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Loki Announces Loki Hack 1999 Contest
Ethelred Unraed writes "Loki Entertainment Software has announced a contest where an elite group of hackers (in C++, that is) will be chosen to improve their port of Civilization: Call to Power. The winner will get a dual-processor Linux box as a prize. Take a look at their info page for more. " Thats a pretty crazy contest idea. They ought to give the winner a job.
Makes me wish that I had studied C++ earlier!
Still I think I am off to a good start with Teach Yourself C++ in 21 days. Is this a bad start to the subject?
Hmmm, using 'j' instead of 'i' as sqrt(-1) almost immediately puts you in an EE's shoes.
Using Euler's formula, that becomes:
-2*[cos(PI) + j*sin(PI)]
Which reduces to:
-2*[-1]
Which of course is 2.
Ultimately allowing you to deposite your two REAL cents. Mmmmm, I love efficient scalar real two-cent depositaries! :-)
actually i think the correct pronunciation is the other way around
Anything which successfully created the music for SCII deserves to be tried again and again and again, despite failures, just in case it can succeed once more and produce a level of perfection approaching that of SCII's music.
They want to give someone a machine that probably doesn't cost more than $2000 for making their game playable?
One word: sucker.
Civ:CTP is way too slow on perfectly reasonable computers for what little the game actually does.
on pricewatch. The expensive component will be memory, as the prices all doubled recently.
you need time to think and plan !
I only played the windows version, and that was slow by comparison with civII original, also the graphics were a lot more "cluttered". But it was still a worthy successor to civII original
I find your comments on required motivation to participte at best insulting.
Are you saying to want to compete makes you egotistical ?
The greatest competition is within oneself.
And whats money got to do with it!
in the game i think they call it making the unit remain idle or something. If i remember correctly, in civ1 you could cause a civ to revolt and splinter in 2 seperate civilisations, i cant remember exactly how, may have been when capturing capital. if you have railways you can move fast. clerics....? are you talking activision test of time or microprose Civ2:CTP
...$300, plus a jump in status. People will admire and envie you for your incredible skills if you win. Your homepage will be slashdotted! Your name will be mentioned along with RMS, Alan Cox and Linus.
hmmm... is it possible to make a dual 486? that might speed things up at the low end how about a group of 5 386 chips? what would a computer with a dual pentium setup cost?
Yeah... I found it interesting that when I worked at Microsoft once summer, if I spent my entire salary buying copies of the software i worked on, I could buy 5 copies.
Sorry, I should be more supportive.... :)
It's the darn "instant say what you are thinking" things.
Yeah, why is this score 0?
Weird, I heard it as "Rob Sucks"
So, Scott Draeker, can we get some specific info on just what the real requirements are for entering? Or even some specific info on just what the heck the prize computer actually is?
I agree. There's been a lot of propaganda and opinion on how cool or lame this contest is, but not a lot of specific information about the contest anywhere.
What are the *full* conditions required to compete? What, *exactly*, is the prize? Does *anybody* know?
I can understand why people are suspicious of this contest offer since Loki Software could easily have and probably should have posted this information on their site from the beginning. I have no idea why they haven't yet answered these questions on their site, or why Scott Draker didn't address them in his post.
Hopefully it's just an oversight and we'll get some hard answers soon.
People are a lot more trusting when they know *exactly* what they are getting into.
Email me, and I can probably get you the visa to ALS.
Chris
chrisf@linuxshowcase.org
BTW I doubt the system offered to the winner (which I'm not yet) will cost significantly more than my tickets.
Hmm... My experience is the exact opposite.. Once you've learned a programming language, it only takes a few days to learn another one. Fortran took me a day. Learning how to properly design code is almost completely independent of the programming language (or more accurately: choosing the right language for the job is part of the design process).
I agree with copito. I was really enthused about getting CivCTP for Linux, and wanted to support Loki in there endeavor as a company the ports games to Linux. But, after shelling out my $40, I've found run into a number of serious bugs, most of them related to network play, that cripple the game. (The most annoying of which involves the computer taking over for players, screwing up all of their cities, after that player's civctp client has crashed as a result of another bug.)
I think Loki's just despirate to fix the bugs they already have. I'm still waiting for their second patch to CivCTP.
hacking C++ for a day or two under and NDA doesn't bother me
It should.
Do you actually work in this industry in any position where you are paid to create things? Have you ever actually been under the terms of an NDA? One that was strictly enforced? With a company that insists on seeing everything you develop for up to two years after you leave the company? And then find it difficult to get new contracts because of agreements you signed with previous employers. And then have the company two years after you leave them claim intellectual property rights over work that is uniquely yours, that you developed after leaving the company, and is completely irrelevant to the work you did for them?
That's the situation you place yourself in every time you sign an 'intellectual property' or 'non-disclosure' agreement. These things are not written for the benefit of the person signing them. And try to remember that in signing an NDA, you are not dealing with engineers or other technical people. You are dealing with lawyers. If the company's stock holders and lawyers think they can use an NDA you've signed to their advantage in getting something that's yours, they will. They won't give one second of thought on whether or not it's just or right.
That's how this industry works. I work in this industry. It's how I put food on my table. As a professional engineer, I take NDA's very seriously. You need to if you're serious about working in this business and want to earn real money doing so. Speaking from my professional experience, just the legal fees of having my lawyer look over the NDA that Activision will undoubtedly require of all the contestants is worth more than the computer they are offering.
People like you, who don't understand the ramifications of NDA's and lack the experience to take them seriously, only encourage corporate lawyers to abuse them. And that makes the whole business all that much worse for the real creative professionals out there who make their living this way.
There's no way they're going to let anyone from outside the US into this thing. That's because they will be unable to enforce their 'intellectual property rights' on anyone outside the US. Think about it.
A few days to learn C++? I don't think so. C++ is an immensely complicated language that can take years to master. If you've previously been programming in a procedural language like C or Pascal, you'll need to master the OO paradigm as well. That is not something people pick up in a few weeks. Good OO analysis and design skills also take a long time to develop - and are essential for effectively programming in C++. Even a language like Java has its tricks and pitfalls. After 7 years of C++, I moved to Java. It took quite a few months for me to master the ins and outs of Java. Sure, I could get in and write useful code the first day. But mastery of a language is a different matter altogether.
Is it only me or anybody else feel that Civ CTP is _morally_ wrong since it is a stolen idea of Sid Meyer who described it as a Civilization's "imitation"? The right to the game's title was acquired by Activision through a dubious court case of some sort.
Even though I do C++ full time and used to work for a games company I've had enough of companies that "borrow" ideas!
No matter how cool Loki Entertainment act on the Linux front they aren't getting my support as the only company that should be releasing Civ is Firaxis.
I'll wait for CivIII. It'll be done by the right people and hopefully less buggy than CTP. Besides a PC for lots of debugging/bug fixing is peanuts. If you're a games programmer wannabe then Firaxis are hiring too...
Man, thats a good challenging timeframe. Wonder if anyone does the whole time with no sleep. Man id forgoten what a bunch of loosers slashdoters are, half the comments make out that loki is doing something immoral for trying to arrange a contest, improve a product and have a bit of fun. flame away bug@cyberjunkie.com
Huh? I've been getting paid for C++ coding on Linux or Unix for the last 9 years! Quite a few co-workers were as well. And Loki has been looking for people to hire.
In 48 hours you can't sufficiently read and understand such an enormous set of code to improve on something built by people who have had months, perhaps years to familiarise themselves with the code and the design. This is just a marketing ploy designed to draw attention to the linux port of Civ II they've been working on.
Wow, what a great idea. I'm sure they'll be able to implement many changes to a program consisting of thousands and thousands of line of code in 2 days, without ever seeing it before.
This is part of another post that I'm putting here because it might warrant discussion on its own:
It might be interesting to enter their contest for just the chance to look at their current game code, which I beleive is not open source. But that brings up an entirely different subject. Since the contestants have to be able to look at their current closed source, they will probably require the contestants to sign all sorts of 'Non-Disclosure - Non-Compete' forms. And trust me, NO computer or contest (or job for that matter) is worth that.
So I gather from this that the source to Civ will not be opened up to anyone other that the select few who are chosen to compete? This whole contest sounds just a little too much like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" to me, and we all know what happened to the select few who were allowed into that contest. I'll bet the selected cadre chosen to compete will have to sign all sorts of legal 'non-disclosure' and 'intellectual property' agreements before they can even smell the source code.
Well, I could probably enter this contest. And I could possibly win it. Having another parallel computer would be sort of cool. Seeing my name in the game credits would be pretty cool. Looking at the Civ source would be even cooler. But NONE OF THIS is worth having to deal with the sort of legal entanglements Activision and Loki Software will require of the contestants.
Why do you think Loki is limiting the number of contestants? I think it's because they themselves recognise the 'intellectual property' legal issues involved in letting 'outsiders' see their now and forever closed source code. They want to minimize the legal hassles here by limiting the number of contestants. And 'intellectual property' agreements are allways more of a pain for the person signing them than the party requiring them.
If people want the computer that badly, by all means they should enter the contest. But they need to realize the full cost to themselves before entering it. TANSTAAFL!
Thank you Scott Draeker and Loki Software for having this contest and offering the masses a prize and an opportunity to see your stuff. It's a lot better than the nothing we see from most other commercial software vendors. Even so, I have searched the Loki website up and down looking for the legal ramifications of entering this contest. I haven't seen a single thing.
So, Scott Draeker, can we get some specific info on just what the real requirements are for entering? Or even some specific info on just what the heck the prize computer actually is? But even if the prize is one Manly Mother of A Box (tm) (and I have seen no stats on whether or not it is), I, for one, think I will choose not to participate in this opportunity.
----
"Just because we give away free software doesn't mean we're stupid!" - or naive
I'm a C++ guru. I eat design patterns for breakfast, I know ANSI C++ standard by heart, I apply LSP, ISP, DIP, RRP, I can write templates that put Stepanov&Lee to shame.
But I'm not an Amerikkkan. Darn.
Not that I'm eager to participate, but these "good only in contiguous 48 states, please specify a valid zip code" things drive me crazy. Can anybody say "global village"?
What is your point? I explicitly stated in my post that I had qualms about working full-time under an NDA. Congratulations - you win. And win. And win.
And yet you're still willing to sign one just for 48 hours hacking privilege? To anyone who has had any experience with Non-Disclosure Agreements and Intellectual Property Agreements, that attitude doesn't make any sense!
However, that's all completely irrelevant. In this capacity, Loki will never be your "previous employer." They're not employing anyone.
I don't think you understand some of the basic facts of life here. First of all, you do not need to be employed by a company to sign an NDA or IPA with them or have it enforced upon you. Technically, yes, Activision and Loki are not exactly employing the contest entrants. But employment status is what's truly irrelevant here. Don't think for a minute that, employees or not, Activision is not going require NDA's and IPA's from all the entrants before anyone sees their closed source code. And the term of those NDA's and IPA's will be a lot longer than just the 48 hours of the contest. Duration of service and employment status don't matter where NDA's and IPA's are concerned. The only thing that matters in an NDA or IPA issue is whether or not you've signed one.
this is no more than a fun, even charitable, way to give back to the OSS community
You probably see it that way. Loki Software may see it that way. But do Activision and Activision's lawyers see it that way? I would hope there is a little altruism from them, but judging from Scott Draeker's post ("Activision is going out on a limb with this."), I doubt it. Activision would not agree to this if they didn't think there's something in it for them. I don't know what exactly it is they are after, but I really doubt they expect to get all that much real or usefull code in only 48 hours.
And speaking of "giving to the OSS community"; thus far, Activision has only taken from it. And just what are they giving back to it? A single computer. To a single contest winner. That doesn't seem to me to be much for the community. They're giving the opportunity for a few people to see their code but nobody else. Well, I'm sorry but that group of people are really only that group of people. Please don't confuse them with the OSS community.
So just what is the OSS community getting out of this? To the best of my knowledge, what the OSS community wants is Open Source Software, but that's definately not what they are getting here. Civ will remain closed source after this contest. Count on it. From what I can see, we're only getting a slightly improved version of a truly mediocre closed source game to take advantage of (and additional profits from) our open source OS.
So what does Activision get out of all this? For the price of a single computer they are getting a lot of publicity. They might also get some nifty improvements to their closed source game. Additionally, they also potentially get a lot of intellectual property rights from the people that sign the IPA which they will require before entering.
And what do the contestants get? One of them gets a computer. What kind of computer? We have to take Loki's word that it will be a good one. The rest get essentially nada. Sure they get to look at the Civ code, but Activision's going to make damn sure they aren't legally capable of taking advantage of that knowledge, either for their own benefit or for the benefit of the OSS community. That's the way most companies work. If Activision is truly different, why are they keeping their source closed? Remember that it's entirely possible for a company to publish their source code but still retain copyright on it. Open Source does not mean the same thing as Free Software. And why aren't they publishing the precise terms of their contest?
There's one other "reward" for entering this contest that Activision and Loki just don't seem to want to talk about and everyone else seems to be forgetting. In addition to all these "wonderful" incentives, the contest entrants also potentially get the hassle of having to subjugate their creative efforts to the whims of Activision's lawyers for the next few years. Maybe not, but Loki and Activision aren't saying. People need to know what they are getting into before entering this thing, and Activision just isn't saying.
And you've made it out to be malicious
Not malicious, just suspicious. There's a lot of information about this contest that's conspicuous by its' absence from the Loki website.
should be a lot more supportive of Loki for having the guts to even support an open-source operating system
Loki should be applauded for their attempts, but they also need to be more forthcoming with the exact terms of their contest. I would think that any company seriously courting the open source movement would realize that they need to be open on what the exact terms of their relationship with the OSS community will be. And please remember the first rule about commercial developers in an Open Source environment, "they need us more than we need them."
blah blah blah - you spread FUD about it
Oh puhleeze! You resort to the Mainstay Buzzword Attack of the Misinformed OSS Zealot. I am merely warning people that there is a lot of uncertainty regarding just what the real costs of this contest are. Potentially, the entrants could be setting themselves up for some major legal and creative hassles. They must make themselves aware of this before immediately leaping into any "opportunity" just because the company offering it appears to be supporting the OSS movement. Hopefully things are all right with this deal. Maybe not. Loki isn't saying. The risks involved definately warrant looking before you leap.
You can sit atop your pedestal and decree your "creative professional" status all you want, but it doesn't make up for the fact that you are incorrect
But I am correct. That's plainly obvious to anyone reading this who actually understands or has had any actual experience with NDA's or IPA's. You have expressed no rational arguement to the contrary. You might not beleive so, but I think you can be forgiven for your limited knowledge on the subject. The greatest part of ignorance is being ignorant of ones own ignorance.
I have, I think, amply demonstrated how much more I know about the issue of IPA's and NDA's than you do. You may think you understand them, but if you are still willing to sign one just for a computer or just to see someone elses code, trust me, you don't. For your own sake I recommend you read the rest of this post before signing one. I can guarantee I have more experience with this sort of thing than most of Slashdot's readers and a lot more experience with them than you. Your lack of understanding might interpret this as arrogance on my part, but it's just the simple truth. Trust me. I learned about NDA's and IPA's the Hard Way. I would much rather have learned from someone elses experiences rather than my own. You should be taking advantage of that opportunity right now.
don't bother lecturing me of the ramifications of an NDA
But you so clearly need to be educated about NDA's and IPA's. If not for your own good, then for the good of those who are willing to learn from third party experience. In your first post on this thread you said:
I don't agree with taking a job where all the code you write is closed and NDAd. But by claiming that doing so for a mere 48 hours is just not worth it is blowing it pathetically out of proportions
and
honest hacking C++ for a day or two under and NDA doesn't bother me
So let me get this straight? You aren't willing to be employed (possibly for a large salary) under an NDA or IPA, but you are willing to sign one for the simple privilege of spending 48 hours tweaking someone elses code for them with merely the possible chance of getting a computer out of it? Do you also refuse to work for a company that requires drug tests, but happily urinate into the lab cup of any 48 hour charity that requires them? Do you know just how non-sensical your attitude is? Do you really understand what an NDA or IPA is or means? Or how they work? They don't disappear when you finish working on a project. And they can be just as strong whether you spend one hour on a project or years on it. And it doesn't matter if you are compensated for signing them or not. Once again, whe only thing that matters in an NDA or IPA is whether or not you've signed it.
When you sign an NDA or IPA, you are signing away your creative and intellectual rights. Sometimes the compensation and terms are acceptable, but often they are not. You are also placing yourself into a professional relationship with another party and their (potentially sleazy scumbag) lawyers which can at any time be used against you or anyone else that benefits from your creative efforts.
I think that's a pretty sleazy thing to do - pose as a concerned member of the community when in reality it's your own interests that motivate you.
In the future, please try to educate yourself and think about what you are reading before making defamatory (and incorrect) statements like this one. They only point out your ignorance and make you appear a complete ass. Clearly you have entirely missed the point of where my interest actually lies on this matter. Before you start any more Misinformed OSS Zealot propaganda blather, you and everyone else in the OSS and FS movements must become aware of one thing regarding NDA's and IPA's. Please be aware that signing an NDA or IPA not only limits your rights to take advantage of an idea yourself, it also limits your rights to freely give your creative work to the OSS community, the Free-Software community, or anyone else. I know this from personal experience. Only one party gains from NDA's and IPA's, and that is whoever is requiring them.
If, by entering this contest, a group of potentially bright and productive people are prevented from future open contributions to the OSS or FS movements, just because they signed an NDA or IPA to enter said contest, we all lose. No computer is worth that.
Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but 'dual processor' could mean a whole range of things.
I have an old dual Pentium 90 MHz (not Pro, not II, not III, and not Xeon, just plain old Pentium) sitting in the closet right now. It's still running (348 days uptime on an _early_ smp_linux test kernel), it's just in the closet because the fans are NOISY. While it's a lot faster under Linux than the 'other' OS, it's not what I would call 'screaming' these days (although it was three years ago).
So, what _kind_ of dual processor box is it?
Dual Pentium - Pass.
Dual Celeron - These are cool, but cheap enough I don't need to enter a contest for them. They make GREAT low end servers though.
Dual PII - Now it gets interesting.
Dual P3 - Even more interesting. What's the storage like though?
Dual Xeon - Can I get one of the ones Seimens benchmarked Linux on? Oops, that was a quad Xeon.
Dual K7/Athlon - Drool drool! But where did they get it?
Dual Alpha - Gimme! Gimme!
So, are there any specifics on just what the prize is? Their page is currently either slow or slashdotted, so I haven't been able to find the specifics myself.
-----
And my Boss keeps asking "Where's the incentive in open source?". Sheesh.
OK, this might be off topic, but I just want to say that whatever bad opinions you have about this contest, Loki is doing something extremely important to the open source movement. Yes, they make money off of it, but bringing quality games to the OS is as important as anything else in getting it accepted (on the desktop). A desktop user needs three things: office suite, internet and games. On the office and internet side, one decent application is enough. On the games side we need many, many different options. Im sure many of you know this, but I just wanna say it again so more people will be conscious of it. And to the people who say "we dont need no friggin stupid desktop users!" just remember that they (and with them, mass production) is the ONLY way to get hardware support. And yes, we all want HW support. TN
I was at the Denver LUG where Scott (Loki's president) unfficially announed this on Tuesday evening. Apparantly, Activision owns the copyright and they are hesitant to embrace the open-source model. They are afraid of thier competition getting a hold of thier clever "trade secret" hacks. Scott talked Activision into this contest as a way to prove, even on a small scale, that open source works. Hopefully, with any luck, some great hacks will come out of this and Activision will see the err of thie perevious ways.
When's the last time you got to see the source code for a commercial game -- and not several years after the fact.
it's not like you are releasing the source, but here are a few that come to mind.
Abuse - crack.com
Wolf/Doom/Quake - id
Decent - parallax
Abuse was released about a year after it came out (faster than the linux port of Civ?)
When's the last time you got to modify a game, change the rules the way you like, add something you think is missing? Then get your changes posted for the rest of the world to play around with.
What game today doesn't let you do this? Unreal, quake, etc. Even Abuse allowed you to add new characters and hacks the day it came out by planning for that kind of thing and putting in an interpreter.
The only reason for this contest is because Civ didn't plan for the mod comunity. The only way to add new stuff is to give people the source. While it's nice to study, a good game shouldn't have to give out the source code. That's like giving people the source to a JVM and telling them to "hack stuff in" rather than make the JVM complete in the first place.
I'd like to dispel any confusion about what we're trying to accomplish with Loki Hack. Seems like some people have assumed that we're looking for free work on the port, bug fixes, or the like. Wrong.
The idea is this. When's the last time you got to see the source code for a commercial game -- and not several years after the fact. When's the last time you got to modify a game, change the rules the way you like, add something you think is missing? Then get your changes posted for the rest of the world to play around with. And all of this supported by the developer? And we throw in some prizes too.
This is the closest we can get to open source with our products. The world won't see the source, but the contestants will. And all the hacks, mods, changes will be posted in binary form, freely downloadable for the world to see. Know anyone who has seen the Windows code for this game?
Of course, we're going to help people along. Loki developers will be present to answer questions during the hack. We'll also have an intro session to get people familiar with the code.
For those unaware, it's a very big deal for a commercial game company to let you look at their source for a current product. Activision is going out on a limb with this. We want to show them what the open source community can accomplish.
Scott Draeker
President
Loki Entertainment Software
RE: Movie playing from CD
Make sure your CD-ROM is mounted. I was also wondering why my movies weren't playing anymore, until I realized the computer was rebooted and the CD-ROM wasn't remounted!
RE: Speed
I run it on a Cyrix 6x86 166 with 64MB and the speed isn't too bad. It even has a 2X CD-ROM and the videos play (the requirements said it needs 4X). Of course, if Netscape is also running, switching between them is quite slow. But the game is certainly playable.
I agree - I'll take this and RailRoad Tycoon II any day over a stupid shoot-em-up.
If they offered anyone a job that would be stratospheric. Hacking C++ on Linux in itself is pretty useless in the professional world. It's the one reason you might want to think twice about sinking your hard earned weekends into it.
There isn't enough info to go on. What is the game structured like? Libraries? DLLs? What are the major subsystems? What technologies are used? XML? Object I/O? CORBA? Threading? Assembly? What aspects of C++ are used? Templates? RTTI? Operator overloading? Design patterns? Polymorphism? Generic programming? STL? Do they make heavy use of the preprocessor? Is the source commented? What kind of documentation will be presented? Are there UML diagrams for everything? These are all things that a developer ("hacker") needs to know before touching the code. In 48hrs, you can't just be dropped into uncommented, non-standard, C-ish C++ code without UML diagrams and documentation, and be expected to revamp the AI engine. You could be a good C++ programmer and a decent Linux hacker, but still not be able to do anything in the code. Someone else might have mediocre skills but just happen to know Linux threading inside out, and fix threading issues. Luck of the draw? Many, like myself, are already employed and under NDA and employment agreements. I'd have to check, but I'm not sure I can even do work for another computer company, unless I can positively be sure that it is non-competitive. That's hard, because I do data mining and AI, and damn near *anything* is AI. Is game AI non-competitive enough? So if they don't get professional developers, they are left with Linux hackers. They may be great hackers, but can they handle code of commercial size and quality? Remember, Linux is C land. Simple. Established. Old. If this game is modern, advanced C++, that may be beyond the skills of otherwise great Linux hackers. If I have to pay travel, and work for 2 days straight, while they get my services for free, I'm not sure a computer covers that. Still, I wish them the best.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
ftp://ftp.funet.fi /pub/Linux/PEOPLE/Linus/SillySounds/english.au
I hear it as "Lee-nooks"
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
I had the problem even when using CTP as my windowmanager and running no other processes. Clearly it is a memory related issue. Is it too much to ask that a simple game do ok in 64MB. Quake 3 plays fine after all.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
It's not backlash pure and simple...that we reserve for Red Hat.
Loki sold us a game that we paid money for and which is only half-baked. We bought it to support a cool company and Linux, but we expected decent quality in return for the money. Or at least I did. Otherwise I would have just sent them $40. Now you're telling me that I am not faithful because I treat them with exactly the same suspicion I would treat any commercial entity that wants to get something for nothing?
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
When I make a move or change a view I want see the update immediately. I don't want to wait 10 seconds as the hard drive thrashes, the sound skips and the screen freezes. Go into space view in the later part of the game and tell me it's not slow.
As for bugs:
preferences don't save,
paratrooper moves can crash the game hard (e.g. paratrooping into an occupied square or city),
there's a bug list available from
http://209.223.115.151/support/
which is remarkably slow at the moment.
Yes the bug list is a good thing, and no the bugs aren't a good thing. Not when I'm paying money.
Compare CTP 1.1 to say the latest patch of StarCraft. StarCraft is more playable under Wine than CTP running natively. The two games have similar levels of graphical complexity with CTP having more AI complexity, but also turns to do the processing in as opposed to real time.
As for revolutionarieness. No, a good game does not have to be revolutionary. But a good game is either revolutionary, glitzy, or solid. Great games can be all three. CTP is none of the above.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
CTP is a slow game with serious bugs that is barely playable on a Celeron 300 w/ 64 MB. All this for a 2D game that would have been revolutionary in the late 80's. Yes I paid my $40 bucks. Yes I wanted to support a cool company and Linux. And yes, I'm bitter.
Loki isn't all bad. Their developers field actual bug reports and there has been one patch set to cure some of the more serious problems. They are a new place and they might port or create a good game someday. Apparently a lot of the problems with CTP exist in the Windows version, so they might have been just dealt a bad hand.
That being said, the new contest they have created is a joke. Imagine if someone said to you, "you're a damn good programmer. I want you to spend some time doing some programming for us. No
we won't pay you, but you might get a decent computer out of it and we get to keep your code and sell it."
Considering this, what are your incentives:
You really need that 'puter:
A good C++ programmer can make enough money to buy the computer in what, a couple of days?
Pure altruism:
Perhaps, but you would be probably increase your cosmic oneness more by contributing to an open source project.
Ego:
Your kung fu is the best. You want everybody to know it. Well good luck, but here's a hint. If you're that good you should either be getting pay or serious recognition out of the deal, or possibly both.
A job at Loki:
Ok, you want to work at Loki, this might be a good way to strut your stuff, but they are getting far more out of the deal than you. Companies typically pay thousands to track down and hire a qualified candidate for a job, without immediate benefit to themselves.
You really like CTP and want to see how it works:
I don't agree, but curiousity is a valid reason for anything in life.
You really like CTP but the bugs annoy the crap out of you:
There are probably lots of people that fit in this category. Probably enough to give Loki their computer's worth. Go a head, give the Man a hand. He'll make it worth your while.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Easiest thing to do is to stop science production completely by setting the percentage of gold that goes to science to 0% in the civ menu. When cities get really big, new populations just become entertainers because they have no tile to sit on. I'd like to see the range of a city increase as it gets really big. This could be quite fun as you could end up with massive sprawling cities, perhaps even engulfing enemy cities within them.
Regards
Most of the posts I have read so far was about them requesting "free development" for their "unplayable" game (I wouldn't know -- I don't play games). The Loki people may see this as a backfire for supporting the Linux/Open Source community. Although it isn't open source, as has been pointed out, they are going to let the chosen coders to actually get to look at the source and hack at it (for a current product). How many other commercial software/game companies have you seen do this?
At the end of the science, going for "future cultural 23"
They only go to 10. Sell you're libraries, universities, computer centers, etc. Tell your cities to max on gold of production.
Make a command like "at ease" or something to mean "chill until the next turn"
Try the space key.
If you take over an enemy's capital, you should gain all of his/her cities.
What a lousy idea. Besides, Loki can't do that. If you want that feature, talk to the ActiVision. Loki only ported the game, they didn't design it.
Whoever goes to Atlanta will have to deal with this also. They can only do so much to the game without making it different from the windows version.
My understanding is that Loki and ActiVision have agreed to produce the same game on different platforms. This is part of why Loki was stuck with the crappy tile implimentation ActiVision made which spends so much time redrawing the screen.
If you want to make useful suggestions, ask for speed improvements and UI features. For instance, I'd like to see a feature that freeciv added, which is the ability to sell all of a particular improvement, throughout your civilization. This would save a LOT of time and effort when you build the Emancipation Act and want to sell all your city walls, or oplution is just way out of hand and you want to sell off your oil refineries.
This sort of thing could be added. Major changes, like 'loose your capital, loose the game', just aren't going to happen.
Of course, now I'm moving to better languages (the dynamic ones)...
You seem to know your stuff. So what are the better languages? Because I don't want to waste my time with C++ if I don't have to.
ayottesoftware.com
The prize is hardly a T-shirt. It's a dual CPU system; sounds like it's worth about $2500.
You're not writing a game, composing music or doing the creative work. You're improving an already complete game, for fun, in you're spare time to win a prize.
Sounds like deal to me.
ayottesoftware.com
Great. Thank you for a complete answer. I'm also interested in a language that has GNOME or KDE bindings and I'm not sure if there are any for CL but I'm definately going to check it out.
...
It does look like there is activity on the Python and Dylan GTK wrappers. Python seems to be more popular but Dylan seems a like a better language overall.
Decisions, decisions
ayottesoftware.com
I mean, think about it: if some guy writes a really bad-ass hack for it, who do you think is going to be the next hire for Loki? I'd put down good money that they end up hiring at least 3-5 of the guys who show up for this. Consider it an extended tryout.
Besides- two expenses paid days in Atlanta ain't so bad, is it?
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
No, I have played the game quite a bit.
"future cultural 23" was a hyperbole. My point was that there should be something useful to do with science after the race runs out.
I missed the space-bar means chill. Nice feature, would have been nice to document it.
The contest announcement doesn't put any restrictions on what can be done. The contest is "a special contest in cooperation with Activision, Inc."... It certainly sounds as if they would allow my changes, and that the changes will be applied to both versions.
I'm interested to hear why you think it's a lousy idea.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
Railways move you fast, but you can still only bring 9 troops together. Troop carriers would allow you to ship larger numbers all at once, or make slow troops travel faster. And, of course, troop carriers would move faster on rails.
Clerics are units in Civ:CTP (perhaps also in test of time, but I've never played it). Clerics can convert a city, and can see other clerics and slavers.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
I'm not really a strong C++ coder, so I thought I'd throw out some ideas I'd like to see be put into the game.
If you take over an enemy's capital, you should gain all of his/her cities. But, the cities should have an enourmous happiness cost, spawning revolutions in many of them for an unprepared attacker. This also makes bloodlust games less tedious to win.
Perl/Python/Java/etc. scripting. I know this one is a big task for 48 hours, but it'd be nice. Maybe someone could mention it to someone when they're there. The current scripting language is lacking (particularly in documentation).
New units: Land-based troop carriers. This would make it easier to carry large amounts of troops. Differing levels, as well. Different movement, whether they can move over mountains, etc. Also, some could be invisible (like the spy and cleric), to hide the units within.
At the end of the science, going for "future cultural 23" is kinda boring and annoying that it comes up. Add a science that converts science into gold, like Capitalization turns production into gold.
Like "Fortify" and "Sleep", add a command to tellt he unit to wait out the turn. For instance, a settler wants to settle on a river. But, he only needs one move to gain the ground. The settler can't settle until the next move. "Sleep" will cause him to be forgotten the next turn. Make a command like "at ease" or something to mean "chill until the next turn".
I think that's all I can think of for now.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
I suppose that's why they take a subset of all entrants, and the 48 hours is in a secure setting. Bet they don't publish the changes! Still sounds like fun tho. I look forward to the results and hearing reports from the contestants.
--
Infuriate left and right
Umm... maybe this should have gone under the alpha
cluster story, and not the lokihack question...
Anyway, yes, I've used Myrinet before, and the reason you use Myrinet is because it's extremely low latency (and until gigabit ethernet much faster than ethernet)
I used it under NT, though and it sucked pretty hard.
-Erik
And the lack of fussy laws is also the reason for the ridiculous sprawl, the two-mile-an-hour gridlock commutes, the decision by several high-tech companies to not expand in Atlanta until it starts to control its development and stop sprawl, and the most rapidly deteriorating air quality in the US.
Seems Atlanta could use a few fussy laws.
Unless these participants have a particular bug in mind, is this really practical?
:-)
The source code must be very large, and I doubt even if you were able to stay awake the whole 48 hours that you'd really be able to contribute something really useful.
Might get lucky and spot a few nasty and obvious innefficiencies I suppose, but I don't really buy it.
On the other hand, you could come prepared with a bitmap for a new logo or something like that...
Another option, is maybe their developers aren't that good and need a lot of pointers?
"All the other kings said it was daft to build a castle in the swap, but I built it all the same. Just to show 'em." (Sorry, I had to)
This contest may seem bad at first, but how is it any different than working for a software company? They only pay you so much per year but stand to make a great deal of money off of the software they sell. I think this contest is a great idea on Loki's part.
And I imagine that most of the people who enter are going to do so, at least in part, to make the game better through their efforts.
This sig is false.
I agree with most of what you said. I have to say, though, that Effective C++ is a great book even for newbie C++ coders. It covers lots of basic C++ principles, on the order of "Use cout and cin instead of stdio," that IMHO every user of g++ should know.
--
--
#define private public
I think this is going to be failure. There is simply not enough time to get into the code this size and actually be able to understand (without any guidance) enough to be able to fix or even extend it. Not in 48 hours...
You won't see much comming out of this ...
No matter how good programmer you are , there is simply not enough time to understand the code and be able to contribute something meaningfull.
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
Celebrate the finer things in life
IANAL, but it seems to me...
:-)
That this is probably illegal as it amounts to hiring people to do work without paying them. It depends on the state they are in, etc. In California you'd never get away with this
If they don't actually pay at least minimum wage for the duration of the "contest", they probably can't claim ownership of what the contestants produce, especially if they plan to release them as part of a commercial product.
In many states it's hard to give up your rights to this kind of thing, so even if they have the "contestants" sign away their lives on some contract, there may be laws that override any such contract provisions, and provide fertile ground for any number of lawsuits.
G.
The Simple DirectMedia Layer is used for CivCTP, you can check out the source.
Too bad I'm more into Perl :)
Im suprised more comapnies aren't doing that. They really should hire the winners. It's a much better way of seeing someones abilities than looking at some worthless paper. Would you rather have someone that can code faster and better than anyone else on your staff or someone who should be able to code faster than anyone else on your staff?
I hope we see more of this in the future.
---------------------------
"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
---------------------------
This has been tried before-- and sometimes it works. Star Control II scoured the internet (such as it was in those days) for talented MOD programmers. As a result they had some of the most creative music of their time.
In more recent history, Total Annihilation recruited scores of people from the Internet to help design maps. Some of them are quite good.
It's not exactly Open Source, but it's still in the spirit of large-scale collaborative development-- and it often pays off.
I'm going to give up my privileges to moderate the comments for this article to say a public "Thank You" to Scott for taking the time to respond.
I think he presented the pertinent points quite well, so I won't go over them again. Suffice to say that I believe people are being way to critical of Loki on this issue.
Yes, the situation isn't a perfect mesh with the Open Source ideals. They aren't releasing the code to the world so that everyone can have a crack at improving the game or possibly learn from examples. This is far better than nothing. It looks like it would be a lot of fun too.
It's just a shame that I don't know C++ well enough to have a chance to be one of the thirty. Such is life.
... Back to my original point. Thanks again Scott. You've really improved the image of Loki in my mind.
I take your point, but I think they're going to release the Update to CTP for free. So, Loki arn't going to make money on this one, but People who have bought CTP will get more out of it.
The biggest problem with this is that it requires you to go to Atlanta. How many people with jobs that won't let them away for the better part of a week to fly across the country for the purpose of playing won't be able to participate?
*sigh*
Loki just wants to get a little free slave labor. They're a closed source company that sells their software for money. In exchange for your thousands of hours of work, they want to give you the chance to win a computer. You've gotta be kidding! If they want people to help them work on their software, then they have to make it and its source freely available to all!
-Laktar, a.k.a. Nick Rosen, laktar.dyndns.org
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord:
7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me,
will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot
him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."
-- Peter's Evil Overlord List, http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
CTP is a slow game...
...with serious bugs...
...that is barely playable on a Celeron 300 w/ 64 MB.
What do you mean, "slow". It's turn-based, so how fast could it be?
I only came across one bug (and I'm not sure it was: Wonders didn't play the movie from the CD. But they played fine right after the install, so I may have done something wrong. In any case, this wasn't a "serious" bug.
My 350 ran just fine--and I was running multiple Netscape windows, email, compilers, etc on other desktops.
All this for a 2D game that would have been revolutionary in the late 80's.
Why does a game need to be revolutionary to be worth buying and playing? In any case, I'm sick of 3D shoot-em-ups (speaking of revolutionary in the late 80's, look at the latest Wolfenstein clone: Quake II or III or whatever that drivel is up to).
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
"An armed society is a polite society" -- Robert Heinlein
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Make your contribution to Civilization! No, not all civilization, but rather you have the chance to take part in our Freeciv Hack 2000 contest to improve Freeciv. Recent improvements include more races and nations, city build lists, and the addition of more CivII rules (paratroopers, more terrain specials). Other improvements such as GUILE scripting, improved AI, hex maps, and stacked combat are being developed. (Read our mailing list archives for more info.)
What is Freeciv Hack 2000? It's a special contest in cooperation with an international term of developers, where you can show off your Linux (and BSD, commercial Unix, BeOS, Java, even Windows) hacking skills to everybody...and win prizes to boot! First prize is the ego gratification of getting your name in the PEOPLE file.
Here's how it works: download the source from ftp.freeciv.org and get to hacking. Everybody with a C compiler will be chosen. If you're chosen, you can show up to our hackfest, which will conveniently be held on your own computer!
Any and all changes and improvements worthy of improving Freeciv (and, by extension, civilization as a whole) will be included in the CVS snapshots and new public releases starting with 1.8.2. So what are you waiting on? Download the source and get hacking!
JMC
"Flame On!"
I can't believe people are complaining that Loki's prize
isn't big enough or doesn't cost enough to 'make it worth my time.'
Here's my advice: If the prize offered isn't big enough... DON'T ENTER!
But please, stop the complaining.
"Flame Off!"
Thanks to Johny Storm and the Fantastic 4.
Jaban, is that you?
Yeah, I hate it when sites get slashdotted. Perhaps there should be a mirror for all relevant stories. Transfer the site entirely (wouldn't be hard), and then post the mirror alongside the original story link.
I'd be willing to host just about anything that got slashdotted. I'm sure my server could handle the horde.
-Chris
a better sig would normally be here. -blah-
CTP is a slow game with serious bugs that is barely playable on a Celeron 300 w/ 64 MB.
:) Keep up the good work Loki, and keep those patches coming!
I agree, I was a bit disappointed when I tried to load it onto my K6-166 with 32MB. HOWEVER, when I added 64MB (for a total of 96), I could not believe the performance I was getting! There is almost no lag, and after installing the movies on the hard drive, the entire playing experience is very enjoyable.
As to the bugs, there are some significant problems. I have had frequent crashes (thank God for the save feature) At this time, and this may not solve anything, but I am reformatting my hd, and switching from RedHat to Debian in the hopes of creating a more stable environment.
All in all, I say it's worth the $40 bucks, not to mention supporting a Linux developer leaves me with a nice, warm feeling.
Im not sure why or if it's just slow.....anyway...here's the text on the page if thats all you want (and the server keeps crawling).
Loki Hack 1999
Make your contribution to Civilization! No, not all civilization, but rather you have the chance to take part in our Loki Hack 1999 contest to improve our Linux port of Civilization: Call to Power. (Then again, by making Civilization better, you can make civilization better, too. You get the idea.)
What is Loki Hack 1999? It's a special contest in cooperation with Activision, Inc., the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts, and the Atlanta Linux Showcase, where you can show off your Linux hacking skills to everybody...and win prizes to boot! First prize is a dual-processor screamer of a machine, running Linux, of course.
Here's how it works: apply to enter below and tell us about yourself. Thirty participants will be selected based on experience and involvement in Linux development--strong C++ skills are a must--and chosen participants will be notified via e-mail. Then, if you're chosen, you can show up to our invitation-only hackfest, which will run for 48 hours in a secure setting, on October 11-13, 1999 at the Atlanta Linux Showcase at the Cobb Galleria Centre.
Any and all changes and improvements worthy of improving Civilization: Call to Power (and, by extension, civilization as a whole) will be included in an upcoming special-edition update for the game. The best of the best will receive that beast of a computer. So what are you waiting on? Fill out the form below and get hacking!
there are only like 7 comments up yet they've already been slashdotted
char *stupidsig = "this is my dumb sig";
For an abit BP6 motherboard + 2 celeron processors youre looking at :
mobo = $130
celeron (2 @ 450Mhz) = $ 90 x 2
Add a box ($50) and a few RAM chips, hard drive etc, should not go beyond $600-700.
A new developer or beta tester on the other hand..
CTP, at least from what I played, isn't a good game at all, regardless of it's speed or bugs. How about if instead we petition Loki to petition Firaxis to get them to release Alpha Centauri's code, and bring a REAL Sid Meyer game to Linux.
Why you should participate
i don\'t own the game. i barely know c++. you really shouldn\'t pick me!
Yup, yup!
--
I seem to have been a little hasty with my last post. I meant to say:
I can't believe it! I think Loki just found the most cost effective mode of software development
imaginable! They get hundreds of improvements on their port for the cost of a (nice) computer! Why
didn't anyone think of this before!? What a way to harness a bunch of huge egos into doing their bidding...
But anyways, I still think it's a heck of a way to get your software fixed. Has anyone heard of this sort of thing happening before?
I'm a gnu world man.
I can't believe it. I think Loki just found the most cost effective mode of software development imaginable! They get hundreds of improvements on their port for the cost of a (nice) computer! Why didn't anyone think of this before. What a way to harness a bunch of good egos into doing their bidding...
I'm a gnu world man.
This isn't flame bait. This is this guy's opinion. It does seem like a way to take advantage of programmers and get some free marketing attention for loki.
Visit the Perl Search Engine at www.linuxextreme.com
But doesn't it seem as if Loki will be getting a lot more out of this than the cost of a "dual processor Linux box"?
I have a contest idea! If you are an 31337 h4x0r, I will allow you to write key modules of my software for me, which I will then sell at enormous profit to me! The winner will receive this attractive T-shirt!
I also have some fine swampland real estate to discuss with you...
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
A few days to learn another one ? Maybe if we're talking about pascal-c-fortran and related languages, where the differences are mostly syntactical. C++ is a complex multiparadigm language. Yes, you may learn the syntax and continue your present practices in the language, but have you learnt the spirit of the language ? I would say that you have not.
Here's a challege: Learn to write good Common Lisp or Prolog in a few days.
Well, with C++ you're not wasting your time. Many companies want employees that know C++ and C++ is not going away any time soon, so it would be irresponsible for me to say that don't learn C++. C++ is probably one of the most used languages today, the other two are Java and VB. Perl is also widely used.
My definition of "better" is subjective; for some tasks C++ is very good, and for some tasks it sucks. If you need the maximum efficiency combined with portability (e.g. games) then C++ is hard to beat. If you want to write programs that are easily extended (i.e. have plugins or some other way to add functionality, e.g. emacs) then C++ isn't that good, there's a lot of red tape involved. Also writing safe code in C++ is harder than in many languages, which is the main reason to use other languages. Starting C++ you will have to spend a significant amount of time debugging, since C++ doesn't check for array bounds, memory leaks, invalid pointers etc. and it's very easy to miss an error when debugging. However, there is software that can help you debug.
There's an existing efficiency fetish that efficiency makes up for everything else. When someone says that language Y is safer, has GC, etc. then the language X zealot dismisses all this with: "but X is more efficient", even if the difference isn't noticeable. I personally disagree with this view. In many cases producing reliable functional software quickly is more important than attaining maximum efficiency.
For the better languages: Smalltalk, Dylan and Common Lisp for instance (at least Dylan and CL have free compilers for Linux). All of them can be compiled to native code and are quite efficient when the programmer knows what he is doing. Dylan has a more conventional syntax than the two others. I've also heard good things about python. I guess this depends on the application area you're interested in... I personally like Common Lisp; it seems to be a mature well thought out language, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea. Like I said it depends on the application area, you can always find an area where these don't work as well as some other language, but there's no such thing as a perfect language (CL comes close though ;)).
You don't develop those in a hurry. It took me a few years, but now I know the language inside and out and don't need the reference-books. Of course, now I'm moving to better languages (the dynamic ones)... I wish I had moved to them earlier, since C++ has a lot of problems in dynamic applications. I still have to use C++ for work though.
Strong C++ skills also include strong programming skills and those take a few years as well. The only thing that can make a good programmer is _experience_. Now looking back a few years, when I thought that I was a good programmer, the code looks like crap, a few years from now the code I write now will look like crap. There's always room for improvement.
I think the point where you really are good with language is when you've written something bigger with it (including design, my bigger project was around 20 KLOC). When the total lines of code you've written in that language is around 100000 then you should pretty much know it. I've written way more than that in C++. My point is that you can't become a good C++ programmer in 21 days, or even 21 weeks. Maybe you learn enough to work for a company in desperate need for new programmers, but not well enough to write well-designed C++.
It's not a bad start, but don't expect to get good without a lot of practice. If you already know how to program, then you may learn C++ a lot faster. I made the mistake of learning C++ as the first serious language and it probably slowed my learning down a lot. Had I learned a simpler language well-enough first, I would probably have learned C++ faster. The size of the language and the amount of idioms (small coding tricks, the C++ way of doing things) in C++ is overwhelming.
To seriously learn C++ I suggest that you learn OOA/D (good code requires good analysis of the problem and good design !) from, for instance, Rumbaugh's or Jakobson's books (I don't like Booch). For the small C++ tricks there's Coplien's book on C++ idioms (can't remember the exact name). The book "Design Patterns: Elements of reusable object-oriented software" is one of the classics of OOP. Scott Myers' "Effectice C++" and "More Effective C++" may be of some use to more advanced C++ programmers. You learn most of these things with enough practice, but why learn through trial-and-error (like I did), when the books can give you a head start and spare you of the worst.
How many lines of code does CTP have? I really don't know, but this is a significant piece of work here. The contestants will have 48 hours to compete in this thing.
My point being, it's going to take them most of the time just to read through the code to get a good grasp of how the system works. It will be the first time they see the header files, etc so they'll have to figure out what functions and classes do what and what they need to be passed, etc.
For this to be impressive, they would have to get the code and then have at least a week . . . then we would have some real bug fixes and imporvements. As is, this is just a publicity stunt.
i like the idea of sponsoring a hack contest for civilization. this is a very cool idea that will no doubt get some very, very cool improvments to the game. the only thing that disappoints me is that the contest is only open to thirty participants. but, then again, you have to put them somewhere and i guess that the atlanta linux expo is as good a place as any. i particularly like the idea of locking the participants away for a 48hour hacking run. will jolt be supplied?
Damn,
Can i get in on this one?
Also we will be giving away.
1 2X CD-Rom
1 dx266 w/board 8 megs, local vesa bus
14 inch goldstar DIGITAL monitor
and a plethora of Encyclopedia Win CD's
I'm really happy a closed source company like them would at least expose a part of their source to the "greater unwashed" in the hopes of getting some good programming ideas. I'm glad OpenSource is starting to sink in to the commercial sector, it validates some key points :-)
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
But that was a few mins ago, ages in Internet time ;-)
:-/
Anyways, it's just an entry form. They randomly select people who have entered to be allowed to participate in the whole "hack" contest. Winner gets SMP (^2) Linux machine (Leeenoooks, not Lynucks). Graphics heavy content on the page, and it renders improperly in Opera
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
It's free, it's open, it has a robust client-server architecture and a good AI engine.
Furthermore, there are ports for OS/2, *BSD, BeOS, Amiga, etc.
And I don't miss any features that CivCTP has. If you say isometric presentation, I have to say that the isometric presentation is very bad for my eyes (I have a rare eye-disease), so I prefere the plain 2D. I am afraid one day freeciv might go isometric, which will make it unusable for suckers with my same illness. But the good point about open source is that I have a chance to at least try to change it to my willing.
Sigged!
"...this is your unique opportunity to glance at the marvels of our Windows 2000 sources! Imagine, you will have the chance to join the developers of the greatest software company in the world and add your improvements to the greatest OS in the world. For 2 hours it's yours! And you could win a copy of Windows 2000, Office 2000 and Visual J++2000!
Where else would you want to go today?"
Sigged!
WOW!
... -2 karma....
Almost $ 40.00 Value! I might even throw in a copy of KKND that is buggy with my (new) card....
Lucky you didn't think of it 1st though
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
more likely than not, the 'winner' will have a damn good 'job'
If they owned the source, they would give it away. They and activision are on the line by doing this. Give them credit.
:|
Everyone here attacks for the sake of attacking (including myself)...but there should be limits
2. by the time you've understood a piece of source code, you've got to find the bugs, and fix them.
3. after 1 and 2 are done, there isn't go to be a lot of time for many bug fixes, and other non bug fix improvements to the game.
48 hours is way too short.. even for a seasoned C hacker...