In-Game Web Browser Round-Up 193
theodp writes "CNET takes a look at Web browsers you can run inside of the latest video games, offering mini-reviews of PlayXpert, Steam, Rogue, and Xfire. Why run these instead of your standard browser? Well, these browsers run lean and mean, play nice with full-screen apps, provide hot keys that can make them appear or disappear in an instant, and offer transparency so you can continue to play a game in full screen while chatting, reading e-mail or looking up cheat codes. So how much longer before we see a variation of this on our real-world car windshields?"
Oh good. Something else to do while driving (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully never. People already have enough things to distract them while driving. Do they really need another one?
On windshields? (Score:5, Insightful)
So how much longer before we see a variation of this on our real-world car windshields?
I hope that we never see this. Not as long as there's a human steering the car. Do we really need yet ANOTHER distraction from driving? People are texting, putting on makeup, calling, eating, drinking, reading and doing too many other things than driving. Imho if a police should see you doing this they should sell your car and take your license since you're too stupid to figure out that 3000kg at 100km/h is a force to be respected.
Re:Thottbot (Score:1, Insightful)
Use quest helper.
I don't like it. (Score:5, Insightful)
All it does is encourage people to multi-task more. And that is not a good thing. Our brain isn't good at multi-tasking (in terms of focusing on different things), we end up doing each job half-assed. And have a big switch when we go from one to the other. It is like a drug though because we use so much extra brain power multi-tasking we feel like we are being more productive however you are better off doing job 1 then job 2 in order. With this happening more we are training our kids not to sit down and solve a problem but jump back and forth until until we fail at all of them.
Re:On windshields? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope that we never see this. Not as long as there's a human steering the car. Do we really need yet ANOTHER distraction from driving? People are texting, putting on makeup, calling, eating, drinking, reading and doing too many other things than driving. Imho if a police should see you doing this they should sell your car and take your license since you're too stupid to figure out that 3000kg at 100km/h is a force to be respected.
The funny thing is that people are far more likely to "pull over and chat" in an FPS (where they can respawn) than in a real car (where they can't).
Re:Thottbot (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're just looking for something to look up info there is no need for a browser in WoW.
Install the Questhelper and lightheaded addons and you're all set.
Questhelper points you to the quest locations and lightheaded parses all comments from wowhead on quests in a ingame addon.
Roadkill takes on a whole new meaning... (Score:3, Insightful)
"...So how much longer before we see a variation of this on our real-world car windshields?"
Are you serious? We can't even keep people from crashing at 80MPH and killing innocent people because they're too busy texting on a 2x2" screen on a fucking cell phone, and you want to slap a full-blown YouTube/Facebook/Myspace portal on the windshield?
I'll tell you how much longer. When we have a foolproof autopilot system for our cars.
Re:On windshields? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're fine doing all those things, until one day you discover something you're not fine with, or some jackass pulls out in front of you and your reaction time is slower because you're distracted. Then it's all fun and games.
Still, I guess some people never make it beyond toddlers. You've just gotta touch that hotplate before you figure out it's dangerous.
Re:On windshields? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what do you think would happen if a ball rolled out into the street in front of your car, followed by a laughing child?
You were a complete asshole when you drove like that. I hope you've wised up, but it sounds like you still think your masterful driving expertise allows you to control things outside your card.
Re:Roadkill takes on a whole new meaning... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll tell you how much longer. When we have a foolproof autopilot system for our cars.
There's no such thing, but rail is pretty good.
We went the wrong way in this country when we let the auto companies dismantle the rail system (to the minimum level that would allow for their purposes.)
I'd rather not (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I find that trying Questhelper has pretty much killed all my interest in WoW.
Now I do appreciate having Thottbot or such, for when I got lost or couldn't figure out the directions after trying for half an hour. But just following the cube makes me feel like a bot could do the same thing, and probably better. There is no need for any more complex thought above "click on that guy because Questhelper says so" or "head that way because Questhelper says so." There's nothing left to discover (technically QH discovered it already for you), nothing worth remembering (QH already tells you whether you need to go east or west, so no point in even trying to remember where the quest told you to go), you don't even need to look at the major landmarks (if it's behind that hill, QH will tell you so.)
And you can tell. I know people who play exclusively by Questhelper (heck, mom does) and frankly, they don't seem to actually use any brainpower in playing the game. Often they won't even remember what they just did or where some major landmark is, because really there was no more thought involved than obediently doing what the bot told them to. They've run along some road a dozen times, but ask them to show you where it is, and you find that they couldn't find their own arse with a map and a compass, but without QH. Or you see them forgetting they had to use some unique item, and some whole group trying to take down some elite boss the hard way instead, because none of them bothered even reading the quest text and QH doesn't tell them, "dude, use the shreder".
Now if that still keeps you entertained, good for you, and I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. But it's just not for me. For me it makes the whole thing boring as heck, and takes away any kind of sense of achievement too.