It's not that 'people have tried and failed therefore no one can', my argument is that it sure as hell won't be the Iphone that does it.
You say the Iphone is "positioned at the DS already." Like hell it is. The Iphone costs some $500? You could buy three Nintendo DS's for that much money ($169 / per). And for that you get a machine that's actually designed to play games in every way.
You're right, Apple's never going to put buttons on the Iphone, yet another reason they are unlikley to eclipse the DS. Look at how the PSP was routinely savaged for not having a second analog stick.
My assertions are not a matter of fear, just an observation of Nintendo and its hand-held competitors, their attempts and their failings. Ever single one of them have come at Nintendo with a product that had a better screen, and worse battery life (often much, much worse), and was more expensive (often not so much more expensive as the Iphone currently is either) -- and this has formed a pattern of failure among those competitors.
You ask me, someone could indeed compete with Nintendo if they created a system that had a smaller, uglier screen, a perfect form and input mechanism, a far better battery than the DS, and sold at a cheaper price by a nice margin. Then they'd have to court developers to no end, who would not be too happy about a split market anyway, so momentum is in N's favor there. Even then they'd be quite likely to face stiff price competition from Nintendo, and without great profits pretty quickly would lose on feature creep pretty quickly, as N comes out with improved models quite regularly (~2 years).
N has won because the barrier to entry is high, the pitfalls gigantic, and its service to the market is very close to what the market actually wants. A cheap, rugged, long-playing game system, and that's all. No one but Nintendo has ever offered just that. And the Iphone doesn't fit that bill either.
So think about your own logic for a bit. The years to come will show you: the gaming market on the Iphone will continue to be an afterthought. Apple could potentially create a niche for older gamers, the kind who can afford to own such a device in the first place, and AC plays into this demographic. But they'll never, ever, ever capture the youth market for portable gaming, which is the meat and gravy of the market, with the Iphone. Ain't gonna happen, never.
Yes, and the DS version sells for 2-3 times the Iphone version. Ever wonder why? And why the consumer is okay with this?
The guy in that video you linked says the Iphone version of the game is better because it is graphically superior and cheaper in cost. He clearly know little about the hand-held market and its history. Every competitor who's ever challenged Nintendo's decades long dominance of the hand-held sector has come at them with the same thing 'better looking' (though not always cheaper games, but usually more expensive hardware) and has been devastated. If the Iphone were only a gaming device it would likely suffer the same fate.
So, you may think $10 for Assassin's Creed on the Iphone is a great deal. Sure. But what if you're the publisher? You might port the game to Iphone after making it for the DS and selling it there for awhile. But what if the DS was gone and Iphone was your primary system, could you afford to sell games at $10 a pop? No. So, publishers are not going to be happy with a $10 price for a game like AC. The only reason the price is so low anyway is because Apple no doubt put pressure on them to lower the price as much as possible, and they did it to test the waters.
Lastly, the graphics are are only marginally better. The battery life is much worse. The control scheme is much worse (Iphone control scheme even takes up screen real-estate!). The durability of the Iphone is worse (no clamshell). And the cost of the Iphone itself it far, far, far higher. Children are not going to be buying it, nor teens, nor parents for children or teens. It costs more than a PS3!
I assert again, Apple has no chance of displacing Nintendo in the hand-held market with the Iphone. It will continue to be at best a secondary market, a throw-away market, while the market-share remains with Nintendo.
Apple would be dumb to take on Nintendo in the handheld market.
A. It's been tried. Everyone up to and including Sony has tried and failed. No one has ever taken the crown from N in portable gaming. And Sony gave it everything they had.
B. It's not possible without dedicated hardware. So the Iphone can play games. Gee great. It has a nice screen. So did the PSP. But it doesn't have dedicated gaming inputs like the PSP had, and the PSP still failed. I remember people saying the PSP would be the one to finally take the crown, how wrong they were. The DS blew everything out of the water once again.
C. Only one screen. When Apple starts shipping Iphones with two screens it might have a chance of competing with the DS, until then I think not.
Are developers going to create games for Iphone with the same scope of the best and richest of DS games? No. Because the market for Iphone apps is muddled. People may be buying games for the Iphone, but they sure as hell aren't paying DS-game prices for those games. They're paying a few bucks. And those games reflect it, they are curiosities-- the portable equivalent of time wasters, generally. Will Square ever release an RPG for the Iphone, I seriously doubt it. Will parent buy an Ipohone for their kid to game with? Hell no. Lacking a clam-shell alone is a massive strike on that possibility.
You know, I think the law needs to catch-up here. We should pass legislation making it against the law to let your computer be part of a botnet, punishable by whatever damage gets inflicted upon it when anyone in the know attempts to remove it from your system without your knowledge. That way white-hacker has automatic immunity and is able to actually help and use their powers for good.
All good points, sir, here, here. There was a push in the 19th century (as I recall) to make English conform to latin grammar rules and we're still suffering from the effects of those whom cannot break from the form. I recently went through a lecture series by Michael Drout called 'History of the English Language' which makes these same points far more eloquently than I, and calls this attempt both stupid and ignorant. He makes the same point as you about double and quadruple negatives also. Shakespeare wrote in a time before grammar-nazis existed, before the push to latinize english existed. In fact, at the time of Shakespeare a lot of english words were pronounced very differently also, which is why many of his rhymings no longer work in modern english-- but they would've worked perfectly back then.
Calling the word 'virii' wrong because of a Latin grammar rule is not an argument with any sort of validity! This is english, this is NOT Latin. And the schoolmasters of the 19th century whom decided to force Latin grammar rules onto english overstepped bounds.
It's possible to make a pen that costs $90,000. Platinum base, studded with flawless diamond all around. Highest, rarest quality ink. Ruby-sphere tip. Signed by Tiger Woods. 30% markup by the manufacturer and seller. Done and done.
In other news, representatives of whiskey maker, Jim Bean Corp. were arrested Monday trying to buy radioactive materials from radical elements in Darfur. Experts disagree whether this was a plot to produce counterfeit whiskey or to produce a nuclear bomb as part of some plan for world domination. Dr. Evil was unavailable for comment by press time.
2.3% is too much tax to be paying in the first place. Corporation shouldn't be paying ANY taxes, as it just turns into income anyway which then ends up getting taxed again = double taxation. If Obama expects to raise hundreds of billions from a tax crackdown the long-term consequences will simply be more effective means-- likely including relocating firms out of the US entirely so we don't see any tax money from them at all, corporate or income. Why would any politician try to raise taxes in this economy??? Cut the damn spending, idiots.
This is where we need hackers with a 'license to kill... botnets'. Something like 007 for the digital age. The idea that killing a botnet can get you convicted of something is so ludicrous. The damage imposed by killing a botnet is miniscule compared to leaving the botnet open to prey on wider society. Where's the white hackers with a set of balls on 'em? Excuses, excuses, let's see action.
I hear they're detectors are so sensitive that they will only be able to detect the sought-after Big Bang radiation if every microwave-oven on the planet is turned off for a good couple of hours. So, in other words, they'll never detect Big Bang radiation:P
*The TV glows to life in a moment; it's News at 11*
John: In other news, journalist makes laughable prediction that two companies you've never heard of can threaten two of the largest companies in existence. Media-watchers cynically called this a blogger stunt to boost website hits, noting that sites such as Slashdot "drive a lot of hits" which, combined with Google Adsense, turns into cash for news site, Cnet.com, which hosted the article. Comments, Linda?
Linda: News organizations cynically driving consumers to their web pages with fake news, how low can you go?
John: (laughing) You tell 'em.
Linda: For more information on this and other top stories visit our website!
*The TV glows to life in a moment; it's News at 11*
In other news, journalist makes laughable prediction that two companies you've never heard of can threaten two of the largest companies in existence. Media-watchers cynically called this a blogger stunt to boost website hits, noting that sites such as Slashdot "drive a lot of hits" which, combined with Google Adsense, turns into cash for news site, Cnet.com, which hosted the article. Comments, Linda?
News organizations cynically driving consumers to their web pages with fake news, how low can you go?
(laughing) You tell 'em.
For more information on this and other top stories visit our website!
B. The ancient attempt to force Latin grammar rules on English needs to be done away with. Split infinitives and ending sentences in prepositions may be crimes in Latin but are perfectly fine in English.
And some people need to stop being latin-grammar nazis.
I played that thing often. It was a Colecovision game, Popeye the Sailor, somewhat Mario-like, for sure. Definite parallels. Then, of course, Nintendo skated by using the word 'Kong' in Donkey Kong and was sued by Universal, but ended up winning the lawsuit in the end.
It's a matter of how ambitious you want to be. There have been studios that made a point of owning their IP, and began their game as the beginning of a brand, a mascot, intended to become popular. Look at Mario, has more name recognition than Mickey Mouse. To do this sort of thing you have to be a triple-A studio backed with a ton of financing and development freedom.
The last developer that notably got to this point, after years of doing work for other people's IP is Factor 5. Unfortunately they tanked with Lair, mostly not their fault, who could've predicted Sony would release at $600:| But the game wasn't amazing either. You could mention Silicon Knights as well. Too Human in development for over 10 years, at least conceptually. While the story was ambitious it somehow didn't quite resonate, and had that miserable E3 debut.
So, if you're an up&coming developer and you catch the eye of a publisher, do you say yes or no to that Matrix derived console port? You say yes, of course. You want to work, you bide your time, pay your dues, and store up the cheddar for your shot.
Sometimes their day comes and fizzles, and sometimes it's a home-run. Sometimes it's Daikatana, sometimes it's Deus Ex. Lol, same studio (name anyway), but Romero was running the one that tanked like a fish. (One wonders if Romero still wears his 'Design is Law' t-shirts around the house... or do they even fit anymore?)
Sure, doing a game adaptation has its pitfalls, that's clear. The biggest pitfalls fall in areas that can be the hardest to get right. It's damned easy to create the world's visuals. No one cares anymore. You have a hi-rez texture-map of Trinity's face for your Matrix game and know enough code to slap it onto a wireframe (mirrored), whoop-dee-do. Let's see a trick learned in your sophomore year of college. The real trick is matching tone, mood, atmosphere, scope -- those things that movie-makers try so desperately hard to build into their films, and if they're done right are so subtle that you only feel them, never mechanically note them. After that there's the question of whether the game-play is slick or not, and that can be tricky too. The master of gameplay is Nintendo. Miyamoto's made how many Mario / Zelda / Metroid / etc., etc., etc., etc., games now? And yet each one sells like crack? That's because the story is only a frame, the game is in the gameplay, the control mechanics, that feedback of visuals and control. The answer to the question: what is a game? Miyamoto knows it, and you play it in his games.
The last major pitfall: running out of time and financing. When they rely on the name more than the game. We've all played stuff that was an adaptation that was utter sh!t. Going all the way back to the industry slayer: E.T. the Extraterrestrial for the Atari. I played that goddamn thing left and right, and it was annoying as hell. Or take that Little Mermaid game for the NES my sister talked my little brother in purchasing one Christmas long ago, though I warned him about it and he later was quite upset.
There's always gonna be some stuff that just should not be adapted. Who's gonna try and make a game out of "Pride and Prejudice", or "Angela's Ashes"? There's just not enough action. And dating simulators never really took off in the States (thank god, that's a new level of pathetic:P).
UGH, I'm trying to forget those days. I used to play goddamn NES on a B&W portable-tv monitor, and of course Atari before that on even worse displays. Some games required you to see certain colors, notably Low-G Man. The red ones were a slightly darker shade of gray on a B&W tv/wrists
The idea of being nostalgic for those days, or wanting to see things like that again, it's hard to believe. It's like people being nostalgic and going back to communism after the wall fell. IT'S SICK. It's like visual pain and some people are clearly masochists.
My uncle collected Model-T cars, but at least they were fun to ride in. This is like the digital equivalent of 'roughing it' it's like going camping, living like the cavemen used to. God Bless Benjamin Franklin and his crispy hands.
Summary: This is a stream-of-consciousness piece about a wannabe astronaut in isolation training, who begins to go mad and ends up removing his own eyeballs.
Comments: This is an ambitious premise, a pregnant premise. It is nicely written and the grammar is not a weakness. One line that really jumped out at me, "he felt textures with such detail that he was trying to devise a new vocabulary to describe everything."
However, I think you can explore and expand the idea massively. This needs to be longer to have justice done to the idea (same with my Samsara story:P). You have him going mad after only two or three weeks?
I like that he's hungry for sensation and that leads to him messing with the eyes, but that can be expanded too. I'd have him playing with body parts >_> so to speak, and thinking about them in a similar style before making it to the eyeballs. One cool thing about the eyes is that if you press on them they generate a light signature. Try it, close your eyes, press on the corner nearest your nose, and you'll see some light, looks like you can see your fingerprint as you press but on the far side of your eye, it's weird. I'd have him start by doing that. He could begin doing this so much that it leads to him damaging the eyes. Maybe he accidentally pops his eyeballs through too much pressure.
Another facet of sensory isolation like this is that the image generation part of your brain, the part that is responsibly for making those dreams 'so lifelike' can leak into conscious life and begin generating images. I'd have his growing desperation for the training to be over manifest by having him hallucinate that it is over then be devastated when he finds it's fake, or something.
So, the transition from sane to madness, expand that.
Once he's actually got the eyeballs in his hand, I had the thought that what prevents most people from doing this is that is would be incredibly, incredibly painful >_> Snapping apart your own optic nerve, that's harsh.
What's great about your story is that it's part of a growing thought that the human body (and mind) just wasn't made for interstellar travel. 2001 had a similar theme, and ended with the solution: "The Star Child"
The Star Child is the next and final phase of human evolution when we become, or merge with our technology, see "Ghost in the Shell" or anything by Ray Kurzweil.
I'm currently writing a novel series with many of these themes and they are on the border of my mind:)
Ignorant. Speaking as a former tank myself, there are often things that can only be done with a mouse, notably moving. Movement \ turning is a very important part of tanking. And you simply cannot keyboard turn\move and expect to excel. Similarly communication is very important, and tanks are often called upon to coordinate and communicate. I was a tank and a raid leader also, and my PTT button was on my mouse, so that would be even worse. Depending on the phase of a boss you could be hitting abilities, sure, but 1% could come around during a phase change where you're virtually guaranteed to have to move around and avoid stuff. The days of standing there and beating on a boss until he's dead ended a long time ago. Wow is about group coordination (which is also WoW destined itself to smaller and smaller raids). They're down to what, 5-man raids now? What's next, two-man raids? Maybe a few more expansions we'll have the one-man raid finally and be completely full-circle:P
But, I quit WoW a few years back. My character still has something like 43,000g on him _;;; I was pretty rich, and yet I never farmed, hehe. Thank you, Kunzite (No I didn't buy gold, do a G-search for 'Kunzite').
Perhaps, but you're thinking small time, here. If the price of a good-enough Mo-Cap system got down to $1,000, do you know what that means??? That means that there would certainly be some hobbyists taking this home and experimenting with it. When that happens lots of fun things can result.
Mmm, frames per second and fidelity are two different things, much like performing 5,000 calculations per second is one thing and performing floating-point calculations versus non-floating point calculations. It's like you're saying it's a video camera that takes 5,000 FPS and it's shiny, and I'm looking at the features-tag that says it takes only 1 megapixel resolution. We want, we need, more resolution. Especially when it comes to mo-cap for feature films where the slightest jitter is extremely noticeable.
If the system's granularity is too high then I can never produce smooth motion no matter how many times a second you want to capture a frame. Since their system is based on a visual-detection rig, the granularity will be based on the resolution of the video-cameras along with how far from the targets they are. This will give a base granularity. If the granularity is a centimeter, that's really bad. If it's millimeters, that's a lot less noticeable, but still not good enough to not be noticed by the eye. We are capable of extremely subtle movements, and low granularity is necessary so that it doesn't look like you've moved when you haven't. Such as an eye locked on a target, it appears to be perfectly still, but if the granularity is too high it would perform tiny pops that would definitely look weird (not that this system is for tracking eyes, but that's an example). While the monitor did seem to be skipping frames, it also seemed to show a low granularity. The hand was moving in a way that wasn't being smoothly tracked by the rig, that's my concern.
I still say that a positional system based on mini-transponders to form a micro-GPS system is going to be innately more accurate due to both ease and precision of the triangulation calculations -- and it will be extensible to a multitude of other systems, such as shipment tracking, RFIDs, cellphones, and a whole host of other applications.
The tracking fidelity from the video seems low. For movie work you need a very smooth input, otherwise you end up spending a lot of money to smooth out the positional data which has the side-effect of making it look more artificial and robot-like.
What I do like is the use of projected patterns to track individual dots, that's pretty clever. But it seems like this won't be the final solution. Ultimately we're going to need to perfect a micro-GPS system, and that has many more applications than just use as movement-capture for movie production.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not that 'people have tried and failed therefore no one can', my argument is that it sure as hell won't be the Iphone that does it.
You say the Iphone is "positioned at the DS already." Like hell it is. The Iphone costs some $500? You could buy three Nintendo DS's for that much money ($169 / per). And for that you get a machine that's actually designed to play games in every way.
You're right, Apple's never going to put buttons on the Iphone, yet another reason they are unlikley to eclipse the DS. Look at how the PSP was routinely savaged for not having a second analog stick.
My assertions are not a matter of fear, just an observation of Nintendo and its hand-held competitors, their attempts and their failings. Ever single one of them have come at Nintendo with a product that had a better screen, and worse battery life (often much, much worse), and was more expensive (often not so much more expensive as the Iphone currently is either) -- and this has formed a pattern of failure among those competitors.
You ask me, someone could indeed compete with Nintendo if they created a system that had a smaller, uglier screen, a perfect form and input mechanism, a far better battery than the DS, and sold at a cheaper price by a nice margin. Then they'd have to court developers to no end, who would not be too happy about a split market anyway, so momentum is in N's favor there. Even then they'd be quite likely to face stiff price competition from Nintendo, and without great profits pretty quickly would lose on feature creep pretty quickly, as N comes out with improved models quite regularly (~2 years).
N has won because the barrier to entry is high, the pitfalls gigantic, and its service to the market is very close to what the market actually wants. A cheap, rugged, long-playing game system, and that's all. No one but Nintendo has ever offered just that. And the Iphone doesn't fit that bill either.
So think about your own logic for a bit. The years to come will show you: the gaming market on the Iphone will continue to be an afterthought. Apple could potentially create a niche for older gamers, the kind who can afford to own such a device in the first place, and AC plays into this demographic. But they'll never, ever, ever capture the youth market for portable gaming, which is the meat and gravy of the market, with the Iphone. Ain't gonna happen, never.
Yes, and the DS version sells for 2-3 times the Iphone version. Ever wonder why? And why the consumer is okay with this?
The guy in that video you linked says the Iphone version of the game is better because it is graphically superior and cheaper in cost. He clearly know little about the hand-held market and its history. Every competitor who's ever challenged Nintendo's decades long dominance of the hand-held sector has come at them with the same thing 'better looking' (though not always cheaper games, but usually more expensive hardware) and has been devastated. If the Iphone were only a gaming device it would likely suffer the same fate.
So, you may think $10 for Assassin's Creed on the Iphone is a great deal. Sure. But what if you're the publisher? You might port the game to Iphone after making it for the DS and selling it there for awhile. But what if the DS was gone and Iphone was your primary system, could you afford to sell games at $10 a pop? No. So, publishers are not going to be happy with a $10 price for a game like AC. The only reason the price is so low anyway is because Apple no doubt put pressure on them to lower the price as much as possible, and they did it to test the waters.
Lastly, the graphics are are only marginally better. The battery life is much worse. The control scheme is much worse (Iphone control scheme even takes up screen real-estate!). The durability of the Iphone is worse (no clamshell). And the cost of the Iphone itself it far, far, far higher. Children are not going to be buying it, nor teens, nor parents for children or teens. It costs more than a PS3!
I assert again, Apple has no chance of displacing Nintendo in the hand-held market with the Iphone. It will continue to be at best a secondary market, a throw-away market, while the market-share remains with Nintendo.
And outside Japan the PSP is a laughing stock. Nice try, no cigar.
The good news is that if you run out of creamer you can just toss some soy-toner in there, virtually the same thing.
Apple would be dumb to take on Nintendo in the handheld market.
A. It's been tried.
Everyone up to and including Sony has tried and failed. No one has ever taken the crown from N in portable gaming. And Sony gave it everything they had.
B. It's not possible without dedicated hardware.
So the Iphone can play games. Gee great. It has a nice screen. So did the PSP. But it doesn't have dedicated gaming inputs like the PSP had, and the PSP still failed. I remember people saying the PSP would be the one to finally take the crown, how wrong they were. The DS blew everything out of the water once again.
C. Only one screen.
When Apple starts shipping Iphones with two screens it might have a chance of competing with the DS, until then I think not.
Are developers going to create games for Iphone with the same scope of the best and richest of DS games? No. Because the market for Iphone apps is muddled. People may be buying games for the Iphone, but they sure as hell aren't paying DS-game prices for those games. They're paying a few bucks. And those games reflect it, they are curiosities-- the portable equivalent of time wasters, generally. Will Square ever release an RPG for the Iphone, I seriously doubt it. Will parent buy an Ipohone for their kid to game with? Hell no. Lacking a clam-shell alone is a massive strike on that possibility.
You know, I think the law needs to catch-up here. We should pass legislation making it against the law to let your computer be part of a botnet, punishable by whatever damage gets inflicted upon it when anyone in the know attempts to remove it from your system without your knowledge. That way white-hacker has automatic immunity and is able to actually help and use their powers for good.
You've just described the BIGGEST PLOT HOLE in Neal Stephenson's popular novel "Snow Crash" (which is also quite good and you must read ^_^ )
All good points, sir, here, here. There was a push in the 19th century (as I recall) to make English conform to latin grammar rules and we're still suffering from the effects of those whom cannot break from the form. I recently went through a lecture series by Michael Drout called 'History of the English Language' which makes these same points far more eloquently than I, and calls this attempt both stupid and ignorant. He makes the same point as you about double and quadruple negatives also. Shakespeare wrote in a time before grammar-nazis existed, before the push to latinize english existed. In fact, at the time of Shakespeare a lot of english words were pronounced very differently also, which is why many of his rhymings no longer work in modern english-- but they would've worked perfectly back then.
Calling the word 'virii' wrong because of a Latin grammar rule is not an argument with any sort of validity! This is english, this is NOT Latin. And the schoolmasters of the 19th century whom decided to force Latin grammar rules onto english overstepped bounds.
It's possible to make a pen that costs $90,000. Platinum base, studded with flawless diamond all around. Highest, rarest quality ink. Ruby-sphere tip. Signed by Tiger Woods. 30% markup by the manufacturer and seller. Done and done.
In other news, representatives of whiskey maker, Jim Bean Corp. were arrested Monday trying to buy radioactive materials from radical elements in Darfur. Experts disagree whether this was a plot to produce counterfeit whiskey or to produce a nuclear bomb as part of some plan for world domination. Dr. Evil was unavailable for comment by press time.
2.3% is too much tax to be paying in the first place. Corporation shouldn't be paying ANY taxes, as it just turns into income anyway which then ends up getting taxed again = double taxation. If Obama expects to raise hundreds of billions from a tax crackdown the long-term consequences will simply be more effective means-- likely including relocating firms out of the US entirely so we don't see any tax money from them at all, corporate or income. Why would any politician try to raise taxes in this economy??? Cut the damn spending, idiots.
This is where we need hackers with a 'license to kill... botnets'. Something like 007 for the digital age. The idea that killing a botnet can get you convicted of something is so ludicrous. The damage imposed by killing a botnet is miniscule compared to leaving the botnet open to prey on wider society. Where's the white hackers with a set of balls on 'em? Excuses, excuses, let's see action.
I hear they're detectors are so sensitive that they will only be able to detect the sought-after Big Bang radiation if every microwave-oven on the planet is turned off for a good couple of hours. So, in other words, they'll never detect Big Bang radiation :P
*The TV glows to life in a moment; it's News at 11*
John: In other news, journalist makes laughable prediction that two companies you've never heard of can threaten two of the largest companies in existence. Media-watchers cynically called this a blogger stunt to boost website hits, noting that sites such as Slashdot "drive a lot of hits" which, combined with Google Adsense, turns into cash for news site, Cnet.com, which hosted the article. Comments, Linda?
Linda: News organizations cynically driving consumers to their web pages with fake news, how low can you go?
John: (laughing) You tell 'em.
Linda: For more information on this and other top stories visit our website!
*The TV glows to life in a moment; it's News at 11*
In other news, journalist makes laughable prediction that two companies you've never heard of can threaten two of the largest companies in existence. Media-watchers cynically called this a blogger stunt to boost website hits, noting that sites such as Slashdot "drive a lot of hits" which, combined with Google Adsense, turns into cash for news site, Cnet.com, which hosted the article. Comments, Linda?
News organizations cynically driving consumers to their web pages with fake news, how low can you go?
(laughing) You tell 'em.
For more information on this and other top stories visit our website!
A. Virii is cooler.
B. The ancient attempt to force Latin grammar rules on English needs to be done away with. Split infinitives and ending sentences in prepositions may be crimes in Latin but are perfectly fine in English.
And some people need to stop being latin-grammar nazis.
Omg, you're talking about this game, aren't you: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6352241601171351571&ei=JAT-SdDKDpayqAOo_I3uDg&q=popeye+colecovision&hl=en&client=firefox-a
I played that thing often. It was a Colecovision game, Popeye the Sailor, somewhat Mario-like, for sure. Definite parallels. Then, of course, Nintendo skated by using the word 'Kong' in Donkey Kong and was sued by Universal, but ended up winning the lawsuit in the end.
It's a matter of how ambitious you want to be. There have been studios that made a point of owning their IP, and began their game as the beginning of a brand, a mascot, intended to become popular. Look at Mario, has more name recognition than Mickey Mouse. To do this sort of thing you have to be a triple-A studio backed with a ton of financing and development freedom.
The last developer that notably got to this point, after years of doing work for other people's IP is Factor 5. Unfortunately they tanked with Lair, mostly not their fault, who could've predicted Sony would release at $600 :| But the game wasn't amazing either. You could mention Silicon Knights as well. Too Human in development for over 10 years, at least conceptually. While the story was ambitious it somehow didn't quite resonate, and had that miserable E3 debut.
So, if you're an up&coming developer and you catch the eye of a publisher, do you say yes or no to that Matrix derived console port? You say yes, of course. You want to work, you bide your time, pay your dues, and store up the cheddar for your shot.
Sometimes their day comes and fizzles, and sometimes it's a home-run. Sometimes it's Daikatana, sometimes it's Deus Ex. Lol, same studio (name anyway), but Romero was running the one that tanked like a fish. (One wonders if Romero still wears his 'Design is Law' t-shirts around the house... or do they even fit anymore?)
Sure, doing a game adaptation has its pitfalls, that's clear. The biggest pitfalls fall in areas that can be the hardest to get right. It's damned easy to create the world's visuals. No one cares anymore. You have a hi-rez texture-map of Trinity's face for your Matrix game and know enough code to slap it onto a wireframe (mirrored), whoop-dee-do. Let's see a trick learned in your sophomore year of college. The real trick is matching tone, mood, atmosphere, scope -- those things that movie-makers try so desperately hard to build into their films, and if they're done right are so subtle that you only feel them, never mechanically note them. After that there's the question of whether the game-play is slick or not, and that can be tricky too. The master of gameplay is Nintendo. Miyamoto's made how many Mario / Zelda / Metroid / etc., etc., etc., etc., games now? And yet each one sells like crack? That's because the story is only a frame, the game is in the gameplay, the control mechanics, that feedback of visuals and control. The answer to the question: what is a game? Miyamoto knows it, and you play it in his games.
The last major pitfall: running out of time and financing. When they rely on the name more than the game. We've all played stuff that was an adaptation that was utter sh!t. Going all the way back to the industry slayer: E.T. the Extraterrestrial for the Atari. I played that goddamn thing left and right, and it was annoying as hell. Or take that Little Mermaid game for the NES my sister talked my little brother in purchasing one Christmas long ago, though I warned him about it and he later was quite upset.
There's always gonna be some stuff that just should not be adapted. Who's gonna try and make a game out of "Pride and Prejudice", or "Angela's Ashes"? There's just not enough action. And dating simulators never really took off in the States (thank god, that's a new level of pathetic :P).
UGH, I'm trying to forget those days. I used to play goddamn NES on a B&W portable-tv monitor, and of course Atari before that on even worse displays. Some games required you to see certain colors, notably Low-G Man. The red ones were a slightly darker shade of gray on a B&W tv /wrists
The idea of being nostalgic for those days, or wanting to see things like that again, it's hard to believe. It's like people being nostalgic and going back to communism after the wall fell. IT'S SICK. It's like visual pain and some people are clearly masochists.
My uncle collected Model-T cars, but at least they were fun to ride in. This is like the digital equivalent of 'roughing it' it's like going camping, living like the cavemen used to. God Bless Benjamin Franklin and his crispy hands.
One final note: I'm not quite sure, but this could be even more awesome written in 1st person rather than 3rd...
And thanks for checkin' out my fiction :)
Hahaha, I liked it XD
I'll give you a review:
Summary: This is a stream-of-consciousness piece about a wannabe astronaut in isolation training, who begins to go mad and ends up removing his own eyeballs.
Comments: This is an ambitious premise, a pregnant premise. It is nicely written and the grammar is not a weakness. One line that really jumped out at me, "he felt textures with such detail that he was trying to devise a new vocabulary to describe everything."
However, I think you can explore and expand the idea massively. This needs to be longer to have justice done to the idea (same with my Samsara story :P). You have him going mad after only two or three weeks?
I like that he's hungry for sensation and that leads to him messing with the eyes, but that can be expanded too. I'd have him playing with body parts >_> so to speak, and thinking about them in a similar style before making it to the eyeballs. One cool thing about the eyes is that if you press on them they generate a light signature. Try it, close your eyes, press on the corner nearest your nose, and you'll see some light, looks like you can see your fingerprint as you press but on the far side of your eye, it's weird. I'd have him start by doing that. He could begin doing this so much that it leads to him damaging the eyes. Maybe he accidentally pops his eyeballs through too much pressure.
Another facet of sensory isolation like this is that the image generation part of your brain, the part that is responsibly for making those dreams 'so lifelike' can leak into conscious life and begin generating images. I'd have his growing desperation for the training to be over manifest by having him hallucinate that it is over then be devastated when he finds it's fake, or something.
So, the transition from sane to madness, expand that.
Once he's actually got the eyeballs in his hand, I had the thought that what prevents most people from doing this is that is would be incredibly, incredibly painful >_> Snapping apart your own optic nerve, that's harsh.
What's great about your story is that it's part of a growing thought that the human body (and mind) just wasn't made for interstellar travel. 2001 had a similar theme, and ended with the solution: "The Star Child"
The Star Child is the next and final phase of human evolution when we become, or merge with our technology, see "Ghost in the Shell" or anything by Ray Kurzweil.
I'm currently writing a novel series with many of these themes and they are on the border of my mind :)
Ignorant. Speaking as a former tank myself, there are often things that can only be done with a mouse, notably moving. Movement \ turning is a very important part of tanking. And you simply cannot keyboard turn\move and expect to excel. Similarly communication is very important, and tanks are often called upon to coordinate and communicate. I was a tank and a raid leader also, and my PTT button was on my mouse, so that would be even worse. Depending on the phase of a boss you could be hitting abilities, sure, but 1% could come around during a phase change where you're virtually guaranteed to have to move around and avoid stuff. The days of standing there and beating on a boss until he's dead ended a long time ago. Wow is about group coordination (which is also WoW destined itself to smaller and smaller raids). They're down to what, 5-man raids now? What's next, two-man raids? Maybe a few more expansions we'll have the one-man raid finally and be completely full-circle :P
But, I quit WoW a few years back. My character still has something like 43,000g on him _;;; I was pretty rich, and yet I never farmed, hehe. Thank you, Kunzite (No I didn't buy gold, do a G-search for 'Kunzite').
Perhaps, but you're thinking small time, here. If the price of a good-enough Mo-Cap system got down to $1,000, do you know what that means??? That means that there would certainly be some hobbyists taking this home and experimenting with it. When that happens lots of fun things can result.
Mmm, frames per second and fidelity are two different things, much like performing 5,000 calculations per second is one thing and performing floating-point calculations versus non-floating point calculations. It's like you're saying it's a video camera that takes 5,000 FPS and it's shiny, and I'm looking at the features-tag that says it takes only 1 megapixel resolution. We want, we need, more resolution. Especially when it comes to mo-cap for feature films where the slightest jitter is extremely noticeable.
If the system's granularity is too high then I can never produce smooth motion no matter how many times a second you want to capture a frame. Since their system is based on a visual-detection rig, the granularity will be based on the resolution of the video-cameras along with how far from the targets they are. This will give a base granularity. If the granularity is a centimeter, that's really bad. If it's millimeters, that's a lot less noticeable, but still not good enough to not be noticed by the eye. We are capable of extremely subtle movements, and low granularity is necessary so that it doesn't look like you've moved when you haven't. Such as an eye locked on a target, it appears to be perfectly still, but if the granularity is too high it would perform tiny pops that would definitely look weird (not that this system is for tracking eyes, but that's an example). While the monitor did seem to be skipping frames, it also seemed to show a low granularity. The hand was moving in a way that wasn't being smoothly tracked by the rig, that's my concern.
I still say that a positional system based on mini-transponders to form a micro-GPS system is going to be innately more accurate due to both ease and precision of the triangulation calculations -- and it will be extensible to a multitude of other systems, such as shipment tracking, RFIDs, cellphones, and a whole host of other applications.
The tracking fidelity from the video seems low. For movie work you need a very smooth input, otherwise you end up spending a lot of money to smooth out the positional data which has the side-effect of making it look more artificial and robot-like.
What I do like is the use of projected patterns to track individual dots, that's pretty clever. But it seems like this won't be the final solution. Ultimately we're going to need to perfect a micro-GPS system, and that has many more applications than just use as movement-capture for movie production.