I refuse to buy from E-Bay for 2 fold: 1) I hate paying a premium for items I could go out and buy if I wasn't lazy, mainly b/c I am lazy and patient (Zelda will rock jsut as hard a month from now as it did at release) 2) There are far to many instances of scumbags on E-Bay, where what what they do is technicaly not illegal or against ebay's rules, I still can't stand giving money to them.
And I am probably in the same camp as you about maden, it looks like an great control setup, however is that really enough to make me want to paly a football game?
Heh, you should check out the minigames included in Wii Sports if you havn't yet. One of the best ones is for bowling, Your goal is to knock down as many pins as you can with one ball, however after each time they will reset the pins and add a line to the back row. Eventualy you end up with a MASSIVE amount of pins to try and get a strike on!
And I am also in the crowd of those that still don't have one yet (I am not willing to spend time over nite, buy a bundle that includes games I don't want, and I flat refuse to buy from ebay). However I have been playign it alot at friends and at the nintendo world store (before launch). Another awsome fighting game to check out is actualy the DBZ game, it also uses the motion sensetive controlls to pull off special moves.
I also played throguh the first few levels of Redsteel at a friend's house recently and have descided that it is deffinatly worth picking up. The controlls are a bit bad, but not nearly to the poitn that most of the reviewers said so (rarely does the view spin out, and I only did it when NOT in combat, simply because I looked away from the screen compleatly).
Curently my list of games to pick up looks like: Zelda Redsteel Elebits (this is a questionable one) Exite Truck possibly maden, I really have to try it out first, and the same goes for DBZ (I want to paly it a bit more before hand).
Bunny-Hopping is a VERY specific thing, related to the HL engine, having to do with gaining speed due to the funky way airspeed works.
Peopel bouncing around like idiots is NOT bunny hopping, it is people bouncing around like idiots (and thus making them EASY targets that can't acuratly fire back).
An exelent example of risk/Skill vs reward would be QIII maps. The standard required to get the rail gun is to put yourself in a compramised position (requires a LONG jump that leaves you open, place it on a platform where you have 0 cover, etc), and often it requires atleast some level of skill to get as well.
So there is a pay off for a rather heffty reward.
On the flipside I can easily balance a rocket launcher vs a MG, how? For the RL tweak up reload times, tweak down projectile speed and walking speed, and give it MASSIVE DAMAGE. for the MG make it very rappid fire, very large clip, but lower ACC and per projectile dmg (and make it hit scan).
I have now given you 2 weapons, one lets you destroy anything in one area, however you are vulnerable before/after. The other lets you blanket an area (hallway?) with sustained cover fire. what is the better weapon? (I vote for option 3, small lightwight, quick reload time, and acurate SMG/pistol, but that is just what my play style works with).
Yes, however if you have ever actualy played an FPS (say HL2) on different difficulty levels you will see that ALL they do is tune the damage. I am currently playing through HL on the hardest dificulty level (after having played through on normal a few times), and it is rather hard, but only because it takes more shots for me to kill things (this holds alot of weight as ammo seems to be avaliable in the exact same quanteties as in normal mode), and fewer shots to kill me.
You are right about everything else beign tuned via lots of trial and error (I played through HL2:ep1 with the commentary as well), however that type of tunign is not about difficulty, it is about the basics of game play and thus have 0 bearing on mathematics (talking about training players, how training can be different, rewarding players, and what types of rewards can be used, and how they work etcetcetc).
Mathematical tuning is a good place to start, but basing everything off of it is NOT a good idea. You always need a base point, and what better base poitn to use then some cold numbers. However from there you need to test it out and see if the game is still FUN, and if it is not, what are the problems?
I actualy have seen a few instances where developers knew the game was unbalanced (win/loss records always favored one team), however left it that way becasue the game was actualy more fun to play.
the GPP was reffering to Sony shutting down the lemmings port (as aparently sony owns lemmings).
And I kinda doubt that Nintendo will be shutting down the homebrew crowd, mainly because they havn't yet. They could easily go the route that Sony did and plug all the security holes with patches (your DS firmware can be updated via the wifi connection), but they just have not, so I susspect that they are not going to any time soon.
Only exiting parts to me are Lemmings DS (I think I will be downloadign that), and the fact that we are moving into Slot-1 devices. The move to slot one is kinda disapointing for me as I just was given a slot-2/passme set up, and that will possibly render my set up out dated compared to the new set ups....
Does any one remember when the PS2 was anounced, and they said their security method could not be broken? Atleast they don't try and make those types of claims any more.
All this really does is show (yet again) that DRM only hinders honest customers, as any one who WANTS to pirate something, can. The best you can do is force the pirate to do some rather annoyign things to get it all working (think Starforce).
Actualy there have been a few MMORTS games out there, of course I can't think of any names, and the only one I remember well never made it out of beta (it was an awsome game, baiscly you started with a plot of land on a planet, build up your resources and everything, then attempted to spread out).
Either way, I would love to see an MMOFPS or MMORTS from Blizz. My reasoning is exactly opposite from yours. I LOVE it when Blizz gets up and does something they have never done before, hell if they stuck only with what they had done before we would just be seeing more variants of scantily clad queens getting killing every one (or gettign eaten by rooks).
Their collection of titles is so eclectic and wonderful because of that.
from a chess game, to puzzle platform hoppers, to arcade beat'em'ups, onto the Diablo Click Fest, and finaly into MMORPGS. And just about every one of their games is deffinative of a genre. So I for one would LOVE to see them step up and make an MMORTS or MMOFPS.
Well, the reason you are not seeing any RTS games from blizz recently is exactly what you said, they didn't want to steal purchaces of WCIII/WCIII:FT
I am willing to bet we will see a new RTS comming out at some point, if it will be WCIV or SCII or something compleatly different, I dono.
Admitedly what I would love to see is a combination of SC:Ghost and an MMO. My favorite type of game is MMOFPS, think Planetside, then make it not suck some how. And if any one can make an MMOFPS not suck, I am bettign it would be Blizz. Oh, and why do I want it to be from the SC universe? Simple: 1) Massive subscription base. The more poeple there are, the more chances you have of findign some poeple you like playing with, and an MMOFPS NEEDS an massive subscription base to make it not suck (epic battles sorta suck when there are only 100 people anywhere on the server). 2) Awsome universe.
Well, if Sony is willing to buy back unsold stock (I have never seen this idea in print before, tohugh I have heard it once or twice), they would probably only buy back at the wholesale value, aka the stores still take a hit (Shipping, storage, etc). However if the stores can move it a little bit above wholesale value, then they have a better chance of being in the black.
so what do we do? Wait the multitude of years that it would take to wear off (I find it hard to believe that something that can stand up to regular use for a few years with out being damaged is likely to degrade in a few months after that, look at wool socks, they take years to degrade), and then recycle the base parts?
I think the entire biodegradable thing is a red herring. Anything tread with this stuff will probably need another treatment to get it off, and then after that you can recycle it the way you do Cellphones/mp3players/what ever (I don't know what they do, so don't look at me).
Ok, so some how it is biodegradable, but the rest of the product still is made of plastic/metal, and those, afaik, are still NOT biodegradable.
Oh, and I am with you on wondering how it is both ultra strong AND biodegradable. After all, are diamonds biodegradable? Some one else said bones, last I checked bones last a VERY long time, sure they are biodegradable, but it will take many years to do so....
Just remember that the TP are not Brits, they are an organization with deals going on with most govn'ts (they are not a govn't org them selfs), and tend to just ignore all laws any way. Oh, and dont' forget that they are mostly incompetent anyway.
grumble, I am almost sure that Wiki article is wrong, Freeside is NOT a casino, it would be close to calling it a resort town. And blade runner has nothing to do with the Turing Police (and thus Neuromancer), aside from both taking place in Cyberpunk worlds.
Well, let us see. A warrent in the USA is issued by a Judge, no one else. A senior officer is not a judge, and a independent commissioner, who is usually a retired judge appointed by the Home Office., does not sound like a judge to me either (what is the home office for that matter?). I am used to a 3 bransh system (Legislature, judical, executive), where each 2 can check the other (yes, it is gettign horribly messed up atm, but alot of what is happening is unconstitutional, however the actual system is a rather good one). What I see here is the ability to set up a wire tap (a wire tap and hacking a system are generaly considered rather similar in the USA), witho nly needing a senior officer, or some one appointed by the "Home Office", and the home ofice does not seem to be a judical section of the govn't either.
So I would say that it was not "fooling" an American by "replacing a word with its definition". Troll better.
Now, a poster further up actualy pointed out that this was the govn't investigating govn't computers, and thus would not normaly need a warrent. And I thank that poster. Soem one else also mentioned the RIPA, and I have to look into that.
he tends to run his mouth off alot, and watchign him can be rather amusing (especialy watching him drunk at a party, telling off the PR guy who is supposed to be making sure he doesn't say stuff he isn't supposed to).
The 'one console in ten years' thing isn't 100% right (cut 10 yrs to 5-6), but it is possible. Before the current gen (heh, no longer is it next gen!) systems launched there really was only one player, the PS2. The market share they had over both the xbox and the NGC was segnificant, why? Exlusive 3rd party games.
However, as he pointed out himself, the exclusive 3rd party game seems to be a dieing breed. We now see games beign proted over to every system they can, simply because a port can capitalize on the inital investment required for a new game with out spendign (relativly) much more.
So yah, he is shooting his mouth off, but he says some key things to watch.
Slashdot Mirror
Doh!
I knew I had forgoten atleast one game, and rayman is it.
I am also very tempted by rampage, but that might jsut be nastolgia talking.
I refuse to buy from E-Bay for 2 fold:
1) I hate paying a premium for items I could go out and buy if I wasn't lazy, mainly b/c I am lazy and patient (Zelda will rock jsut as hard a month from now as it did at release)
2) There are far to many instances of scumbags on E-Bay, where what what they do is technicaly not illegal or against ebay's rules, I still can't stand giving money to them.
And I am probably in the same camp as you about maden, it looks like an great control setup, however is that really enough to make me want to paly a football game?
You sorta missed the point of the article.
They didn't drive any of those franschises into the gound, they just droped all their old titles
Startreck universe running on a Daggerfall like game!
yegods, I can't figgure out if I want to salivate or laugh my ass off.
I honestly don't get it either.
I think they just don't like the MM:BN games, and I admit, they do get repetative eventualy, however I still really like them.
The MM:Zero games (GBA) were wonderful for a new line in the series (Currently playing ZX on my DS)
MM:X were exactly like the old school megaman games, just with more stuff to do (always a plus in my book)
So I admit, I don't get it.
Heh, you should check out the minigames included in Wii Sports if you havn't yet. One of the best ones is for bowling, Your goal is to knock down as many pins as you can with one ball, however after each time they will reset the pins and add a line to the back row. Eventualy you end up with a MASSIVE amount of pins to try and get a strike on!
And I am also in the crowd of those that still don't have one yet (I am not willing to spend time over nite, buy a bundle that includes games I don't want, and I flat refuse to buy from ebay). However I have been playign it alot at friends and at the nintendo world store (before launch). Another awsome fighting game to check out is actualy the DBZ game, it also uses the motion sensetive controlls to pull off special moves.
I also played throguh the first few levels of Redsteel at a friend's house recently and have descided that it is deffinatly worth picking up. The controlls are a bit bad, but not nearly to the poitn that most of the reviewers said so (rarely does the view spin out, and I only did it when NOT in combat, simply because I looked away from the screen compleatly).
Curently my list of games to pick up looks like:
Zelda
Redsteel
Elebits (this is a questionable one)
Exite Truck
possibly maden, I really have to try it out first, and the same goes for DBZ (I want to paly it a bit more before hand).
grumble
Bunny-Hopping is a VERY specific thing, related to the HL engine, having to do with gaining speed due to the funky way airspeed works.
Peopel bouncing around like idiots is NOT bunny hopping, it is people bouncing around like idiots (and thus making them EASY targets that can't acuratly fire back).
An exelent example of risk/Skill vs reward would be QIII maps. The standard required to get the rail gun is to put yourself in a compramised position (requires a LONG jump that leaves you open, place it on a platform where you have 0 cover, etc), and often it requires atleast some level of skill to get as well.
So there is a pay off for a rather heffty reward.
On the flipside I can easily balance a rocket launcher vs a MG, how? For the RL tweak up reload times, tweak down projectile speed and walking speed, and give it MASSIVE DAMAGE. for the MG make it very rappid fire, very large clip, but lower ACC and per projectile dmg (and make it hit scan).
I have now given you 2 weapons, one lets you destroy anything in one area, however you are vulnerable before/after. The other lets you blanket an area (hallway?) with sustained cover fire. what is the better weapon? (I vote for option 3, small lightwight, quick reload time, and acurate SMG/pistol, but that is just what my play style works with).
And then there are the scumbags advertizing wii sports as 5 games..... (nintendo Wii + Zelda + 5 games!)
:)
God I hate E-Bay
Yes, however if you have ever actualy played an FPS (say HL2) on different difficulty levels you will see that ALL they do is tune the damage. I am currently playing through HL on the hardest dificulty level (after having played through on normal a few times), and it is rather hard, but only because it takes more shots for me to kill things (this holds alot of weight as ammo seems to be avaliable in the exact same quanteties as in normal mode), and fewer shots to kill me.
You are right about everything else beign tuned via lots of trial and error (I played through HL2:ep1 with the commentary as well), however that type of tunign is not about difficulty, it is about the basics of game play and thus have 0 bearing on mathematics (talking about training players, how training can be different, rewarding players, and what types of rewards can be used, and how they work etcetcetc).
You are correct!
Mathematical tuning is a good place to start, but basing everything off of it is NOT a good idea. You always need a base point, and what better base poitn to use then some cold numbers. However from there you need to test it out and see if the game is still FUN, and if it is not, what are the problems?
I actualy have seen a few instances where developers knew the game was unbalanced (win/loss records always favored one team), however left it that way becasue the game was actualy more fun to play.
the GPP was reffering to Sony shutting down the lemmings port (as aparently sony owns lemmings).
And I kinda doubt that Nintendo will be shutting down the homebrew crowd, mainly because they havn't yet. They could easily go the route that Sony did and plug all the security holes with patches (your DS firmware can be updated via the wifi connection), but they just have not, so I susspect that they are not going to any time soon.
Only exiting parts to me are Lemmings DS (I think I will be downloadign that), and the fact that we are moving into Slot-1 devices.
The move to slot one is kinda disapointing for me as I just was given a slot-2/passme set up, and that will possibly render my set up out dated compared to the new set ups....
My GOD you are a genius!
My description was compleatly halfarsed and you hit the nail on the head!
HA HA
Does any one remember when the PS2 was anounced, and they said their security method could not be broken? Atleast they don't try and make those types of claims any more.
All this really does is show (yet again) that DRM only hinders honest customers, as any one who WANTS to pirate something, can. The best you can do is force the pirate to do some rather annoyign things to get it all working (think Starforce).
Actualy there have been a few MMORTS games out there, of course I can't think of any names, and the only one I remember well never made it out of beta (it was an awsome game, baiscly you started with a plot of land on a planet, build up your resources and everything, then attempted to spread out).
Either way, I would love to see an MMOFPS or MMORTS from Blizz. My reasoning is exactly opposite from yours. I LOVE it when Blizz gets up and does something they have never done before, hell if they stuck only with what they had done before we would just be seeing more variants of scantily clad queens getting killing every one (or gettign eaten by rooks).
Their collection of titles is so eclectic and wonderful because of that.
from a chess game, to puzzle platform hoppers, to arcade beat'em'ups, onto the Diablo Click Fest, and finaly into MMORPGS. And just about every one of their games is deffinative of a genre. So I for one would LOVE to see them step up and make an MMORTS or MMOFPS.
Well, the reason you are not seeing any RTS games from blizz recently is exactly what you said, they didn't want to steal purchaces of WCIII/WCIII:FT
I am willing to bet we will see a new RTS comming out at some point, if it will be WCIV or SCII or something compleatly different, I dono.
Admitedly what I would love to see is a combination of SC:Ghost and an MMO. My favorite type of game is MMOFPS, think Planetside, then make it not suck some how. And if any one can make an MMOFPS not suck, I am bettign it would be Blizz. Oh, and why do I want it to be from the SC universe? Simple:
1) Massive subscription base. The more poeple there are, the more chances you have of findign some poeple you like playing with, and an MMOFPS NEEDS an massive subscription base to make it not suck (epic battles sorta suck when there are only 100 people anywhere on the server).
2) Awsome universe.
Well, if Sony is willing to buy back unsold stock (I have never seen this idea in print before, tohugh I have heard it once or twice), they would probably only buy back at the wholesale value, aka the stores still take a hit (Shipping, storage, etc). However if the stores can move it a little bit above wholesale value, then they have a better chance of being in the black.
torturous, defective, and ridiculous
well, you got 2 outta 3 right. I was NOT defective. It was VERY good at reporting your browsing habbits so that they could be sold.
so what do we do?
Wait the multitude of years that it would take to wear off (I find it hard to believe that something that can stand up to regular use for a few years with out being damaged is likely to degrade in a few months after that, look at wool socks, they take years to degrade), and then recycle the base parts?
I think the entire biodegradable thing is a red herring. Anything tread with this stuff will probably need another treatment to get it off, and then after that you can recycle it the way you do Cellphones/mp3players/what ever (I don't know what they do, so don't look at me).
the other question is of course:
So what?
Ok, so some how it is biodegradable, but the rest of the product still is made of plastic/metal, and those, afaik, are still NOT biodegradable.
Oh, and I am with you on wondering how it is both ultra strong AND biodegradable. After all, are diamonds biodegradable? Some one else said bones, last I checked bones last a VERY long time, sure they are biodegradable, but it will take many years to do so....
oh well, I dont' get it.
guess I should do some more research.
Just remember that the TP are not Brits, they are an organization with deals going on with most govn'ts (they are not a govn't org them selfs), and tend to just ignore all laws any way. Oh, and dont' forget that they are mostly incompetent anyway.
grumble, I am almost sure that Wiki article is wrong, Freeside is NOT a casino, it would be close to calling it a resort town. And blade runner has nothing to do with the Turing Police (and thus Neuromancer), aside from both taking place in Cyberpunk worlds.
Well, let us see. A warrent in the USA is issued by a Judge, no one else. A senior officer is not a judge, and a independent commissioner, who is usually a retired judge appointed by the Home Office., does not sound like a judge to me either (what is the home office for that matter?). I am used to a 3 bransh system (Legislature, judical, executive), where each 2 can check the other (yes, it is gettign horribly messed up atm, but alot of what is happening is unconstitutional, however the actual system is a rather good one). What I see here is the ability to set up a wire tap (a wire tap and hacking a system are generaly considered rather similar in the USA), witho nly needing a senior officer, or some one appointed by the "Home Office", and the home ofice does not seem to be a judical section of the govn't either.
So I would say that it was not "fooling" an American by "replacing a word with its definition". Troll better.
Now, a poster further up actualy pointed out that this was the govn't investigating govn't computers, and thus would not normaly need a warrent. And I thank that poster. Soem one else also mentioned the RIPA, and I have to look into that.
Nope!
he tends to run his mouth off alot, and watchign him can be rather amusing (especialy watching him drunk at a party, telling off the PR guy who is supposed to be making sure he doesn't say stuff he isn't supposed to).
The 'one console in ten years' thing isn't 100% right (cut 10 yrs to 5-6), but it is possible. Before the current gen (heh, no longer is it next gen!) systems launched there really was only one player, the PS2. The market share they had over both the xbox and the NGC was segnificant, why? Exlusive 3rd party games.
However, as he pointed out himself, the exclusive 3rd party game seems to be a dieing breed. We now see games beign proted over to every system they can, simply because a port can capitalize on the inital investment required for a new game with out spendign (relativly) much more.
So yah, he is shooting his mouth off, but he says some key things to watch.
compleatly true.
Even Regie, the angriest man on earth, can really captivate an audiance when he gets going.