Absolutely. I only recently subscribed to cable again because they offered HD DVR for $5 more than the regular package. It saves me a TON of hassle trying to track and find the latest shows each week. I no longer have to remember when they are on, or wait 3 days to download them.
It's all about convenience.
And yes, some shows, I'd scream at anyone who talks through them. Now I don't have to. (Pause button rocks, PC and DVR both.) Even the shows we watch together, if we miss something, we just hit that back-10-seconds button. Like magic.
Sadly, open beta was just after they destroyed the skill system. Prior to that, it was FUN. There were ways to use healers that could keep the whole team healed, if everyone worked together. You could go on long rampages and have a TON of fun. Nevrax had a 'it should take 6 months to max a character' policy and it could be done in 2 weeks with that skill system. So they didn't just nerf it, they completely reworked it.
I quit open beta, and I played the free trial several times, and you're right. It STUNK.
I just pledged 15 EU ($20 US) because of the fun I had in Beta, in the hopes that it can be that much fun again.
You're making me feel like I have a VERY weird family. We get together (even though we live in 3 seperate houses) and watch Survivor each week. With each new event, we discuss, berate, belittle, etc. We get more out of the show from watching it together than we do when we each watch it seperately. (I was sick last Thurs, and we didn't get together. I ended up fast-forwarding through most of the talk.)
My Mom was coming over or 1 Vs 100, also, before it went off-air. (I hope they bring it back.) We used to watch Deal or No Deal (Dad and I) and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (all of us), too.
Some shows are just a lot more enjoyable with a group.
I don't know when you quit Nevrax, but I'm hoping that it's around the time in Beta when they totally changed the skill system. Ryzom was SO MUCH FUN at that time. Yes, you could 'exploit' the healing system if your group was willing to work together, and yes, that made levelling quicker than it you wanted. But it was FUN! After that, levelling was so slow that I didn't care anymore. It was obviously that Ryzom was about stretching out the grind so you couldn't max your character within 6 months. (Nevrax's number, not mine!) There was a whole rebirth system planned that I was anxiously waiting to see.
But then you made it not fun. I didn't play for the rest of Beta.
At launch, I tried the free trial. Still boring.
A few months later, free trial... Still boring...
A few months later... etc etc.
Now I see that the whole game has indeed failed. I have to say: Is it because it wasn't enough fun!?
I sincerely hope you didn't approve of this change, and that anything you do in the future WILL be aimed towards fun, instead of a money-machine.
Exactly. If the author had half a brain, he'd be pushing to change the 'phone' moniker, instead of 'cellular'... I seriously doubt anyone is willing to go for 'cellular multifunctional utility device'.
And despite what he thinks, most people DO still use their phones as phones. It's the vocal minority that use them as something else. You know, the ones who are dissatisfied with what their phone can do. Those who use them as simply phones don't have any complaints about them to complain about.
no rich people want to be seen to have a knock off.
There, I fixed that for you. There are plenty of people who can't afford the name brand (and still eat for the rest of the month) and would be GLAD to purchase knockoff Oakleys at the flea market for 1/100th of the price.
Yes, because 'throwing good money after bad' is ALWAYS a great idea.
If they could do it for free, then I'd say 'great!' but there are very very few editors willing to work for free, and even fewer financers willing to let go of something they paid for, even if it's obviously garbage now.
And Congrats to Nintendo for making that the way it is. Maybe it's just a side-effect and not intended, but making it more fun to be active is a great thing for everyone, young and old.
I just wish I could get my hands on one. I'm not willing to stand in long lines or camp out my local eb this week, hoping to get a chance at one... I'm hoping they'll be fairly easy to get within the next few weeks. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Concrete example (with all distinguishing features withheld for obvious reasons): The last knowledgeable elder of a tribe died. A linguist who could not get a job in academia has many hours of recordings of this elder, but won't release them to the tribe, unless they pay him lots and lots of money. The tribe is trying to recover its religious stories, fables, tribal history, and revitalize its language, but it is all held hostage by one man who is not affiliated with the tribe in any way. The tribe's position is that they should have some rights to the material, since it has been in the tribe forever. But the law says the material belongs to the man who made the recordings. (Oh, and the tribe is reluctant to take it to court until all other options are exhausted, because they are afraid of possible precedents.)
I hope that some details were changed there, or this is pretty doggone clear. That man is under NO obligation to provide them with a record of their knowledge unless he has directly committed himself to such a thing, by mouth or writing. It was the tribe to remember that knowledge. They failed. They are now trying to blame their failure on an outside source simply because that outside source could help them recover from their failure.
Is he morally and ethically wrong to withhold that information from them? Heck yeah! Is it perfectly legal? Absolutely. Even if it the law said that he was NOT the copyright holder (as it now says) he would still be under NO obligation to help them relearn their stories. He merely couldn't profit from them without their consent. He could, however, profit from the tapes they are stored on and his services in recording and playing them back.
So, they're growing up to be adults, is what you're saying, right?
I'm so gonna be modded down for that. -sigh-
The truth is, 'the video game generation' is merely getting a taste a 'real life' a little early. The previous generations all had to wait until they were out of school to realize they were being sucked into the borg.
I'm not an anarchist. I'm just a realist. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS. It's not all bad. If everyone thought for themselves, we'd have a lot more discontent in the world. There'd be more wars. Our country would be a lot less productive. But then, if everyone joined the borg, then we'd have no innovation and no progress.
The 'video game generation' is no better or worse off than the rest of the USA. It just appears different to those who refuse to change, and is therefore 'bad'.
Please, please share with me the MUD you found. With the exception of DragonRealms, my ability to 'affect the world' has been nil. Even if DR, it has been minimal. (Mainly I'm affecting other people, and occasionally they have a huge campaign where the outcome of the battles decides the plot... But -I- don't affect it directly... Only in concert with many many others do I have any effect.
And I've never played another MUD that even has this much that I can affect.
So please, list them off so that I might try them.
The entire Myst series. Especially Uru. (Uru Live is a bonus.)
"That's not multiplayer."
True, they weren't truly multiplayer, but they were the most fun when trying to solve the REALLY hard puzzles with a friend or group of friends. In Kadish (Uru), there is a puzzle towards the end. There ended up being about 5 of us in the TeamSpeak chat. 2 from the US, 1 from UK, 1 from Norway and 1 unspecified. We spent a few hours figuring it out, and had a total blast. The 2 of us from the US and the guy from Norway still stay in touch actively. In the Path of the Shell expansion, the Norwegian and I (and the other US guy later) spent many hours on the 'cooking' puzzle. Another total blast. Myst 4 and 5 were the same way.
Uru Live was also fun, but as there were no added puzzles while it was in beta the first time, and I haven't made the new beta run, I have only the expectations of fun for it. It's the only 'true multiplayer' Myst game, but the others were most enjoyable in a group.
'I'd venture to suggest that the sense of goodwill associated with the BSD license existed long before software patents and the notion of software-based "intellectual property."'
I hope you mean 'exist long before and continues to exist today.' There are plenty of developers that believe their code should be truly free, with no restrictions. That's why the BSD license still exists.
"(Yes, I know you're right, I just wanted to argue for arguments sake)"
Me to, me too!
The difference is that PGR3 was a launch title, and MS knew that to increase sales as much as possible, they should not have PGR 1 and 2 be compatible with the 360. Forza is being released more than a year after launch. It's far, far to late to worry about launch sales now. Instead, the opposite is true: With Forza being backwards-compat at launch, it could increase sales of those not willing to leave the game behind, but want the other new games on the 360.
Of course, that's all tinfoil-hat and probably not true. I suspect the truth is simply that MS has more important things to worry about than backwards compatibility and they only have a small staff working on it now. There's still a few games I'd like to see updated, but if they never are, it won't matter. I'd MUCH rather play new games than old ones.
The previous replier said a lot, but I feel the need to add to it.
There's a saying: "Jack of all trades, master of none." You can either be REALLY good at 1 thing, or pretty good at a lot of them. I'm sure if I DID work at it really hard, I could draw, play music, and sing. But that would stall any increases I was making in my programming ability, something that comes extremely naturally to me.
It didn't take long for me to realize that I would be happier being an amazing programmer than trying to also be an artist and being average at both.
I think the main problem there is that as a society, we tell everyone that 'you can do anything, if you put your mind to it' and that's simply not true. Everyone has areas in which they excel, and areas in which they fail badly. If you accept that about yourself, and work with it, you'll be much happier. Instead, we teach them to try the very things they will most likely fail at.
Some of them make it. Don't get me wrong. But most, including some of the 'successes', are miserable about it.
I'm am not a creative person. I'm simply very logical. I -want- to draw and play music. I'm just really really bad at it. Did I go to art school to try to become mediocre at it? NO. I used my talents and I'm happy with that.
It's the same with 'distance learning.' Some are very well suited to it. Others need the extra guidance a teacher's presence allows. They'd do well to admit it and save themselves, and everyone around them, a lot of trouble.
On the other hand, maybe NOT tracking people like you is the more humane move? You obviously don't WANT to be tracked. Sure, it'll skew the information a bit, but in the end... Does it really matter?
If most people went to the extremes you do for avoiding tracking, then yeah... I could understand the need to do the tracking locally. But most don't.
Actually, OXM does cover the XBox 360 also, from what I can tell. (Went to the forums, which were hosted at xbox.com, and threads talk about OXM not having an article on Halo 3, which is a 360-only title.)
Also of note was that Game Informer and EGM were up MORE than the others were down. Game Informer was actually up more than the total subscription of some of those magazines.
I think the answer is indeed 'content.' Someone used to leave EGM here at work and I'd read it when otherwise occupied. They generally had an article or 2 about an upcoming game that was interesting.
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Knew that'd get your attention;) I really wanted a list of motherboards that support this... I think it would be really neat to have a customizeable BIOS.
Because not everyone has an LCD monitor on their bed?
They're both magazines, but the USE of the magazine differs substantially. It's like saying 'Pickup trucks can do so much MORE than cars, why does anyone buy a car anymore?'
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Absolutely. I only recently subscribed to cable again because they offered HD DVR for $5 more than the regular package. It saves me a TON of hassle trying to track and find the latest shows each week. I no longer have to remember when they are on, or wait 3 days to download them.
It's all about convenience.
And yes, some shows, I'd scream at anyone who talks through them. Now I don't have to. (Pause button rocks, PC and DVR both.) Even the shows we watch together, if we miss something, we just hit that back-10-seconds button. Like magic.
http://www.genecys.org/
http://www.planeshift.it/
There's a couple open source MMORPG's for you to tinker with. Go ahead.
Oh wait, THEY SUCK.
Gamers are willing to pay for a game because it produces better results!
I love open source products, and use them wherever it's worthwhile. When it's not, out comes the pocketbook.
Sadly, open beta was just after they destroyed the skill system. Prior to that, it was FUN. There were ways to use healers that could keep the whole team healed, if everyone worked together. You could go on long rampages and have a TON of fun. Nevrax had a 'it should take 6 months to max a character' policy and it could be done in 2 weeks with that skill system. So they didn't just nerf it, they completely reworked it.
I quit open beta, and I played the free trial several times, and you're right. It STUNK.
I just pledged 15 EU ($20 US) because of the fun I had in Beta, in the hopes that it can be that much fun again.
You're making me feel like I have a VERY weird family. We get together (even though we live in 3 seperate houses) and watch Survivor each week. With each new event, we discuss, berate, belittle, etc. We get more out of the show from watching it together than we do when we each watch it seperately. (I was sick last Thurs, and we didn't get together. I ended up fast-forwarding through most of the talk.)
My Mom was coming over or 1 Vs 100, also, before it went off-air. (I hope they bring it back.) We used to watch Deal or No Deal (Dad and I) and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (all of us), too.
Some shows are just a lot more enjoyable with a group.
I don't know when you quit Nevrax, but I'm hoping that it's around the time in Beta when they totally changed the skill system. Ryzom was SO MUCH FUN at that time. Yes, you could 'exploit' the healing system if your group was willing to work together, and yes, that made levelling quicker than it you wanted. But it was FUN! After that, levelling was so slow that I didn't care anymore. It was obviously that Ryzom was about stretching out the grind so you couldn't max your character within 6 months. (Nevrax's number, not mine!) There was a whole rebirth system planned that I was anxiously waiting to see.
But then you made it not fun. I didn't play for the rest of Beta.
At launch, I tried the free trial. Still boring.
A few months later, free trial... Still boring...
A few months later... etc etc.
Now I see that the whole game has indeed failed. I have to say: Is it because it wasn't enough fun!?
I sincerely hope you didn't approve of this change, and that anything you do in the future WILL be aimed towards fun, instead of a money-machine.
Exactly. If the author had half a brain, he'd be pushing to change the 'phone' moniker, instead of 'cellular'... I seriously doubt anyone is willing to go for 'cellular multifunctional utility device'.
And despite what he thinks, most people DO still use their phones as phones. It's the vocal minority that use them as something else. You know, the ones who are dissatisfied with what their phone can do. Those who use them as simply phones don't have any complaints about them to complain about.
no rich people want to be seen to have a knock off.
There, I fixed that for you. There are plenty of people who can't afford the name brand (and still eat for the rest of the month) and would be GLAD to purchase knockoff Oakleys at the flea market for 1/100th of the price.
Yes, because 'throwing good money after bad' is ALWAYS a great idea.
If they could do it for free, then I'd say 'great!' but there are very very few editors willing to work for free, and even fewer financers willing to let go of something they paid for, even if it's obviously garbage now.
And Congrats to Nintendo for making that the way it is. Maybe it's just a side-effect and not intended, but making it more fun to be active is a great thing for everyone, young and old.
I just wish I could get my hands on one. I'm not willing to stand in long lines or camp out my local eb this week, hoping to get a chance at one... I'm hoping they'll be fairly easy to get within the next few weeks. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Concrete example (with all distinguishing features withheld for obvious reasons): The last knowledgeable elder of a tribe died. A linguist who could not get a job in academia has many hours of recordings of this elder, but won't release them to the tribe, unless they pay him lots and lots of money. The tribe is trying to recover its religious stories, fables, tribal history, and revitalize its language, but it is all held hostage by one man who is not affiliated with the tribe in any way. The tribe's position is that they should have some rights to the material, since it has been in the tribe forever. But the law says the material belongs to the man who made the recordings. (Oh, and the tribe is reluctant to take it to court until all other options are exhausted, because they are afraid of possible precedents.)
I hope that some details were changed there, or this is pretty doggone clear. That man is under NO obligation to provide them with a record of their knowledge unless he has directly committed himself to such a thing, by mouth or writing. It was the tribe to remember that knowledge. They failed. They are now trying to blame their failure on an outside source simply because that outside source could help them recover from their failure.
Is he morally and ethically wrong to withhold that information from them? Heck yeah! Is it perfectly legal? Absolutely. Even if it the law said that he was NOT the copyright holder (as it now says) he would still be under NO obligation to help them relearn their stories. He merely couldn't profit from them without their consent. He could, however, profit from the tapes they are stored on and his services in recording and playing them back.
Dangit, I -liked- Evergrace. :(
Not all launch titles suck. But I'll grant you that most suck so badly that they drag the one or two good ones down with them.
And mail. And ... Hmm, yeah, the whole thing.
Seriously... How many mail servers are going to freak out because they can't handle unicode?
Wait, so it's not tubes... It's a 15 story building?
Anyone else getting more lost every day?
So, they're growing up to be adults, is what you're saying, right?
I'm so gonna be modded down for that. -sigh-
The truth is, 'the video game generation' is merely getting a taste a 'real life' a little early. The previous generations all had to wait until they were out of school to realize they were being sucked into the borg.
I'm not an anarchist. I'm just a realist. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS. It's not all bad. If everyone thought for themselves, we'd have a lot more discontent in the world. There'd be more wars. Our country would be a lot less productive. But then, if everyone joined the borg, then we'd have no innovation and no progress.
The 'video game generation' is no better or worse off than the rest of the USA. It just appears different to those who refuse to change, and is therefore 'bad'.
Please, please share with me the MUD you found. With the exception of DragonRealms, my ability to 'affect the world' has been nil. Even if DR, it has been minimal. (Mainly I'm affecting other people, and occasionally they have a huge campaign where the outcome of the battles decides the plot... But -I- don't affect it directly... Only in concert with many many others do I have any effect.
And I've never played another MUD that even has this much that I can affect.
So please, list them off so that I might try them.
The entire Myst series. Especially Uru. (Uru Live is a bonus.)
"That's not multiplayer."
True, they weren't truly multiplayer, but they were the most fun when trying to solve the REALLY hard puzzles with a friend or group of friends. In Kadish (Uru), there is a puzzle towards the end. There ended up being about 5 of us in the TeamSpeak chat. 2 from the US, 1 from UK, 1 from Norway and 1 unspecified. We spent a few hours figuring it out, and had a total blast. The 2 of us from the US and the guy from Norway still stay in touch actively. In the Path of the Shell expansion, the Norwegian and I (and the other US guy later) spent many hours on the 'cooking' puzzle. Another total blast. Myst 4 and 5 were the same way.
Uru Live was also fun, but as there were no added puzzles while it was in beta the first time, and I haven't made the new beta run, I have only the expectations of fun for it. It's the only 'true multiplayer' Myst game, but the others were most enjoyable in a group.
'I'd venture to suggest that the sense of goodwill associated with the BSD license existed long before software patents and the notion of software-based "intellectual property."'
I hope you mean 'exist long before and continues to exist today.' There are plenty of developers that believe their code should be truly free, with no restrictions. That's why the BSD license still exists.
"(Yes, I know you're right, I just wanted to argue for arguments sake)"
Me to, me too!
The difference is that PGR3 was a launch title, and MS knew that to increase sales as much as possible, they should not have PGR 1 and 2 be compatible with the 360. Forza is being released more than a year after launch. It's far, far to late to worry about launch sales now. Instead, the opposite is true: With Forza being backwards-compat at launch, it could increase sales of those not willing to leave the game behind, but want the other new games on the 360.
Of course, that's all tinfoil-hat and probably not true. I suspect the truth is simply that MS has more important things to worry about than backwards compatibility and they only have a small staff working on it now. There's still a few games I'd like to see updated, but if they never are, it won't matter. I'd MUCH rather play new games than old ones.
The previous replier said a lot, but I feel the need to add to it.
There's a saying: "Jack of all trades, master of none." You can either be REALLY good at 1 thing, or pretty good at a lot of them. I'm sure if I DID work at it really hard, I could draw, play music, and sing. But that would stall any increases I was making in my programming ability, something that comes extremely naturally to me.
It didn't take long for me to realize that I would be happier being an amazing programmer than trying to also be an artist and being average at both.
I think the main problem there is that as a society, we tell everyone that 'you can do anything, if you put your mind to it' and that's simply not true. Everyone has areas in which they excel, and areas in which they fail badly. If you accept that about yourself, and work with it, you'll be much happier. Instead, we teach them to try the very things they will most likely fail at.
Some of them make it. Don't get me wrong. But most, including some of the 'successes', are miserable about it.
I'm am not a creative person. I'm simply very logical. I -want- to draw and play music. I'm just really really bad at it. Did I go to art school to try to become mediocre at it? NO. I used my talents and I'm happy with that.
It's the same with 'distance learning.' Some are very well suited to it. Others need the extra guidance a teacher's presence allows. They'd do well to admit it and save themselves, and everyone around them, a lot of trouble.
On the other hand, maybe NOT tracking people like you is the more humane move? You obviously don't WANT to be tracked. Sure, it'll skew the information a bit, but in the end... Does it really matter?
If most people went to the extremes you do for avoiding tracking, then yeah... I could understand the need to do the tracking locally. But most don't.
Actually, OXM does cover the XBox 360 also, from what I can tell. (Went to the forums, which were hosted at xbox.com, and threads talk about OXM not having an article on Halo 3, which is a 360-only title.)
Also of note was that Game Informer and EGM were up MORE than the others were down. Game Informer was actually up more than the total subscription of some of those magazines.
I think the answer is indeed 'content.' Someone used to leave EGM here at work and I'd read it when otherwise occupied. They generally had an article or 2 about an upcoming game that was interesting.
Anyone else having trouble figuring out what that is?
I kid, I kid!
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Knew that'd get your attention ;) I really wanted a list of motherboards that support this... I think it would be really neat to have a customizeable BIOS.
Because not everyone has an LCD monitor on their bed?
They're both magazines, but the USE of the magazine differs substantially. It's like saying 'Pickup trucks can do so much MORE than cars, why does anyone buy a car anymore?'