I was sitting in my office (Chicago) and the phone rang; two vendor reps wanted to drop by, being in the area, but needed some directions. As it happens they were in Peoria (central Illinois) which struck me as peculiar in saying that they were in the area. When they made it in, it turned out they were "in" from Australia. So in fact, from there perspective, they were "in the area".Seems things are all relative.
All things are relative, all relatives are things, my relatives took all my things.
Mentioned as an aside was the browsers hitting Shashdot - has anyone looked at the percent by site? Not quite certain what it would mean, beyond the esoteric value of visitors to these types of sites tend to use browser X while for these sites tend to use browser Y.
Greg
For SIM style games, there tends to be two crowds - one looking for a lot of action and a quick reset if you go flying off the track, get shot down, or in some other way "die". The other group is looking for a system that most closely models reality (i.e., if you crash or die, you're out of luck). The main difference is that as you get closer to "reality" it becomes dramatically harder.
What comes to mind as a good example are the Dynamix series "Red Baron", "Aces over Europe", "Aces Over the Pacific" and "RB II". The games tried pretty hard to simulate both aerial combat as well as the flight model. My impression was that part of why they were not particularly successful was simply that they were considered "too hard". In the campaign mode, if you died it was "Game Over". You could reset from an earlier spot, but you did not get multiple lives etc (a couple of the versions went so far as a closing shot of your tombstone with as I recall taps being played).
I think that will be the greatest challenge, simply whether there is enough of a audience for a true "SIM" (assuming it's as described) versus a watered-down reality to make it easier for the masses.
Slashdot Mirror
I was sitting in my office (Chicago) and the phone rang; two vendor reps wanted to drop by, being in the area, but needed some directions. As it happens they were in Peoria (central Illinois) which struck me as peculiar in saying that they were in the area. When they made it in, it turned out they were "in" from Australia. So in fact, from there perspective, they were "in the area".Seems things are all relative.
All things are relative, all relatives are things, my relatives took all my things.
Greg
Mentioned as an aside was the browsers hitting Shashdot - has anyone looked at the percent by site? Not quite certain what it would mean, beyond the esoteric value of visitors to these types of sites tend to use browser X while for these sites tend to use browser Y. Greg
For SIM style games, there tends to be two crowds - one looking for a lot of action and a quick reset if you go flying off the track, get shot down, or in some other way "die". The other group is looking for a system that most closely models reality (i.e., if you crash or die, you're out of luck). The main difference is that as you get closer to "reality" it becomes dramatically harder. What comes to mind as a good example are the Dynamix series "Red Baron", "Aces over Europe", "Aces Over the Pacific" and "RB II". The games tried pretty hard to simulate both aerial combat as well as the flight model. My impression was that part of why they were not particularly successful was simply that they were considered "too hard". In the campaign mode, if you died it was "Game Over". You could reset from an earlier spot, but you did not get multiple lives etc (a couple of the versions went so far as a closing shot of your tombstone with as I recall taps being played). I think that will be the greatest challenge, simply whether there is enough of a audience for a true "SIM" (assuming it's as described) versus a watered-down reality to make it easier for the masses.