I've been to DC 20 or so times, mostly on business zipping in for a meeting and heading out but have done a decent amount of site seeing in DC as well. It's a great place for anyone to visit because there is so much to see and so many free world class museums. My wife had a conference outside of DC this summer and I took my 2 boys who are 10 and 7 into the city for day trips, armed with my GPS for the car, Google Maps on my BlackBerry Storm 2, a paper map, and a guide book. I found that beyond finding restaurants I didn’t need much of that at all because the memories from Fallout 3.
Right after the trip I had to jump back in and play some more, the scale was off in the game, DC is much bigger but from a game design perspective it’s big enough to be impressed without the drudgery of spending 30 minutes to get from place to place. But the DC in Fallout 3 is amazingly accurate, anyone with lots hours in Fallout 3 will know the basics of how to get around DC – including where the Lincoln Memorial is.
Although with all the road work around the Lincoln Memorial as of mid July good luck navigating there by anything but foot or bus, car routes were all messed in the area. It took me 5 approaches in the car to get to the parking area, if you miss you are immediately routed out of the area.
BTW just hit the Lincoln Memorial in Google Maps and it was accurate.
I downloaded Vanguard when it was released and to me it's a very well done MMORPG. I haven't experenced issues with the playability of the game and the graphics are better than any other RPG that I've played (mainly EQ2, NWN 1&2, with some WoW). The addition of Diplomacy has been a fun angle to the RPG side of the game that allows folks who want to have a sideline other than adventuring do something other than crafting. I'm playing it on a high end machine that I built up this summer for playing games (AMD 64x2, SLI 7900's, 2 GB RAM, etc.) and I realize that this may mask many of the issues that folk are having but I have little to no complaints about it and think the game it's release state was very playable and very fun. I'm eager to find out what the rest of the gaming world of Vanguard has to offer.
Also I strongly agree, this is not a new situation. I think the good thing about PC games is that they can be fixed/ehnanced/modified over time to give more value than the typical console approach. When I think about one of my favorite PC games to come out in the last few years Half-Life 2, folks complained at the lack of Half-Life style multiplayer vs. Counter Strike Source. It was added shortly after release and folks stopped complaining. Folks complained about the number of maps for CS, more came later. Valve continued to add to the core HL2 platform with technologies highlighted by the Lost Coast demo. The good PC game companies continue to fix and enhance their products over time and I think Sigil has already demonstrated that they are on the same path that others have followed.
I actually live in Sarasota, FL and like many others voted in the election that is in question. Although the was some negative campaigning by both canidates all of the pre-poll surveys came out in favor of the democratic canidate. The republican canidate spent over 4 million of his personal money on the election and has been investigated for shady business dealings in the past. Not to say that you can put 2 and 2 together and come up with something but it still feals fishy to me and I won't be shocked if something really bad comes out of this.
Now for the irony, also on the ballot for Sarasota County was a mandate for voting machines with a paper based audit trail. That passed and will mandate an overhaul of the machines used in Sarasota that may prevent the issues that are currently being investigated.
I have been thinking about that for a few weeks now in the flurry of all this SL activity. The few things that will make the SL even closer will be when you can go to a store and buy real world items and when game companies like Blizzard, Sony, Valve, Id, etc. will have a presence and allow you to enter their games from SL.
Personally I thought Intel's recent SL event was fairly cool. Someone in NYC building a NYC block having folks in NY and SL watching the progress. Cool in concept but most everyone in NYC didn't notice, I'm sure it got more attention in SL.
BTW I loved Snow Crash when I read it years back, great book and I agree this is the closest thing like it in concept if not implementation.
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I've been to DC 20 or so times, mostly on business zipping in for a meeting and heading out but have done a decent amount of site seeing in DC as well. It's a great place for anyone to visit because there is so much to see and so many free world class museums. My wife had a conference outside of DC this summer and I took my 2 boys who are 10 and 7 into the city for day trips, armed with my GPS for the car, Google Maps on my BlackBerry Storm 2, a paper map, and a guide book. I found that beyond finding restaurants I didn’t need much of that at all because the memories from Fallout 3. Right after the trip I had to jump back in and play some more, the scale was off in the game, DC is much bigger but from a game design perspective it’s big enough to be impressed without the drudgery of spending 30 minutes to get from place to place. But the DC in Fallout 3 is amazingly accurate, anyone with lots hours in Fallout 3 will know the basics of how to get around DC – including where the Lincoln Memorial is. Although with all the road work around the Lincoln Memorial as of mid July good luck navigating there by anything but foot or bus, car routes were all messed in the area. It took me 5 approaches in the car to get to the parking area, if you miss you are immediately routed out of the area. BTW just hit the Lincoln Memorial in Google Maps and it was accurate.
I downloaded Vanguard when it was released and to me it's a very well done MMORPG. I haven't experenced issues with the playability of the game and the graphics are better than any other RPG that I've played (mainly EQ2, NWN 1&2, with some WoW). The addition of Diplomacy has been a fun angle to the RPG side of the game that allows folks who want to have a sideline other than adventuring do something other than crafting. I'm playing it on a high end machine that I built up this summer for playing games (AMD 64x2, SLI 7900's, 2 GB RAM, etc.) and I realize that this may mask many of the issues that folk are having but I have little to no complaints about it and think the game it's release state was very playable and very fun. I'm eager to find out what the rest of the gaming world of Vanguard has to offer. Also I strongly agree, this is not a new situation. I think the good thing about PC games is that they can be fixed/ehnanced/modified over time to give more value than the typical console approach. When I think about one of my favorite PC games to come out in the last few years Half-Life 2, folks complained at the lack of Half-Life style multiplayer vs. Counter Strike Source. It was added shortly after release and folks stopped complaining. Folks complained about the number of maps for CS, more came later. Valve continued to add to the core HL2 platform with technologies highlighted by the Lost Coast demo. The good PC game companies continue to fix and enhance their products over time and I think Sigil has already demonstrated that they are on the same path that others have followed.
I actually live in Sarasota, FL and like many others voted in the election that is in question. Although the was some negative campaigning by both canidates all of the pre-poll surveys came out in favor of the democratic canidate. The republican canidate spent over 4 million of his personal money on the election and has been investigated for shady business dealings in the past. Not to say that you can put 2 and 2 together and come up with something but it still feals fishy to me and I won't be shocked if something really bad comes out of this. Now for the irony, also on the ballot for Sarasota County was a mandate for voting machines with a paper based audit trail. That passed and will mandate an overhaul of the machines used in Sarasota that may prevent the issues that are currently being investigated.
I have been thinking about that for a few weeks now in the flurry of all this SL activity. The few things that will make the SL even closer will be when you can go to a store and buy real world items and when game companies like Blizzard, Sony, Valve, Id, etc. will have a presence and allow you to enter their games from SL. Personally I thought Intel's recent SL event was fairly cool. Someone in NYC building a NYC block having folks in NY and SL watching the progress. Cool in concept but most everyone in NYC didn't notice, I'm sure it got more attention in SL. BTW I loved Snow Crash when I read it years back, great book and I agree this is the closest thing like it in concept if not implementation.