The Gare and Elin Translate It Out: keikaku means plan

[deadlegion]

I make people show me that it's working before I buy. If they don't want to then I don't deal. Exceptions being for super cheap lots with valuable games.

Freebies are my fav.
If there are games make an offer on those and get the console thrown in for nothing if they won't do a test drive.

Or just get it all for free

[Gypsy]

Yep.

[Zaladane]

That's a fair price, although I'd want it to be in unused condition.

Like hookers!

[Zaladane]

@Jazz

[gezegond]

Like hookers!

[Raype]

I met a gentleman down the street who was returning to Germany after how ever many years. He couldn't ship his keyboard so was selling it for 300. It was a massive Roland that runs around 4500 online and I could even have talked him down...but I didnt even have 200 at the time.

Did I need it? no...Could I have profited? I think so. :\

People are moving back to Germany from America? How bad have things gotten there?

"Where we're going, we won't need keyboards!"

[gezegond]

"Where we're going, we won't need keyboards!"

[Raype]

*cough* silly text size limits.

Not really, no. It depends on the value of its implementation. If it actually adds something of value it's more than a gimmick. Take motion controls. I can pretty much count on one hand the number of games that actually need motion controls and even those instances are pretty questionable. Yet there are hundreds of the fucking things out there, because they have to put that shit in. It's a requirement for certification on certain systems. It's a gimmick, there's no reason all those wii games need wagglan to accomplish something that could just as easily be mapped to a button, in much the same way the DS games shoehorn in touchscreen stuff. Not to mention how half assed and terrible the motion control tech is in general. Give it a decade or two and I'm going to be changing that tune pretty quick when I'm VR-ing it up in some super duper amazing holo-deck level simulation dealy. But the tech isn't ready to come out of the lab and is being shoved down people's throats for no reason other than marketing. The Wii-U is somewhat of a testament to that, since it nixed the hell out of the wiggle and waggle and all that. But then they had to throw in tablet controls and a second screen requirement like the DS' earlier days. So there's that.

The SCD launched with a game called Sol Feace. The technology was amazing and awesome and totally not something carts can do guize. But then the SCD bombed. Suddenly, the genesis gets a fully functional port. The sole difference being that the audio was a bit shit. That's it. You just paid 200-300 dollars (about 500 in today money) for slightly better sound. Not "amazingly super spectacular superior to the max" sound, since that tech wasn't around yet. Just clearer less staticy beeps and boops. Don't you feel special now? That's totally innovative. Now excuse me while I play these other SCD games. A sidescrolling sonic with pointless FMV tech, a port of Mortal Kombat (ONE?!), a slightly better version of Flashback and an updated version of Earthworm Jim after everyone and their grandma already got bored of it. And just... FMV games. And the CD-I. Everything about the CD-I. They released games that were literally just worse, unfinished versions of cart based games. The mario games are a goddamned war crime.

And you're getting into PC again, which is a whole other beast. Technically speaking, the PC never used anything but discs. Floppies are just a small home media version of tape backup and those bigass discs (which were the forebears of CDs) that they've been using for fucking ever. Floppies were just a way to make it smaller and cheaper. That covering is just there for protection, largely because the actual "disk" was a flimsy piece of shit that would rip or self-wipe if you so much as looked at it funny. Which is also part of why your cartridges look like carts instead of the way they'd look if they came back in, which is more like a flash card or one of those USB drives. We can make the same tech now, but smaller, more stable, and less breaky. CDs only look like CDs for a couple of weird and longwinded reasons, which partially come down to portable CD players and the fact that it was developed to succeed records instead of floppies. But really, there's not much functional difference between a CD and a 5 1/4 floppy aside from size and materials used. Stick a cover on a blue ray and it quickly becomes a successor to the 3 1/4.

PCs actually used that space as well. While consoles were mucking about with slight improvements and bad gimmicks, the PC was trying to get away from using a metric fuckton of floppies to install everything (DEAR GOD, THE MEMORIES) and actually improve things beyond making washed up D-list celebrities prance about in PG-13 lingerie. People remember Myst, they don't exactly recall Wand of Ghamelion without developing the urge to vomit. Different market, different developers, different ideas. Also gaming wasn't the sole reason for this move. People wanted to store more stuff and using a buttload of discs was a pain. Size creep happens. So they made the discs "bigger", like they did last time. They just changed the format a little more than last time in the process.

[Gypsy]

Whoa there.

[Raype]

That sounds like something a horse fucker says.

Are you a horse fucker Gypsy?

Do you like the feel of that big furry tail on your chest?

You sick fuck.

[gezegond]

Huh? You're talking to me?

If it actually adds something of value it's more than a gimmick.

Agreed, but I always found FMVs in PS1 "something of value".

You're just talking about Sega CD. Sega CD was a disaster not because "CDs were a bad thing", but because Sega was in a sort of internal war at the time which meant Sega Japan and Sega America were going their own ways. Because of this Sega's American branch couldn't get developers to invest on and program for Sega CD, which turned out as it did.

I don't understand why you're intent to separate consoles and PC. When I say game industry I mean both. It's not called "console industry" or "PC gaming industry". It's called game industry.

Actually, from a technological stand point floppies were really different in that they used magnetism to store data while optic discs used... well, optics.

I don't think CDs were just a gimmick for games, in that they were used to truly enhance a game's experience by using pre rendered videos as well as complicated audio, in both music and speech, as well as just bumping up the size limit which helped developers a lot.

In my own experience, I never found motion controls in wii innovative and they would most likely get in the way rather than improve the experience. But I remember FMVs in PS1 games were usually one of the highlights of the game for me (I'm thinking Resident Evil, among others). This is a personal opinion and you might feel differently, but I never considered them gimmicks that add nothing to the experience.

May I ask you, if you consider Discs a "gimmick" and 3D "just a perspective change", what DO you find good technology? The way I see it you seem to believe that all technology is pointless. ???

[gezegond]

That sounds like something a horse fucker says.

Are you a horse fucker Gypsy?

Do you like the feel of that big furry tail on your chest?

You sick fuck.

@Gypsy: This is the conversation from before that's still ongoing between us.

[Jazzmarazz]

That sounds like something a horse fucker says.

Are you a horse fucker Gypsy?

Do you like the feel of that big furry tail on your chest?

You sick fuck.

Care to continue this discussion in retro. With me.

[gezegond]

Well, I'm off to reading more LOTR. It's sorta tiring tbh but I want to read it regardless.

[Raype]

Care to continue this discussion in retro. With me.

Sorry for the delay, Jazz and I were discussing horse things in retro.

Everyone knows only casuals like Twilight Sparkle.

But I digress.

Agreed, but I always found FMVs in PS1 "something of value".

But the PS1 was far from the first system to do that, or the first system to use CDs as a basis. Barring that, FMV didn't really add anything to the "game" part of a game. It just tossed in an opportunity to fill the back cover with false advertising. Not unlike the Atari day.

You're just talking about Sega CD. Sega CD was a disaster not because "CDs were a bad thing", but because Sega was in a sort of internal war at the time which meant Sega Japan and Sega America were going their own ways. Because of this Sega's American branch couldn't get developers to invest on and program for Sega CD, which turned out as it did.

Doesn't excuse the Jaguar, Turbografix, 3DO, CD-I, etc etc. CD based games were a novelty and a breeding ground for shovelware or games that could just as easily be done on non-CD hardware. Ultimately you're paying exorbitant amounts for better audio, maybe a tiny bit of VO, and a slight graphical increase. More often than not you're just playing cart based console/PC ports.

I don't understand why you're intent to separate consoles and PC. When I say game industry I mean both. It's not called "console industry" or "PC gaming industry". It's called game industry.

But they're hugely different industries with hugely different companies driven by hugely different factors pushing (at the time, most certainly) hugely different products. It's like comparing the tea farming industry in China to your backyard tomato garden.

Actually, from a technological stand point floppies were really different in that they used magnetism to store data while optic discs used... well, optics.

That's largely nitpicky though. Ultimately it's still binary data. But then so is everything. Just because you're using cassettes or laserdisc doesn't mean music changes.

I don't think CDs were just a gimmick for games, in that they were used to truly enhance a game's experience by using pre rendered videos as well as complicated audio, in both music and speech, as well as just bumping up the size limit which helped developers a lot.

Ultimately. Doesn't change the fact that it was a huge, stupid gimmick for almost the entirety of the 90's.

In my own experience, I never found motion controls in wii innovative and they would most likely get in the way rather than improve the experience. But I remember FMVs in PS1 games were usually one of the highlights of the game for me (I'm thinking Resident Evil, among others). This is a personal opinion and you might feel differently, but I never considered them gimmicks that add nothing to the experience.

Resident Evil 1 used a lot of in-game cutscenes. If anything, that horrible, horrible thing on live-action Wesker's head detracts from the overall game. But that's just me.

Cutscenes moved the medium forward in a weird way, but they didn't really enhance the game itself. SNES games had "cutscenes". All it did was make it more cinematic (which could just as easily be introduced via camera tricks in the now 3D environment, and today we see the movement back to in-engine cutscenes and the large scale abandonment of traditional FMV)

May I ask you, if you consider Discs a "gimmick" and 3D "just a perspective change", what DO you find good technology? The way I see it you seem to believe that all technology is pointless. ???

Discs were a gimmick on launch and 3D was just a way to release the same old shit but with a different angle.

There's not much difference between Ocarina of Time and A Link To The Past when it comes to concept and gameplay. It's just that one has a 3D gameplay style. So it's pretty much the same shit with a perspective change. Meanwhile discs were just an excuse to release more expensive versions of old cart based games with different audio, or charge more for games that were marginally better than what came before. In essence, the game industry has always been a stagnant, slow moving beast that takes forever to go anywhere. And when it does, it's on the ability of the software rather than the hardware. And we get shit that's hugely gimmicky and stupid for quite a while before anyone actually uses it, or the tech is capable of doing something truly "new" rather than "it's exactly like your old shit, but with X!".