Once you give in, you will create a precedent for future exploitation. Even if the action can protect a few uers in the short term, denying ther updates would be a long-term boon.
It would also encourage people to switch from Windows to something a bit safer...
I think the Anonymous Coward gave me too much credit, but he has the point.
My problem with this forum is that it is for the USA by the USA... here cometh all the local progammer to complain to each other about how unfirly they are losing their jobs. Then I came with that previous posting and wrote something that was intended to whip them into some sort of frenzy. Instead it got snotty replies about how it was indeed a USA site and I should just go away with my anti-american sentiments.
Shrug, I don't have anything against the american person, but I'm competing with an american programmer fairly, but because my currency is weak, I will get the Job. Gone are the days that people want to emmigrate to the states, since they will only be at a disadvantage now. I'd rather stay in my pleasant cheap country and earn in the overrated US$.
-shrug-
It was always my belief that Slashdot was about 'Nerds' wherever they may be... but I seem to be wrong. The dissemenation of geographical boundaries is what makes the internet great. People can compete on merit. So stop complaining I say!
It's also perhaps that not much of my interests lie in sources coming from the States, thus I don't hold them in the spellbound awe most people from 3rd world countries do. The best movies are from Europe/Japan, the best Music from Scandanavia/Britain, the Best Mathematicians are Indian, the best technology come from the East, the most freedom of speech and expression you will NOT find in the USA anymore...
Best Computer (not Console) games are still produced in the states, and there are some musicians (NIN, Tori, Tom Waits) who reside in the states. But your advantage is slipping.
Most of my ranting come out of pure speculation, and can not be based on fact. The only fact is that there was a reason this article came up in Slashdot, so that's the only possible hint that what I say has some merit.
The US economy is in such a bad shape that other countries are the ones who are innovating. And because the USA has such an expensive currency, the work is outsourced to places like India and South Africa.
I made a post previously about this, but got moderated as a troll (not without reason), but the replies only went to prove my point rather than refute it.
Americans in general have unjustified pride and arrogance based on past performance when it comes to technical expertise and quality in production. This is becoming less and less of a truth and more of a memory, but the arrogance lives on.
Moderating this down or arguing the point is like sticking your head in the sand. The truth is American education is less than adequately focused on education and more on entertainment/sport/politics. I know some pretty cool Americans, but most of them have fled the States. (as the article suggested)
Wake up people... if your economy stutters, small 3rd world countries usually die. The world (wether we like it or not) depends on the stability of the US$.
I have a 6 alpha char, but not-so-secret (public), password I use for all my low-risk passwords. Then I have another simple 8 alpha-num, but secret, password for all my secure sites (like Slashdot).
For high-security (Banking/root/PGP) I use a 13 character randomly generated passsword or two.
I would give out my not-so secret one to anyone who dares ask, and my 8 char one for an Aero milk bar...;)
There are MANY ways to still play DOS games.
on
Is DOS Gaming Dead?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Many DOS games work well in NT4/200/XP (NT from now on) since NT supports setting of memeory and performance options. But if this does not work, I've used VMWare with great success, but you can use DOSbox, Bocsh, VirtualPC or any other of choice.
If this fails, you will find that there are many emulators out there for specific games (as well as full remakes). These include z-code (Infocom) interpreters, ScummVMs, etc. Re-makes include things like Defender of the Crown, Ur-Quan Master etc...
Just look at 'Serious Sam', where are all the 'sensitive' guys?;)
Seriously though, my female NWN character is a cultured sophisticated intelligent career-oriented 'femme fatale'.
Face it... girls just don't like certain types of games, and the sterotyping in these games just have no decent limits. This is marketing 101 people! It isn't fair!
Generalized comments follow, they perception, and cannot be based on fact.
Americans are overpaid, most cannot even speak English fluently and they are also lazy.
As a 'foreign' contractor I do the same work for half the price (or less).
Face it, the only reason you need so much money is becase your prices are so steep.
Perhaps consider living in a foreign country where the prices are more realistic, and thus you can charge decent rates?
$30/h is my max, and I'm a senior un*x developer with lots of win32 development skills.
I do not feel the need to emmigrate to the 'land of the free' anytime soon, thank you. But now and again I get contacts from the States, and find that I can charge ludicrous rates since local Americans seem to bleed the industry dry.
-sigh-
Enough ranting... my advice is to get off your a**es and work harder for less. Rasism is not becoming and unions will only perpetuate the problem and kill your industry from the inside.:)
Mod me down... I deserve it. But I'm sure a lot of international developers feel the same. It's time we got some recognition. Slashdot is so USA-centric it sometimes makes me sick.
Hehe... No thanks, I picked up one of those already for my computer meusem.;)
No seriously, what I was trying to point out was that it was the lower-end of suggested hardware for the game, and even though the game employed some form of scripting, it was even fast enough on this low-end.
(This is only low-end relative to modern computer gaming requirements... it's plenty fast enough to do my quicktime streaming/NWN server/Mac Goban/DVD playing/MUD server/Plone etc.)
It's already delegated to a budget game on the PC before I could even get a Mac copy...
I know about the OpenKnights project, it can be done by hand as well. How many Mac users know of this though?
A friend of mine is currently in London, and I've ordered it via amazon.co.uk and delivered it to him there. This will still cost me R500, whereas the PC version I could buy locally for around R250 (which is a normal game price locally)
Writing a game to use a virtual machine and some form of quasi interpreted code always makes portability a near given.
See this site: http://this.is/vortex/osx-ports/?action=games for games 'ported' to OS X using the scumm vm. (Some cool ones!)
Also note how seamlessly Quake 3 runs on even a slow iBook 900 G3.
Other games which also ported nicely would be Warcraft III and Neverwinter Nights.
This is mainly due to the programmer showing some foresight.
The only problem is that the Mac version of Neverwinter Nights is out only recently, when all my multiplayer PC friends area already tired of playing it, and it costs about 8 times the price of the current Neverwinter Nights PC version, as well as the fact that it's difficult to get the expansions running for a normal home user, and ALSO the fact that I am unable to purchase the game AT ALL locally and the US and GB amazon stores don't ship here and Paypal does not support my currency.
AND THEN THEY COMPLAIN THAT THE PORTED VERSION DOES NOT SELL!!!!
I own the game on PC already, so why buy it twice? Warcraft 3 AND Quake3 runs on both nearly out of the box.
No, it's all up to sloppy marketing and programming. Don't blame the OS or the users.
Due to limited code space and a small market of extreme gamers these may have been the only type of games out there.
This does not mean they do not exist, just that modern games must cater for all types of players, and thus they are made scalable.
Has this person tried playing a multiplayer Warcraft III game against a single insane AI computer opponent? How about tried to beat all the Quake 3 Arena levels on Nightmare? There's hours of trying right there!
Most games have a Hard/Nightmare/Insane setting which is meant for pitfall/rick dangerous/aztec challenge -like games.
Also, does pitfall have a PvP setting? No! So once pitfall becomes too easy, where's the challenge? It's boring! I've had the remarkable pleasure of losing countless Quake games to awsome world-ranking players... wanna learn real anguish?;)
Anyhow enough ranting... I'm tired of people trying to cling on games "that they just don't make anymore" or "It's not fun" or "It has no story" or "Blah blah blah". Rubbish! Modern games are as good and in MOST cases better!
Sure I enjoyed finishing Mercenary, Druid, Bard's Tale 1-3, Elite and many more on my Vic20/C64/ZX Spectrum/Spectravideo/Acorn/BBC A/B/Amiga/Atari ST. But I'm happy those days are past and I could play competitive games like Quake/Counterstrike/Starcraft/Warcraft III/Ghost Recon/ etc etc.
I'm sorry, but this isn't really news anyone is interested in.
All this is is an update announcement. Most Apple users will get this through update anyway.
There are also many sites out there where this will be reported, more suited to Apple update announcements. (MacUpdate / VersionTracker / etc. )
Perhaps keep this section to more relevant updates? Updates which involves the core OS distribution perhaps? GarrageBand is part of iLife which is an optional commercial product. It did not come in my 10.2 or 10.3 box.
Why not announce updates for Microsoft Office then as well? I'm sure there are more users out there that use that as well...
Not that I don't play CS... it's really fun MP (even more fun than Q3 RA3)
It's just that I love the level of skill one can strive for and learn in Quake 3 for example. (Accuracy, Rocketjump, strafe-jump, circle-jump, plasma-climbing, armour/map control, grenade jumping) Can't wait for Q4 to build and expand on these...:)
I purchased NeverWinter Nights for the PC, and played it for months, then bought the first expansion (and later the second).
The problem is that I would have preferred getting it for the Mac... and the PC version has a currency adjusted price in my country, but the same is not true for the Mac version...
Why should I purchase the game twice? Why is it only released on the Mac so late (Unlike Warcraft 3... which rocked!)? By the time it was released all my friends were tired of playing it.
The only reason to get it for the Mac is to see how it performs... and that's not worth paying for.
Piracy is wrong, but it's wrong to blame the Mac community for the Game creator's short-sightedness and lack of better release dates.
Which self-respecting Linux open source zealot would be using Microsoft to write a virus/worm anyway... no, this MUST be a FUD publicity stunt by Microsoft!;)
Seriously, I think the Linux community should start a relief fund to help SCO through these attacks...
I thought it had a good story, and was easy to follow. But then again, I love Lynch and Fellini (and Jim Jarmusch)
Even though the Gfx was good, it was by no means just a showcase for technical ability. Square has had a lot of experience in storyline development, even though this creation was perhaps a bit more mature.
I would love to see more Shrek-type movies where the comedy goes beyond 'cute' and the characters are not one-dimentional.
Final Fantasy was good, even though it was technically a flop. Like normal movies, animated movies should also be clasified in catagories other than 'animation'. They should be action, adult, drama, sci-fi, art house, etc etc...
Disney with the help of Pixar have created this stigma.
Hopefully Pixar will get support or partner up and make something 'real'.
Slashdot Mirror
It all comes down to policy.
:)
Once you give in, you will create a precedent for future exploitation. Even if the action can protect a few uers in the short term, denying ther updates would be a long-term boon.
It would also encourage people to switch from Windows to something a bit safer...
OS X and Linux are sooo much better anyway.
I think the Anonymous Coward gave me too much credit, but he has the point.
My problem with this forum is that it is for the USA by the USA... here cometh all the local progammer to complain to each other about how unfirly they are losing their jobs. Then I came with that previous posting and wrote something that was intended to whip them into some sort of frenzy. Instead it got snotty replies about how it was indeed a USA site and I should just go away with my anti-american sentiments.
Shrug, I don't have anything against the american person, but I'm competing with an american programmer fairly, but because my currency is weak, I will get the Job. Gone are the days that people want to emmigrate to the states, since they will only be at a disadvantage now. I'd rather stay in my pleasant cheap country and earn in the overrated US$.
-shrug-
It was always my belief that Slashdot was about 'Nerds' wherever they may be... but I seem to be wrong. The dissemenation of geographical boundaries is what makes the internet great. People can compete on merit. So stop complaining I say!
It's also perhaps that not much of my interests lie in sources coming from the States, thus I don't hold them in the spellbound awe most people from 3rd world countries do. The best movies are from Europe/Japan, the best Music from Scandanavia/Britain, the Best Mathematicians are Indian, the best technology come from the East, the most freedom of speech and expression you will NOT find in the USA anymore...
Best Computer (not Console) games are still produced in the states, and there are some musicians (NIN, Tori, Tom Waits) who reside in the states. But your advantage is slipping.
Most of my ranting come out of pure speculation, and can not be based on fact. The only fact is that there was a reason this article came up in Slashdot, so that's the only possible hint that what I say has some merit.
The US economy is in such a bad shape that other countries are the ones who are innovating. And because the USA has such an expensive currency, the work is outsourced to places like India and South Africa.
I made a post previously about this, but got moderated as a troll (not without reason), but the replies only went to prove my point rather than refute it.
Americans in general have unjustified pride and arrogance based on past performance when it comes to technical expertise and quality in production. This is becoming less and less of a truth and more of a memory, but the arrogance lives on.
Moderating this down or arguing the point is like sticking your head in the sand. The truth is American education is less than adequately focused on education and more on entertainment/sport/politics. I know some pretty cool Americans, but most of them have fled the States. (as the article suggested)
Wake up people... if your economy stutters, small 3rd world countries usually die. The world (wether we like it or not) depends on the stability of the US$.
I came upon the site of Elena's site a while ago, chronicling her travels through Chernobyl on a motorcycle.
This is *really* worth a look for anyone interested.
I have to agree to this.
;)
I have a 6 alpha char, but not-so-secret (public), password I use for all my low-risk passwords. Then I have another simple 8 alpha-num, but secret, password for all my secure sites (like Slashdot).
For high-security (Banking/root/PGP) I use a 13 character randomly generated passsword or two.
I would give out my not-so secret one to anyone who dares ask, and my 8 char one for an Aero milk bar...
Many DOS games work well in NT4/200/XP (NT from now on) since NT supports setting of memeory and performance options. But if this does not work, I've used VMWare with great success, but you can use DOSbox, Bocsh, VirtualPC or any other of choice.
If this fails, you will find that there are many emulators out there for specific games (as well as full remakes). These include z-code (Infocom) interpreters, ScummVMs, etc. Re-makes include things like Defender of the Crown, Ur-Quan Master etc...
Nope, the DOS games that were popular cannot die.
No need to fret about it.
And you wonder why work get's out-sourced? A false sense of self-importance perhaps? :)
Just look at 'Serious Sam', where are all the 'sensitive' guys? ;)
Seriously though, my female NWN character is a cultured sophisticated intelligent career-oriented 'femme fatale'.
Face it... girls just don't like certain types of games, and the sterotyping in these games just have no decent limits. This is marketing 101 people! It isn't fair!
:)
Generalized comments follow, they perception, and cannot be based on fact.
:)
Americans are overpaid, most cannot even speak English fluently and they are also lazy.
As a 'foreign' contractor I do the same work for half the price (or less).
Face it, the only reason you need so much money is becase your prices are so steep.
Perhaps consider living in a foreign country where the prices are more realistic, and thus you can charge decent rates?
$30/h is my max, and I'm a senior un*x developer with lots of win32 development skills.
I do not feel the need to emmigrate to the 'land of the free' anytime soon, thank you. But now and again I get contacts from the States, and find that I can charge ludicrous rates since local Americans seem to bleed the industry dry.
-sigh-
Enough ranting... my advice is to get off your a**es and work harder for less. Rasism is not becoming and unions will only perpetuate the problem and kill your industry from the inside.
Mod me down... I deserve it. But I'm sure a lot of international developers feel the same. It's time we got some recognition. Slashdot is so USA-centric it sometimes makes me sick.
Don't worry, it would have been offending if you said: 'for OS 9'. ;)
OS X seems to be brining the games back to Mac.
If they were ever aimed at both sexes I would be surprised... only now the age limit has shifted.
(There were exceptions, but they were few)
This was an obscure typo bug I found this morning (after 3 months)
:P
Argh.
Wish the shell would have added the (obvious) ' > '
Hehe... No thanks, I picked up one of those already for my computer meusem. ;)
No seriously, what I was trying to point out was that it was the lower-end of suggested hardware for the game, and even though the game employed some form of scripting, it was even fast enough on this low-end.
(This is only low-end relative to modern computer gaming requirements... it's plenty fast enough to do my quicktime streaming/NWN server/Mac Goban/DVD playing/MUD server/Plone etc.)
But, on amazon.co.uk:
PC: 9.99
Mac: 34.99
It's already delegated to a budget game on the PC before I could even get a Mac copy...
I know about the OpenKnights project, it can be done by hand as well. How many Mac users know of this though?
A friend of mine is currently in London, and I've ordered it via amazon.co.uk and delivered it to him there. This will still cost me R500, whereas the PC version I could buy locally for around R250 (which is a normal game price locally)
Writing a game to use a virtual machine and some form of quasi interpreted code always makes portability a near given.
r games 'ported' to OS X using the scumm vm. (Some cool ones!)
See this site: http://this.is/vortex/osx-ports/?action=games
fo
Also note how seamlessly Quake 3 runs on even a slow iBook 900 G3.
Other games which also ported nicely would be Warcraft III and Neverwinter Nights.
This is mainly due to the programmer showing some foresight.
The only problem is that the Mac version of Neverwinter Nights is out only recently, when all my multiplayer PC friends area already tired of playing it, and it costs about 8 times the price of the current Neverwinter Nights PC version, as well as the fact that it's difficult to get the expansions running for a normal home user, and ALSO the fact that I am unable to purchase the game AT ALL locally and the US and GB amazon stores don't ship here and Paypal does not support my currency.
AND THEN THEY COMPLAIN THAT THE PORTED VERSION DOES NOT SELL!!!!
I own the game on PC already, so why buy it twice? Warcraft 3 AND Quake3 runs on both nearly out of the box.
No, it's all up to sloppy marketing and programming. Don't blame the OS or the users.
Due to limited code space and a small market of extreme gamers these may have been the only type of games out there.
;)
:)
This does not mean they do not exist, just that modern games must cater for all types of players, and thus they are made scalable.
Has this person tried playing a multiplayer Warcraft III game against a single insane AI computer opponent? How about tried to beat all the Quake 3 Arena levels on Nightmare? There's hours of trying right there!
Most games have a Hard/Nightmare/Insane setting which is meant for pitfall/rick dangerous/aztec challenge -like games.
Also, does pitfall have a PvP setting? No! So once pitfall becomes too easy, where's the challenge? It's boring! I've had the remarkable pleasure of losing countless Quake games to awsome world-ranking players... wanna learn real anguish?
Anyhow enough ranting... I'm tired of people trying to cling on games "that they just don't make anymore" or "It's not fun" or "It has no story" or "Blah blah blah". Rubbish! Modern games are as good and in MOST cases better!
Sure I enjoyed finishing Mercenary, Druid, Bard's Tale 1-3, Elite and many more on my Vic20/C64/ZX Spectrum/Spectravideo/Acorn/BBC A/B/Amiga/Atari ST. But I'm happy those days are past and I could play competitive games like Quake/Counterstrike/Starcraft/Warcraft III/Ghost Recon/ etc etc.
Anyway... enough raving...
Never has that been anyone's illusion.
The point is that there are two. Two is better than one since it promotes competition which leads to fair pricing and innovation.
I don't want Intel to lose... and I never wanted AMD to win. I want them to tie.
Now if only a viable 3rd competitor may enter the fray... dare I hope for IBM (Apple PowerPC/G5?)
I'm sorry, but this isn't really news anyone is interested in.
All this is is an update announcement. Most Apple users will get this through update anyway.
There are also many sites out there where this will be reported, more suited to Apple update announcements. (MacUpdate / VersionTracker / etc. )
Perhaps keep this section to more relevant updates? Updates which involves the core OS distribution perhaps? GarrageBand is part of iLife which is an optional commercial product.
It did not come in my 10.2 or 10.3 box.
Why not announce updates for Microsoft Office then as well? I'm sure there are more users out there that use that as well...
(Not that I mind... I just think it's biased)
Seems like you are also partial to 'real' FPS. ;)
:)
Not that I don't play CS... it's really fun MP (even more fun than Q3 RA3)
It's just that I love the level of skill one can strive for and learn in Quake 3 for example. (Accuracy, Rocketjump, strafe-jump, circle-jump, plasma-climbing, armour/map control, grenade jumping) Can't wait for Q4 to build and expand on these...
Quake III does not discriminate where a shot hits. It uses a standard bounding box.
A Counterstrike player may be more likely to yell this, but then counterstrike is not about reflexes and more about team gaming.
(doubles tennis and hitting your partner in the head?)
-grin-
I know this is how I feel:
... which rocked!)? By the time it was released all my friends were tired of playing it.
I purchased NeverWinter Nights for the PC, and played it for months, then bought the first expansion (and later the second).
The problem is that I would have preferred getting it for the Mac... and the PC version has a currency adjusted price in my country, but the same is not true for the Mac version...
Why should I purchase the game twice? Why is it only released on the Mac so late (Unlike Warcraft 3
The only reason to get it for the Mac is to see how it performs... and that's not worth paying for.
Piracy is wrong, but it's wrong to blame the Mac community for the Game creator's short-sightedness and lack of better release dates.
Dito for Halo...
Which self-respecting Linux open source zealot would be using Microsoft to write a virus/worm anyway... no, this MUST be a FUD publicity stunt by Microsoft! ;)
Seriously, I think the Linux community should start a relief fund to help SCO through these attacks...
It seems you spared me a reply... :)
I thought it had a good story, and was easy to follow. But then again, I love Lynch and Fellini (and Jim Jarmusch)
Even though the Gfx was good, it was by no means just a showcase for technical ability. Square has had a lot of experience in storyline development, even though this creation was perhaps a bit more mature.
I would love to see more Shrek-type movies where the comedy goes beyond 'cute' and the characters are not one-dimentional.
Final Fantasy was good, even though it was technically a flop. Like normal movies, animated movies should also be clasified in catagories other than 'animation'. They should be action, adult, drama, sci-fi, art house, etc etc...
Disney with the help of Pixar have created this stigma.
Hopefully Pixar will get support or partner up and make something 'real'.