I Know Why You Want To Hate Me - April 3rd, 2000 - Chris
Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of
the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There
is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Because I'm beautiful, right?
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Well, there's really only one thing that can be talked about right now: Judge Thomas
Penfield Jackson's ruling that Microsoft as in fact broken the Sherman Antitrust Act. This
is huge general news, huge technology news, and if not huge gaming news, then huge potential
gaming news.
Well, maybe not, but that sounded really cool and authoritative. Actually as things
stand Judge Jackson finding against Mr. Bill may have submitted us all to a long, long
appeals process, by the end of which things in the computer world will have already
changed even more than they already have, rendering everything done so far completely
meaningless. One might think that this ruling would convince Gates to hurry up with the
X-Box so that MS can make a sideways leap into home electronics should the government come
crashing down on their current position, much like Bowser in SMB3. But to paraphrase some
half-remembered line in The Hunt For Red October, "Son, a Microserf don't take a dump
without a plan." Mr. Bill knows damn well what he's doing, and the blight that is
X-Box will be released upon us all when he's good and ready. So ultimately, little has
changed for us as gamers. As usual.
| A little fallout to start with |
| (I'm not sure who's the agent for today in this column but I just need to
give a good response to Jack Kroll.) Well, that was interesting, being judged by a
person with a view no-one else has except him, a view I find very insulting to the
majority of the public and purposely meant to insult those who play videogames, it's not a
meaningful view of videogames at all, it's an attack on those who enjoy things other than
the traditional/classical arts, and might I also add that art is not restricted to
crackling records, paintings, sculptures, and poetry, but the ingenuity of the people who
create things who put their soul into it. But you know, I don't care, for this pompous
basted will leave this world and us to inherit it without a person like him to disturb us.
I'm a high school student striving to work my best in this ever-increasingly tough
existence; how will I survive w/o a moment of peace? What would have happened to me if I
lost that peace? Jack Kroll tries his best to take away that peace, thus making my life an
even more difficult experience than ever. Why should he be given that privilege? I don't
know, it's something I don't understand, because attacking people is something that's
plain stupid in my opinion. Maybe he wouldn't like it if I attacked his aspects of life,
but he probably doesn't care about that at all, for he is dead inside. Jack Kroll can no
longer enjoy the fruits of life that keeps on evolving. I will hopefully live a better
life than him and enjoy it. This man has so much bitterness inside I'm starting to taste
his awful existence.
That's my two cents. (and Jack Kroll, I'm sorry if I might have stung you with my
acidic words, but I'm just returning the favour. HOPE YOU LIKE IT)
~Richard |
This was the only response we got back thinking the Kroll column was real that I'm
aware of, but for every one that writes there's probably a hundred who feel similar. I
can't make sweeping generalizations about Kroll's work, as I'm not familiar enough with
most of it, but one thing that is pretty clear from his essay is that he's not worth
getting worked up over when it comes to games. His essay mentions all of one real game,
which I'm pretty sure he hasn't even played as it's a detailed historical tactical
simulation and in Japanese to boot. He seems to discard all art that doesn't feature real
people in it, or at least real photos of people, which pretty much trashes painting,
sculpture, music, and literature. I could go on but those points alone are enough to
reveal the piece as junk. My advice is to let it go, let Jack Kroll go back to his
musicals and let yourself go back to playing FF8. You'll feel better, really.
| Just when you think you know someone... |
| I'm with Jack. Video games suck. ~Ian P. |
This is a sad, sad day, brothers and sisters. A great mind has taken that irrevocable
step into darkness. Because of Ian P's traitorous remarks, life seems a little less sweet.
The sky is less blue, the fajitas less spicy. But I ask of you to remember not the senile
dementia of Ian's latter days, but his wit and charm in the past. We can make him live
again by keeping him always in our hearts, and by keeping his dreams alive for the next
generation. Rest in peace, dear friend.
| And now a word from our sponsor |
| Hey Chris, I have to say that it's a pretty cool column you've been
running since you started as DA. This is the first time that I'm even semi-regularly
reading a column not written by a friend from elsewhere, take that as you will. Now for
the real point of this letter.
I wanted to write in and remind your readers to use some etiquitte when dealing with
ftp sites and servers both on this site and others. For you see, I run one of the GIA's
most regular mirrors and while most people might not realize it, I'm just a college
student, the same as many of the regular readers of this site. A college student with a
lot of bandwidth, though it seems a lot smaller in times like this.
What do I mean? you might be asking yourself, so I'll bring up an recent example as a
case in point: the last batch of FF movies that the GIA released. You remember them, don't
you? They were the ones that the GIA had to take down after a few days. Now, while movies
like this are cool and no one wants to miss out on them, which is perfectly
understandable, a number of people take that to an extreme that goes way beyond just
annoying to a new level: downright malicious. And stupid, we musn't forget that it's
remarkably stupid. In their eagerness to get their mits on the movie, many people set
programs (or at least that's what I imagine they must be doing. After all, no human could
click that quickly and stay sane.) The main problem with this is that while having a
program try to download the file a couple of hundred times per minute might marginally
increase your chance of getting it, it also blocks out the non-annoying, patient,
considerate people out there. Now as I know that no one doing this type of maliciousness
really cares about anyone but themselves, I'll list a few other good reasons to stop. For
one, it eats up bandwidth and the computer's buffer space like crazy, forcing the person
on the other end to restart the machine all the faster, and bumping everyone currently
connected off. More annoyingly, oftentimes, those programs keep trying to get the file
even after a user has two-three logins on it, and goes at it indefinitely.
But there are even other reasons beyond petty things like that. Did you know that while
the GIA had those three movies (FFIX, FFX, and FFXI) up, the movies were so popular that a
number of mirrors were overloaded and had to shut down? Now while that may sound cool and
impressive when you first think about it, think again. I'd bet that most of the hits on
those mirrors were caused not by individual users, but a few people out there with this
kind of program. Aside from the obvious point that a server that's taken down means that
the movies are that much harder to find, doing that to someone whose being nice enough to
offer up their computer space is pretty damn rude and ingracious. But even more than that,
is my favorite reason of them all. You could get banned. Yup, I said banned. As in, no
downloads for you. If someone acts that poorly on my server, I have no second thoughts
about banning them, and I doubt that any other ftp site maintainer out there does, either.
And that means that not only won't you get a chance to pick up that movie/file, you may
never get access to that ftp site again.
If those aren't good enough reasons to be polite, I don't know what are. Now,
hopefully, we can all get back to our lives with a little more consideration for the guy
on the other end of the internet.
Secret Asian Man |
I honestly feel a little stupid having to even post this, it's like telling people to
use a napkin when they eat or brush their teeth twice a day. But I've run into this exact
problem in not being able to download choice media, and I have no doubt that it's because
some dumbass is using a repeater to get 40 copies of the latest FF movie trailer rather
than checking back at a less crowded time. Don't be assholes people, remember what they
taught you in kindergarten and wait your freaking turn. And don't think you can get away
with it because you're just one person, because that's what everybody else is thinking. End
of rant.
| Don't we have better ways of spending our
time? Not really. |
| Hey, hey. I was wondering if you could answer a question for me. I want
to know what the very first video game with a boss was. The earliest I can recall is Super
Mario Bros. (1985) with Bowser at the end of every world. Were there any before that? Help
would be appreciated. -- Shawn K. |
Since SMB was the launch title for the NES, any earlier game would be on a prior
system, and my knowledge of such systems ain't too great. I vaguely remember Dragon
Stomper for the 2600 as having three main dragons that needed defeating, but don't bank on
that or anything. If anybody has any ideas, send 'em in.
| For when you can't stare at a tiny LCD screen
long enough |
| Hello, and welcome to my nightmare. since all the letters I saw are about
Final Fantasy, I got another one for you. One word: Pocketstation. I saw that cringe. Now
I know it was never released in the US but I got one anyway. So now I have a Pocketstation
and FF8's little minigame(Chocobo World) on it. Here's where the fun begins, I've been
searching the net for weeks trying to figure out how to beat it, so far I've found out
that you get to lvl 100 and you're supposed to be able to beat it so you can do it all
over again with higher HP. So here's my question. How in the world to you beat it so you
can start the game over on a better grade? |
Cheap answer 1: I mock you pitilessly for being so socially inept that you voluntarily
spend all your time starting at a pathetically small Gameboy knockoff. This enshrines me
as a hero to the readers and hides the fact that I don't have a clue what the answer is.
Cheap answer 2: I admit that nobody here knows the answer, and rely instead on the
kindness and wisdom of my readers to pass on the correct info.
Cheap answer 3: I point you at Gamefaq's Final Fantasy 8 FAQs,
although nothing there seems to be much help.
You must choose, but choose wisely.
| PC FF players - someone even lower on Square's
priority list than the rest of us |
| Hey Chris, With all the concern about the up-coming Final Fantasy
titles, I thought I'd add my perspective as a PC Final Fantasy player. I like the
Playstation, but I really didn't feel the need to buy one until I played FFVII at a
friend's house. Then, I heard that it was going to be released for PC, and I thought all
my troubles were solved. I subsequently bought FFVIII, and just assumed that the trend
would continue. Now, with FFXI being produced for the Play Online network, I might not be
able to play the game at all, without shelling out the money for a PSX2. I like the
console-style RPG's, but most of my other gaming interests (Starcraft, Thief, HoMM3) fall
outside the console's realm, so I can't justify buying a PSX2 at the moment. (Not that I
have a real steady influx of cash, anyway.) For now I'll just have to see if and how IX
and X get ported. If Electronic Arts doesn't improve on the technical glitches fouling up
VIII, I might have my problem solved anyway. It won't matter if I can get on Play Online
or not--if the PC versions continue to be inferior products, I won't want to play them.
Just my opinion,
Vyktori |
If I remember correctly, Final Fantasy XI is probably the most likely FF to see a PC
port, as Hironobu Sakaguchi's said he wants people to be able to access Play Online from
computers and arcades as well as their PS2s. If true, this would also mean that you
wouldn't have to worry about port quality so much, since FFXI would be less a game than an
interface to a game engine running on someone else's server. Play experience would
hopefully be pretty uniform.
| Never give up, never surrender |
| I saw the piece you did about that strange-looking-yet-intriguing game,
Vib Ribbon. I can sympathize with those gamers out there that would like to see Vib Ribbon
released in the US, because I, too am wishing for a game to be released over here:
Tokimeki Memorial. I know that it may seem like an odd game, but let's face it: With
recently released games like Thousand Arms and Harvest Moon that feature a sim-dating
aspect, how does Tokimemo seem any more strange than, let's say, Seaman, which on the
other hand, has been scheduled for a stateside release? Andrew P |
Conventional wisdom states that anyone who tries to petition a Japanese company to
release a game in the States that they've already passed on is gonna be in for a
disappointment. In this case, a full tilt dating sim seems even more unlikely. But from
time to time I like to buck conventional wisdom, so I'm gonna give a slight word of
encouragement to those who are out to get weirdass games translated: it's not completely
impossible. I never thought I'd see a legit translation of Final Fantasy V in the US, but
one's sitting not five feet away from me. Once upon a time Square didn't want to release
Xenogears or Front Mission over here, and now we've got more games from them than we know
what to do with. And as Andrew says, the fact that Thousand Arms and Harvest Moon have
both already made it over here is a good sign for anyone interested in Tokimeki Memorial
or any other longshot game. So do a good deed for the day, get on Google, search out a
petition to get something translated, and plop your name down on that list. The enjoyment
you save could be your own.
Closing Comments:
Not much to say in closing, but I would like to suggest a topic of discussion for
tomorrow. Dragon Quest 7. Why should we give a flying leap? Lots of people have written me
talking about how beloved the DQ series is in Japan, and that's great. But why should that
translate to something that'll make up for DQ7's apparent technical faults? Nostalgia can
only keep a series running for so long. Why should American gamers care, since the last
two games weren't released over here? I mean, we haven't seen a DQ game since the freakin'
NES. What does DQ have to do to get your attention? I await your reply.
-Chris Jones, not being eaten alive by ants |
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