I'm sure Sony would have loved to push HDMI on all the systems, but with the current trend in the industry to not use ICT and all the fun stuff that goes with it. HDMI has turned into a luxury item rather than a DRM necessity. They could very well push 1080p through the component video cables if they needed to and since nobody has immediate plans to restrict video to certain connections, it's somewhat pointless to require it at this time. HDMI had it's intent. With all the bad reputation, everyone decided they weren't going to use it for this intent. Therefore it turned into just another output. Albeit a digital one that can be easily cabled to the DVI port on my HD set (which isn't being used now since I gave up my HD cable box.) I will get a PS3 with it for that exact reason.
I see a tremendous trend in XBox folks slandering anything that comes along the line as far as competition. It seems Microsoft is winning over the people that they have so long been struggling to grasp. If Zonk is one of these folks, there's no shame in hiding it. Just prepare for the *nix fans to come out and berate him for trusting in Microsoft to do something right.
There are four main reasons why a particular game isn't listed in the charts:
a) The game in question isn't really a MMOG, at least by my reckoning. Games like Diablo II and Phantasy Star Online fall into this category. Guild Wars developers say in their own FAQ that they do not consider their game a MMOG; in addition, it doesn't charge a monthly fee (see below). Please don't email me trying to insist otherwise; I'm not likely to be convinced.
Even new, it still kept my attention a whole week before I re-rolled a new character and got bored out of my mind just trying to get the same old dungeons out of the way. I would have preferred a method of random dungeon generation like the books had. D&D and MMOs are not a good mix. D&D players want unique dungeon experiences with dungeon masters that can change the difficulty on the fly. Neverwinter hit on this slightly when they opened up the creation tools to allow people to custom craft and actually change the difficulty slider. The problem is that this takes a great amount of human intervention to keep this going right.
I will admit though, the combat in DDO was funner than most combat systems like WoW, EQ, EQ2, etc.
#4: I've had a hard time trying to figure this one out until you look at what is going on here. Raiders don't like the grind. They want the massive war without the fight to build their character to that point. Ask most Raid players and they will tell you they had their character designed from scratch to get to the high level just to raid. Either that or they will buy a pre-maxed character off E-Bay from someone that doesn't like the level cap game and play it for them. It makes me wonder how popular a game would be if they just took away the leveling, gave you a class with a function and set you free in the world. Quests and raids would be the only things to do. (I would hate this game of course. Leveling is my sense of accomplishment, not necesarily items. Items do help level, so I can't officially rule them out.)
The biggest problem with this (and I completely understand your point, so don't take this wrong) is that MMOs needs massive numbers of players. Without a large player base, you have a hard time finding groups at odd hours of the day, and sometimes at peak times. It's a fine balance of enough content and not too much. If you don't put in enough, but make the game extremely fun, you'll have too many people for the content and you might as well not have enough people for that matter. They try to fix this "problem" by instancing everything so people have the opportunity to play all content without running into someone else that did it. Instancing is kind of the cheap way to alleviate this problem. It's far more time consuming and expensive to make the world bigger or make dungeons branch out to several different "boss" rooms in case your goal is taken.
I guess for the argument of my point, you need numbers in order to be successfull in more than just monetary means.
You practically could go through WoW and get your levels free...you just have to have someone complete your quests for you. Ultimate powerleveling is just this. In other games you actually had to get in and fight some stuff. Not saying this is bad, but it doesn't instill confidence in those people you might pickup to help you complete a quest.
The biggest thing that keeps me away from Guildwars is the players. It's hard to find someone to truly game with. Everything is instanced, so there's little difference between Guildwars and let's say Diablo 2. After you make that connection (form a group) in town, your sent to your own instance, where you complete some quests and are sent back to the "lobby" (or town) to either continue with the same people or split up and continue with someone else.
I think it would be hard to track subscribers if they follow the pattern of gaming that I have. I play hardcore for a few weeks, then switch to another game that I will do the same with. I may go back later if the new game doesn't entertain me, but I'm most likely not going to. The only game that kept my attention for any period of time was Everquest (3 years!) and everything after that seems to lose me rather quick. Then again, it may be my adult game A.D.D. kicking in, but blasting through 50 levels in three months (WoW) isn't fun for me either.
Another thing I have a problem with is the constant spamming in Guildwars of "Will run for 2K! Self Invite!". I realize with any Mass Multiplayer community there will be this type of spam, but you can turn it off in most games.
This only paints the general community in Guildwars as 15 year olds that can't afford to pay subscription fees or those that choose not to. I'm not saying these are all bad people, but for the most part, they are very opinionated.
I understand the undertaking this guy goes through must be hell, but I think the updates are coming out of sheer update madness than waiting for all the data. He's missing a good chunk of the games out there. Not that it's going to sway the WoW numbers (which I have always doubted), but some of us like to look at the data without the large spike skewing everything. Where is the EQ2/EQ/Final Fantasy data? Again, not knocking the guy whatsoever, the undertaking is not something light. Just curious. Is SOE/PlayOnline not playing nice?
So...the parents approve of the kid posting profanities against the school? Did we forget about the parents in this whole thing? If the kid is a minor (17 I think falls in this area), isn't it the responsibility of the parent to take some of the grief for this instead of backing their kid's obvious antics?
...not to mention all those that will take the game back to the store to get a replacement copy (most stores allow this freely) then just resell the new game without the supposed security measure burned into the disk.
This method of security simply won't work.
When do we step back and think, "This information will benefit a greater number of people if I don't go litigate everyone that thinks it needs to be spread." By that I mean, if you copy the information from the page and provide a link to the source, you obviously thought that information needed to be shared. Are we to the point in this world where we care more about protecting our ideas than trying to share and expand upon them? Isn't this the basis for open sourcing, think tanks, and such?
"recently faked a Blu-Ray demo by purposely recompressing the DVD comparison movie to make Blu-Ray"
If you would have followed up with the story instead of reading the tabloids, the story was faked to bring people to the blog site. The CD the took a picture of was in the left Notebook. This was the notebook they were running a DVD movie in to compare the difference. the one on the right had the BluRay. http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/05/1 7/11993.aspx
"Sony ran all their PS3 demos off of rack-mounted PCs"
And they openly admitted to running them on Dev machines. They even put the machines in a glass case to show everyone that the hardware was not the actual PS3 in case. Nintendo did a "bad" by hiding it.
Because you don't need HDMI to see things in HD. DVI would be just fine for this...if the PS3 supported DVI output in the "multi-out" plug. How does the 360 get over the 720p (supposed) limit on component video?
Your absolutely right. I don't think it's right to sell two versions that will never have the chance to be the same. I think it's wrong that the PS3 "Lite" will never see the capabilities of the full bore PS3 as it should be. Bear with me here. In the console market, developers will look at the majority system build and design a game for that market. They will avoid the add-on market for the most part to try to cash in on the greatest numbers. There are a few titles that slip by, but for the most part these added features are rarely seen. How many games have you played that use the dance pad, light gun, Robby(?) the Robot, and all the other extensions that are out there? By Sony including the Blueray Drive in the PS3 at launch as opposed to releasing it later sends a note out to the development community to say, "You have the ability, make it."
Now is where the Anti-BRD people will say, "No game will ever fill that disk!" To that, I need only to look at my hard drive for the answer. I have a 4 games installed right now that are 4GB+ and another that will remain nameless that's just over 15GB. To think that that 4GB barrier will not be breached is pure ignorance. This is the way things will be. Games are getting more complex and will require more room. Taking the stand to say it will not is the same as the old 640K debate. Bill did it before, and he did it again with the 360.
On the note of the LAN controller/Hard Drive/HDMI exclusion: Unfortunately, I agree. This should have been approached as an extension. If the PS3 uses an architecture even close to a PC, they could just as easily extended the board to accept add-in modules like a network device, or who knows what else. Put some thought into the design of the interface, provide a more forgiving license and they would have a hit. Licensing is the other thing I can't agree with Sony on. Microsoft doesn't need to worry about it because it seems that whatever they say is the "standard" nowadays, and normal people accept it. (It pisses me off too!) The only real way to end this debate is to agree to disagree. I'm sure this probably won't even be read given the age of the original story, but at least it's there for someone to read that might care to take more than a glance.
Eat it up flamers, I know there's probably grammar and/or spelling mistakes in there somewhere. You can try to use it against me to make me "look the fool" if you want. I personally don't care. There's only one factor to determine the end to this. The market.
If there's one thing I've noticed with the "gaming market" is this. When you make something inexpensive or free, you attract a rather unsavory gamer. This is usually the kid with ADD who's parent's are sick of buying them the latest and greatest, or you get the crowd of people that don't put forth the effort to make something of themselves in life. This is the type of person that expects everything to be free. They want the world to revolve around them. I don't care to communicate with this crowd. I played in several Betas for games, Guildwars, and several games that were free. These attract the type of people I can't stand. As much as I hate it...I think I like the fact that the PS3 is more expensive. It will keep the brats away longer and I can enjoy my game without "l33t h4xx0r" users fudding my enjoyment.
"They pioneered the MMOG, in a significant way, with Everquest, but since then, they seem to be dedicated to destroying valuable intellectual properties."
Verant and 989 Studios actually.... Verant created the game and 989 published it. (for the price of $9.89/month) SOE simply bought the rights and continued the game.
I'm not a Sony Fanboi by any measure, but I can't support Microsoft's XBox. It's a moral dilemma for me, so I will most likely be purchasing a PS3. Nintendo makes a fun system, but it's not for me. I want a serious game console. Micro-payments and add-on equipment put a serious distaste in my mouth.
Am I the only one that wants to see popup adds on people's windshields? I mean think about the possibilities. A popup for a tire manufacturer could make it looks like it's raining and throw a bus in the road coming your way!
If "x" number of people vote that the story is not newsworthy, it finds its way right off the list of news stories.
The censorship concerns brought up are from people trying to get a number added to their score. (You score every time a story you post makes it to the front page.) The person posts a story and if other people think it's crap, they simple mod it off. It's as simple as that.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure Sony would have loved to push HDMI on all the systems, but with the current trend in the industry to not use ICT and all the fun stuff that goes with it. HDMI has turned into a luxury item rather than a DRM necessity. They could very well push 1080p through the component video cables if they needed to and since nobody has immediate plans to restrict video to certain connections, it's somewhat pointless to require it at this time. HDMI had it's intent. With all the bad reputation, everyone decided they weren't going to use it for this intent. Therefore it turned into just another output. Albeit a digital one that can be easily cabled to the DVI port on my HD set (which isn't being used now since I gave up my HD cable box.) I will get a PS3 with it for that exact reason.
I wish I had that problem...Beta testing a game that's in the 18G range now. That doesn't leave much room for an OS (especially XP).
"Microsoft is making the next Mechwarrior game? Fuck!"
I actually remember saying that...and that version did suck (hard).
No need to post anonomously...
I see a tremendous trend in XBox folks slandering anything that comes along the line as far as competition. It seems Microsoft is winning over the people that they have so long been struggling to grasp. If Zonk is one of these folks, there's no shame in hiding it. Just prepare for the *nix fans to come out and berate him for trusting in Microsoft to do something right.
The last data is from June 2005. I'd say some data is missing.
1. Why isn't ________ listed?
There are four main reasons why a particular game isn't listed in the charts:
a) The game in question isn't really a MMOG, at least by my reckoning. Games like Diablo II and Phantasy Star Online fall into this category. Guild Wars developers say in their own FAQ that they do not consider their game a MMOG; in addition, it doesn't charge a monthly fee (see below). Please don't email me trying to insist otherwise; I'm not likely to be convinced.
Even new, it still kept my attention a whole week before I re-rolled a new character and got bored out of my mind just trying to get the same old dungeons out of the way. I would have preferred a method of random dungeon generation like the books had. D&D and MMOs are not a good mix. D&D players want unique dungeon experiences with dungeon masters that can change the difficulty on the fly. Neverwinter hit on this slightly when they opened up the creation tools to allow people to custom craft and actually change the difficulty slider. The problem is that this takes a great amount of human intervention to keep this going right.
I will admit though, the combat in DDO was funner than most combat systems like WoW, EQ, EQ2, etc.
#4: I've had a hard time trying to figure this one out until you look at what is going on here. Raiders don't like the grind. They want the massive war without the fight to build their character to that point. Ask most Raid players and they will tell you they had their character designed from scratch to get to the high level just to raid. Either that or they will buy a pre-maxed character off E-Bay from someone that doesn't like the level cap game and play it for them. It makes me wonder how popular a game would be if they just took away the leveling, gave you a class with a function and set you free in the world. Quests and raids would be the only things to do. (I would hate this game of course. Leveling is my sense of accomplishment, not necesarily items. Items do help level, so I can't officially rule them out.)
The biggest problem with this (and I completely understand your point, so don't take this wrong) is that MMOs needs massive numbers of players. Without a large player base, you have a hard time finding groups at odd hours of the day, and sometimes at peak times. It's a fine balance of enough content and not too much. If you don't put in enough, but make the game extremely fun, you'll have too many people for the content and you might as well not have enough people for that matter. They try to fix this "problem" by instancing everything so people have the opportunity to play all content without running into someone else that did it. Instancing is kind of the cheap way to alleviate this problem. It's far more time consuming and expensive to make the world bigger or make dungeons branch out to several different "boss" rooms in case your goal is taken.
I guess for the argument of my point, you need numbers in order to be successfull in more than just monetary means.
You practically could go through WoW and get your levels free...you just have to have someone complete your quests for you. Ultimate powerleveling is just this. In other games you actually had to get in and fight some stuff. Not saying this is bad, but it doesn't instill confidence in those people you might pickup to help you complete a quest.
The biggest thing that keeps me away from Guildwars is the players. It's hard to find someone to truly game with. Everything is instanced, so there's little difference between Guildwars and let's say Diablo 2. After you make that connection (form a group) in town, your sent to your own instance, where you complete some quests and are sent back to the "lobby" (or town) to either continue with the same people or split up and continue with someone else.
I think it would be hard to track subscribers if they follow the pattern of gaming that I have. I play hardcore for a few weeks, then switch to another game that I will do the same with. I may go back later if the new game doesn't entertain me, but I'm most likely not going to. The only game that kept my attention for any period of time was Everquest (3 years!) and everything after that seems to lose me rather quick. Then again, it may be my adult game A.D.D. kicking in, but blasting through 50 levels in three months (WoW) isn't fun for me either.
Another thing I have a problem with is the constant spamming in Guildwars of "Will run for 2K! Self Invite!". I realize with any Mass Multiplayer community there will be this type of spam, but you can turn it off in most games.
This only paints the general community in Guildwars as 15 year olds that can't afford to pay subscription fees or those that choose not to. I'm not saying these are all bad people, but for the most part, they are very opinionated.
I understand the undertaking this guy goes through must be hell, but I think the updates are coming out of sheer update madness than waiting for all the data. He's missing a good chunk of the games out there. Not that it's going to sway the WoW numbers (which I have always doubted), but some of us like to look at the data without the large spike skewing everything. Where is the EQ2/EQ/Final Fantasy data? Again, not knocking the guy whatsoever, the undertaking is not something light. Just curious. Is SOE/PlayOnline not playing nice?
Apparently the parents have no issue here since I got modded offtopic. They are completely blameless and I am wrong. Glad to know.
So...the parents approve of the kid posting profanities against the school? Did we forget about the parents in this whole thing? If the kid is a minor (17 I think falls in this area), isn't it the responsibility of the parent to take some of the grief for this instead of backing their kid's obvious antics?
...not to mention all those that will take the game back to the store to get a replacement copy (most stores allow this freely) then just resell the new game without the supposed security measure burned into the disk. This method of security simply won't work.
When do we step back and think, "This information will benefit a greater number of people if I don't go litigate everyone that thinks it needs to be spread." By that I mean, if you copy the information from the page and provide a link to the source, you obviously thought that information needed to be shared. Are we to the point in this world where we care more about protecting our ideas than trying to share and expand upon them? Isn't this the basis for open sourcing, think tanks, and such?
"recently faked a Blu-Ray demo by purposely recompressing the DVD comparison movie to make Blu-Ray"
1 7/11993.aspx
If you would have followed up with the story instead of reading the tabloids, the story was faked to bring people to the blog site. The CD the took a picture of was in the left Notebook. This was the notebook they were running a DVD movie in to compare the difference. the one on the right had the BluRay.
http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/05/
"Sony ran all their PS3 demos off of rack-mounted PCs"
And they openly admitted to running them on Dev machines. They even put the machines in a glass case to show everyone that the hardware was not the actual PS3 in case. Nintendo did a "bad" by hiding it.
...6 degrees
Because you don't need HDMI to see things in HD. DVI would be just fine for this...if the PS3 supported DVI output in the "multi-out" plug. How does the 360 get over the 720p (supposed) limit on component video?
Your absolutely right. I don't think it's right to sell two versions that will never have the chance to be the same. I think it's wrong that the PS3 "Lite" will never see the capabilities of the full bore PS3 as it should be. Bear with me here. In the console market, developers will look at the majority system build and design a game for that market. They will avoid the add-on market for the most part to try to cash in on the greatest numbers. There are a few titles that slip by, but for the most part these added features are rarely seen. How many games have you played that use the dance pad, light gun, Robby(?) the Robot, and all the other extensions that are out there? By Sony including the Blueray Drive in the PS3 at launch as opposed to releasing it later sends a note out to the development community to say, "You have the ability, make it."
Now is where the Anti-BRD people will say, "No game will ever fill that disk!" To that, I need only to look at my hard drive for the answer. I have a 4 games installed right now that are 4GB+ and another that will remain nameless that's just over 15GB. To think that that 4GB barrier will not be breached is pure ignorance. This is the way things will be. Games are getting more complex and will require more room. Taking the stand to say it will not is the same as the old 640K debate. Bill did it before, and he did it again with the 360.
On the note of the LAN controller/Hard Drive/HDMI exclusion: Unfortunately, I agree. This should have been approached as an extension. If the PS3 uses an architecture even close to a PC, they could just as easily extended the board to accept add-in modules like a network device, or who knows what else. Put some thought into the design of the interface, provide a more forgiving license and they would have a hit. Licensing is the other thing I can't agree with Sony on. Microsoft doesn't need to worry about it because it seems that whatever they say is the "standard" nowadays, and normal people accept it. (It pisses me off too!) The only real way to end this debate is to agree to disagree. I'm sure this probably won't even be read given the age of the original story, but at least it's there for someone to read that might care to take more than a glance.
Eat it up flamers, I know there's probably grammar and/or spelling mistakes in there somewhere. You can try to use it against me to make me "look the fool" if you want. I personally don't care. There's only one factor to determine the end to this. The market.
If there's one thing I've noticed with the "gaming market" is this. When you make something inexpensive or free, you attract a rather unsavory gamer. This is usually the kid with ADD who's parent's are sick of buying them the latest and greatest, or you get the crowd of people that don't put forth the effort to make something of themselves in life. This is the type of person that expects everything to be free. They want the world to revolve around them. I don't care to communicate with this crowd. I played in several Betas for games, Guildwars, and several games that were free. These attract the type of people I can't stand. As much as I hate it...I think I like the fact that the PS3 is more expensive. It will keep the brats away longer and I can enjoy my game without "l33t h4xx0r" users fudding my enjoyment.
"They pioneered the MMOG, in a significant way, with Everquest, but since then, they seem to be dedicated to destroying valuable intellectual properties."
Verant and 989 Studios actually.... Verant created the game and 989 published it. (for the price of $9.89/month) SOE simply bought the rights and continued the game.
I'm not a Sony Fanboi by any measure, but I can't support Microsoft's XBox. It's a moral dilemma for me, so I will most likely be purchasing a PS3. Nintendo makes a fun system, but it's not for me. I want a serious game console. Micro-payments and add-on equipment put a serious distaste in my mouth.
Maybe they got tired of paying people to research names like Pentium, Itanium, etc. Thus the new generic naming scheme.
Am I the only one that wants to see popup adds on people's windshields? I mean think about the possibilities. A popup for a tire manufacturer could make it looks like it's raining and throw a bus in the road coming your way!
The site is based on popularity.
If "x" number of people vote that the story is not newsworthy, it finds its way right off the list of news stories.
The censorship concerns brought up are from people trying to get a number added to their score. (You score every time a story you post makes it to the front page.) The person posts a story and if other people think it's crap, they simple mod it off. It's as simple as that.
Is it too late to Patent the use of food to sustain life?