They're going to add extra locks to the door but if the government knocks nicely they'll open it for them. This isn't news.
Since when is a legally binding order "knocking nicely"?
When a police officer pulls you over and searches your car, is he "knocking nicely"?
While it is a meaningless gesture and statement, it, along with the lawsuit from Google and Microsoft against the NSA, show that these companies aren't happy about this whole thing. Sending this information to the government in betrayal of their user's trust isn't something they WANT to do.
The thing to do right now is to act like you're making it harder for the Government to snoop. Everyone is up in arms about it (well... really they're just complaining about it on Facebook) so to get some free PR bonus points you put out a statement saying you're going to encrypt everything.
They're going to add extra locks to the door but if the government knocks nicely they'll open it for them. This isn't news.
Since when is a legally binding order "knocking nicely"?
When a police officer pulls you over and searches your car, is he "knocking nicely"?
While it is a meaningless gesture and statement, it, along with the lawsuit from Google and Microsoft against the NSA, show that these companies aren't happy about this whole thing. Sending this information to the government in betrayal of their user's trust isn't something they WANT to do.
Do you see how you're publicly reading about their efforts to make it harder for the government?
That's what they can do. That's what they didn't do last year. That's what the issue is.
When the cop searching your car says "Do I have to hold you here until I get a warrant?" it's the difference between quiet acquiescence as your rights might be violated and saying "Yes" and dealing with the hours on the roadside.
So not to make the argument worse but I have read the entire debate up until this point about the League streaming and no one has actually supplied a link about the pay. Someone mentioned they heard/read somewhere it was 50k a year but no one has actually supplied a link. And I can not find anything on Google or Riot's own sites. Although the purse for first place at the world tournament is a million dollars, that is split at least four ways. Which is certainly not something to sneeze at that is different then day to day streaming. Or did I miss it somewhere?
Player brands are not as important as tourney results. If you look at who has emerged and who has fallen off, this is pretty clear. The only non-LCS people who get much in stream numbers are Trick2G (high entertainment value), boxbox (I think attempting to enter LCS) and maybe phantomlord (god knows why). Rainman used to get 10-15k every time when he was on TSM, no longer.
In addition, Riot has heavily invested in promotion (see animated videos, promo spots etc.) of players brands, media training and exposure via events. I would say they have a financial stake in the players of their series, and as such they can dictate some level of terms around promotion of competing products in a public sphere. If this were Blizzard with SC2 or Valve with DOTA2? There would absolutely be a problem, as they do not do any individual player promotion short of the world champs and there's little guaranteed financial support.
In this case, Riot has made significant investments, and doesn't want to see other people piggy-back for free on their popularity (IE giving hearthstone keys to popular LOL streamers basically guaranteed exposure). There may have also been some back-end discussions we didn't see between companies that prompted this agreement.
The fact remains that Riot is the only company making a serious financial commitment and effort to establishing a consistent eSport league (which is why they can get special Visa treatment), and they'd like to protect that income stream.
I've also been hearing the pro players are very upset about this. I've seen some of them intentionally streaming games like Hearthstone more than usual in response to this.
Steam: Spawnbroker
0
kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
The wording and semantics behind it are meaningless now. Only the aftermath.
Shortly after announcing their system would require a forced camera installation, along with a hilariously murky definition of what defined it being "turned off", news broke that all of those crazy people who were declaring that the government was spying on them turned out to be right. And that Microsoft was a part of it.
It's little wonder why people instantly doubled down on the Kinect hate. Sucky ass timing for MS, but it wasn't unwarranted.
No, the distrust wasn't unwarranted at the time, for the 24 hours or so before the facts were actually known. But you, I, and the guys that liked your post should also know that distrusting Microsoft on a personal level IS unwarranted. You've just described a misconception, which is that Microsoft are spying on you.
The alternative is: Your TV is spying on you. Your credit card company is spying on you. HBO is spying on you. Amazon is spying on you. Your webcam is spying on you. Penny Arcade is spying on you (and knows a LOT MORE than Microsoft does).
Because any one of those organisations could be forced to say what they know about you at any time - just like MS was.
Microsoft were not collecting data at the request of the government, that's a fact.
MS' option, if thy wanted to actually protect consumers, would be to do what lavabit did. Instead, they chose to assist the government when told to/asked.
0
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
Yay! More shooters!
Also, the likelihood we get a new Burnout is become smaller and smaller.
Former Need For Speed developer Criterion Games is developing a Battlefield spin-off due for release in the next financial year, according to analyst firm Wedbush Securities.
In a report provided to VideoGamer.com today, Wedbush said:
"Although EA has as yet to announce a Battlefield extension for FY:15, we believe Criterion Games is working on a military shooter that may become a brand extension for the Battlefield franchise in FY:15.
"DICE is responsible for Battlefield 4 and the patch, and DICE's two studios (in Stockholm and London) are currently working on Mirror's Edge 2 (announced at E3 and likely a FY:16 release) and Star Wars Battlefront (announced at E3, and possibly a FY:17 release)."
The report later states that Wedbush "spoke with [EA] management on Thursday afternoon, and although they have not yet announced a version of Battlefield for FY:15, they confirmed that our understanding is spot on and that if a version of Battlefield were to be released in FY:15, it would be developed by a studio other than DICE."
The wording and semantics behind it are meaningless now. Only the aftermath.
Shortly after announcing their system would require a forced camera installation, along with a hilariously murky definition of what defined it being "turned off", news broke that all of those crazy people who were declaring that the government was spying on them turned out to be right. And that Microsoft was a part of it.
It's little wonder why people instantly doubled down on the Kinect hate. Sucky ass timing for MS, but it wasn't unwarranted.
No, the distrust wasn't unwarranted at the time, for the 24 hours or so before the facts were actually known. But you, I, and the guys that liked your post should also know that distrusting Microsoft on a personal level IS unwarranted. You've just described a misconception, which is that Microsoft are spying on you.
The alternative is: Your TV is spying on you. Your credit card company is spying on you. HBO is spying on you. Amazon is spying on you. Your webcam is spying on you. Penny Arcade is spying on you (and knows a LOT MORE than Microsoft does).
Because any one of those organisations could be forced to say what they know about you at any time - just like MS was.
Microsoft were not collecting data at the request of the government, that's a fact.
MS' option, if thy wanted to actually protect consumers, would be to do what lavabit did. Instead, they chose to assist the government when told to/asked.
Are you seriously comparing a multinational multi multi billion dollar company to some two-bit email service???
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
I mean holy fuck, lavabit CLOSED DOWN over this. Yes yes, good for him, privacy and all that, but can you really not see how that isn't an option for a company like Microsoft?
They're going to add extra locks to the door but if the government knocks nicely they'll open it for them. This isn't news.
Since when is a legally binding order "knocking nicely"?
When a police officer pulls you over and searches your car, is he "knocking nicely"?
While it is a meaningless gesture and statement, it, along with the lawsuit from Google and Microsoft against the NSA, show that these companies aren't happy about this whole thing. Sending this information to the government in betrayal of their user's trust isn't something they WANT to do.
Do you see how you're publicly reading about their efforts to make it harder for the government?
That's what they can do. That's what they didn't do last year. That's what the issue is.
When the cop searching your car says "Do I have to hold you here until I get a warrant?" it's the difference between quiet acquiescence as your rights might be violated and saying "Yes" and dealing with the hours on the roadside.
I think the difference is last year, Snowden hadn't leaked all the info on how the NSA worked and as such, they didn't realize their own networks were being snooped.
I would think that a lot of companies and citizens would never dream that their own government is spying on them in these kinds of ways. Now in addition to working to fend off the usual malware and and malfeasants, they have to work to protect themselves from the government too.
RE: Riot and the contracts and such, welcome to the big leagues kids! If I catch you advertising the competition, so help me I will slap your wallet fucking senseless! I'm sure we'll see the list of games refined over time while these leagues mature, should they survive.
Much as I think the Kinect-centric approach to the Xbox One was a bad idea I highly doubt Microsoft intentionally put it there to help the government spy on people. No, based on the company's current mindset (here I'm thinking of their refusal to bring back the Start Button menu to Windows 8 even though that's the easiest, most logical way to start addressing the general public's hatred of the platform) it's much more likely Microsoft execs just decided that requiring Kinect would be awesome because they live in a bubble free from any consideration of what customers are actually motivated by.
Much as I think the Kinect-centric approach to the Xbox One was a bad idea I highly doubt Microsoft intentionally put it there to help the government spy on people. No, based on the company's current mindset (here I'm thinking of their refusal to bring back the Start Button menu to Windows 8 even though that's the easiest, most logical way to start addressing the general public's hatred of the platform) it's much more likely Microsoft execs just decided that requiring Kinect would be awesome because they live in a bubble free from any consideration of what customers are actually motivated by.
I am 100% convinced the Kinect is a big deal not for the camera, but because everyone from the top down at Microsoft grew up watching Star Trek:TNG and wants to talk to their appliances.
Which is a motivation I'm ok with, even if I don't share it.
The thing about the Kinect is it's a control scheme looking to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Outside of dancing games, I don't want to wave my hands in the air like I just don't care just to control my fucking console.
The wording and semantics behind it are meaningless now. Only the aftermath.
Shortly after announcing their system would require a forced camera installation, along with a hilariously murky definition of what defined it being "turned off", news broke that all of those crazy people who were declaring that the government was spying on them turned out to be right. And that Microsoft was a part of it.
It's little wonder why people instantly doubled down on the Kinect hate. Sucky ass timing for MS, but it wasn't unwarranted.
No, the distrust wasn't unwarranted at the time, for the 24 hours or so before the facts were actually known. But you, I, and the guys that liked your post should also know that distrusting Microsoft on a personal level IS unwarranted. You've just described a misconception, which is that Microsoft are spying on you.
The alternative is: Your TV is spying on you. Your credit card company is spying on you. HBO is spying on you. Amazon is spying on you. Your webcam is spying on you. Penny Arcade is spying on you (and knows a LOT MORE than Microsoft does).
Because any one of those organisations could be forced to say what they know about you at any time - just like MS was.
Microsoft were not collecting data at the request of the government, that's a fact.
MS' option, if thy wanted to actually protect consumers, would be to do what lavabit did. Instead, they chose to assist the government when told to/asked.
This is the single most absurd post I read this year.
The thing about the Kinect is it's a control scheme looking to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Outside of dancing games, I don't want to wave my hands in the air like I just don't care just to control my fucking console.
Honestly, from what I'm hearing the voice controls are pretty dang nice, assuming you aren't bothered by the steep learning curve and the 10% of the time it doesn't work.
But why couldn't they have just put in a vastly cheaper microphone? Based on what I've read there's very little that takes advantage of motion control at this point.
The wording and semantics behind it are meaningless now. Only the aftermath.
Shortly after announcing their system would require a forced camera installation, along with a hilariously murky definition of what defined it being "turned off", news broke that all of those crazy people who were declaring that the government was spying on them turned out to be right. And that Microsoft was a part of it.
It's little wonder why people instantly doubled down on the Kinect hate. Sucky ass timing for MS, but it wasn't unwarranted.
No, the distrust wasn't unwarranted at the time, for the 24 hours or so before the facts were actually known. But you, I, and the guys that liked your post should also know that distrusting Microsoft on a personal level IS unwarranted. You've just described a misconception, which is that Microsoft are spying on you.
The alternative is: Your TV is spying on you. Your credit card company is spying on you. HBO is spying on you. Amazon is spying on you. Your webcam is spying on you. Penny Arcade is spying on you (and knows a LOT MORE than Microsoft does).
Because any one of those organisations could be forced to say what they know about you at any time - just like MS was.
Microsoft were not collecting data at the request of the government, that's a fact.
MS' option, if thy wanted to actually protect consumers, would be to do what lavabit did. Instead, they chose to assist the government when told to/asked.
Clearly the answer is for all affected companies to simply close up shop in protest! This is like, the best post I've read in a long time, and by best, I mean best at making me laugh out loud in my office which resulted in a co-worker coming in and asking what I was laughing at.
The thing about the Kinect is it's a control scheme looking to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Outside of dancing games, I don't want to wave my hands in the air like I just don't care just to control my fucking console.
Well, the theory is that since the Kinect is packaged with every Xbox One from the outset, developers can cater games towards it since they know all customers have access to one. There wasn't a whole lot of point in putting Kinect features in an game that wasn't developed specifically around Kinect before when there was no guarantee that the end user had one or not.
Of course, the same can be said for the Wii U's gamepad, but nobody outside of Nintendo is utilizing the damn thing. (With a few obvious exceptions.)
The thing about the Kinect is it's a control scheme looking to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Outside of dancing games, I don't want to wave my hands in the air like I just don't care just to control my fucking console.
As someone with one in my house right now, I make significant use of the kinect features all the time.
1) Killer Instinct: My controller is always button mapped to my preferences. If I had 3-4 people over, and we were passing controllers around, the buttons will always be my settings when whatever controller gets handed to me without having to go into menus and change them every time you pass it around.
2) Dead Rising has basic motion control (shake the controller to break a zombie grapple) - its a small motion, not "waving arms around" by any stretch, and the kinect registers the controller moving and issues the command. Also the ability to taunt enemies in Dead Rising, like shouting at the zombies to get them to swarm around you, or say infuriating phrases at the psychos to cause them to change tactics or open up to powerful attacks. It's all fairly immersive, if silly.
3) I log in immediately when I step into the room. It's a small quality of life thing, but in a house with more than one person using the console, stepping into frame and asking xbox to "show your stuff" and having your pins and color scheme come into frame is just neat.
The gesture controls are pretty bad, but they are an option, and some people like them. Really, the kinect's voice command stuff, which only works as well as it does because they have an array of microphones along the bottom of it with some beefy noise canceling, is how you are expected to move around the interface, and it works very well and very fast.
The kinect is less a "must have videogame feature" and more of a series of quality of life improvements with some game applications here and there, that when all added together, really sells the system. It's probably best to stop thinking about how it will revolutionize games and more about how it makes playing games and doing other stuff easier / more seamless.
Well, at least until Project Spark comes out. then it will be pretty revolutionary, considering you can build your own games in it (anything from Kameo to Geometry Wars and all stops inbetween), and use the kinect to do mocap and voice recording for your cutscenes and AI.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
+4
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
The thing about the Kinect is it's a control scheme looking to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Outside of dancing games, I don't want to wave my hands in the air like I just don't care just to control my fucking console.
Honestly, from what I'm hearing the voice controls are pretty dang nice, assuming you aren't bothered by the steep learning curve and the 10% of the time it doesn't work.
But why couldn't they have just put in a vastly cheaper microphone? Based on what I've read there's very little that takes advantage of motion control at this point.
The Microphone is an array of mics on the bottom of the kinect, that rely on some hefty noise cancellation processing and stereo capture, along with the 3D camera to place where the audio is coming from.
the mics only work as well as they do because they are baked into the kinect.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
So not to make the argument worse but I have read the entire debate up until this point about the League streaming and no one has actually supplied a link about the pay. Someone mentioned they heard/read somewhere it was 50k a year but no one has actually supplied a link. And I can not find anything on Google or Riot's own sites. Although the purse for first place at the world tournament is a million dollars, that is split at least four ways. Which is certainly not something to sneeze at that is different then day to day streaming. Or did I miss it somewhere?
Since it's really fucking hard to find any salary info on esports (I'm thinking LoL and SC2), I'm guessing the players get paid like shit.
The thing about the Kinect is it's a control scheme looking to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Outside of dancing games, I don't want to wave my hands in the air like I just don't care just to control my fucking console.
As someone with one in my house right now, I make significant use of the kinect features all the time.
1) Killer Instinct: My controller is always button mapped to my preferences. If I had 3-4 people over, and we were passing controllers around, the buttons will always be my settings when whatever controller gets handed to me without having to go into menus and change them every time you pass it around.
2) Dead Rising has basic motion control (shake the controller to break a zombie grapple) - its a small motion, not "waving arms around" by any stretch, and the kinect registers the controller moving and issues the command. Also the ability to taunt enemies in Dead Rising, like shouting at the zombies to get them to swarm around you, or say infuriating phrases at the psychos to cause them to change tactics or open up to powerful attacks. It's all fairly immersive, if silly.
3) I log in immediately when I step into the room. It's a small quality of life thing, but in a house with more than one person using the console, stepping into frame and asking xbox to "show your stuff" and having your pins and color scheme come into frame is just neat.
The gesture controls are pretty bad, but they are an option, and some people like them. Really, the kinect's voice command stuff, which only works as well as it does because they have an array of microphones along the bottom of it with some beefy noise canceling, is how you are expected to move around the interface, and it works very well and very fast.
The kinect is less a "must have videogame feature" and more of a series of quality of life improvements with some game applications here and there, that when all added together, really sells the system. It's probably best to stop thinking about how it will revolutionize games and more about how it makes playing games and doing other stuff easier / more seamless.
Well, at least until Project Spark comes out. then it will be pretty revolutionary, considering you can build your own games in it (anything from Kameo to Geometry Wars and all stops inbetween), and use the kinect to do mocap and voice recording for your cutscenes and AI.
Am I the only one that finds all of this a little creepy? Call me old fashioned, I guess. I do not want my console to always be listening for my voice to be turned on. I don't want games to give me technical fouls for swearing in my own house.
When my first reaction to the new features of your new console is "If I can't turn this off, I don't want it plugged in to the wall at all" then I think you've messed up. It's also possible that I'm misunderstanding the technology and what it's actually doing, but I'm just really creeped out by the whole business.
The thing about the Kinect is it's a control scheme looking to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Outside of dancing games, I don't want to wave my hands in the air like I just don't care just to control my fucking console.
As someone with one in my house right now, I make significant use of the kinect features all the time.
1) Killer Instinct: My controller is always button mapped to my preferences. If I had 3-4 people over, and we were passing controllers around, the buttons will always be my settings when whatever controller gets handed to me without having to go into menus and change them every time you pass it around.
2) Dead Rising has basic motion control (shake the controller to break a zombie grapple) - its a small motion, not "waving arms around" by any stretch, and the kinect registers the controller moving and issues the command. Also the ability to taunt enemies in Dead Rising, like shouting at the zombies to get them to swarm around you, or say infuriating phrases at the psychos to cause them to change tactics or open up to powerful attacks. It's all fairly immersive, if silly.
3) I log in immediately when I step into the room. It's a small quality of life thing, but in a house with more than one person using the console, stepping into frame and asking xbox to "show your stuff" and having your pins and color scheme come into frame is just neat.
The gesture controls are pretty bad, but they are an option, and some people like them. Really, the kinect's voice command stuff, which only works as well as it does because they have an array of microphones along the bottom of it with some beefy noise canceling, is how you are expected to move around the interface, and it works very well and very fast.
The kinect is less a "must have videogame feature" and more of a series of quality of life improvements with some game applications here and there, that when all added together, really sells the system. It's probably best to stop thinking about how it will revolutionize games and more about how it makes playing games and doing other stuff easier / more seamless.
Well, at least until Project Spark comes out. then it will be pretty revolutionary, considering you can build your own games in it (anything from Kameo to Geometry Wars and all stops inbetween), and use the kinect to do mocap and voice recording for your cutscenes and AI.
Am I the only one that finds all of this a little creepy? Call me old fashioned, I guess. I do not want my console to always be listening for my voice to be turned on. I don't want games to give me technical fouls for swearing in my own house.
When my first reaction to the new features of your new console is "If I can't turn this off, I don't want it plugged in to the wall at all" then I think you've messed up. It's also possible that I'm misunderstanding the technology and what it's actually doing, but I'm just really creeped out by the whole business.
Everything in that post sounds awesome to me. Like, when the XBone builds up a decent library of exclusives I can't get on my PS4, I'd feel comfortable picking one up. MS reversed those crappy policies from E3, and the Kinect stuff sounds pretty badass.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
I can't be the only one that's been desperately searching for industry news to post.
Yup, me too.
A Ubisoft survey sent to fans suggests what the developer/publisher is thinking about for Assassin's Creed V. The questions also present the possibility that Ubisoft is considering a new, pirate-centric series separate from what it accomplished in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.
"In such a game," a follow-up question says of a non-Assassin's Creed-branded pirate game, "what would be the most important elements among these below?" Choices include a customizable pirate character, ship, and hideout, a deeper economy, and additional activities at sea or on land. More interestingly, it inquires about player interest in cooperative and multiplayer naval combat, asking survey subjects if they would like to "sail and fight with my friends" and "sail and fight with other players."
Can I say a yes please! Pirates don't get enough love, and I would love this. I'm not a fan of the AC series, but Black Flag was the first one to interest me enough to possibly play it, all because of the Pirate theme.
I can't be the only one that's been desperately searching for industry news to post.
Yup, me too.
A Ubisoft survey sent to fans suggests what the developer/publisher is thinking about for Assassin's Creed V. The questions also present the possibility that Ubisoft is considering a new, pirate-centric series separate from what it accomplished in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.
"In such a game," a follow-up question says of a non-Assassin's Creed-branded pirate game, "what would be the most important elements among these below?" Choices include a customizable pirate character, ship, and hideout, a deeper economy, and additional activities at sea or on land. More interestingly, it inquires about player interest in cooperative and multiplayer naval combat, asking survey subjects if they would like to "sail and fight with my friends" and "sail and fight with other players."
Can I say a yes please! Pirates don't get enough love, and I would love this. I'm not a fan of the AC series, but Black Flag was the first one to interest me enough to possibly play it, all because of the Pirate theme.
Ubi is one step ahead of you -- they've already released a pirate-themed Assassin's Creed game for iOS.
As someone who freely chooses to identify as TheSonicRetard, I wonder if it'll ever hurt the AVGN to associate with someone who calls themselves Motherfucker Mike in a professional setting.
I can't be the only one that's been desperately searching for industry news to post.
Yup, me too.
A Ubisoft survey sent to fans suggests what the developer/publisher is thinking about for Assassin's Creed V. The questions also present the possibility that Ubisoft is considering a new, pirate-centric series separate from what it accomplished in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.
"In such a game," a follow-up question says of a non-Assassin's Creed-branded pirate game, "what would be the most important elements among these below?" Choices include a customizable pirate character, ship, and hideout, a deeper economy, and additional activities at sea or on land. More interestingly, it inquires about player interest in cooperative and multiplayer naval combat, asking survey subjects if they would like to "sail and fight with my friends" and "sail and fight with other players."
Can I say a yes please! Pirates don't get enough love, and I would love this. I'm not a fan of the AC series, but Black Flag was the first one to interest me enough to possibly play it, all because of the Pirate theme.
You should actually play it, the pirating stuff is pretty cool and I wasn't even that interested in it to begin with. I'm all for more pirates though, and I'm all for someone attempting to actually spin off a new IP based on a popular game. Ubisoft tends to be pretty good about new IP, though, no?
3DS: 2466-2307-8384 PSN: bssteph Steam:bsstephanTwitch:bsstephan Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e Occasional words about games:my site
+2
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Patent troll haters, take heart: Reuters reports the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill explicitly designed to punish companies for abusive use of patents today, clearing the way for a similar bill to go before the Senate and potentially become law.
Bill H.R. 3309, a.k.a. the Innovation Act, was sponsored by Representative Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) in October and approved this week by the House, 325 to 91. Senate Judiciary Committee member Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is bringing a similar bill before the Senate on December 17; if it passes the two bills will be gently edited and combined into new legistation that will hopefully provide clearer rules for distinguishing when a patent is applicable -- what counts as initial discovery, for example -- and require people filing patent abuse pleas to provide more information up front about specifics like what patents are being infringed and how, exactly, they're being infringed.
Small changes like that could hamper companies who try to abuse the system by buying up patents for the purpose of suing other companies for potential patent infringement, as when Treehouse Avatar Technologies tried to intimidate a number of smaller MMO developers into paying a licensing fee earlier this year.
This isn't the first anti-troll bill to make news in Washington -- there are a number of similar propositions languishing in Congress, including the "Stopping the Offensive Use of Patents (STOP) Act" proposed back in July -- but Reuters reports that Goodlatte and Leahy's bills are believed to have the best shot at actually being written into law.
These changes could also potentially hamper folks seeking reparations for legitimate patent infringement, as the Innovation Act affords more power to defendants in patent lawsuits and makes such lawsuits more difficult to initiate.
Shutting down so-called non-practicing entities will be a good thing, but (correct me if I'm wrong) there haven't been as many cases of it in gaming. I recall some silly rumble patent a while back, what else has there been?
3DS: 2466-2307-8384 PSN: bssteph Steam:bsstephanTwitch:bsstephan Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e Occasional words about games:my site
As someone who freely chooses to identify as TheSonicRetard, I wonder if it'll ever hurt the AVGN to associate with someone who calls themselves Motherfucker Mike in a professional setting.
I'm pretty sure Mr. Matei more or less dropped the "Motherfucker" title and persona long ago, unless I'm mistaken.
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
Assassin's Creed 4 is less a game about Assassin's vs. Templars as it is a brilliant piracy simulation. Kenway is one of the more fun characters they have ever made in the series.
If they make a future Pirates game, I would like to see some of what was happening in Kenway's Fleet play out in-game. Instead of the captured ships turning into a facebook-style minigame, why not have massive strategic battles in-game where you can deploy multiple ships from your fleet, position them, and use their various weapons and strategies to take out enemy forces?
It's still a "mini game" but there could be a bit more visual and strategic flair to it... and leveling up the ships you acquire would be nice.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I'm with Skullnumbers here, when there's some more exclusives out I can't get anywhere else, I'm down with getting an XBO. Even more so if I can get one without a Kinect at a cheaper price. Voice control means nothing to me, I just need the console to turn on via a controller and for me to click "play game" on the icon. User profile logins dont matter, since everyone just uses my gamertags anyways in my house. Button mapping is a quick Options screen away if someone is playing with me and needs to tweak.
It just seems like neat tech that I'm personally not really interested in using, like heated seats in a car. Completely unnecessary for the core experience but something extra and neat for some people. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's removed at some point but I also wouldn't be surprised if they just stick to their guns and never offer any non-Kinect option.
hrm, criterion making a shooty game made zero sense but I was kind of interested to see what that would be like...
but visceral should stick to dead space! or a new IP. not be shoehorned into making a BF spinoff.
But what if it's Battlefield: Mars? With laser guns and lowered gravity? And jeeps? And flying vehicles? And sticky grenades? And cool looking green armor?
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That would be the non-cute way of saying what I was saying yes. The point is MS is making a meaningless gesture and meaningless statement.
Since when is a legally binding order "knocking nicely"?
When a police officer pulls you over and searches your car, is he "knocking nicely"?
While it is a meaningless gesture and statement, it, along with the lawsuit from Google and Microsoft against the NSA, show that these companies aren't happy about this whole thing. Sending this information to the government in betrayal of their user's trust isn't something they WANT to do.
Do you see how you're publicly reading about their efforts to make it harder for the government?
That's what they can do. That's what they didn't do last year. That's what the issue is.
When the cop searching your car says "Do I have to hold you here until I get a warrant?" it's the difference between quiet acquiescence as your rights might be violated and saying "Yes" and dealing with the hours on the roadside.
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Player brands are not as important as tourney results. If you look at who has emerged and who has fallen off, this is pretty clear. The only non-LCS people who get much in stream numbers are Trick2G (high entertainment value), boxbox (I think attempting to enter LCS) and maybe phantomlord (god knows why). Rainman used to get 10-15k every time when he was on TSM, no longer.
In addition, Riot has heavily invested in promotion (see animated videos, promo spots etc.) of players brands, media training and exposure via events. I would say they have a financial stake in the players of their series, and as such they can dictate some level of terms around promotion of competing products in a public sphere. If this were Blizzard with SC2 or Valve with DOTA2? There would absolutely be a problem, as they do not do any individual player promotion short of the world champs and there's little guaranteed financial support.
In this case, Riot has made significant investments, and doesn't want to see other people piggy-back for free on their popularity (IE giving hearthstone keys to popular LOL streamers basically guaranteed exposure). There may have also been some back-end discussions we didn't see between companies that prompted this agreement.
The fact remains that Riot is the only company making a serious financial commitment and effort to establishing a consistent eSport league (which is why they can get special Visa treatment), and they'd like to protect that income stream.
I've also been hearing the pro players are very upset about this. I've seen some of them intentionally streaming games like Hearthstone more than usual in response to this.
MS' option, if thy wanted to actually protect consumers, would be to do what lavabit did. Instead, they chose to assist the government when told to/asked.
Also, the likelihood we get a new Burnout is become smaller and smaller.
http://www.videogamer.com/xboxone/battlefield_4/news/rumour_criterion_developing_battlefield_spin-off.html
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Are you seriously comparing a multinational multi multi billion dollar company to some two-bit email service???
I think the difference is last year, Snowden hadn't leaked all the info on how the NSA worked and as such, they didn't realize their own networks were being snooped.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/googlers-say-f-you-to-nsa-company-encrypts-internal-network/
I would think that a lot of companies and citizens would never dream that their own government is spying on them in these kinds of ways. Now in addition to working to fend off the usual malware and and malfeasants, they have to work to protect themselves from the government too.
RE: Riot and the contracts and such, welcome to the big leagues kids! If I catch you advertising the competition, so help me I will slap your wallet fucking senseless! I'm sure we'll see the list of games refined over time while these leagues mature, should they survive.
I am 100% convinced the Kinect is a big deal not for the camera, but because everyone from the top down at Microsoft grew up watching Star Trek:TNG and wants to talk to their appliances.
Which is a motivation I'm ok with, even if I don't share it.
Honestly, from what I'm hearing the voice controls are pretty dang nice, assuming you aren't bothered by the steep learning curve and the 10% of the time it doesn't work.
But why couldn't they have just put in a vastly cheaper microphone? Based on what I've read there's very little that takes advantage of motion control at this point.
Clearly the answer is for all affected companies to simply close up shop in protest! This is like, the best post I've read in a long time, and by best, I mean best at making me laugh out loud in my office which resulted in a co-worker coming in and asking what I was laughing at.
Well, the theory is that since the Kinect is packaged with every Xbox One from the outset, developers can cater games towards it since they know all customers have access to one. There wasn't a whole lot of point in putting Kinect features in an game that wasn't developed specifically around Kinect before when there was no guarantee that the end user had one or not.
Of course, the same can be said for the Wii U's gamepad, but nobody outside of Nintendo is utilizing the damn thing. (With a few obvious exceptions.)
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As someone with one in my house right now, I make significant use of the kinect features all the time.
1) Killer Instinct: My controller is always button mapped to my preferences. If I had 3-4 people over, and we were passing controllers around, the buttons will always be my settings when whatever controller gets handed to me without having to go into menus and change them every time you pass it around.
2) Dead Rising has basic motion control (shake the controller to break a zombie grapple) - its a small motion, not "waving arms around" by any stretch, and the kinect registers the controller moving and issues the command. Also the ability to taunt enemies in Dead Rising, like shouting at the zombies to get them to swarm around you, or say infuriating phrases at the psychos to cause them to change tactics or open up to powerful attacks. It's all fairly immersive, if silly.
3) I log in immediately when I step into the room. It's a small quality of life thing, but in a house with more than one person using the console, stepping into frame and asking xbox to "show your stuff" and having your pins and color scheme come into frame is just neat.
The gesture controls are pretty bad, but they are an option, and some people like them. Really, the kinect's voice command stuff, which only works as well as it does because they have an array of microphones along the bottom of it with some beefy noise canceling, is how you are expected to move around the interface, and it works very well and very fast.
The kinect is less a "must have videogame feature" and more of a series of quality of life improvements with some game applications here and there, that when all added together, really sells the system. It's probably best to stop thinking about how it will revolutionize games and more about how it makes playing games and doing other stuff easier / more seamless.
Well, at least until Project Spark comes out. then it will be pretty revolutionary, considering you can build your own games in it (anything from Kameo to Geometry Wars and all stops inbetween), and use the kinect to do mocap and voice recording for your cutscenes and AI.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
The Microphone is an array of mics on the bottom of the kinect, that rely on some hefty noise cancellation processing and stereo capture, along with the 3D camera to place where the audio is coming from.
the mics only work as well as they do because they are baked into the kinect.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Since it's really fucking hard to find any salary info on esports (I'm thinking LoL and SC2), I'm guessing the players get paid like shit.
Am I the only one that finds all of this a little creepy? Call me old fashioned, I guess. I do not want my console to always be listening for my voice to be turned on. I don't want games to give me technical fouls for swearing in my own house.
When my first reaction to the new features of your new console is "If I can't turn this off, I don't want it plugged in to the wall at all" then I think you've messed up. It's also possible that I'm misunderstanding the technology and what it's actually doing, but I'm just really creeped out by the whole business.
Everything in that post sounds awesome to me. Like, when the XBone builds up a decent library of exclusives I can't get on my PS4, I'd feel comfortable picking one up. MS reversed those crappy policies from E3, and the Kinect stuff sounds pretty badass.
I can't be the only one that's been desperately searching for industry news to post.
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Yup, me too.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/12/06/ubisoft-surveying-fans-on-assassins-creed-5-pvp-naval-combat#disqus_thread
Can I say a yes please! Pirates don't get enough love, and I would love this. I'm not a fan of the AC series, but Black Flag was the first one to interest me enough to possibly play it, all because of the Pirate theme.
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Ubi is one step ahead of you -- they've already released a pirate-themed Assassin's Creed game for iOS.
You should actually play it, the pirating stuff is pretty cool and I wasn't even that interested in it to begin with. I'm all for more pirates though, and I'm all for someone attempting to actually spin off a new IP based on a popular game. Ubisoft tends to be pretty good about new IP, though, no?
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http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/206391/Patent_troll_crackdown_measure_approved_by_House.php
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I'm pretty sure Mr. Matei more or less dropped the "Motherfucker" title and persona long ago, unless I'm mistaken.
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If they make a future Pirates game, I would like to see some of what was happening in Kenway's Fleet play out in-game. Instead of the captured ships turning into a facebook-style minigame, why not have massive strategic battles in-game where you can deploy multiple ships from your fleet, position them, and use their various weapons and strategies to take out enemy forces?
It's still a "mini game" but there could be a bit more visual and strategic flair to it... and leveling up the ships you acquire would be nice.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
It just seems like neat tech that I'm personally not really interested in using, like heated seats in a car. Completely unnecessary for the core experience but something extra and neat for some people. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's removed at some point but I also wouldn't be surprised if they just stick to their guns and never offer any non-Kinect option.
edit: read the info wrong, but the evidence is piling up based on recent hires and who is working at Visceral now
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=92639983&postcount=1
Interesting!
Though I would much rather hear that Visceral is working on Dead Space 4 for PS4/XBone.
Edit: PC too!
but visceral should stick to dead space! or a new IP. not be shoehorned into making a BF spinoff.
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