This, hands down. Put the computer in a public area, preferably one that sees a fair amount of use or has high visibility from other popular areas of the house (like the dining room), with the monitor oriented for maximum over-the-shoulder visibility.
Putting it in the family/living/us room may not be a good idea, if someone is going to use it for school work or business while other family members are watching television, though.
Skip yanking the RAM. Sooner or later, you're going to touch something that you shouldn't, and nobody will be able to use your Dell-branded doorstop until it's fixed. This is of especially dire importance if the machine is in an area that's prone to static buildup, like thick rug. If you're paranoid enough to disable the machine while you're out, just take the power cord with you when you leave. If you're especially paranoid of the kid finding a spare cable somewhere, get an LCD monitor and do the same with the DVI lead. They're more expensive and slightly harder to find.
Or you could just leave the cables intact and get yourself a UV lamp. Residue from blood and other bodily fluids shows up as clear as day under UV light. If you're going out of your way to prove that you don't trust your offspring, why not throw in a little shame at being in the throes of puberty for good measure?
Fourteen pages into a 120-page manual, for a simple, vital command. Jesus, even my iPod Shuffle came with a quick reference sheet the size of a playing card.
I'm inclined to agree. At the very least, they should be using services that don't default to mashing your data up with everyone else's. The idea of using del.icio.us or a social network apparatus like Facebook for potentially sensitive exchanges is absolutely and utterly horrifying.
The end user tends to want shit like Webshots or Bonzi Buddy too. Just because they clamor and whine for something that looks flashy and easy, doesn't mean that they should get it.
I was in the beta, too. Uninstalled it after about a week, then reinstalled it when a Netdevil shill swore up and down that things were different and vastly improved and... yes. Play was just as dire, the engine issues were still in evidence, and as much as I wanted a Car Wars Online, AA was definitely not going to be it.
I still wince when I recall the adolescent writing for the background and the quests. It was like they tried to parley their earlier vehicle-based MMO, Jumpgate, into a new setting... minus the charm of the original, and the PVP content that kept JG's hard-core players loyal.
I'd like to see a game go the opposite way, though. You make noticable gains in power as you play, but even the smallest things are still a threat and those small things can still give rewards.
That might be interesting, assuming that mobs were spaced out well enough that you could avoid them easily, or if travel powers/mounts/teleportals/ferries were fairly ubiquitous. Otherwise everyone will end up getting stuck on the trash mobs that are between them and their quest objectives. While that's good for time sinking (and gold, if you've got repair costs), it's not so good for player retention these days.
A-fucking-men. Just look at the cost of CDs compared to LPs or audiocassettes-- or Jesus, even DVDs. A price premium is to be expected when you're dealing with a new medium and trying to recoup costs of switching to that medium, but Christ! The price of CDs has barely budged since they went into production.
Piracy is an easy excuse, assuming that people must have music: People aren't buying this cultural necessity, ergo they're stealing it. On the other hand, there's little of culture (or of the musician, for that matter) in today's 'popular' or rather 'engineered to be popular' music, which leaves people with little inclination to invest in such things.
The last thing that a big company wants is for the general public to see its beta code. Reps from other companies, or from retailers, are much more likely to realize that what they're seeing is not a representation of what they're getting on the shelves six to nine months later.
I don't agree with his stance either, but that kind of supposition is nothing more than a suppository.
Legal or not, this strongly reminds me of Japan gaming the International Whaling Commission, by getting economic allies to sign up and vote in favour of relaxing whaling regulations.
Well, we're talking about a lot more than $90, once the new versions of the various class splatbooks and other "must have" books are factored in. That's not what I'm concerned about, honestly. Heck, if I still had a regular group, I'd definitely be interested in 4E. Number crunching is no longer a favourite pastime.
What I am concerned about is that this reboot cycle is accelerating. 1st Edition was published in 1974. Fifteen years later, in 1989, 2nd Edition (which mainly trimmed cruft) was published. Eleven years later, 3E hit the shelves. Three years later, 3.5 comes out. Five years on, 4E is set to arrive. Leaving tinfoil hats (or tinfoil d4s) out of it, the rewrite cycle is definitely accelerating. Does this mean anything? No, not necessarily. There's going to be some old-guard player and retailer resentment, but not enough to cause any real disruption.
I mean, I started playing ~3 years ago, in high school, and the system was 3.5 then. It's not like 3.5 came out last month, you've had a full four years to play with your $90 set of core books -- and it shouldn't be too hard to adjust all of that content you bought to 4.0 rules, if you're lame enough to use that stuff.
No offense meant to you, but this kind of sentiment bothers me. I get a perception of obsolescence out of 'a full four years' that would be perfectly understandable if computer software was being discussed, but pen and paper games certainly don't play themselves out that fast.
Anyway, I'm just looking at patterns that I find vaguely concerning. I don't doubt for a minute that this will be a roaring success-- Wizards has a whole marketing department, and they've been at this long enough to know what passes and what fails.
Wait, wait. They're selling you sourcebooks... that have codes inside so that they can sell you shit that should have been in the book in the first place? Like that's going to fly.
Personally, I saw D&D4 coming as soon as the the new Star Wars system was announced. I'm experiencing more schadenfreude than annoyance this time around, since I picked up on the print-now-rehash-later routine back when TSR used to do it, and I stopped buying new RPG source back around when 3E hit. In an industry that is basically predicated on the consumer's creativity, there's only so much supplemental stuff you can sell before you reach saturation and have to force your current run of stuff into obsolescence. As someone noted above, Wizards has been doing this for ages, with their Magic: the Gathering game, with its constant churn of tournament-legal cards and sets. In this instance though, I don't think WOTC is at fault. I get the feeling that Hasbro, rather than figuring out the strange ecosystem that geek gaming exists within, is putting ever-mounting pressure on their geeky subsidiary to perform like their traditional games do-- or rather, grumbling about natural sales drop-offs as the RPG market reaches saturation. Sell-through probably isn't an issue this time, but the cycle of reboot-and-rewrite that began with 2nd Edition is definitely accelerating.
Dude? I cut my teeth on Ultima I for the Apple. I loved the Hell out of that series through Serpent Isle, tolerated Pagan, and mourned Ascension. Certainly he was a pioneer ten to twenty years ago, but that's an even longer stretch in computer time than it is in dog years.
Certainly, he was a pioneer, but so were any number of other men who didn't realize that they'd long since been left behind by the industry that they helped to build. Given his post-Ultima track record (and, some might argue, the changes that U8 and U9 made to the earlier Ultimas' formula), he's turned into the industry's doddering uncle who people politely listen to while trying to suppress winces.
Your fifteen minutes of fame ended when your avatar was flame-walled in Britain. Consider it a symbolic death, of your worth as an icon, and of your grasp on gaming and of the MMO industry in particular.
YOU are the one who hailed the original Lineage as a sign of the next big step in MMOs.
YOU are the one who championed Lineage II and brought its grind to end all grinds to North American shores.
YOU are the one who, to judge from all the little NDA-breaking birdies, is developing a boring PVE grind that rivals the worst of the Korean-developed games that you've fallen in Stockholm Syndrome with.
Your ship has sailed, Richard. Unfortunately, you were too busy sitting at Brit Bank on your true black horse to notice. You're just embarrassing yourself now.
It's unlikely that anyone will see this down here, but the reason that EA brought Tar-- er, Todd McFarlane's godawful designs into UO came down to contractual obligations. Those designs were intended for Ultima Online 2 (which EA shitcanned for fear of cannibalizing UO's subscription base), and apparently had some sort of 'required exposure' clause attached to them, probably related to the statues that McFarlane's company had based from the same designs. Todd threatened to sue, and Lord Blackthorn's Revenge was squeezed out shortly thereafter.
Sewer Shark was one of those awful decision-tree based games, like Dragon's Lair or Brain Dead 13, which probably killed it right there. Those things only offered an illusion of gameplay, as the point was basically to memorize the location of decision nodes, and the single controller move/button press that would take you down the correct path.
The RIAA is of the mindset that if a performer is playing his guitar at a crowded corner in a busy street, everyone who hears his music should drop a coin in his hat.
Given that there is an organization that collects money for artists that aren't even part of that organization, it might be more accurate to say that the RIAA wants you to drop a coin in their hat. That, right there, is my big concern about this-- I doubt that the expiration-wrapper code would have any sort of discrimination built in, or consideration for it being bolted on, and so perfectly legitimate, free-to-copy MP3s (or other files, because you know this is just the tip of the shitberg) will end up self-terminating as well.
M. Guzdial's "Introduction to Computing and Programming with Java: A Multimedia Approach" was used in an introductory Java course that I took during Intersession this year. It doesn't focus on creating graphics, or 3D objects (which I imagine would be pretty daunting for a lot of people), but rather bases its lessons around modifying already extant images and sound files, systematically teaching the student how various aspects of OOP work, and giving them an obvious 'real world' use for programming.
As much as I agree, Wizards has been doing a lot better than TSR ever did, given its massive diversification-- and that Open Gaming License thing was at least some sort of polite-ish gesture to fans, compared to the TSR lawyers who would come down on fansites that dared to breathe the term 'armor class'.
Generally though, yeah. Aside from the occasional official site, few gaming outfits have done anything to embrace a changing marketplace. Sure a few have sold PDF downloads of their source material, but by and large those tend to be copy-protected and sold at nearly the cost of retail hardcovers.
Games Workshop has a history of not only keeping a stranglehold on their IP, but also doing their damnedest to control resellers as well. If there were a way to make miniatures self-destruct on contact with non-GW paint or scratch-built gribblies, you can bet that they'd implement it without blinking, and declare that all of the old miniatures are tournament-illegal. The idea that they might have to trust another outfit, even one so tiny as a bunch of hard-core fans, is utterly anathema to them.
Given the ordeal it is to crack one of those things open, the last thing that I'd want to deal with is a battery that's slipped just far enough out of position to prevent a proper contact. I know it's unlikely, but still.
Slashdot Mirror
Putting it in the family/living/us room may not be a good idea, if someone is going to use it for school work or business while other family members are watching television, though.
Skip yanking the RAM. Sooner or later, you're going to touch something that you shouldn't, and nobody will be able to use your Dell-branded doorstop until it's fixed. This is of especially dire importance if the machine is in an area that's prone to static buildup, like thick rug. If you're paranoid enough to disable the machine while you're out, just take the power cord with you when you leave. If you're especially paranoid of the kid finding a spare cable somewhere, get an LCD monitor and do the same with the DVI lead. They're more expensive and slightly harder to find.
Or you could just leave the cables intact and get yourself a UV lamp. Residue from blood and other bodily fluids shows up as clear as day under UV light. If you're going out of your way to prove that you don't trust your offspring, why not throw in a little shame at being in the throes of puberty for good measure?
Fourteen pages into a 120-page manual, for a simple, vital command. Jesus, even my iPod Shuffle came with a quick reference sheet the size of a playing card.
Some random person's screechy blog is news by nerds, not news for nerds.
The end user tends to want shit like Webshots or Bonzi Buddy too. Just because they clamor and whine for something that looks flashy and easy, doesn't mean that they should get it.
The Path is Grey.
I still wince when I recall the adolescent writing for the background and the quests. It was like they tried to parley their earlier vehicle-based MMO, Jumpgate, into a new setting... minus the charm of the original, and the PVP content that kept JG's hard-core players loyal.
That might be interesting, assuming that mobs were spaced out well enough that you could avoid them easily, or if travel powers/mounts/teleportals/ferries were fairly ubiquitous. Otherwise everyone will end up getting stuck on the trash mobs that are between them and their quest objectives. While that's good for time sinking (and gold, if you've got repair costs), it's not so good for player retention these days.Piracy is an easy excuse, assuming that people must have music: People aren't buying this cultural necessity, ergo they're stealing it. On the other hand, there's little of culture (or of the musician, for that matter) in today's 'popular' or rather 'engineered to be popular' music, which leaves people with little inclination to invest in such things.
The last thing that a big company wants is for the general public to see its beta code. Reps from other companies, or from retailers, are much more likely to realize that what they're seeing is not a representation of what they're getting on the shelves six to nine months later.
Legal or not, this strongly reminds me of Japan gaming the International Whaling Commission, by getting economic allies to sign up and vote in favour of relaxing whaling regulations.
According to my eyewitness report, it runs on XP, with a 7600GT, 2 GB of RAM and a 3700+ processor.
What I am concerned about is that this reboot cycle is accelerating. 1st Edition was published in 1974. Fifteen years later, in 1989, 2nd Edition (which mainly trimmed cruft) was published. Eleven years later, 3E hit the shelves. Three years later, 3.5 comes out. Five years on, 4E is set to arrive. Leaving tinfoil hats (or tinfoil d4s) out of it, the rewrite cycle is definitely accelerating. Does this mean anything? No, not necessarily. There's going to be some old-guard player and retailer resentment, but not enough to cause any real disruption.
No offense meant to you, but this kind of sentiment bothers me. I get a perception of obsolescence out of 'a full four years' that would be perfectly understandable if computer software was being discussed, but pen and paper games certainly don't play themselves out that fast.Anyway, I'm just looking at patterns that I find vaguely concerning. I don't doubt for a minute that this will be a roaring success-- Wizards has a whole marketing department, and they've been at this long enough to know what passes and what fails.
Personally, I saw D&D4 coming as soon as the the new Star Wars system was announced. I'm experiencing more schadenfreude than annoyance this time around, since I picked up on the print-now-rehash-later routine back when TSR used to do it, and I stopped buying new RPG source back around when 3E hit. In an industry that is basically predicated on the consumer's creativity, there's only so much supplemental stuff you can sell before you reach saturation and have to force your current run of stuff into obsolescence. As someone noted above, Wizards has been doing this for ages, with their Magic: the Gathering game, with its constant churn of tournament-legal cards and sets. In this instance though, I don't think WOTC is at fault. I get the feeling that Hasbro, rather than figuring out the strange ecosystem that geek gaming exists within, is putting ever-mounting pressure on their geeky subsidiary to perform like their traditional games do-- or rather, grumbling about natural sales drop-offs as the RPG market reaches saturation. Sell-through probably isn't an issue this time, but the cycle of reboot-and-rewrite that began with 2nd Edition is definitely accelerating.
Certainly, he was a pioneer, but so were any number of other men who didn't realize that they'd long since been left behind by the industry that they helped to build. Given his post-Ultima track record (and, some might argue, the changes that U8 and U9 made to the earlier Ultimas' formula), he's turned into the industry's doddering uncle who people politely listen to while trying to suppress winces.
YOU are the one who hailed the original Lineage as a sign of the next big step in MMOs.
YOU are the one who championed Lineage II and brought its grind to end all grinds to North American shores.
YOU are the one who, to judge from all the little NDA-breaking birdies, is developing a boring PVE grind that rivals the worst of the Korean-developed games that you've fallen in Stockholm Syndrome with.
Your ship has sailed, Richard. Unfortunately, you were too busy sitting at Brit Bank on your true black horse to notice. You're just embarrassing yourself now.
It's unlikely that anyone will see this down here, but the reason that EA brought Tar-- er, Todd McFarlane's godawful designs into UO came down to contractual obligations. Those designs were intended for Ultima Online 2 (which EA shitcanned for fear of cannibalizing UO's subscription base), and apparently had some sort of 'required exposure' clause attached to them, probably related to the statues that McFarlane's company had based from the same designs. Todd threatened to sue, and Lord Blackthorn's Revenge was squeezed out shortly thereafter.
So this robot's been developed by a guy named Floyd. I wonder if it will want to play Hucka-Bucka-Beanstalk?
Sewer Shark was one of those awful decision-tree based games, like Dragon's Lair or Brain Dead 13, which probably killed it right there. Those things only offered an illusion of gameplay, as the point was basically to memorize the location of decision nodes, and the single controller move/button press that would take you down the correct path.
Birdo was transgendered, not a transvestite. "He" wanted to be a girl, not just dress like one for kicks.
M. Guzdial's "Introduction to Computing and Programming with Java: A Multimedia Approach" was used in an introductory Java course that I took during Intersession this year. It doesn't focus on creating graphics, or 3D objects (which I imagine would be pretty daunting for a lot of people), but rather bases its lessons around modifying already extant images and sound files, systematically teaching the student how various aspects of OOP work, and giving them an obvious 'real world' use for programming.
Generally though, yeah. Aside from the occasional official site, few gaming outfits have done anything to embrace a changing marketplace. Sure a few have sold PDF downloads of their source material, but by and large those tend to be copy-protected and sold at nearly the cost of retail hardcovers.
Games Workshop has a history of not only keeping a stranglehold on their IP, but also doing their damnedest to control resellers as well. If there were a way to make miniatures self-destruct on contact with non-GW paint or scratch-built gribblies, you can bet that they'd implement it without blinking, and declare that all of the old miniatures are tournament-illegal. The idea that they might have to trust another outfit, even one so tiny as a bunch of hard-core fans, is utterly anathema to them.
(Spoiler for Time Bandits. If you haven't seen the movie yet, shame on you.)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=v60-qRvmzKA
Given the ordeal it is to crack one of those things open, the last thing that I'd want to deal with is a battery that's slipped just far enough out of position to prevent a proper contact. I know it's unlikely, but still.