>As a politician, you can't 'sell' citywide internet access as easily as you can public transport, sewer system or >power. It's not one of those "must have" things, it's one of those "why should I have to pay for it" things.
Errr...
As a politician it's harder to sell WiFi because there are many companies that already provide that service, and the infrastructure costs are not as high as something like Sewer/Water/Elec/Cable TV/Telephone.
Also.. they were looking at doing WiFi here.. the biggest problem? we're also a Tree City USA.. that means we got a TON of trees.. which is fine.. I like trees, just at the density they are, they are really good at degrading WiFi signals.
If you RTFA one of the 'games' they make is in fact called "Lie Detector".
I agree though, something like this could be an interesting gimmick for a game, but it wouldn't work for any real MP games.. i think it'd be to easy to cheat at.
You can clearly hear (at least on the You Tube video here) the police warning and informing the student if he continues to resist he will be tazed (tased?). I'm sorry.. but if you don't want to be tazed, comply. It's pretty plain that orginally he was just being removed.. but he stepped up the level of physical involvement by resisting, and continued to resist. Once the kid got tasered, he was alot easier to move and there's no evidence that he was maltreated once they picked him up.
If accounts are accurate and he did 'run into the room', he's luckly all he got was a tasering.. Secret Service probably definately have detained him / had UF police detain him, and could have cited cause to incapacitate him there and then.
Now, I think once Sen. Kerry said 'I'll answer the questions' that the handlers should have just told the guy to shutup and listen or leave.. they didn't, and the kid put up a stink.... and now because of some 20 year old kid, I gotta worry about dodging ABC News vans all day here in town..
The ABCNews article doesn't seem to accurately cover what I saw in the YouTube video.. i guess it's just proof that most journalism sucks anyhow..
Incidently, I have a FlexLM protected software that tied itself ot my Cisco VPN Client Adapter...
I only found out after I disabled the adapter for some reason or another, and my software stopped working..
Ergo.. if you -really- wanted ot make a FlexLM app portable, you could install a virtual adapter, ensure it's #1, then install your app.. then just create the adapter with the same MAC on any/all machines you want to have your license 'ported' to.
Except the KV series utilimately failed.. especially those KVs that were 'bigger and meaner'.. the KV-1s series of tanks weren't really that much one-upity.. and actually most of the soviet monsterous tanks were developed for the Winter War with Finland (esp the KV-1 / KV-2, and those crazy multi-turreted suckers you hear about like the SMK and T-100)
You could argue that it isn't really a Soviet thing.. ever see the design concepts for the Tsar Tank?
The Typhoon, Mig-25, and An series cargo planes are petty much successful.
I never tried any real Graphics Art type stuff with it however... i've found it's easy enough to 'lock' the left-right movement of the ball by using the side of my middle finger on the side of the ball, but I can't imagine how you would do the same with horizontal movement.
Aside from that, it's been great for me.. I really like that I don't have to worry about trying to move a mouse in the semi-confined area I have for a work desk.
> Why anyone would be crazy enough to entrust a AAA console title to a pc developer like Epic is a completely separate question.
Except the UEngine has been shipped for Consoles numerous times in the past.. some examples, the Rainbow Six franchise, Unreal championship, shadow ops: red merc, Red Steel, and the Brothers in Arms franchise...
As for UE3 specifically, Roboblitz shipped ok iirc.. didn't Rainbow 6: Vegas ship ok?.. Bioshock doesn't seem to have any major issues with the engine, do they? (I'd be suprised we haven't heard from them)..
So why is it one studio is having a big uproar over this? if it was as bad as they claim, surely Gearbox, EA, Bioware, Midway, Ubisoft, Besthesda, and others would be pitching fits too?..
With any new engine, there's gonna be bumps.. it's call software.. it won't be perfect the first time.. such is life..
.. imagine that.... among most of the tabletop/(non PC) gamers, GW is well known as 'the Evil Empire' of the tabletop world.. this is just another shiny example.. big deal..
I'll admit I bought a few of thier things.. promptly modified them to be more realistic (why do evil robots need axes on the end of thier particle cannons? oh wait.. they dont.. THEY ARE EVIL ROBOTS!!!).. and used them for non-GW uses... hurray hurray!
Keep a mind on Steam's game lineup now.. it started with upper/mid endish requiring games, and now it offers up PopCap games and XCom:Terror from the Deep... hardly anything that requires even what would be considered 'lower' level in the current scale of hardware.
"I remember when WOTC was satisfied to just make good games. Now it seems like all they do is try to keep anyone else from making games"
Say what now?.. when was WOTC satisfied with just making good games? Oh right.. up until they realized they have a gold mine in MTG.. so we'll call it '95-'96.
I lost faith in WOTC as a well-mannered company when they released the 15915th expansion for MTG.. at that point it became painfully obvious they were in it for the bucks.. whcih is fine.. it's the goal of a company.. and kudos to them for bailing out TSR..
oh well.. there are still a few smaller shops that work to publish quality over quanitity.
I think he was saying that Flight 93 crashed because the people on board it stood up, realized something was going on, and fought for themselves.. not that they specifically had firearms.
Can I really be trusted to tell you how good or bad I am?
Frankly, I've always loved the name SysOp.. it just sounds better.. even though it's not an accurate title anymore... which begs the quesion.. do we really have SysOps anymore?
I own a few of the german games.. most of them I got a few years back when I had more time for such things.. I've found most actually take LESS time then many of the Hasbro style board games.. (for instance, when we played "Krieg und Frieden", the 90 minute play time really meant 90 minutes.. unlike Risk where you can go back and forth with the last guy until your luck runs out..
We were also used to playing alot of the Eagle Games series games.. and by the far the longest game I've played.. Mega Supremacy (with all the expansions...).. so we played agressively and hard.. and were used to multi-hour/day games already...
I think the problem with alot of the 'omg these games take to long' is they are open ended games.. Tile based games (like Caracossone) and some others (Junta, where there is a limited bank) have fixed/build-in timers that when they run out.. the game is concluded and you count your points..
Also, when all the players know the rules (or at least one person knows them well and is trusted by the others to give the rules quickly and accurately..) it'll really help speed up the game..
There are already a ton of 'short' games.. most of which are card games (no.. not M:TG.. I was thinking more like Lunch Money or regular 'Hoyle book of games' style..)
Something else to consider is sure GoW only solid 2mil copies.. But the majority of that development time is actually split into 2 different titles (at least) and engine licensing. 1- Gears of War.. wee new IP.. 2- UT2007.. I'm wondering if it'll sell as well as GoW? we'll just have to wait and see. 3- UE3 Engine licensing..
According to the front page of http://www.epicgames.com/, there are 21 different annoucements for 'company x licenses UE3'. I figure there are at least few that are not annouced.. and some of those companies are big-boys that may have aquired multiple licenses and or multiple platform licensing.
Now here's the speculation part: If the UE3 license runs the same as a UE2 license, and there are only 21 titles at base rates.. that's > 7mil just there.. exclusive of price adjustment (something tells me UE3 is more $$) and Royalites (if they use a royal based model still with UE3.. )
Epic in recent years as struck me more as an engine development company, not primarly a game maker.. (don't get me wrong.. i like the UT series;]
I gotta say.. I had the most fun playing the game as it wasn't really intended to be played..
I spent many hours playing Slug Match CTB and VR Pool Party. I really loved Bungie before the whole Halo/Microsoft thing. (Never mind that it was loosely based on the Black Company series of books;] )
It's probably the one game and scene that got me the most interested in modding games and realizing that customer added supplimental materials can far outlast the orginal design.
I'm a cubical-jockey IT guy. I often end up helping out installing IT equipment at some of my companies plants, and although it's nothing near the enviromental setup as the poster described; you gotta realize that the plants have Plant Engineers that know thier setup just like you know the setup of your network or whatever.
I'll also agree with the people that stated you better have a pretty real budget here. Industrial-hardend equipment is expensive for a reason.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm with you. For WiC and CoJ, I thought that the DX9 stills actually looked more appealing.
All the more justification for not:
1- upgrading to vista
2- dumping the cash on a DX10 card
>As a politician, you can't 'sell' citywide internet access as easily as you can public transport, sewer system or
>power. It's not one of those "must have" things, it's one of those "why should I have to pay for it" things.
Errr...
As a politician it's harder to sell WiFi because there are many companies that already provide that service, and the infrastructure costs are not as high as something like Sewer/Water/Elec/Cable TV/Telephone.
Also.. they were looking at doing WiFi here.. the biggest problem? we're also a Tree City USA.. that means we got a TON of trees.. which is fine.. I like trees, just at the density they are, they are really good at degrading WiFi signals.
I for one welcome our new adrongious android overlords^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H coworkers....
Besides.. this is the internet, your ways of 'math' and 'facts' have no bearing here.
(I reject your reality and substitute my own?)
If you RTFA one of the 'games' they make is in fact called "Lie Detector".
I agree though, something like this could be an interesting gimmick for a game, but it wouldn't work for any real MP games.. i think it'd be to easy to cheat at.
You can clearly hear (at least on the You Tube video here) the police warning and informing the student if he continues to resist he will be tazed (tased?). I'm sorry.. but if you don't want to be tazed, comply. It's pretty plain that orginally he was just being removed.. but he stepped up the level of physical involvement by resisting, and continued to resist. Once the kid got tasered, he was alot easier to move and there's no evidence that he was maltreated once they picked him up.
.. and now because of some 20 year old kid, I gotta worry about dodging ABC News vans all day here in town..
If accounts are accurate and he did 'run into the room', he's luckly all he got was a tasering.. Secret Service probably definately have detained him / had UF police detain him, and could have cited cause to incapacitate him there and then.
Now, I think once Sen. Kerry said 'I'll answer the questions' that the handlers should have just told the guy to shutup and listen or leave.. they didn't, and the kid put up a stink..
The ABCNews article doesn't seem to accurately cover what I saw in the YouTube video.. i guess it's just proof that most journalism sucks anyhow..
Now I will -never- get my Conan Books autographed! .. I mean.. at least his part in that series was actually completed....
suckas!
Incidently, I have a FlexLM protected software that tied itself ot my Cisco VPN Client Adapter...
I only found out after I disabled the adapter for some reason or another, and my software stopped working..
Ergo.. if you -really- wanted ot make a FlexLM app portable, you could install a virtual adapter, ensure it's #1, then install your app.. then just create the adapter with the same MAC on any/all machines you want to have your license 'ported' to.
Not that I would condone such actions..
Except the KV series utilimately failed.. especially those KVs that were 'bigger and meaner'.. the KV-1s series of tanks weren't really that much one-upity.. and actually most of the soviet monsterous tanks were developed for the Winter War with Finland (esp the KV-1 / KV-2, and those crazy multi-turreted suckers you hear about like the SMK and T-100)
You could argue that it isn't really a Soviet thing.. ever see the design concepts for the Tsar Tank?
The Typhoon, Mig-25, and An series cargo planes are petty much successful.
I use one of the Logitech Marble's ( http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/tr ackballs/devices/156&cl=us,en ).. unfortunately it was the largest trackball I could find for $100 at the time.. Initially I wasn't sure it would suit my needs (mostly just ergonomics), and it wasn't a 'thumb' only style..
I never tried any real Graphics Art type stuff with it however... i've found it's easy enough to 'lock' the left-right movement of the ball by using the side of my middle finger on the side of the ball, but I can't imagine how you would do the same with horizontal movement.
Aside from that, it's been great for me.. I really like that I don't have to worry about trying to move a mouse in the semi-confined area I have for a work desk.
> Why anyone would be crazy enough to entrust a AAA console title to a pc developer like Epic is a completely separate question.
Except the UEngine has been shipped for Consoles numerous times in the past.. some examples, the Rainbow Six franchise, Unreal championship, shadow ops: red merc, Red Steel, and the Brothers in Arms franchise...
As for UE3 specifically, Roboblitz shipped ok iirc.. didn't Rainbow 6: Vegas ship ok?.. Bioshock doesn't seem to have any major issues with the engine, do they? (I'd be suprised we haven't heard from them)..
So why is it one studio is having a big uproar over this? if it was as bad as they claim, surely Gearbox, EA, Bioware, Midway, Ubisoft, Besthesda, and others would be pitching fits too?..
With any new engine, there's gonna be bumps.. it's call software.. it won't be perfect the first time.. such is life..
.. imagine that.. .. among most of the tabletop/(non PC) gamers, GW is well known as 'the Evil Empire' of the tabletop world.. this is just another shiny example.. big deal..
I'll admit I bought a few of thier things.. promptly modified them to be more realistic (why do evil robots need axes on the end of thier particle cannons? oh wait.. they dont.. THEY ARE EVIL ROBOTS!!!).. and used them for non-GW uses... hurray hurray!
What? you mean you -dont- use NVRam? ....All the cool kids are doing it in thier servers..
Apple might be 30 years old, so in 6 more years we can revisit the C=64 / ][e wars .. I'm still betting on C=64.. the SID chip was the pwn.
/me pines for the days when not everything supported ANSI..
I'll give my props to the Apple duece because it was a pioneer..
Keep a mind on Steam's game lineup now.. it started with upper/mid endish requiring games, and now it offers up PopCap games and XCom:Terror from the Deep... hardly anything that requires even what would be considered 'lower' level in the current scale of hardware.
"I remember when WOTC was satisfied to just make good games. Now it seems like all they do is try to keep anyone else from making games"
.. when was WOTC satisfied with just making good games? Oh right.. up until they realized they have a gold mine in MTG.. so we'll call it '95-'96.
Say what now?
I lost faith in WOTC as a well-mannered company when they released the 15915th expansion for MTG.. at that point it became painfully obvious they were in it for the bucks.. whcih is fine.. it's the goal of a company.. and kudos to them for bailing out TSR..
oh well.. there are still a few smaller shops that work to publish quality over quanitity.
(I miss my 80's era FASA.. sniff sniff)
Sorry.. i forgot the syntax on my above post..
9-5 Job Faster then Light?
I think he was saying that Flight 93 crashed because the people on board it stood up, realized something was going on, and fought for themselves.. not that they specifically had firearms.
Um.. so it's not included? Big deal..
apt-get install wine
done...
What's the problem?
Can I really be trusted to tell you how good or bad I am?
.. which begs the quesion.. do we really have SysOps anymore?
Frankly, I've always loved the name SysOp.. it just sounds better.. even though it's not an accurate title anymore.
I own a few of the german games.. most of them I got a few years back when I had more time for such things..
I've found most actually take LESS time then many of the Hasbro style board games.. (for instance, when we played "Krieg und Frieden", the 90 minute play time really meant 90 minutes.. unlike Risk where you can go back and forth with the last guy until your luck runs out..
We were also used to playing alot of the Eagle Games series games.. and by the far the longest game I've played.. Mega Supremacy (with all the expansions...).. so we played agressively and hard.. and were used to multi-hour/day games already...
I think the problem with alot of the 'omg these games take to long' is they are open ended games..
Tile based games (like Caracossone) and some others (Junta, where there is a limited bank) have fixed/build-in timers that when they run out.. the game is concluded and you count your points..
Also, when all the players know the rules (or at least one person knows them well and is trusted by the others to give the rules quickly and accurately..) it'll really help speed up the game..
There are already a ton of 'short' games.. most of which are card games (no.. not M:TG.. I was thinking more like Lunch Money or regular 'Hoyle book of games' style..)
Something else to consider is sure GoW only solid 2mil copies.. .. wee new IP.. .. I'm wondering if it'll sell as well as GoW? we'll just have to wait and see.
;]
But the majority of that development time is actually split into 2 different titles (at least) and engine licensing.
1- Gears of War
2- UT2007
3- UE3 Engine licensing..
Lets do some fuzzy math:
an UE2 Royality-Bearing license ran $350,000 + $50,000 per extra platform.
AFAIK, UE3 License terms haven't been published to the public yet..
According to the front page of http://www.epicgames.com/, there are 21 different annoucements for 'company x licenses UE3'. I figure there are at least few that are not annouced.. and some of those companies are big-boys that may have aquired multiple licenses and or multiple platform licensing.
Now here's the speculation part:
If the UE3 license runs the same as a UE2 license, and there are only 21 titles at base rates.. that's > 7mil just there.. exclusive of price adjustment (something tells me UE3 is more $$) and Royalites (if they use a royal based model still with UE3.. )
Epic in recent years as struck me more as an engine development company, not primarly a game maker.. (don't get me wrong.. i like the UT series
I gotta say.. I had the most fun playing the game as it wasn't really intended to be played..
;] )
I spent many hours playing Slug Match CTB and VR Pool Party. I really loved Bungie before the whole Halo/Microsoft thing.
(Never mind that it was loosely based on the Black Company series of books
It's probably the one game and scene that got me the most interested in modding games and realizing that customer added supplimental materials can far outlast the orginal design.
Comon.. it was one of the pioneering RTS-style multi-play games.. :]
Had it for the C=64 and it was great fun
Neatest thing about the game.. your CommaCen shooting off guided bombs.. good times.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Modem+Wars
I'm a cubical-jockey IT guy. I often end up helping out installing IT equipment at some of my companies plants, and although it's nothing near the enviromental setup as the poster described; you gotta realize that the plants have Plant Engineers that know thier setup just like you know the setup of your network or whatever.
I'll also agree with the people that stated you better have a pretty real budget here. Industrial-hardend equipment is expensive for a reason.