend, "Yeah right, that horse isn't dead. I abused him so badly throughout the game that I'm convinced the horse is immortal. Just wait, after this is over he's going to come out and be unharmed!"
So the PS2 went for the equivalent of ~553.00 USD (going by current rates, but currency rates were different then). The PS3 is going for the equivalent of 786.00 USD in the UK. Both consoles are priced higher in the UK than the US. Why criticize someone's PS2 vs PS3 comparison using USD when you use pounds as your refutation, then neglect to actually bring up the console comparison with pounds? Is it because in both instances the consoles come out to being more in the UK than the US, thus weakening your point? Is it because by actually comparing two prices using the same currencies instead of comparing two different currencies and acting like they're equivalent, the PS3 comes out to cost more than the PS2 by a noticable margin rather than looking like it cost as much as the PS2? Don't try to win an arguement with an appeal to ignorance. Try being honest with your facts at hand, rather than trying to twist them to make yourself look right.
Unique? Innovative? Most of everything in Fable had already been done better by Bioware with several of their past games. Changing your character's looks depending on if you're good or evil? KotOR. Good/evil storyline? Just about all of their games. The rest was done better a few months later by GTA: San Andreas - superior in-depth character customization, better sandbox, better action, etc. I bet by the time Fable had come out, the stage of development San Andreas was in still topped all of Fable's features.
Why spend money on a supermodel, or even a model, when you can buy a beautiful STD-free sex slave in Thailand and other parts of the world for around $1000 USD (costs vary by place of purchase). The only recurring cost is food! Gotta love how the slave trade is still alive in the world, and more profitable than ever.
People choosing not to have kids aren't necessarily stupid, infertile, unhealthy, or weak. The more civilized nations become, the more their birthrate tends to drop, too. Not to mention that for such nations, children are an economic burden rather than an economic boon. Care to explain that, given what you just said?:O
"Trust me, when a boss talks about wanting passionate employees, they don't mean someone who has a healthy work-life balance. They mean someone whose emotional attachment to what they do can be exploited for the good of the company--and the CEO."
Increased risk for turnover, burnout, and illness as a result of overworking can result in a long-term loss in productivity though, if the efforts of industrial-organizational psychologists are to be believed.
I'm suprised he didn't include a PS2 or other "current"-gen home console bundle to take off the edge from the bias in the article.
Example:
The "I love Sony Anyway" Bundle: ~$586
Prices are from BestBuy.com unless otherwise noted.
PS2 ($130)
Extra controller ($25)
Guitar Hero ($70)
God of War ($20)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence ($30)
GTA: Vice City and San Andreas ($40)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 ($15)
Resident Evil 4 ($40)
NFL 2006 (even though arguably earlier versions are better and cheaper) ($30)
Shadow of the Collossus ($40)
Final Fantasy X ($20)
Burnout 3: Takedown ($20)
Virtua Fighter 4 ($4 used from Gamestop.com)
Devil May Cry ($10 used from Gamestop.com)
World Soccer Winning Eleven 6 Int'l ($20 used from Gamestop.com)
Gran Turismo 4 ($20)
NHL 2002 ($2 used from Gamestop.com)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance ($25 used from Gamestop.com)
Soul Calibur 2 ($15)
Shipping if buying from gamestop.com ($10+)
So you can get a collection of outstanding games across all genres instead of a PS3. Of course, if you're already a PS2 owner and own most if not all the games above (and more), then well this won't apply.
And don't get me wrong, I don't particuarly love Sony. I actually own mostly Nintendo systems. But I'm suprised there were no current-gen bundles at all. I guess that takes too much effort for a professional web journalist!
Re:Ok, I was interested before but now....
on
Wii-mote In Action
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· Score: 1
"when there is nothing to forcibly stop the controller from moving past a certain point if your character makes contact in the game."
Most likely that's what the rumble is for. It won't be perfect as it won't stop you, but it's tactile feedback.
Never mind movies, TV, books, magazines, music/music videos, nor their respective rating systems, nor the rating system already in place for videogames. Or the parent's responsibility to supervise their own children!
Plus you can buy a Blizzard game and *know* it'll be worth your money, if not moreso. The amount of time spent beta testing, game balancing, etc., in addition to all the patches they put out post-release to fix every error and imbalance they overlooked helps the replay value all the more, whether you keep playing, or after you've taken an extended break from any of their games and come back.
What I don't get is that article posted here awhile back, about how game reviews have little to no bearing on game sales. Maybe it's the reviews themselves that don't have an impact, but definitely quality of the game produced has an effect. Otherwise Blizzard wouldn't be where they are now, given their deliberate perfectionist policy on game production and patching.
"Halo did do something very nice that every FPS game should copy. Give grenades their own controls so you can throw them with your main weapon equipped. Brilliant."
Forgive me if I misinterpreted this part of your comment, but the Team Fortress Classic mod for Half-Life had that feature. I wouldn't be suprised if Team Fortress for Quake had that, too. It's a good feature, yes, but it's nothing new. For that matter Halo brought little if anything new to the FPS genre.
"THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell spoke about developing for the Nintendo Wii, touching on a number of topics including THQ's first reactions to its Wii games..."
"...[The Wii] wasn't a whole new programming environment," Farrell said. "So we had a lot of tools and tech that work in that environment. So those costs--and again, I hate these broad generalizations--but they could be as little as a third of the high-end next-gen titles... Maybe the range is a quarter to a half."
FFT: Advance has a complete crap story compared to the original FFT. So if you get FFT: Advance, get it for the gameplay, not the story. As a side note, the combat in FFT dominates just about any combat scene Martin has written imo:X
As far as I know the DS Lite hits the US either on May 7th or 21st. They tend to release hardware on sundays, and the new Super Mario Bros. game's release date has been pushed back two weeks to May 21. Normally Nintendo doesn't release games on Sundays unless it's with new hardware, so it seems very likely that the DS Lite and SMB game will release on the same day.
"This is what WoW teaches. No matter how much time you have, you won't go far at the end-game if you have no skills."
I dunno if it's much different in WoW, given that it is a MMORPG, but in Everquest, this was/is not true. There were some seriously skill-deficient people in all of the top guilds that just played all the time.
OTOH, any talented musician will also tell you that the skills learned from one instrument carry over in some way with regard to speed of learning/rate of performance increase in other instruments, especially instruments similar to those already mastered.
Large groups can easily overpower small groups or individuals. This is the premise of political philosophy since the time of Aristotle...
Kinda disagree given the supposed history of the US military's kill:death ratio in conflicts like Somalia, Iraq, etc combined with the ratio of US soldiers:enemies. Not to mention that China isn't ruling the world or anything, and is virtually economically dependant upon the US due to our "oh so bad" trade deficit.
That aside, the fundamental problem here is that in RL, you put in more time, you generally get better and faster at what you do. The skills carry over to related areas. An artist who is excellent at drawing will have a better base skill at painting than a painter who has no other art experience. The thing with MMOs is that skills in related areas carry over minimally, and in some cases not at all.
Quick counter to your martial arts example. If you practice one martial art for a few years, you will pick up new arts more quickly than someone who has equal talent as you but has no martial arts experience. Your skills carry over.
Time committment is important in RL, yes, but the MMOs actually hamstring your skill advantage from time spent playing other (related) games. Here's another example: employment. If you have years of experience in sales, and you are an excellent salesperson for it, you will probably be hired into a higher-than-entry level position when being hired by a company, whereas a no-experience employee will be hired at the entry level. If not, then you will rise in the ranks significantly faster than someone with no experience, as you will show you can handle a greater variety of situations, more complex situations, and probably higher performance. That's like playing a non-MMORPG.
Playing an MMORPG is like being hired into a company that charges all employees at all levels of employment with roughly the same low level of task complexity and difficulty, ignores all past experience in other related jobs, cuts the significance of your performance levels tremendously, and favors most hours spent working within the company. Such a company could have a mentally handicapped individual as CEO who has learned little to nothing from his/her experiences, but simply worked 18 hours a day due to nothing better to do. That CEO is also doing the same type of work as an entry level worker.
And finally to bring it back to videogames - The learning curve for, say, a new FPS might be reduced for a seasoned FPSer, such that after playing for 1 month, he/she has almost reached his/her peak performance. He/she might defeat players that play that particular game significantly more, but have spent less time playing FPSs as a whole.
However in an MMO, the same player may have played many other MMOs and have a near-peak understanding of the game mechanics just as well in 1 month, but his/her character is only level 30 rather than level 60. If that player had a level 60 character, he/she will outperform many other level 60 characters with equal gear and soforth. However, he/she is level 30, and is thus handicapped. That is the fundamental flaw identified, but I have an additional point to make - in the example just given, the level 30 gamer is inferior to the level 60 gamer, though the level 30 gamer has actually put in more time into related videogaming. Perhaps a fresh gamer would only get level 20 in the time that the experienced gamer got level 30, but that experienced gamer still can't get level 60 due to the artifical time requirement for that particular game, and arbitrarily can't take on the challenges that level 60 players can, no matter how skilled the level 30 player is, no matter if the level 30 player is actually a superior player to any given level 60 player. If you can name real-world environments where that happens, please illuminate me, because I don't see it in sports or business.
Slashdot Mirror
When that happened while I played, I was said to my friend, "Yeah right, that horse isn't dead. I abused him so badly throughout the game that I'm convinced the horse is immortal. Just wait, after this is over he's going to come out and be unharmed!"
I speed read, and when I first read your post, I did read it as the International Federation of the Pornographic Industries.
Err, wrong game.
Don't be scared, just buy an assault rifle from the local gun shop ;)
So the PS2 went for the equivalent of ~553.00 USD (going by current rates, but currency rates were different then). The PS3 is going for the equivalent of 786.00 USD in the UK. Both consoles are priced higher in the UK than the US. Why criticize someone's PS2 vs PS3 comparison using USD when you use pounds as your refutation, then neglect to actually bring up the console comparison with pounds? Is it because in both instances the consoles come out to being more in the UK than the US, thus weakening your point? Is it because by actually comparing two prices using the same currencies instead of comparing two different currencies and acting like they're equivalent, the PS3 comes out to cost more than the PS2 by a noticable margin rather than looking like it cost as much as the PS2? Don't try to win an arguement with an appeal to ignorance. Try being honest with your facts at hand, rather than trying to twist them to make yourself look right.
Unique? Innovative? Most of everything in Fable had already been done better by Bioware with several of their past games. Changing your character's looks depending on if you're good or evil? KotOR. Good/evil storyline? Just about all of their games. The rest was done better a few months later by GTA: San Andreas - superior in-depth character customization, better sandbox, better action, etc. I bet by the time Fable had come out, the stage of development San Andreas was in still topped all of Fable's features.
Why spend money on a supermodel, or even a model, when you can buy a beautiful STD-free sex slave in Thailand and other parts of the world for around $1000 USD (costs vary by place of purchase). The only recurring cost is food! Gotta love how the slave trade is still alive in the world, and more profitable than ever.
People choosing not to have kids aren't necessarily stupid, infertile, unhealthy, or weak. The more civilized nations become, the more their birthrate tends to drop, too. Not to mention that for such nations, children are an economic burden rather than an economic boon. Care to explain that, given what you just said? :O
Why am I somehow reminded of guilds in MMORPGs?
Increased risk for turnover, burnout, and illness as a result of overworking can result in a long-term loss in productivity though, if the efforts of industrial-organizational psychologists are to be believed.
Example:
The "I love Sony Anyway" Bundle: ~$586 Prices are from BestBuy.com unless otherwise noted.PS2 ($130)
Extra controller ($25)
Guitar Hero ($70)
God of War ($20)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence ($30)
GTA: Vice City and San Andreas ($40)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 ($15)
Resident Evil 4 ($40)
NFL 2006 (even though arguably earlier versions are better and cheaper) ($30)
Shadow of the Collossus ($40)
Final Fantasy X ($20)
Burnout 3: Takedown ($20)
Virtua Fighter 4 ($4 used from Gamestop.com)
Devil May Cry ($10 used from Gamestop.com)
World Soccer Winning Eleven 6 Int'l ($20 used from Gamestop.com)
Gran Turismo 4 ($20)
NHL 2002 ($2 used from Gamestop.com)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance ($25 used from Gamestop.com)
Soul Calibur 2 ($15)
Shipping if buying from gamestop.com ($10+)
So you can get a collection of outstanding games across all genres instead of a PS3. Of course, if you're already a PS2 owner and own most if not all the games above (and more), then well this won't apply. And don't get me wrong, I don't particuarly love Sony. I actually own mostly Nintendo systems. But I'm suprised there were no current-gen bundles at all. I guess that takes too much effort for a professional web journalist!Most likely that's what the rumble is for. It won't be perfect as it won't stop you, but it's tactile feedback.
Never mind movies, TV, books, magazines, music/music videos, nor their respective rating systems, nor the rating system already in place for videogames. Or the parent's responsibility to supervise their own children!
They get it from Media Create, the same source used in this very article.
What I don't get is that article posted here awhile back, about how game reviews have little to no bearing on game sales. Maybe it's the reviews themselves that don't have an impact, but definitely quality of the game produced has an effect. Otherwise Blizzard wouldn't be where they are now, given their deliberate perfectionist policy on game production and patching.
Forgive me if I misinterpreted this part of your comment, but the Team Fortress Classic mod for Half-Life had that feature. I wouldn't be suprised if Team Fortress for Quake had that, too. It's a good feature, yes, but it's nothing new. For that matter Halo brought little if anything new to the FPS genre.
That's a very valid point.
"THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell spoke about developing for the Nintendo Wii, touching on a number of topics including THQ's first reactions to its Wii games..."
"...[The Wii] wasn't a whole new programming environment," Farrell said. "So we had a lot of tools and tech that work in that environment. So those costs--and again, I hate these broad generalizations--but they could be as little as a third of the high-end next-gen titles... Maybe the range is a quarter to a half."
I wonder what Warren Spector has to say about that!
FFT: Advance has a complete crap story compared to the original FFT. So if you get FFT: Advance, get it for the gameplay, not the story. As a side note, the combat in FFT dominates just about any combat scene Martin has written imo :X
As far as I know the DS Lite hits the US either on May 7th or 21st. They tend to release hardware on sundays, and the new Super Mario Bros. game's release date has been pushed back two weeks to May 21. Normally Nintendo doesn't release games on Sundays unless it's with new hardware, so it seems very likely that the DS Lite and SMB game will release on the same day.
...but I prefer PurePwnage to Mega64.
I dunno if it's much different in WoW, given that it is a MMORPG, but in Everquest, this was/is not true. There were some seriously skill-deficient people in all of the top guilds that just played all the time.
OTOH, any talented musician will also tell you that the skills learned from one instrument carry over in some way with regard to speed of learning/rate of performance increase in other instruments, especially instruments similar to those already mastered.
Kinda disagree given the supposed history of the US military's kill:death ratio in conflicts like Somalia, Iraq, etc combined with the ratio of US soldiers:enemies. Not to mention that China isn't ruling the world or anything, and is virtually economically dependant upon the US due to our "oh so bad" trade deficit.
That aside, the fundamental problem here is that in RL, you put in more time, you generally get better and faster at what you do. The skills carry over to related areas. An artist who is excellent at drawing will have a better base skill at painting than a painter who has no other art experience. The thing with MMOs is that skills in related areas carry over minimally, and in some cases not at all.
Quick counter to your martial arts example. If you practice one martial art for a few years, you will pick up new arts more quickly than someone who has equal talent as you but has no martial arts experience. Your skills carry over.
Time committment is important in RL, yes, but the MMOs actually hamstring your skill advantage from time spent playing other (related) games. Here's another example: employment. If you have years of experience in sales, and you are an excellent salesperson for it, you will probably be hired into a higher-than-entry level position when being hired by a company, whereas a no-experience employee will be hired at the entry level. If not, then you will rise in the ranks significantly faster than someone with no experience, as you will show you can handle a greater variety of situations, more complex situations, and probably higher performance. That's like playing a non-MMORPG.
Playing an MMORPG is like being hired into a company that charges all employees at all levels of employment with roughly the same low level of task complexity and difficulty, ignores all past experience in other related jobs, cuts the significance of your performance levels tremendously, and favors most hours spent working within the company. Such a company could have a mentally handicapped individual as CEO who has learned little to nothing from his/her experiences, but simply worked 18 hours a day due to nothing better to do. That CEO is also doing the same type of work as an entry level worker.
And finally to bring it back to videogames - The learning curve for, say, a new FPS might be reduced for a seasoned FPSer, such that after playing for 1 month, he/she has almost reached his/her peak performance. He/she might defeat players that play that particular game significantly more, but have spent less time playing FPSs as a whole.
However in an MMO, the same player may have played many other MMOs and have a near-peak understanding of the game mechanics just as well in 1 month, but his/her character is only level 30 rather than level 60. If that player had a level 60 character, he/she will outperform many other level 60 characters with equal gear and soforth. However, he/she is level 30, and is thus handicapped. That is the fundamental flaw identified, but I have an additional point to make - in the example just given, the level 30 gamer is inferior to the level 60 gamer, though the level 30 gamer has actually put in more time into related videogaming. Perhaps a fresh gamer would only get level 20 in the time that the experienced gamer got level 30, but that experienced gamer still can't get level 60 due to the artifical time requirement for that particular game, and arbitrarily can't take on the challenges that level 60 players can, no matter how skilled the level 30 player is, no matter if the level 30 player is actually a superior player to any given level 60 player. If you can name real-world environments where that happens, please illuminate me, because I don't see it in sports or business.