@Relyt: There were still a couple of JRPGs trickling out last year.
This is why we can't have nice things.
I always feel the need to comment on Zork posts that the original trilogy of text adventures literally changed my life.
They got me interested in computers and I taught myself BASIC as a child just so I could write my own (crude, crappy) text adventure games. It set me on a career path and now ~25 years later I'm still working with computers.
They got me interested in computers and I taught myself BASIC as a child just so I could write my own (crude, crappy) text adventure games. It set me on a career path and now ~25 years later I'm still working with computers.
@fuchikoma: I understand mean time between failure, but the MTBF for moving parts (like the hard drive and CD drive) are going to be shorter than the other parts, and usage is going to effect where a given drive fails compared to the mean. You make a good point about the fans though; I don't leave my Xbox on and idle, so I don't know if you're putting wear on them.
I definitely agree that you are wasting at least SOME power leaving it idle (which is the reason I don't)... I would think it would be low enough not to cause heating problems, but maybe I'm mistaken. You don't have to test it for my sake but if you do so anyway I'm kind of curious.
I definitely agree that you are wasting at least SOME power leaving it idle (which is the reason I don't)... I would think it would be low enough not to cause heating problems, but maybe I'm mistaken. You don't have to test it for my sake but if you do so anyway I'm kind of curious.
@jpagel: Yeah, this is a great point. Anybody who has a credit card: look at who you give those numbers too. Probably not just the people at GameStop, but probably tons of cashiers and waiters who are making minimum wage.
GameStop isn't going to do anything malicious with your gamertag because it would be bad business. (And because there is only just so much malicious stuff you can do with somebody's gamertag, especially compared to what you can do with their CC and telephone numbers, which they already have.) They have a vested interest in using it to serve you because that's how they make money, and GameStop likes to make lots and lots of money.
GameStop isn't going to do anything malicious with your gamertag because it would be bad business. (And because there is only just so much malicious stuff you can do with somebody's gamertag, especially compared to what you can do with their CC and telephone numbers, which they already have.) They have a vested interest in using it to serve you because that's how they make money, and GameStop likes to make lots and lots of money.
@fuchikoma: It isn't like your Xbox only has a certain number of hours it can be on before it fails. (That's the iPod, har har har... I kid, I kid.) Seriously though, your hard drive and the DVD drive are the moving parts, they are what is going to fail and kill your Xbox. Or overheating and warping the internal components, but just sitting idle isn't going to cause that unless your Xbox is sitting somewhere hot with poor ventilation; the processors running are going to generate the heat.
@LobsterPinata: Notice the past tense, "had."
@Rexter: 1.5 million or more copies in Japan alone seems popular enough to justify DLC.
@TnOdyssey001: That is the best response to grammar nitpicking I have ever seen on the internet. Bravo.
@TRT-X: Before the terrible reviews, I read enough about the game to know she's a photographer who does self-portraits. It's a bit of a stretch for a justification, but if you can suspend your disbelief enough to buy beating monsters to death with your own severed arm...
@TnOdyssey001: I don't think the word "literally" means what you think it means.
@sixfootgnome: I haven't played DQ9, but I know some other RPGs also overcome those pacing issues by opening a lot of that "optional" content as an epilogue or only after beating the boss and loading a "clear" save. Lunar: Eternal Blue, for a example, had an "epilogue" that rivaled the "real" quest in depth.
I agree that at best it seems contrived to have the world teetering on the brink of destruction while you go around doing fetch quests; at worst, it creates a psychological incentive to indefinitely forgo finishing.
I agree that at best it seems contrived to have the world teetering on the brink of destruction while you go around doing fetch quests; at worst, it creates a psychological incentive to indefinitely forgo finishing.
@Zypherdraco: Please, talk to anybody who works with the homeless.
@Zypherdraco: There is a way to justify it. Talk to somebody who works in a prison. I don't think I'm going to convince you.
If we are letting homeless people (who mostly have severe mental problems) live on the street in the winter, we're failing as a society in other ways.
I've read the article and somehow I don't feel driven to get myself thrown in prison to enjoy the good life. I wonder why that is.
If we are letting homeless people (who mostly have severe mental problems) live on the street in the winter, we're failing as a society in other ways.
I've read the article and somehow I don't feel driven to get myself thrown in prison to enjoy the good life. I wonder why that is.
@Zypherdraco: Many prisoners do work. Where do you think all the jokes about making license plates come from?
Do you really think people say "prison looks like a good deal, I'm going to commit a crime and get caught just so I can get in there?"
Do you really think people say "prison looks like a good deal, I'm going to commit a crime and get caught just so I can get in there?"
@sereal: I suppose we tried to solve the "it costs too dang much to run prisons" by privatizing them which has lead to a lot more interest in running prisons cheaply, rather than effectively.
I mean, the real root problem is probably the poverty and lack of mental health care that makes people offenders at all, but that's an insanely difficult problem nobody has figured out yet. Still, I'm with you, just making prisons miserable doesn't help anybody. No matter how nice they are, I suspect people would rather be free.
I mean, the real root problem is probably the poverty and lack of mental health care that makes people offenders at all, but that's an insanely difficult problem nobody has figured out yet. Still, I'm with you, just making prisons miserable doesn't help anybody. No matter how nice they are, I suspect people would rather be free.
@amygdala: I have it; I just think they should re-release it for other people!... because they can't have mine, either. :)
Activision has been sitting on the Infocom properties for ages now. I appreciate the easter eggs, but I wish they'd reissue some of the collections. It wouldn't make much money, but it would cost them almost nothing, and earn them a lot of goodwill from us old folks.
On the other hand, maybe this wasn't even done at the highest level. I imagine whipping up a z-machine interpreter to run on top of their engine could have just been a hobby project for one of the programmers.
On the other hand, maybe this wasn't even done at the highest level. I imagine whipping up a z-machine interpreter to run on top of their engine could have just been a hobby project for one of the programmers.
