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this is also why there are no more janes type sims. no one is willing to spend a week learning how to work the controls just so they can take off and not blow up.... (mig alley im looking at you).
i LOVED janes games. longbow, f15, f/a18. excellent gameplay, good replay, tough to learn in sim mode.

the only hardcore game like that left i know of is ww2online

You know, there are like billion of drivers on planet but only handful of Formula 1 and NASCAR drivers.

I was once very lucky to play Q3A with top end players of my country, they were at some party or something and I decided to sit and watch rather than playing. Funny is, those guys can also manage not to shoot the noob (you) while killing each other in all that chaos.

Watching such top end players shouldn't make you think that the game is played that way. It is like not playing chess because you watch how Kasparov plays.

If you want pure strategy oriented FPS, World War II is the way to go but be prepared for 3-4 hour missions which you end up with a bullet in head accomplishing nothing :)
http://www.wwiionline.com/

http://wwiionline.com/scripts/wwiionline/index.jsp

WWII Online is a pure PvP Simulation of the World War II from 1940-42. Every unit you see on the map is player controlled (except for AI flak/Pak/Mgs). The High Commands Ranks of all armies are players well.

We have camping too, but thank god you can always spawn with your squad one city/airfield behind the camped armybase/airfield, sneak onto the fraggers and give em hell.

No mention of the coming update to World War 2 Online? http://www.wwiionline.com/ WW2Online is one of the best military simulations out there. The only place for large scale, combined-arms warfare with realistic vehicles. The realism requires more of a thinking gamer then a twitchy button masher.

Well, for a produt that has been delayed, (and "praised" for delays...), they've got the unenviable position of having started the marketing machine. They've now got to sustain a buzz until the spring.

"Autoduel"-style games are great, and much needed, but the particular implementation will have to be seen.
MMP FPSs have been around for some time, contrary to popular belief. Heck, even that train-wreck of a release World War Two Online is still around with a devoted following (disclosure: I am not a follower, let alone a devoted one) after 4 years of being a MMORPG/FPS -- they're even getting ready for another release (or maybe they've released it already). What's missing is a wildly successful MMORPG/FPS.

Then again, Auto Assault is supposed to be third-person from behind the cars, so it's not an FPS either.

And, like most hype articles, the claim here is that you can have your cake and eat it too. Those big-ass games that people play, have something called "leveling" that stands in for talent and narrative -- spend enough time, you go up a level, get new abilities, and new access to narrative content. So: leveling = new narrative + new abilities. Take away either one of these things, and people complain. Narrative is one of your biggest costs in these MMP games -- come up with ridiculous stories and maintain interest over time. Making people do repetitive tasks is a way to stretch the narrative out.

The claim of making leveling "fun", as well as everything else, suggests 100% narrative. The subtext suggests 100% automotive fights. Now, these are going to be simple enough that your average moron can pull them off -- otherwise, some people won't level, and you'll lose your sub base (a la WW2OL). So how's it gonna work?

Doink: http://www.wwiionline.com/scripts/wwiionline/index .jsp

For those of you who didn't read the article, here's some of the interesting points:

A) Academics are looking for the DoD to fund studies of some of the social principles behind MMOGs. The ADL, I think, is a government-academic-corporate initiative to apply "new learning techniques" to the military.
B) As many of us know, militaries are always eager to increase training time, and to inculcate the "military mindset" into soldiers 24/7. That's just common sense: the more the rank and file sees the world in the same way and understands events similarly ("Is on the same page"), the less friction there is.
C) MMOGs have some interesting phenomena: they are world-wide distributed environments where new players are socialized and "taught the ropes" by the old hands. Any environment where leaders naturally emerge, and people willingly provide training in complex activities automatically generates interest for the military.
D) Online shopping mall-cum-anemically performing-MMOG there has managed to team up with the army to build some sort of training environment. Expect hoverboard-riding soldiers wearing custom-designed hawaiian shirts to invade a country near you.

On the other hand, there are some problems with the scope and conception of the project.
First, the study focuses on MMORPGs. Massively multiplayer online simulations, such as the flight simulator Aces High and military-style "MMORPG"s, such as the persistent combined-arms battlefield World War II Online, or even the science-fiction combat game planetside, while certainly not as popular as the "big boys", have tasks that are, relatively speaking, much more sophisticated technically, and have evolved social structures around achieving those tasks. Something like the AAR effectiveness experiment they propose would be much better suited to an environment like that then to say a mission in City of Heroes. In addition, the rhetorical gap between the reality to be described and the narrative the DoD would fund is much narrower. For that matter, the gap between the description of MMOG and the military's use of computer games would be narrower too.

Another issue skirted in the paper is the failure rate of individual subscribers. While certainly, MMOGs are very popular; I'd say a relatively minor percentage of players play any given MMOG for more than a few months. And many last shorter than that, and that is often precisely because of the social environment they create. The article mentions the Sims online as not being popular; There is another example: Their beta lasted the least amount of time of any game on my hard drive: I logged on to some stupid technicolor world, and as I tried to sort the counterintuitive interface, I discovered the place to be populated by poorly socialized adolescents. Given the choice between learning the interface and deleting the software, I chose the latter. The fact that these communities are self-selecting, and that some of these communities have broad reach, while others do not, separates them from military applications. Would a MMORPG used for military training work? Or would it be dominated by those guys who can't even scrub a latrine right?

Finally, I'm just not sure MMOGs should be considered independently of the current gaming environment as a whole; the article suggests this, but I think we can go further, and suggest that the social division between MMORPGs and regular games with significant online components is indeed an artificial division. If you look at the communities for online games that have direct applications as training tools, such as the R6/GR series, the mods to Falcon 4.0, Battlefront's whole product line and, of course, a href=www.flashpoint1985.com>Operation Flashpoint, and its military twin,

Have you heard of World War II Online? Yes it still exists, and is actually a fantastic experience now.

http://www.wwiionline.com/

WWII Online

Check em out

OK, so the only MMPOG I have not seen mentioned is World War II On-Line. I know it has 'ghetto' graphics, and the initial learning curve makes climbing the north face of K2 look easy by comparrison, but it's got legs.

Consider: It has been around since mid-2001; there is an active and vibrant community; it is not condusive to the "quaker" or bunny-hopping crew, so older gamers without super-reflexes can wrap thier heads around it too; you can play alongside people from anywhere (there are people from all over Eroupe, India, South Africa, various South American countries, Japan and throughout Asia, Australia, etc.); it has people that have been in the game (regular subscribers) for the entire run; most of these people at one time or another (some cases multiple times) have either left for another MMOPG and/or dual subscribed and found the other games to be wanting (and subsiquently came back); the compatriotism and friendliness of players to one another is so phenominal that the publisher, Cornered Rat Software, hired the most popular person from each of the two sides to be community reps/liasons; the dev team not only listens and *resonds to* to suggestions, complaints, and compliments, they sometimes do so *in game*; the new soundset makes it seem as if you are "in the trenches" in a WWII battle; and the game is constantly updated, to the point that they are going to release a new theater (North Africa) using new dev tools, then go back and *re-do* the original current theater with the new dev tools.

Oh, yeah, one last thing: The developer releases *concurent*, interoperable versions for Win** and MacOSX. They don't run a seperate server for Mac users, they don't leave out functions/graphics on the Mac platform. That in itself is almost unique in the MMOPG world. As for Linux, yes the Win** version will run under WineX/Cedega (at least I can get it to), and there is a Sourceforge page for an easy (Perl-based?) launcher.

Well, am I an anachronism?

And for "Holy crap it's huge" there's World War II Online. Not the most detailed, but it's all of Europe at half-scale.

They've also just brought in SpeedTree, so the terrible forests have been replaced with very much more realistic ones.

For a size comparision, see: http://www5.playnet.com/downloads/worldsize.pdf

World War 2 Online has sort-of beat that. It's a MMOG FPS, in essence.

Basically, there is a 64 unit "visibility limit". You're only ever told about 64 units max (and sometimes, due to oddities, less) player entities around you, prioritized among several criteria (distance, threat, minimum friend/foe allocations), etc.

It works fairly well, and the structure of the game is such that you have dozens of 30-60 player battles going on at all times, and can move anywhere around the map as you choose, realtime, either by slogging it on foot, driving, flying, or steering your ship. You can also jump from place to place but leave your equipment behind.

Best estimates put the peak server load at about 3-4000 players, with 500-1000 during the low tide, but the game runs 24/7 on a single arena.

The developers aren't swimming in money, but they're in the black and have recently turned up the data update rates to make it more smooth, so there's evidently some room in the budget for bits.

Disclaimer: I'm a day one player, from June 6 2001 on, aka Krenn, of the 1/16 Panzerdivision "Windhund".

World War II Online is the best battlefield simulation - bar none. It is also a FPS - in that you can only view the environment from the first person perspective, whether you are an infantryman, a tank, a ship or a plane. However, it is not for people with short attention spans, or folks who want instant action. It more than makes up for this with the following capabilities:

1. Massive Map. The map is of Western Europe; you could spawn into Holland, and walk all the way to Switzerland if you wanted to (1/4 scale - with accurate elevations and terrain features that nearly match the real map of Europe) - this would take you days, if not weeks to do this. There is no 'zoning' between smaller areas like in other online games - and the map is humongous compared to any FPS currently on the market. You don't have to worry about running into a wall when you are trying to maneuver - and battles don't end up being 'frontal assaults through a bottleneck' - with interesting results and possibilities for offense and defense.

2. Visual Distance. The edge of the 'fog' curtain at the edge of your vision is 6 or more kilometers away. You can see men with your avatar's naked eye out to 2 Kilometers, ground vehicles out to 3 kilometers, and much larger vehicles, such as ships out to the edge of the fog (6km or more). Optics, such as binoculars or telescopic weapon sites allow you to see further for each type. Tank battles typically occur between 500 and 2000 meters.

3. Damage System. The damage system is very realistic - going so far as to break up different parts of your infantry avatar (head, torso, extremities) - and apply damage based on the physics of the weapon that is impacting the 'part' of the body or vehicle (or both).

4. Combined Arms. The game includes Air, Land and Sea forces that all operate on the same battlefield; while there are a few games that do this (such as Battlefield 1942) - none have the same feeling or realism that engagements in WWIIonline have. Whereas in an infantry based FPS (like Socom, or the Rainbow 6 series) - you can pretty much ignore the other components, in WWIIonline you must work together with other branches to succeed. Calling in an airstrike on an enemy position, or doing an amphibious assault (river patrol, destroyer and transport ships currently modeled), or flying as a pilot, or being a ship commander, or a tanker, or an infantryman (sappers, riflemen, light machine gunners, and soon rifle grenade equipped infantry - plus smoke and frag grenades - as well as knife) and all working together move the map.

5. No Gankers. You can not kill your own side. That being said, that does take away from the realism a bit - but more than makes up for it in the playability department - unlike other games where griefers use team killing to get the choice equipment, or just disrupt the gameplay.

6. Night and Day. Currently the system has a fast clock that has a 'day' that lasts 6 hours (don't quote me on that), and a night that lasts half that time (3 hours?). There are clouds - but currently no weather effects - but that is planned for future development.

The game begins with a 'map reset' - where the starting 'frontline' positions are set to the defaults. The game commences immediately and the map runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week until a winner is declared. The winner is the side that captures the vast majority of the enemy's towns (large towns/cities count more than small towns - but are also harder to take). Maps last anywhere from a week to several months. After a winner is declared automatically, the map is reset and the war begins again.

The equipment is based on WWII types, with a more historic approach than other games (such as BF1942) that start off with the Tiger tank (for example). Instead you will learn to use the PZII, PZ38, PZIII, Sd232 on the Axis side, and the Sumoa, Char 1B, Renault, and Panhard on the French, and Matilda, A13, and Vickers on the British (they

I have 3 windoze boxes on my network atm. My daughter has one, my wife the other - both their primary work/play stations, and I have a juiced up P4 as my game box (that is all it does - the only thing running on it is 'systray', and whatever game I happen to be playing, most likely WWIIonline)

I have 3 other machines that are all Linux machines (Redhat - soon to be Debian file server, Debian workstation, and a Slackware network analysis machine).

I've played with Cygwin, Hummingbird etc. over the years - and found the emulation of the unix environment Kludgey, and not transparent enough for my tastes.

Basically I wanted a bash compliant shell that was transparent enough to run the standard set of unix CLI tools (ls, ps, grep, df etc...) - but also allow me to kick off native windows and dos applications without switching modes of operation (i.e. type in the path and have it run the application). I did not need to be able to compile binaries - my main purpose for this tool would be to write utility scripts for system administration on the boxes. I wouldn't need remote access (although I might implement that as a seperate capability with freely available tools if needed - outside the scope of my project).

Then a thought hit me - why not implement this in python? I already have python loaded on most of my windows machines - why not make it universal? Python would serve as the abstraction layer I needed - and provide a built-in scripting capability to boot. All of the unix tools will be implemented in python either as built-ins or as seperate '.py' scripts.

Additional functionality - such as 'crontabs' would need to be implemented, as well (haven't worked out the details of that yet).

Ideally, you would drop python and this package on the windows box -- and presto! Instant CLI... And the nice thing about it is that it would be using native windows APIs - so would be faster than some of the emulators that attempt to be a complete source compliant emulation environment.

I haven't seen any drawbacks, yet. The cron functionality might be a bit of an issue - but it doesn't look insurmountable.

There's also World War II Online. More a simulation than arcade style though.

Of course the growth is still to come.

The growth will come when there are MMO games that do not involve HOURS of doing nothing. Because the devs will finally realize that doing nothing is neither intresting nor excieting.

The growth will come when there are MMO games that have fun things to do that don't get repetative after 2 days, or after 2 months or after 2 years.

The growth will come when there are MMO games that have a strong community of players supporting each other.

The growth will come when there are meaningful interactions between the players. Not "I OWNZ JOO!", not "Lets group up and XP", something deeper.

The growth will come when there are MMO with massive worlds, meaningful means of transportation and player property. The growth will come when the PVP is meaningful and fun. Not something put in just so that highlevels could do "something".

There is currently no MMO that does this.

You got that right! I got all excited about SW:G but it turned out to be overhyped and unfinished. Even without the technical problems AO proved to be really limited. You could say exactly the same for WWII Online and a stack of other big names.

But I can think of a handful of real gems right on the horizon. A Tale in the Desert is a breath of fresh air (although no PvP which kinda sucks) and RV in particular addresses every single one of the thigns you mention. And you're starting to get real diversity instead of just the goblins'n'wands or aliens'n'lasers that we've had to put up with. I mean I'm still not even sure what There is supposed to be all about.

Basically I totally agree with the article. I think MMORPG's have gone through a teething period and are just about to experience big growth. The people that start something off always suffer from the fact that other people just keep coming along and improving on it.

You may not be aware that Mandrake Linux is a French product. Indeed, you would never know because of their shallow attempts to conceal this fact. But a simple trip to the whois database can reveal the truth. Now, you and I would never spend our American dollars on French wine, and we would certainly never travel there. So, why should we support a French company? We shouldn't.

While talking out of one side of their mouth about peace and security, the French have been actively engaged with terrorist groups and terrorist nations to sabotage our efforts to secure our future. You can read about this here and here. The French have stabbed us in the back repeatedly and, driven by their jealousy of our great Nation, they have exposed themselves as the traitorus liars that we have always suspected. It is also widely known that Jacques Chirac was an active supporter and business partner of Saddam Hussein. This is well documented; you can learn more here and here.

The French are having a very difficult time because they are long past their colonial greatness and have descended to a chaotic socialist society of laziness and ineptitude. Rather than realistically assess their own blame and work to restore their own status, they seek to bring us down. They lash out at the great nations who now lead the world community. The French are a shallow people who resent with great bitterness those who saved them. In WW1 and WW2 we rescued the French after they surrended and allowed them to preserve their way of life. But who can forget that the French jeered and spit on our liberating forces, before the final shot had even been fired? For more information check here or here.

We must now teach the French a lesson, and it is for their own good. They should not bite the hand that saves them, for soon we may decide they are not worth saving anymore. Therefore I urge you to boycott Mandrake Linux. Of course it would not be American for me to tell you what to do. If you must use Mandrake, then use it. Simply do not pay for it.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here? We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause...

Thank you for your attention. I trust I have reached you with this message, and we all look forward to a world united under the flag of Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way.

You may not be aware that Mandrake Linux is a French product. Indeed, you would never know because of their shallow attempts to conceal this fact. But a simple trip to the whois database can reveal the truth. Now, you and I would never spend our American dollars on French wine, and we would certainly never travel there. So, why should we support a French company? We shouldn't.

While talking out of one side of their mouth about peace and security, the French have been actively engaged with terrorist groups and terrorist nations to sabotage our efforts to secure our future. You can read about this here and here. The French have stabbed us in the back repeatedly and, driven by their jealousy of our great Nation, they have exposed themselves as the traitorus liars that we have always suspected. It is also widely known that Jacques Chirac was an active supporter and business partner of Saddam Hussein. This is well documented; you can learn more here and here.

The French are having a very difficult time because they are long past their colonial greatness and have descended to a chaotic socialist society of laziness and ineptitude. Rather than realistically assess their own blame and work to restore their own status, they seek to bring us down. They lash out at the great nations who now lead the world community. The French are a shallow people who resent with great bitterness those who saved them. In WW1 and WW2 we rescued the French after they surrended and allowed them to preserve their way of life. But who can forget that the French jeered and spit on our liberating forces, before the final shot had even been fired? For more information check here or here.

We must now teach the French a lesson, and it is for their own good. They should not bite the hand that saves them, for soon we may decide they are not worth saving anymore. Therefore I urge you to boycott Mandrake Linux. Of course it would not be American for me to tell you what to do. If you must use Mandrake, then use it. Simply do not pay for it.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here? We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause.

Thank you for your attention. I trust I have reached you with this message, and we all look forward to a world united under the flag of Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way.

DOOM III should support vehicles in all shapes (aircfaft, cars, bikes) and will have unbelieveably large terrain support.


I would like to know how small Doom III will be when compared to modern games? Size matters. Please take a look at this comparison if you wonder what I am talking about? It is always nice to have updated graphics etc to shoebox shoot'em'ups but I don't think that Id Software or Valve are breaking any boundaries. They are just making sequels. IF you want something really big try WW2Online!

You may not be aware that Mandrake Linux is a French product. Indeed, you would never know because of their shallow attempts to conceal this fact. But a simple trip to the whois database can reveal the truth. Now, you and I would never spend our American dollars on French wine, and we would certainly never travel there. So, why should we support a French company? We shouldn't.

While talking out of one side of their mouth about peace and security, the French have been actively engaged with terrorist groups and terrorist nations to sabotage our efforts to secure our future. You can read about this here and here. The French have stabbed us in the back repeatedly and, driven by their jealousy of our great Nation, they have exposed themselves as the traitorus liars that we have always suspected. It is also widely known that Jacques Chirac was an active supporter and business partner of Saddam Hussein. This is well documented; you can learn more here and here.

The French are having a very difficult time because they are long past their colonial greatness and have descended to a chaotic socialist society of laziness and ineptitude. Rather than realistically assess their own blame and work to restore their own status, they seek to bring us down. They lash out at the great nations who now lead the world community. The French are a shallow people who resent with great bitterness those who saved them. In WW1 and WW2 we rescued the French after they surrended and allowed them to preserve their way of life. But who can forget that the French jeered and spit on our liberating forces, before the final shot had even been fired? For more information check here or here.

We must now teach the French a lesson, and it is for their own good. They should not bite the hand that saves them, for soon we may decide they are not worth saving anymore. Therefore I urge you to boycott Mandrake Linux. Of course it would not be American for me to tell you what to do. If you must use Mandrake, then use it. Simply do not pay for it.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here? We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause.

Thank you for your attention. I trust I have reached you with this message, and we all look forward to a world united under the flag of Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way......!

You may not be aware that Mandrake Linux is a French product. Indeed, you would never know because of their shallow attempts to conceal this fact. But a simple trip to the whois database can reveal the truth. Now, you and I would never spend our American dollars on French wine, and we would certainly never travel there. So, why should we support a French company? We shouldn't.

While talking out of one side of their mouth about peace and security, the French have been actively engaged with terrorist groups and terrorist nations to sabotage our efforts to secure our future. You can read about this here and here. The French have stabbed us in the back repeatedly and, driven by their jealousy of our great Nation, they have exposed themselves as the traitorus liars that we have always suspected. It is also widely known that Jacques Chirac was an active supporter and business partner of Saddam Hussein. This is well documented; you can learn more here and here.

The French are having a very difficult time because they are long past their colonial greatness and have descended to a chaotic socialist society of laziness and ineptitude. Rather than realistically assess their own blame and work to restore their own status, they seek to bring us down. They lash out at the great nations who now lead the world community. The French are a shallow people who resent with great bitterness those who saved them. In WW1 and WW2 we rescued the French after they surrended and allowed them to preserve their way of life. But who can forget that the French jeered and spit on our liberating forces, before the final shot had even been fired? For more information check here or here.

We must now teach the French a lesson, and it is for their own good. They should not bite the hand that saves them, for soon we may decide they are not worth saving anymore. Therefore I urge you to boycott Mandrake Linux. Of course it would not be American for me to tell you what to do. If you must use Mandrake, then use it. Simply do not pay for it.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here? We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause.

Thank you for your attention. I trust I have reached you with this message, and we all look forward to a world united under the flag of Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way!

You may not be aware that Mandrake Linux is a French product. Indeed, you would never know because of their shallow attempts to conceal this fact. But a simple trip to the whois database can reveal the truth. Now, you and I would never spend our American dollars on French wine, and we would certainly never travel there. So, why should we support a French company? We shouldn't.

While talking out of one side of their mouth about peace and security, the French have been actively engaged with terrorist groups and terrorist nations to sabotage our efforts to secure our future. You can read about this here and here. The French have stabbed us in the back repeatedly and, driven by their jealousy of our great Nation, they have exposed themselves as the traitorus liars that we have always suspected. It is also widely known that Jacques Chirac was an active supporter and business partner of Saddam Hussein. This is well documented; you can learn more here and here.

The French are having a very difficult time because they are long past their colonial greatness and have descended to a chaotic socialist society of laziness and ineptitude. Rather than realistically assess their own blame and work to restore their own status, they seek to bring us down. They lash out at the great nations who now lead the world community. The French are a shallow people who resent with great bitterness those who saved them. In WW1 and WW2 we rescued the French after they surrended and allowed them to preserve their way of life. But who can forget that the French jeered and spit on our liberating forces, before the final shot had even been fired? For more information check here or here.

We must now teach the French a lesson, and it is for their own good. They should not bite the hand that saves them, for soon we may decide they are not worth saving anymore. Therefore I urge you to boycott Mandrake Linux. Of course it would not be American for me to tell you what to do. If you must use Mandrake, then use it. Simply do not pay for it.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here? We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause.

Thank you for your attention. I trust I have reached you with this message, and we all look forward to a world united under the flag of Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way!

You may not be aware that Mandrake Linux is a French product. Indeed, you would never know because of their shallow attempts to conceal this fact. But a simple trip to the whois database can reveal the truth. Now, you and I would never spend our American dollars on French wine, and we would certainly never travel there. So, why should we support a French company? We shouldn't.

While talking out of one side of their mouth about peace and security, the French have been actively engaged with terrorist groups and terrorist nations to sabotage our efforts to secure our future. You can read about this here and here. The French have stabbed us in the back repeatedly and, driven by their jealousy of our great Nation, they have exposed themselves as the traitorus liars that we have always suspected. It is also widely known that Jacques Chirac was an active supporter and business partner of Saddam Hussein. This is well documented; you can learn more here and here.

The French are having a very difficult time because they are long past their colonial greatness and have descended to a chaotic socialist society of laziness and ineptitude. Rather than realistically assess their own blame and work to restore their own status, they seek to bring us down. They lash out at the great nations who now lead the world community. The French are a shallow people who resent with great bitterness those who saved them. In WW1 and WW2 we rescued the French after they surrended and allowed them to preserve their way of life. But who can forget that the French jeered and spit on our liberating forces, before the final shot had even been fired? For more information check here or here.

We must now teach the French a lesson, and it is for their own good. They should not bite the hand that saves them, for soon we may decide they are not worth saving anymore. Therefore I urge you to boycott Mandrake Linux. Of course it would not be American for me to tell you what to do. If you must use Mandrake, then use it. Simply do not pay for it.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here? We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause.

Thank you for your attention. I trust I have reached you with this message, and we all look forward to a world united under the flag of Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way...

You may not be aware that Mandrake Linux is a French product. Indeed, you would never know because of their shallow attempts to conceal this fact. But a simple trip to the whois database can reveal the truth. Now, you and I would never spend our American dollars on French wine, and we would certainly never travel there. So, why should we support a French company? We shouldn't.

While talking out of one side of their mouth about peace and security, the French have been actively engaged with terrorist groups and terrorist nations to sabotage our efforts to secure our future. You can read about this here and here. The French have stabbed us in the back repeatedly and, driven by their jealousy of our great Nation, they have exposed themselves as the traitorus liars that we have always suspected. It is also widely known that Jacques Chirac was an active supporter and business partner of Saddam Hussein. This is well documented; you can learn more here and here.

The French are having a very difficult time because they are long past their colonial greatness and have descended to a chaotic socialist society of laziness and ineptitude. Rather than realistically assess their own blame and work to restore their own status, they seek to bring us down. They lash out at the great nations who now lead the world community. The French are a shallow people who resent with great bitterness those who saved them. In WW1 and WW2 we rescued the French after they surrended and allowed them to preserve their way of life. But who can forget that the French jeered and spit on our liberating forces, before the final shot had even been fired? For more information check here or here.

We must now teach the French a lesson, and it is for their own good. They should not bite the hand that saves them, for soon we may decide they are not worth saving anymore. Therefore I urge you to boycott Mandrake Linux. Of course it would not be American for me to tell you what to do. If you must use Mandrake, then use it. Simply do not pay for it.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here? We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause.

Thank you for your attention. I trust I have reached you with this message, and we all look forward to a world united under the flag of Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way.

You may not be aware that Mandrake Linux is a French product. Indeed, you would never know because of their shallow attempts to conceal this fact. But a simple trip to the whois database can reveal the truth. Now, you and I would never spend our American dollars on French wine, and we would certainly never travel there. So, why should we support a French company? We shouldn't.

While talking out of one side of their mouth about peace and security, the French have been actively engaged with terrorist groups and terrorist nations to sabotage our efforts to secure our future. You can read about this here and here. The French have stabbed us in the back repeatedly and, driven by their jealousy of our great Nation, they have exposed themselves as the traitorus liars that we have always suspected. It is also widely known that Jacques Chirac was an active supporter and business partner of Saddam Hussein. This is well documented; you can learn more here and here.

The French are having a very difficult time because they are long past their colonial greatness and have descended to a chaotic socialist society of laziness and ineptitude. Rather than realistically assess their own blame and work to restore their own status, they seek to bring us down. They lash out at the great nations who now lead the world community. The French are a shallow people who resent with great bitterness those who saved them. In WW1 and WW2 we rescued the French after they surrended and allowed them to preserve their way of life. But who can forget that the French jeered and spit on our liberating forces, before the final shot had even been fired? For more information check here or here.

We must now teach the French a lesson, and it is for their own good. They should not bite the hand that saves them, for soon we may decide they are not worth saving anymore. Therefore I urge you to boycott Mandrake Linux. Of course it would not be American for me to tell you what to do. If you must use Mandrake, then use it. Simply do not pay for it.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here? We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause.

Thank you for your attention. I trust I have reached you with this message, and we all look forward to a world united under the flag of Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way.

You may not be aware that Mandrake Linux is a French product. Indeed, you would never know because of their shallow attempts to conceal this fact. But a simple trip to the whois database can reveal the truth. Now, you and I would never spend our American dollars on French wine, and we would certainly never travel there. So, why should we support a French company? We shouldn't.

While talking out of one side of their mouth about peace and security, the French have been actively engaged with terrorist groups and terrorist nations to sabotage our efforts to secure our future. You can read about this here and here. The French have stabbed us in the back repeatedly and, driven by their jealousy of our great Nation, they have exposed themselves as the traitorus liars that we have always suspected. It is also widely known that Jacques Chirac was an active supporter and business partner of Saddam Hussein. This is well documented; you can learn more here and here.

The French are having a very difficult time because they are long past their colonial greatness and have descended to a chaotic socialist society of laziness and ineptitude. Rather than realistically assess their own blame and work to restore their own status, they seek to bring us down. They lash out at the great nations who now lead the world community. The French are a shallow people who resent with great bitterness those who saved them. In WW1 and WW2 we rescued the French after they surrended and allowed them to preserve their way of life. But who can forget that the French jeered and spit on our liberating forces, before the final shot had even been fired? For more information check here or here.

We must now teach the French a lesson, and it is for their own good. They should not bite the hand that saves them, for soon we may decide they are not worth saving anymore. Therefore I urge you to boycott Mandrake Linux. Of course it would not be American for me to tell you what to do. If you must use Mandrake, then use it. Simply do not pay for it.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here? We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause.

Thank you for your attention. I trust I have reached you with this message, and we all look forward to a world united under the flag of Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way.

You may not be aware that Mandrake Linux is a French product. Indeed, you would never know because of their shallow attempts to conceal this fact. But a simple trip to the whois database can reveal the truth. Now, you and I would never spend our American dollars on French wine, and we would certainly never travel there. So, why should we support a French company? We shouldn't.

While talking out of one side of their mouth about peace and security, the French have been actively engaged with terrorist groups and terrorist nations to sabotage our efforts to secure our future. You can read about this here and here. The French have stabbed us in the back repeatedly and, driven by their jealousy of our great Nation, they have exposed themselves as the traitorus liars that we have always suspected. It is also widely known that Jacques Chirac was an active supporter and business partner of Saddam Hussein. This is well documented; you can learn more here and here.

The French are having a very difficult time because they are long past their colonial greatness and have descended to a chaotic socialist society of laziness and ineptitude. Rather than realistically assess their own blame and work to restore their own status, they seek to bring us down. They lash out at the great nations who now lead the world community. The French are a shallow people who resent with great bitterness those who saved them. In WW1 and WW2 we rescued the French after they surrended and allowed them to preserve their way of life. But who can forget that the French jeered and spit on our liberating forces, before the final shot had even been fired? For more information check here or here.

We must now teach the French a lesson, and it is for their own good. They should not bite the hand that saves them, for soon we may decide they are not worth saving anymore. Therefore I urge you to boycott Mandrake Linux. Of course it would not be American for me to tell you what to do. If you must use Mandrake, then use it. Simply do not pay for it.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here? We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause.

Thank you for your attention. I trust I have reached you with this message, and we all look forward to a world united under the flag of Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way.

Believe it or not, there is a game out there that charges more: up to $24.95!

I love MMO flight sims like the next guy (eg., Aces High, WWIIOL), but uhh - that is going a bit too far.

I don't work for that company anymore. They were a 3-year-old data center company, and I hired on in a new location that wasn't profitable yet. I left for a more secure company, and last I heard that data center company was shutting some locations down but selling my old location off, so I guess it was near being profitable.

But it was fun and enjoyable. It didn't pay as much as I wanted, but the people were cool and you could do pretty much what you wanted as long as you took care of business.

Among my coworkers, some regularly surfed porn, some played games, and one left p2p software running all shift, which is cool when you have 10Mbit bandwidtch to the internet. (For the NOC; the whole center had much more of course. We were setting up gigabit internet set up for one customer.) My coworkers and I would gather at an exceptional example of porn, but I never surfed it myself. To me, porn and work don't mix. Why do I want to be horny at work? Especially on the weekends by myself for 12 hours. That would be a bad habit to start!

We did more than just monitor, though; we were remote hands for the customers, we racked equipment and cabled for new customers, we gave data center tours for potential customers, etc.. And we were encouraged to develop new ideas for services to offer customers and services to improve our network.

I spent my idle time soaking up all the new info...I hadn't worked that closely with that much network equipment before and I was a kid in a candy store. I miss it except for the insecurity and low pay. :-)

No reading printed material at your workstation? WTF? All of our alerts had loud sounds, emails and pages in addition to the screen flashing. Our more serious alerts (e.g. main switch problem) had the Star Trek red alert sound. Syslog entries from the routers made a "thunk" sound, and we had comprehensive monitoring system that spoke the location and nature of the problem. (Well, the sounds were configurable and we used AT&T's online voice synthesizer to create alerts.) Anything in the data center moving or behaving in a noteworthy fashion made an audible and visual alert, and anything that definitely needed immediate attention would page and email, too. And of course we'd periodically audit and test the alert system.

The drinking and eating rules are actually kinda smart, but we ate and drank at our stations, anyway, although there were at least 5 other usable stations if I fried mine.

We mixed our music into the alert speakers for loud entertainment. Plus we had DSS satellite on one of our many monitors.

I don't recall a dress code, but I usually wore khakis and a patterned button-up cotton blend shirt.

We couldn't leave the building empty, but we could leave if there were coworkers working. (I worked weekend 12-hour shifts and was by myself the whole time so I couldn't leave.)

I only brought my personal computer in the weekend before my last day. But that was because our data center hosted WWII Online and it had just released and I wanted to try it, and mucking with a NOC workstation was not something I wanted to do. Plus, how often do you get a chance to play a MMOG with ping times under 20ms?

Sleeping: We weren't supposed to do that, and I didn't, but I think the midnight guy did. He was the only one who repeadedly had problems like "the phone never rang...I was making a walkthrough check of the building and the phone must've lost connection" when the same phone always rang for everyone else all the time no matter where they were in the building.

Propping feet up: not a problem.

But if customers were around we were supposed to have the NOC looking net, of course. We had a fishbowl-type NOC with a glass wall between us and the entry way (cool because the receptionist was gorgeous) and large windows into the data center floor.

For those tempted to say that our 'slacker' practices are why the company got in trouble, I don't think

WWII Online

It isn't that windows couldn't do that - the problem is that the hardware platforms for gaming OS varies alot. Different chipsets, different display controllers, different game controllers - and drivers for all of these. Not to mention all those "handy" programs many people keep running even while playing. Stability problems are inevitable. This is one thing why consoles are a good - hardware stays the same. But rarely they pack the processing power, memory and needed interfaces for playing these magnificent simulations, and they can't be upgraded when a new powerful processor or some other component comes available.

Conclusion: long live PC as a gaming platform! (Hopefully the software platform will stabilize some day)

Ummm... World War II Online? While hamstrung by a long initial 'pay to beta test' phase, it's now up and running in decent condition. This game didn't blur the line between FPS and MMOG, it IS an FPMMOS (first person massively multiplayer shooter?)

Depends what you're using it for, and that is really what the UGO review says.

SB16 means more load on your CPU in producing sound playback, reduced quality level of sound - which is why a review like this is useful - do these cards actually do anything worth getting over an SB16.

If you're playing the odd game of quake or duke nukem on your box through a couple of Labtec 1995 $5 speakers, then you don't need more than an SB16.

If you're playing JediKnight 2 or WWII Online on headphones then you probably want something that will produce a higher quality sound at lesser cpu usage and with more "features".

When I play JK2 on my laptops sb16 soundcard, I usually quit playing on phones fairly quickly, it spoils the music. When I'm playing MP3s at home through my sound system, choosing between my laptop and my desktop (Fortissimo II card) makes a big difference.