In World of Warcraft, the grind from 1 - 60 isn't really that bad IMO. I've seen worse in other titles such as FFXI. What's really a bad grind in WoW is the 60 - Uber 60. And there is a huge difference between a 60 with greens and a 60 with purples.
After leveing 2 characters to 60 and a few others past 40, I started doing the MC grind on one of my 60's and for a while it was fun. Then for a while it was sorta fun and sorta getting repetitive. Then it got difficult to always get a spot in the raid, yet you didn't really care half the time since it was getting repetitive anyway. At this point of it basically being boring, not getting in, etc I've got about half of giantstalker and uh, nothing else, not even Strikers.
Anyway... 8 months later I notice they've made battlegrounds multi-server so I go back and see what that's all about. I figure this time I'll focus more on PvP, hopefully they add in some more content in the PvP area instead of more raid trash. Of course now that I'm skeptical on having content I want delivered I'm back to 1 mo. subscrip instead of the 6 mo. cycle I started on. If they don't deliver I can always cancel any month and go back if it looks like something I want to do is there.
Linux binary support under OpenBSD is surprisingly good; you might give that a whirl. Just install the port emulators/redhat, execute 'sysctl kern.emul.linux=1', and change/etc/sysctl.conf. Then use a Linux JRE.
The Linux support is actually so good that I got a dedicated Quake 3 linux server binary running on my OBSD box:)
Most music is recorded in analog because it does sound warmer.
This is a rather odd way to describe music, and I really have no idea what "warm" or "cold" sounds like. If I had to guess what warm was I'd think of soothing / relaxing type sounds, based on relating warm 'touch' -> warm 'sound'? Anyway, if that's actually the case I'll take my music raw and cold since I mostly listen to Hard Rock / Alternative Rock / Metal.
I played this Star Wars game in a demo kiosk one time. The guy pretty much was swinging the lightsabre the way I was using the right thumstick. With a bit of finetunage that's really good enough for me. I think it's nice to see nintendo attempting it, but I have this feeling like it's not always going to feel right in actual useage. Assuming the device itself is accurate and responsive enough it'll really be up to the programmers to make it a good alternative to traditional control types.
For starters, stand close enough to the TV that you are inhaling (and smelling) O3. Now look at the screen while touching the controller, eating cheeze puffs, and screaming into your mic as you get fragged.
If you sit down and watch the spore demo on google video, the narrator clearly establishes what that 'asynchronous multiplayer' jargon is. So yes, they have come out and said exactly what it is for anyone who can be bothered to actually watch the video. I have no delusions about what it is and what it isn't, and I thought it very well established the scope of the game. When the game is released I'm sure plenty of review articles (such as in PC gamer, Gamespot, etc) will probably cover the topic yet again. Speculation will only result from people who don't even try to inform themselves.
Under my model, "piracy" (skip the word debates, please) is not the act of downloading something, it's the act of actually viewing/hearing it. If you download something and immediately delete it, it's not piracy.
Which is of course what I do with all my downloads. See also my new firefox extension, "Download and Delete". Very useful as it completely streamlines the process by automatically deleting downloads on completion.
It's possible in theory, but in practice it's too expensive.
Perhaps that's too expensive on both sides though. You have to produce and market the hardware. Users seem willing enough to purchase a portable device to play their music on, but if they need a PCI card or some such on the PC end that's another device you need to get the consumer to buy. DRM is something the normal consumer does not want. With the current situation most users already have a computer so providing a free application that allows them to purchase DRM'd music has been somewhat successful.
Your reference to MMO's sounds a bit odd and unrelated. The only reason you would be able to circumvent that is if the client had all the information on hand, but wasn't allowed to touch some of it due to some restriction imposed when reading the data. Maybe in order to reduce network load and the like, the server might send what could be considered "too much" information and rely on client end to decide what it wants to see, but I don't think I would design it like that if it was my code.
In the land of the DRM, the client *needs* to have all the information in hand. The media, the cypher, and the key. When you have all that on hand, there really isn't any way to be secure anymore. It's really only a matter of time to work out the details.
Have you never had a bug in software you've released?
Nope, that's just high energy neutrons impacting your PC causing soft errors during execution. Oh don't worry, when the sun finally consumes itself that code will run fine:)
You won't even be able to compete at all! I'd estimate a 230% increase in productivity with the transparent window feature. It's like working with superman x-ray vision. Wait, nevermind, typical corporate workstation doesn't meet the specs for Aero mode.
Take a look at Blizzard's entire track record and there's not really anything groundsbreaking original in there. What Blizzard does it take a good idea, one that has had some success, and they improve on that idea to have *more* success than the previous incarnation. Take Warcraft for example (starting with the actual RTS). It had been done, and most people will point to "Dune" as the innovator. Take Diablo for example, it's basically a roguelike so you could say rogue, nethack, or anything in that genre. Obviously MMO's were not new, Blizzard just took it and molded it to make more money.
I think it's a good thing to have ideas improved upon and perfected like this, and it helps set somewhat of an industry standard for a certain level of quality. I've played just about every Blizzard game ever made, including that stuff with Interplay back on old consoles and they do make fun games, even if it's just taking an idea and going further with it. I have issues with WoW and went back to Frozen Throne, but it was a good year of gaming.
Re:Consumers don't care about their privacy
on
The Death of Privacy
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· Score: 1
Do You own a GMail account?
Yes, and it's actually my most spam free email account out of all my email accounts.
And yes, I actually do use it for some stuff. My general rule is if I actually BUY something from the site they can have the holy gmail address. If I'm not going to buy anything from them, they get the "almost never checked except to validate registration" email address. It's not bulletproof but with at least this minimum precaution the account is at least still useable.
Assuming the game is fun...
If a company can deliver on both then more power to them. My real point is if I had to choose between gameplay and graphics in an XOR situation I'd pick gameplay. If I can have my cake and eat it too the choice is obvious.
Perhaps a bit cryptic but I think KlomDark is right. Companies put way too much focus in the multimedia aspects of their projects and not nearly enough on the difficult to define "fun" factor of gaming. It's to the point now where that cannot be a games selling point, that it looks better than other game xyz. Sure, eyecandy is nice, but if the game doesn't have that magic that makes you not want to put it down until just one more hour... just one more hour... oh well maybe just one more hour and then I'll stop... OK OK one more...
I'd guess many gamers would be more than satisfied with the visuals / sounds / etc that can fit on a DVD as long as the game had those killapp type properties.
Which is one of my big issues with WoW. The shards are really small it seems. Multishard PvP is a step in the right direction I suppose, not enough for me to reactivate though. Based on previous battle.net setup schemes I was actually expecting 2 US servers, East / West. I also had these very cool ideas that somehow World PvP would involve controlling towns and therefore their resources, etc. It looks like they are finally catching on to what some people were expecting... it just feels like too little too late. Something like this would have been better addressed in the initial design, just like how anything interesting about PvP has been an afterthought.
Which is really disappointing that the focus got so firmly put into PvE type stuff. Just about every game blizzard has made has been very competitive in the online area. WoW's starting to catchup, but I'd say it still hasn't even caught up to something like their previous Warcraft III / Frozen Throne online "PvP" experience.
I'd say "inherently broken" is a rather narrow point of view, and definately not what I think when I read that. I'd consider unsigned kernel mode code to be more flexable, and if used correctly to be a better feature than not having it. You are implying that it's always going to be misused.
I don't think "jumping" to linux would really be a choice they could make. I suppose if they wanted to release their own binary build to run on linux which would be able to handle playback that might be an option. As far as getting it packaged into any of the popular builds I think most distros would be strongly opposed to including this kind of thing in their standard package.
Then again this is talking about kernel level insecurity, so providing a binary application while still having the kernel wide open might still not be compatible with their goal.
I think the idealist mindset is that everything should be both free and open. The whole idea behind DRM is completely opposite, expensive and closed.
and had never heard of "Unichrome" -- that has got to be the most uniniviting name for a GPU ever.
They're very low-end, (used in cheap laptops, via's embedded line, etc) so if your a windows-gamer-fanboy, you're not going to have heard of them. (and if you judge a card by its name, you have bigger problems than that).
I have to agree that Unichrom is a rather unimpressive name for a GPU.
Now if it were something like X Unichrome950X XGTOX... now that's a card name.
Employee1:"Hey that motion senitive remote sorta looks like a sword doesn't it?"
Employee2:"Wow, you're right, it kinda does look like one..."
Employee1:"We should let the player attack with it!"
Employee2:"And we could include some sword decal stickers in the box!"
Seriously I would have been more surprised if they didn't think of doing this. What I'm finding odd is it sounds like there is gonna be a gamecube version as well. Doesn't that sorta defeat the whole "killer app" idea? All they need to do is publish that new metroid on the GC and people will be questioning exactly why they even to get a Wii.
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In World of Warcraft, the grind from 1 - 60 isn't really that bad IMO. I've seen worse in other titles such as FFXI. What's really a bad grind in WoW is the 60 - Uber 60. And there is a huge difference between a 60 with greens and a 60 with purples.
After leveing 2 characters to 60 and a few others past 40, I started doing the MC grind on one of my 60's and for a while it was fun. Then for a while it was sorta fun and sorta getting repetitive. Then it got difficult to always get a spot in the raid, yet you didn't really care half the time since it was getting repetitive anyway. At this point of it basically being boring, not getting in, etc I've got about half of giantstalker and uh, nothing else, not even Strikers.
Anyway... 8 months later I notice they've made battlegrounds multi-server so I go back and see what that's all about. I figure this time I'll focus more on PvP, hopefully they add in some more content in the PvP area instead of more raid trash. Of course now that I'm skeptical on having content I want delivered I'm back to 1 mo. subscrip instead of the 6 mo. cycle I started on. If they don't deliver I can always cancel any month and go back if it looks like something I want to do is there.
Linux binary support under OpenBSD is surprisingly good; you might give that a whirl. Just install the port emulators/redhat, execute 'sysctl kern.emul.linux=1', and change /etc/sysctl.conf. Then use a Linux JRE.
The Linux support is actually so good that I got a dedicated Quake 3 linux server binary running on my OBSD box :)
Most music is recorded in analog because it does sound warmer.
This is a rather odd way to describe music, and I really have no idea what "warm" or "cold" sounds like. If I had to guess what warm was I'd think of soothing / relaxing type sounds, based on relating warm 'touch' -> warm 'sound'? Anyway, if that's actually the case I'll take my music raw and cold since I mostly listen to Hard Rock / Alternative Rock / Metal.
I played this Star Wars game in a demo kiosk one time. The guy pretty much was swinging the lightsabre the way I was using the right thumstick. With a bit of finetunage that's really good enough for me. I think it's nice to see nintendo attempting it, but I have this feeling like it's not always going to feel right in actual useage. Assuming the device itself is accurate and responsive enough it'll really be up to the programmers to make it a good alternative to traditional control types.
The general public already has their hands full trying to understand all this technological mumbo-jumbo. Let's not spread more FUD.
DRM is like a condom. Only you can't take it off. You can have a lot of fun while wearing the condom, but you can't reproduce.
For starters, stand close enough to the TV that you are inhaling (and smelling) O3. Now look at the screen while touching the controller, eating cheeze puffs, and screaming into your mic as you get fragged.
If you sit down and watch the spore demo on google video, the narrator clearly establishes what that 'asynchronous multiplayer' jargon is. So yes, they have come out and said exactly what it is for anyone who can be bothered to actually watch the video. I have no delusions about what it is and what it isn't, and I thought it very well established the scope of the game. When the game is released I'm sure plenty of review articles (such as in PC gamer, Gamespot, etc) will probably cover the topic yet again. Speculation will only result from people who don't even try to inform themselves.
Under my model, "piracy" (skip the word debates, please) is not the act of downloading something, it's the act of actually viewing/hearing it. If you download something and immediately delete it, it's not piracy.
Which is of course what I do with all my downloads. See also my new firefox extension, "Download and Delete". Very useful as it completely streamlines the process by automatically deleting downloads on completion.
It's possible in theory, but in practice it's too expensive.
Perhaps that's too expensive on both sides though. You have to produce and market the hardware. Users seem willing enough to purchase a portable device to play their music on, but if they need a PCI card or some such on the PC end that's another device you need to get the consumer to buy. DRM is something the normal consumer does not want. With the current situation most users already have a computer so providing a free application that allows them to purchase DRM'd music has been somewhat successful.
Your reference to MMO's sounds a bit odd and unrelated. The only reason you would be able to circumvent that is if the client had all the information on hand, but wasn't allowed to touch some of it due to some restriction imposed when reading the data. Maybe in order to reduce network load and the like, the server might send what could be considered "too much" information and rely on client end to decide what it wants to see, but I don't think I would design it like that if it was my code.
In the land of the DRM, the client *needs* to have all the information in hand. The media, the cypher, and the key. When you have all that on hand, there really isn't any way to be secure anymore. It's really only a matter of time to work out the details.
because who really needs 128MB of RAM or 3GHz to check grannies email?
Not for email obviously. I'd say to play HD-DVD's but I'm pretty sure those specs are too low for that anyway.
Have you never had a bug in software you've released?
Nope, that's just high energy neutrons impacting your PC causing soft errors during execution. Oh don't worry, when the sun finally consumes itself that code will run fine :)
You won't even be able to compete at all! I'd estimate a 230% increase in productivity with the transparent window feature. It's like working with superman x-ray vision. Wait, nevermind, typical corporate workstation doesn't meet the specs for Aero mode.
By ripping off Everquest?
Take a look at Blizzard's entire track record and there's not really anything groundsbreaking original in there. What Blizzard does it take a good idea, one that has had some success, and they improve on that idea to have *more* success than the previous incarnation. Take Warcraft for example (starting with the actual RTS). It had been done, and most people will point to "Dune" as the innovator. Take Diablo for example, it's basically a roguelike so you could say rogue, nethack, or anything in that genre. Obviously MMO's were not new, Blizzard just took it and molded it to make more money.
I think it's a good thing to have ideas improved upon and perfected like this, and it helps set somewhat of an industry standard for a certain level of quality. I've played just about every Blizzard game ever made, including that stuff with Interplay back on old consoles and they do make fun games, even if it's just taking an idea and going further with it. I have issues with WoW and went back to Frozen Throne, but it was a good year of gaming.
Do You own a GMail account?
Yes, and it's actually my most spam free email account out of all my email accounts.
And yes, I actually do use it for some stuff. My general rule is if I actually BUY something from the site they can have the holy gmail address. If I'm not going to buy anything from them, they get the "almost never checked except to validate registration" email address. It's not bulletproof but with at least this minimum precaution the account is at least still useable.
[god@earth:~]# vi /etc/grav.conf
No sorry, you cannot have both. We're talking about actual games here not theoretical ones.
Assuming the game is fun... If a company can deliver on both then more power to them. My real point is if I had to choose between gameplay and graphics in an XOR situation I'd pick gameplay. If I can have my cake and eat it too the choice is obvious.
Perhaps a bit cryptic but I think KlomDark is right. Companies put way too much focus in the multimedia aspects of their projects and not nearly enough on the difficult to define "fun" factor of gaming. It's to the point now where that cannot be a games selling point, that it looks better than other game xyz. Sure, eyecandy is nice, but if the game doesn't have that magic that makes you not want to put it down until just one more hour... just one more hour... oh well maybe just one more hour and then I'll stop... OK OK one more...
I'd guess many gamers would be more than satisfied with the visuals / sounds / etc that can fit on a DVD as long as the game had those killapp type properties.
Which is one of my big issues with WoW. The shards are really small it seems. Multishard PvP is a step in the right direction I suppose, not enough for me to reactivate though. Based on previous battle.net setup schemes I was actually expecting 2 US servers, East / West. I also had these very cool ideas that somehow World PvP would involve controlling towns and therefore their resources, etc. It looks like they are finally catching on to what some people were expecting... it just feels like too little too late. Something like this would have been better addressed in the initial design, just like how anything interesting about PvP has been an afterthought. Which is really disappointing that the focus got so firmly put into PvE type stuff. Just about every game blizzard has made has been very competitive in the online area. WoW's starting to catchup, but I'd say it still hasn't even caught up to something like their previous Warcraft III / Frozen Throne online "PvP" experience.
I'd say "inherently broken" is a rather narrow point of view, and definately not what I think when I read that. I'd consider unsigned kernel mode code to be more flexable, and if used correctly to be a better feature than not having it. You are implying that it's always going to be misused.
I don't think "jumping" to linux would really be a choice they could make. I suppose if they wanted to release their own binary build to run on linux which would be able to handle playback that might be an option. As far as getting it packaged into any of the popular builds I think most distros would be strongly opposed to including this kind of thing in their standard package.
Then again this is talking about kernel level insecurity, so providing a binary application while still having the kernel wide open might still not be compatible with their goal.
I think the idealist mindset is that everything should be both free and open. The whole idea behind DRM is completely opposite, expensive and closed.
Now if it were something like X Unichrome950X XGTOX... now that's a card name.
Employee2:"Wow, you're right, it kinda does look like one..."
Employee1:"We should let the player attack with it!"
Employee2:"And we could include some sword decal stickers in the box!"
Seriously I would have been more surprised if they didn't think of doing this. What I'm finding odd is it sounds like there is gonna be a gamecube version as well. Doesn't that sorta defeat the whole "killer app" idea? All they need to do is publish that new metroid on the GC and people will be questioning exactly why they even to get a Wii.
This is groundbreaking new interface stuff here. Drop down menus with settings? Massive innovation going on here!
As far as that patent, I'd think it would be hard to establish original and non-obvious invention at this point?