Interestingly enough, a lot of 'hard core' gamers had exactly the opposite complaint about Oblivion and Fallout 3. They claimed the radars at the bottom of the screen (and marks on the map) destroyed the 'open world' by pointing to exactly where you need to go.
For me, it's just about perfect. I enjoy both kinds of games (tightly scripted, and open world) and these seem to hit the exact right spot in the middle for me.
Thank goodness there are a lot of games out there, because I find a lot of the popular games just aren't my cup of tea.:)
Yes, they can. All fighting/combat games can, really.
However, the difference is that I was fully engaged that whole time. I was killing people to get to the next piece of plot, or goal, or whatever. Most often those goals aligned with what the game designers wanted, but sometimes I had little goals of my own instead.
I quit playing those games when I stopped having goals I wanted to accomplish, just like most games.
They're looking at it the wrong way. If someone quits before the end of the game, you've failed to make the game compelling enough to finish.
Most FPSs fall into that category for me. They start out with some amount of story, but quickly devolve into just shooting people in new locations over and over. The few FPSs that I've finished have either been really short, or had a compelling story that I wanted to see the end of.
Even most new RPGs are in that category for me. There's so much bland same-old-same-old fighting in the middle that I just can't care about the plot.
On the other hand, when I'm actively engaged, I can play for a long, long time. Oblivion - 250+ hours. Fallout3 - 250+ hours. Fallout New Vegas - 200+ hours and counting.
My dad was hit with a bunch (3-4) of $10/mo charges for 'flirting tips' and other garbage. He has -no- idea how he got on them. We didn't catch them quickly, and T-Mobile would only refund the last 3-4 months worth. I think he got on them by putting his phone number into sites online. Specifically, online dating sites. (But possibly porn. Why did you have to tell me that, dad?)
We ended up blocking all SMS on his phone to prevent it from happening again. At least, we think that will prevent it.
And those other companies pay the taxes. And need the police support. Etc etc.
When Amazon ships something to you by UPS, and it gets stolen, Amazon doesn't call the police to report a theft. They call UPS and UPS handles it, because the package was in their care.
I'm having trouble worrying about people who install apps onto their phone without knowing that the market creator is paying attention for that sort of thing. Google and Amazon are alert and watching. Random markets in China? I feel less confident in them.
I feel exactly the same compassion for them that I feel for people who download things from any random website they find.
I just can't see Facebook following suit. Their entire system is based on the fact that wall posts get shared with everyone. It's really easy to share because you don't have to think who gets to see it. Everyone does. Games post messages to everyone, third-party apps post... Etc.
When I was gaming regularly on Facebook, I would have -loved- to restrict game posts to only fellow game-players. That was most of my list, but I knew certain people would never play the games and didn't want to bother them. Eventually they implemented restrictions on games, and the ability to filter each game individually, but my friends should never have had to do anything at all.
I look forward to G+'s social games and the ability to filter those posts to just my gaming friends, if those posts exist at all. (I have a feeling they will.)
How many customers will they be forced to ban before they realize how much this hurts them and helps their competition?
A boycott like this doesn't work unless you get every ISP to join in because 1 service isn't significantly different than another. Nobody says, 'Oh man, I couldn't live if I had to switch to Sprint instead of Time Warner!'
Also, I wonder if there are any laws against this already? It seems to me that banding together to deny service to a certain list of people has got to have some anti-trust laws or something.
And, could this be a major nail in the IP coffin? Judges aren't going to have much respect for them if they do really crazy things in the name of protecting their IP. The tide is already turning on that front and this is pretty desperate.
Isn't that pretty much exactly what broke prohibition? People just refused to obey the law because it wasn't just. (And they wanted liquor.)
I keep waiting for the government to start seeing sense. I mean, it was only 200-some years ago that we threw off a tyrannical government that wasn't interested in representing us.
I used them until a few years ago when their system apparently couldn't handle the load. Email would take hours to come in sometimes.
At that point, I realized that GMail was really, really good at filtering SPAM and I decided to let it.
I haven't regretted the decision even once. I even took my really old email account and forwarded everything to my new email account. At one point, that account was getting 30k+ spam emails a month! Google didn't break a sweat.
You'll be surprised to learn that others think the opposite!
I played a MUD called DragonRealms for a few years. It was quite an amazing game, but eventually the daily grind just got to me. It was the same thing over and over to claw my way up another level. The social aspect was the best part at that point, but the developers destroyed the community with an insane price hike. -sigh-
I've searched for years for another one that I would enjoy as much, but haven't found it.
Facebook games hit me almost exactly the same way. For 1 game, there was even quite a social circle going on. We would regularly help each other and plan team battles and just chat. And eventually, I left for the same reason as the MUD: The grind. It was the same thing over and over.
What I want (even if I have to build it myself) is a game that is complex enough to be interesting to play and learn, and dynamic enough that going to the ogre fields every day is a different experience.
DR had a skill system where you improved skills by using them. This was amazing, and it's a must-have for me. They also had quite a variety of skills for each guild to choose from, and skill points were scarce enough that you couldn't have everything until you were pretty much God-like anyhow. If then. (They eventually removed the level cap, which had prevented it completely.)
It had built-in functionality like Teaching that meant people had to sit near each other to improve skills (you could teach another person any skill, rather than them actually going and using it. And they could learn other skills at the same time by using them.) That encouraged people to gather and chat while working on skills, instead of finding a quiet corner.
Each guild had a different function in the game and could do things for others than no other could do. This encouraged people to venture to other guilds and make friends, instead of staying insular.
So long as all the end result is there, I don't care how the pieces work, but the above was a pretty awesome system. And I've never found another MUD that got it right.
My Asus Transformer (Android) does basically the same thing. It has a keyboard/trackpad attachment, and I use the wireless network to connect to my Windows PC. I can do pretty much anything except gaming. (Video is a bit slow on framerate, too.) And of course, all the normal Android stuff is available, too.
When I used Firefox regularly, it bothered me that almost every update 'broke' a plugin that had specified a maximum version number that wasn't actually accurate. They would set the value thinking that they could update it later if it turned out to work.
Just the other day I was just reading a message posted by Linux Torvalds where he said that version numbers should be used for kludges that hack issue in old kernels, instead of trying to predict the future. In that post, his point was that if the kernel version number can't be read, it should be assumed that the normal way of doing things will just work, and to try it instead of explicitly denying things when you aren't sure.
I see this situation the same way. Until a plugin developer has tried the plugin and found it fails on a new version of the browser, the future should be wide-open.
Every time Firefox released a new version, the first thing I would do is force all my plugins enabled. And they almost always worked.
Slashdot Mirror
Interestingly enough, a lot of 'hard core' gamers had exactly the opposite complaint about Oblivion and Fallout 3. They claimed the radars at the bottom of the screen (and marks on the map) destroyed the 'open world' by pointing to exactly where you need to go.
For me, it's just about perfect. I enjoy both kinds of games (tightly scripted, and open world) and these seem to hit the exact right spot in the middle for me.
Thank goodness there are a lot of games out there, because I find a lot of the popular games just aren't my cup of tea. :)
Yes, they can. All fighting/combat games can, really.
However, the difference is that I was fully engaged that whole time. I was killing people to get to the next piece of plot, or goal, or whatever. Most often those goals aligned with what the game designers wanted, but sometimes I had little goals of my own instead.
I quit playing those games when I stopped having goals I wanted to accomplish, just like most games.
They're looking at it the wrong way. If someone quits before the end of the game, you've failed to make the game compelling enough to finish.
Most FPSs fall into that category for me. They start out with some amount of story, but quickly devolve into just shooting people in new locations over and over. The few FPSs that I've finished have either been really short, or had a compelling story that I wanted to see the end of.
Even most new RPGs are in that category for me. There's so much bland same-old-same-old fighting in the middle that I just can't care about the plot.
On the other hand, when I'm actively engaged, I can play for a long, long time. Oblivion - 250+ hours. Fallout3 - 250+ hours. Fallout New Vegas - 200+ hours and counting.
It's still up there for me.
So all someone has to do to get easier security is hack their database and add their information in. Nice.
What about mobiles?
My dad was hit with a bunch (3-4) of $10/mo charges for 'flirting tips' and other garbage. He has -no- idea how he got on them. We didn't catch them quickly, and T-Mobile would only refund the last 3-4 months worth. I think he got on them by putting his phone number into sites online. Specifically, online dating sites. (But possibly porn. Why did you have to tell me that, dad?)
We ended up blocking all SMS on his phone to prevent it from happening again. At least, we think that will prevent it.
And those other companies pay the taxes. And need the police support. Etc etc.
When Amazon ships something to you by UPS, and it gets stolen, Amazon doesn't call the police to report a theft. They call UPS and UPS handles it, because the package was in their care.
There's a disconnect on the word 'current'. For many people, 'current' means 'recent' and not just 'still working'.
Then I think I have just given away how long it's been since I played a game on Facebook. I have never seen that option. ;)
I'm having trouble worrying about people who install apps onto their phone without knowing that the market creator is paying attention for that sort of thing. Google and Amazon are alert and watching. Random markets in China? I feel less confident in them.
I feel exactly the same compassion for them that I feel for people who download things from any random website they find.
I just can't see Facebook following suit. Their entire system is based on the fact that wall posts get shared with everyone. It's really easy to share because you don't have to think who gets to see it. Everyone does. Games post messages to everyone, third-party apps post ... Etc.
When I was gaming regularly on Facebook, I would have -loved- to restrict game posts to only fellow game-players. That was most of my list, but I knew certain people would never play the games and didn't want to bother them. Eventually they implemented restrictions on games, and the ability to filter each game individually, but my friends should never have had to do anything at all.
I look forward to G+'s social games and the ability to filter those posts to just my gaming friends, if those posts exist at all. (I have a feeling they will.)
I suppose all those clone movies were for nothing, then. Not much point in raising a full clone when you can just grow the part you need at will.
Of course, this won't help for emergencies, but if someone has the time to spare, this is a much better option than a donated organ.
How many customers will they be forced to ban before they realize how much this hurts them and helps their competition?
A boycott like this doesn't work unless you get every ISP to join in because 1 service isn't significantly different than another. Nobody says, 'Oh man, I couldn't live if I had to switch to Sprint instead of Time Warner!'
Also, I wonder if there are any laws against this already? It seems to me that banding together to deny service to a certain list of people has got to have some anti-trust laws or something.
And, could this be a major nail in the IP coffin? Judges aren't going to have much respect for them if they do really crazy things in the name of protecting their IP. The tide is already turning on that front and this is pretty desperate.
Isn't that pretty much exactly what broke prohibition? People just refused to obey the law because it wasn't just. (And they wanted liquor.)
I keep waiting for the government to start seeing sense. I mean, it was only 200-some years ago that we threw off a tyrannical government that wasn't interested in representing us.
I used them until a few years ago when their system apparently couldn't handle the load. Email would take hours to come in sometimes.
At that point, I realized that GMail was really, really good at filtering SPAM and I decided to let it.
I haven't regretted the decision even once. I even took my really old email account and forwarded everything to my new email account. At one point, that account was getting 30k+ spam emails a month! Google didn't break a sweat.
It's the best representation of a slashed equals sign that you can write in ASCII. It makes perfect sense.
And of course, you'd gain an employee that cares about doing things properly, and the success of the company. And hopefully has some skills.
Thanks, that one looks like it's worth checking out, too.
It sounds interesting! Of course, I can't really tell until I play it, but I'm definitely going to check it out. Thanks!
You'll be surprised to learn that others think the opposite!
I played a MUD called DragonRealms for a few years. It was quite an amazing game, but eventually the daily grind just got to me. It was the same thing over and over to claw my way up another level. The social aspect was the best part at that point, but the developers destroyed the community with an insane price hike. -sigh-
I've searched for years for another one that I would enjoy as much, but haven't found it.
Facebook games hit me almost exactly the same way. For 1 game, there was even quite a social circle going on. We would regularly help each other and plan team battles and just chat. And eventually, I left for the same reason as the MUD: The grind. It was the same thing over and over.
What I want (even if I have to build it myself) is a game that is complex enough to be interesting to play and learn, and dynamic enough that going to the ogre fields every day is a different experience.
DR had a skill system where you improved skills by using them. This was amazing, and it's a must-have for me. They also had quite a variety of skills for each guild to choose from, and skill points were scarce enough that you couldn't have everything until you were pretty much God-like anyhow. If then. (They eventually removed the level cap, which had prevented it completely.)
It had built-in functionality like Teaching that meant people had to sit near each other to improve skills (you could teach another person any skill, rather than them actually going and using it. And they could learn other skills at the same time by using them.) That encouraged people to gather and chat while working on skills, instead of finding a quiet corner.
Each guild had a different function in the game and could do things for others than no other could do. This encouraged people to venture to other guilds and make friends, instead of staying insular.
So long as all the end result is there, I don't care how the pieces work, but the above was a pretty awesome system. And I've never found another MUD that got it right.
My Asus Transformer (Android) does basically the same thing. It has a keyboard/trackpad attachment, and I use the wireless network to connect to my Windows PC. I can do pretty much anything except gaming. (Video is a bit slow on framerate, too.) And of course, all the normal Android stuff is available, too.
What makes you think EULAs are drafted without legal counsel?
No no, only if you tell them you stabbed them and apologize.
Or for a car analogy, it's like slashing someone's tires, then telling them as soon as you can find them.
The damage was done here, but nothing was (or can be) done to fix the problem.
When I used Firefox regularly, it bothered me that almost every update 'broke' a plugin that had specified a maximum version number that wasn't actually accurate. They would set the value thinking that they could update it later if it turned out to work.
Just the other day I was just reading a message posted by Linux Torvalds where he said that version numbers should be used for kludges that hack issue in old kernels, instead of trying to predict the future. In that post, his point was that if the kernel version number can't be read, it should be assumed that the normal way of doing things will just work, and to try it instead of explicitly denying things when you aren't sure.
I see this situation the same way. Until a plugin developer has tried the plugin and found it fails on a new version of the browser, the future should be wide-open.
Every time Firefox released a new version, the first thing I would do is force all my plugins enabled. And they almost always worked.
Parsing mistakes. If you find one of the -1.00 books and go to Amazon for it, it has a positive price. (The one I looked for had $2.99.)