Amen. I'm with you 100%. Linux developers need to step back from ripping-off Windows features and start ripping-off some MacOS features-- and MacOS' install procedure is the perfect place to start.
And look at it this way: When you're done, you can get converts from Windows by telling them how easy installs in Linux are! You can't do that now; at best installs are the same.
But they get the callers anyway! And they have to tell the callers "no we don't support that," which makes their company look really bad even though it's no fault of their own.
Microsoft has that problem in spades. Something like 80-90% of the support calls they get about Windows have nothing to do with Windows, but only about third-party software that's installed. What can Microsoft do other than point people towards the right company to handle it? Nothing. But it makes them look bad and lowers their reputation.
Except every goddamn comment is "oh look we slashdotted it! Ha ha ha it's not running anymore! Ha ha ha oh now it's all melted! Ha ha ha!" Yeah, that joke is funny... especially since it's been posted 15 times a day for the last 5 years.
At least those other stories have comments that aren't completely asinine.
1) Bender's having a 6502 CPU in his brain in the Slurm episode of Futurama, or 2) the movie Time Chasers in which a Commodore 64 (and code stored on a single 5.25" disk) controls a time-travelling Cessna.
I didn't know about the Terminator one until just today.;)
I hate to break this to you, buddy, but Jay Leno's show is a COMEDY show. It's possible, just possible, that this stunt might have been for COMEDIC purposes and isn't a true scientific study.
I'm a Tribes and MechWarrior man. I don't like fast games, I like some strategy.
But if they're original, they should work on making their art as original as the gameplay, because I bet most people (who have played Serious Sam) had the exact same first impression that I had.
The HD isn't innovative because it allows the saving of games, but because it allows:
1) Video games to have some drive cache for textures/sounds/whatnot and not have to hit the optical drive constantly.
2) The download of mods and map plugins for existing games. (Look at what they did with Ninja Gaiden... three downloadable mods, you buy three games for the price of one.)
3) The ripping of CDs which you can later use for videogame soundtracks. Admittedly, not many games made use of this feature, but I enjoyed it in the games that did. (Rob Zombie makes a good videogame soundtrack, no matter what the game.)
And if you think Gamespy is anything like Xbox Live, that just shows that you haven't played Xbox Live in a long time if at all.
---
And add a few things:
1) You can't use flash memory for swap, the *main* advantage of the Xbox's HD. Not unless you don't mind the console dying in 6 months.
2) "At any rate, I would probably buy an XBox if it had more games worth playing. All I ever hear people gushing praise about is Halo, GTA, and a few other games....And it's just not enough to justify buying another console. The fact that the RPG selection is abysmal doesn't help either."
Xbox has tons of good games. The problem is that they are the games that most people don't "gush" about... additionally, all the cross-platform games look, sound, and usually play better on Xbox than on GameCube or PS2.
The Xbox also has more PC-style RPGs than the PS2 and GameCube ever did... given, it doesn't have a lot of RPGs, but I'd MUCH rather play Morrowind over the boring pretentious anime-infected Japanese bullcrap consoles have been stuck with for the last decade. (But tastes vary, of course.)
For the record, I also don't like GTA because I find it too violent. Halo was a 'meh', but Halo 2 really is amazing in pretty much every way. Some of my favorite Xbox games are Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (I don't like the sequel), Defender, Syberia, Simpsons: Hit and Run, Ninja Gaiden (hard!), Panzer Dragoon Orta (the fun shooter with the strange-ass name), Otogi, Crimson Skies, Gunvalkyrie, Counter-Strike, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Outrun, Demon Stone, Whiplash, Beyond Good and Evil... and I think my all-time favorite at the moment is Spyro: A Hero's Tail. I also like all the classic game collections: Intellivision Lives, Atari, Namco, Midway games volumes 1 & 2, Sonic Mega Collection.
If that's not enough "games worth playing" to you, then you must have a LOT more free time than I do.
3) "You're entitled to your opinion, and i'm entitled to mine."
Yeah, the difference is that I can justify my position, and you've obviously never even played Xbox Live.
4) "Whatever makes you happy. Personally, I don't have much interest in adventure games - I bought a PS2 to go with my Cube so I could pig out on RPGs and strategy games."
That's fine, that's your preference. But are you seriously saying that an entire genre of games existing on only *one* console *isn't* a selling point for that console? What if GameCube had the only console flight sims right now? Wouldn't you say the GameCube is a better buy if you're interested in flight sims?
The point here is that whether or not you like adventure games, a lot of people *do*, and for them the Xbox would be a good choice for a console.
The HD isn't innovative because it allows the saving of games, but because it allows:
1) Video games to have some drive cache for textures/sounds/whatnot and not have to hit the optical drive constantly.
2) The download of mods and map plugins for existing games. (Look at what they did with Ninja Gaiden... three downloadable mods, you buy three games for the price of one.)
3) The ripping of CDs which you can later use for videogame soundtracks. Admittedly, not many games made use of this feature, but I enjoyed it in the games that did. (Rob Zombie makes a good videogame soundtrack, no matter what the game.)
And if you think Gamespy is anything like Xbox Live, that just shows that you haven't played Xbox Live in a long time if at all.
From the website, Cube looks like a pretty shameless ripoff of Serious Sam, from the look of the maps, to the look of the enemies, to the way the graphics engine works. (That whole "outdoor optimized engine rendering indoor scenes" thing looks exactly like what the Serious Sam engine is doing.
Now, it does look better graphics-wise than this "Nexuiz," but I'd prefer to see more originality. (Not to say that Nexuiz is more original-- I haven't played it yet-- but if it is a ripoff, at least it's less blatent.)
And for God's sake, when is an open source project going to pick a good an pronouncable name! What the hell is "Nexuiz?" Neck-squeeze? Nex-ease? Next-ooey?
I understand your gripe, but what you're griping about is monopolies and "coalitions" that behave as monopolies.
And in any case, you're wrong. 107.7 The End in Seattle plays local and independent artists all the time that have been signed on non-RIAA labels. I'm sure there's a similar station in every market. Additionally, I saw Napolean Dynamite even though there was very little advertising (at the time I saw it) and the actors were all unknown.
But watching a movie with Tom Cruise, directed by Spielberg, is a "sure thing" so to speak... I can be pretty certain that I'll walk out of the theater pleased and not pissed. Obviously, enough other people think like me to make Tom Cruise worth $20 mil a movie.
I can't speak for the Playstation 2, which seems to be almost identical to the PS1 innovation-wise, but the Xbox has:
1) A internal HD.
2) Xbox Live.
Neither of which is on your list.
Now I know that everybody on Slashdot hates Microsoft and loves Nintendo, and therefore anything positive I say about Microsoft will probably be flamed in replies, but in my opinion the Xbox is the most innovative console to come out since the original Playstation. The fact that it also happens to have the best video and audio performance (in this generation) is just icing on the cake.
Oh, also, Xbox is the first console to get adventure titles in... how long? Maybe not an "innovation," but certainly a selling point in its favor. I like adventure games.
He's also on Xbox now, and probably PS2. So... I don't get your point. Sonic's doing exactly what Sega said they'd be doing when they got out of the console business: making multi-platform games.
Consumers are willing to spend $15 for a CD, so the price remains at $15 *regardless* of what the "production price" of the CD is. If a certain actor, like Tom Cruise, pulls in $20 million, it's because enough people will see a movie because he's in it to make that worthwhile. (I'm going to see War of the Worlds because Tom Cruise is in it and because Spielberg directed. If it were made by no-names, I probably wouldn't bother.)
Well, HELL, since you obviously are completely unaware that people can lie, I'd just like to say right now that I have the copyright to Open Office, all Mozilla products, and Apple's OS X to boot.
Hey smartguy, you have to PROVE to the court that you possess the copyright before you can bring somebody else to trial for infringing on that copyright. What people are trying to tell you is that if the code doesn't specifically state who owns the copyright, the court's going to have a LOT of trouble just "taking your word for it."
I can file all kinds of fraudulent suits. "Me vs. Apple Computer... Apple has obviously infringed on my copyright for OS X!" The court's first reply is, "ok, prove you have copyright for OS X." THEN they get to the matter of, "ok, prove this guy infringed."
To be fair, I'm a huge Adult Swim fan and I also had no clue who MC Chris was until I saw that article. And I thought his downloadable songs were stupid and annoying.
I'd rather have the OS X spellchecker working. (Although both would be ideal...) The biggest pain for me is having to type in forum posts without any spell-checker.
Last time I tried Opera on my Mac, the GUI *really* sucked. It didn't look or behave like a Mac application. (Not to say Firefox does, but Firefox is a ton closer.) Now, to be fair, that was years ago and the interface might be a lot better now, but why bother? Apple put out Safari and now I don't need Opera.
Slashdot Mirror
Amen. I'm with you 100%. Linux developers need to step back from ripping-off Windows features and start ripping-off some MacOS features-- and MacOS' install procedure is the perfect place to start.
And look at it this way: When you're done, you can get converts from Windows by telling them how easy installs in Linux are! You can't do that now; at best installs are the same.
System Restore? Remote Desktop?
Oh, you did NOT just diss Godzilla!
But they get the callers anyway! And they have to tell the callers "no we don't support that," which makes their company look really bad even though it's no fault of their own.
Microsoft has that problem in spades. Something like 80-90% of the support calls they get about Windows have nothing to do with Windows, but only about third-party software that's installed. What can Microsoft do other than point people towards the right company to handle it? Nothing. But it makes them look bad and lowers their reputation.
Except every goddamn comment is "oh look we slashdotted it! Ha ha ha it's not running anymore! Ha ha ha oh now it's all melted! Ha ha ha!" Yeah, that joke is funny... especially since it's been posted 15 times a day for the last 5 years.
At least those other stories have comments that aren't completely asinine.
I enjoyed the part at the end where he busts out the vulcan chaingun and tears a new one in those monolith-building aliens.
I thought you were referring to:
;)
1) Bender's having a 6502 CPU in his brain in the Slurm episode of Futurama, or
2) the movie Time Chasers in which a Commodore 64 (and code stored on a single 5.25" disk) controls a time-travelling Cessna.
I didn't know about the Terminator one until just today.
They need to go play Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The writing in that game was excellent, including the sex scene.
Try Ninja Gaiden on Xbox. It's as hard as the old one, if not more. The mini-boss on the second level kicked my ass for two days.
I hate to break this to you, buddy, but Jay Leno's show is a COMEDY show. It's possible, just possible, that this stunt might have been for COMEDIC purposes and isn't a true scientific study.
Criminy, lighten up.
I'm a Tribes and MechWarrior man. I don't like fast games, I like some strategy.
But if they're original, they should work on making their art as original as the gameplay, because I bet most people (who have played Serious Sam) had the exact same first impression that I had.
Somebody's using Lotus Notes as a webserver? May God have mercy on their souls.
(The submitter probably meant Lotus Domino, which is still a bad webserver, but not nearly as bad as Notes would be.)
Going to paste in a reply to another poster here:
Two points here:
The HD isn't innovative because it allows the saving of games, but because it allows:
1) Video games to have some drive cache for textures/sounds/whatnot and not have to hit the optical drive constantly.
2) The download of mods and map plugins for existing games. (Look at what they did with Ninja Gaiden... three downloadable mods, you buy three games for the price of one.)
3) The ripping of CDs which you can later use for videogame soundtracks. Admittedly, not many games made use of this feature, but I enjoyed it in the games that did. (Rob Zombie makes a good videogame soundtrack, no matter what the game.)
And if you think Gamespy is anything like Xbox Live, that just shows that you haven't played Xbox Live in a long time if at all.
---
And add a few things:
1) You can't use flash memory for swap, the *main* advantage of the Xbox's HD. Not unless you don't mind the console dying in 6 months.
2) "At any rate, I would probably buy an XBox if it had more games worth playing. All I ever hear people gushing praise about is Halo, GTA, and a few other games....And it's just not enough to justify buying another console. The fact that the RPG selection is abysmal doesn't help either."
Xbox has tons of good games. The problem is that they are the games that most people don't "gush" about... additionally, all the cross-platform games look, sound, and usually play better on Xbox than on GameCube or PS2.
The Xbox also has more PC-style RPGs than the PS2 and GameCube ever did... given, it doesn't have a lot of RPGs, but I'd MUCH rather play Morrowind over the boring pretentious anime-infected Japanese bullcrap consoles have been stuck with for the last decade. (But tastes vary, of course.)
For the record, I also don't like GTA because I find it too violent. Halo was a 'meh', but Halo 2 really is amazing in pretty much every way. Some of my favorite Xbox games are Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (I don't like the sequel), Defender, Syberia, Simpsons: Hit and Run, Ninja Gaiden (hard!), Panzer Dragoon Orta (the fun shooter with the strange-ass name), Otogi, Crimson Skies, Gunvalkyrie, Counter-Strike, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Outrun, Demon Stone, Whiplash, Beyond Good and Evil... and I think my all-time favorite at the moment is Spyro: A Hero's Tail. I also like all the classic game collections: Intellivision Lives, Atari, Namco, Midway games volumes 1 & 2, Sonic Mega Collection.
If that's not enough "games worth playing" to you, then you must have a LOT more free time than I do.
3) "You're entitled to your opinion, and i'm entitled to mine."
Yeah, the difference is that I can justify my position, and you've obviously never even played Xbox Live.
4) "Whatever makes you happy. Personally, I don't have much interest in adventure games - I bought a PS2 to go with my Cube so I could pig out on RPGs and strategy games."
That's fine, that's your preference. But are you seriously saying that an entire genre of games existing on only *one* console *isn't* a selling point for that console? What if GameCube had the only console flight sims right now? Wouldn't you say the GameCube is a better buy if you're interested in flight sims?
The point here is that whether or not you like adventure games, a lot of people *do*, and for them the Xbox would be a good choice for a console.
Two points here:
The HD isn't innovative because it allows the saving of games, but because it allows:
1) Video games to have some drive cache for textures/sounds/whatnot and not have to hit the optical drive constantly.
2) The download of mods and map plugins for existing games. (Look at what they did with Ninja Gaiden... three downloadable mods, you buy three games for the price of one.)
3) The ripping of CDs which you can later use for videogame soundtracks. Admittedly, not many games made use of this feature, but I enjoyed it in the games that did. (Rob Zombie makes a good videogame soundtrack, no matter what the game.)
And if you think Gamespy is anything like Xbox Live, that just shows that you haven't played Xbox Live in a long time if at all.
From the website, Cube looks like a pretty shameless ripoff of Serious Sam, from the look of the maps, to the look of the enemies, to the way the graphics engine works. (That whole "outdoor optimized engine rendering indoor scenes" thing looks exactly like what the Serious Sam engine is doing.
Now, it does look better graphics-wise than this "Nexuiz," but I'd prefer to see more originality. (Not to say that Nexuiz is more original-- I haven't played it yet-- but if it is a ripoff, at least it's less blatent.)
And for God's sake, when is an open source project going to pick a good an pronouncable name! What the hell is "Nexuiz?" Neck-squeeze? Nex-ease? Next-ooey?
Barc, did you even read the post from the Anonymous Coward I was replying to? It seems like you're under the impression that I was replying to you...
... and this justifies pirating music how?
I understand your gripe, but what you're griping about is monopolies and "coalitions" that behave as monopolies.
And in any case, you're wrong. 107.7 The End in Seattle plays local and independent artists all the time that have been signed on non-RIAA labels. I'm sure there's a similar station in every market. Additionally, I saw Napolean Dynamite even though there was very little advertising (at the time I saw it) and the actors were all unknown.
But watching a movie with Tom Cruise, directed by Spielberg, is a "sure thing" so to speak... I can be pretty certain that I'll walk out of the theater pleased and not pissed. Obviously, enough other people think like me to make Tom Cruise worth $20 mil a movie.
I can't speak for the Playstation 2, which seems to be almost identical to the PS1 innovation-wise, but the Xbox has:
1) A internal HD.
2) Xbox Live.
Neither of which is on your list.
Now I know that everybody on Slashdot hates Microsoft and loves Nintendo, and therefore anything positive I say about Microsoft will probably be flamed in replies, but in my opinion the Xbox is the most innovative console to come out since the original Playstation. The fact that it also happens to have the best video and audio performance (in this generation) is just icing on the cake.
Oh, also, Xbox is the first console to get adventure titles in... how long? Maybe not an "innovation," but certainly a selling point in its favor. I like adventure games.
He's also on Xbox now, and probably PS2. So... I don't get your point. Sonic's doing exactly what Sega said they'd be doing when they got out of the console business: making multi-platform games.
Yes it is. Those people would pirate regardless of what the price was. The majority still go to a retail store and buy the CD.
One major point you're missing about capitalism:
Products are priced at what the market will bear.
Consumers are willing to spend $15 for a CD, so the price remains at $15 *regardless* of what the "production price" of the CD is. If a certain actor, like Tom Cruise, pulls in $20 million, it's because enough people will see a movie because he's in it to make that worthwhile. (I'm going to see War of the Worlds because Tom Cruise is in it and because Spielberg directed. If it were made by no-names, I probably wouldn't bother.)
Well, HELL, since you obviously are completely unaware that people can lie, I'd just like to say right now that I have the copyright to Open Office, all Mozilla products, and Apple's OS X to boot.
Hey smartguy, you have to PROVE to the court that you possess the copyright before you can bring somebody else to trial for infringing on that copyright. What people are trying to tell you is that if the code doesn't specifically state who owns the copyright, the court's going to have a LOT of trouble just "taking your word for it."
I can file all kinds of fraudulent suits. "Me vs. Apple Computer... Apple has obviously infringed on my copyright for OS X!" The court's first reply is, "ok, prove you have copyright for OS X." THEN they get to the matter of, "ok, prove this guy infringed."
To be fair, I'm a huge Adult Swim fan and I also had no clue who MC Chris was until I saw that article. And I thought his downloadable songs were stupid and annoying.
I'd rather have the OS X spellchecker working. (Although both would be ideal...) The biggest pain for me is having to type in forum posts without any spell-checker.
My two bits:
Last time I tried Opera on my Mac, the GUI *really* sucked. It didn't look or behave like a Mac application. (Not to say Firefox does, but Firefox is a ton closer.) Now, to be fair, that was years ago and the interface might be a lot better now, but why bother? Apple put out Safari and now I don't need Opera.