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Okay, I stole this form a CDMag article, it answers your question.


I've read several e-mails and forum posts that claim anything over 24 frames per second is a waste, since the human eye cannot see anything faster than that. Proponents of this belief often site the 24 FPS rate of movies as proof. This is a complete fallacy. The human eye can see images far faster than 1/24th of a second in duration. There are records of experiments with fighter pilots where images of enemy planes were flashed before them for less than 1/100th of a second, and the pilots could not only spot it, but identify the plane as well. Granted, fighter pilots represent the upper limit of human vision. The fluorescent lights we're all familiar with actually blink on and off 120 times a second, since they light up as current passes through them and the alternating current standard to the U.S. fluctuates back and forth at 60Hz. Still, we see a steady stream of light because we can't process visual changes at that rate.

The point is that we can recognize shapes and movement in much smaller increments of time than 1/24th or even 1/30th of a second (color is slower to respond, but that's the way the human eye works). Video and film get by with 24 FPS (30 for broadcast video) because they capture all the visual information for that entire fraction of a second. When a movie camera snaps 24 pictures every second, each one captures all the movement for that 24th of a second. This is why you see all that blur when you freeze the picture on a single frame during an action scene, and why the blur goes away when the scene is played at full speed.

Computers don't do this, however. Each image displayed represents "zero time." That is, if it takes your computer 1/24th of a second to render the next frame, it only shows an instantaneous snapshot of the new position of everything, but doesn't show any of the visual information of the movement during that 1/24th of a second. If it did, you could freeze your game and everything moving would be blurry. The motion blur capabilities touted by some video cards doesn't work like a movie camera does, either. It only blends together previous drawings of objects, rather than actually representing all the motion "in between" frames. If you don't think you can see more than 24fps, turn your monitor's refresh rate down to 60Hz and watch how it flickers.

Eye experts say that a video refresh of 50 times a second is the minimum necessary to represent smooth movement without flickering for the average human eye. The key, of course, is to keep the frame rate up above 50 all the time. Benchmarks almost always measure an average frame rate, when it's the swing that matters--a game that runs at a constant 30 FPS will almost certainly look smoother than one that runs at 45 most of the time, but sometimes drops to 25. Though the frame rate required to really enjoy a game varies, one axiom remains true: there's no such thing as a frame rate that is too high.

by Jason Cross

I think Starbucks can increase their revenue by following Monkey Island 4's lead. They should open a Starbuccaneer's which caters to today's modern pirates (y'arr). They could offer free p2p services inside which will allow mighty pirates to steal games, movies, and music!

Screenshots of the Starbuccaneer's concepts available here and here.

I'm sure Starbucks can buy the licence to use Starbuccaneer's pretty easily.

Because NovaLogic have a patent on voxel technology as used by Comanche Maximum Overkill and Armored Fist. Patent no. 5,550,959 Since the 3D graphics pipeline is essentially in the public domain, it's much cheaper to hire an engineer to design a 3D polygon engine that to license the voxel engine.

Actually Half-Life is based on the Quake (1) engine, heavily modified and enchanced (3D acceleration for example) of course.

Actually Half-Life is based on the Quake (1) engine, heavily modified and enchanced (3D acceleration for example) of course.

Sure thing. Bits and pieces of the System Shock franchise went to Irrational Games (ex-Looking Glass developers and ans who helped bring the game to light), Ion Storm (ex-Looking Glass employees including their executive producer Warren Spector)and EA (the publishers of SS)

EA aquired the IP rights to System Shock when they purchased Origin Systems.

What other favorites from the past could be contributed to a UserLinux distribution, making it irresistable? How about Clipper, isn't that dead yet? Couldn't its corpse (implementation) be examined for clues in how to improve ReKall? I like the idea of integrating Coda into UserLinux, a product from 1987. I wonder, has IBM bothered contributed portions of OS/2's object-oriented GUI to either GNOME or KDE? Also, let's not forget the hundreds (thousands?) of games cast aside by their developers. I for one, would love to see an Open Sourced version of a game like Elite.

= 9J =

Has anyone seen this being used effectively anywhere. It seems most modern games rely on prerecorded mp3 tracks as background music. Some just license the latest pop song rather than composing their own. DirectMusic could have created some really interesting effects.
There is a demo in the DirectX SDK of a barnyard scene an you can inteweave the melodic themes of different animals in real time. Has anyone developed something that makes the most of this technology?
Apparently it is avaiable in the Lithtech engine, but do any games actually use it?

Oh, the Command and Conquer team! So does this mean there will be tons of FMV in between every mission, including copious shots of Liv Tyler's cleavage, kind of like we had with Red Alert 2 and Tanya?

One can only hope, I suppose. That, and the inevitable "You have 1 hobbit and 30 seconds to destroy the massed armies of Mordor with a penknife" mission that C&C made so loveable.

Funny, I thought YOU were the troll.

You said "Macs are not made with gaming in mind."

Apple has made a very clear effort to make machines suitable for gaming. It's clear in the marketing Apple does of games for Mac, and in the tech specs for the machines.

What do you want? 128MB DDR AGP 8X video cards? Got 'em. High-speed drives? Got 'em. Digital audio? Done. Audio out, USB and FW ports on the front of the computer? OK. Apple has often mentioned video gaming as part of the reason they make some of these features (some of them as options, like the 128MB video card).

What more do you want? John Carmack himself, on stage at Macworld saying, "Apple is making all the right moves on both the hardware and software sides to make the Macintosh a great platform for games."?

Ask and ye shall receive.

When Starcraft was first released Blizzard used a similar approach to gather information directly from the registries of computers used to log into suspect accounts. Thanks to a few well-timed privacy lawsuits Blizzard stopped this practice in a very short period of time.

Of course, with all the wonderful new laws passed in the U.S. since then, this sort of thing may be possible to defend in court. A more important question is whether or not this sort of thing *should* be allowed.

No method of crack-detection is incapable of producing false-positives. A little bit of corruption in a seldom-used module of an executable could easily cause it to fail a parity check. A user could have his private information sent out over the web and receive harassing emails because of a corrupt disc sector or two! Personally, I feel this sort of thing is no different than a convinience store owner following you home and breaking into your house to check for stolen merchandise just because you looked a tad suspicious when you were in their store. This is simply not acceptable even if such false-positives are a one-in-a-million occurence.

Personally, I refuse to use any software which will compromise a user's privacy for any unavoidable reason. The chances of being a false-positive are remote, but why put up with them if you don't have to?

P.S. With american countries taking people from other countries to court, it would be nice if things worked both ways. I'd like to see some privacy lawsuits levelled against american companies in countries where draconian anti-privacy laws have yet to be passed. Is this even possible?

Actually, something like that already happened in Ultima Online. The story goes that a while back one of the UO GMs (game masters/admins) used his powers to create valuable items and sell them to players. Exact details were never released, but he supposedly made around $8000 before being caught. Here is a link to the story, including OSI's official statement:

http://www.cdmag.com/articles/021/009/uo_gm.html

Halo was originally announced for the Mac. MWSF 1998. You could even pre-order Halo for the Mac here

Halo is for all intents and purposes, Marathon IV [/dons flame retardant jump suit].

The original Marathon series is available via the Marathon Aleph One project here

Finally, there's Marathon Resurrection, a Marathon Unreal Tournament mod.

Bungie's abandoning their promise to release Halo on the Mac first and then selling out to Microsoft is one of the few valid reasons for fanatical Mac people to hate Microsoft.

If Bungie was smart, they'd put it out on the Mac first: Mac people are used to buying *new* games that have been out on other platforms for months/years.

Before you mod me down for the last statement, I hug my TiBook 2x per day.

In the case you mention, they were not trying to stop pirates, they were obtaining names and email addresses for the purpose of supporting their Starcraft customers who were having issues connecting to Battle.net.

Nor did they stop because they were "criticized", they stopped because they lost a lawsuit over it.

Relevant link.

In more recent years, to better judge the hardware capabilities of their customer base, they've started an opt-in program where general information about your computer system can be collected and submitted to Blizzard while applying patches to their software.

So in a sense they're still collecting similar information, with the main difference being that no individualized information is gathered and it is entirely opt-in -- you can apply the patch regardless of your choice.

And more than likely the "litigious and scammy" party here was the lawyer who brought the lawsuit. Undeniably Blizzard was in the wrong, but barring any evidence suggesting that their intentions were malicious, I think it's safe to say that ultimately they had their customers' best interests at heart.

I wonder if it's going to use their patented Voxel technology.

Half-Life proved that a first person shooter can have a story line.

Jedi Knight was released a year before Half-Life was. And although it wasn't much technologically speaking even at the time, Strife came out a year before that, in 1996.

Half-Life was well-executed in a lot of ways, but I don't think it was the first out of the gate with many (if any at all) of the "innovations" that get so much praise heaped on it.

A few years ago, NBC used Jane's F-15 and Fleet Command to demonstrate attacks on Iraq. And the U.S. Army uses Steel Beasts to train its tank crews (in addition to higher-end solutions).

btw, now the U.S. Army is contributing to the development of Steel Beasts 2.

Anyone remember Dave Taylor, crack.com, and the now defunct Golgotha Project? He wanted to make the first commercial game for Linux, but after the dot com crash investor interest diminished quickly.

It was a nice idea, but he ran out of money after a year or so. The site is still up and they have some of the code available for download.

If the trend continues, there will be keys attached to the expansion. Brood War didn't have a key, and I imagine a lot of people didn't legally purchase theirs =P Heck, the game came out before my birthday, so my cousin burnt me a copy as a present. No CD Key, no hassle.

The Diablo II expansion had a key, and this probably kept people honest. Not many people would enjoy not being able to play with their RL friends, so people that knew eachother had to buy their own copies.

I personally don't mind the keys at all... if it makes Blizzard happy, good for them. They put out great games, and it's not like their collecting our personal information without our consent... anymore.

In an industry scrutinized by the government as a drug infested haven that pollutes our communities and destroys the ability to lead a productive life, there is another industry that has the potential to become even more dangerous than any drug addiction. I'm not supposed to be writing this. What was supposed to happen was I prove my thesis that I couldn't be sucked into a virtual reality like many people I have met before. I never really understood what I was getting myself into when I started my research experiment, playing a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

Three years ago at a nightclub I bumped into an old friend of mine who went by the nickname "Iggy". I was really amazed to see him because no one had seen nor heard from Iggy in over a year. Many of his friends had all wondered what happened to him.

"Jesus Iggy, where in the hell have you been?!"

"Everquest," was all he said. He looked down at his feet when he said it.

"Huh?" I had no clue what he meant.

"I've been playing Everquest."

As we spoke, Iggy opened up to me and confessed that he had lost his job, his friends and didn't want to go out much anymore.

"It's an addiction. I'm only out tonight because the server is down for patching and I'm miserable."

For some reason, he couldn't look me in the eye while he was talking. He was obviously embarrassed.

"Um. Okay." I mean, what was I going to say to something as incredulous as that? I've heard of game obsessions, like those college kids in the seventies that murdered their whole family while playing a Dungeons and Dragons game, but I just thought that sort of obsession lies only in the minds of sociopaths or people with a lot bigger problems than playing a game. Iggy was a really nice, normal guy who had lost a lot to some online role-playing game called "Everquest". I had no idea what to make of it.

I never saw Iggy again. Neither has anyone else who knew him that I have asked. Since that night I really pondered the absurdity of his situation. It nagged at me.

On the web you can put the words "gaming addiction" into Google and discover a thousand and one sites for support groups, self help courses, testimonials and various studies. There's the "Everquest Widows" forum, a site called "Ariadne - Understanding MMORPG Addiction", and a myriad of articles on topics like game addiction and the innocent bystanders that suffer from it.

As one Everquest Widow puts it, "I plan on starting "Widows Weekly." It will be a group that meets in a local coffee shop. Here, spouses can talk and help one another through this difficult process, and begin to realize that there is a life out there despite the loss of our loved ones. I plan to send the bill for coffee and snacks to Verant. It would be but a small compensation on their part to repay me and others for the loss of our loved ones--so pay up, Verant!" -- Christine Gilbert CD Mag.com

What I find interesting is that many of the people who author these articles or sites have usually neither played the games or have just been the "victims" such as spouses or family. Others who dissect the topic of game addiction tend to be outsiders looking in, shaking their heads or turning the study into one giant mouse in the maze science experiment. It's rare that you find someone, who actually plays games passionately, speak up or write anything about negative side affects.

The more people I met who played computer games, the more I wanted to understand the obsession. I also had another stake in this because my partner, Low, is a gamer and a "geek" in every sense of the word. Not to mention my fiancé. It was beginning to cause some strain on us from time to time in terms of "quality time". I was getting really angry with him on a regular basis actually. According to Low, it was I who had the problem, not him. This is how most gamers think. Deal with their gaming or don't deal with it at all. They will play either way.

So I eventually decided to do some investigation and find out what makes these gamers and role players tick. What sort of recreation has the ability to absorb people to the extent that marriages break up, jobs are lost, and they lose friends? How does playing a game on a computer make someone lose functionality in the REAL world, because they want to spend too much time in some imaginary reality? For crying out loud, I thought, it's just a game.

I had a lot of questions but no one I talked to had answers. Gamers would tell me, "You won't understand unless you are a gamer yourself." Ok, no problem. I figured I could just play a game I find entertaining and get bored and write about what nut cases gamers really are.

It just wasn't that easy. This little experiment of mine turned out to be more dangerous than I ever imagined.

I wasn't able to begin playing a game right away. The opportunity just never really presented itself directly to me. There just wasn't a game I really liked enough to "get into it" for long enough. Low would play his Quake, Unreal Tournament, Black & White, Carmageddon, Fallout, Diablo II and a multitude of other first person shooters, but nothing seemed all that captivating to me and there was no way I could play these games with him due to his extreme level of skill and years of practice in a 3D environment.

I played a little Diablo and actually had a bit of fun with that, but I found I only really enjoyed it when I played with Low or our friends in multi-player mode. We would go "adventuring" together as they call it, fighting demons and wizards and monsters and coming out winning or dying, but having some fun just playing together. It was my first taste of actually playing with another player in a game as a team. But when Low moved onto the next game, bored with Diablo, I didn't have the same drive to play anymore. So I put my project aside and put up with his gaming as best as I could.

Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPG) have been around for many years. You can find thousands of websites, magazines, web-zines and the like that are devoted to the enormous market out there for online gaming. Sites like GameSpy, that literally receive millions of visits per day from gamers and industry types from all over the world, provide an almost infinite amount if information about these types of games. Hundreds of thousands of people play games like Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, and Ultima Online each day from all over the world. With the upcoming launch of The Sims Online, analysts and game reviewers are expecting the largest online game community ever seen to develop.

"The Sims promises to be one of the most interesting human experiments in the history of the Net." -- David Kushner, Entertainment Weekly

Low had tried many of these MMORPG's. He never stuck with one very long because, as he puts it, "I got tired of being a crappy tree-elf that always fell out of the damn tree village." In Ultima Online, he "got tired of having all my stuff stolen from me and getting killed by stupid 'PKers' (Player Killers)." Apparently for him, the rewards were far and few between to keep him interested in these games. He also has a very short attention span with most games. Play it, beat it, and move on to the next game is his motto. The more games you play in a single year the more well rounded you are apparently. With the new enhanced graphics engines, hardware and development that goes into games these days, it's amazing how stimulating the market can be right now.

Early in 2001, however, Low's opinion of online gaming changed drastically. He read an article about a new online role-playing game that was set about 30,000 years into the future, on a colonized planet. The story line was science fiction themed, with monsters, mutants, futuristic weapons, wars, and sinister political plots. The player would have the ability to create a character avatar from a wide variety of attributes and be surrounded by very realistic 3D graphics, with incredible scenery and sound. You would have to defend yourself, form guilds, make friends and alliances and your goal would be to "learn" or level your character as the game progressed in order to increase your skills and possessions. There would be PVP (player versus player) combat, PVM combat (player verses mobile or "mob" for short, a term used to explain computer generated enemy or monster) and a variety of other things one could do while in the game online. You could fly a plane, morph into animals and go on dangerous missions and epic quests. The game was called Anarchy Online.

Something about this Anarchy Online game really had his attention and right after it came out in July of 2001, he bought his copy and began playing, and once again I lost him to a game. He could not stop going on and on about how "cool this or that was" or the graphics or all the people he was meeting. His excitement was just ridiculous in my eyes but I had been through this before. Nevertheless, the game also captured my interest because of its science fiction theme. I am a sci-fi buff and the storyline had such a great plot that they actually sell the novels online for it. I read the chapters as they were released and was hooked on the storyline.

Low bought another copy about two weeks later. "I want you to play with me." By this time we were under some strain because he was really absorbed by this game every night. It looked really intimidating to me and I opted not to play it right away, stalling for time. The 3D environment bothered me because any game I had ever played, like Diablo, for example, had always been in third person view, which is a bird's eye view of the environment. The 3D graphics were dizzying as I looked over his shoulder from time to time.

In the end I caved in under the pressure and began playing it in September of 2001. I was a horrible player in the beginning, running into walls and getting lost or killed all the time. It didn't matter to me. I was playing a game with my boyfriend and found with each day that went by, I wanted to log on and play more and more.

So what was the appeal? Before I realized what was happening, I became addicted to playing this game. While logged into this game I met wonderful people, via their avatars, laughed to funny antics via chat window discussions, and experienced a futuristic sci-fi world via incredibly realistic 3D graphics and sounds. We ran through swamps with mutant wolves chasing us, the sound of our feet making wet suction sounds just like you would have in reality. We could hear birds chirping in forests we scouted and vultures crying overhead as they spotted us and attacked.

Our adrenaline would pump as we fought for our lives against twenty-foot tall robots with buzz saws for hands, or as we went on safaris to hunt giant brontosaur-like animals. We had the ability to heal and save each other as well as other members of our team at the time. We also had the ability to gain the respect, over more than a year later, of many online players, for being a great couple of characters in this game. We have, in fact, become high-ranking officers in our guild, which is almost like a family or alliance with other people to help you in the game.

In South Korea, some in-game alliances are valued more than real life friendships. A game called Lineage: The Blood Pledge has captivated approximately a third of the population. In Lineage, characters can take on the role of Princes, Wizards, and Knights and vow their loyalty to their clan or guild. This loyalty had lead to an incident in 2001 where a player was nearly beaten to death in real life for virtually killing the character of another player.

"He boasted that he had offed the gangman's virtual character just for the fun of it. Bad idea. The roughnecks dragged the 21-year-old into the urinal and pummeled him until he was covered with real-world bruises." -- By Michelle Levander, Time Magazine

It is easy to lose yourself to your imagination while you become someone you could possibly never be in the real world. You can become a hero, a bad ass, a wealthy person, someone with special powers or gain an enormous amount of respect from people who look up to you. This isn't to say you can't be that kind of person in reality, but what if everyone had this ability to find respect, admiration and status, simply by being in the environment long enough. What if all you had to do was play each day and level higher and higher, each goal leading to a new goal of achievement and possibilities. And what if you never had to leave the comfort of your chair to do this?

What if you could really become a diva, a soldier, a magician, or a samurai, and people respected or admired you unconditionally as long as you had a long red bar looming over your virtual head. Or, as in especially my case, what if while you were in this virtual reality, you didn't have to worry about deadlines, due dates, over 1000 emails per day to read and answer, or day-to-day stress that comes with what I do. The virtual reality could absorb you so much, that for the time you are logged in, you forget everything else. It doesn't seem to matter whether you are a strict role-player (someone who stays in character) or 'hardcore' (someone who spends more time in-game than an average user). You still can be addicted and absorbed with the attention you get.

The official Anarchy Online Community Forum, which gets thousands of posts per day, has also been one of my sources for observing how obsessed people have become with the game. Recently, a devoted and well known player had to throw in the towel due to her addiction problem.

"The level to which I got into things here is what has lead me to this point where I must say goodbye. My internet addiction and denial of it has taken me to a point where I must get a hold of it. I realize that many people have what it takes to play a game like this "casually" in a healthy manner. I am unfortunately not one of those people. I am currently battling bi-polar disorder (manic depression) and the escapism that a game like AO offers is too much like a drug for me."

The ability to be respected, to be admired, and to succeed, even in an imaginary world, is a very powerful lure. It can cause a person to produce endorphins, a chemical released into the brain that causes a feeling of energy and well being. Gaming also causes adrenaline production and extreme excitability. Scientists have proven that endorphins and adrenal rushes are incredibly addictive.

"There are indications that pleasurable games and activities cause the body to produce endogenous opiates such as endorphins. These substances are actually addictive. Some addictive drugs, such as heroin, are chemically similar to these natural substances, while other addictive drugs are thought to stimulate their production."
-- Leonard Holmes, Ph.D. from the article, Is Pokémon Addictive? 1999

It should be easy to see why gaming can be addictive as a direct result of the physical effects on the body. I also believe that people can become addicted to respect, admiration and power as well. Even though the production of endorphins can be a positive side affect in one way, it can be easy to overindulge and put aside productive living. But there are many ways to do this and online gaming is not the only vice out there. People find many different ways to escape the problems in their life or to combat stress.

People log on each and every day to find a level of respect that doesn't come easily in day-to-day life. They log on to escape reality or to escape other real problems such as illness and stress. I have met people in this game who have mental disorders or physical impairments. I have also played with people who are in IT jobs all day long, listening to customer complaints, getting bitched at regularly. Some have even admitted that they never hear the words "good job" in the real world.

One player who works in the IT technical services industry, told me "I get my faith in people restored when I get online. People treat me with respect and are actually nice to me. They don't expect anything in return. Also, they believe me when I tell them something because of my level in the game."

I know of other overly stressed out people who log in each day to escape their day-to-day experience of working or living in hard reality. We met a person in game, for example, who is an EMT. Everyday he witnesses death and horrible accidents. He told us that he plays the game to get it all out of his mind. I also met a nurse online with a similar story, and a school teacher who teaches eleventh grade in the Bronx, NYC, who is very stressed out by his job.

"Most human beings pass through periods in their lives, when they feel compelled to engage in some apparently mindless activity that, for the time being, seems to provide some relief from the prevailing chaos in their lives. This could be something as simple as spending hours in front of the television set. Or going on uncontrollable buying sprees just to feel and smell the newness of the product. Or getting into a series of dead-end relationships. Or going on eating binges. Or playing computer games, uncaring of unattended work piling up. Or playing snooker every evening at the club regardless of the family's legitimate demand for more attention. In other words, binging on anything potentially destructive to the body or the soul. Fortunately for many of us, after a period of this compulsive indulgence, we pull ourselves back to the mainstream and get on with our lives, until the next compulsion hits us."
-- Dr. Vijay Nagaswami, from the article, Who? Me? An addict, The Hindu Folio 2001

This is not to say that there are not positive aspects to interacting with people online. Online gaming opens the doors to people who might not have the ability to do so due to time, geography, or many more reasons. Gaming online is an inexpensive and quick way to make new friends, chat with people all over the world and share an experience with people you would never meet because they may be continents away.

One of our online friends, for example, who goes by the character name "Docker", lives in Leiden, Netherlands. Another friend, "Chanell" lives in Einselthum, Germany. These are really interesting people we would never have met if it was not for the game we play online. I asked Chanell why he started playing online games.

"It all began with Diablo II being released. Then my friend, Yppo, made me try it online. I found it was an incredibly boring and annoying game. Then Yppo made me try it online and I loved it. I joined his clan and had months of online fun, then it got boring, close to the moment DAoC [Dark Ages of Camelot] was released in Europe. While I went to DAoC, Yppo chose to go to A.O." Eventually Chanell started playing A.O. as well.

When asked how playing A.O. affects his social life, he reflected, "As for my friends... yes we hang together a lot less. This could be related to A.O. or the fact that we don't work in the same city anymore. I am not totally sure. I still have a lot of phone calls and meetings so I am not "lonesome" it just isn't an as high frequency as before."

And with that I can only think that one's social life is in the eye of the beholder. I interact with Chanell almost every day. In fact I interact with more people than I ever have before because of playing a computer game. They just are not all physically in my proximity.

Interaction with people... It got me thinking and I began to develop my own theories on what causes the addiction. Psychologists can use fancy terminology like "Motivation Factors" and "Attraction Factors" such as self-esteem and self-image problems. They can harp on the role of achievement problems and relationship deficiencies in a person's personality. But I think I can sum it up to one word that would work for any individual needing his or her game "fix" each time they log in, regardless of how well rounded they are in their lives or how much of a basket case they could be perceived as.

RESPECT.

I think it is just that simple. I like the feeling I get when people look up to me in the game or ask my opinion. It seems to be a common drive for players in general. That is, to be respected for being the best and reaching the next level in the game.

Not everyone who plays games neatly fit into these Psychologists stereotypes. "Solories", another Anarchy Online player, is an example of someone who just logs on for the sake of play.

"I would say that I am responsibly addicted, meaning I have never been late to work due to AO.
My wife would prefer that I not play AO as much as I do, but I always make time for her every night, and try and do one thing planned together every weekend. I have never been late to work, but the first night I played AO I stayed up until 4:00 am and had to get up at 6:00 am and the next day I played until midnight. I don't feel that AO affects my work habits, work is work and when it is time to play, it is time to play. I enjoy watching my character grow in his skills and MMORPG's in general let you get away from the normal day to day monotone life and do something out of the ordinary. In AO I am Solories Enforcer of Rubi-Ka a defender of the cause. I fight battles that help my guild get better and help the clans win a war against the Omni."

In the process of my gaming experiment, I became a casualty of the concept of being respected. If someone had asked me in September of 2001 if I expected to be obsessed with an online role-playing game a year down the road, I would have said with confidence that I am one of the most level headed non-addictive persons I know. No way could this happen to me. In fact, I would have been reminded of poor old Iggy and his demise.

I technically have ended my experiment. In the process, I haven't lost my job, and due to our simultaneous obsession, I have not lost my fiancé either. I haven't lost my real life friends, but they do sometimes look at me funny when I talk about the game I play. Low and I get our work done, run our business and have a great balanced life together I think. Anyone who actually knows me in real life can tell you that I have no self image or esteem problems and in fact, I have been accused of having quite an ego. I won't even go into Low's ego. I will admit though, that I have missed quite a few parties, nights out with the girls, shopping, and some chores needed around the office and home because of Anarchy Online. I will also admit that I want to log in as much as I possibly can every single day.

People have worse entertainment addictions than playing computer games. If I am going to be addicted to something, I would choose online gaming over drugs, bowling, gambling, television, or being a baseball fanatic easily. I don't have to wear ugly shoes, lose my hard earned money or do the wave next to someone I don't know and that just about makes it a no-brainer for me. It IS after all just a video game, like Neal describes in his great novel, Snow Crash. It is just another amusement park.

"Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic, offering a wide selection of interactive three-dimensional movies. But in the end, they're still nothing more than video games."
--Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

And I will leave you with that. Signing on now... Tenjikiito, level 157 Female Solitus Adventurer, Advisor to the Clan Guild Synergy Factor, the best damn guild on the world of Rubi-Ka, with the best damn virtual people one could ever virtually meet.

Special thanks to the following people for help with my research and leveling:
Sohjiro (Low Tek), Theevilcouch, Demnspawnt, Akarah, Chanell, Sheffy, Mr. Cheeze/Conqueso, Solories, Kirishami, Docker, Ramzie, Boco (who is to blame for all of this), Sultanx, Asmoran, Caddock, Meurgen, Tergwannabe, Trus, Ayanamie, Cplkane, Spherana, Ankokujin, Thedwarf (aka Notmyfault), Stromm, Molg, Butwalrus, Ciyt/Toonot, and Yokoduna.

Related links:

Anarchy Online
Dark Age of Camelot
Ultima Online
Diablo II
The Sims
Everquest
Try Anarchy Online free for 7 days! (We dare you to). =]

Except when they're not.

Computer Games Online was a better site before they switched to their new design. It used frames but in a good way. The new site *looks* better but I find it harder to find stuff and keep track of what's new.

if some one posted this link already the credit goes to them, I just do not have time to read all the posts, but this is a funny article called " Targeting The Loins "

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)

Your students will really have something to chew on there. The presentation and interface is really simple, but the economic, diplomatic, strategic and even religious models are extremely complex. A knowledge of economics is necessary, and so is a grasp of history. Computer Games Online gave it 4.5 stars and had this to say: "Europa Universalis plays simultaneously at many different levels and constantly demands a great deal of situational awareness. It's more Imperialism than Civilization, though more complex than either. The economic system is the heart of the game. It's robust enough to accurately model development from the late Renaissance all the way through Mercantilism to early Colonialism. The game nimbly keeps track of a staggering amount of minutiae such as the inflationary effects of excess liquid cash, intergovernmental loans, trade policies, and a comprehensive list of commodities. While this sort of micormanagerial detail will usually fall below your radar in terms of management, it can have a serious impact on your foreign policy and statecraft. You will not feel bogged by these details, however-they are simply available for consideration whenever needed. "

Strategy Gaming said: "So what we are left with is a massively complicated game interweaving elements of religions, politics, colonialism, conquest, technology, and militarism taking place on a multifaceted map with layers of trade relationships, alliances and political relationships, while the map is constantly being expanded through exploration - in short, there's literally something for everyone. Wars, as is the historical fact, should typically be the last resort as their cost and consequence make the gains rarely equal the expenditure. A good player will be able to keep in mind the different venues of competition, and a weather-eye on their predicted opponents in each of these areas. Keeping ahead in this game is an extraordinary challenge, and I found myself constantly pausing the game to issue orders. The only thing I haven't been able to test in this beta is the multiplayer, but the developers have made it clear that it's been kept in mind. They are clearly aware that no matter how good the AI is - and it is, believe me (I confess I've actually asked one of the programmers if anyone has won the darn thing...and this is in beta) - this game will shine most brightly with humans running each of the player states."

And pc.ign.com: "I'm glad to see that the religious aspects of the game are equally important. Each nation has a particular religious identity (various types of Christians, Muslims, Sunni, Shia, etc.) and that identity influences the way other nations treat you. During the game, a few historical events will shift the religious balance to one side or the other. After the Reformation, for instance, Catholic countries can convert to Counter Reformation Catholicism. If a Counter Reformed Catholic nation defeats either a Protestant or Reformist nation, the Counter Reformation Catholic country can force the defeated nation to adopt Counter Reformation Catholicism as part of the peace settlement. And this is just one small example of the depth of the religious model in the game."

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

Er, what would it help with?

Does anyone know of any sites dedicated to using 3D gaming engines for non-gaming purposes other than the article we saw a while back about a company using Q2 engine for an architectural walk-through? You know, maybe with resources that help take Autocad files and convert them to Quake maps?

There are plenty of people who use the Unreal engine for these sort of things, like the before mentioned Unrealty and the Notre Dame virtual tour. The Unreal engine is so easy to extend and modify because of its modular and object oriented design. The engine actually recently won a price for being so powerful and making development easier. Here is a list of recent improvements to the engine and the editor. Looks really sweet! DirectX 8 + GeForce + UnrealEngine looks like a good recipe for great upcoming games.

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

There is a new Monkey Island on the way. So, not all hope is lost. I always liked LucasArts adventure games more than Sierra's. I found them more fun. I'll take a Maniac Mansion or Monkey Island over Larry or a [King,Space,Police,Hero] Quest any day.

....those for hours on end. Yes modern games have better graphics, no doubt this new Star Wars will too, but how good will the story line really be? Star Wars for N64 sucked in my ....

Lately LucasArts has sucked, is true, but they have developed some of the best games (in my opinion) and most of them have great story lines. The last great LucasArts game I played was X-Wing:Alliance, awesome game and with a great plot, not like what most people here seem to like Doom and Quake (The story is great in those. Yeah right!). I have seen only 4 FPS with good stories and 2 are from LucasArts, the others are Half-life and Deus Ex. The zillion others are terribly boring.

The Dig, Full Throttle, The Maniac Mansions, the Monkey Islands, the Indiana Jones, Dark forces, X-Wings. All 3 different genres yet all have great stories. Give them a chance, they'll get better again, after all there's a new Monkey Island in the works, and I'm sure that it will rock.

Yup, remember it well. Only it was the Comanche, not the Apache. Check it out over at Novalogic's site Also, both Delta Force games utilized the Voxel Space engine. Nifty terrain effects, but the people and buildings tended to not look so hot. Plus, you can't accelerate voxels with any existing card, so that huge Geforce2 you just bought won't give you any huge, accelerated advantage.

The engine was also used in Armored Fist 3, IIRC...

For further interest, check out a good r eview of Delta Force 2. It talks quite a bit about Novalogic's voxel engine.

-------------

The Xbox will have Halo.

Apparently the patch is rather critical as it fixes several serious (i.e. they'll crash your box) bugs that must have somehow sneaked past the QA team. This is according to Computer Games Online. They have a short article on "first impressions" of the game in the "Quick Takes" section today.

Everybody loves Daikatana! Look at all these great reviews:

• Sharky sez it rawks! yeah right
• FiringSquad: "It is absolutely inferior in almost every conceivable way."
• Damage Gaming say: "I gave it a 3 out of 5, and that's generous"
• CTNews: "in the end all I got was frustration"
• GameSpot gives it a 4.6 out of 10
• DailyRadar: "Ultimate Gas Hands. Need we say more?"
• GameProWorld damns with faint praise: "It's not that bad."
• Computer Games Online gives it 1.5 stars - "amateurish epic lands with a spectacular thud"
• PC.IGN: "It's finally here. And we reviewed it. What? What else do you want us to say?"
• Honest3D - "You all know that I didn't enjoy Soldier of Fortune - well I liked it a lot more than Daikatana."
• GameCenter gives it a 3 out of 10: "Daikatana is a waste of your time and money. Go play Half-Life again instead."
• Happy Puppy: "It'll make you wish it never came out at all"
• GameZone actually seemed to kind of like it
• GameSeek really did like it! "f I had to describe this game in a word or two I would say that it is most entertaining!"
• Ingava didn't hate it all that much
• Game Revolution: "[A]lthough the game is nowhere near as good as it was promoted to be, ... it is not the worst game released this year. It is, however, stunningly outdated and mediocre."
• Maximum PC: "Four years for this?... It sucks. It sucks big-time. In fact, it sucks so bad, we have to wonder what kind of curious monstrosity the developers could have created with an eight-year product cycle.
• GameFan: "It's not as bad as you think."
• PCGamers.Net: "Final Score: 70 out of 100, and I'm disappointed. Sigh."
• GamePig: "Daikatana isn't a bad game, and was often fun to play. However, it's got several flaws that kept me from really enjoying it."

If you're at all curious about how the hell this happened, GameSpot has a great article called "Knee Deep in a Dream: The Story of Daikatana" that gives all the gorey details. They also have a complete walk-through, though the concept kinda makes me shudder...

--
Anonymous cowards are looking forward to the DVD letterboxed release of Ishtar

• 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.

Well, Terminus is not in any way, shape or form like Homeworld, so a comparison wouldn't really be relevant. It's a space combat game where you fly around in a space ship trading and blowing stuff up a la Elite or Privateer. Homeworld is a strategy game where you control a bunch of ships, collect resources, etc. It has more in common with Command & Conquer-style games... (though the difference is obvious, with the setting and 3D-ness). Anyone interested in a game like Homeworld might want to check out ORB from Strategy First. I did a preview of that game here . (I apologize in advance for our site's layout. It's someone's idea of a cruel joke... not really, but if you do check it out... 'nuff said).

---

Odd... I submitted this hours ago, yet my writeup was rejected...

Anyway, the ATI Radeon can do 1.5 gigatexels per second. The Voodoo 5 can only do 667 megatexels. So, the Radeon will far outperform a V5. And it has T&L! What a deal! The funny thing is that 3dfx is hyping the V5 based on its fill rate...

Now, on Wednesday, nVidia is going to announce the GeForce 2. It will have a fill rate of 1.6 gigatexels, just a bit higher than ATI's offering. On the geometry side, the GF2 will do 250 million triangles per second. I don't know how fast the Radeon is as far as geometry, but if anyone else knows, please share! It is also rumored that the GF2 will be in stores on Friday. As in, THIS Friday. Whoah.

Back on ATI's side, the Radeon looks like it will have more features that the GF2. As a game coder, I like that. :) Also, ATI is likely to have better Linux support. I also like that.

It looks like choosing between these two cards will be tough, but I'm leaning towards ATI right now. One thing that I know for sure, however, is that 3dfx is not in the running. Their only hope right now is to drop their prices very low. I would not like to be working at 3dfx right now.

Oh, here's some links:

• Sharky Extreme's Radeon review
• Computer Games Magazine's Radeon review
• Acto Micro's GeForce 2 review (no one else has reviews up because nVidia has not announced the thing yet)
• nVidia - They have a flash movie up which mentions the 1.6 GigaTexels thing.

Again, nVidia will be announcing the GF2 on Wednesday. Check their site then for details.

------

my browser doesn't uncontrollably stop showing
the web page and force me to view adds

Ah, but some are getting the hang of just this idea. cdmag.com is one where I noticed it first. Click on a handful of reviews and articles, every so many it brings up a large picture ad right in the center with a link at the bottom and something like, "click here to go on to the article." I've also seen it a few other places, but they weren't ones I frequent so I forgot 'em. What's most disgusting is they do this on top of their constantly-refreshing banner ads at the top. Eek.

If you want a "clean" sort of IRC, hack the server code to boot, ban IPs, etc anyone saying bad words repeatedly. Then have a bunch of people on hand for users to report abuses to, etc. etc. It certainly is possible, without resorting to banner-ad schemes.

I'm getting a dog one day soon. I figure by the time I take it out for walks, I'll have to have a leash with banner ads going down it. There's no end to where these mopes will put advertising.

There is an interesting article on the Computer Games Online site that argues that OpenGL may be dying. Its argument is not that DirectX is necessarily better but that it has better driver support from the hardware manufacturers and updates more regularly (once a year) to keep up with technology.

• Reviews
  • Linux version
  • at LinuxWorld
  • at CNN
• at GameSpot.com
• at GamesMania.com
• at Play Now
• at Game Power (with video)

Tips, Cheats, Hints

• at Gamespot.co.uk
• http://sages.ign.com/codes/14/codes_h.html">at IGN
• at CD mag

Fan Pages

• BOG

========

Here's to reality - here is an article about the Air Force using Starcraft in training.
G0del

GeForce / TNT2Ultra / Voodoo3 Roundup [ Shugashack]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [Ace's Hardware]
Guillemot GeFroce256 3D Prophet Review [Puissance PC]
nVidia GeForce 256: To Buy or Not to Buy [AnandTech]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [GA-Source]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [3DGPU]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [Riva Extreme]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Preview [Thresh's FiringSquad]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [Riva3D]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Review [Planet Riva]
nVidia GeForce256 DDR Benchmarks [Bjorn3D]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [CGO]
Guillemot GeForce256 3D Prophet Review [Fast Graphics]
Creative GeForce256 Annihilator Benchmarks [3DHardware]

Anandtech GeForce 256 Review
Ace's Hardware GEForce 256 Review
RivaExtreme GeForce 256 DDR Review
The FiringSquad GeForce 256 DDR Review
GA Source Guillemot 3D Prophet Review
3DGPU Geforce 256 DDR Review
Fast Graphics Guillemot 3D Prophet Review
CGO GeForce 256 Preview
Shugashack GeForce, V3 and TNT2 benchmark roundup
Riva3D Full GeForce 256 DDR Review
GeForce 256 DDR Review at Planet Riva

Did an NDA expire today or something?

Just a couple quick links:

Anandtech GeForce 256 Review
Ace's Hardware GEForce 256 Review
RivaExtreme GeForce 256 DDR Review
The FiringSquad GeForce 256 DDR Review
GA Source Guillemot 3D Prophet Review
3DGPU Geforce 256 DDR Review
Fast Graphics Guillemot 3D Prophet Review
CGO GeForce 256 Preview
Shugashack GeForce, V3 and TNT2 benchmark roundup
Riva3D Full GeForce 256 DDR Review
GeForce 256 DDR Review at Planet Riva

Any others?

Fixed link. Oops, a space crept into the url. Actually, upon further testing, it looks like a slashdot bug with too long of a URL - putting a space after the " in the HREF line fixed it. Yes, I'll mail Rob with details.

I haven't actually played this game yet, but there's a very well written review that didn't like this game much here. It's about the windows version primarily, and some of their complaints about the interface may not apply, but the game engine sounds the same. Someday, I look forward to having a gaming mag for Linux games.