I'm amazed I couldn't find a comment on the scroll wheel before this. I was originally going to post and ask if anyone still actually USES the scroll bars... They are just a visual guide for me now. But apparently you and I are the only ones that don't use it any more. Oh well. You can lead a horse to water, and all that.
And I stand by my categories. Japanese games tend to focus on the plot, and American games tend to focus on the action. Of course they both contain both, but I disagree that they are equal measures.
You 'Chrono trigger got monotonous in the middle' example is even a point for me. An American game has plot so that there's a reason for the action. The plot tends to be on the boring, shallow side while the action tends to be constant and exciting. A Japanese game tends to have action to advance the plot. The plot tends to be involved and the action is there mainly to complete the game and keep it from being a movie.
As for Final Fantasy, someone mentioned the later ones, but the first ones are what I was mainly talking about. In the first few FF games, you got to pick the characters' names, classes, etc. You had 4 characters, and a choice of like 6-8 classes. And you could have all 4 of the same class, if you wanted. Some, you could even choose not to have 4 characters. Heck, some would even let you pick a monster as a character. That's pretty much the epitome of 'no background'.
I -love- both kinds of RPG. I tend to like the plot-oriented style a little better, but if I had to pick RPG or anything else, RPG would be my choice. American or Japanese.
Anyhow, back to the point... That's the closest distinction between Japanese and American RPGs. With anything else, the line has been crossed too many times to split them properly.
I think by 'character' you mean background, but even that doesn't fit. Your background in Morrowind/Oblivion was told to you. You were a prisoner. THe details may be lacking, but that's your background.
Unless you mean that you get to choose race/class/profession, and then you have to move most Final Fantasy games to the American side.
Instead, define them like:
Japanese RPG: Focus on plot. American RPG: Focus on action.
Oh hey, now the 'dungeon diggers' also fit under American. Surprise surprise.
Oh man, I dunno if you're joking or not. Here's some hints...
Anybody with a name like 'Billy Ray' or 'Joe Bob' sings Country music. Also, odd names like 'Garth' and 'Montgomery' wouldn't survive outside Country music for long.
If they have a name that looks like a word but spelled wrong, it's probably hard rock, death metal or rap. (Def Leppard, Def Jam, Ludacris, etc.)
If the name is really long and foreign sounding, it's probably classical. (Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, etc.)
And if there's a religious word in the name that hasn't been perverted somehow, or sounds happy-happy, it's Christian Rock.
I'm curious... 'cannot be solved with a calculator' ?? The closest I can come is algebra, but then... I could write a script in several languages that would do the algebra, once it was pulled from the image. And quite a bit quicker than a person could.
Someone else already said 'I hate swapping', and I do, too... I far prefer single disc games.
And CD-based games used to have tons of space free as well. But we've already hit the max for DVD games (Xenosaga 1) quite a while back. If we start having 7 DVD games (anyone else remember Phantasmagoria?) will soon be a reality if we don't start using a different medium. Will it happen in 3 years? (My expected lifespan of a console) I doubt we'll get to 7. But 3 and 4 are pretty likely.
Not that I agree with blueray and hddvd. DRM sucks (especially for video/audio) and this whole format war thing is amazingly stupid.
Maybe we'll even end up back at cartridges like we used to have, but with MUCH more memory, or proprietary usb 'dongles'. (I know some hate that word, as it's not 100% correct, but whatever.)
From http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/09/22/gpl3 .html?page=2 "Even small changes from version 2 of the GPL will result in an incompatible license. Two slightly different licenses, each saying that modified versions of a program must be distributed under the same license, are inevitably incompatible."
There are some software that say or 'gpl v2 or any later version' but if even 1 package (ie: the kernel) doesn't say that, then the whole distro can forget it.
Are you seriously saying that anything is STOPPING you from reading the website like the magazine? The only time I read a magazine from cover to cover is when I'm on the john and haven't got a lot else to do. If I'm at the computer, I'd not going to bother reading a PDF magazine cover to cover, and I certainly won't both to try to use the index to find articles. It's SUCH a pain in the ass that I gave up on that long ago unless I REALLY needed to find that article.
Simply read the website like you'd read a magazine and be happy.
That's as may be, but physically disconnecting my cable the next day, and then refusing to send a guy out for 2 weeks is inexcuseable. I don't care how complicated the system is.
Earthlink also provides services for Brighthouse in Florida. And there IS a choice of 3 companies there. I believe RoadRunner and AOL are the other 2. They could lose a TON of customers, if the customers cared.
Earthlink has pissed me off before and I am seriously considering switching to roadrunner. The only thing that has stopped me is that every time I make even a small change to my account, Brighthouse (who isn't so bright) screws up the entire account and I'm out of service for 2 weeks. And I can't afford that right now.
Assuming they mean 30% better than they currently are, that the average student is making at best 77/100 on their grades. (And if that were the case, they expect 100/100 as the new average. So it's got to be much lower than that.)
If they meant straight grades, that means 70/100 was the average, at best.
What does this say about the ability of their teachers? Nothing, that's what... because that 30% number is complete and total bullshit.
Well, except that it isn't an article, it's a blog entry, and that they weren't intending for it to be generalized info for the masses, yeah. It's unreadable.
But given that it's just an attempt to describe the new layout of a blog entry, and that the 'non-tabular' info you hate so much IS the entire article, I'd say it's fine.
The reason it's in a table is to keep information together. He could have attempted to CSS it, and make it nearly impossible to line up correctly in every browser, but instead used tables as they were meant to be used. For data that needs to be kept aligned. Imagine that.
You're assuming they don't take the easiest way out and simply revoke your service or accidentally cut your lines numerous times, angering your customers and making them switch from you to regular service.
Of course, if it was the goverment that discovered it, they'd probably do the arrest thing because you were breaking the law by not paying your taxes on each line you provide.
We can't. The current cycle won't allow us to. Any of us that tries to start that 'sane' trend gets marked unstable and we are blacklisted. It's called 'working with what you have'.
I'm sure there's plenty of insane things in your country, too. Got a king? We think that's crazy. Rulership should never be passed on like money. It should go to someone qualified for the situation for real reasons. That's just 1 example.
Until you have the perfect society, don't bother judging others'.
And what he said was absolutely true. We DO ignore women because we are afraid they will take something we say the wrong way. I worked at an office supply store and 2 different people were (wrongly, in my opinion) accused of sexual harrassment. 1 was the daughter of an employee, in the break room, where she didn't belong, and most of us are sure it didn't happen. She was bored and throwing a tantrum. He was fired. The other was an older man who talked just like the person he was talking to. She called everyone 'honey' and he did the same back and bam, harrassment. 1 time. She wasn't NEAR his age or good looking, and he had a girlfriend. I quit that job shortly after, partly because of that. I have no need for that BS on my record because of something I unthinkingly said, that was perfectly harmless.
I've thought about asking a girl out at work a few times, but in the end I think 'I'd rather have my job.' It's just not worth the risk to even consider dating at work.
Someone in another thread suggested asking everyone to 'the bar' at once in a group, instead of inviting a girl specifically. That's great, except that you changed the normal behavior because a woman was around. Nobody does that here. Everyone is invited individually.
A friend of a friend did a paper once on the fact that Christianity is a cult. It fits the definition exactly. She had a VERY long definition of 'cult' that included a martyr and many other facets. I don't remember where she got the definition, but dictionary.com doesn't provide much. By every definition on there, it fits easily... including the 'believed to be false' bit, since every religion thinks every other religion is false, with the possible except of mine which thinks that all religions are true in that God merely wants you to be 'good' and treat others well. (I made up my religion, but you can have it if you want. Just don't ask me to preach.)
They forgot 1 type, though... The aging, frustrated gamer. At 29 years, I'm finding I like the beginning of the game... Casual, leisurely part where you mostly just have fun and get to know how things work. Once I get to the 'hard for the sake of hard' parts, I lose interest.
Even FINDING a game worth playign is getting hard. I borrowed a friend's x360 (friends don't let friend play xbox... -sigh-) and he had Ninety Nine Nights. I -love- Dynasty/Samurai warriors. It's one of the few games I play more than 20 hours before getting bored when a new one comes out. NNN gets stupidly hard right away. The bosses are just a constant 'attack, attack, jump back.' If you try anything else, you die. I made it a few levels in before an area with 2 bosses in a row frustrates me until I quit.
I also bought Kameo (as a gift back, for letting me borrow the box) and it's better, but still pretty boring. Every new plot twist means the same thing... 'Use the new elemental you just got to pass the next area.' -yawn- There have been no 'neat' puzzles or anything. It's all just pretty straight forward. Even the hint system gets bored. (A remarkable insight by the devs, I'd say.)
I'm actually considering giving him back the box early. An entire game system with nothing for me! Amazing.
Anyhow, they're missing the 7th market almost totally... The Frustrated Gamer. Bring on the fun-for-the-sake-of-fun games! (I'm hoping the Wii is our console, but I'm not holding my breath.)
I hadn't heard of fictionwise, but I had heard of their competitor, http://www.baen.com./ They were the first company to give books away for free, and I suspect they did drm-free before fictionwise, too. I have read at least half of their free books, and they are pretty darned good. I've also bought quite a few from them now, as they were sequels to the ones I read for free.
I could simply have stolen them from usenet. Instead, I paid for them because I like the company, I like their products, and it was the right thing to do.
I will -never- buy DRM protected books. I will use the -shudder- library first.
On the same note... http://www.allofmp3.com/ sells drm-free music. We ALL know how easy it is to steal music, and yet they manage to sell it. Price and convenience, plus the fact that nobody really -wants- to steal. (Well, except mentally-deficient people.) A combination of pressures (monetary, etc) forces them to. I won't even go into that. Everyone has their reasons and very few 'just felt like it.'
DRM-free content CAN WORK. It just has to be the right price with the right customer service, convenience, etc.
I wish somebody would, but not because I think it'd work... But because I'd like to use it;)
There's been tons of 'program games quickly' apps out there and none of them have every produced a game worth selling... And I haven't met any that I felt were worth playing, either.
I would guess the best you could hope for with this is that a huge mega-company saw your efforts and thought 'wow, we would use that on upcoming game x' and hired you. Like Narbacular Drop. Except a game that was meant to have tons of community mods, such as NWN or Oblivion.
Not that I wouldn't wish them the best of luck... I just don't see it happening.
"The number of job seekers who are seriously pursuing this field is staggering."
Right... It's called 'every teenage boy wants to do this with his life.' It's the next generation version of 'rock star.' It also means that not everyone who is 'seriously pursuing this field' is even remotely competent at it. They just want it really bad.
"It used to be the case that studios had the liberty to take bright, fresh, new employees with no specific game education background and train them in the methods, tools, and style that are required to make games. This is no longer true."
What? Sure it is. They are totally at liberty to take completely unknowledgeable people and try to expensively train them while ignoring semi- and mostly-trained people that also want that job. They'd be fools to do it (in most cases), but hey, that's their right.
I don't think there's any news here at all. Especially since there have been school entirely dedicated to this for quite some time. (I won't bother to advertise for them, as I feel they are all scam artists. "We promise to get you a job" etc etc. My sister's boyfriend just went through one... $80,000 later he's still looking for a job as a clerk.)
No, but apparently you can add an entire live-cd with games, a web browser and more to the installer. http://www.kubuntu.org/ I fail to see why that isn't good enough.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm amazed I couldn't find a comment on the scroll wheel before this. I was originally going to post and ask if anyone still actually USES the scroll bars... They are just a visual guide for me now. But apparently you and I are the only ones that don't use it any more. Oh well. You can lead a horse to water, and all that.
"The kit contains an assortment of pom poms, pipe cleaners, and other craft materials reminiscent of a summer camp "
Porn porns? What!? Ohh... POM POMs. Damn this Bitstream Vera font.
Hostile tone? Not on purpose.
And I stand by my categories. Japanese games tend to focus on the plot, and American games tend to focus on the action. Of course they both contain both, but I disagree that they are equal measures.
You 'Chrono trigger got monotonous in the middle' example is even a point for me. An American game has plot so that there's a reason for the action. The plot tends to be on the boring, shallow side while the action tends to be constant and exciting. A Japanese game tends to have action to advance the plot. The plot tends to be involved and the action is there mainly to complete the game and keep it from being a movie.
As for Final Fantasy, someone mentioned the later ones, but the first ones are what I was mainly talking about. In the first few FF games, you got to pick the characters' names, classes, etc. You had 4 characters, and a choice of like 6-8 classes. And you could have all 4 of the same class, if you wanted. Some, you could even choose not to have 4 characters. Heck, some would even let you pick a monster as a character. That's pretty much the epitome of 'no background'.
I -love- both kinds of RPG. I tend to like the plot-oriented style a little better, but if I had to pick RPG or anything else, RPG would be my choice. American or Japanese.
Anyhow, back to the point... That's the closest distinction between Japanese and American RPGs. With anything else, the line has been crossed too many times to split them properly.
I think by 'character' you mean background, but even that doesn't fit. Your background in Morrowind/Oblivion was told to you. You were a prisoner. THe details may be lacking, but that's your background.
Unless you mean that you get to choose race/class/profession, and then you have to move most Final Fantasy games to the American side.
Instead, define them like:
Japanese RPG: Focus on plot.
American RPG: Focus on action.
Oh hey, now the 'dungeon diggers' also fit under American. Surprise surprise.
"(Who's Billy Ray Cyrus?)"
Oh man, I dunno if you're joking or not. Here's some hints...
Anybody with a name like 'Billy Ray' or 'Joe Bob' sings Country music. Also, odd names like 'Garth' and 'Montgomery' wouldn't survive outside Country music for long.
If they have a name that looks like a word but spelled wrong, it's probably hard rock, death metal or rap. (Def Leppard, Def Jam, Ludacris, etc.)
If the name is really long and foreign sounding, it's probably classical. (Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, etc.)
And if there's a religious word in the name that hasn't been perverted somehow, or sounds happy-happy, it's Christian Rock.
-cries-
I can't do that one. Does this mean I can't post on Digg?
I'm curious... 'cannot be solved with a calculator' ?? The closest I can come is algebra, but then... I could write a script in several languages that would do the algebra, once it was pulled from the image. And quite a bit quicker than a person could.
Someone else already said 'I hate swapping', and I do, too... I far prefer single disc games.
And CD-based games used to have tons of space free as well. But we've already hit the max for DVD games (Xenosaga 1) quite a while back. If we start having 7 DVD games (anyone else remember Phantasmagoria?) will soon be a reality if we don't start using a different medium. Will it happen in 3 years? (My expected lifespan of a console) I doubt we'll get to 7. But 3 and 4 are pretty likely.
Not that I agree with blueray and hddvd. DRM sucks (especially for video/audio) and this whole format war thing is amazingly stupid.
Maybe we'll even end up back at cartridges like we used to have, but with MUCH more memory, or proprietary usb 'dongles'. (I know some hate that word, as it's not 100% correct, but whatever.)
There is no 'won't be'... It -is- incompatible.
3 .html?page=2
From http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/09/22/gpl
"Even small changes from version 2 of the GPL will result in an incompatible license. Two slightly different licenses, each saying that modified versions of a program must be distributed under the same license, are inevitably incompatible."
There are some software that say or 'gpl v2 or any later version' but if even 1 package (ie: the kernel) doesn't say that, then the whole distro can forget it.
Are you seriously saying that anything is STOPPING you from reading the website like the magazine? The only time I read a magazine from cover to cover is when I'm on the john and haven't got a lot else to do. If I'm at the computer, I'd not going to bother reading a PDF magazine cover to cover, and I certainly won't both to try to use the index to find articles. It's SUCH a pain in the ass that I gave up on that long ago unless I REALLY needed to find that article.
Simply read the website like you'd read a magazine and be happy.
Well considering the word 'Digg' wasn't even in your post, and the news was posted in the same 12 hour span... It's some kind of miracle.
That's as may be, but physically disconnecting my cable the next day, and then refusing to send a guy out for 2 weeks is inexcuseable. I don't care how complicated the system is.
Earthlink also provides services for Brighthouse in Florida. And there IS a choice of 3 companies there. I believe RoadRunner and AOL are the other 2. They could lose a TON of customers, if the customers cared.
Earthlink has pissed me off before and I am seriously considering switching to roadrunner. The only thing that has stopped me is that every time I make even a small change to my account, Brighthouse (who isn't so bright) screws up the entire account and I'm out of service for 2 weeks. And I can't afford that right now.
30% improvement!?
Assuming they mean 30% better than they currently are, that the average student is making at best 77/100 on their grades. (And if that were the case, they expect 100/100 as the new average. So it's got to be much lower than that.)
If they meant straight grades, that means 70/100 was the average, at best.
What does this say about the ability of their teachers? Nothing, that's what... because that 30% number is complete and total bullshit.
Well, except that it isn't an article, it's a blog entry, and that they weren't intending for it to be generalized info for the masses, yeah. It's unreadable.
But given that it's just an attempt to describe the new layout of a blog entry, and that the 'non-tabular' info you hate so much IS the entire article, I'd say it's fine.
The reason it's in a table is to keep information together. He could have attempted to CSS it, and make it nearly impossible to line up correctly in every browser, but instead used tables as they were meant to be used. For data that needs to be kept aligned. Imagine that.
RTFS. Nobody paid it. It was cancelled before it even existed.
You're assuming they don't take the easiest way out and simply revoke your service or accidentally cut your lines numerous times, angering your customers and making them switch from you to regular service.
Of course, if it was the goverment that discovered it, they'd probably do the arrest thing because you were breaking the law by not paying your taxes on each line you provide.
We can't. The current cycle won't allow us to. Any of us that tries to start that 'sane' trend gets marked unstable and we are blacklisted. It's called 'working with what you have'.
I'm sure there's plenty of insane things in your country, too. Got a king? We think that's crazy. Rulership should never be passed on like money. It should go to someone qualified for the situation for real reasons. That's just 1 example.
Until you have the perfect society, don't bother judging others'.
And what he said was absolutely true. We DO ignore women because we are afraid they will take something we say the wrong way. I worked at an office supply store and 2 different people were (wrongly, in my opinion) accused of sexual harrassment. 1 was the daughter of an employee, in the break room, where she didn't belong, and most of us are sure it didn't happen. She was bored and throwing a tantrum. He was fired. The other was an older man who talked just like the person he was talking to. She called everyone 'honey' and he did the same back and bam, harrassment. 1 time. She wasn't NEAR his age or good looking, and he had a girlfriend. I quit that job shortly after, partly because of that. I have no need for that BS on my record because of something I unthinkingly said, that was perfectly harmless.
I've thought about asking a girl out at work a few times, but in the end I think 'I'd rather have my job.' It's just not worth the risk to even consider dating at work.
Someone in another thread suggested asking everyone to 'the bar' at once in a group, instead of inviting a girl specifically. That's great, except that you changed the normal behavior because a woman was around. Nobody does that here. Everyone is invited individually.
A friend of a friend did a paper once on the fact that Christianity is a cult. It fits the definition exactly. She had a VERY long definition of 'cult' that included a martyr and many other facets. I don't remember where she got the definition, but dictionary.com doesn't provide much. By every definition on there, it fits easily... including the 'believed to be false' bit, since every religion thinks every other religion is false, with the possible except of mine which thinks that all religions are true in that God merely wants you to be 'good' and treat others well. (I made up my religion, but you can have it if you want. Just don't ask me to preach.)
They forgot 1 type, though... The aging, frustrated gamer. At 29 years, I'm finding I like the beginning of the game... Casual, leisurely part where you mostly just have fun and get to know how things work. Once I get to the 'hard for the sake of hard' parts, I lose interest.
Even FINDING a game worth playign is getting hard. I borrowed a friend's x360 (friends don't let friend play xbox... -sigh-) and he had Ninety Nine Nights. I -love- Dynasty/Samurai warriors. It's one of the few games I play more than 20 hours before getting bored when a new one comes out. NNN gets stupidly hard right away. The bosses are just a constant 'attack, attack, jump back.' If you try anything else, you die. I made it a few levels in before an area with 2 bosses in a row frustrates me until I quit.
I also bought Kameo (as a gift back, for letting me borrow the box) and it's better, but still pretty boring. Every new plot twist means the same thing... 'Use the new elemental you just got to pass the next area.' -yawn- There have been no 'neat' puzzles or anything. It's all just pretty straight forward. Even the hint system gets bored. (A remarkable insight by the devs, I'd say.)
I'm actually considering giving him back the box early. An entire game system with nothing for me! Amazing.
Anyhow, they're missing the 7th market almost totally... The Frustrated Gamer. Bring on the fun-for-the-sake-of-fun games! (I'm hoping the Wii is our console, but I'm not holding my breath.)
I hadn't heard of fictionwise, but I had heard of their competitor, http://www.baen.com./ They were the first company to give books away for free, and I suspect they did drm-free before fictionwise, too. I have read at least half of their free books, and they are pretty darned good. I've also bought quite a few from them now, as they were sequels to the ones I read for free.
I could simply have stolen them from usenet. Instead, I paid for them because I like the company, I like their products, and it was the right thing to do.
I will -never- buy DRM protected books. I will use the -shudder- library first.
On the same note... http://www.allofmp3.com/ sells drm-free music. We ALL know how easy it is to steal music, and yet they manage to sell it. Price and convenience, plus the fact that nobody really -wants- to steal. (Well, except mentally-deficient people.) A combination of pressures (monetary, etc) forces them to. I won't even go into that. Everyone has their reasons and very few 'just felt like it.'
DRM-free content CAN WORK. It just has to be the right price with the right customer service, convenience, etc.
Hah, I had one of those pinball games... I created some really nice table, too. -sigh- The memories.
I wish somebody would, but not because I think it'd work... But because I'd like to use it ;)
There's been tons of 'program games quickly' apps out there and none of them have every produced a game worth selling... And I haven't met any that I felt were worth playing, either.
I would guess the best you could hope for with this is that a huge mega-company saw your efforts and thought 'wow, we would use that on upcoming game x' and hired you. Like Narbacular Drop. Except a game that was meant to have tons of community mods, such as NWN or Oblivion.
Not that I wouldn't wish them the best of luck... I just don't see it happening.
"The number of job seekers who are seriously pursuing this field is staggering."
Right... It's called 'every teenage boy wants to do this with his life.' It's the next generation version of 'rock star.' It also means that not everyone who is 'seriously pursuing this field' is even remotely competent at it. They just want it really bad.
"It used to be the case that studios had the liberty to take bright, fresh, new employees with no specific game education background and train them in the methods, tools, and style that are required to make games. This is no longer true."
What? Sure it is. They are totally at liberty to take completely unknowledgeable people and try to expensively train them while ignoring semi- and mostly-trained people that also want that job. They'd be fools to do it (in most cases), but hey, that's their right.
I don't think there's any news here at all. Especially since there have been school entirely dedicated to this for quite some time. (I won't bother to advertise for them, as I feel they are all scam artists. "We promise to get you a job" etc etc. My sister's boyfriend just went through one... $80,000 later he's still looking for a job as a clerk.)
No, but apparently you can add an entire live-cd with games, a web browser and more to the installer. http://www.kubuntu.org/ I fail to see why that isn't good enough.