You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine, and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?
Yes.
Everything's going to be fine.
Yes.
Everything's going to be fine.
Sunday, March 17
SinCity Part III
In which Maxis/EA attempt to cover up their earlier lies with more lies.
In which Maxis/EA attempt to cover up their earlier lies with more lies.
At this point I'm getting a distinct whiff of class-action lawsuit drifting in from the ether.
Update: The reason I think this is important is not that SimCity is a bad game - that happens - or that the launch was a train wreck - that happens too. It's that everyone knew it would turn out like this, and it would have been just as easy to do it right as to screw it up beyond redemption. It's not the failure itself, it's the wasted potential that galls me.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:45 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 105 words, total size 1 kb.
Friday, March 15
SinCity Part II
Given Maxis/EA's repeated assertions that the reason SimCity 5 is restricted to online play only is that significant parts of the simulation are handled on the servers because the requirements are too steep for desktop PCs and it can't actually run standalone, coupled with the ongoing costs of providing such infrastructure, there were really only two views one could take: Either their engineers and project managers are deeply, deeply incompetent, or they're lying through their teeth.
Given Maxis/EA's repeated assertions that the reason SimCity 5 is restricted to online play only is that significant parts of the simulation are handled on the servers because the requirements are too steep for desktop PCs and it can't actually run standalone, coupled with the ongoing costs of providing such infrastructure, there were really only two views one could take: Either their engineers and project managers are deeply, deeply incompetent, or they're lying through their teeth.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
12:26 AM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 85 words, total size 1 kb.
Tuesday, March 12
SinCity
Filed this under "Rant", but it's not my rant, it's by John Walker over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
Filed this under "Rant", but it's not my rant, it's by John Walker over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
[T]here was only one valid response from EA after the clusterfuck of SimCity’s launch: capitulation. A full admission that the DRM that infests their game was needless, a bad mistake, and that they’re working to strip it out for single-player games as quickly as possible.That's just getting warmed up. And some of the comments are downright harsh.Claiming SimCity fixed, by removing the server queues, random crashes, lost cities, server drops, and the artificial restrictions placed on the game just to make it run, is like claiming a broken leg fixed because you’ve mended the crutches.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
12:06 AM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 114 words, total size 1 kb.
Wednesday, February 13
Thinking Of Changing My Blog's Name
To Insurmountable Opportunities.
To Insurmountable Opportunities.
Though I guess Ambient Irony encompasses that. Also, it sounds like a Ship name from the Culture universe.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:07 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 27 words, total size 1 kb.
Friday, November 02
Matias Duarte, Android User Experience Lead At Google, Explains Why Nexus Devices Lack Expandable Storage
He's lazy and incompetent and thinks Android users are idiots.
It turns out that it's actually very simple.
Good to see that question cleared up.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
12:01 AM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 40 words, total size 1 kb.
Thursday, October 04
Better To Live In The Past
Doctor Who gave us five episodes and went on holiday until Christmas. The final four episodes of Kokoro Connect don't air until March.
Doctor Who gave us five episodes and went on holiday until Christmas. The final four episodes of Kokoro Connect don't air until March.
On the other hand, I have all of Strike Witches and Dog Days to watch whenever I want. I don't actually have the time to do so, but they're available in theory.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
03:43 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 61 words, total size 1 kb.
Friday, September 28
Pollies Gone Wild
In case you haven't been following Australian politics of late (and I wouldn't blame you one bit), our federal government - specifically, the Attorney General, Nicola Roxon - has been floating a trial balloon to collect unprecedented amounts of information on the people of Australia. Between ASIC and the AFP - roughly equivalent to the FTC SEC and FBI in American terms - they want to record all online communications and phone calls of everyone, and keep all the data forever.
In case you haven't been following Australian politics of late (and I wouldn't blame you one bit), our federal government - specifically, the Attorney General, Nicola Roxon - has been floating a trial balloon to collect unprecedented amounts of information on the people of Australia. Between ASIC and the AFP - roughly equivalent to the FTC SEC and FBI in American terms - they want to record all online communications and phone calls of everyone, and keep all the data forever.
I estimate that to be around 5 exabytes per year, and growing at about 50% per year. Hardware costs for the storage alone would run about a billion dollars a year, never mind the expense of managing and maintaining it all.
Meanwhile, Telstra, the country's largest phone company and ISP, has been giving out customer information to everyone from the local council to the RSPCA. And similarly, Origin Energy have been giving smart meter data out to a disturbingly broad variety of third parties in Australia and overseas.
I have two things to say.
First, everyone involved in this criminal idiocy should be removed from office at the first opportunity.
Second, time to invest in VPN companies.
iiNet (my ISP) also made the point that such a database will be an irresistible target for hackers, and given the government's plans to foist the operation expense onto the individual ISPs (of which there are several hundred), it will get hacked.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
02:29 AM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 243 words, total size 2 kb.
Monday, September 10
A Nation, Friendzoned, Part N+1
VMWare have released an update to their Workstation product, version 9. Main feature seems to be support for Windows 8. Also better remote management (not much of an issue for me) and USB 3.0 support.
VMWare have released an update to their Workstation product, version 9. Main feature seems to be support for Windows 8. Also better remote management (not much of an issue for me) and USB 3.0 support.
They've also updated the price from $199 up to $249.
They've also created an Australian store, with prices 40% higher than the US store.
I upgraded to version 8 because it was on sale for $70. It would cost me $175 to upgrade to 9, and honestly, I can't be bothered.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
05:17 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 91 words, total size 1 kb.
Wednesday, August 15
A Nation, Friendzoned
FFVII is out (again) on PC. I've never played it, and apparently some people like it, so I tried to buy it.
* Well.... No. Though this is true of the first two Final Fantasy games.
FFVII is out (again) on PC. I've never played it, and apparently some people like it, so I tried to buy it.
Emphasis on tried.
I can't buy it from the US store, because that only covers the US. And Canada. And Mexico, and the rest of North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean and associated bits.
So I check their global site, and it directs me to the European site. So I go there, and it lets me register (yay) then I hunt down the page to buy the damn thing, and it tells me to fuck off.
It is refreshing in a sense, this constant reminder that no-one - not Amazon, not Steam, not EA or Squenix - has the faintest clue what they're doing. It's comforting to know that everyone else is as bewildered as I am. It would be more comforting still if they showed any sign of recognising this fact.
Can't buy the middle volumes of Kage Baker's Company series anywhere, even though they're all online in ebook form from a single publisher. Can't buy Sims 3 expansions on Steam any more. (Or Dragon Age II, but that counts as a win.) Can't buy Final Fantasy VII, a game that is older now than I was when it came out.* The line of people refusing to take my money has no end.
Update: Squenix got back to me and confirmed that they are aware of the problem and will have a solution in the next couple of weeks. Which doesn't get me my Final Fantasy fix right now, but is actual human customer service.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
07:33 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 287 words, total size 2 kb.
Friday, June 08
EmuTown
SimCity 5 (or as EA would have it, just SimCity)? One of the games I was most looking forward to?
SimCity 5 (or as EA would have it, just SimCity)? One of the games I was most looking forward to?
No offline play. No saving your game. Sharply reduced city sizes.
Lots of nice detail, but you can't do anything with it. It doesn't seem that it's truly a SimCity game at all. But since it's taken the name, that's death for any genuine sequel.
So fuck you, Electronic Arts.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
11:02 PM
| Comments (8)
| Add Comment
| Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 74 words, total size 1 kb.
65kb generated in CPU 0.1113, elapsed 2.0748 seconds.
58 queries taking 2.0509 seconds, 251 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
58 queries taking 2.0509 seconds, 251 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
