Slashdot Mirror

Its amazing, but one of those "gaming news" sites actually has some decent resources for those who want to know how to go about things. Gamasutra is also a good place to look, if you enjoy sifting through the massive amount of submissions they have in archives. This is their main Developer page, while this is one of their better articles about the PC development industry. *Most* of what's written applies to consoles as well, but good luck making a console game and selling it without a publisher.

From the article :
The brothers also announced a partnership with NCsoft, the South Korean company that runs the world's largest subscriber-based online game, Lineage: The Blood Pledge.

The company has 2 million subscribers in South Korea alone; under the partnership, Lineage will be repackaged and relaunched in the United States this fall. Meanwhile, Lineage creator Jake Song will move to Austin to help develop games, which NCsoft will help launch in Asia. (Emphasis added.)

How the hell is there a game with 2 million subscribers - almost 6 times the subscribers of EverQuest - that I've never heard of before?!

This game looks sweet - like what I've wanted to play for a long time : an MMPORPG (with 2 million players) that looks like Diablo II! Cool, cool, cool. Again, I hope their support of it, and their localization doesn't suck!

Check this out for a more down to earth look at game design. It'll let you know what you're thinking about getting into.

Probably any aspiring or professional game writers already know this, but FYI, Adrenaline Vault is looking for part-time writers for console and PC games. Click here for more info.

I must be the only one still (or ever) reading Adrenaline Vault. The reviews are fair, and the news is as current as anywhere else. Not as much attitude as DailyRadar, though.

Here's my favorite gaming sites to visit almost daily:

VoodooExtreme
Shacknews
Stomped
Computer Gaming Online
GamesSpy
3D News
Firing Squad
Avault
Games Domain
GamesMania
IGN News (PC)

I know drivers will get better but I found really disappointing that a $500 card is so slow doing something as simple as 2D graphics. Hope they get it better.

An aside - whenever this topic comes up, 99% of the posters seem to agree that no connection exists, and that censorship is bad. I agree that we have to be careful with censorship, but I wanted to ask, what do you think causes the greater amount of violence in America? If it isn't the culture, what is it? If you say, "parents", what made American parents fail where parents from other countries succeed? If it isn't culture, what? Something in the water?

I'm not trolling. I really want to know your opinion on this.

************************************************ ** *

Remember? The study that all the reactionary freaks demanded then claimed would validate their position? Fancy that, it didn't. Now no one wants to talk about it.

That report can be found here:

Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General

To sumamrize another summary of the report:

• Violent media plays no role at all in late onset violence (where a record of violent behavior begins in adolescence).
• In violent behavior that begins before age eleven(11) media ranks as the 10th most significant factor behind violent parents, bad parenting, poverty, substance use, and natural agressive tendencies.

"Sierra... and/or Sierra's licensors shall be entitled, without bond, other security, or proof of damages, to appropriate equitable remedies (including injunctive relief to prohibit a breach of this License Agreement) with respect to threatened or actual breaches of this License Agreement."

So, let's say I call up Sierra's legal department to clarify what constitutes infringement. The hypothetical call:

me: I was just wondering, am I allowed to make a copy of the game CD for backup purposes? For instance, to keep in a safebox.

Sierra: You're not allowed to make any copies of the software, for any... wait... you have a burner?

me: Well, yes, my job requires me...

Sierra: And you have previously used this burner to store information on a compact disk or compact disks?

me: Um, yeah. I develop...

Sierra: *click*

But, wait: if there's a "rat out your friends" clause as well... If a buddy (who also has the game) tells you about someone they know (who also has the game) who has a friend (who also has the game) who has been considering putting up a screenshot of a game on his website, you are violating your own EULA if you don't immediately write to the developers and warn them.

my head hurts

3dfx has never suggested in any forum that they will leave the PC market. Why would they? At worst what we're seeing is a return to the Voodoo 2 strategy: a successful one, before they took too much upon themselves. And by the way, Quantum 3D had a kick-ass SLI product on store shelves then, too.

Derina X. Pinchfish

Sorry, no more time, have to defend the Universe this night,

Drashcan

The proper URL to download the Windows demo from AVault is ftp://ftp.avault.com/demos/TerminusDem oWinFull.exe. AVault has a bad link, yet despite this their FTP server seems to have been slashdotted anyways, unless it was intolerably slow to begin with.

• Linux.com (27 Apr)
  
• Adrenaline Vault (25 Apr)
  
• Games weekly (23 Apr)
  
• casManG's (April 10?)
  
• Intelligamer (April 10?)
  
• Computer Game Online (Feb)
  

And a couple of fan sites:

• Station Terminus (Joe Shodan)
  
• Terminus (hosted at A Talent For War)
  

Oh, and it isn't massively multi-player, and that's a *good* thing:
they've gone for allowing people to create their own servers, and for
a gameplay model that seamlessly moves from single player to
multiplayer, whilst retaining lots of depth. Very ambitious, and it
looks really successful. I'm impressed.

Wrong url...the preview is here

There's an in-depth preview at the Adrenaline
Vault, which was published last month. It gives a pretty good idea as
to why folks are excited about this one.

Although I saw one comment mention Terminus, I think it deserves MUCH more than that.

Terminus is a persistent universe RPG, in space. It is a 3D simulation set in our Solar System, two hundred years in the future. It is scheduled for release on 6 June 2000, for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.

For more on Terminus, check out Station Terminus.
There's an awesome preview at The Adrenaline Vault.
Here's another at Linux.com.
Lastly is the website of Vicarious Visions, the developer of Terminus.

Terminus was at the E3 (or, at least, was supposed to be) - I don't know why the writer of this article didn't see it / didn't mention it.
It hasn't gotten a whole lot of press, but it's been mentioned in quite a few game mags out there. I, for one, am going to buy this game the day it comes out - both to support games on Linux, and because it looks like a lot of fun.

-lw

Here's the page:

http://www.avault.com/razercpl /index.asp?p=workshops

That has the above linked MP3 of Carmack, and also a talk by Romero, which may or may not be as interesting.

Avault has posted an mp3 of the workshop for those who weren't able to attend (including myself :/).

According to this article on The Adrenaline Vault, Road Runner "will begin to carry AOL services on its high-speed cable system". Road Runner customers will also begin receiving junk mail from AOL.

However, this will not be happening immediately, since "the merger is subject to certain closing conditions, including shareholder approvals, and is expected to close near the end of 2000".

So it looks like I at least have until the end of the millennium to find an alternative cable ISP before I am assimilated into the evil AOL empire. Cold comfort, to be sure, but at least not as bad as I initially thought.

If these are going to be used as phones, why not overclock the processor to 900MHz (or 2.4 GHz!) to match the frequency of cordless phones?

This would settle those occasional comments about CPU frequency interfering with radio frequency and vice versa, since they don't.

AnandTech, Sharky Extreme, Adrenaline Vault, and Ars Technica seem to have screenshots of a new overclocking record every week or two. I believe it currently stands at ~1300MHz -- is 2.4GHz unreasonable to think?

--

• FilePlanet
  
• id Software
  
• MnGamers.com
  
• Meccaworld
  
• 3D ActionGamers
  
• Gaminggroup.com
  
• Blue's News
  
• Queensland Gamers League in Australia (QGL)
  
• Avault
  
• German Mirror at GXP.de
  
• Stomped FTP2

This has everything to do with religious fundamentalism. From the beginning, the parents of the victims tried to paint it as a work of evil godless atheists trying to destroy Christianity by shooting at a prayer meeting. Then they found out the shooter was Christian. I guess that sort of ruined things, so they're looking for a different scapegoat. Instead of the evil atheists, it's now the evil game, movie, and porn industries.

In case you have any doubts as to their motives, take a look at a quote from this article:

Neither attorney was available for comment prior to going to press, though the Adrenaline Vault learned one of them has a history of being associated with cases supported by conservative Christian organizations.

AVault did a great article on just this a few months ago. Interesting stuff.