The ring didn't 'float' on the molten lava. It instantly 'cooled' a section of the lava, so there was a solid portion it was sitting on. Then, as the 'coolness' went out of the ring, it's little float-tube re-melted and it sank.
Gollum didn't sink, he melted...but it certain looks like sinking.:)
I played that game shortly after it was released. I was very surprised as how well it turned out. I figured it was going to be just another poor movie conversion, but it was actually fun. I never played it again..maybe I should.:)
My sister is the manager of the electronics department of the local WalMart. I showed her this headline (neither one of us RTFA'd.)
Anyway...she says that video games are doing really well at her Walmart, however, electronics in general are doing poorly. So, even though the videogames are up, the overall department is down.
She believes there are two reasons for the down-trend.
One, there isn't any new technology in the lower price ranges. You have the same old DVD players and CTR TV's that you had last year. Everyone already has one, or two, or enough.
Two, there IS new technology in the heavy spender ranges. Flat Panel and HDTV sets are on the virge. Also, DVD recorders are the 'big thing.' Both of those technologies are too expensive for your typical Wal-mart shoppers.
So...people already have the current stuff, and they are willing to 'live with it' until the new stuff comes down in price a little bit. We're in the lull between technologies.
(I don't know about you, but as a computer shopper I'm noticing the same thing. I'm holding off on buying my new system because I'm waiting for the next architecture to stabilize. I'm talking about 64-bit, PCI-E, SATA, etc. You can get all of them now, but "soon"(tm) they'll have the killer chipsets and drivers and addons etc, and I can buy my next PC. Besides. the one I have now plays Doom3 and HL2 with good details and a decent rate. I can wait.)
And that is the problem with this years Wal-Mart electronics. The games (EB's only ware) aren't the culprit.
Since when was a lawsuit the FIRST option? And what makes you think some 15 year old kid could file one?
No, really, the first thing you do is express your complaints to the company. When the company starts silencing those complaints (terrible move there) you move to an outside channel. (Which is what this story is about.)
Once you've gotten a critical mass of like-minded people, you use a class-action lawsuit if the company hasn't addressed your concerns yet.
The FCC can tell your TIVO what rules it has to follow in order for it to be allowed to be sold in other states.
They aren't regulating the USE of a TIVO, just the selling of one.
So..., the wiretap laws can't get people in trouble for using a keylogger. However, if the Federal Government wanted to do something about it, they would have to settle for making keylogging devices/software illegal for interstate commerce.
That wouldn't help much....because then 'only the criminals have them.' Just like only the people willing to go 'around the law' will have TIVO's that ignore the broadcast flag.
However, it will help in court cases, because then they'll be able to trace how the person got the keylogger, and bust them for Tax Evasion, or whatever, heh.
It's easy...Just tell the people looking for fruit to write down your odometer as you leave and enter the state. That way you can even tax the visitors to California that don't have GPS cars.
It would go along nicely with the overly intrusive and potentially oppressive government theme they are starting up there.
Look at the number of people playing CounterStike. As of several months ago, EVERYONE playing CounterStrike had a Steam Account.
Valve was really sneaky with Steam. It started as some sort of throw-away download system. Make on account, make 10 accounts, forget a password..who cares, just make another account, etc It also appeared to be a ladder system, like gamespy stats or something. It wasn't that, but appeared to be.
But it changed to a hugely risky (for the consumers part) content management, DRM, product activation system. I recently installed it. It asked what Valve games I had and if I wanted to play them. I own HL1, so I said 'Sure, I'll play that." It then said, "This CD-Key is now inextricably tied to this account. Don't lose your password or you can never pay Halflife 1 again."
It's really scary. I hope it fails...but fails in a way that they still try online content delivery.
I spent many many hours with Racing Destruction Set.
It would be interesting to build something like that with todays physics and graphics.
You used roller coaster tycoon type track building tools. Then you set things like gravity, weather (friction) etc, and race with different cars. (The CanAm was the best.) You could have jeeps with spiked tires for ice tracks. Nobbies for dirt. Lunar Rovers for low gravity.
And making your own tracks was just awesome as long as you didn't make and traps in there were the cars couldn't get out. (Even with low gravity, the lunar rover just didn't have enough torque to get up very steep hills.)
Yes...this is a great game and deserves a modern remake...just as much as Pirates does.
The biggest problem that I find with perma-death is the concept of 'doing it again.' Especially when even doing it the first time wasn't that much fun. Most MMORPGs are played for the destination, not the jouney. Perma-death compounds that by making you play this unwanted journey over and over. Before I'd fully recommend perma-death, I'd have to make sure the journey is fun.
I still think, when it becomes feasible that perma-death is a 'better way.' But there's no chance I'd want it in todays MMORPGs.
""The cause of instancing is, quite specifically, having too many players for a given amount of content.""
Exactly right...and the cause of that is not having enough content. So, what you need is content that dynamically expands as the number of players expands. The best way to do that is to have the players create the content.
The reason quests are bad isn't that they give you something to do. It's not that they don't 'add spice to the game.' They are bad for the sole reason that they are designed by the developer.
There is no way the developer can hand-tailor enough quests to satisfy an ever growing population. It takes longer to design a quest than to do it.
AO, CoH, and some others tried dynamic quests...a quest generator machine. Instead of dynamic, the result was random and repetative. (CoH is actually just repetative gameplay...they tried VERY hard on their stories.)
The real answer kills two birds. Player generated content. A way for players to generate their own quests.
Look at the quests in MMORPGs. "Kill 10 frogs and bring their skins." "Fetch me some yellow chalk." "Take this package to Fuzzle" They actually have names. 'Kill tasks', and "Fedex quests." Is that what you really want?
There there are occaisional 'epic quests,' which are basically combinations. "Get the magic stone from Listerine, (by killing him) and then get the magic scepter from Gargle (by killing him) and take them to the magic mountain guarded by Rinse, (by killing him) and make the "SuperWand" and bring it to me." That's the 'spice' you were talking about. (And I actually agree.)
But think of this...
Players need yellow chalk, and they can't always go get it, or don't always know where it is. Instead of an NPC sitting around asking for it, if there was a way for a player to make a 'quest' for someone to bring them some, two tasks would be fulfilled.
Players need frog skins, or they need a monster slain (guarding a resource node or something.) They could design a 'quest' for this.
And finally...players need something to do. There are a great number of 'wanna-be' game designers who would love to make content for a MMORPG, (just look at the mods for other games.) If you provided a simple mechanism, you'd have people churning out 'epic level' quests that rival the best the developers could do.
Quests aren't a bad thing soley because they exist, quests are a bad thing because the developer is filling a niche that really they should have designed tools and allowed the player to fill them.
Sure you'll get some lemon content that way....but there are stupid quests already that the developers put in as filler. However, you'd never run out of content that's for sure, and it would be dynamic and follow the needs of the server, and congestion would clear itself up simply by supply and demand.
That's not to say the developer does nothing. They have to train the players how to do this. They have to get them 'started.' The developers become simply the catalyst. The players will take care of the rest.
That's why I said Quests were a bad thing. I agree that instancing is 'not enough content for the players.' (You said too many players for the content.) It's the developer generated quests that are causing that lack.
Now I'm going to reply to your dismissal of his claims.
Permanent Death: There are 2 major things wrong with MMORPGs. The 'End game' as it's called, and inflation. I'm not even going to mention the treadmill, because I think it's a symptom, not a cause.
Inflation is a problem because everyone ends up winning. You get as many chances as you want to accomplish/gain whatever, and there's no way to actually lose. Since you can't lose, you just keep going until you win, and then you go onto the next thing. They talk about 'zero sum' things..well, this isn't.
That leads us to the other problem. The End Game. Pretty soon, in a finite system, you've been everyone, seen everything, and done just about everything a million times. What happens when you run out? What happens when you reach the end of a game that isn't supposed to have an end? If you can't lose, you're definitely going to hit it.
Permadeath gives you the ability to lose. It's the ONLY solution to the long-term problems with an MMORPG. Losing money doesn't help inflation if you're always able to gain it again. You've got to be able to lose money to the point that you die permanently.
But dying is no fun....right? The game would be designed with that in mind. No one is suggesting you go play Everquest with the sudden addition of perma-death. It's too easy, too necessary to die in EQ. However, a game with that in mind will work better than the system does in EQ.
No one would ever suggest Perma-death in Quake DM. However, CounterStrike is mostly the same thing as Quake DM while being designed around a type of Perma-death.
You wouldn't be dying ever day/week/month, and you wouldn't have a chance at dying unless you knowingly put yourself in that situation. Remember, it's just an 'oppurtunity' to lose, not a requirement.
Instancing: (I cheered when he brought up instancing as an example of 'poor'...."Finally," I thought, "someone really gets it.")
Opponents of instancing always imply that the alternative is standing in line to do the same quests that everyone else does. They think of a MMORPG as a series of Developer generated quests that they go on to gain levels and 'loot.' Anything that makes those quests more accessable must be a good thing.
That's called a SINGLE-PLAYER RPG, or even a multi-player RPG. What it's not is a Massively Multiplayer RPG Virtual World. MMOG's are not about developer content, they are about player interaction. They are about 'emergent gameplay.' The developer provides ONLY the world that you live in. How you live, what you do, who you do it with is up to you.
(To answer your specific point. You don't interact with the other 'shards' of a MMOG. That's another world, a parellel dimension that you can't reach. You can't see those people go into a cave, only to follow them in and find out they aren't there. As far as your character is concerned, the other shards don't exist...and never will. That's not the same thing as the instancing that he was refering to.)
(I'm going to make a harsh seque here, because I've been typing too long.)
QUESTS!! believe it or not are the cause of instancing, and are in and of themselves a 'poor' (in his terms) feature. Short-term good, long-term bad.
How can quests be bad?...the one and only obviously good thing of an MMORPG? Because they cause the need for camping, for instancing, for standing in line.
Without quests, you'd make your stories with the other players isntead of acting out as pawns in a canned tale. Without quests, you'd be able to dynamically alter the situation in the gameworld because there'd be no need to make sure Fuzzle still needs his red box. Without quests there'd be no spoiler sites with walk-throughs and hints.
Quests fit into the definition of 'short-term good'/'long-term bad'.
In the short term they help give the world character, give the world story. They help give the players purpose, and move them
Bartle's not hypocritical because he's describing himself. He's describing WHY MMOG's have evolved the way they have. He's describing WHY each one is more simplistic and 'safe' than the one before it.
He's not saying he's smarter than the other designers, he's just saying the designers are forced into a paradox.
He's not even saying that the newbies are dumb, they are just short-sighted. They know exactly what they like, and they demand it. They just aren't big on delayed gratification, and there really aren't many people who are.
So...take the 'rant' as an objective look at larger systems and don't take it personally. You'll enjoy it much more.
There has been organized team play, (up to 12v12) in FPS's for years. Prolonged seasons, tournaments, rankings, etc.
There are glorious positions and non, (flag runner vs Basement D). There are organized matches, bench players, practices, strategy sessions, etc.
This could be done.
The biggest question is...why hasn't it? Why hasn't it even been tried on a smaller scale.
There are many sports mods (mostly soccer) for FPS, but I've never seen a commercial product for it. Check this out. http://www.planethalflife.com/ios/
I have no idea. I guess it doesn't do well in 'focus groups.'
This certainly falls into place with all the underhanded dealings described in the history article.
It all sounds technically legal, but ethically questionable.
Except for there is not a chance they will, (and people will say it's not technically possible) they should release the 'server tech' under some open license that will allow people to run private shards. That would be the 'nice' thing to do.:)
I have to agree. The history piece about AE matches everything I saw as I followed the game for years. It matches every happening and explains many things that were quite confusing.
However, when I first read that article, I talked to some of my contacts who were actually still working with AE, and they didn't confirm the story.
Their rebuttals were just retellings of things they were told by James Jones and Steve Snow, but they did cast doubt upon the articles accuracy.
If I'm allowed a person opinion, I WANT the article to be true. I WANT something completely evil and "not-normal" to blame the fall of the Original Horizons on. I still refuse to admit the original project was so completely impossible that it failed of it's own accord.
Whether it is or not, I don't think we'll know. The most compelling and potentially 'hard' evidence from the article would be the terms on which David Bowman left Turbine. However, unless Turbine decides to flame the fires, I don't think we'll know.
My Windows (even when I ran ME) has always been very stable, (comparatively).
I can go weeks without needing a reboot, I can run the programs that everyone else say are buggy. (FarCry on my ATI, for example)
My Father who has a PC that was a clone of mine has nothing but problems and his computer self destructs constantly.
I've always likened it to a horse. "If you show fear, the horse will take advantage of it, but if the horse can tell that you are confident and in charge, it accepts that at behaves." heh.. something like that.
Seems funny that there's be no Linux client. Most of the hard work is done for them. (They are using the Unreal Engine, which has Linux support.) No online game has been able to live without a Linux server though, so expect that soon.
Anyway...I don't know...but I definately expected they'd take advantage of the work that's been done.
Yeah, I noticed the disrepancy, but then remembered that the only game that's available on Steam in HalfLife1 right now. When that was written weren't we on DirectX 3? (I'd have to check the box at home.)
And, even more 'condemning' of this stat is that HL was based on Quake1(and a bit of 2) code, which was OpenGL ONLY, it didn't have a DirectX option.
Anyway...it's one for the stat books, but I really don't think it means anything, given the context.
It requires BF1942, but if you have it, you need to check out the Galactic Conquest mod.
Concidering SW Battlefront is a Battlefield CLONE set in the SW universe, it stands to reason that there's a nice parrallel in the Battlefield MOD set in the SW Universe.
Almost all games now-a-days come with the requirement that the CD be in the drive. UT(99) was like this. I wrote in to Epic, and the publisher (GT Interactive) and complained, and listed 5 legitimate reasons why that requirement made it impossible for a valid customer to play the game.
Epic, the developer said it was a requirement forced by the publisher. The tech support for the publisher actually pointed me at www.gamecopyworld.com to download the 'NoCD fix.' (That was good customer service.:) )
In other news, when Tribes 2 came out it didn't have a CD check. However, it also flat out didn't work on a great number of PCs. And, on the PCs where the game actually worked, the online component (the whole game) was in very poor condition, and many of the features simply 'weren't in yet.' There was a massive public backlash and a mass 'returning' of the game to the retail outlets.
In the first patch, they implemented a CD-check. The reasoning..."Our retail partners are concerned with the large amount of returns they are getting on this game, and they feel it's because people are simply copying it to their harddrives because there was no CD-check."
Sure..it has nothing to do with the game simply NOT WORKING!!!
But I've guess we've seen that kind of attitude before in different industries. (RIAA)
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if you StarCraft fans have played it yet, but until Blizzard releases StarCraft 2, the true successor to StarCraft is Dawn of War.
It's the WarHammer 40K RTS, and it fills the exact same niche that StarCraft did. (Which is not the Age of Empires/C&C niche).
Even though they went with Gamespy to host their game-matching, the multiplayer is well worth buying the game for.
The single-player is nothing however.
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=275
I found the link to Dark Legions
There's also a really old game by SSI called "Dark Legion." It was more directly a clone of Archon.
:)
It was from 1994 or 1995. I haven't been able to find any information online about it, but feel free to look.
Your wish is my command.
Chaos League
The ring didn't 'float' on the molten lava. It instantly 'cooled' a section of the lava, so there was a solid portion it was sitting on. Then, as the 'coolness' went out of the ring, it's little float-tube re-melted and it sank.
:)
Gollum didn't sink, he melted...but it certain looks like sinking.
I played that game shortly after it was released. I was very surprised as how well it turned out. I figured it was going to be just another poor movie conversion, but it was actually fun. I never played it again..maybe I should. :)
My sister is the manager of the electronics department of the local WalMart. I showed her this headline (neither one of us RTFA'd.)
Anyway...she says that video games are doing really well at her Walmart, however, electronics in general are doing poorly. So, even though the videogames are up, the overall department is down.
She believes there are two reasons for the down-trend.
One, there isn't any new technology in the lower price ranges. You have the same old DVD players and CTR TV's that you had last year. Everyone already has one, or two, or enough.
Two, there IS new technology in the heavy spender ranges. Flat Panel and HDTV sets are on the virge. Also, DVD recorders are the 'big thing.' Both of those technologies are too expensive for your typical Wal-mart shoppers.
So...people already have the current stuff, and they are willing to 'live with it' until the new stuff comes down in price a little bit. We're in the lull between technologies.
(I don't know about you, but as a computer shopper I'm noticing the same thing. I'm holding off on buying my new system because I'm waiting for the next architecture to stabilize. I'm talking about 64-bit, PCI-E, SATA, etc. You can get all of them now, but "soon"(tm) they'll have the killer chipsets and drivers and addons etc, and I can buy my next PC. Besides. the one I have now plays Doom3 and HL2 with good details and a decent rate. I can wait.)
And that is the problem with this years Wal-Mart electronics. The games (EB's only ware) aren't the culprit.
Since when was a lawsuit the FIRST option? And what makes you think some 15 year old kid could file one?
No, really, the first thing you do is express your complaints to the company. When the company starts silencing those complaints (terrible move there) you move to an outside channel. (Which is what this story is about.)
Once you've gotten a critical mass of like-minded people, you use a class-action lawsuit if the company hasn't addressed your concerns yet.
The FCC can tell your TIVO what rules it has to follow in order for it to be allowed to be sold in other states.
They aren't regulating the USE of a TIVO, just the selling of one.
So..., the wiretap laws can't get people in trouble for using a keylogger. However, if the Federal Government wanted to do something about it, they would have to settle for making keylogging devices/software illegal for interstate commerce.
That wouldn't help much....because then 'only the criminals have them.' Just like only the people willing to go 'around the law' will have TIVO's that ignore the broadcast flag.
However, it will help in court cases, because then they'll be able to trace how the person got the keylogger, and bust them for Tax Evasion, or whatever, heh.
It's easy...Just tell the people looking for fruit to write down your odometer as you leave and enter the state. That way you can even tax the visitors to California that don't have GPS cars.
It would go along nicely with the overly intrusive and potentially oppressive government theme they are starting up there.
Look at the number of people playing CounterStike. As of several months ago, EVERYONE playing CounterStrike had a Steam Account.
Valve was really sneaky with Steam. It started as some sort of throw-away download system. Make on account, make 10 accounts, forget a password..who cares, just make another account, etc It also appeared to be a ladder system, like gamespy stats or something. It wasn't that, but appeared to be.
But it changed to a hugely risky (for the consumers part) content management, DRM, product activation system. I recently installed it. It asked what Valve games I had and if I wanted to play them. I own HL1, so I said 'Sure, I'll play that." It then said, "This CD-Key is now inextricably tied to this account. Don't lose your password or you can never pay Halflife 1 again."
It's really scary. I hope it fails...but fails in a way that they still try online content delivery.
I spent many many hours with Racing Destruction Set.
It would be interesting to build something like that with todays physics and graphics.
You used roller coaster tycoon type track building tools. Then you set things like gravity, weather (friction) etc, and race with different cars. (The CanAm was the best.) You could have jeeps with spiked tires for ice tracks. Nobbies for dirt. Lunar Rovers for low gravity.
And making your own tracks was just awesome as long as you didn't make and traps in there were the cars couldn't get out. (Even with low gravity, the lunar rover just didn't have enough torque to get up very steep hills.)
Yes...this is a great game and deserves a modern remake...just as much as Pirates does.
The biggest problem that I find with perma-death is the concept of 'doing it again.' Especially when even doing it the first time wasn't that much fun. Most MMORPGs are played for the destination, not the jouney. Perma-death compounds that by making you play this unwanted journey over and over. Before I'd fully recommend perma-death, I'd have to make sure the journey is fun.
I still think, when it becomes feasible that perma-death is a 'better way.' But there's no chance I'd want it in todays MMORPGs.
""The cause of instancing is, quite specifically, having too many players for a given amount of content.""
Exactly right...and the cause of that is not having enough content. So, what you need is content that dynamically expands as the number of players expands. The best way to do that is to have the players create the content.
The reason quests are bad isn't that they give you something to do. It's not that they don't 'add spice to the game.' They are bad for the sole reason that they are designed by the developer.
There is no way the developer can hand-tailor enough quests to satisfy an ever growing population. It takes longer to design a quest than to do it.
AO, CoH, and some others tried dynamic quests...a quest generator machine. Instead of dynamic, the result was random and repetative. (CoH is actually just repetative gameplay...they tried VERY hard on their stories.)
The real answer kills two birds. Player generated content. A way for players to generate their own quests.
Look at the quests in MMORPGs. "Kill 10 frogs and bring their skins." "Fetch me some yellow chalk." "Take this package to Fuzzle" They actually have names. 'Kill tasks', and "Fedex quests." Is that what you really want?
There there are occaisional 'epic quests,' which are basically combinations. "Get the magic stone from Listerine, (by killing him) and then get the magic scepter from Gargle (by killing him) and take them to the magic mountain guarded by Rinse, (by killing him) and make the "SuperWand" and bring it to me." That's the 'spice' you were talking about. (And I actually agree.)
But think of this...
Players need yellow chalk, and they can't always go get it, or don't always know where it is. Instead of an NPC sitting around asking for it, if there was a way for a player to make a 'quest' for someone to bring them some, two tasks would be fulfilled.
Players need frog skins, or they need a monster slain (guarding a resource node or something.) They could design a 'quest' for this.
And finally...players need something to do. There are a great number of 'wanna-be' game designers who would love to make content for a MMORPG, (just look at the mods for other games.) If you provided a simple mechanism, you'd have people churning out 'epic level' quests that rival the best the developers could do.
Quests aren't a bad thing soley because they exist, quests are a bad thing because the developer is filling a niche that really they should have designed tools and allowed the player to fill them.
Sure you'll get some lemon content that way....but there are stupid quests already that the developers put in as filler. However, you'd never run out of content that's for sure, and it would be dynamic and follow the needs of the server, and congestion would clear itself up simply by supply and demand.
That's not to say the developer does nothing. They have to train the players how to do this. They have to get them 'started.' The developers become simply the catalyst. The players will take care of the rest.
That's why I said Quests were a bad thing. I agree that instancing is 'not enough content for the players.' (You said too many players for the content.) It's the developer generated quests that are causing that lack.
Now I'm going to reply to your dismissal of his claims.
Permanent Death: There are 2 major things wrong with MMORPGs. The 'End game' as it's called, and inflation. I'm not even going to mention the treadmill, because I think it's a symptom, not a cause.
Inflation is a problem because everyone ends up winning. You get as many chances as you want to accomplish/gain whatever, and there's no way to actually lose. Since you can't lose, you just keep going until you win, and then you go onto the next thing. They talk about 'zero sum' things..well, this isn't.
That leads us to the other problem. The End Game. Pretty soon, in a finite system, you've been everyone, seen everything, and done just about everything a million times. What happens when you run out? What happens when you reach the end of a game that isn't supposed to have an end? If you can't lose, you're definitely going to hit it.
Permadeath gives you the ability to lose. It's the ONLY solution to the long-term problems with an MMORPG. Losing money doesn't help inflation if you're always able to gain it again. You've got to be able to lose money to the point that you die permanently.
But dying is no fun....right? The game would be designed with that in mind. No one is suggesting you go play Everquest with the sudden addition of perma-death. It's too easy, too necessary to die in EQ. However, a game with that in mind will work better than the system does in EQ.
No one would ever suggest Perma-death in Quake DM. However, CounterStrike is mostly the same thing as Quake DM while being designed around a type of Perma-death.
You wouldn't be dying ever day/week/month, and you wouldn't have a chance at dying unless you knowingly put yourself in that situation. Remember, it's just an 'oppurtunity' to lose, not a requirement.
Instancing: (I cheered when he brought up instancing as an example of 'poor'...."Finally," I thought, "someone really gets it.")
Opponents of instancing always imply that the alternative is standing in line to do the same quests that everyone else does. They think of a MMORPG as a series of Developer generated quests that they go on to gain levels and 'loot.' Anything that makes those quests more accessable must be a good thing.
That's called a SINGLE-PLAYER RPG, or even a multi-player RPG. What it's not is a Massively Multiplayer RPG Virtual World. MMOG's are not about developer content, they are about player interaction. They are about 'emergent gameplay.' The developer provides ONLY the world that you live in. How you live, what you do, who you do it with is up to you.
(To answer your specific point. You don't interact with the other 'shards' of a MMOG. That's another world, a parellel dimension that you can't reach. You can't see those people go into a cave, only to follow them in and find out they aren't there. As far as your character is concerned, the other shards don't exist...and never will. That's not the same thing as the instancing that he was refering to.)
(I'm going to make a harsh seque here, because I've been typing too long.)
QUESTS!! believe it or not are the cause of instancing, and are in and of themselves a 'poor' (in his terms) feature. Short-term good, long-term bad.
How can quests be bad?...the one and only obviously good thing of an MMORPG? Because they cause the need for camping, for instancing, for standing in line.
Without quests, you'd make your stories with the other players isntead of acting out as pawns in a canned tale. Without quests, you'd be able to dynamically alter the situation in the gameworld because there'd be no need to make sure Fuzzle still needs his red box. Without quests there'd be no spoiler sites with walk-throughs and hints.
Quests fit into the definition of 'short-term good'/'long-term bad'.
In the short term they help give the world character, give the world story. They help give the players purpose, and move them
Bartle's not hypocritical because he's describing himself. He's describing WHY MMOG's have evolved the way they have. He's describing WHY each one is more simplistic and 'safe' than the one before it.
He's not saying he's smarter than the other designers, he's just saying the designers are forced into a paradox.
He's not even saying that the newbies are dumb, they are just short-sighted. They know exactly what they like, and they demand it. They just aren't big on delayed gratification, and there really aren't many people who are.
So...take the 'rant' as an objective look at larger systems and don't take it personally. You'll enjoy it much more.
The terminology is poor. He's not saying that the designers are new to RPGs, he's saying the design decisions are mandated by the newbies to RPGs.
I hope that helps somebody.
BTW, I LOVED the article. MMORPGs are the absolute best potential with the absolute worst reality.
There has been organized team play, (up to 12v12) in FPS's for years. Prolonged seasons, tournaments, rankings, etc.
There are glorious positions and non, (flag runner vs Basement D). There are organized matches, bench players, practices, strategy sessions, etc.
This could be done.
The biggest question is...why hasn't it? Why hasn't it even been tried on a smaller scale.
There are many sports mods (mostly soccer) for FPS, but I've never seen a commercial product for it. Check this out. http://www.planethalflife.com/ios/
I have no idea. I guess it doesn't do well in 'focus groups.'
This certainly falls into place with all the underhanded dealings described in the history article.
:)
It all sounds technically legal, but ethically questionable.
Except for there is not a chance they will, (and people will say it's not technically possible) they should release the 'server tech' under some open license that will allow people to run private shards. That would be the 'nice' thing to do.
I have to agree. The history piece about AE matches everything I saw as I followed the game for years. It matches every happening and explains many things that were quite confusing.
However, when I first read that article, I talked to some of my contacts who were actually still working with AE, and they didn't confirm the story.
Their rebuttals were just retellings of things they were told by James Jones and Steve Snow, but they did cast doubt upon the articles accuracy.
If I'm allowed a person opinion, I WANT the article to be true. I WANT something completely evil and "not-normal" to blame the fall of the Original Horizons on. I still refuse to admit the original project was so completely impossible that it failed of it's own accord.
Whether it is or not, I don't think we'll know. The most compelling and potentially 'hard' evidence from the article would be the terms on which David Bowman left Turbine. However, unless Turbine decides to flame the fires, I don't think we'll know.
My Windows (even when I ran ME) has always been very stable, (comparatively).
I can go weeks without needing a reboot, I can run the programs that everyone else say are buggy. (FarCry on my ATI, for example)
My Father who has a PC that was a clone of mine has nothing but problems and his computer self destructs constantly.
I've always likened it to a horse. "If you show fear, the horse will take advantage of it, but if the horse can tell that you are confident and in charge, it accepts that at behaves." heh.. something like that.
Seems funny that there's be no Linux client. Most of the hard work is done for them. (They are using the Unreal Engine, which has Linux support.) No online game has been able to live without a Linux server though, so expect that soon.
Anyway...I don't know...but I definately expected they'd take advantage of the work that's been done.
Yeah, I noticed the disrepancy, but then remembered that the only game that's available on Steam in HalfLife1 right now. When that was written weren't we on DirectX 3? (I'd have to check the box at home.)
And, even more 'condemning' of this stat is that HL was based on Quake1(and a bit of 2) code, which was OpenGL ONLY, it didn't have a DirectX option.
Anyway...it's one for the stat books, but I really don't think it means anything, given the context.
The rumor is within the week. I'd say hold on to your cash.
It requires BF1942, but if you have it, you need to check out the Galactic Conquest mod.
Concidering SW Battlefront is a Battlefield CLONE set in the SW universe, it stands to reason that there's a nice parrallel in the Battlefield MOD set in the SW Universe.
Almost all games now-a-days come with the requirement that the CD be in the drive. UT(99) was like this. I wrote in to Epic, and the publisher (GT Interactive) and complained, and listed 5 legitimate reasons why that requirement made it impossible for a valid customer to play the game.
:) )
Epic, the developer said it was a requirement forced by the publisher. The tech support for the publisher actually pointed me at www.gamecopyworld.com to download the 'NoCD fix.' (That was good customer service.
In other news, when Tribes 2 came out it didn't have a CD check. However, it also flat out didn't work on a great number of PCs. And, on the PCs where the game actually worked, the online component (the whole game) was in very poor condition, and many of the features simply 'weren't in yet.' There was a massive public backlash and a mass 'returning' of the game to the retail outlets.
In the first patch, they implemented a CD-check. The reasoning..."Our retail partners are concerned with the large amount of returns they are getting on this game, and they feel it's because people are simply copying it to their harddrives because there was no CD-check."
Sure..it has nothing to do with the game simply NOT WORKING!!!
But I've guess we've seen that kind of attitude before in different industries. (RIAA)