Off-Topic: This should be modded Funny and not Insightful...but whatever.
Slightly less Off-Topic: A lot people like blow off Tekken because the way the game is setup it encourages button mashing. Strings(combinations of attack buttons that perform special attacks) have a certain timing to them to get them to come out. In a lot of cases, the next button to press in the string can be mashed until the next part in the string comes out. Because it's easier than learning the timing, newbies tend to mash buttons rather than executing string with precise, timed, button pressing.
There's also a strategy to button mashing. In Tekken, being predictable is the easy way to get defeated. If an opponent knows you're next attack, they know how to defeat you before you've performed your attack. With random button mashing however, the odds are less likely he'll know what you're going to do and thus he will be more likely to fall for your next attack. This is much more applicable for characters who have moves that chain together(e.g. Eddy/Christie, Jun/Asuka).
That said, button mashing is still easy to defeat and is far from the end-all be-all attack. Those who learn the timing of their attacks, how to juggle, and how to defend against attacks will easily defeat a button masher.
I don't see Tekken's controls as a weakness because it allows button mashers to win more easily than some games. I see it as a strength on how easily the game can be approached and played by new people. Of course there are those that have the mindset: "I've played a game for X amount of time so I should be X times as good." And to them I say this: "It's not about how long you've played a game, it's about all that you've learned in that X amount of time."
Ultimately, the biggest flaw is the fall of Anakin to Darth Vader just simply isn't done well. The storyline is there - Lucas has given us all the pieces. It makes sense if I sit here and explain it to someone who hasn't seen the movie or someone who's not familiar with the series at all (bear with me)
Ebert say it best in his review: "To say that George Lucas cannot write a love scene is an understatement; greeting cards have expressed more passion."
While I'm probably not going to throw down another $50 for another version of Snake Eater, it sounds like they threw in some cool additions. The original MSX games, Metal Gear, Metal Gear: Solid Snake, are a nice touch. After this and Namco adding Tekken 1-3 in Tekken 5, I hope this is a continuing trend for big game franchises. Both the games are worth checking to see where MGS came from.
The games are even more interesting if you're only familar with the NES Metal Gear games. The first Metal Gear(MSX) differs a lot from the NES(the biggest difference being that the NES version doesn't have Metal Gear in it!). Also there was a psuedo-squel for the NES called Snake's Revenge, but it doesn't hold a candle to the MSX Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. In the game, you'll see where a lot of elements of MGS series came from. And if you're too impatient to wait for this release try downloading a MSX emulator and the old ROMS(you're on your own for that one for that link but they shouldn't be too hard to find).
So what's more offensive? Being paying to stand around to be gawked by geeks because of your better-than-average-good-looks or being told by a website your not a "real person."
That said, I really don't see what the problem is. These women are getting paid to dress up in some costume, look hot, and maybe poss with people or pass out promotional material. They are there on their own volition. They aren't being any more exploited than a game designer is being exploited for his creativity. Modeling is just like any other job that requires a certain amount of inate ability. It just so happens that this ability is to look attractive. So to summarize, if these women are being exploited then so is everyone else that voluntarily goes into a career field that needs their abilities.
I'm as tired of all the sequels as the next gamer. But I'll give the game industry this: At least their sequels are usually better their predecessor. When I heard about MGS3 I decided to pass thanks to the inferior story of MGS2 compared to MGS. I recently checked it out however and I was blown away. Not only is the story is just as great as MGS, they also further refined the gameplay down to every little detail.
Now when's the last sequel movie you saw that was better than the original? I can only think of two. Terminator 2 and Aliens(though that's probably not a fair comparison since Alien is a different kind of movie).
Sure, past tense just like "this guy has raped in the past, more than once" and such.
That's right. Past tense just like "these guys have also raped(and are raping) but they weren't worth going after because their homelands have never had anything of economic interest to the US. Yet, we still went after this one guy because we had a unfinished grudge(remembering that he tried to kill our dad) with him and there might be the slim possibility(even though the he was much weaker than other bad rapists) that he could some how hurt us." Past tense just exactly like that.
Those statements are past tense. They were past tense at the time of the invasion of Iraq(evidenced by the fact that we still to this date haven't found any WMDs in post-Saddam Iraq). I seem to recall our president stating the reason for invading Iraq on that March '03 was that there was a current threats of WMDs and a possibility that they might be used against US or our allies no less.
Agreed. The S-type X-box controller is a solid controller (better than the N-64/Dual Shock hybrid that the GameCube sports), but the X-box's d-pad is worthless. I've always hated those disc style d-pads; You never really feel like your always pressing in the sole direction you want to be going. For that reason alone (that and maybe the original Shaq sized controller with impossible-to-reach-start-button*), the X-box gets 2nd place to Sony's DualShock2.
*impossible-to-reach-start-button is a TradeMark of the Microsoft Corporation.
I seem to recall reading about this game a long, long time ago in some game magazine. It talked about how the 3D engine allowed for immpossible things in 3D space just like with Duke Nukem 3D's Build engine. For example, you could create a building with a doorway that opened up to a room that was larger than the building itself(among other things). I could be wrong though, this was like 7+ years ago when I read this.
Not all computer generated speech sounds completely robotic. AT&T has had it's Natural Voices Speech Engine demo around for some time. I'm surprised that more text-to-speech programs haven't used this. I suppose licensing is pretty 'spensive.
I'm guessing this confusing sentence was the result of quick and messing translation. I took the statement to mean that Nintendo is trying to do something a little different with it's next-gen console besides from beefing up the specs for faster, pretty graphics. I'm guessing that what ever they've got up there sleeve might not be kosher for some developers. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case given some
previous talked about rumors about the Revolution.
I hope that Nintendo is really trying some different with their next-gen console. With this current generation of consoles Nintendo has definitely shown that it has a completely different philosphy(one I agree with) than their competition concerning their role in the game industry. MS and Sony want to sell systems. They want the XBox or the Playstation to be another component that everyone has in their home entertainment setup. Good games? That's a secondary thought to them. Yes, they know good games are important part of recovering all the initial costs of their expensive new consoles. But they know if they buy the good developers and seal the exclusive deals the good games will come to them. Nintendo however does it the opposite way. They make the good games and then they design the hardware around that. Remember the N64 controller was designed specifically with Mario 64 (and other 3D games) in mind.
All that said, it doesn't really come as a surprise to me that Nintendo may alienate developers. Since the NES days, Nintendo's history with devs has been pretty much been "play by our rules or don't play at all" with special exceptions given out every now and again to the really good devs. This attitude has certainly backfired on them(i.e. sticking with cartridges over optical media on the N64). But even though they don't have the clout they once did, they've shown that they're still sitting in a good position even if their console doesn't dominate the world like the Playstation or Xbox.
I don't think the two companies are really comparable. Square was (and Square-Enix is) mostly a game studio for one niche genre of games with an occasional non-RPG game here and there. All they did was make the games. Before the merger Square had EA doing their distribution in the states.
Nintendo, on the other hand, does more than just make their games; they handle all the other aspects. They handle their own distribution. They have a tremendous amount of capital saved up for investing on game production. They make their own console and portable systems. And then there's Nintendo's other side markets like Pokemon cards and such.
Square made a huge gamble on borrowing all that money for the Honolulu studios that made FF: The Spirits Within. The odds didn't turn out in their favor and eventually they had to sell that studio. Mostly like they mergered with Square-Enix for a major capital boost.
Nintendo on the other hand would have to make a really huge investment to put them in the trouble that Square got in. And given Nintendo's past conservative tendencies I don't think they're going to do this anytime soon. They're going to keep playing it safe for quite sometime into future. And it's going to keep earning them money.
Ok, I read the blurb on Slashdot and I was more than skeptical. Another lame platform game grafted onto funny cartoon characters? *sigh* But a voice inside me said, you know it might not be that bad...
Then I read TFA...
"ADULT SWIM is a phenomenon with young adult viewers who identify with the edgy, irreverent tone of the shows and the block,"
I won't be satisfied with cell phones until mine has a boombox attached to the side of it. When that day comes I'll truly reach the pinnacle of bling-bling.
Since you used to work in the biz (sorta), I've got another question for you. When you guys took back the busted consoles do you just ship them back to Sony? I'm just curious because if so you'd think they do something about their busted drives.
I bought a PS2 on release. At the time, I was working at a large video game reseller. It at the time was one of the worst gaming decisions I made. It destroyed my games (nice circular burns. And I saw countless other units do the same thing), didn't have a very decent release selection, and didn't play the one PSX game that I hadn't had a chance to play (my PSX broke less than a week before release, only reason I bought one when I did.)
I'm curious. You didn't happen to have the PS2 at a vertical angle did you? I used to have a PS2 sitting on a box. Because of the weight it eventually deformed the box and the PS2 sat at a slighty forward angle. It was around that time I noticed the PS2 making disc scratching noises. After a couple of days my copy of TTT was rendered completely worthless. Also, the people I know that have had their PS2s stand vertical seem to have had problems with disc scratching as well. I don't know if this means anything but they seem to be related.
But yeah the optical drives Sony puts in their Playstations must be the absolute cheapest shit they can find. I've went through 3 PSOne's and 2 PS2's (the first one I bought from Sony directly didn't work). It's a good thing I've found ways to "take advantage" of various retail stores return policies. There's no way in hell I'd throw $50(or whatever the cost to take it to a repair place) at Sony to fix their cheap ass optical drives.
I've never really throughly played an MMORPG so take that it consideration before reading. It seems to me though that a big problem with Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games is that a lot people don't notice "Role Playing" part of it. Most MMORPGs I've seen are way too heavily focused on virtual combat. There's so much potential for a "virtual world" It's so sad that most of is spent in the endless cycle of "Kill more shit to get better stuff to kill more shit..." Of course hack-n'-slash dungeon crawling can be fun, but you can play Diablo II if you want that. MMORPGs should have a hack-n-slash element but it should have more...
A merchant class in a game world should have very little to do with combat. He should be able to hire people to defend him. Moreover, his ability should be gained by knowing people(like a game with a sort of built in social networking mechainic) and things.
A dancer/entertain class should play like rhythm games such as DDR.
I could go on but you see my point...A world that has 80% of it's population wandering the lands killing various creatures is pretty boring if you ask me.
Yes it would be very complex to create a game that played very different based on all different classes. Yes it would be hard to set a complete game world with all these classes interacting with one another. But for the $10-15/Month people pay for MMORPGs I don't think that's too much ask. Especially when someone can pay a flat $30-50 for a copy of Diablo II and get a similar experience on BattleNet. Then again, I don't have much first hand experience about MMORPGs. I just know what I see...
all run win2k for games (sorry, new xp interface just doesn't cut it for me to mean a "new os") and linux for the main systems.
I used to be very anti-WinXP myself and stuck with my guns on Win2K but after using it I can say it's more than just a shiny new interface. If XP gets any points over 2K for anything it's the fast boot times. I remember reboots in 2K were attrocious, sometimes on the order of minutes. In XP it's 30 seconds tops. Sometimes it hangs after login but for the most part it's faster than 2K. Sure the shiny new interface drags performace but you can turn that off(the first thing I did). And if you do run old DOS games I've found XP to handle better those than 2K.
Not to preach XP here, (I wouldn't pay 100-whatever dollars it costs retail) I'm just saying don't knock it 'til ya try it.
I thing a big part of the problem is apathy. No one cares what the government is doing so long as it's not stepping on them.
We invaded a country under the pretenses of self defense against a madman with WMD. A few months later it turns out he didn't have them. Did this hurt the president's reputation in anyway? Only to the people that already hated him. Most people didn't care. In fact, the majority thought he was good enough to relect...
The RIAA and MPAA are suing the hell out of people downloading their material even though they're content with letting people selling bootlegs of their product(which is actually stealing money from them). Do people make a big fuss about this waste of the court system? Only to the people who already have grudges against the MPAA/RIAA. The majority people don't care...
A substanial portion of americans (of all classes) use recreational drugs despite their illegality, especially Marijuana which is less harmful than the legal alternative of cigarettes or alcohol. Yet the people jailed for these crimes are mostly lower class. Furthermore, the "war on drugs" benefits both sides such that neither really would want it to end. The DEA people have nice government jobs and the drug cartels benefit from selling their product at black market prices. The only people that really get hurt are the small dealers or users who don't have the money to defend themselves in court. Do people care that a huge portion of their tax money is spent housing non-violent criminals? The only people who do are the same drug de-criminalization advocates who've been around for a while. The majority of people either don't take part in illegal recreational drugs enough(or at all) to care about this problem because it doesn't step on them.
People being jailed for insane amounts of time for dealing drugs? People getting killed by bombs we bought? People being sued for ludicrous amounts of money for "damages"? The majority of people in this country do not care about anything outside the scope of their own lives.
B, b, but where are the people going to get their next NFL football game?
Not to rain on your parade, but the vast majority of people don't care. Joe consumer is too busy with the trivial details of his own life to care about business practices of a corporation that doesn't effect him, especially a video game publisher. On top of that, the casual gamer that play sports games doesn't care where their new football game comes from. As long as it has new stats, plays as well as the last iteration, and maybe has some fancier graphics he'll be happy. I think the only hope to see the death of EA is that their own arrogance will get the best of them.
But aside from my hopeless skeptism, I'm with ya. Fight the power!
If I remember correctly the guys that use to make the UK version of Next Generation ended up becoming Edge Magazine. I'm not totally sure though, my memory is a bit hazy. But yeah, Next Generation was by far the best video gaming magazine the industry has seen. It's too bad the Imagine Media guys were a bunch idiots.
Can we stop using terms like "cyber-athelete" and "e-sports" when applied to competitive gaming. I know in a lot of people's heads "sports" and "games" are mixed together but they are two seperate things. A sport is an athletic game. Not only does it require skill of the game but it also requires all the other demands of being in good physical shape. I don't mean to belittle the skill that some proffesional gamers have, but the comparing a game Counterstrike to a game of Football or Hockey is ludicrous.
That said, treating a video game like a sport and commentating on it like its a sport seems pointless. I remember watching Arena on the ol' crappy G4TV channel. Almost all the shows I saw were FPSs where the commentators seemed to do is point out what the viewer could obviously see. It's painful It's like watching commentators for a pool game saying:
"He moves his stick back, OOHHH! NICE SHOT! He made it into the pocket! He better be careful though this next shot is tough. If he misses it, his opponent might have a chance to win."
It's wasted potential. What commentators should be doing is discussing strategy, terminology, and other reasons why the players are doing what they do. You know, things that give people insight about the game not the action.
Slashdot Mirror
Off-Topic:
This should be modded Funny and not Insightful...but whatever.
Slightly less Off-Topic:
A lot people like blow off Tekken because the way the game is setup it encourages button mashing. Strings(combinations of attack buttons that perform special attacks) have a certain timing to them to get them to come out. In a lot of cases, the next button to press in the string can be mashed until the next part in the string comes out. Because it's easier than learning the timing, newbies tend to mash buttons rather than executing string with precise, timed, button pressing.
There's also a strategy to button mashing. In Tekken, being predictable is the easy way to get defeated. If an opponent knows you're next attack, they know how to defeat you before you've performed your attack. With random button mashing however, the odds are less likely he'll know what you're going to do and thus he will be more likely to fall for your next attack. This is much more applicable for characters who have moves that chain together(e.g. Eddy/Christie, Jun/Asuka).
That said, button mashing is still easy to defeat and is far from the end-all be-all attack. Those who learn the timing of their attacks, how to juggle, and how to defend against attacks will easily defeat a button masher.
I don't see Tekken's controls as a weakness because it allows button mashers to win more easily than some games. I see it as a strength on how easily the game can be approached and played by new people. Of course there are those that have the mindset: "I've played a game for X amount of time so I should be X times as good." And to them I say this: "It's not about how long you've played a game, it's about all that you've learned in that X amount of time."
Ultimately, the biggest flaw is the fall of Anakin to Darth Vader just simply isn't done well. The storyline is there - Lucas has given us all the pieces. It makes sense if I sit here and explain it to someone who hasn't seen the movie or someone who's not familiar with the series at all (bear with me)
Ebert say it best in his review: "To say that George Lucas cannot write a love scene is an understatement; greeting cards have expressed more passion."
While I'm probably not going to throw down another $50 for another version of Snake Eater, it sounds like they threw in some cool additions. The original MSX games, Metal Gear, Metal Gear: Solid Snake, are a nice touch. After this and Namco adding Tekken 1-3 in Tekken 5, I hope this is a continuing trend for big game franchises. Both the games are worth checking to see where MGS came from.
The games are even more interesting if you're only familar with the NES Metal Gear games. The first Metal Gear(MSX) differs a lot from the NES(the biggest difference being that the NES version doesn't have Metal Gear in it!). Also there was a psuedo-squel for the NES called Snake's Revenge, but it doesn't hold a candle to the MSX Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. In the game, you'll see where a lot of elements of MGS series came from. And if you're too impatient to wait for this release try downloading a MSX emulator and the old ROMS(you're on your own for that one for that link but they shouldn't be too hard to find).
Wow, I don't think I've every seen a slashdot article so devoid of commments.
Do you hear that Slashdot? It's the sound of a collective yawn from readers sick of one consecutive game post after another.
Coming up next on Slashdot: Games...
Video Games: They're Cool!
"Real Games. Real People?"
So what's more offensive? Being paying to stand around to be gawked by geeks because of your better-than-average-good-looks or being told by a website your not a "real person."
That said, I really don't see what the problem is. These women are getting paid to dress up in some costume, look hot, and maybe poss with people or pass out promotional material. They are there on their own volition. They aren't being any more exploited than a game designer is being exploited for his creativity. Modeling is just like any other job that requires a certain amount of inate ability. It just so happens that this ability is to look attractive. So to summarize, if these women are being exploited then so is everyone else that voluntarily goes into a career field that needs their abilities.
Sounds like Hollywood now, for crying out loud
I'm as tired of all the sequels as the next gamer. But I'll give the game industry this: At least their sequels are usually better their predecessor. When I heard about MGS3 I decided to pass thanks to the inferior story of MGS2 compared to MGS. I recently checked it out however and I was blown away. Not only is the story is just as great as MGS, they also further refined the gameplay down to every little detail.
Now when's the last sequel movie you saw that was better than the original? I can only think of two. Terminator 2 and Aliens(though that's probably not a fair comparison since Alien is a different kind of movie).
Sure, past tense just like "this guy has raped in the past, more than once" and such.
That's right. Past tense just like "these guys have also raped(and are raping) but they weren't worth going after because their homelands have never had anything of economic interest to the US. Yet, we still went after this one guy because we had a unfinished grudge(remembering that he tried to kill our dad) with him and there might be the slim possibility(even though the he was much weaker than other bad rapists) that he could some how hurt us." Past tense just exactly like that.
Of course Saddam had them. He used them!
Those statements are past tense. They were past tense at the time of the invasion of Iraq(evidenced by the fact that we still to this date haven't found any WMDs in post-Saddam Iraq). I seem to recall our president stating the reason for invading Iraq on that March '03 was that there was a current threats of WMDs and a possibility that they might be used against US or our allies no less.
Agreed. The S-type X-box controller is a solid controller (better than the N-64/Dual Shock hybrid that the GameCube sports), but the X-box's d-pad is worthless. I've always hated those disc style d-pads; You never really feel like your always pressing in the sole direction you want to be going. For that reason alone (that and maybe the original Shaq sized controller with impossible-to-reach-start-button*), the X-box gets 2nd place to Sony's DualShock2.
*impossible-to-reach-start-button is a TradeMark of the Microsoft Corporation.
I seem to recall reading about this game a long, long time ago in some game magazine. It talked about how the 3D engine allowed for immpossible things in 3D space just like with Duke Nukem 3D's Build engine. For example, you could create a building with a doorway that opened up to a room that was larger than the building itself(among other things). I could be wrong though, this was like 7+ years ago when I read this.
Not all computer generated speech sounds completely robotic. AT&T has had it's Natural Voices Speech Engine demo around for some time. I'm surprised that more text-to-speech programs haven't used this. I suppose licensing is pretty 'spensive.
I'm guessing this confusing sentence was the result of quick and messing translation. I took the statement to mean that Nintendo is trying to do something a little different with it's next-gen console besides from beefing up the specs for faster, pretty graphics. I'm guessing that what ever they've got up there sleeve might not be kosher for some developers. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case given some previous talked about rumors about the Revolution.
I hope that Nintendo is really trying some different with their next-gen console. With this current generation of consoles Nintendo has definitely shown that it has a completely different philosphy(one I agree with) than their competition concerning their role in the game industry. MS and Sony want to sell systems. They want the XBox or the Playstation to be another component that everyone has in their home entertainment setup. Good games? That's a secondary thought to them. Yes, they know good games are important part of recovering all the initial costs of their expensive new consoles. But they know if they buy the good developers and seal the exclusive deals the good games will come to them. Nintendo however does it the opposite way. They make the good games and then they design the hardware around that. Remember the N64 controller was designed specifically with Mario 64 (and other 3D games) in mind.
All that said, it doesn't really come as a surprise to me that Nintendo may alienate developers. Since the NES days, Nintendo's history with devs has been pretty much been "play by our rules or don't play at all" with special exceptions given out every now and again to the really good devs. This attitude has certainly backfired on them(i.e. sticking with cartridges over optical media on the N64). But even though they don't have the clout they once did, they've shown that they're still sitting in a good position even if their console doesn't dominate the world like the Playstation or Xbox.
I don't think the two companies are really comparable. Square was (and Square-Enix is) mostly a game studio for one niche genre of games with an occasional non-RPG game here and there. All they did was make the games. Before the merger Square had EA doing their distribution in the states.
Nintendo, on the other hand, does more than just make their games; they handle all the other aspects. They handle their own distribution. They have a tremendous amount of capital saved up for investing on game production. They make their own console and portable systems. And then there's Nintendo's other side markets like Pokemon cards and such.
Square made a huge gamble on borrowing all that money for the Honolulu studios that made FF: The Spirits Within. The odds didn't turn out in their favor and eventually they had to sell that studio. Mostly like they mergered with Square-Enix for a major capital boost.
Nintendo on the other hand would have to make a really huge investment to put them in the trouble that Square got in. And given Nintendo's past conservative tendencies I don't think they're going to do this anytime soon. They're going to keep playing it safe for quite sometime into future. And it's going to keep earning them money.
Ok, I read the blurb on Slashdot and I was more than skeptical. Another lame platform game grafted onto funny cartoon characters? *sigh* But a voice inside me said, you know it might not be that bad...
Then I read TFA...
"ADULT SWIM is a phenomenon with young adult viewers who identify with the edgy, irreverent tone of the shows and the block,"
Turns out it is going to be that bad.
I won't be satisfied with cell phones until mine has a boombox attached to the side of it. When that day comes I'll truly reach the pinnacle of bling-bling.
Since you used to work in the biz (sorta), I've got another question for you. When you guys took back the busted consoles do you just ship them back to Sony? I'm just curious because if so you'd think they do something about their busted drives.
I bought a PS2 on release. At the time, I was working at a large video game reseller. It at the time was one of the worst gaming decisions I made. It destroyed my games (nice circular burns. And I saw countless other units do the same thing), didn't have a very decent release selection, and didn't play the one PSX game that I hadn't had a chance to play (my PSX broke less than a week before release, only reason I bought one when I did.)
I'm curious. You didn't happen to have the PS2 at a vertical angle did you? I used to have a PS2 sitting on a box. Because of the weight it eventually deformed the box and the PS2 sat at a slighty forward angle. It was around that time I noticed the PS2 making disc scratching noises. After a couple of days my copy of TTT was rendered completely worthless. Also, the people I know that have had their PS2s stand vertical seem to have had problems with disc scratching as well. I don't know if this means anything but they seem to be related.
But yeah the optical drives Sony puts in their Playstations must be the absolute cheapest shit they can find. I've went through 3 PSOne's and 2 PS2's (the first one I bought from Sony directly didn't work). It's a good thing I've found ways to "take advantage" of various retail stores return policies. There's no way in hell I'd throw $50(or whatever the cost to take it to a repair place) at Sony to fix their cheap ass optical drives.
There was an article in a 1975 edition of Newsweek where scientists were sure of a global cooling. Now it's a global warming?
Cool! I can throw links out there to give my posts authority too!
I've never really throughly played an MMORPG so take that it consideration before reading. It seems to me though that a big problem with Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games is that a lot people don't notice "Role Playing" part of it. Most MMORPGs I've seen are way too heavily focused on virtual combat. There's so much potential for a "virtual world" It's so sad that most of is spent in the endless cycle of "Kill more shit to get better stuff to kill more shit..." Of course hack-n'-slash dungeon crawling can be fun, but you can play Diablo II if you want that. MMORPGs should have a hack-n-slash element but it should have more...
A merchant class in a game world should have very little to do with combat. He should be able to hire people to defend him. Moreover, his ability should be gained by knowing people(like a game with a sort of built in social networking mechainic) and things.
A dancer/entertain class should play like rhythm games such as DDR.
I could go on but you see my point...A world that has 80% of it's population wandering the lands killing various creatures is pretty boring if you ask me.
Yes it would be very complex to create a game that played very different based on all different classes. Yes it would be hard to set a complete game world with all these classes interacting with one another. But for the $10-15/Month people pay for MMORPGs I don't think that's too much ask. Especially when someone can pay a flat $30-50 for a copy of Diablo II and get a similar experience on BattleNet. Then again, I don't have much first hand experience about MMORPGs. I just know what I see...
all run win2k for games (sorry, new xp interface just doesn't cut it for me to mean a "new os") and linux for the main systems.
I used to be very anti-WinXP myself and stuck with my guns on Win2K but after using it I can say it's more than just a shiny new interface. If XP gets any points over 2K for anything it's the fast boot times. I remember reboots in 2K were attrocious, sometimes on the order of minutes. In XP it's 30 seconds tops. Sometimes it hangs after login but for the most part it's faster than 2K. Sure the shiny new interface drags performace but you can turn that off(the first thing I did). And if you do run old DOS games I've found XP to handle better those than 2K.
Not to preach XP here, (I wouldn't pay 100-whatever dollars it costs retail) I'm just saying don't knock it 'til ya try it.
I thing a big part of the problem is apathy. No one cares what the government is doing so long as it's not stepping on them.
We invaded a country under the pretenses of self defense against a madman with WMD. A few months later it turns out he didn't have them. Did this hurt the president's reputation in anyway? Only to the people that already hated him. Most people didn't care. In fact, the majority thought he was good enough to relect...
The RIAA and MPAA are suing the hell out of people downloading their material even though they're content with letting people selling bootlegs of their product(which is actually stealing money from them). Do people make a big fuss about this waste of the court system? Only to the people who already have grudges against the MPAA/RIAA. The majority people don't care...
A substanial portion of americans (of all classes) use recreational drugs despite their illegality, especially Marijuana which is less harmful than the legal alternative of cigarettes or alcohol. Yet the people jailed for these crimes are mostly lower class. Furthermore, the "war on drugs" benefits both sides such that neither really would want it to end. The DEA people have nice government jobs and the drug cartels benefit from selling their product at black market prices. The only people that really get hurt are the small dealers or users who don't have the money to defend themselves in court. Do people care that a huge portion of their tax money is spent housing non-violent criminals? The only people who do are the same drug de-criminalization advocates who've been around for a while. The majority of people either don't take part in illegal recreational drugs enough(or at all) to care about this problem because it doesn't step on them.
People being jailed for insane amounts of time for dealing drugs? People getting killed by bombs we bought? People being sued for ludicrous amounts of money for "damages"? The majority of people in this country do not care about anything outside the scope of their own lives.
B, b, but where are the people going to get their next NFL football game?
Not to rain on your parade, but the vast majority of people don't care. Joe consumer is too busy with the trivial details of his own life to care about business practices of a corporation that doesn't effect him, especially a video game publisher. On top of that, the casual gamer that play sports games doesn't care where their new football game comes from. As long as it has new stats, plays as well as the last iteration, and maybe has some fancier graphics he'll be happy. I think the only hope to see the death of EA is that their own arrogance will get the best of them.
But aside from my hopeless skeptism, I'm with ya. Fight the power!
If I remember correctly the guys that use to make the UK version of Next Generation ended up becoming Edge Magazine. I'm not totally sure though, my memory is a bit hazy. But yeah, Next Generation was by far the best video gaming magazine the industry has seen. It's too bad the Imagine Media guys were a bunch idiots.
Can we stop using terms like "cyber-athelete" and "e-sports" when applied to competitive gaming. I know in a lot of people's heads "sports" and "games" are mixed together but they are two seperate things. A sport is an athletic game. Not only does it require skill of the game but it also requires all the other demands of being in good physical shape. I don't mean to belittle the skill that some proffesional gamers have, but the comparing a game Counterstrike to a game of Football or Hockey is ludicrous.
That said, treating a video game like a sport and commentating on it like its a sport seems pointless. I remember watching Arena on the ol' crappy G4TV channel. Almost all the shows I saw were FPSs where the commentators seemed to do is point out what the viewer could obviously see. It's painful It's like watching commentators for a pool game saying:
"He moves his stick back, OOHHH! NICE SHOT! He made it into the pocket! He better be careful though this next shot is tough. If he misses it, his opponent might have a chance to win."
It's wasted potential. What commentators should be doing is discussing strategy, terminology, and other reasons why the players are doing what they do. You know, things that give people insight about the game not the action.
Here's to 5 more years of The Sims expansion packs from EA! Huzzah!