In TF2 hats are the rarest and most sought-after items. The vast majority of hats are purely cosmetic (there are 4 hats that are part of class sets that give you a bonus if you wear all of the items in the set). There isn't really any 'grinding' in TF2. The way the drop system works you receive an entirely random drop every once in awhile just for playing. Most of the time it's a weapon, but very very rarely it's a hat. There's a limit to how many drops you can get per week (I think it's 8, but I'm not positive) and it takes about 8 hours of playtime to hit your limit. If you don't get all of your items for the week the extras will roll over into the next week. All weapons can be found via random drops, gained through class-specific achievements, traded for or crafted. If you're trying to get a specific weapon it's extremely easy to do so.
An important thing to note is that even if you find you don't have the time to play for drops you can still get all of your drops for the week. Since the only requirement is being in-game for 8 hours a week you can simply run TF2 in offline and text only modes while you sleep one night and you'll get all of your drops for the week.
It's also important to point out that most weapons and set bonuses are 'sidegrades' to the default ones. That is, they do something better but also have a drawback. They're very much designed to foster different playstyles than they are straight upgrades. For example, the Pyro's "Backburner" flamethrower does more standard damage and always does critical (3x) damage from behind, but doesn't have the ability to airblast like the standard flamethrower. The airblast is a very versatile and useful ability that can be used to reflect projectiles back at attackers, extinguish burning teammates and push enemies away (usually to keep them from destroying sentry guns or off of cliffs to their deaths).
One other thing to keep in mind is that many of the items in TF2 were designed by players in the community and not Valve themselves. Anytime one of those community-made items sells in the store the creator gets a cut of the profits.
We've been using the parking system in the article in my town for the last two years or so. I think it works really well here, but this is a pretty small (though densely populated) town. It'd definitely be annoying in a big city. On the plus side though, if it works like it does here the ticket you get works is good for the entire town. It's not tied to a specific spot.
My understanding of the term was always that the speaker was supposed to be on crack, not the subject. Sort of like Jon Stewart's character in Half Baked. So Google Wave would be akin to experiencing email while on crack.
Portal was indeed an amusing game.
I haven't played Eat Lead (and probably never will) but from the videos I've seen it looks pretty funny as well (the gameplay doesn't look very good though).
It may vary by location (like many of the prices do) but here in NY the quarter pounder isn't on the dollar menu. Here (in the suburbs of NYC) it's about $3 (and higher in the city).
I live just over the bridge from NYC and have the basic Optimum plan (Cablevision) and virtually always get 12 down. I don't upload big files very often, so I'm not sure what sort of upstream I get.
That isn't a technical problem, but a bureaucratic one. Rock Band was originally planned to have cross-platform play, but neither Microsoft or Sony would allow it.
EA uses their own servers (rather than the Xbox Live servers) and I've heard that they actually have to add code to STOP players from different platforms from connecting with each other (I guess they use the same servers for all platforms).
It is happening (though you're right, not on a huge scale), chiefly to people with old 60gb models (like me). I actually had the same exact problem as the OP. Halfway through RE5 my laser crapped out. I shelled out 75 bucks and got a new one, but during my research I found tons of people having the same problem.
The reason it's not reported much is because:
- The occurrence of the problem seems to be relatively low (supposedly less than 1% of all PS3s)
- The PS3 has a smaller install base with a slower uptake than the 360. It seems to be happening to mainly the launch/early models (which most people don't have), but the fear is that in a year or two the newer models will have the same problem.
- It's covered by the one-year warranty and relatively easy to fix yourself if it's out of warranty. Sometimes it's not even the cause of a dead last; just a dusty one, so you don't even have to buy any replacement parts.
When my laser broke I was interested in buying a new one straight from Sony. There's apparently a bad replacement model of the laser (you can spot the difference because it has a white clip instead of a brown one) Of course, they can't offer anything like that, because it'd be admitting that there's a problem, so you just have to try your chances with 3rd party vendors and hope that their image is accurate and not just a stock photo.
The plot of the game is actually about foreigner powers exploiting Africa and its people. It's an anti-colonial message really.
And I don't think the whole Africa thing has hurt the game at all. I've followed the discussion pretty closely ever since the first trailer was released. In my estimation it seems like must people discussing the racial issue were doing it as little more than an intellectual exercise of sorts. I haven't seen much talk of boycotting the game or anything like that and there's been little coverage of it in the mainstream media.
The demo had two areas: 'Public Assembly' which was a huge open area with tons of enemies (obviously meant to be similar to the first village scene in RE4) and 'Shanty Town' which was more slow paced and linear and much better for getting to know the game. The full game is mostly areas similar to Shanty Town.
A big part of the Resident Evil series has always been about conserving supplies and avoiding combat when possible. That changed a little in RE4 and more so in this new one, but a few stages, like Public Assembly, rely on that mechanic. The goal for the uninitiated is to simply survive until backup arrives.
Of course, once you get more acquainted with the game it's possible to take out all of the enemies yourself. If you shoot the guy with the loudspeaker through the window at the beginning it greatly reduced the number of enemies that show up throughout the level. Then there's tons of environmental hazards (explosive barrels, transformers, etc.) you can use to take out the executioner and the few remaining enemies. There's also plenty of hidden weapons and ammo and even a couple of sniper perches that one player can position themselves on while the other takes care of things on the ground.
Anyone who's been a fan of the series will tell you that the game strayed away from its roots with RE4, which is true. RE5 doesn't really do anything new for the series, it's essentially RE4 with some of the mechanics from RE:Outbreak thrown in. If you haven't played a Resident Evil game before I think RE5 is a good one to start with. If you have played RE4 then the single player will feel like a watered down version of that game, but the co-op makes up for it.
If you've played the older games and didn't play/like RE4 chances are RE5 isn't for you.
I used to work at the local Best Buy and, like most big retailers, they had us pushing the service plans and other stupid add-ons (magazine subscriptions, credit cards, etc). While they never told us to lie, they'd often tell us to omit mentioning any potential negatives unless the customer specifically asked about it.
Best Buy employees don't work on commission, true, but of course they gave more hours to the people that managed to get more customers to sign up for service plans. There's nothing wrong with that. Now, most of my co-workers were honest people; it wasn't uncommon to see some of them give the customers faulty information, but it was usually out of ignorance rather than trying to purposely be deceptive.
There was a handful of people, though, that would tell outright falsehoods to customers to get them to get a service plan or what have you. There was one employee in particular that would sign people up for the magazine subscriptions without even asking then (the 'free' trial that they charge you for after the 8th week if you don't cancel).
Of course, since I worked Customer Service I was the one who had to deal with all of the angry customers. Easily the most stressful job I've ever had. On the one side I had customers venting their frustrations at me. Then, with the way Best Buy's hierarchy is set up (there were about 12 managers, all with the same level of authority and conflicting sets of instructions) it was chaos trying to figure out exactly what they expected from me. So, I simply stuck to the official store policy and, of course, I got 'spoken to' (but not written up, because they really wouldn't have a leg to stand on) for accepting too many returns even though I was following company policy to the letter. After putting up with that shit for two years, I'd finally had enough and quit.
I suppose I'm going off on a tangent here, so let me get back on topic. I think that, with the exception of a few people, most retail employees loathe using lying to people, even if only through omission. Unfortunately, the way the system is setup, there isn't really much of a choice. I was fortunate enough that I could afford to quit a job that I hated (and that was back when the economy was still relatively good). But not everyone has that luxury. If you have a family to support or are a student paying your own tuition (as a lot of my co-workers were) it's not really an option. When I was working at Best Buy, the only people there that seemed to genuinely enjoy their job, other than the managers, were the people working in the warehouse (away from the customers). Most everyone else just sort of begrudgingly accepted that things could be worse and did their best to bear it.
"foreboding" sounds in the distance aren't scary because you know they aren't associated with enemies, just part of the level script.
I have to disagree with you on that one. Rarely, when it comes to any form of art, can you deal in absolutes. I'd say stage and audio design play a huge role in the scare factor of horror games. The prison section of Silent Hill 2 was one of the creepiest things I've ever played in a game, not because of the normal enemies, but because of the way the area is designed. In some of the cells there appears to be movement, but because the game uses cinematic camera angles you can't really make out exactly what's there, if anything.
In some of the rooms you can also hear what sounds like heavy footsteps and/or something banging on a wall. So expect a big monster, but nothing. Then, building on that expectation once you get towards the end of the area there's a huge room (the kind that you'd expect a boss battle to take place in) with nothing but a simple puzzle towards the front of the room. So of course, if you're at least a little familiar with standard video game tradition you expect that after you solve the puzzle you'll have to fight a boss; probably that thing you heard earlier, but when you do solve the puzzle... nothing happens.
The way I see it the best way to make a game scary is to build tension within the player's mind. Make then THINK something is coming but keep wondering what it is and when it'll finally show up. Then, to keep them on their toes, ensure that you play to their expectations some of the time and against them some of the time.
Then why did I only see about 200 people total in the entire world last night?
That's just part of the way Home works. Each individual area is instanced with a handful of random people, sort of like the public chatrooms you see on Yahoo and the like. I think about 50 or so per area. So even if there are 10,000 people in Home you'll only run into a handful of them in a session.
I found nothing I could unlock. And if I couldn't, no average person who doesn't have four hours to kill on a Thursday night is going to.
I believe (though I'm not entirely certain) that you can unlock each arcade game for your own 'space...' if you beat it in one of the public spaces. It seems kind of counter-intuitive though, especially since you have to wait for the public ones to free up. The idea of spending real cash to buy virtual items has always rubbed me the wrong way, and although I knew that Home would use that model for a long time now, I sort of assumed that it would be a "grind to unlock or pay to skip the grind" sort of thing that a lot of Asian MMOs do.
Why would you invite people this way? It is much, much easier to simply start up the game and send out an invite.
Up until last night I was pretty excited for Home. Not for Home itself, but because I recall reading an interview long ago that mentioned that all of the features of Home (in terms of partying and invites) would be added to the XMB. That's clearly not the case right now, but I'd like to believe that it's just because Home is still in beta.
No. A lot of people have no idea how much they'll enjoy it until they've tried it.
Very, very true, but around here, though, most big box retailers have the demo setup for people to try for free. Additionally, it seems there are very few arcades these days in any place that isn't SoCal.
Warhawk also keeps you from playing the same 'key' on 2 different consoles in a 24 hours period.
Just to be clear, Warhawk is the only downloadable game with such restrictive DRM on PSN. All of the other games are pretty loose when it comes to DRM. You can play them on any account on the system and even download them on up to 4 other systems. A lot of people take advantage of that fact to share games amongst their circle of friends.
I think the reason Warhawk does it the way it does is because it was one of the first 'full' games up on PSN while also being available through retail. I believe they're putting Burnout Paradise up for download on Thursday, so we'll see if the ultra-restrictive DRM is a mandated thing or just a bad decision by the publisher (Sony, in this case).
Slashdot Mirror
In TF2 hats are the rarest and most sought-after items. The vast majority of hats are purely cosmetic (there are 4 hats that are part of class sets that give you a bonus if you wear all of the items in the set). There isn't really any 'grinding' in TF2. The way the drop system works you receive an entirely random drop every once in awhile just for playing. Most of the time it's a weapon, but very very rarely it's a hat. There's a limit to how many drops you can get per week (I think it's 8, but I'm not positive) and it takes about 8 hours of playtime to hit your limit. If you don't get all of your items for the week the extras will roll over into the next week. All weapons can be found via random drops, gained through class-specific achievements, traded for or crafted. If you're trying to get a specific weapon it's extremely easy to do so.
An important thing to note is that even if you find you don't have the time to play for drops you can still get all of your drops for the week. Since the only requirement is being in-game for 8 hours a week you can simply run TF2 in offline and text only modes while you sleep one night and you'll get all of your drops for the week.
It's also important to point out that most weapons and set bonuses are 'sidegrades' to the default ones. That is, they do something better but also have a drawback. They're very much designed to foster different playstyles than they are straight upgrades. For example, the Pyro's "Backburner" flamethrower does more standard damage and always does critical (3x) damage from behind, but doesn't have the ability to airblast like the standard flamethrower. The airblast is a very versatile and useful ability that can be used to reflect projectiles back at attackers, extinguish burning teammates and push enemies away (usually to keep them from destroying sentry guns or off of cliffs to their deaths).
One other thing to keep in mind is that many of the items in TF2 were designed by players in the community and not Valve themselves. Anytime one of those community-made items sells in the store the creator gets a cut of the profits.
Jesse Schell gave a really interesting presentation on achievements at DICE. You can see the video here: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/702668/dice-2010-video-design-outside-the-box.html
Look into Guitar Rising and LittleBigStar.
The ones me have here have solar panels. I'm not sure if they're hooked up to the grid as well, but I would assume so.
We've been using the parking system in the article in my town for the last two years or so. I think it works really well here, but this is a pretty small (though densely populated) town. It'd definitely be annoying in a big city. On the plus side though, if it works like it does here the ticket you get works is good for the entire town. It's not tied to a specific spot.
To be fair, he never said that what the radio plays was crap; he said "radio is crap" and explained why, as a service, he doesn't care for radio.
My understanding of the term was always that the speaker was supposed to be on crack, not the subject. Sort of like Jon Stewart's character in Half Baked. So Google Wave would be akin to experiencing email while on crack.
Portal was indeed an amusing game. I haven't played Eat Lead (and probably never will) but from the videos I've seen it looks pretty funny as well (the gameplay doesn't look very good though).
the most popular console is the weakest machine
Which has, historically, almost always been the case. In reverse chronological order: PS2 over stronger Xbox and GC, PSX over stonger N64
I'm pretty sure the Dreamcast and Saturn were weaker than the PS2 and PS1 respectively.
It may vary by location (like many of the prices do) but here in NY the quarter pounder isn't on the dollar menu. Here (in the suburbs of NYC) it's about $3 (and higher in the city).
The Stonecutters!
I live just over the bridge from NYC and have the basic Optimum plan (Cablevision) and virtually always get 12 down. I don't upload big files very often, so I'm not sure what sort of upstream I get.
Keystoning is a pretty common thing in retail. I don't think this is really news.
That isn't a technical problem, but a bureaucratic one. Rock Band was originally planned to have cross-platform play, but neither Microsoft or Sony would allow it.
EA uses their own servers (rather than the Xbox Live servers) and I've heard that they actually have to add code to STOP players from different platforms from connecting with each other (I guess they use the same servers for all platforms).
It is happening (though you're right, not on a huge scale), chiefly to people with old 60gb models (like me). I actually had the same exact problem as the OP. Halfway through RE5 my laser crapped out. I shelled out 75 bucks and got a new one, but during my research I found tons of people having the same problem.
The reason it's not reported much is because:
- The occurrence of the problem seems to be relatively low (supposedly less than 1% of all PS3s)
- The PS3 has a smaller install base with a slower uptake than the 360. It seems to be happening to mainly the launch/early models (which most people don't have), but the fear is that in a year or two the newer models will have the same problem.
- It's covered by the one-year warranty and relatively easy to fix yourself if it's out of warranty. Sometimes it's not even the cause of a dead last; just a dusty one, so you don't even have to buy any replacement parts.
When my laser broke I was interested in buying a new one straight from Sony. There's apparently a bad replacement model of the laser (you can spot the difference because it has a white clip instead of a brown one) Of course, they can't offer anything like that, because it'd be admitting that there's a problem, so you just have to try your chances with 3rd party vendors and hope that their image is accurate and not just a stock photo.
The plot of the game is actually about foreigner powers exploiting Africa and its people. It's an anti-colonial message really.
And I don't think the whole Africa thing has hurt the game at all. I've followed the discussion pretty closely ever since the first trailer was released. In my estimation it seems like must people discussing the racial issue were doing it as little more than an intellectual exercise of sorts. I haven't seen much talk of boycotting the game or anything like that and there's been little coverage of it in the mainstream media.
The demo had two areas: 'Public Assembly' which was a huge open area with tons of enemies (obviously meant to be similar to the first village scene in RE4) and 'Shanty Town' which was more slow paced and linear and much better for getting to know the game. The full game is mostly areas similar to Shanty Town.
A big part of the Resident Evil series has always been about conserving supplies and avoiding combat when possible. That changed a little in RE4 and more so in this new one, but a few stages, like Public Assembly, rely on that mechanic. The goal for the uninitiated is to simply survive until backup arrives.
Of course, once you get more acquainted with the game it's possible to take out all of the enemies yourself. If you shoot the guy with the loudspeaker through the window at the beginning it greatly reduced the number of enemies that show up throughout the level. Then there's tons of environmental hazards (explosive barrels, transformers, etc.) you can use to take out the executioner and the few remaining enemies. There's also plenty of hidden weapons and ammo and even a couple of sniper perches that one player can position themselves on while the other takes care of things on the ground.
Anyone who's been a fan of the series will tell you that the game strayed away from its roots with RE4, which is true. RE5 doesn't really do anything new for the series, it's essentially RE4 with some of the mechanics from RE:Outbreak thrown in. If you haven't played a Resident Evil game before I think RE5 is a good one to start with. If you have played RE4 then the single player will feel like a watered down version of that game, but the co-op makes up for it.
If you've played the older games and didn't play/like RE4 chances are RE5 isn't for you.
I used to work at the local Best Buy and, like most big retailers, they had us pushing the service plans and other stupid add-ons (magazine subscriptions, credit cards, etc). While they never told us to lie, they'd often tell us to omit mentioning any potential negatives unless the customer specifically asked about it.
Best Buy employees don't work on commission, true, but of course they gave more hours to the people that managed to get more customers to sign up for service plans. There's nothing wrong with that. Now, most of my co-workers were honest people; it wasn't uncommon to see some of them give the customers faulty information, but it was usually out of ignorance rather than trying to purposely be deceptive.
There was a handful of people, though, that would tell outright falsehoods to customers to get them to get a service plan or what have you. There was one employee in particular that would sign people up for the magazine subscriptions without even asking then (the 'free' trial that they charge you for after the 8th week if you don't cancel).
Of course, since I worked Customer Service I was the one who had to deal with all of the angry customers. Easily the most stressful job I've ever had. On the one side I had customers venting their frustrations at me. Then, with the way Best Buy's hierarchy is set up (there were about 12 managers, all with the same level of authority and conflicting sets of instructions) it was chaos trying to figure out exactly what they expected from me. So, I simply stuck to the official store policy and, of course, I got 'spoken to' (but not written up, because they really wouldn't have a leg to stand on) for accepting too many returns even though I was following company policy to the letter. After putting up with that shit for two years, I'd finally had enough and quit.
I suppose I'm going off on a tangent here, so let me get back on topic. I think that, with the exception of a few people, most retail employees loathe using lying to people, even if only through omission. Unfortunately, the way the system is setup, there isn't really much of a choice. I was fortunate enough that I could afford to quit a job that I hated (and that was back when the economy was still relatively good). But not everyone has that luxury. If you have a family to support or are a student paying your own tuition (as a lot of my co-workers were) it's not really an option. When I was working at Best Buy, the only people there that seemed to genuinely enjoy their job, other than the managers, were the people working in the warehouse (away from the customers). Most everyone else just sort of begrudgingly accepted that things could be worse and did their best to bear it.
"foreboding" sounds in the distance aren't scary because you know they aren't associated with enemies, just part of the level script.
I have to disagree with you on that one. Rarely, when it comes to any form of art, can you deal in absolutes. I'd say stage and audio design play a huge role in the scare factor of horror games. The prison section of Silent Hill 2 was one of the creepiest things I've ever played in a game, not because of the normal enemies, but because of the way the area is designed. In some of the cells there appears to be movement, but because the game uses cinematic camera angles you can't really make out exactly what's there, if anything.
In some of the rooms you can also hear what sounds like heavy footsteps and/or something banging on a wall. So expect a big monster, but nothing. Then, building on that expectation once you get towards the end of the area there's a huge room (the kind that you'd expect a boss battle to take place in) with nothing but a simple puzzle towards the front of the room. So of course, if you're at least a little familiar with standard video game tradition you expect that after you solve the puzzle you'll have to fight a boss; probably that thing you heard earlier, but when you do solve the puzzle... nothing happens.
The way I see it the best way to make a game scary is to build tension within the player's mind. Make then THINK something is coming but keep wondering what it is and when it'll finally show up. Then, to keep them on their toes, ensure that you play to their expectations some of the time and against them some of the time.
Then why did I only see about 200 people total in the entire world last night?
That's just part of the way Home works. Each individual area is instanced with a handful of random people, sort of like the public chatrooms you see on Yahoo and the like. I think about 50 or so per area. So even if there are 10,000 people in Home you'll only run into a handful of them in a session.
I found nothing I could unlock. And if I couldn't, no average person who doesn't have four hours to kill on a Thursday night is going to.
I believe (though I'm not entirely certain) that you can unlock each arcade game for your own 'space...' if you beat it in one of the public spaces. It seems kind of counter-intuitive though, especially since you have to wait for the public ones to free up. The idea of spending real cash to buy virtual items has always rubbed me the wrong way, and although I knew that Home would use that model for a long time now, I sort of assumed that it would be a "grind to unlock or pay to skip the grind" sort of thing that a lot of Asian MMOs do.
Why would you invite people this way? It is much, much easier to simply start up the game and send out an invite.
Up until last night I was pretty excited for Home. Not for Home itself, but because I recall reading an interview long ago that mentioned that all of the features of Home (in terms of partying and invites) would be added to the XMB. That's clearly not the case right now, but I'd like to believe that it's just because Home is still in beta.
No. A lot of people have no idea how much they'll enjoy it until they've tried it.
Very, very true, but around here, though, most big box retailers have the demo setup for people to try for free. Additionally, it seems there are very few arcades these days in any place that isn't SoCal.
Obligatory Image
Actually, GTA does give you a 'Stunt Bonus' for doing crazy things in a car.
18 Mbps down / 1.36 Mbs up
Optimum
New York Suburb, USA
Warhawk also keeps you from playing the same 'key' on 2 different consoles in a 24 hours period.
Just to be clear, Warhawk is the only downloadable game with such restrictive DRM on PSN. All of the other games are pretty loose when it comes to DRM. You can play them on any account on the system and even download them on up to 4 other systems. A lot of people take advantage of that fact to share games amongst their circle of friends.
I think the reason Warhawk does it the way it does is because it was one of the first 'full' games up on PSN while also being available through retail. I believe they're putting Burnout Paradise up for download on Thursday, so we'll see if the ultra-restrictive DRM is a mandated thing or just a bad decision by the publisher (Sony, in this case).