Other gaming companies are embracing the idea of open source and digital distribution, for example: Catalyst Game Labs. More importantly, their open source release of Eclipse Phase, and perhaps even unofficial support for the fan-made MegaMek/MekWars for their Battletech line.
Meanwhile companies like WizKids and Games Workshop continue to showtheir complete disdain for their customers and the fans of their products as well as their utter inability to properly market their games. Which is especially evidenced by the utter failure of WizKids' "Mech Clix" line for Battletech, and arguably evidenced by Games Workshops' constant price increases for Warhammer 40k; Catalyst seems to be going in completely the opposite direction - embracing digital distribution and open source in ways essentially unheard of in this day and age.
Re:Some would call X3 the successor...
on
Elite Turns 25
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· Score: 1
This is why the "realistic" space sim zealots will never be happy. If a company ever actually gave them the game they wanted, one that was truly realistic as per our current understanding of physics and such, it'd be way too boring to actually play.
As one of those "Space Realism Zealots" I can tell you flat out that you're wrong. Realism doesn't make the game boring, it makes the game different, and what I'm seeing you do, is equating different with bad.
A good example of how you can make realistic space combat fun would be the tabletop wargame Attack Vector: Tactical. Herearesome battle reports to give an idea what it plays like.
Heck, the biggest complaint against AV:T has more to do with the rules being fairly complex than anything about the actual gameplay. Those same complex rules are easily dealt with when applied to a computer game. A computer can perform a range-angle lookup instantly and far more exactly than someone using a ruler and the supplied play aid for AV:T can.
As you can clearly see in the above links, there is nothing about realism that prevents you from maneuvering around and using tactics in space. You just didn't know it could be like that, and assumed all realistic space combat was boring. Space isn't like flight, and it isn't like sailing in the ocean or under the sea, or fighting on land, it's a completely different medium that has its own unique effects on the way combat would work. Just because it doesn't copy WWII naval battles doesn't mean it sucks.
The aliens did not stage a revolt using their superior technology because they were stupid drones who lacked initiative. This was all explicitly stated near the beginning of the movie, and repeatedly demonstrated throughout it (e.g. trading the mech-suit for a hundred cans of cat food).
Who's the more stupid? The Prawns who essentially gave away a combat suit for 100 cans of cat food, or the Nigerians who gave away 100 cans of cat food for a combat suit they can't even use?
He's actually talking about a 4chan meme, I guess you could call it something like "Rules of the Internet". Rule #1 is never talk about 4chan. Or alternatively replace 4chan with/b/ or fight club.
Rule 34 is "There is porn of it. No exceptions." or some other wording to the same effect. I can attest to having seen a can of mountain dew with a penis ejaculating onto a sandwich, so if there's anything that's actually accurate, it's rule 34.
I've always wanted a law that billed people who cause accidents on major freeways (or their estates, as the case may be) the average hourly wage for that state multiplied by the number of total hours lost due to their actions. For example, if some asshole gets into a fender bender on 95 because he was fucking with his goddammed cell phone and 10,000 people are delayed for an hour and the average wage in Maryland is $17/hour then he (or his estate) owes $170,000 which can then be used to fund hypertension treatment facilities and meditation centers in the state.
Yeah, and a deer runs out onto the road, you hit it, lose control. Hey you won't mind that $170,000 on top of the cost of replacing your car, will you?
So, since this light is directly related to biological processes, that means in theory it should be tied to mood.
I'm not really following your logic on that. You may as well have said "in theory it should be tied to how often they brush their teeth." Your connection between the two seems to be the unstated assumption that 'happy people glow', and following that, since happy people glow, and this study shows that people emit light in various amounts, then the brighter ones are happy.
Here's my own theory: More light being emitted would probably be a result of more energy in the system, so an individual with more than the average number of ongoing chemical reactions would be giving off more light than other people. Variations in light intensity could be explained by something as simple as whether or not the person's digestive system is currently breaking down food.
The "Mad Cat" is the inner sphere designation for the clan Timber Wolf. It was named such because it looks like a cross between a Marauder and a Catapult.
Further, the Timber Wolf is an Omni-mech, it was specifically designed for alternative weapon loadouts. Which is to say, it doesn't have any problems with ammo or missiles going in specific locations, because the whole thing is modular. A Timber Wolf Prime carries the iconic LRM 20's, while the Timber Wolf A only carries a single SSRM 6 in the right torso.
So essentially your statement that
the MadCat designers (in canon) would not find the need to place ammo feeds into the arms (where the PPCs were located) or high-power conduits to the missile pods.
Is entirely wrong. In fact, the clans liked the ability to change and customize loadouts so much that they've relegated all non-omni mechs to second-line status.
Gray says the public doesn't need to worry about invasion of privacy because getting information from an ISP is only one small step in an investigation. She also says it's not like police knock down doors as soon as they have a name connected to an Internet address.
What??? That is EXACTLY what happens when the police don't need warrants.
This bill makes it possible for it to happen, with no safeguards whatsoever. A well intentioned, but poorly thought-out piece of legislation that gives the police far too much power.
This is probably one of the few threads where this meme is on topic. To put this in perspective we are probably the native american indians greeting the european explorers. And we know how well that turned out for them.
That's assuming they're more advanced than us. But if they're more advanced then us, than in all likelyhood it wouldn't be like indians meeting europeans at all! If we're exceptionally lucky it'd be like our present day society meeting the cro-magnum.
Sir Arthur C. Clarke made a famous observation about space explorers discovering aliens. If one considers the millions of years of pre-history, and the rapid technological advancement occurring now, if you apply that to a hypothetical alien race, one can figure the probabilities of how advanced the explorers will find them. The conclusion is "we will find apes or angels, but not men."
Why? Consider the history of Planet Earth. Let the height of the Empire State building represent the 5 billion year life of Terra. The height of a one-foot ruler perched on top would represent the million years of Man's existence. The thickness of a dime will represent the ten thousand years of Man's civilization. And the thickness of a postage stamp will represent the 300 years of Man's technological civilization. An unknown portion above represents "pre-Singularity Man", the period up to the point where mankind hits the Singularity/evolves into a higher form/turns into angels. Say another dime. Above that would be another Empire State building, representing the latter 5 billion years of Terra's lifespan.
If you picked a millimeter of this tower at random, what would you most likely hit? One of the Empire State buildings, of course.
Freeze and play dead? Someone really should have thought of that _before_ we started broadcasting radio and TV and a planet-wide basis. Those waves really don't stop when they hit the outer atmosphere you know... By now we should be fairly well-known in our galactic neighbourhood.
Only if you consider our galactic neighbourhood to be what's within a thousand light years. The problem with aliens detecting us based on our transmissions is that the transmissions we broadcast to the universe aren't infinitely powerful nor perfectly collimated with no divergence. In addition, as the signal gets weaker, it becomes harder and harder to understand or even detect it.
In all likelyhood, an alien civilization as advanced as us wouldn't be able to detect us from beyond 20 lightyears or so. With 1,000 lightyears being about the theoretical maximum. [For those civilizations which are extremely advanced.]
You know, a lot of people out there keep smashing Crysis as being a tech demo. I thought the same thing until I actually PLAYED it.
The game is fun. Honestly, one of the better PC shooters I've played in a long while, and it has a pretty nice looking mod [Mechwarrior Living Legends] in development for it.
Crysis only falls flat on its face when it comes to:
- The AI [The biggest issue is their lack of taking cover and inability to find you when you stealth.]
- The aliens [Boring to fight compared to the north koreans]
- Wide expansive levels that you really can't go anywhere on.
At everything else, all I can do is shake my head and wonder just what the hell people are expecting a shooter to be doing.
1b. There is no orbit halfway between the earth and the moon. Even if you considered one of the five "stable" Lagrange points, they are not all that stable in the long run, not for unattended, unfueled vehicles anyway;
This is incorrect. There are only TWO stable Lagrange points [L4 and L5], and they ARE stable in the long run. Jupiter has Trojan asteroids in its L4 and L5 points that have been there for millions of years. Earth probably has Trojans in its own L4 and L5 as well. These two points however, are not halfway to the Moon - Only the L1 could really be considered for that, and in that case you would need a steady supply of fuel for station-keeping.
I sure don't have high hopes for this one. At least the tv-series has a small chance of getting the characters and drama right. [Assuming the networks don't decide to remove the incest and childkilling, and so on.] But I highly doubt videogame developers are going to focus on anything but violence, violence, violence with this. Doing anything else is going to require some thought, effort, and risk-taking as the primary draw of ASOIAF has much more to do with character interactions and political intrigue than straight up and up killing things.
It'll probably end up similar to the three hack n' slash Lord of the Rings games on the Xbox - Gameplay might be fun, but you could remove the setting entirely and not make a difference. Personally, I think the best style for this game would be something more akin to King of Dragon Pass.
Many more people die from heart attacks and car accidents each year. Why the big fuss over the right to own a gun?
It's pretty simple: People have an Agenda. Terrorism's the bogeyman that keeps us clinging to the government for help and protection, like a child; and part of that entails removing us of our responsibility to defend ourselves. Coincidentally, it also means we can't do anything when the Government gets abusive.
As someone who's played it... No. No, it is not worth the $20 they charge for the game.
Look, it's common courtesy to say such and such is great or fantastic so you don't hurt feelings, but I'm being honest here. This is a glorified flash game with all of about 15 minutes of actual gameplay that is simply repeated over and over.
It's alright, it's what you might expect from a flash game on Newgrounds or wherever. But it most certainly is not worth $20. Just want to put that out there so people don't buy this expecting something different. [I'd recommend playing the demo first, so you know what you're getting into.]
Yeah, as we all know. Halo sucks. Never did anything decent. Didn't accomplish anything innovative in any way, etc. etc.
I'm honestly wondering if/when people are going to stop going on about this. It's this extremely common assumption that nothing Halo did was special in any way, and its huge success is simply some kind of anomaly in the game market. [I mean, how could a game that SUCKS so MUCH get so many sales???] yada yada, it's tiring to hear this so constantly.
Halo brought a level of finesse and polish to FPS games that at the time hadn't been seen... ever. A good story was combined with good gameplay combined with massive outdoor levels combined with great AI combined with vehicles combined with awesome graphics, etc. etc. Halo accomplished a great deal more than people want to give it credit for. None of these things seem like such a big deal in retrospect, because we're all used to them now. That wasn't the case when Halo first launched. Very few games had the same combination of features Halo did, and none of them put it all together in the same kind of winning package Halo did.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought this was thoroughly debunked already.
Other gaming companies are embracing the idea of open source and digital distribution, for example: Catalyst Game Labs. More importantly, their open source release of Eclipse Phase, and perhaps even unofficial support for the fan-made MegaMek/MekWars for their Battletech line.
Meanwhile companies like WizKids and Games Workshop continue to show their complete disdain for their customers and the fans of their products as well as their utter inability to properly market their games. Which is especially evidenced by the utter failure of WizKids' "Mech Clix" line for Battletech, and arguably evidenced by Games Workshops' constant price increases for Warhammer 40k; Catalyst seems to be going in completely the opposite direction - embracing digital distribution and open source in ways essentially unheard of in this day and age.
Business as usual for corporations. The only thing out of the ordinary here is that they got caught.
Beetles today, people tomorrow.
This is why the "realistic" space sim zealots will never be happy. If a company ever actually gave them the game they wanted, one that was truly realistic as per our current understanding of physics and such, it'd be way too boring to actually play.
As one of those "Space Realism Zealots" I can tell you flat out that you're wrong. Realism doesn't make the game boring, it makes the game different, and what I'm seeing you do, is equating different with bad.
A good example of how you can make realistic space combat fun would be the tabletop wargame Attack Vector: Tactical. Here are some battle reports to give an idea what it plays like.
Heck, the biggest complaint against AV:T has more to do with the rules being fairly complex than anything about the actual gameplay. Those same complex rules are easily dealt with when applied to a computer game. A computer can perform a range-angle lookup instantly and far more exactly than someone using a ruler and the supplied play aid for AV:T can.
As you can clearly see in the above links, there is nothing about realism that prevents you from maneuvering around and using tactics in space. You just didn't know it could be like that, and assumed all realistic space combat was boring. Space isn't like flight, and it isn't like sailing in the ocean or under the sea, or fighting on land, it's a completely different medium that has its own unique effects on the way combat would work. Just because it doesn't copy WWII naval battles doesn't mean it sucks.
It's based off the NTW-20, a South-African anti-material rifle. It comes chambered in 14.5mm or 20mm. Here's the promotional video for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXLRYf9EV2Y
And now that rail has been taken-over by government, it's constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. Ditto the government-run post office.
The USPS have been posting significant profits for years now.
The aliens did not stage a revolt using their superior technology because they were stupid drones who lacked initiative. This was all explicitly stated near the beginning of the movie, and repeatedly demonstrated throughout it (e.g. trading the mech-suit for a hundred cans of cat food).
Who's the more stupid? The Prawns who essentially gave away a combat suit for 100 cans of cat food, or the Nigerians who gave away 100 cans of cat food for a combat suit they can't even use?
He's actually talking about a 4chan meme, I guess you could call it something like "Rules of the Internet". Rule #1 is never talk about 4chan. Or alternatively replace 4chan with /b/ or fight club.
Rule 34 is "There is porn of it. No exceptions." or some other wording to the same effect. I can attest to having seen a can of mountain dew with a penis ejaculating onto a sandwich, so if there's anything that's actually accurate, it's rule 34.
I've always wanted a law that billed people who cause accidents on major freeways (or their estates, as the case may be) the average hourly wage for that state multiplied by the number of total hours lost due to their actions. For example, if some asshole gets into a fender bender on 95 because he was fucking with his goddammed cell phone and 10,000 people are delayed for an hour and the average wage in Maryland is $17/hour then he (or his estate) owes $170,000 which can then be used to fund hypertension treatment facilities and meditation centers in the state.
Yeah, and a deer runs out onto the road, you hit it, lose control. Hey you won't mind that $170,000 on top of the cost of replacing your car, will you?
Quite frankly I find your idea stupid.
So, since this light is directly related to biological processes, that means in theory it should be tied to mood.
I'm not really following your logic on that. You may as well have said "in theory it should be tied to how often they brush their teeth." Your connection between the two seems to be the unstated assumption that 'happy people glow', and following that, since happy people glow, and this study shows that people emit light in various amounts, then the brighter ones are happy.
Here's my own theory: More light being emitted would probably be a result of more energy in the system, so an individual with more than the average number of ongoing chemical reactions would be giving off more light than other people. Variations in light intensity could be explained by something as simple as whether or not the person's digestive system is currently breaking down food.
The "Mad Cat" is the inner sphere designation for the clan Timber Wolf. It was named such because it looks like a cross between a Marauder and a Catapult.
Further, the Timber Wolf is an Omni-mech, it was specifically designed for alternative weapon loadouts. Which is to say, it doesn't have any problems with ammo or missiles going in specific locations, because the whole thing is modular. A Timber Wolf Prime carries the iconic LRM 20's, while the Timber Wolf A only carries a single SSRM 6 in the right torso.
So essentially your statement that
the MadCat designers (in canon) would not find the need to place ammo feeds into the arms (where the PPCs were located) or high-power conduits to the missile pods.
Is entirely wrong. In fact, the clans liked the ability to change and customize loadouts so much that they've relegated all non-omni mechs to second-line status.
Gray says the public doesn't need to worry about invasion of privacy because getting information from an ISP is only one small step in an investigation. She also says it's not like police knock down doors as soon as they have a name connected to an Internet address.
What??? That is EXACTLY what happens when the police don't need warrants.
This bill makes it possible for it to happen, with no safeguards whatsoever. A well intentioned, but poorly thought-out piece of legislation that gives the police far too much power.
This is probably one of the few threads where this meme is on topic. To put this in perspective we are probably the native american indians greeting the european explorers. And we know how well that turned out for them.
That's assuming they're more advanced than us. But if they're more advanced then us, than in all likelyhood it wouldn't be like indians meeting europeans at all! If we're exceptionally lucky it'd be like our present day society meeting the cro-magnum.
Sir Arthur C. Clarke made a famous observation about space explorers discovering aliens. If one considers the millions of years of pre-history, and the rapid technological advancement occurring now, if you apply that to a hypothetical alien race, one can figure the probabilities of how advanced the explorers will find them. The conclusion is "we will find apes or angels, but not men."
Why? Consider the history of Planet Earth. Let the height of the Empire State building represent the 5 billion year life of Terra. The height of a one-foot ruler perched on top would represent the million years of Man's existence. The thickness of a dime will represent the ten thousand years of Man's civilization. And the thickness of a postage stamp will represent the 300 years of Man's technological civilization. An unknown portion above represents "pre-Singularity Man", the period up to the point where mankind hits the Singularity/evolves into a higher form/turns into angels. Say another dime. Above that would be another Empire State building, representing the latter 5 billion years of Terra's lifespan.
If you picked a millimeter of this tower at random, what would you most likely hit? One of the Empire State buildings, of course.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html#apesorangels
Freeze and play dead? Someone really should have thought of that _before_ we started broadcasting radio and TV and a planet-wide basis. Those waves really don't stop when they hit the outer atmosphere you know... By now we should be fairly well-known in our galactic neighbourhood.
Only if you consider our galactic neighbourhood to be what's within a thousand light years. The problem with aliens detecting us based on our transmissions is that the transmissions we broadcast to the universe aren't infinitely powerful nor perfectly collimated with no divergence. In addition, as the signal gets weaker, it becomes harder and harder to understand or even detect it.
In all likelyhood, an alien civilization as advanced as us wouldn't be able to detect us from beyond 20 lightyears or so. With 1,000 lightyears being about the theoretical maximum. [For those civilizations which are extremely advanced.]
You know, a lot of people out there keep smashing Crysis as being a tech demo. I thought the same thing until I actually PLAYED it.
The game is fun. Honestly, one of the better PC shooters I've played in a long while, and it has a pretty nice looking mod [Mechwarrior Living Legends] in development for it.
Crysis only falls flat on its face when it comes to:
- The AI [The biggest issue is their lack of taking cover and inability to find you when you stealth.]
- The aliens [Boring to fight compared to the north koreans]
- Wide expansive levels that you really can't go anywhere on.
At everything else, all I can do is shake my head and wonder just what the hell people are expecting a shooter to be doing.
1b. There is no orbit halfway between the earth and the moon. Even if you considered one of the five "stable" Lagrange points, they are not all that stable in the long run, not for unattended, unfueled vehicles anyway;
This is incorrect. There are only TWO stable Lagrange points [L4 and L5], and they ARE stable in the long run. Jupiter has Trojan asteroids in its L4 and L5 points that have been there for millions of years. Earth probably has Trojans in its own L4 and L5 as well. These two points however, are not halfway to the Moon - Only the L1 could really be considered for that, and in that case you would need a steady supply of fuel for station-keeping.
I sure don't have high hopes for this one. At least the tv-series has a small chance of getting the characters and drama right. [Assuming the networks don't decide to remove the incest and childkilling, and so on.] But I highly doubt videogame developers are going to focus on anything but violence, violence, violence with this. Doing anything else is going to require some thought, effort, and risk-taking as the primary draw of ASOIAF has much more to do with character interactions and political intrigue than straight up and up killing things.
It'll probably end up similar to the three hack n' slash Lord of the Rings games on the Xbox - Gameplay might be fun, but you could remove the setting entirely and not make a difference. Personally, I think the best style for this game would be something more akin to King of Dragon Pass.
It is if you're the police, apparently.
Or it might tell us that there's life on the surface of Titan...
Many more people die from heart attacks and car accidents each year. Why the big fuss over the right to own a gun?
It's pretty simple: People have an Agenda. Terrorism's the bogeyman that keeps us clinging to the government for help and protection, like a child; and part of that entails removing us of our responsibility to defend ourselves. Coincidentally, it also means we can't do anything when the Government gets abusive.
Not if what they designed it to do was evolve...
Rem,ember this is one country without a domestic car concern...the only such country in the entire so called G8! Canada? Give me a break!
I don't get it. What does Canada not having a 'domestic car concern' have to do with their adoption of Open Source?
Could you put this in a car analogy for me?
As someone who's played it... No. No, it is not worth the $20 they charge for the game.
Look, it's common courtesy to say such and such is great or fantastic so you don't hurt feelings, but I'm being honest here. This is a glorified flash game with all of about 15 minutes of actual gameplay that is simply repeated over and over.
It's alright, it's what you might expect from a flash game on Newgrounds or wherever. But it most certainly is not worth $20. Just want to put that out there so people don't buy this expecting something different. [I'd recommend playing the demo first, so you know what you're getting into.]
Yeah, as we all know. Halo sucks. Never did anything decent. Didn't accomplish anything innovative in any way, etc. etc.
I'm honestly wondering if/when people are going to stop going on about this. It's this extremely common assumption that nothing Halo did was special in any way, and its huge success is simply some kind of anomaly in the game market. [I mean, how could a game that SUCKS so MUCH get so many sales???] yada yada, it's tiring to hear this so constantly.
Halo brought a level of finesse and polish to FPS games that at the time hadn't been seen... ever. A good story was combined with good gameplay combined with massive outdoor levels combined with great AI combined with vehicles combined with awesome graphics, etc. etc. Halo accomplished a great deal more than people want to give it credit for. None of these things seem like such a big deal in retrospect, because we're all used to them now. That wasn't the case when Halo first launched. Very few games had the same combination of features Halo did, and none of them put it all together in the same kind of winning package Halo did.