You like being immersed in the game, but you're also looking forward to World of Warcraft? So, you're a tauren just returning from a battle with a nearby village and you see on the chat channel "PWNERZ!!!!! KIKIKIKIKIKI!"... do you think you'll still be immersed in a fantasy environment?
No, I'm not looking forward World of Warcraft. I'm sure the game will be great but, knowing Blizzard fans, the players of it are going to suck all the fun away real quick.
They can, but they don't. Even brand-spanking-new MMORPGs like Horizons or Star Wars Galaxies claim to support 56k modem users. (Although I can only imagine how crappy that support is...)
So for all practical purposes, the grandparent is right. One of the advantages that Microsoft has by producing a game console that doesn't require making a profit is that they can make decisions like this that greatly limit their playerbase. (Fewer people, perhaps, but a MUCH better experience for the broadband users who subscribe.)
XBox Live uses voice communication to good effect. Useless for an MMORPG or any other game that really requires immersion, but for a game of MechAssault or Crimson Skies it's perfect. Give it a try.
Also, I believe the PS2 will accept any USB keyboard and that some games made use of this... am I correct?
I agree that well-targetted marketting is great for both the consumer and the company selling the product. The company gets a much higher return for their advertising dollar, and the consumer will be genuinely grateful for the deals they recieve. Everybody wins. Heck, in anything else, I'm waiting for the day when PVR boxes replace all the commercials with ones tailored to the products I buy.
What always amuses me is when I'm watching "Adult Swim" on Cartoon Network (which is definately not kiddie-stuff), and you'll see all kinds of ads for children's toys. It's like the advertisers think "cartoon network = children" even while I'm watching an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force where the food items rebuild Carl's body using medical waste eyeballs.
Just today I was trying to open a Microsoft Word document that had multiple revisions encoded into it. (I forget what they call that feature...)
OpenOffice.org decided that I didn't want to see all the formatting changing revisions and not only got rid of the revision markers, it actually got rid of the formatting as well! Without even the courtesy of a "this document might be missing information" warning when I opened it!
Thank God I used Word to double-check before sending it out again and having everyone ask me why my version was so different from the original.
The console version of Counterstrike has MUCH better maps (that actually have correct proportions) and, most importantly to me, are practically guaranteed to be cheat-free. Plus 1337 hax0r kids aren't as annoying without keyboards.
Safari can view msnbc.com just fine. It's not the most beautiful render in the world, but everything is functional including the Javascript menus and the Week in Pictures feature you mention. Here are some screen shots of it on my iBook, using the most recent Safari and OS X versions:
People always talk about how Playstation and XBox have more games than the GCN. They sure do, but have you seen those games? They are all the random, crappy, hollywood licensed, violence without gameplay, total crap games. On the GameCube you have to compete with Nintendo to sell software and so very few developers can hold a candle.
I can't speak for the Playstation or Playstation 2, as I don't own them, but I do own an XBox and I can safely say that your comment is way out in left field.
Does XBox have crappy games? Yes. Does XBox have Hollywood-licensed games? Sure thing. Does XBox have games with violence and little gameplay? Yup. Do *all* XBox games fit into those catagories? Not even close.
Look, here's what I think of when I think XBox: Knights of the Old Republic, Morrowind, Crimson Skies, Ninja Gaiden, Project Gotham Racing 2, Syberia, MechAssault, Counterstrike, Dead or Alive 3, HALO. And the cross-platform games: Prince of Persia, Beyond Good and Evil, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee (ok, so it'd not winning any awards, but I like Godzilla.) Also consider that not all licensed games are bad... look at the most recent James Bond game for an example. (Or, on PC, a game like Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force.)
How about showing a little balance in your post? I don't know a lot about the Gamecube lineup, but I can bet that it has its share of crappy games and movie licenses.
On a slightly related note, it's funny to take a look at this thread. Almost every single Nintendo-critical post in the discussion has been modded down as troll or flamebait. Seems Slashdot's got an even bigger collection of Nintendo fanboys than I originally thought.:\
It makes you wonder if they *really* think all games on other platforms are so terrible, or if they're just modding because of Slashthink.
If ANY post in this thread was flamebait, it was the great-great-grandparent. This entire thread is basically *the* example of how Slashdot's moderation system doesn't work.
Seriously, who, reading this, things, "oh, this is a troll commend and can't possibly be an opinion from one of the readers."
Man, come on Moderators. The only comment there that's even *slightly* trollish is the one about Nintendo being the Disney of the video games industry, and that's not a trollish enough comment to offset the other valid points.
$4127 from Dell? The problem with this figure is that you picked the wrong service contract. Look at what Apple offers with their AppleCare program, then look at what you got with Dell.
That's the price Dell gives you with their uber service, but Apple's service doesn't match up with it. You're looking at $2714 with a service contract equilivant to Apple's *and* 2.8 ghz Xeons instead of 2.4s.
Indeed! Thank you. I wrote a similar reply in a thread further up about how everyone on Slashdot gripes about the death of adventure games when they don't even *know* about the adventure games that get released every year!
Like I said, there are three good ones on XBox alone, all made within the last two years, and numerous good ones on PC (along with some crappy ones.)
Anyway, it always pisses me off to hear people complain about how there "aren't any adventure games." That's utter bull. They come out all the time, on every platform (Syberia, Drake, Broken Sword on XBox alone!) and people don't buy them.
Criminy, people, this is all yammering for no point if you don't go out and *buy the games* when they come out! Publishers think the genre is dead because the genre is dead, and all you idiots who bitch and moan about there being "no new adventure games" are making it true.
Just put your money where your mouth is. If you like adventure games, buy them. If not, then don't whine that the genre is disappearing. (And definately don't say there aren't any adventure games when they are all over!)
If you hate XP so much, why didn't you go to 2000 instead of XP? It runs DirectX 9 just as good as XP does, all the games coming out are just as compatible with 2000 as they are with XP, it 2000 Pro costs the same as XP Pro, and it doesn't have product activation.
I don't know where this comment came from, but the grandparent is right. You're not saying that *Unix* is a terrible hodge-podge it's impossible to write a good interface for, you're arguing against X11.
X11 is truly awful. Unix is fine. Apple, by stapling on a good Window Manager which *does not* use X11 has produced a good product with an excellent UI, proving that the problem isn't with Unix, it's with X11.
Holy hell. Doctor, give this man a full dose of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro STAT!
If you think GIMPs interface is even worthy of appearing in the same *textbook* as Photoshops (as anything but a bad example), you're smoking some good weed. And Photoshop doesn't even have a great interface in the first place! God forbid you see an integrated Apple product with a truly excellent interface.
Are you kidding me? XP has everything 2000 has and more. How are you saying that XP is *not* better than 2000?
Hell, if you don't like anything XP does except the stuff 2000 also does, you can configure XP to run identically to 2000 in about 3 minutes worth of checking boxes in preference panels.
Here's two things I'll grant you:
1) The default theme sucks. Solution: CHANGE it. The Windows 2000 theme is still in there, just switch to it.
2) Windows XP Home sucks. It's better than ME, but it sucks compared to the Professional version.
On the contrary, most of Microsoft applications do one thing and one thing well (some are bundled together, like Office, but they are still seperate applications.) It's the open source camp that's produced all-in-one programs like Mozilla and EMACS.
Yes, but Half-Life owes a *lot* to one of Bungie's early games called Marathon. If it weren't for Marathon, I highly doubt Half-Life would even exist. Other examples of innovation? Minotaur, a LAN-only maze game. Pathways Into Darkness, basically Wolfenstein with a PLOT. Myth, the first RTT game.
So even if you think Bungie isn't doing a good job now, they were at least as innovative as Valve in the past... and they've certainly put out a hell of a lot more games. (Come on, Valve, 6 years and you've put out *one* game and expansions for it? Yeah it was a good game, but sheesh.)
This is a bug in Norton Ghost, which has probably been fixed... the article mentions you have to has a *specific* build number and not patch it. Ghost is the software mucking about with the Partition Table, not anything by Microsoft.
Blame Microsoft when they're at fault, but you can't blame them for everything.
Anyone who puts data on a 'quick formatted' partition is an idiot anyway, in my opinion.
Slashdot Mirror
You like being immersed in the game, but you're also looking forward to World of Warcraft? So, you're a tauren just returning from a battle with a nearby village and you see on the chat channel "PWNERZ!!!!! KIKIKIKIKIKI!"... do you think you'll still be immersed in a fantasy environment?
No, I'm not looking forward World of Warcraft. I'm sure the game will be great but, knowing Blizzard fans, the players of it are going to suck all the fun away real quick.
They can, but they don't. Even brand-spanking-new MMORPGs like Horizons or Star Wars Galaxies claim to support 56k modem users. (Although I can only imagine how crappy that support is...)
So for all practical purposes, the grandparent is right. One of the advantages that Microsoft has by producing a game console that doesn't require making a profit is that they can make decisions like this that greatly limit their playerbase. (Fewer people, perhaps, but a MUCH better experience for the broadband users who subscribe.)
XBox Live uses voice communication to good effect. Useless for an MMORPG or any other game that really requires immersion, but for a game of MechAssault or Crimson Skies it's perfect. Give it a try.
Also, I believe the PS2 will accept any USB keyboard and that some games made use of this... am I correct?
Or get a Mac emulator and find Mission: Thunderbolt. All of the depth and playability, none of the ridiculous ANSI graphics.
I agree that well-targetted marketting is great for both the consumer and the company selling the product. The company gets a much higher return for their advertising dollar, and the consumer will be genuinely grateful for the deals they recieve. Everybody wins. Heck, in anything else, I'm waiting for the day when PVR boxes replace all the commercials with ones tailored to the products I buy.
What always amuses me is when I'm watching "Adult Swim" on Cartoon Network (which is definately not kiddie-stuff), and you'll see all kinds of ads for children's toys. It's like the advertisers think "cartoon network = children" even while I'm watching an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force where the food items rebuild Carl's body using medical waste eyeballs.
Wow! Different people want different things?
It's amazing the "insight" you get here at Slashdot.org.
(Criminy, moderators, stop smoking the crack.)
Just today I was trying to open a Microsoft Word document that had multiple revisions encoded into it. (I forget what they call that feature...)
OpenOffice.org decided that I didn't want to see all the formatting changing revisions and not only got rid of the revision markers, it actually got rid of the formatting as well! Without even the courtesy of a "this document might be missing information" warning when I opened it!
Thank God I used Word to double-check before sending it out again and having everyone ask me why my version was so different from the original.
The three I was referring to are Syberia, Broken Sword III, and Drake.
Beyond Good and Evil is pretty close to an adventure game, also, and I'm sure any adventure fan would enjoy it.
The console version of Counterstrike has MUCH better maps (that actually have correct proportions) and, most importantly to me, are practically guaranteed to be cheat-free. Plus 1337 hax0r kids aren't as annoying without keyboards.
Uh. Slashdot needs a moderation -1 Wrong.
Safari can view msnbc.com just fine. It's not the most beautiful render in the world, but everything is functional including the Javascript menus and the Week in Pictures feature you mention. Here are some screen shots of it on my iBook, using the most recent Safari and OS X versions:
Main Page
Week in Photos
Any problems you're having have nothing to do with either MSNBC or Apple in general... it's your comp, bud.
I can't speak for the Playstation or Playstation 2, as I don't own them, but I do own an XBox and I can safely say that your comment is way out in left field.
Does XBox have crappy games? Yes. Does XBox have Hollywood-licensed games? Sure thing. Does XBox have games with violence and little gameplay? Yup. Do *all* XBox games fit into those catagories? Not even close.
Look, here's what I think of when I think XBox: Knights of the Old Republic, Morrowind, Crimson Skies, Ninja Gaiden, Project Gotham Racing 2, Syberia, MechAssault, Counterstrike, Dead or Alive 3, HALO. And the cross-platform games: Prince of Persia, Beyond Good and Evil, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee (ok, so it'd not winning any awards, but I like Godzilla.) Also consider that not all licensed games are bad... look at the most recent James Bond game for an example. (Or, on PC, a game like Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force.)
How about showing a little balance in your post? I don't know a lot about the Gamecube lineup, but I can bet that it has its share of crappy games and movie licenses.
It makes you wonder if they *really* think all games on other platforms are so terrible, or if they're just modding because of Slashthink.
If ANY post in this thread was flamebait, it was the great-great-grandparent. This entire thread is basically *the* example of how Slashdot's moderation system doesn't work.
Why is this moderated as troll?
Seriously, who, reading this, things, "oh, this is a troll commend and can't possibly be an opinion from one of the readers."
Man, come on Moderators. The only comment there that's even *slightly* trollish is the one about Nintendo being the Disney of the video games industry, and that's not a trollish enough comment to offset the other valid points.
$4127 from Dell? The problem with this figure is that you picked the wrong service contract. Look at what Apple offers with their AppleCare program, then look at what you got with Dell.
That's the price Dell gives you with their uber service, but Apple's service doesn't match up with it. You're looking at $2714 with a service contract equilivant to Apple's *and* 2.8 ghz Xeons instead of 2.4s.
Indeed! Thank you. I wrote a similar reply in a thread further up about how everyone on Slashdot gripes about the death of adventure games when they don't even *know* about the adventure games that get released every year!
Like I said, there are three good ones on XBox alone, all made within the last two years, and numerous good ones on PC (along with some crappy ones.)
How do you NOT include The Longest Journey?
Anyway, it always pisses me off to hear people complain about how there "aren't any adventure games." That's utter bull. They come out all the time, on every platform (Syberia, Drake, Broken Sword on XBox alone!) and people don't buy them.
Criminy, people, this is all yammering for no point if you don't go out and *buy the games* when they come out! Publishers think the genre is dead because the genre is dead, and all you idiots who bitch and moan about there being "no new adventure games" are making it true.
Just put your money where your mouth is. If you like adventure games, buy them. If not, then don't whine that the genre is disappearing. (And definately don't say there aren't any adventure games when they are all over!)
That's a very good counter-argument because the *only* company in the *entire* world that produces proprietary software is Microsoft.
Oh... wait...
After seeing enough MST3K, I can't read the cast list of that movie without cracking up:
.... Dr. Clayton Forrester
Gene Barry
If you hate XP so much, why didn't you go to 2000 instead of XP? It runs DirectX 9 just as good as XP does, all the games coming out are just as compatible with 2000 as they are with XP, it 2000 Pro costs the same as XP Pro, and it doesn't have product activation.
I mean, your choice, but it seems strange.
I don't know where this comment came from, but the grandparent is right. You're not saying that *Unix* is a terrible hodge-podge it's impossible to write a good interface for, you're arguing against X11.
X11 is truly awful. Unix is fine. Apple, by stapling on a good Window Manager which *does not* use X11 has produced a good product with an excellent UI, proving that the problem isn't with Unix, it's with X11.
I'll give you OpenOffice.org... but... GIMP?
Holy hell. Doctor, give this man a full dose of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro STAT!
If you think GIMPs interface is even worthy of appearing in the same *textbook* as Photoshops (as anything but a bad example), you're smoking some good weed. And Photoshop doesn't even have a great interface in the first place! God forbid you see an integrated Apple product with a truly excellent interface.
Are you kidding me? XP has everything 2000 has and more. How are you saying that XP is *not* better than 2000?
Hell, if you don't like anything XP does except the stuff 2000 also does, you can configure XP to run identically to 2000 in about 3 minutes worth of checking boxes in preference panels.
Here's two things I'll grant you:
1) The default theme sucks. Solution: CHANGE it. The Windows 2000 theme is still in there, just switch to it.
2) Windows XP Home sucks. It's better than ME, but it sucks compared to the Professional version.
What about Mozilla compared to IE?
On the contrary, most of Microsoft applications do one thing and one thing well (some are bundled together, like Office, but they are still seperate applications.) It's the open source camp that's produced all-in-one programs like Mozilla and EMACS.
Yes, but Half-Life owes a *lot* to one of Bungie's early games called Marathon. If it weren't for Marathon, I highly doubt Half-Life would even exist. Other examples of innovation? Minotaur, a LAN-only maze game. Pathways Into Darkness, basically Wolfenstein with a PLOT. Myth, the first RTT game.
So even if you think Bungie isn't doing a good job now, they were at least as innovative as Valve in the past... and they've certainly put out a hell of a lot more games. (Come on, Valve, 6 years and you've put out *one* game and expansions for it? Yeah it was a good game, but sheesh.)
This is a bug in Norton Ghost, which has probably been fixed... the article mentions you have to has a *specific* build number and not patch it. Ghost is the software mucking about with the Partition Table, not anything by Microsoft.
Blame Microsoft when they're at fault, but you can't blame them for everything.
Anyone who puts data on a 'quick formatted' partition is an idiot anyway, in my opinion.