Unfortunately, the way games are developed now, they almost always run over time and budget, and get rushed out the door. It's no wonder that "multiplayer first, single player second" devolves into "multiplayer works well, and single player seems tacked on" because the latter parts of the process are unpolished. It's been a disturbing trend in PC games for the past several years, and it's only going to spread to the newer consoles with Internet capability.
Doesn't anyone else think this is a bit sad? I think the novelty of "Wow, we can fight each other... over the INTERNET!" is starting to wear a bit thin. While games like WoW break this mold to some extent, story quickly gives way to "kill x boss fifty bajillion times until he spawns the armor/weapon/item you want". No explanation as to how this named boss mysteriously keeps coming back from the dead just for you and every other player in the world to kill him again. Congratulations, you just destroyed any semblance of continuity.
Give me back my story and gameplay. START with story and gameplay.
Well, no one is going to "stop" pirates/piracy. My point is that I won't waste my time/money/customer goodwill trying to stop it. If someone wants my products for free badly enough, I'm not going to even worry about their existence. Hopefully, I'll get some free advertising and distribution out of it and get a few more customers as a result. If not, I certainly am not going to let it keep me awake at night worrying "OMG! Someone out there didn't pay for my product!!!".
Agreed. You can't make it impossible to pirate, but what you should do is make it more worthwhile to buy the game than to pirate it. You can do this either by putting up barriers to piracy, or adding benefits to buying the game. Doing the former incidentally puts up barriers to legitimate purchasers as well, in the form of requiring users to carry around and insert a piece of plastic when they want to play your game-- which in some cases doesn't even work.
If you look at the benefits and drawbacks of purchasing vs. pirating, as it stands now the pirate gets the benefits of no CD check and no monetary cost, while the purchaser gets the benefits of legal protection, the moral high ground, and no need to wait for a torrent to download. That's about it. Legal protection? Not really significant. Time for a download? Well I can leave my computer on overnight. That leaves some ethereal moral high ground versus cold hard cash and convenience. Why do people pirate? It's a simple matter of economics. If the left side were "moral high ground AND some extra neat stuff" people might think twice.
So again, make your software WORTH buying. Reward people who purchase your software by giving them extra goodies.
Definitely. This is the best way to stop pirates. What's the personality type of most software pirates? Kleptomaniacs! Many people who download a pirated copy are motivated by an urge to collect every last piece of software. Therefore, give away something cool every month or so for your legitimate users, such that it's easier to just buy the software than to download a pirated version AND try to find all the goodie packs you missed. Something like extra decals, extra models, extra maps, extra vehicles.
So pay $15 and get a USB to parallel adapter. A parallel port on the back of a new laptop? That's absurd! That's real estate that could be used for much better purposes, like making the unit smaller.
Bacteria are restless. They will try again, every twenty minutes. And they never sleep.
That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!
True enough. Let's hope they haven't buried that public key in the middle of a chip which is difficult or impossible to replace (like a proprietary sound chipset or integrated into a multipurpose IC for example) and buried it under layers of resin.
Of course, every piece of hardware you can get physical access to is hackable, but it might be too expensive or too much of a PITA.
If they've done their homework, which it seems they have, the updates are most likely signed. Unless you can get ahold of that private key, you won't be able to push updates.
Re:GTK is alright...but no raves
on
Why Use GTK+?
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· Score: 1
Providing vanilla text right in the function call is horrible international practice. The corresponding C# code produces a dialog box in the appropriate native language on every system. On an English system, it will produce Yes/No/Cancel. On a Japanese system it will produce the appropriate text in Japanese. In most cases I don't care about the exact size of the box.
Sure, it's sacrificing functionality for the sake of brevity. But while a pair of scissors isn't ideal for every cutting task, it's simple and fast for a majority of them.
Slashdot Mirror
Obligatory:
In Soviet Russia, software protection cracks YOU!
Unfortunately, the way games are developed now, they almost always run over time and budget, and get rushed out the door. It's no wonder that "multiplayer first, single player second" devolves into "multiplayer works well, and single player seems tacked on" because the latter parts of the process are unpolished. It's been a disturbing trend in PC games for the past several years, and it's only going to spread to the newer consoles with Internet capability.
Doesn't anyone else think this is a bit sad? I think the novelty of "Wow, we can fight each other... over the INTERNET!" is starting to wear a bit thin. While games like WoW break this mold to some extent, story quickly gives way to "kill x boss fifty bajillion times until he spawns the armor/weapon/item you want". No explanation as to how this named boss mysteriously keeps coming back from the dead just for you and every other player in the world to kill him again. Congratulations, you just destroyed any semblance of continuity.
Give me back my story and gameplay. START with story and gameplay.
Agreed. You can't make it impossible to pirate, but what you should do is make it more worthwhile to buy the game than to pirate it. You can do this either by putting up barriers to piracy, or adding benefits to buying the game. Doing the former incidentally puts up barriers to legitimate purchasers as well, in the form of requiring users to carry around and insert a piece of plastic when they want to play your game-- which in some cases doesn't even work.
If you look at the benefits and drawbacks of purchasing vs. pirating, as it stands now the pirate gets the benefits of no CD check and no monetary cost, while the purchaser gets the benefits of legal protection, the moral high ground, and no need to wait for a torrent to download. That's about it. Legal protection? Not really significant. Time for a download? Well I can leave my computer on overnight. That leaves some ethereal moral high ground versus cold hard cash and convenience. Why do people pirate? It's a simple matter of economics. If the left side were "moral high ground AND some extra neat stuff" people might think twice.
So again, make your software WORTH buying. Reward people who purchase your software by giving them extra goodies.
Definitely. This is the best way to stop pirates. What's the personality type of most software pirates? Kleptomaniacs! Many people who download a pirated copy are motivated by an urge to collect every last piece of software. Therefore, give away something cool every month or so for your legitimate users, such that it's easier to just buy the software than to download a pirated version AND try to find all the goodie packs you missed. Something like extra decals, extra models, extra maps, extra vehicles.
So pay $15 and get a USB to parallel adapter. A parallel port on the back of a new laptop? That's absurd! That's real estate that could be used for much better purposes, like making the unit smaller.
Maybe the developers are Klingon?
Why not the hardware too? With all the talk of MS trying to lock down hardware with "trusted computing", why shouldn't the hardware be open as well?
Whippersnapper! This is Slashdot! Only 1-way or the highway here!
Bacteria are restless. They will try again, every twenty minutes. And they never sleep.
That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!
True enough. Let's hope they haven't buried that public key in the middle of a chip which is difficult or impossible to replace (like a proprietary sound chipset or integrated into a multipurpose IC for example) and buried it under layers of resin.
Of course, every piece of hardware you can get physical access to is hackable, but it might be too expensive or too much of a PITA.
I think you meant this controller.
If they've done their homework, which it seems they have, the updates are most likely signed. Unless you can get ahold of that private key, you won't be able to push updates.
Not just that, but how many of these game development houses consume massive amounts of caffeinated sweet beverages?
If you're driving an 18-wheeler, that's fast enough to kill ANYTHING. Don't confuse speed with kinetic energy.
You, my friend, have been playing far too much Homeworld.
Other things that degrade CDs:
Providing vanilla text right in the function call is horrible international practice. The corresponding C# code produces a dialog box in the appropriate native language on every system. On an English system, it will produce Yes/No/Cancel. On a Japanese system it will produce the appropriate text in Japanese. In most cases I don't care about the exact size of the box.
Sure, it's sacrificing functionality for the sake of brevity. But while a pair of scissors isn't ideal for every cutting task, it's simple and fast for a majority of them.