alanschu

I used to think this, but I've started to come around on Bill (who was still a phenomenal player). Russell found ways to win, and was prototypical in his "making his teammates better." I still remember his recount of talking about Don Nelson joining the team, a player who was close to being out of the league for not being a well rounded player. Russell went up to him and basically said something along the lines of "I know people are on you about not being a good rebounder. Well, I'm telling you, you don't need to worry about rebounding anymore. I'll get the rebounds, and you do the things that you're good at to help the team win, okay?" I'm not as big on Ewing, and while I loathed Shaq through the 90s, I have to concede he was full on beast mode in the early 21st Century. But I don't think I'd take Chamberlain over Russell. Chamberlain was more physically gifted, and even more talented, than Russell, but I don't think his focus was ever really on winning. The biggest knock on Shaq was, IMO, he wasn't as great as he could have been (most of his rivalry with Kobe is that Kobe was a gymrat, spending 27 hours a day practicing, while Shaq coasted on his physicality a lot more - the league also so a dearth of competitive centers with Hakeem being well past his prime, Ewing gone, and Robinson never fully recovering from his injury). Olajuwon is one of my all time favourites though, and Kareem was all skill and grace, and a great professional to boot. Russell may have had some great teams, but I think he was the key cog in what made that team so great (by the time he won his 11th championship, he was the only player still remaining from the first championship). Although, Bill was still pretty physically gifted as well. Man was still very strong and could jump like nobody's business. Here's a fun one :D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2AlFrOj5Mc And now for some Dream lovin' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GCyU0sKxqI

Incorrect, but this is the Volo strategy. Remember when you used to accuse people of lying all the time? It's funny that you've never held yourself up to your own standards, but then, that's kind of the MO of a troll. Nah, I heard all that. What you're seeing is the polarization that Miami creates. That people *want* Miami to not be favourites, doesn't mean that they're not. Lebron had his best season this year, and his team had a dominating 66 wins this season, tied for the 10th best record ever. Anyone that didn't consider Miami to be the favourites is misplacing what they *want* to be the case, with actual reality. The Spurs and the Pacers were tough matchups, but Miami has the best player in the game which is a huge X-Factor in any series. Well, at least we can conclude that neither of us actually watch any basketball! :D It should actually be LEBROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMES. If you think about it, when you say his name, you always elongate the vowels, not the consonants. If you're gonna troll, at least do it with good grammar!

Hockey has become pretty infested with diving as well. Remember Mike Ribeiro? In any case, while everyone is comparing Jordan with one of his heir apparents, I was checking out this killer montage of a man who would have had his own influences on MJ's game: The NBA Logo. Enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEzwR1a8KuA

It has always happened, but I disagree with how frequently it happens now. I agree that this is a concern. And not just in basketball. Further, both the league and refs need to be willing to own up when they realize that a player played them. For instance, Lebron was able to successfully draw a flagrant foul on an illegal screen . It's the second flop, and it's an atrocious call by the referee. On some level Lebron's teammates need to say "Pick" (something I was taught in Grade 7) to make sure that teammates don't get their bell rung on a screen like that. I was rubbed out on one like that in high school, although it was a legal pick (and sent me flying as I ran full tilt into a guy that out weighed me by 80 lbs). Players do get fined when the league determines intent to injure. Flagrant fouls can come with a fine of up to $35,000 (7x what Lebron and West paid for their unsportsmanlike conduct), and can also include suspensions (which cost the players much, much more money). The problem, of course, becomes determining "intent to injure." Further, it's not stealing as the penalties are a part of the collective bargaining agreement that the NBA Players Association agrees to. If the player feels the fine is unwarranted and unfair, there's a throng of highly paid lawyers to act on his behalf through the player's union. Only in Volo's trollo land is the team with the best record in the league, and the one with home court advantage, not be considered the favourite. C'mon Volourn, I don't even really watch the NBA anymore and I still know this stuff (and where to find it). Though you seem to be of the assumption that the sport is a non-contact sport (which any fan of the sport will tell you has never been the case). On the lighter side: here's a fun top 10 of MJ, a player that was too busy trying to convert every field goal to be bothered with flopping in order to draw a foul (in fact some of these he does a fantastic job of outright avoiding content despite tons of players coming at him, because he's looking to score the bucket. #1 remains one of the most impressive hoops I have ever seen. No need to initiate contact and flop, since that'll just put him to the FT line, when he can slice in between them all for the surefire 2 points. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uxUWADvIYM

I think the only way to really change it is to call the game looser. You still had floppers in the 80s and 90s, but it was done more rarely because otherwise you just look the fool and get scored on (a bit like in the GIF you posted). It's funny because I can agree with the notion that some of the Detroit Pistons stuff went a bit too far, but you tighten up the calling and people will look to take advantage. It's why I'm not a fan of the handcheck rule, because it meant "ticky tack" fouls became more common, and there's a lot more onus on the officials to try to call *everything* which results in people trying to take advantage. Flopping became so common in attempts to draw charges because refs had a legacy of just not calling anything if players don't fall ("must not have been that much of a charge). I actually remember being coached that, when taking a charge, don't try to stay on my feet (although he didn't advocate flopping in other aspects). Though I think competitiveness drives an issue. I remember doing an *awful* double dribble, and basically called myself on it (I stopped playing before the ref had actually blown the whistle) and my coach was frustrated with me for doing so. On the one hand, I can understand that perspective as a competitor, but at the same time it kinda sends a pretty ****ty message to a high school kid XD

Why risk dying when we can create video games to satisfy said enjoyment!

Awww, you changed your sig!

The NBA fines particularly bad ones. There was some in the Indiana-Miami series. I think that that is new this season. Ever since 1999 though (when I last stopped following NBA Basketball closely), the players have shown themselves to say some awfully silly things. One of the guys fined, David West, has had contracts in and around $10 million a year for the last 6 seasons. His words: "I don't care who you are, $5000 is a lot of money." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBxclfP56sg Lebron James is a physical beast. No way he should get ragdolled like that. The funny part was pregame he said he doesn't flop haha.

Kinect has roughly a 1/3 install base as an optional buy in, which isn't that bad at all. I don't care for the kinect (though I find it's non-gaming applications a lot more intriguing). Since the Kinect is built into the console, it's a misnomer to say it's a "required peripheral" and frankly, I'm not surprised that Microsoft invested in it given that they are trying to hit more than just gamers with the device (whether that is successful remains to be seen... as I said, the pricepoint will be a big driver for that). I don't know how much Kinect contributes to the overall cost (because there's also cost savings, by having it integrated rather than separate), but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out being a big advantage for pushing the console into the living room, nor will I be surprised if it ends up flubbing it. Sony is hardly immune from adding things that "many gamers" couldn't care about to their console as well. I, however, also feel that gamers are innately quite conservative, and the only way to get them to like something else is to give them something else. They rarely ask for it, they only ask for what they know (i.e. sequels). At least among the more outspoken people. (The only consistent thing that the masses indicate that they typically want more improvements on, is immediately obvious things like graphics).

I still remember reading up on the prices of the 3DO and Neo Geo. Jebus.

The biggest difference between the two, IMO, is that Lebron went and buddied up with his friends. Jordan was great friends with people like Magic and Barkley, but he wanted to beat them, not join up with them and dominate the league. I think it'll always taint his legacy, though I suspect he'll put up better career numbers than Michael, barring injuries. Agreed that they are from two different times. Lebron would undoubtedly have been influenced by Michael's contributions to the games specifically. I more showed the Bad Boys vs Jordan because Jordan definitely was not a flopper. In fact, Detroit's aggression often played into Michael's alpha male status, as he initially wanted to show them who's boss. I'd say that Jordan would put up better numbers now than he did in his day, however, despite the fact that scoring in general is down compared to the late 80s. After watching a lot of his late 80s and early 90s games in the past year (since I didn't watch them), he'd be unguardable now, IMO. His first step was pretty ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuZp0aggxqE As a fan, I loathe the removal of the handcheck rule in 2004. It opened the game up SO much, in a way that I don't like at all. Granted, Jordan did his part in making wing players more famous and getting a ton of people interested to be like Mike, but it's pretty telling when the big man's scoring prowess disappeared almost immediately. The thing I miss the most from those early 90s games: the full court press (usually after free throws) that the Bulls employed. What a thing of beauty. And yeah, I agree that Pippen is often underrated and a big part in Michael winning championships, but I still consider Michael the GOAT. Lebron is a beastly player though (though I hate the flopping, especially when he gets defensive and denies it). This wasn't a particularly memorable finals for him, however. Good to see him finish strong.

$499 is a bit of a jump, but at the same time they are intending to do more (and presumably hit a wider audience) with it as well. Though the price point will still hurt widespread adoption on some level. I'm curious how much, however.

The PS4 is clocking in at a higher price point most of the other successful consoles, sans the PS3, as well (even adjusting for inflation, although not by much). Although I feel that gamers focus a lot more on the actual price point and tend to stick with those numbers moreso.

Is this for your thesis? (I filled out the survey regardless)

I have zero doubts that a highly selling game is also typically a highly pirated game.

Introducing Keith David as Keith David actually made me guffaw when I heard that. You're referring to the Platoon character, right?

First they take Admiral Anderson... now they are taking our romances!!!!

I think it's an issue, as others have said, with the increased graphical fidelity. People are more inclined for a "human" that is 8 pixels to behave like a mindless automaton and not act all that smart. Take that same game character and create him in a photo realistic game setting, and people have different expectations.

People always say that like we can only do one or the other. :\

Remember when The Witcher patches were several gigabytes in size (effectively redownloading the whole game), because changing one bit of data in the file required a redownload of the entire file? (Granted, patching can be done better on Steam, but that's neither here nor there... it illustrates the advantages of simplicity, however). Other things to note is that "fast" can mean two different things. High bandwidth is still fast, and you won't care if your multi-terabyte query takes 10 seconds to complete, because to you you think "wow, I got all this information in 10 seconds!" If all your game processes are stalled out for 10 seconds though, because it's waiting for that information, it'd be unplayable (this is an extreme example, to help illustrate the point). With games, however, you're often dealing with milliseconds (at best) for everything, and that latency is very, very important. If you're attempting a large number of queries (especially table modifications), you'll start to hammer on your DBMS performance too. SQL (and other) databases have been used in games (usually MMOs, whether casual or hardcore), however (I know we used them in development for Dragon Age Origins 1 and 2, and the Frostbite editor interacts with a database repository as well). Databases are more useful when working with vast amounts of data, which most video games that aren't "massively multiplayer" just don't have. Here's a write up that has some GDC influences within the contexts of http://doublebuffered.com/2006/10/30/why-sql-sucks-for-mmorpgs/ And a brief abstract citing challenges from SIGMOD 2009 (this will probably be most beneficial for you to read). http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~sowell/2009-SIGMOD-Games-Tutorial.pdf

I enjoyed playing a SIth Inquisitor that wasn't so keen on employing the ways of the Sith, for good effect

The great thing about the internet is that someone somewhere utter that phrase, and it became the great chorus of dismissal. The phrase is overused, and we lack the context to dismiss it outright due to an idea that correlation does not imply causation. I find this interesting: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/06/20/todays-falsehood-correlation-i/ It's correct that we cannot assume that these games sold much better specifically because of the marketing plan, and we'd need to look into which games were specifically used in the aggregate (hence why I asked to look at it). For instance, in your "edit" section, you provide a data set that can be easily reasoned away via dismissal. It starts to border on reducto ad absurdum and isn't really relevant, because it's easy to point out and recognize the other factors that would be involved (namely, demand), and trivial to illustrate that your analogy means nothing. We have more information in your analogy than in the EEDAR study (which is decidedly closed). As for "Schnell doesn't take into account ..." Schnell may not take it into account, because he's in a keynote speech with a fixed time limit to say what he wants to say, where getting bogged down in the details is one of the worst things you can do. We should be skeptical of the claims (which are actually quite old), since we can't be sure of the methodology. These are simply statistical measurements, but saying "correlation does not imply causation" is a wee bit too dismissive. Unless you're suggesting that the EEDAR people didn't attend the same first year stats courses that you did (they make some other observations as well, though again, I don't have access to the study so I can't really treat it as anything more than observations). Frankly, we don't have the information to be fully dismissive or accepting of the statistics given, and simply being able to create some logical constructs (note: logic and reality are often not agreement, especially when dealing with irrational entities) that are equally as valid as the claim Schnell put forth does not serve as evidence that a causal influence is not there, either. TL;DR As a once ardent supporter of the "correlation does not imply causation" defense, I now feel it's overused and over relied upon by people to the point where it mostly comes across as a statement of the obvious.

I was a big fan of the Imperial Agent. I loved when the actor changed accents depending on cover. I didn't have any real issues with the voice acting talent, though the ones I am most familiar with are Male Jedi Knight, Male Agent, and Female Inquisitor.

Interesting, thanks. I can definitely understand how a demo would hurt sales if the demo was subpar, but never really factored in the impulse aspect. The "Oh cool, I tried it" that would have still bought the game just to try it. I'd be interested in seeing the details of the aggregate just for my own curiosity.