Ah, I think I get what you mean. I have a hard time believing that's the route Blizzard's chosen though - action RPG only goes so far in terms of action.
Actually, the assassin skills generally have 3 charges. You can also "mix and match", for instance, hit 3 enemies to charge up the life/mana stealing skill to 3 charges, then hit 3 more enemies to charge the damage increasing skill to 3 charges, and then another 3 enemies to charge up, say, your fire damage skill to 3 charges. Hitting an enemy with a normal attack or "finishing move" then releases all 9 charges at once. Sounds a lot like the monk description to me... even if they say "levels" instead of "charges".
Also, I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "classic fighting game combos". Care to explain?:)
From the summary: "When designing the Monk, they wanted a fragile fighting class with more depth than just running up and smashing something. They looked at World of Warcraft's Rogue and Diablo II's Assassin, but decided each was ultimately unsatisfying for a game like Diablo III. They wanted something with a limited amount of skills but many ways to have those skills work together. Thus was born the combo system. Many of the Monk's major attacks have three different stages. Clicking on an enemy once gives you the first stage, clicking again (within a short period of time) gives you the second stage, and another click for the third stage. For example: Exploding Palm. The first stage hits for 35% of your weapon damage. Second stage hits for 50%. Third stage puts a damage-over-time bleed effect on the enemy, exacerbated by movement. If the enemy dies from the bleed effect, it explodes, causing a huge amount of damage to nearby enemies. This happens quite often, and it's a very powerful area-of-effect attack. Another example: Way of the Hundred Fists. The first attack is a quick dash, striking one enemy. The second stage is a rapid series of low-damage attacks. The third stage is a powerful area-of-effect damage and knock-back effect around the player.
Now, the most interesting part about these combos is that you can mix and match. You can take the first stage from one ability, second stage from another, and the third stage from still another. This lets you tailor the way you attack to fit whatever situation you're in."
Sounds EXACTLY like most of the Diablo II Assassin's Martial Arts skills... maybe someone writing articles about Diablo 3 should actually have PLAYED the predecessor(s)?
Good to know... I thought the person I was replying to was implying that 800x480 screens are currently exclusive to these devices. Thanks for clearing that up.
Uh, wut? Windows Mobile has pretty much moved to 800x480... just check out all the current HTC devices (Diamond 2, Touch Pro 2, HD and so on) or stuff like the Omnia Pro or Toshiba TG01...
Seems similar to laptops and desktops so far, TBH. I've had a few chances to play with an OpenMoko phone running Debian - fun, but not exactly usable for anything that requires stability or a working system of any sort. The same goes for the stock OS on those things...
Hopefully Nokia will do a better job, but somehow I don't think I should be getting my hopes up.
They're impossible to use consistently these days, because hitting tab when typing in a text entry box in a browser usually switches cursor focus to the "Post" or "Submit" button. Why hasn't the useless caps-lock key been turned into the "switch cursor focus" button, with the Tab key working like it's supposed to in text processing?
Other than that, I'm actually pretty satisfied with my grammar/spelling - the only problem is that living in Germany is slowly ruining the English I managed to learn between Kindergarten and 10th grade...
Hah, you should try downloading all the compiz stuff from the repository and then activating it in the settings panel. The screen just went all garbled and kept garbling, even after a full reboot. Good fun...:)
True, but the presentation video made me think otherwise - with this feature set, I'd say a lot of things are possible... including widespread adoption a la E-Mail or at least, say, ICQ. The only thing I'm missing so far is a standalone app (although apps like Pidgin will probably be adding support pretty quickly)...
But a cellphone is something you carry anyway, isn't it?;)
A netbook is a whole new device - ideal for, say, people who use a desktop as their main computer and just need a light-weight little machine for the stuff they need to do on the move. If you've already got a laptop and/or a smartphone, well... a netbook probably won't get much use.
Good point, but why stop there? Why not run Debian on an OpenMoko phone? You can even hook up a USB keyboard to the damned thing (the foldable ones fit in a jacket pocket easily), so why carry around the bulk of a netbook?
I don't think so. The whole point of a little netbook ("Oooooh, look at the cute little laptop!") is making your regular (lightweight) notebook apps portable. For the majority of consumers, that means they want to run exactly the same e-mail program, the same browser, the same IM program(s)... Realizing that they need to learn to use a completely different interface is going to be quite a shock. It was supposedly pretty much the same with the Ubuntu laptops certain manufacturers have been selling...
I don't really see the appeal in an ARM netbook. In fact, I wish my phone was x86 - the current standard Windows Mobile smartphone res of 800x480 is just fine for a stripped down XP or even Win7... hell, if they could just get the damned things up to 24 hours (or even 15 or so!) without a recharge, I'd be more than happy. If all you're interested in is ARM and long battery life, get a smartphone and a foldable bluetooth keyboard. Otherwise, get an x86-based netbook and be satisfied with the currently available 10 hours of battery life...
Why has no system for identifying and deleting spammer freemail accounts been devised yet? Wouldn't it be relatively simple to query, say, Google's anti-spam filters and delete every account that's sent more than a certain amount of spam?
Sure, it would require the freemail providers to work together, so it's unlikely to happen - but wouldn't it theoretically be possible?
Actually, the only way I can really bog down the system these days (not including stuff like X264 encoding, obviously) is with I/O. When 3 programs are trying to write to the drive simultaneously, everything slows to a crawl...
SSDs are a much more welcome development than more cores in CPUs, IMO.
Exactly, and an SM58 is NOT an entry level microphone - it's stoneage technology that should never again be used for vocals. Guitars, fine (as a matter of fact, I have an SM57 - which has the same capsule as the SM58 - for just that purpose), but NOT vocals. Other than that, they're more useful when you don't have a hammer handy or need to defend yourself against a nightly intruder...
An entry level Shure may not be six thousand dollars, but you're not getting anything decent for $100 either. Mics that actually deserve to be categorized as such start around the Beta58A.
Why would this be for IT purposes? I use it for note taking in uni lectures and creative writing on long trips where my laptop battery isn't going to last... works perfectly fine, albeit with a full size bluetooth keyboard.
Hell, I take notes and write my creative fiction on 320x240... 800x480 is my next stop, and I'm having trouble getting the drool out of my keyboard. That should make writing down lab results on Excel Mobile a lot easier/more efficient:)
When I'm too lazy to take my laptop (or it doesn't have enough battery life), I just pack my foldable bluetooth keyboard and smartphone - voila, perfect note taking solution, with oodles and oodles of battery life.
The problem is, there's hardly any plans in Europe that include data. Here in Germany, for instance, unlimited (throttled to GPRS after 5GB) data is around 20 to 30 Euros per month - additionally. That means if you want a plan with, say 200 minutes/200 SMS per month and that "unlimited" data, you're looking at about 50 Euros. That seems to be pretty much on par with what I've heard about the States...
Sadly, only with an N64 emulator. As I've moved away from gaming in the sense of sitting at a screen alone for hours on end, I've found that there's a pretty big void for casual PC games that can be played on a single PC with multiple people. The only things available are a few board games, things like Worms and good old Project64...
Zip, RAR, TAR, whatever. Just something that can be distributed as a single file... I didn't pay particular attention to which archive format would be better:)
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Ah, I think I get what you mean. I have a hard time believing that's the route Blizzard's chosen though - action RPG only goes so far in terms of action.
Actually, the assassin skills generally have 3 charges. You can also "mix and match", for instance, hit 3 enemies to charge up the life/mana stealing skill to 3 charges, then hit 3 more enemies to charge the damage increasing skill to 3 charges, and then another 3 enemies to charge up, say, your fire damage skill to 3 charges. Hitting an enemy with a normal attack or "finishing move" then releases all 9 charges at once. Sounds a lot like the monk description to me... even if they say "levels" instead of "charges".
Also, I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "classic fighting game combos". Care to explain? :)
From the summary: "When designing the Monk, they wanted a fragile fighting class with more depth than just running up and smashing something. They looked at World of Warcraft's Rogue and Diablo II's Assassin, but decided each was ultimately unsatisfying for a game like Diablo III. They wanted something with a limited amount of skills but many ways to have those skills work together. Thus was born the combo system. Many of the Monk's major attacks have three different stages. Clicking on an enemy once gives you the first stage, clicking again (within a short period of time) gives you the second stage, and another click for the third stage. For example: Exploding Palm. The first stage hits for 35% of your weapon damage. Second stage hits for 50%. Third stage puts a damage-over-time bleed effect on the enemy, exacerbated by movement. If the enemy dies from the bleed effect, it explodes, causing a huge amount of damage to nearby enemies. This happens quite often, and it's a very powerful area-of-effect attack. Another example: Way of the Hundred Fists. The first attack is a quick dash, striking one enemy. The second stage is a rapid series of low-damage attacks. The third stage is a powerful area-of-effect damage and knock-back effect around the player.
Now, the most interesting part about these combos is that you can mix and match. You can take the first stage from one ability, second stage from another, and the third stage from still another. This lets you tailor the way you attack to fit whatever situation you're in."
Sounds EXACTLY like most of the Diablo II Assassin's Martial Arts skills... maybe someone writing articles about Diablo 3 should actually have PLAYED the predecessor(s)?
Good to know... I thought the person I was replying to was implying that 800x480 screens are currently exclusive to these devices. Thanks for clearing that up.
Actually, I'm looking forward to a mouse that I can use on any surface - should be useful for in the train to work etc. j:)
Uh, wut? Windows Mobile has pretty much moved to 800x480... just check out all the current HTC devices (Diamond 2, Touch Pro 2, HD and so on) or stuff like the Omnia Pro or Toshiba TG01...
Imagine not being able to call 911 because your phone got Slashdotted...
Seems similar to laptops and desktops so far, TBH. I've had a few chances to play with an OpenMoko phone running Debian - fun, but not exactly usable for anything that requires stability or a working system of any sort. The same goes for the stock OS on those things...
Hopefully Nokia will do a better job, but somehow I don't think I should be getting my hopes up.
They're impossible to use consistently these days, because hitting tab when typing in a text entry box in a browser usually switches cursor focus to the "Post" or "Submit" button. Why hasn't the useless caps-lock key been turned into the "switch cursor focus" button, with the Tab key working like it's supposed to in text processing?
Other than that, I'm actually pretty satisfied with my grammar/spelling - the only problem is that living in Germany is slowly ruining the English I managed to learn between Kindergarten and 10th grade...
Hah, you should try downloading all the compiz stuff from the repository and then activating it in the settings panel. The screen just went all garbled and kept garbling, even after a full reboot. Good fun... :)
Awesome. :D
True, but the presentation video made me think otherwise - with this feature set, I'd say a lot of things are possible... including widespread adoption a la E-Mail or at least, say, ICQ. The only thing I'm missing so far is a standalone app (although apps like Pidgin will probably be adding support pretty quickly)...
A combination of real-time editable collaborative IM, E-Mail and forums - and a whole lot of other awesome stuff.
Personally, I can't wait.
But a cellphone is something you carry anyway, isn't it? ;)
A netbook is a whole new device - ideal for, say, people who use a desktop as their main computer and just need a light-weight little machine for the stuff they need to do on the move. If you've already got a laptop and/or a smartphone, well... a netbook probably won't get much use.
Good point, but why stop there? Why not run Debian on an OpenMoko phone? You can even hook up a USB keyboard to the damned thing (the foldable ones fit in a jacket pocket easily), so why carry around the bulk of a netbook?
I don't think so. The whole point of a little netbook ("Oooooh, look at the cute little laptop!") is making your regular (lightweight) notebook apps portable. For the majority of consumers, that means they want to run exactly the same e-mail program, the same browser, the same IM program(s)... Realizing that they need to learn to use a completely different interface is going to be quite a shock. It was supposedly pretty much the same with the Ubuntu laptops certain manufacturers have been selling...
I don't really see the appeal in an ARM netbook. In fact, I wish my phone was x86 - the current standard Windows Mobile smartphone res of 800x480 is just fine for a stripped down XP or even Win7... hell, if they could just get the damned things up to 24 hours (or even 15 or so!) without a recharge, I'd be more than happy. If all you're interested in is ARM and long battery life, get a smartphone and a foldable bluetooth keyboard. Otherwise, get an x86-based netbook and be satisfied with the currently available 10 hours of battery life...
Why has no system for identifying and deleting spammer freemail accounts been devised yet? Wouldn't it be relatively simple to query, say, Google's anti-spam filters and delete every account that's sent more than a certain amount of spam?
Sure, it would require the freemail providers to work together, so it's unlikely to happen - but wouldn't it theoretically be possible?
Actually, the only way I can really bog down the system these days (not including stuff like X264 encoding, obviously) is with I/O. When 3 programs are trying to write to the drive simultaneously, everything slows to a crawl...
SSDs are a much more welcome development than more cores in CPUs, IMO.
Exactly, and an SM58 is NOT an entry level microphone - it's stoneage technology that should never again be used for vocals. Guitars, fine (as a matter of fact, I have an SM57 - which has the same capsule as the SM58 - for just that purpose), but NOT vocals. Other than that, they're more useful when you don't have a hammer handy or need to defend yourself against a nightly intruder...
An entry level Shure may not be six thousand dollars, but you're not getting anything decent for $100 either. Mics that actually deserve to be categorized as such start around the Beta58A.
Why would this be for IT purposes? I use it for note taking in uni lectures and creative writing on long trips where my laptop battery isn't going to last... works perfectly fine, albeit with a full size bluetooth keyboard.
Hell, I take notes and write my creative fiction on 320x240... 800x480 is my next stop, and I'm having trouble getting the drool out of my keyboard. That should make writing down lab results on Excel Mobile a lot easier/more efficient :)
That's what bluetooth keyboards are for.
When I'm too lazy to take my laptop (or it doesn't have enough battery life), I just pack my foldable bluetooth keyboard and smartphone - voila, perfect note taking solution, with oodles and oodles of battery life.
The problem is, there's hardly any plans in Europe that include data. Here in Germany, for instance, unlimited (throttled to GPRS after 5GB) data is around 20 to 30 Euros per month - additionally. That means if you want a plan with, say 200 minutes/200 SMS per month and that "unlimited" data, you're looking at about 50 Euros. That seems to be pretty much on par with what I've heard about the States...
Sadly, only with an N64 emulator. As I've moved away from gaming in the sense of sitting at a screen alone for hours on end, I've found that there's a pretty big void for casual PC games that can be played on a single PC with multiple people. The only things available are a few board games, things like Worms and good old Project64...
You hear that, gaming industry? I want MOAR!
Zip, RAR, TAR, whatever. Just something that can be distributed as a single file... I didn't pay particular attention to which archive format would be better :)