I spent 3.5 years playing FFXI, and then moved to WoW for about two before realizing that I couldn't dedicate the amount of time that MMOs demand if I was going to keep a good GPA.
FFXI was an incredibly flawed and frustrating game. The grind was slow, and back when I played, I had to spend all my time coming up with 8.5 million gil for one piece of armor that I'd be fairly nerfed without. It took me several months, and I finally quit from burnout after I made the gil. This was before inflation, so sadly, that'd probably be worth less than a million today.
Anyways, for all its flaws and issues, FFXI was an incredible experience that I still miss a lot. I made friends in that game who I'm still close to now... you spend so much time working with all of the people in your linkshell (guild) that you form really close bonds. Also, since everyone works in parties, there's a real sense of community throughout the server, because you work with hundreds of different people. There was something really extraordinary for me to work with people who I didn't even share a language with, via the few words that you could autotranslate. You could chain your weapon skills and then finish them with a magic burst to do heavy damage in parties, so there had to be good communication. In WoW you can often get by playing really sloppily.
Because WoW was more punishing, there was more tension, and more of a fear of death (you lost sometimes large amounts of experience from dying). The boss battles were sometimes incredibly difficult... I remember finally clearing one after days of trying and feeling absolutely elated.
Lastly, the story is absolutely amazing for an MMO. While many of the quests are your usual "give me x number of items" or whatever, there were some that were really interesting and exciting. There was one that involved a ninja katana and had a creative twist during a cutscene. There were frequent cutscenes, and missions had great plots to them... they took a lot of time to complete, but watching the plot unfold was really rewarding. Another thing FFXI trumped WoW in was atmosphere - there were a lot of interesting and fleshed out characters. I loved the cute Star Onion Brigade of Windurst and all their adventures.
But God, I hated having to walk forever to get somewhere, or get slaughtered by impossible enemies if I didn't have invis and sneak, or put up with moronic party members, or spend my time making money so I could afford to buy ninja tools so I could grind in a party.
Unlike older generations of phones, 3G GSM standard requires base stations to authenticate themselves. Finally, a reason to go out and buy that iPhone.
This makes me think of non-compete clauses that some employees have to agree to before working with a company. Contact with clients is a major asset, so if you leave with clients you're stealing from the company in a way.
You can copyright a game. I remember a few years ago, Hasbro sued Kellogg for having a card matching game on their cereal boxes as part of a Finding Nemo promotion, saying it too closely resembled their Memory card game.
Wizards of the Coast even has a patent for "games, published in the form of trading cards, in which a player selects a collection of tradeable elements and uses that set to compete with other players", so any collectible card game has to pay them royalties.
And when I was younger, everyone was either a Nintendo fan or a Sega fan. We clashed so much that we would have loved a game where you could pit Sonic against Mario.
Um, I've never heard of the "World Series of Video Games" before, which I think is more the issue.
My friends and I compete in the CAL (cyberathlete amateur league).
I don't really understand the purpose of this list. At least the author doesn't pretend that these are the 20 hardest games ever, just 20 difficult games. Mischief Makers, even getting all the gold gems, was a bit of a challenge but not an extremely frustrating one. Lolo wasn't that much harder than a lot of puzzle games I've played. A few of the games on the list were only difficult because they suffered from poor gameplay, silly programming decisions or lousy instructions.
The nice thing about the wii is that you don't need to make drastic movements to use the wii controller, though it's more fun to get into it and wave it wildly:)
Those kinds of people just get frustrated that immmigrants don't magically know English upon entering the United States. I wish they'd imagine what it would be like if they went to live in another country with a different language. People might assume that you're stupid, because you can't speak their language. You might naturally gravitate towards other Americans, because they could understand you and help you.
Oh, and English is a really hard language to learn. It's full of silly rules that make no sense. Even people who learn it at a young age and speak it their whole lives have trouble with it.
I meant that there are more computer gamers (whether "hardcore" gamers, kids playing a Spongebob game, or adults playing sudoku), and a greater variety of them, than with console gamers.
Only a few new console game developers appear each year- the vast majority of games are produced by "older" companies like THQ, SE, EA, Nintendo, Capcom, Sony, M$, etc.
New developers usually start with computer games, because they're easier to develop, can be distributed online, and don't have to be the same scope as console games. Computer gaming is also a much larger audience than consoles.
The one exception to this is the games you can pay to download from XBox Live.
First we were the "Generation Y", then the "Pepsi Generation", then the "Internet Generation", now "Generation M"?
Dammit, if you're going to give us some lame label, stick with one!
Slashdot Mirror
I spent 3.5 years playing FFXI, and then moved to WoW for about two before realizing that I couldn't dedicate the amount of time that MMOs demand if I was going to keep a good GPA.
FFXI was an incredibly flawed and frustrating game. The grind was slow, and back when I played, I had to spend all my time coming up with 8.5 million gil for one piece of armor that I'd be fairly nerfed without. It took me several months, and I finally quit from burnout after I made the gil. This was before inflation, so sadly, that'd probably be worth less than a million today.
Anyways, for all its flaws and issues, FFXI was an incredible experience that I still miss a lot. I made friends in that game who I'm still close to now... you spend so much time working with all of the people in your linkshell (guild) that you form really close bonds. Also, since everyone works in parties, there's a real sense of community throughout the server, because you work with hundreds of different people. There was something really extraordinary for me to work with people who I didn't even share a language with, via the few words that you could autotranslate. You could chain your weapon skills and then finish them with a magic burst to do heavy damage in parties, so there had to be good communication. In WoW you can often get by playing really sloppily.
Because WoW was more punishing, there was more tension, and more of a fear of death (you lost sometimes large amounts of experience from dying). The boss battles were sometimes incredibly difficult... I remember finally clearing one after days of trying and feeling absolutely elated.
Lastly, the story is absolutely amazing for an MMO. While many of the quests are your usual "give me x number of items" or whatever, there were some that were really interesting and exciting. There was one that involved a ninja katana and had a creative twist during a cutscene. There were frequent cutscenes, and missions had great plots to them... they took a lot of time to complete, but watching the plot unfold was really rewarding. Another thing FFXI trumped WoW in was atmosphere - there were a lot of interesting and fleshed out characters. I loved the cute Star Onion Brigade of Windurst and all their adventures.
But God, I hated having to walk forever to get somewhere, or get slaughtered by impossible enemies if I didn't have invis and sneak, or put up with moronic party members, or spend my time making money so I could afford to buy ninja tools so I could grind in a party.
Unlike older generations of phones, 3G GSM standard requires base stations to authenticate themselves. Finally, a reason to go out and buy that iPhone.
This makes me think of non-compete clauses that some employees have to agree to before working with a company. Contact with clients is a major asset, so if you leave with clients you're stealing from the company in a way.
This was on NPR last night. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93218205&ft=1&f=7
You can copyright a game. I remember a few years ago, Hasbro sued Kellogg for having a card matching game on their cereal boxes as part of a Finding Nemo promotion, saying it too closely resembled their Memory card game. Wizards of the Coast even has a patent for "games, published in the form of trading cards, in which a player selects a collection of tradeable elements and uses that set to compete with other players", so any collectible card game has to pay them royalties.
craigslist didn't have any control over that, from my understanding
Hideo Kojima, Sid Meier, Yuji Naka, Gunpei Yokoi, Will Wright
These players were obviously not doing endgame raids.
zomg HACK THE PLANET
I'm in upstate NY and I totally agree. My ex would somehow get around in the winter with his tiny Miata just fine, despite huge amounts of snowfall.
I have been wanting a wearable computer ever since I read about the gargoyles in Snow Crash. Though, for some reason I doubt this will be as cool :(
Haha, I recently bought a box set with Pod People for my boyfriend's birthday. We cracked up so much at that part.
Good to see that people still remember that game, Danielle Berry is one of my personal heroes.
The ones you refer to are 8-bit, not 16-bit.
And when I was younger, everyone was either a Nintendo fan or a Sega fan. We clashed so much that we would have loved a game where you could pit Sonic against Mario.
Um, I've never heard of the "World Series of Video Games" before, which I think is more the issue. My friends and I compete in the CAL (cyberathlete amateur league).
I don't really understand the purpose of this list. At least the author doesn't pretend that these are the 20 hardest games ever, just 20 difficult games. Mischief Makers, even getting all the gold gems, was a bit of a challenge but not an extremely frustrating one. Lolo wasn't that much harder than a lot of puzzle games I've played. A few of the games on the list were only difficult because they suffered from poor gameplay, silly programming decisions or lousy instructions.
Worse than the later Xanth books? Oh God.
Typically, it's the immediate sequel to something (whether it be a system, an album, whatever) that tries to do too much and fails.
Except he can actually scare uninformed people into making poor decisions.
The nice thing about the wii is that you don't need to make drastic movements to use the wii controller, though it's more fun to get into it and wave it wildly :)
Those kinds of people just get frustrated that immmigrants don't magically know English upon entering the United States. I wish they'd imagine what it would be like if they went to live in another country with a different language. People might assume that you're stupid, because you can't speak their language. You might naturally gravitate towards other Americans, because they could understand you and help you. Oh, and English is a really hard language to learn. It's full of silly rules that make no sense. Even people who learn it at a young age and speak it their whole lives have trouble with it.
I meant that there are more computer gamers (whether "hardcore" gamers, kids playing a Spongebob game, or adults playing sudoku), and a greater variety of them, than with console gamers.
Only a few new console game developers appear each year- the vast majority of games are produced by "older" companies like THQ, SE, EA, Nintendo, Capcom, Sony, M$, etc. New developers usually start with computer games, because they're easier to develop, can be distributed online, and don't have to be the same scope as console games. Computer gaming is also a much larger audience than consoles. The one exception to this is the games you can pay to download from XBox Live.
First we were the "Generation Y", then the "Pepsi Generation", then the "Internet Generation", now "Generation M"? Dammit, if you're going to give us some lame label, stick with one!
Kasparov was on NPR's All Things Considered a while ago, and spoke about his move into politics. Here is a link to the interview.