My Nexus S (also a Galaxy S variant) got the "official" JB push from Google. Besides battery life getting worse and worse, I haven't seen any performance problems related to Android updates. Perhaps they are overclocking.
This is probably very obvious, but the market is ultimately going to decide what is and what isn't a good idea. If the "walled garden" will be generating more profit for Microsoft than the (relatively) unrestricted status quo, then it flourishes and continues. If enough people reject the approach and go looking elsewhere for an OS, then perhaps Microsoft learn their lesson and revert.
I doubt that enough people are going to be annoyed by the restrictions and move to another platform. "It really isn't worth the hassle."
Nevertheless, if the gamer crowd can provide enough support for commercial linux game deveopment, my selfish self will be more than satisfied with the freedoms (or lack thereof) granted by Windows 8.
The original Kindle Fire OS is an abomination. Out of the box it has possibly the worst UI in the mobile space and it is quickly apparent that a concerted effort was made to restrict what you can (consume Amazon content) and can't (everything else) do with the the hardware.
Anyone who reads this site, owns a Kindle and has not modified the default configuration in some way is doing themselves an enormous disservice. From side-loading a new launcher and few of quality-of-life apps, to rooting, to a flashing a whole new ROM, there is a variety of ways to make the best of your (bad) situation.
Despite the best efforts of devs, last year's kindle fire is ultimately a very flawed device. It has absolutely nothing to recommend it over the alternatives and if the new crop of kindles is anything like the last generation, take your $200 and spent it on a Nexus 7.
The default OS on a KF is a wretched, miserable mess with so much customization and lockdown that you would hardly recognize an Android OS in there at all. I could not recommend using FK in this fashion - before any consideration is made of Amazon's sneaky remote access issues.
At the same time, for those with the ability and/or nerve to do so, rooting and installing an ICS Android ROM gives you a fantastic Android device that can do *just about* everything the stock KF can do... and a whole lot more. The process is well documented and relatively easy.
Although I would nonchalantly agree with you, many people including my wife, would vehemently disagree. From her perspective, an automatic transmission is an obvious upgrade over a manual in so far as you don't have to know how and when to shift the gears yourself and don't have to worry about rolling back into the car behind you on "tricky" incline starts.
I recently tried to sell a 2001 vehicle with a manual transmission. For every interested buyer I probably encountered three or four who were no longer interested as soon as I mentioned that it had a manual transmission.
He says, "not the cleanest comparison but..." and this is definitely a fact.
Nevertheless, if he was trying to be more accurate, he might have said, "This is probably the worst and most deceptive comparison you'll read all week but..."
Right. FISA warrants are are unnecessary now.
There are a few restrictions on warrantless wiretaps that haven't been eliminated... yet. They need a few more years to work on that.
I'll see your FISA warrant and raise you a Patriot Act: Warrantless Wiretapping at the turn, "aw crap, just spy on everybody" a few years down the river.
It's been a long time since I last ran down to the worldstone chamber, but IIRC the poison/bone necro tree is ARGUABLY the necro's strongest.
You cite some damage numbers, but the error you're making is that you assume are using skills data that relates to skill level 20. In advanced game, you SHOULD be looking at the numbers for skill level 35 or even 40 (depending on itemization...)
Which leads me to my next point, specifically, that FOR ALL D2 character builds, itemization is the only relevant consideration.
"Boner" necros are extremely powerful PvP characters. Since there is no *significant* resistance to "magic" damage there is little your opponents can do to mitigate the damage done by your bone spells. The dominant boner strategy is to stack FCR and +skills, wear an enigma, and if you're ranged elemental damage then some sort of resistance gear and they've got an EXTREMELY good chance of beating almost any other build (of any class) in PvP. They tele around, casting auto-targetting bone spirits and never let you get near enough to engage in melee.
Further, well geared poison necros are very viable for soloing the endgame. Sure, they are not the fastest killers, but they are extremely hardy. There are very few things that the game can throw at them that they won't be able to handle with relative ease.
In my opinion, the curse tree is one of the weakest, requiring AT MOST a single point in each skill.
the solar panels on each rover produce about 700 watt-hours of electricity per day -- enough to light a 100-watt bulb for seven hours, according to NASA.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME! That is genius. To think that ADULT HUMANS managed to perform a calculation like this AND publish the results is completely mindblowing. If they would just show their work, we could all learn from their masterpiece!
You should check back into the Diablo2 universe. Through patches and an addition of some INSANELY POWERFUL new items the class balance was improved dramatically. Unfortunately some paladin builds were (are?) still vastly overpowered... but you'd be surprised to see how powerful some of the "weaker" classes (including the Necromancer) became.
To address your point, a few years ago the summoner (necro) skeletons became PvM (PvE) armies of destruction. If any build was capable of completing the whole game on hell difficulty while alone and "naked," I'd wager that a well built summoner could've been the class. It might've take a while though. Now if you could throw in some of the super expensive runewords, you would end up with a pack of at least 20 minions (usually mid-30s) running around with might, concentrate and fanaticism auras while any monsters that you come across would be blinded/amp damaged/decripified/weakened with curses. It wasn't (isn't?) really a fair fight -- and that is BEFORE you added the massive area effect damage of the corpse explosion.
Can they catch the lightning twice... or is this going to be a C&C/Supreme Commander in space type thing with the Starcraft IP slapped on top. I really love, love, love the original... but I can't help feeling skeptical here. Perhaps it is a defense mechanism. I'll decide when things are finalized and the reviews start coming in.
Interesting aside: LOZ:WW has a battleship game that you can play... for a price... and will net you a piece of heart (IIRC)! Yummy!
The LOZ games, and I am thinking of the 3d ones in particular, were loaded with fun little minigames... some of which could have been full blown, stand-alone (perhaps budget) titles. I'm thinking in particular about some of the fishing distraction in OoT and TP. I personally love the tried and true approach to the Zelda franchise - I would certainly buy the next release even if they don't make any fundamental changes to the formula.
That being said, I'd love to see what else Nintendo might have in store for the future of the series. Nintendo generally take care of their flagship IPs... I'm sure a reinvented Zelda would get the appropriate level of attention before hitting the market.
...other than Microsoft and Nintendo playing "me too" against the PS2's backward compatibility...
Don't want to sound like a fanboy, but, I thought Nintendo announced their BC first and then Sony and MS followed suite. Certainly in terms of implementation, the Wii has done BC considerably better than the other two.
Now perhaps the Wii is really just a GCN 1.5 still...
Agreed. Prescribed inspiration = BIG... FAT... ZZZ...
Since DND is, to a large extent, a derivative of Tolkein's work anyway there is not much left on the table here. Orcs and Elves, Star Trek and The Hunt for Red October... Relatively slim pickings IMO! (And boy have some of those been done before!)
Some of the most inspired games I have played* (and I am focusing on traditional elements like plot and characterization in particular) are a long way from what is recommended.
*The Longest Journey, Deus Ex and Grim Fandango and even games like Pikmin, Max Payne (2) or
Ico.
Does America not have game ratings? here in the UK we have like "18" certificates on some games; if you're not 18 you can't buy it.
I'm basing this comment entirely on my own observations, but I as far as I've ever seen - and I often make a point of watching the behaviour and purchasing habits of other game store patrons - the rating system has NO impact on what minors are and are not allowed to purchase. On more than one occasion I've seen young teens (around age 13 or 14) purchase a used copy of GTA or something similarly violent (God or War / Onimusha, etc) with no comment from the store clerk.
When it come down to chosing between dollars and doing the right thing, the store employees / owners [troll] as is usually the case in the US[/troll] don't have much trouble chosing the dollars!
Nintendo are obviously doing this to make things easier for the casual consumer.
Someone with little or no industry knowledge would probably welcome a marketing strategy that provides a clear distinction between the casual games that they are interested in and the dirth of bestselling (traditional gaming) titles that line store shelves. The accidental purchase of Castlevania might frustrate a casual gamer enough to scare them away from future game purchases. It is in Nintendo's best interest to make sure that the uninformed casual gamers are empowered to make the correct game purchases.
Of course, more hardcore fans should be able to make their purchases based on something other than the colour of the box!
I hope it does... but not just the catalog of XP games.
Most of all I want it to run the games that were lost in the shuffle between win95/98 and winXP. For anything released back in the DOS days you can find a decent emulator (DOSbox, Scummvm etc) but for the Win95/98 years I'm left to tinker with the flakey compatibility modes in an effort to run some fairly decent titles!
In my mind at least, DVD::VHS is not the same as HDDVD/BluRay::DVD.
DVD brought many (great) additional features to the table when compared to its predecessor VHS. And while the higher capacity HDDVD/BluRay media is going to provide similar improvements in term of higher rez video and enhanced audio, it will not be providing some of the other features that made the switch from VHS to DVD so desirable.
A couple of the "other" benefits that come to mind include: the smaller size of the media for more convenient storage, the introduction of chapters and bookmarks that allows fast navigation between different places on the disk, the end of rewinding VHS tapes, less wear and tear (tape stretching/dirty heads etc) on the media etc.
The move from VHS to DVD was also great for early adopters who wanted to show off... ("Here's you with audio cassette -like VHS tapes, while I am watching my CD-like DVD movies") This disparity won't be as pronounced for the next gen DVD machines.
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My Nexus S (also a Galaxy S variant) got the "official" JB push from Google. Besides battery life getting worse and worse, I haven't seen any performance problems related to Android updates. Perhaps they are overclocking.
That's almost a paradox. Did you mean "maybe Microsoft should copy Apple and sue for copyright infringement." ?
This is probably very obvious, but the market is ultimately going to decide what is and what isn't a good idea. If the "walled garden" will be generating more profit for Microsoft than the (relatively) unrestricted status quo, then it flourishes and continues. If enough people reject the approach and go looking elsewhere for an OS, then perhaps Microsoft learn their lesson and revert.
I doubt that enough people are going to be annoyed by the restrictions and move to another platform. "It really isn't worth the hassle."
Nevertheless, if the gamer crowd can provide enough support for commercial linux game deveopment, my selfish self will be more than satisfied with the freedoms (or lack thereof) granted by Windows 8.
The original Kindle Fire OS is an abomination. Out of the box it has possibly the worst UI in the mobile space and it is quickly apparent that a concerted effort was made to restrict what you can (consume Amazon content) and can't (everything else) do with the the hardware.
Anyone who reads this site, owns a Kindle and has not modified the default configuration in some way is doing themselves an enormous disservice. From side-loading a new launcher and few of quality-of-life apps, to rooting, to a flashing a whole new ROM, there is a variety of ways to make the best of your (bad) situation.
Despite the best efforts of devs, last year's kindle fire is ultimately a very flawed device. It has absolutely nothing to recommend it over the alternatives and if the new crop of kindles is anything like the last generation, take your $200 and spent it on a Nexus 7.
The default OS on a KF is a wretched, miserable mess with so much customization and lockdown that you would hardly recognize an Android OS in there at all. I could not recommend using FK in this fashion - before any consideration is made of Amazon's sneaky remote access issues.
At the same time, for those with the ability and/or nerve to do so, rooting and installing an ICS Android ROM gives you a fantastic Android device that can do *just about* everything the stock KF can do... and a whole lot more. The process is well documented and relatively easy.
Although I would nonchalantly agree with you, many people including my wife, would vehemently disagree. From her perspective, an automatic transmission is an obvious upgrade over a manual in so far as you don't have to know how and when to shift the gears yourself and don't have to worry about rolling back into the car behind you on "tricky" incline starts.
I recently tried to sell a 2001 vehicle with a manual transmission. For every interested buyer I probably encountered three or four who were no longer interested as soon as I mentioned that it had a manual transmission.
Unfortunately for your position, you are completely unable to put your money where your mouth is.
Its good money after bad but heck, the fancy new Nokia guy has to look like he's doing something.
He says, "not the cleanest comparison but..." and this is definitely a fact. Nevertheless, if he was trying to be more accurate, he might have said, "This is probably the worst and most deceptive comparison you'll read all week but..."
Right. FISA warrants are are unnecessary now. There are a few restrictions on warrantless wiretaps that haven't been eliminated... yet. They need a few more years to work on that.
I'll see your FISA warrant and raise you a Patriot Act: Warrantless Wiretapping at the turn, "aw crap, just spy on everybody" a few years down the river.
You cite some damage numbers, but the error you're making is that you assume are using skills data that relates to skill level 20. In advanced game, you SHOULD be looking at the numbers for skill level 35 or even 40 (depending on itemization...)
Which leads me to my next point, specifically, that FOR ALL D2 character builds, itemization is the only relevant consideration.
"Boner" necros are extremely powerful PvP characters. Since there is no *significant* resistance to "magic" damage there is little your opponents can do to mitigate the damage done by your bone spells. The dominant boner strategy is to stack FCR and +skills, wear an enigma, and if you're ranged elemental damage then some sort of resistance gear and they've got an EXTREMELY good chance of beating almost any other build (of any class) in PvP. They tele around, casting auto-targetting bone spirits and never let you get near enough to engage in melee.
Further, well geared poison necros are very viable for soloing the endgame. Sure, they are not the fastest killers, but they are extremely hardy. There are very few things that the game can throw at them that they won't be able to handle with relative ease.
In my opinion, the curse tree is one of the weakest, requiring AT MOST a single point in each skill.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME! That is genius. To think that ADULT HUMANS managed to perform a calculation like this AND publish the results is completely mindblowing. If they would just show their work, we could all learn from their masterpiece!
Try Gal Civ II over over the original. The enhancements (graphics, gameplay and AI) are DEFINITELY worth the upgrade!
To address your point, a few years ago the summoner (necro) skeletons became PvM (PvE) armies of destruction. If any build was capable of completing the whole game on hell difficulty while alone and "naked," I'd wager that a well built summoner could've been the class. It might've take a while though. Now if you could throw in some of the super expensive runewords, you would end up with a pack of at least 20 minions (usually mid-30s) running around with might, concentrate and fanaticism auras while any monsters that you come across would be blinded/amp damaged/decripified/weakened with curses. It wasn't (isn't?) really a fair fight -- and that is BEFORE you added the massive area effect damage of the corpse explosion.
I'm worried too.
Can they catch the lightning twice... or is this going to be a C&C/Supreme Commander in space type thing with the Starcraft IP slapped on top. I really love, love, love the original... but I can't help feeling skeptical here. Perhaps it is a defense mechanism. I'll decide when things are finalized and the reviews start coming in.
The LOZ games, and I am thinking of the 3d ones in particular, were loaded with fun little minigames ... some of which could have been full blown, stand-alone (perhaps budget) titles. I'm thinking in particular about some of the fishing distraction in OoT and TP. I personally love the tried and true approach to the Zelda franchise - I would certainly buy the next release even if they don't make any fundamental changes to the formula.
That being said, I'd love to see what else Nintendo might have in store for the future of the series. Nintendo generally take care of their flagship IPs... I'm sure a reinvented Zelda would get the appropriate level of attention before hitting the market.
it's clear to me that the proof readers are shunning now this article.
Don't want to sound like a fanboy, but, I thought Nintendo announced their BC first and then Sony and MS followed suite. Certainly in terms of implementation, the Wii has done BC considerably better than the other two.
Now perhaps the Wii is really just a GCN 1.5 still...
Agreed. Prescribed inspiration = BIG... FAT... ZZZ... Since DND is, to a large extent, a derivative of Tolkein's work anyway there is not much left on the table here. Orcs and Elves, Star Trek and The Hunt for Red October... Relatively slim pickings IMO! (And boy have some of those been done before!) Some of the most inspired games I have played* (and I am focusing on traditional elements like plot and characterization in particular) are a long way from what is recommended. *The Longest Journey, Deus Ex and Grim Fandango and even games like Pikmin, Max Payne (2) or Ico.
I bet I can "verticle glide" too - if I could just get to that "high space"
Does America not have game ratings? here in the UK we have like "18" certificates on some games; if you're not 18 you can't buy it.
I'm basing this comment entirely on my own observations, but I as far as I've ever seen - and I often make a point of watching the behaviour and purchasing habits of other game store patrons - the rating system has NO impact on what minors are and are not allowed to purchase. On more than one occasion I've seen young teens (around age 13 or 14) purchase a used copy of GTA or something similarly violent (God or War / Onimusha, etc) with no comment from the store clerk.
When it come down to chosing between dollars and doing the right thing, the store employees / owners [troll] as is usually the case in the US[/troll] don't have much trouble chosing the dollars!
Nintendo are obviously doing this to make things easier for the casual consumer. Someone with little or no industry knowledge would probably welcome a marketing strategy that provides a clear distinction between the casual games that they are interested in and the dirth of bestselling (traditional gaming) titles that line store shelves. The accidental purchase of Castlevania might frustrate a casual gamer enough to scare them away from future game purchases. It is in Nintendo's best interest to make sure that the uninformed casual gamers are empowered to make the correct game purchases. Of course, more hardcore fans should be able to make their purchases based on something other than the colour of the box!
I hope it does... but not just the catalog of XP games. Most of all I want it to run the games that were lost in the shuffle between win95/98 and winXP. For anything released back in the DOS days you can find a decent emulator (DOSbox, Scummvm etc) but for the Win95/98 years I'm left to tinker with the flakey compatibility modes in an effort to run some fairly decent titles!
In my mind at least, DVD::VHS is not the same as HDDVD/BluRay::DVD. DVD brought many (great) additional features to the table when compared to its predecessor VHS. And while the higher capacity HDDVD/BluRay media is going to provide similar improvements in term of higher rez video and enhanced audio, it will not be providing some of the other features that made the switch from VHS to DVD so desirable. A couple of the "other" benefits that come to mind include: the smaller size of the media for more convenient storage, the introduction of chapters and bookmarks that allows fast navigation between different places on the disk, the end of rewinding VHS tapes, less wear and tear (tape stretching/dirty heads etc) on the media etc. The move from VHS to DVD was also great for early adopters who wanted to show off... ("Here's you with audio cassette -like VHS tapes, while I am watching my CD-like DVD movies") This disparity won't be as pronounced for the next gen DVD machines.