The same patch that released the Linux client also fucked up Linux compatibility. I went from being able to run 6 clients smoothly to choking on 2 with Crossover and Wine. I ended up selling off my extra accounts because I simply couldn't play them anymore. The native client was unusable (significant graphical errors, low framerate) for months after release, itself. This was quite a significant change from the previous situation, because Linux actually ran the game better than Windows did (about 30% higher FPS in my particular case) in their original (pre-classic/premium divide) client which made little use of the GPU.
I like CCP a lot and they definitely had good intentions, here. They made a terrible mistake by going with the Cedega team instead of the Crossover/Wine developers, though. I knew a few dozen other Linux users who also tried out their official client and then immediately reverted, so it is not surprising to me that they do not have the usage numbers to justify its development.
A bit of an off-topic reply, but your post made me think of my own situation:
I am a system administrator that has a handful of remote sites in South Texas. I would not consider the internet and call centers plentiful. We are often forced to use satellite or cellular networks to get any connection at all. When there is a cable provided connection it is usually at sub-dialup speeds. Use of VoIP on these networks is usually filtered. We do have good luck with Skype and even Vonage when there is an internet connection, though it is often heavily delayed (think 300 - 20000ms delays).
It depresses me that this kind of bandwidth and latency is similar (if not better) than what I am able to get here in a US college town. The telecom industry in this country is so fucked up it blows my mind.
I agree with the parent completely. There has not been a comparable RTS since Starcraft, and there most likely never will be. There are two main aspects of a player's actions that have an effect on the outcome of a competitive game: strategy and execution. A few genres will forgo one entirely for the sake of the other. Chess (or any TBS game), for example, removes all execution for the sake of creating a pure strategy game. Fighters remove all strategy for the sake of creating a pure execution game. RTS games are one of the few genres which embrace both aspects to the fullest extent.
Or, at least, that is what they claim to do.
Every RTS game that I have seen or heard of since Starcraft was released has sought to remove execution from the equation, and those which fail at balance inadvertently remove the strategy, as well. While lowering the execution bar makes the game more widely accessible for competitive play, the amount of depth in the game is lowered with it. Squad-based RTS are the most glaring example of this. In Starcraft, you could easily write entire books on each unit in the game and the various ways to micromanage them in nearly every situation in order to utilize them to their maximum effectiveness. To this day, people are still discovering small AI quirks which you can exploit to your advantage. In a squad-based RTS, however, this kind of control is removed from the player's hands. Units can only be given approximate orders, take cover on their own, are impossible (or incredibly difficult) to use individually, etc. Another major change is that the overall pace of combat in Starcraft is incredibly fast compared to most other RTS games since. In Blizzard's own WC3, for example, the unit health has been raised so high and the unit damage lowered so much that it takes an order of magnitude longer for units to be destroyed. Contrast this with Starcraft, for example, where the lowly zergling (when upgraded) is one of the highest DPS units in the game (and the highest by far when comparing by resource cost) and 2-4 of them can flatten almost any ground unit in a matter of seconds. You might argue that Starcraft has a relatively high unit count, which is why units in other RTS seem to die so much slower, and you'd be right. This is also yet another example of removing complexity and depth for the sake of accessibility.
Now, it's hard to fault game developers for these changes, though. The fact is that these days, the "hardcore" market is significantly smaller than the more casual market to which these games are catering to. Game companies are, in the end, looking to make money. Creating a game which can be played on a deep competitive level is either an afterthought at best, or more often, simply not considered. Starcraft is likely to be the last truly competitive RTS that we will ever see.
As a side note, if you're interested in the topic, I would recommend heading to http://www.sirlin.net/ and checking out their lengthy running discussion revolving around their hopes for Starcraft 2.
That already exists. It's called Sony Online Entertainment. You can get their "station pass" for slightly more than the standard subscription fee and have access to at least half a dozen MMOs and some other games as well. SOE is where MMOs go to die (or were killed in the first place).
1. Install program on Windows
2. Boot to linux live cd of your choice
3. cat inputdevice > outputdevice
4. Repeat steps 1-3 as needed
5. diff
6. ?????
7. NDA'd
I do remote management for a number of servers with wildly varying configurations at another site. Even though (perhaps because) I live in a college town in the US, I experience latency between 800-30000ms, along with ~30% packet loss and transfer speeds in the sub-56k range, even on an advertised 8mbit connection. I suck it up and drive for a few hours to work on the Windows servers once a week rather than trying to administer them via RDP or another remote desktop program. Even when working with programs specifically designed to deal with spotty networking conditions from remote locations(GIS programs), there is little that can be done. The windows CLI is absolutely atrocious, even with the steps that they have taken over the past few years.
Don't try and fit a square peg into a round hole; since you probably can't switch to *nix machines, you're going to have to interface with them through cygwin and use ssh. There's no reason to go looking for an exotic solution when the obvious one is looking you right in the face. If you're willing to spend some development time anyway, it shouldn't take a huge amount of effort. It would take some incredibly odd circumstances for any other option to make sense.
I managed to pick up an HD4870 from Newegg this week for $200 with a combo deal on a motherboard that I was going to get anyway. If the high end is only $200, I think that they'd be hard-pressed to call $170 a budget card. Then again, maybe it was just a really good deal.
My University (Texas A&M Kingsville) still requires COBOL for every IT-related degree, even those not oriented towards programming. My jaw almost hit the ground when I found out that I was going to have to take a COBOL class to earn my CIS degree. Although there is obviously still a need for people to support applications written in that archaic language, I really wish that the bureaucracies of the world would let it die already.
The issue here is that Microsoft does not include a way to turn off its own desktop search, or to make a competing product the default. If you want to use Google Desktop, you can, but you'll still have the MS version running at the same time--which is obviously a waste of resources, on an already resource-hungry OS. According to TFA, they still haven't implemented a way to turn their own version off. I don't use Windows, and I don't care much for Google as of late, but they do have a very valid argument. This is anti-competitive behavior, and needs to be changed.
Cost issues aside, I think that 90 seconds of weightlessness in a 90 minute flight is rather lame. Aside from the nice view, wouldn't it be better to just rent out a stripped-down 747 and go into repeated dives, like they do to train astronauts for zero-g?
Why not ust remove the gas tax entirely and instead raise the cost of vehicle registration? While not doing anything to push people towards alternative fuel sources, it does stop ridiculous things like this from happening. It would certainly make things easier as people begin using a plethora of different methods to power their vehicles. Making people see that increased cost once a year instead of every time they visit the pump will probably make them feel better about it, too. They may not be getting any money from out-of-state vehicles passing through, but you have to figure that just as many vehicles that are registered in that state have gone somewhere else, so it evens out.
Were you using the alternate install disk? If you were trying to install through the live CD on a p3, I'm sure you just didn't have enough RAM to load it all into memory. If you're using an outdated computer like that, then yes, you will have to install through command line. It will run just fine on that computer, it just can't load the entire OS into memory while installing.
I'm sure that XP would be easier to install for a non-savvy user in that case. However, XP was released...what, 5 years before Feisty? Try comparing Ubuntu installation to Vista installation on that same computer, and then come back and tell us which was faster and easier. On any machine that can meet Vista Basic requirements, Ubuntu will be FAR easier to install and configure, with no command line needed.
Why do consoles continue to try and integrate "PC-like" features? The *only* reason to use a console over a PC is because the games will be optimized for your specific set of hardware, so you can be sure that there are no compatibility issues and it will probably run pretty smooth. For everything else, a console is really just an overpriced, underpowered, practically non-upgradeable box with almost zero control given to the user. Supporting these features is great and all, but it seems like a waste of resources to me. If you've got the TV/monitor and internet connection, why use the console?
No, but it's definitely something that they need to think about. The ipod is a portable device, and portable devices are meant to be used on-the-go. It's interface should be built with this in mind. I believe that they did a good job of this with the shuffle, but I'd like to see them improve the interface on their full-size models. Touch screens are probably not the right direction to move in if this is the main functionality that they want the device to have. If they tacked on some simple track control buttons as well, though, I'd be happy enough with it.
Touch screens are nice and all, but personally I like the current interface. I enjoy being able to reach into my pocket while jogging and change songs without having to stop, pull the thing out, and look at the screen.
This is the team that created Diablo II for Blizzard back in the day, so I'll give them a chance to prove that this can work. If done correctly, it could draw in fans from many different gaming demographics. Personally, I've come to expect a monthly subscription with my online games, so as long as they are able to provide a good reason to pay, I will gladly do so. The game itself looks solid from what I've seen of it so far.
Similar business models are quite common among Asian MMOs. Distributing the game for free, or for a one-time purchase, while making the bulk of their money through in-game "purchases" has proved to be a very effective strategy for many other games. It also helps to squelch the RMT market when similar services are provided by the company itself. A monthly subscription plan can work just as well, as long as they make it worth the customer's money each month.
I am a complete linux novice. This past Monday was the first time that I had used it beyond using telnet to connect to someone else's server and perform a routine task or two. The majority of my experience deals with windows XP/2000. I decided to partition my drive and load ubuntu, XP, and vista on the same box.
It took me about an hour for XP to install, and another two hours and a dozen reboots to get all of the basic necessities (drivers, browsers, office, etc.) running and ready to use. Vista took me about 90 minutes to install. After working for another 3 hours to try and get it to recognize my video card and connect to my network, I gave up on it and decided to install ubuntu. I started the installer, got up to get a drink, came back, and it was done installing and ready to use.
I am still tracking down things like the odd codec and driver for XP. Vista still does not work at all. Ubuntu was fully functional immediately and I had learned how to do pretty much everything that I wanted within a day or two of googling around (assuming that I had to even google it, with the giant repositories at your fingertips). I am certainly no linux fanboy, but my own experience with ubuntu has seriously made me question the logic behind using a windows operating system at all.
So, the branch that just released a new major product this year is reporting an increase in sales, and the branch that released a new major product last year is reporting a decrease? That's not news, it's common sense.
Is it just me, or does this seem like it is absolutely silly and pointless? The only thing that I see us getting out of this are some "LOL WINDOWS" posts.
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The same patch that released the Linux client also fucked up Linux compatibility. I went from being able to run 6 clients smoothly to choking on 2 with Crossover and Wine. I ended up selling off my extra accounts because I simply couldn't play them anymore. The native client was unusable (significant graphical errors, low framerate) for months after release, itself. This was quite a significant change from the previous situation, because Linux actually ran the game better than Windows did (about 30% higher FPS in my particular case) in their original (pre-classic/premium divide) client which made little use of the GPU.
I like CCP a lot and they definitely had good intentions, here. They made a terrible mistake by going with the Cedega team instead of the Crossover/Wine developers, though. I knew a few dozen other Linux users who also tried out their official client and then immediately reverted, so it is not surprising to me that they do not have the usage numbers to justify its development.
A bit of an off-topic reply, but your post made me think of my own situation:
I am a system administrator that has a handful of remote sites in South Texas. I would not consider the internet and call centers plentiful. We are often forced to use satellite or cellular networks to get any connection at all. When there is a cable provided connection it is usually at sub-dialup speeds. Use of VoIP on these networks is usually filtered. We do have good luck with Skype and even Vonage when there is an internet connection, though it is often heavily delayed (think 300 - 20000ms delays).
It depresses me that this kind of bandwidth and latency is similar (if not better) than what I am able to get here in a US college town. The telecom industry in this country is so fucked up it blows my mind.
I agree with the parent completely. There has not been a comparable RTS since Starcraft, and there most likely never will be. There are two main aspects of a player's actions that have an effect on the outcome of a competitive game: strategy and execution. A few genres will forgo one entirely for the sake of the other. Chess (or any TBS game), for example, removes all execution for the sake of creating a pure strategy game. Fighters remove all strategy for the sake of creating a pure execution game. RTS games are one of the few genres which embrace both aspects to the fullest extent.
Or, at least, that is what they claim to do.
Every RTS game that I have seen or heard of since Starcraft was released has sought to remove execution from the equation, and those which fail at balance inadvertently remove the strategy, as well. While lowering the execution bar makes the game more widely accessible for competitive play, the amount of depth in the game is lowered with it. Squad-based RTS are the most glaring example of this. In Starcraft, you could easily write entire books on each unit in the game and the various ways to micromanage them in nearly every situation in order to utilize them to their maximum effectiveness. To this day, people are still discovering small AI quirks which you can exploit to your advantage. In a squad-based RTS, however, this kind of control is removed from the player's hands. Units can only be given approximate orders, take cover on their own, are impossible (or incredibly difficult) to use individually, etc. Another major change is that the overall pace of combat in Starcraft is incredibly fast compared to most other RTS games since. In Blizzard's own WC3, for example, the unit health has been raised so high and the unit damage lowered so much that it takes an order of magnitude longer for units to be destroyed. Contrast this with Starcraft, for example, where the lowly zergling (when upgraded) is one of the highest DPS units in the game (and the highest by far when comparing by resource cost) and 2-4 of them can flatten almost any ground unit in a matter of seconds. You might argue that Starcraft has a relatively high unit count, which is why units in other RTS seem to die so much slower, and you'd be right. This is also yet another example of removing complexity and depth for the sake of accessibility.
Now, it's hard to fault game developers for these changes, though. The fact is that these days, the "hardcore" market is significantly smaller than the more casual market to which these games are catering to. Game companies are, in the end, looking to make money. Creating a game which can be played on a deep competitive level is either an afterthought at best, or more often, simply not considered. Starcraft is likely to be the last truly competitive RTS that we will ever see.
As a side note, if you're interested in the topic, I would recommend heading to http://www.sirlin.net/ and checking out their lengthy running discussion revolving around their hopes for Starcraft 2.
That already exists. It's called Sony Online Entertainment. You can get their "station pass" for slightly more than the standard subscription fee and have access to at least half a dozen MMOs and some other games as well. SOE is where MMOs go to die (or were killed in the first place).
1. Install program on Windows 2. Boot to linux live cd of your choice 3. cat inputdevice > outputdevice 4. Repeat steps 1-3 as needed 5. diff 6. ????? 7. NDA'd
I do remote management for a number of servers with wildly varying configurations at another site. Even though (perhaps because) I live in a college town in the US, I experience latency between 800-30000ms, along with ~30% packet loss and transfer speeds in the sub-56k range, even on an advertised 8mbit connection. I suck it up and drive for a few hours to work on the Windows servers once a week rather than trying to administer them via RDP or another remote desktop program. Even when working with programs specifically designed to deal with spotty networking conditions from remote locations(GIS programs), there is little that can be done. The windows CLI is absolutely atrocious, even with the steps that they have taken over the past few years.
Don't try and fit a square peg into a round hole; since you probably can't switch to *nix machines, you're going to have to interface with them through cygwin and use ssh. There's no reason to go looking for an exotic solution when the obvious one is looking you right in the face. If you're willing to spend some development time anyway, it shouldn't take a huge amount of effort. It would take some incredibly odd circumstances for any other option to make sense.
I managed to pick up an HD4870 from Newegg this week for $200 with a combo deal on a motherboard that I was going to get anyway. If the high end is only $200, I think that they'd be hard-pressed to call $170 a budget card. Then again, maybe it was just a really good deal.
My University (Texas A&M Kingsville) still requires COBOL for every IT-related degree, even those not oriented towards programming. My jaw almost hit the ground when I found out that I was going to have to take a COBOL class to earn my CIS degree. Although there is obviously still a need for people to support applications written in that archaic language, I really wish that the bureaucracies of the world would let it die already.
The issue here is that Microsoft does not include a way to turn off its own desktop search, or to make a competing product the default. If you want to use Google Desktop, you can, but you'll still have the MS version running at the same time--which is obviously a waste of resources, on an already resource-hungry OS. According to TFA, they still haven't implemented a way to turn their own version off. I don't use Windows, and I don't care much for Google as of late, but they do have a very valid argument. This is anti-competitive behavior, and needs to be changed.
Cost issues aside, I think that 90 seconds of weightlessness in a 90 minute flight is rather lame. Aside from the nice view, wouldn't it be better to just rent out a stripped-down 747 and go into repeated dives, like they do to train astronauts for zero-g?
Why not ust remove the gas tax entirely and instead raise the cost of vehicle registration? While not doing anything to push people towards alternative fuel sources, it does stop ridiculous things like this from happening. It would certainly make things easier as people begin using a plethora of different methods to power their vehicles. Making people see that increased cost once a year instead of every time they visit the pump will probably make them feel better about it, too. They may not be getting any money from out-of-state vehicles passing through, but you have to figure that just as many vehicles that are registered in that state have gone somewhere else, so it evens out.
Were you using the alternate install disk? If you were trying to install through the live CD on a p3, I'm sure you just didn't have enough RAM to load it all into memory. If you're using an outdated computer like that, then yes, you will have to install through command line. It will run just fine on that computer, it just can't load the entire OS into memory while installing.
I'm sure that XP would be easier to install for a non-savvy user in that case. However, XP was released...what, 5 years before Feisty? Try comparing Ubuntu installation to Vista installation on that same computer, and then come back and tell us which was faster and easier. On any machine that can meet Vista Basic requirements, Ubuntu will be FAR easier to install and configure, with no command line needed.
Why do consoles continue to try and integrate "PC-like" features? The *only* reason to use a console over a PC is because the games will be optimized for your specific set of hardware, so you can be sure that there are no compatibility issues and it will probably run pretty smooth. For everything else, a console is really just an overpriced, underpowered, practically non-upgradeable box with almost zero control given to the user. Supporting these features is great and all, but it seems like a waste of resources to me. If you've got the TV/monitor and internet connection, why use the console?
No, but it's definitely something that they need to think about. The ipod is a portable device, and portable devices are meant to be used on-the-go. It's interface should be built with this in mind. I believe that they did a good job of this with the shuffle, but I'd like to see them improve the interface on their full-size models. Touch screens are probably not the right direction to move in if this is the main functionality that they want the device to have. If they tacked on some simple track control buttons as well, though, I'd be happy enough with it.
Touch screens are nice and all, but personally I like the current interface. I enjoy being able to reach into my pocket while jogging and change songs without having to stop, pull the thing out, and look at the screen.
This is the team that created Diablo II for Blizzard back in the day, so I'll give them a chance to prove that this can work. If done correctly, it could draw in fans from many different gaming demographics. Personally, I've come to expect a monthly subscription with my online games, so as long as they are able to provide a good reason to pay, I will gladly do so. The game itself looks solid from what I've seen of it so far. Similar business models are quite common among Asian MMOs. Distributing the game for free, or for a one-time purchase, while making the bulk of their money through in-game "purchases" has proved to be a very effective strategy for many other games. It also helps to squelch the RMT market when similar services are provided by the company itself. A monthly subscription plan can work just as well, as long as they make it worth the customer's money each month.
I am a complete linux novice. This past Monday was the first time that I had used it beyond using telnet to connect to someone else's server and perform a routine task or two. The majority of my experience deals with windows XP/2000. I decided to partition my drive and load ubuntu, XP, and vista on the same box. It took me about an hour for XP to install, and another two hours and a dozen reboots to get all of the basic necessities (drivers, browsers, office, etc.) running and ready to use. Vista took me about 90 minutes to install. After working for another 3 hours to try and get it to recognize my video card and connect to my network, I gave up on it and decided to install ubuntu. I started the installer, got up to get a drink, came back, and it was done installing and ready to use. I am still tracking down things like the odd codec and driver for XP. Vista still does not work at all. Ubuntu was fully functional immediately and I had learned how to do pretty much everything that I wanted within a day or two of googling around (assuming that I had to even google it, with the giant repositories at your fingertips). I am certainly no linux fanboy, but my own experience with ubuntu has seriously made me question the logic behind using a windows operating system at all.
So, the branch that just released a new major product this year is reporting an increase in sales, and the branch that released a new major product last year is reporting a decrease? That's not news, it's common sense.
Is it just me, or does this seem like it is absolutely silly and pointless? The only thing that I see us getting out of this are some "LOL WINDOWS" posts.