alanschu

I don't mind "puzzles" per se. But I don't like puzzles that are just puzzles for the sake of being puzzles. I would much rather have a game with no puzzles than a game with many thought provoking, challenging puzzles when the puzzles are completely out of context with the rest of the game setting.

I know the point that people like to get across with respect to the ferrari example. Even though I'm against software piracy, this example does not hold for software piracy (or any kind of copyright infringment). This is because "stealing" software isn't really "stealing" at all. It's actually copyright infringement. The problem with the ferrari example is that if I steal a ferrari from you that you are trying to sell, then you are no longer able to sell that ferrari. If I burn a copy of a CD that you are trying to sell, you are still able to sell that CD to someone else and still make money off of it. To reiterate, you cannot do that with a Ferrari. Having said that, I do agree with your assessment regarding the "try and buy" perspective on piracy. This only works if the person does buy it. However, I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to assume that it would be unusual for someone to buy a game that they have already beaten, even if they really liked it. Especially if there were no other benefits liks a MP component or something. It's tough to justify something that you literally will not gain from, as you've already received the experience. I still think it's convenient to just ignore probably the largest source of software piracy in the world. I suspect that the fact that these people make money off of other people's hard work is much more infuriating than the guy that downloads his free copy. Furthermore, downloading and cracking software is still a niche thing even in North America. But the main reason why "burn and sell" isn't as effective in North America is because it's waaaaaay easier to enforce. Walmart can't just throw up the $5.95 bootleg copy of KOTOR 2 without getting in legal troubles. This is not the case in Asia. It's tough to say how what hurts more. I'd imagine that if even 1% of the people that pirate games in Asia could no longer (i.e. not possible at all) buy the bootleg copies, a huge influx of capital would come in for game developers (well, publishers). 1% might be too optimistic. I'd still say that even 1/100000 would result in larger income streams than removing all the "free" downloads in North America.

Though I found the lip-synching to be subpar compared to the earliest HL2 videos. I have a feeling the range of motion of the mouths of the characters was just more limited.

I think this is easy to say. But in practice I wonder how you would do if you realized that the overall outcome of your story was dictated to you because of an action taken 10 hours earlier. Furthermore, such branching tends to duplicate work, especially if the branching means that you have to go elsewhere in the gameworld. I think it might be neat as well, but I'm not so sure people (including myself) would ultimately be happy with a game that had something seemingly innocuous at the time actually force you down a specific path many hours later. A situation I can think of is when my friend got pissed off because he lost an item in PS:T that was needed for the foundry to retreive an item. He messed around for a bit and couldn't find an alternative, so he ended up having to pretty much restart the game. The bad thing is, he lost interest replaying the same stuff so he never actually finished PS:T.

Isn't that more Freeware or Public Domain? The Shareware model that I'm familiar with is usually either trial based, or with limited functionality. Doom for instance, only had the first episode available as Shareware. If you wanted to play the other levels, you had to buy the game. It wasn't "please contribute if you like it." It was "please contribute if you want to play more." Alternative styles are the 30 day trial periods that offer full functionality (well, usually), but disable themselves after the trial period is over. It's the predominant model for video games. And it's actually becoming a predominant model for many other things as well, including books. This also includes music. The publishers acquire the copyright in exchange for mass distribution. And I am talking from a North American perspective.

Yeah, hot damn. Because that's usually the way these things go. For every million or so sold copy of, say, Diablo, there's A BILLION of people just clicking said god-forsaken wishy-washy pinko commie link, depriving Blizzard of their hard-earned bucks. Lol, did you write what I think you did? I wasn't talking about per copy 1000 illegal copies get downloaded. I was talking about why DL'ing was more of a problem than "burn and sellers", that spread illegal software ALOT slower... Read before posting... Don't just start ripping things FAR out of their context <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually I'd wager that the "burn and sellers" distribute way more pirated games than simply getting free copies from the Internet. It's the predominant form of piracy in Asia, which is generally referred to as the place with the most rampant piracy. The thing about the "burn and sell" methodology is that it appeals to average, computer illiterate joe blow. Believe it or not, but downloading stuff with torrents and cracking it is reserved purely for those with ample computer literacy. As an anecdote, my best friend has no idea about any of those things. But if he was to go into a store or to a street vendor (both of which are things that happen in the large "burn and sell" markets in Asia), he'd have no problems buying that copy at 95% off. Anyone with the ability to put a CD in the drive and let the autorun do its thing can do that. I mean, to be honest I am not even that aware of how to torrent (I haven't used it as I haven't had the need). I bet I could do a quick look around for some BitTorrent download managers and figure it out pretty quickly. But the fact that even I would need to do some research on the topic likely puts it out of scope for the vast, vast majority of people out there. We as computer geeks are not an accurate sample of the computer user population.

OMG LOL I found that genuinely laugh-out-loud funny

Fixed!

As a funny aside, I remember when many people were reporting bizarre problems about the Half-Life expansion Opposing Forces. They were all up in a rage, and many were contacting tech support and whatnot. It turns out though, that the problem only existed in the pirated version. I heard there were many bannings on the gearbox forums I'd be too distracted watching the lip-synching....assuming they did it as well as Valve (I was less impressed with Bloodlines' lip-synching).

Again, I'm talking about where the manufacturers of said consoles have stated where they want their consoles to go. Yes there's stupid people out there that buy the $500 brand new video card. But they're also the same type of people that go out and buy the HDTV just for their XBOX. They are also in a rather large minority when it comes to dealing with the entire PC gamer population (talking from my experiences selling the cards, in addition to discussions with the suppliers about fast moving cards). Their numbers are even LESS when considering the console gamer population. Odo, they have less influence. Graphics is becoming way too much of a focus all around, and I find the statements made by console manufacturers about focusing on graphics to also be worrisome. It's not anti-console perse. I understand the dominance that the console market has and every generation I see an increasing focus on graphics. Specifically when the Microsoft Keynote at the GDC focused so much on photorealism and the HD era. Teams consisting of hundreds of people skyrocketting development costs and curtailing innovation. Yes, it is a problem with the PC and those people that buy the high end video card every time don't help the situation. But now the console people are so heavily stressing it that I see it as major problem for the video game industry as a whole. LOL. That would sure explain those MP games like Battlefield 2, Doom 3, Half-Life 2. If you were to have at least said "because the possibility of having a ton of graphic assets on the screen" then I'd give you a bit more credibility. I'd also wager that all 3 of those games I mentioned will be played online much more the NwN 2. I imagine it will probably go the way as NWN 1, and be overwhelmingly a single player game before it's a multiplayer game.

I find information on some old league basketball player (I don't think it's even NBA, but it's from the 50s), as well as a ton of references to certain F1 racing drivers.

I agree. My first playthrough I always playthrough with a strict roleplaying perspective, and it usually results in an exceptionally satisfying game experience. My KOTOR 1 was probably the best, where I always tried to do the right thing. My trip to Korriban had me convinced that I needed to buy into the Sith ways to protect myself and my allies. Turns out I was seduced by the power of the darkside. When I found myself all alone under the waters of Manaan, I was also more willing to be evil since I had no one around to judge me. When I returned to the surface, my journey to the darkside was well underway. Appropriately enough, I reached full darkside mastery right at the end of the unknown planet

Man....this game sounds really fun I'm eagerly anticipating it. Probably a good thing I don't have it for school reasons.

Perhaps I'm just psychotic, but I enjoyed those car commercials.

I'll be cheering for the Oveckeein one! Too bad I'll be at school working on other assignments. Pretty much everything is due this week.

I certainly wouldn't consider myself socially advanced. In grades 7-12, I spent 99.9% of my free time playing basketball rather than conversing with people. At worst, try strutting around playing goofy upbeat music in your head

I could think of a few things that may not be too appropriate (and no, it's not sex related).

I see it as "supporting graphics first" school of design based on what those involved with the XBOX development have stated about how they see the future of videogaming progressing. It doesn't have anything really to do with the buyer's intentions or expectations from the system.

To be fair, I have seen relationships start out of friendships that have been very successful. Having the ability to skip over the stupid and awkward "getting to know you phase" can be an asset. There is also assurances that not seeing a facade that the other person is putting up. Chances are you've already farted in front of each other I would almost wager that, if you were to take a per capita analysis of relationships that started off with friendships vs relationships with acquaintances (or strangers), you'd probably have a higher success rate with the friendship category. I think it goes to the love vs infatuation thing. It seems like a bit of a bizarre concept to me to suddenly become infatuated with someone that you've been good friends with for a while. And even though I demolished some (not all) friendships by asking them out, I still think it's better than the alternative. In high school I was exceptionally shy, particularly around women I was attracted to (oddly enough the ones I considered friends I was quite comfortably around ). As a result, I had a friend that I had pretty much liked since like Grade 6. The more I hesitated, the higher up her pedastal became it seemed (I call it the Aphrodite complex...when you begin to idealize a woman so much that you couldn't possibly have anything to offer her). As I grew up, I considered our relationship and think now that there very likely was a mutual attraction there. We had an amiable relationships, similar interests and got along great. I just couldn't muster up the courage to ask..... To get to the point, I find the realization that a friend wasn't mutually interested and hurting my friendship with them was a better outcome than the "what if" syndrome. Plus, every time you ask someone out, it gets a little easier the next time. You get more experience dealing with the situation and since it's less foreign, you can't help but feel more comfortable (You also learn defense mechanisms allowing you to rationalize things in such a way that you don't even really feel hurt if she says "no"). And to make matters better, while it did take a couple of years, I think my friendship with one of the women in particular is actually pretty good again. With time, the friendships will come back. Back to relationship <-> friendship, I just have personally seen (and experienced) more relationships when there isn't a solid friendship. Though I am a bit of a believer that a relationship that does start off out of friendship probably has a greater chance of being a more meaningful one, if you get what I mean. And despite what I've just said, I can't really see myself just asking out an attractive girl that is a complete stranger to me. Maybe I've just outgrown the T&A stage of my life (don't get me wrong, I do like an attractive woman), but I don't like the idea of diving head first having no idea what I'm getting into. Just the type of person that I am. Though, again, it's probably because I have no experience with that sort of thing so it's just so foreign And this has been another edition of

Hehe

It's not an odd comment if you consider the focus that the console developers are making this year. MS forsees the future with tons of people essentially on an assembly line creating art content for many games. Talks I've had with the Games Group seminars at my University which have included John Buchanan from EA as well as one of the head programmers from Bioware anticipate disproportionate amount of the new resources available with the new consoles to go towards graphics. The Bioware chap anticipates that at least half of the memory for the XBOX 360 will be reserved for the graphics engine. Both the EA and Bioware expect a huge increase in total percentage of available resources being allocated to graphics over the current consoles, with a decrease in resource percentage for AI and physics and whatnot (though this will still be an increase in absolute resources, as 5% of 1000 > 10% of 100). Metadigital has made many references to I think it was the GDC where there was actually a big outcry against the focus of graphics driving the cost of development up way too fast. Part of the thing Will Wright was pimping about Spore was that the world is populated with user-made content from a central server, helping them to reduce the costs. He was also one of the vocal people at the conference concerned about escalating development costs. In my opinion, with every new console release there seems to be just a little bit more focus on the graphics than the previous version. Not to say previous consoles didn't hype up graphics, because they are a very easy thing to observe. I just get the impression that the focus is slowly shifting more and more towards graphics. PC's aren't necessarily an exception. Though I doubt it influences the market as much as the consoles do.

On a more serious note, for what it's worth I've absolutely demolished a few friendships by suddenly finding the person intriguing and asking them out. Most because it's such a "forbidden" type zone that my CPU (i.e brain) was tossing unhandled exceptions like crazy. It's tough because I wanted to remain friends, but you always get that impression that they're acting differently for whatever reason...I always assumed that they were just trying to make sure they didn't do anything to lead me on to thinking they were interested.... Or maybe they WERE interested! But that gets into the point of silly, bizarro mind games that I prefer not to take part in, in order to avoid the Fatal Exception that causes my brain to implode from overanalyzing the situation. Neurons will collide, atoms will fuse, and it'll basically destroy the planet. It's a big responsibility. Ironically, I became more confident around women once I started the whole "apathy" thing. Going through life with a bit of a "meh" attitude has made be a bit more outspoken. So boo on the women that turned me down. They missed out :D Double irony though, is that now that I'm more confident around women and would actually be able to play the "dating game" more effectively, I'm not really in the market. I'm hella busy with school, and I would totally be that boyfriend that doesn't spend enough time with his girlfriend (because he's up at 4:30 AM working on an AI assignment). My "preferences" became much more exclusive. Up there with the trustworthy, honest, caring, big boobies (I kid I kid!) and all those usual suspects for what I look for in a woman, independent fired it's way up there. Right now, it would have to be someone that was willing to accept that I'm crazy busy, and even though I'm not with her 100% of the time I do in fact still care. Anyways.....on to other things, in my experience most relationship that I've personally seen seem to evolve more from acquaintances than actual friendships. But I like to destroy those too! :D At the tender age of 24, my dating portfolio is likely quite bleak compared to most my age. However, as I've gotten older I've gotten less and less concerned with how my dating portfolio looked :D But enough about me.....

I've never known any girl ever being offended or who has felt oppressed to be referred to as someone's girlfriend and I wouldn't see it that way either If my boyfriend called me his "womanfriend" I'd think he was insane (he'd get this look from me: )... I've never heard of that term before... and if I felt I was too old to considered a "girlfriend" I'd rather he called me his "partner" even though that term makes me think of business suits <{POST_SNAPBACK}> "Old Lady" doesn't cut it?? I kid, I kid!

I wonder what the PC market is like compared to the GameCube market. Fair enough. But that time is still not now. Is it really much different than getting that uber-DX9 card when there is no games out that utilize it? I don't think it would be a stretch to claim that most people will not use these new consoles with an HDTV. Having said that, the support for it is never a bad thing. I just thought I'd mention it since I have had conversations with many people that tell me how expensive PC gaming is, yet they have a $2000 HDTV for their consoles.

An interesting thing I've noted is that to get the most out of these consoles seems to require a $1000+ TV to go along with it.