Yes, this is about the aborted XBox One plans. Yes, I am aware that this isn't very relevant at this point. And, no, I don't care. I'm simply verbalizing (textualizing?) some thoughts. So, as we know, Microsoft had a plan. A very stupid, half-baked and convoluted plan that they never fully explained, but still a plan. This plan was a DRM system. Here's what we knew about the system: * The XBox One was to require a daily Internet connection or else it would have locked the user out of their games. Certain features, such as playing Blu-ray movies were unrestricted, but games were locked until the user reestablished an Internet connection. In other words, without an Internet connection, the XBox One was an overpriced Blu-ray player. * All games would be playable off of the console's harddrive, but would also require an online activation that would attach the game to the user's XBox Live account. * Used games were effectively blocked. Either you had to pay a licensing fee (which, as far as we know, was full price) or buy from an approved retailer (namely, Gamestop, but we'll get to that), who likely had the ability to print out new registration codes. In short, used games ceased to exist because you were getting a download, regardless of whether it was off the disc or from the Internet. As such, physical games had literally zero reason to exist. * Every game could potentially use cloud computing to enhance various features. The only specific feature I know of was Forza 5's "Drivatar" system that would allow you to race ghosts of other players that were updated in real time as the game is played. * The feature we know as "Family Sharing." The idea is that users cold share their games among a number of other users. How this was supposed to work was never completely spelled out. Some official sources said it was full games that could be played freely, others said that it was timed trials. * A feature that was purely speculation and never actually announced outside of official sources mentioning it as a hypothetical that was basically an online marketplace where users could trade, buy and sell game licenses among each other. Again, this feature purely speculation and never actually announced. Let's go through these points one by one, starting from the bottom: Digital marketplace: Ignoring the fact that the feature was never actually announced and EVERYTHING about it was pure speculation, this was just a way to add a middle man to trading games between users that ISN'T Gamestop. Basically, instead of selling your games to Gamestop, who then sells them to other users, you'd either be selling your licenses, not games, we'll get to the difference, to Microsoft, who then sells them to other users or you're selling the licenses to other users directly, while Microsoft takes a cut of the money. Under current policies, physical games can be sold directly to other users. Its called selling to friends, over Craigslist or on eBay. Unlike with the digital marketplace, there either is no middle man or the middle man is a free service that doesn't take a cut of the money involved in the transaction. The middle man was only necessary if you were intentionally selling to the middle man. Under the other parts of the DRM, this digital marketplace would also be the only way to sell a used game directly to another user, which adds a middle man where there shouldn't be one and takes control away from the user. However, on its own, a digital marketplace is an unprecedented idea. The idea that a user can sell the licenses to their downloaded games at all is a great idea. It is understandable if the middle man takes a cut on such a marketplace. The problem comes from making it the only way to sell games in general. If a user wants to sell a game disc to a friend, the fact that it's physical property means that no middle man is necessary. They should be able to trade the game for the money and be done with it. No EULAs or game registration to deal with, just one person selling their property to another person. After all, I don't have to get IKEA's permission if I want to sell my chair to someone. Not to mention gifting. We have no idea if the digital marketplace would have allowed users to just plain give a game to someone. Microsoft would have been completely within their rights to require some money, even as little as a dollar, to be exchanged, just so they could take their share. And to top it off, the DRM was completely unnecessary for this feature in the first place. There is no reason to require online game registration and a daily connection to have such a marketplace for digital games as, by their nature of being downloaded, an Internet connection is required for them in the first place. Family Sharing: Unlike the digital marketplace, we actually had some idea of what this was. The problem is, even then we didn't know everything we needed to know about it. Was it full games? Or was it timed trials? Family Sharing sounds great. So great that Valve is implementing the exact feature in its nearly ideal form for Steam. The difference is twofold: 1, Valve actually explained how their system worked and 2, Steam isn't nearly as draconian as the XBox One's DRM was going to be. And, again, the draconian DRM is completely unnecessary for sharing digital games due to, again, an Internet connection being required just by the nature of the games being digital. Yes, this would require losing out on this feature for physical games, but that means that the user retains all of their rights with their physical discs, plus they gain rights with their digital licenses. Cloud computing: Microsoft's insistence that cloud computing would be a life changing feature was largely a red herring. Yes, it can enhance a game, but not to the extent that Microsoft was insisting it could. What they weren't talking about is the fact that such a feature requires not just an ultra stable Internet connection, but a constant and extremely fast one. So while ideas like Forza's "Drivatars" are perfectly feasible, it is absurd to say that a game will be significantly changed or improved by cloud computing. For a perfect score, it is again a feature that doesn't require the DRM to be used. Yes, it can enhance a game, but with current technology and Internet infrastructure, it is too unreliable to do any more than make minor enhancements to a game that could otherwise be played entirely offline. And as I'm currently being booted out of my friend's house, I'll continue this when I get home and get some sleep.[DOUBLEPOST=1385941253][/DOUBLEPOST]And since I'm home and rested, part 2: Used game blocking/online game registration: And here we get to the actual DRM as opposed to features that Microsoft used to pretend that the DRM was necessary. Microsoft claimed that this was to allow users to play their games off the hard drive. DRM defenders claimed it was to allow the digital marketplace, again, ignoring that the digital marketplace was purely speculation and never actually announced. Neither of these features require restricting physical games. Yes, a user would be unable to use these features without the restrictions when it comes to physical games, but that is no excuse to take away the right to ownership. The ability to play games off the hard drive exists for consoles. It's called downloading. By buying digitally, a user does sacrifice many of their rights in favor of convenience. This is an understanding a user has when they choose to buy digitally. By giving up the right to sell, loan and gift games, a user gains the ability to play it anywhere that they're signed into their account and the ability to play without needing a disc in the machine. Under the DRM, users gained nothing, but lost all of their rights to their physical games. At the same time, a digital marketplace would have added several rights to digital property. Users would have gained the right to sell and trade their digital licenses. Users would have gained rights... when it came to digital licenses. With the DRM, users would have lost the right to freely sell their games in the way they see fit. They would have been required to go through one outlet to sell their games, regardless of whether they were digital or physical. If we were lucky, we'd have two outlets: Microsoft themselves and "approved retailers," aka, Gamestop. The issue is that users were going to lose rights. Would have gained something? Yes, but that doesn't change that those gains are not inherently tied to the loses. Users gained nothing from running all games off of the hard drive because that option already exists in the ideal form. The digital marketplace would have given users the right to sell digital licenses, but it would have taken away their right to ownership. Daily Internet connection: Let's ignore that this restriction is completely unnecessary for anything other than blocking used games and look at things logistically. What happens when Microsoft has server issues? When a million people try to activation their games (and console for that matter), the servers are going to be stressed. Think the issues Sony was having with activation product codes on PSN this weekend, only locking users out of their games entirely. This is the exact issue that EA had with Sim City and Blizzard had with Diablo III. What about when a user is banned from XBox Live for whatever reason? Yes, they're logically being banned for breaking the terms of service, but considering that people are already being banned for using profanity over private Skype calls, we likely would have seen people locked out of their games for failing to follow needlessly and bizarrely strict rules. Yeah, this is a hypothetical and all, it was unlikely that users would be locked out of their games, but it is still a real possibility. And when the XBox 4 is out and the XBox One is outdated ten years down the line? Microsoft is not going to support the XBox One forever. The DRM is a shortsighted plan that would have seen its most extreme effect in the long run. Ten years down the line when the XBox One servers go down, unless the XBox 4 is backwards compatible, which is unlikely for the same reason why the PS4 and XBox One aren't backwards compatible, which is largely due to publisher pressure due to their ridiculous belief that backwards compatibility allowing the PS3 to play PS2 games was hurting PS3 software sales. And we've looked at the XBox One DRM itself, next we'll be looking at other issues with DRM, problems with publishers, the industry's relation with used games, why Steam works and so on and so forth. However, as of now, I have somewhere to be and will update when I next get the chance.
Progressive power metal at its finest. Led by the brilliant Roy Saetre Khantatat (Khan for short), they have achieved univeral acclaim amongst the press and metal fans. I bring to you folks, Kamelot. Good examples of their work: "Karma" "March of Mephisto" "When the Lights Are Down" "Elizabeth" "Nights of Arabia"
Tarot is a heavy metal band led by Marco Hietala, better known as Nightwish's bassist and backup vocalist. I found out about them when I was wondering what a band with Marco on lead vocals would sound like. Turns out Tarot is actually an older band than Nightwish.
Simple concept here folks, just post some recommendations of female fronted bands, metal, rock, punk, anything really. Battlelore, power metal band with elements of industrial and death metal with vocal duties shared between a male vocalist and a female vocalist. Epica, my personal favorite symphonic metal band. Simone Simmons is a brilliant singer and the band uses a perfect mix of modern metal instruments with classical instruments. Luca Turilli's Dreamquest, one album out, though mostly an excuse for Mr. Turilli to show off his keyboarding skills as opposed to the guitar skills he shows off with Rhapsody of Fire, their mystery vocalist "Mystique" is what makes this band for me. Nightwish, one of the most popular female fronted bands for a reason. Tarja Turunen is a great vocalist (though not a great solo artist) that put out some great material before she was fired. Her replacement, Annette Olzon has had mixed reactions from fans. I personally prefer Annette over Tarja, but both are great vocalists. Within Temptation, another symphonic metal band that uses a mix of orchestral and metal. Xandria, though she quit early last year, Xandria's vocalist was what made this band. Hopefully Lisa Middelhauve's replacement, Lakonia, will prove to be just as good.
http://s4.en.alaplaya.eu/ Here's the gist of things. Fast paced team based shooter similar to a hybrid of GunZ (minus blatant hacking and "advandced" techniques that consist entirely of glitch abuse) and Team Fortress 2. The only problems are that people have a tendency to lag spike (AKA, forcing yourself to lag to make it hard for people to kill you, people make it obvious if you watch their ping) and, for those who are in the States or Canada, most players are in Europe. Surprisingly good game for freeware. Anyone who wants to play, I can set up a room sometime as it beats playing against random lagging mooks.
From early bands such Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden to modern bands such as Black Label Society and Iced Earth, and from early innovating musicians such as Tony Iommi and Geddy Lee to modern masters such as Yngwie Malmsteen, metal is a huge and very important genre, so lets all gather together and throw up the horns to appreciate and talk about an important piece of musical history. To start, what form of metal do you folks think better represents metal as a whole? The light, speedy power metal with bands such as Blind Guardian and Kamelot, the thinking man's progressive metal with Dream Theater and Symphony X, the heavy, often imposing death metal with Amon Amarth and Job for a Cowboy, or something other than what I present here? Come on folks, there is no wrong answer here.
