Wii are not amused
Some of you may not know this, but I am a huge gamer. Gaming is a big part of my life, so I figured I might as well comment on some recent news...
Nintendo, just today, announced the Revolution's real name. The Wii. When I first saw that, I asked myself what they were thinking. The Wii? How is that pronounced? "Wee"? Will I be holding a Wii-Wand then? Am I going to be Wii'ing infront of the TV (or at my computer if rumored VGA/DVI support comes true)? It sounds like another name for urine or penis for crying out loud! What were they thinking??
But then I thought about it.
And saw the video.
Sure, the "philosophy" behind the name is very sensationalist, seeming almost as if it's trying to sell the name a bit too much (one person commented asking if they got a hold of Sony's marketing department), but I can see what they're trying to do. It's kind of an odd name that grabs one's attention and won't let go. Similar to the iPod. What kind of name is "iPod"? The name is also pronounced exactly like the English word "we;" as in, us, my friends and I, my family. Coincidence? Not at all. The DS is a very social system. People love to play it with other people. At the LAN Party on Thursday, Alyssa brought her DS with Tetris. Tetris has a multiplayer mode that only requires one game card that allows up to either eight or ten people to play. I played quite a few three person games, and one or two five person games. I think it's safe to say that we played for almost two hours on and off. It was easy to set up, and most importantly, it was fun.
Nintendo's goal with the Revolution, excuse me, the Wii and the DS has been to get non-gamers interested in gaming while also providing for the traditional gamer. I'm not quite sure on their stance regarding the hardcore gamer, but I think they're moving in the right direction with Metroid Prime: Hunters on the DS and many gamers that I've talked to that would consider themselves "hardcore" have a major interest in the Wii. Well, they had an interest in the Revolution; hopefully a name change won't chage their minds. Most non-gamers may not see the point in playing Final Fantasy VII. It's long and can be quite boring at times. Most people (emphasis on most) like to do things with other people. Games that break the stereotypical "go here, jump on these platforms, press this button, shoot these zombies, steal this car, do this trick on your skateboard" seem to work quite well with non-gamers. I've seen over and over people that wouldn't even play Super Mario World pick up a PS2 controller and roll around in Katamari Damacy, or dance a bit in DDR, or even wail on the ol' axe in Guitar Hero. These games are easy to pick up, and that's what Nintendo is trying to do with the Wii. Ask yourself, however, how many times you've seen a non-gamer jump on a DDR mat or grab a Guitar Hero controller on their own. Very few (zero for me). Now, how many times have you seen them try the game when one of their friends agrees to try as well. I've seen a large amount of co-workers try Guitar Hero because their friend would be right by their side, doing just as bad as they. Quite a few of my close friends started playing because either one of my other friends or I have convinced another Guitar Hero neophyte into playing. The first time I tried Guitar Hero was at a work party where a few of my friends had just seen the game for the first time and wanted to try it out. People are very social creatures, and the Wii will play right into that. In traditional Nintendo style, the system is bound to populated with a multitude of multiplayer games. People are also very lazy. Did you know that one needs only to buy a single wand from his or her favorite store (or bring one from home) and they are able to play on a friend's Wii right away? There's no need to plug anything into the Wii in order to use another wand. Just turn on the remote in the vicinity of the Wii in question and you're in the game in no time! How easy is that?
Now, I have to admit, I think a lot, so when I think about something I usually cover a lot of ground in very little time. All of this seriously passed through my head within the first instant I saw the article on Eurogamer. Within a few minutes, I warmed up to the name. Sure, I still think Revolution has a better ring to it than Wii, but Wii has strength (or should that be have?).
If everyone would take it seriously. This post was not meant to be about the name change or Nintendo's philosophy on gaming, but about the response to the name change. Information of the new name has traveled quickly. Maybe that was Nintendo's goal, maybe not. Either way, however, I'm kind of disappointed in the overall response. Eurogamer is a European site, obviously, with a lot of British visitors. The British use the term "wee" to refer to one's penis or urine. One Brit commented that the name was being taken a little better over in the States because he didn't see as many penis jokes. I submit a one 88NoSoup4U88's comment from Slashdot:
Off record: If the Wii's can connect to eachother, would it be a 'wiiwii' ? And would I be in trouble if I told people I'm off playing with my friends and our WiiWii's ?
And JonTurner over here thinks he's hilarious:
Something tells me this is going to get ugly. Just off the top of my head:
1) Shopper: "Hi. I see these are on sale. I would like to take a Wii."
2) Son, you've been playing with your Wii all day on that tiny monitor -- give it a rest or you'll go blind.
3) Headline: Wii usage linked to possible repetitive stress injury?BTW, Is a cluster of these called a Wii-Wii?
Sure, if you check out the Eurogamer comments and the Slashdot comments you can find a few that try to defend the name (more so on Slashdot than Eurogamers), or at least the logic behind it, but the majority of comments are making fun of the name. Now, I have no problem with making fun of things, especially something that just begs to be made fun of, but some people are just taking it too far. But is Nintendo asking for it with a name like this? As I said, news of the name change has spread quickly. The name is out there, everyone knows what it is. Has Nintendo just shot themselves in the foot? Or is it true that no publicity is bad publicity?
By clicking the link below, you will be treated to a few comments I found on the Eurogamer article. They were originally gonna be tied into the post in some way, but that just didn't work out. Instead of scrapping them, I decided to let y'all in on the mass stupidity and close-mindedness of the online gaming community. Most of these are horrible. These are the kinds of gamers that claim to be "hardcore" but in reality are just sheep that follow the trends. So what if it's called the Wii? Would you really sell ALL your Nintendo stock, Krun? And Pho-Zoon, it's appropriate how you put quotes around the world 'loyal.' If a simple name change like this is making you dump Nintendo, you must not have been that loyal, eh? Yiannis here is apparently extremely skilled at predicting the market. Nintendo's name change will really cause more Xbox360s to be sold next week? I better grab one while I can! And Smelly... good ol' Smelly.. He has been trolling the comments on Eurogamers since the news broke. Nothing positive to say. Just general overreacting. Like most everyone else.
I tried to grab a few (truely) funny ones as well, but the majority of them were just bad... There were a few comments, can't find them now, about people who had warmed up to the name. One of them said something to the effect of "I now associate the name 'Wii' more with Nintendo after just a few hours than I do 'Gamecube' after four years." Another said that the name will be unforgettable. And it will be. It's no Playstation 3 or Xbox360. It's the Wii. It's not just a sequal to a previous console (as the other two seem to be), it's brand new. People will know what you mean when you talk about the Wii.
E3 is only a few weeks away. Nintendo has yet to reveal the "most secret" aspect about the Wii. If the controller, virtual console system, and name change were received as such, I'm both excited and worried to see how people will react to this last secret.
Off-topic: When I first saw the name, another thought ran through my head: It's missing an 'f'.."
It's perfect, really: With the Wii you may not connect to NintendoWifi, but rather Wiifi.
Or maybe it's just me.
Dear Technolojik
Dear Technolojik,
Firstly, it is my request that this e-mail is sent to someone that at least has the same ability to comprehend English as an American sixth grade student.
Recently our website was moved to a different server due to the old server having "issues." From what I've experienced since the server move, however, I'd rather stick with the old server.
Our new server has given us nothing but headaches. It goes down at the most unexpected times, without warning, and without explanation. Sometimes it's simply that Apache fails. Other times, I can't even log into cPanel to see what is going on. Earlier today, infact, Apache, FTPd, cppop, and a few other services failed. This new server seems to be having more issues that the old one did. Why is that? I thought this server was "better." These problems have been nothing short of constant. I have not seen a day where the server was up for more than half the day.
We were, and are, guaranteed 99.9% uptime with you as our host. What we have experienced, however, is anything but 99.9% uptime.
According to your user agreement (http://www.technolojik.net/user_agreement.htm), we are allowed credit if our uptime is not 99.9%. We are not, however, guaranteed credit if the outage is caused by " circumstances beyond Technolojik's reasonable control," "failure of access circuits to the Technolojik Network," "scheduled maintenance...," "DNS issues outside the direct control of Technolojik," "issues with FTP. POP, IMAP, or SMTP customer access," "false SLA breaches reported as a result of outages or errors of
any Technolojik measurement system," "customer's acts or omissions," "e-mail or webmail delivery and transmission," "DNS (Domain Name Server) Propagation," or "outages elsewhere on the Internet."What we have experienced does NOT fall under any of those categories. When Apache and other services fail, it IS under Technolojik's reasonable control and CAN be FIXED in a relatively short period of time. There are times where Technolojik, including Technolojik's own site, are inaccessable. But most of the problem lies with the fact that often times Technolojik's site IS accessable and I can STILL log into cPanel and SEE that Apache and other services have FAILED.
That is unacceptable. As a hosting company you are obligated to keep these servers running reliably, otherwise you are supposed to fix the problem. We've been experiencing these problems for OVER a WEEK. What have you done to remedy this? Has there been any attempt at repair? Why is this happening?
Because of these consistant outages we have seriously considered changing to another, RELIABLE host. Many will hear about these problems, and hopefully many will NOT choose Technolojik as their hosting service. Technolojik has given us nothing but problems and headaches.
-An Extremely Upset Customer
Proofread the hell out of this, I felt kinda detached and not here while writing this, and I caught myself making some serious errors ("What we have experienced does NOT follow under any of those categories." Follow? WTF?)
Technolojik can lick my…
So, they guarantee 99.9% uptime, yet what do we get? Practically a WHOLE day where our site is inaccessible! WTF is up with that? For the longest time I have been thinking of breaking away from TF. It has nothing to do with anyone involved or anything like that. I just hate our host. Check it out. Horrible ratings. Their customer support sucks ass (trust me, I'm still waiting for their replies on two separate e-mails I've sent over a month ago).
Because I've been thinking of breaking away from TF, I've been looking around at various hosts and their packages. I found a great company by the name of A Small Orange. Their hosting packages are really nice, pretty cheap too. Despite the fact that they have one, single, solitary review, I feel that they would make a great host. They have everything I'm looking for: unlimited MySQL Databases, cPanel, FTP access, phpMyAdmin, PHP, and Daily and weekly offsite backups. (full list of features)
Taking a look through their user-to-user support forums has given me a very good feeling about A Small Orange. Their customer support is SUPERB. They respond in a timely manner and are actually HELPFUL! Technolojik has been anything but helpful *reminder: dig up some e-mails from them*
Right now, I am typing this in Notepad due to the fact that TF is TOTALLY and UTTERLY INACCESSIBLE. Know what else? So is Technolojik's main page!! Well, at least the English site is down. The Turkish one is up. Oh, did I mention? Technolojik is a TURKISH company! They are based in TURKEY! Know what else? Our domain, trashfolder.org, is registered under THEIR NAME. The registrant address, if you do a whois on trashfolder.org, is Istanbul, Turkey. Ahem. I thought it was our domain?
Oh, we also had an issue where we paid for SSH and shell access, but got NOTHING. Why? No clue, they never responded! Check this out, though. Whoa! First post at 7:57 PM on the 22 of this month. Last post at 8:42 PM, on the SAME DAY. Less than an HOUR and he got shell access enabled on his account! Amazing!
What's even more amazing is that if I sign up Reselling, I can actually make money on my site! It's only an extra $5 per month if I want to be a reseller. That's not bad! I could easily make that money back if people were interested. Hell, I could practically pay for the hosting if I got enough people! Of course, however, reselling won't be something I jump into right away, if ever. But it's nice to dream, eh?
If it's somehow possible to pry trashfolder.org out of Techonolojik's hands when the domain expires, maybe all of TF could be moved over to A Small Orange? Just a thought. Though it would be nice to have my own server and such, I would be leaving Andrew and Jason high and dry when it comes to TF's payments... (though I have already paid my dues for this year) We'll see. Not only do I have to work it out with Andrew and Jason, should I even decide to go through with this, but I'll also have to work it out with Mom, for I do not own a credit card.
In other news, the snow last night was pretty cool, but not cool enough to cancel school. The roads were... meh, at best, but that didn't stop UCS from being the bastards that they are. There were two to three brown-outs during second hour. Two during fourth hour. And two during fifth hour, with the second one actually becoming a black-out for at least half a minute. It was awesome.
To quote Paul: "Power outage for the win!"
The Big Three
I am here to deliver a rant on both Half-Life 2 and Halo 2. [i]But you said three in the post title![/i] Indeed I did. That is because I've essentially already laid out the entire post in my head, just gotta get it typed out, and I will mention Doom 3 several times through out this post.
[b]1. Halo 2[/b]
Alright, if you haven't already figured it out, the title refers to the big three FPSs that came out recently. The first being Doom 3, second being Halo 2, and the last being Half-Life 2. I think I may have already covered Doom 3 a bit before, but even if I haven't I don't have any beef with the game, nor the developers, so there's not really much for me to say about it. As for Halo 2, however, I have something I want to say. Now, before you go saying "You should play the game before bashing it!", I HAVE played the game. I played a lot of coop with Paul, DM with Paul, and LAN DM at one of the Science Olympiad party things last year. DM is a BLAST. Which brings me to my first point. What's so great about the multiplayer? System link? That's been done, Dad used to play Doom (the original) at work with his buddies many years ago. And the PlayStation 1 even had system link games. Heck, the Genesis could play games with people over a dial-up connection!! 16 player LAN support? Quake 2 could have 32 players, LAN or Online. Halo 2 has Xbox Live! support? Quake 1 could go online. Vehicles? Battlefield 1942. Fun multiplayer? Goldeneye, Nintendo 64. The multiplayer in Halo (the first anyway, I haven't even so much as laid eyes upon the Halo 2 box) is pretty much Goldeneye with a few additions, all of which have been done before. [i]But it has awesome weapons to choose from![/i] I'm sure it does, as did Perfect Dark, over 50 separate weapons. All of which had a second function too.
The graphics. So freaking what? The graphics look amazing. How does that make the game [i]revolutionary[/i]?? To be revolutionary, a game must bring something to the table that has never been done before, and they must do it right. Goldeneye was a revolutionary game because it was an FPS that [i]worked[/i] extremely well on a console, and it had an addictive multiplayer mode. But things can only be revolutionary once. Get over it fanboys, graphics do not make a game wonderful. Graphics are the icing on the cake. If there was a recipe to making a good game, it'd go like this:
[u]First layer[/u]: Gameplay. Just like a house, a game needs a solid foundation, and that foundation is gameplay. Not graphics, not multiplayer. Multiplayer is nothing if it doesn't play well. (Yea, yea. I know a house analogy doesn't fit to well inside of a cooking analogy, but what can you do?)
[u]Second layer[/u]: Controls. The game has to feel [i]natural[/i] when you play it. The devs should also allow one to fully customize the controls to one's liking. If the game doesn't control well, it'll detract from the overall experience, making the game less fun to play.
[u]Third layer[/u]: Story. If there isn't a good story (applies to single player only, obviously), then the game will feel lifeless. There needs to be something that compels the gamer to finish the game.
[u]Fourth layer[/u]: Replayability. Whether this comes as unlockable missions or multiplayer (which every FPS game should now include), it should be replayable to an extent. This makes the gamer want to come back for more.
[u]Fifth layer[/u]: Sound and graphics. Good sound and graphics come last. Yes, with today's technology there's no excuse to have a game with poor graphics or sound, but it does happen (though that all depends on your definition of ('poor'). But, if a game that has 'poor' graphics has a WONDERFUL single player campaign and the best multiplayer this side of PC gaming, wouldn't you rather play that game than the game that has the 'best' graphics available on a home console system, but totally lacks in the other departments?
Alright, I'll give Halo one thing. The story. I'm sure it has a great story, why else (besides multiplayer) would it be so popular? I challenge all Xbox/Halo fanboys that read my site to give me some explanations as to why Halo/Halo 2 is so popular. Is it just the Microsoft hype machine, or is there more? Graphics, multiplayer, and story aside, what makes this game truly [i]revolutionary[/i]?
[b]2. Half-Life 2[/b]
Now, my gripes with HL2 do NOT come from the game itself, I haven't even touched it yet. My gripes come with Valve's anti-piracy scheme. Double-you tee eff, Valve? You're selling a defective game! If I've never had an internet connection, but I bought the original Half-Life and absolutely loved it, then I go to my local EBGames and buy HL2, how the hell am I supposed to play? I install it, then it requires me to connect to Steam to decrypt the game. But wait, I don't have an internet connection! How am I supposed to play??? Valve is alienating their customers and making them feel like criminals because of this anti-piracy attempt. Pirated versions that DON'T require steam are already available on the web! Valve's just ENCOURAGING piracy!! That's all devs do when they put in harsher anti-piracy mechanisms. Joe Sixpack buy's Half-Life 2, finds out how much shit he has to go through just to play the freaking single-player game, returns the game, goes to suprnova.org, downloads the cracked version, and plays the game. Valve got no money because Joe Sixpack was fed up with their crap and decided that they didn't deserve their money. I was actually thinking about getting HL2, but I am no longer even considering it (if you remember, I was actually considering getting Halo 2 for a while there) because of the shit Valve is pulling.
Now, to bring up Doom 3. Sure, HL2 may have a much better story than Doom 3, may have better graphics/physics/audio, but which game doesn't require you to jump through a million hoops before playing? Yea, that's what I thought. Doom 3 requires a simple CD-Key during installation. That key, if invalid, will only prevent you from playing multiplayer, single player will work fine. Doom 3 doesn't require you to be connected to the internet to play single player either, it's not monitoring your every move, and it doesn't install spyware on your machine (if Steam isn't spyware, I don't know what is. Hell, it probably searches for porn on your machine and sends it to the devs at Valve!).
::deep breath::
I think I've covered just about everything I wanted to.
[/rant]
G4TechTV
WTF was Cocmast (one of my more common typoes, it'll be on purpose now) thinking when they joined G4 and TechTV into G4TechTV!?!?! They fired practically ALL of the TechTV staff and populated the channel with crappy G4 shows. WTF Cocmast? Are you THAT braindead? G4 was HORRIBLE. The hosts were... well... sucky at best. They never had any good content, and they sponsered EA games like crazy. Bastards.
Here's a comic that may explain what happened. Or not... But it's still funny to read, and panel's 6,7, and 8 are just hillarious.
Oh, speaking of G4TechTV, ANDREW!!! Besides the link he used to have on his page, HE PUT A LINK ON THE BOTTOM OF MY PAGE! ::sharpens killing knife::