If you like Angband you should check out Adom. It's not open sourced (yet, the author says he is going to at some point) but it's the best roguelike game I've played. Lots of cool classes to play, lots of neat adventures to go on, and the plans he has for the future are impressive to say the least.
Interesting. I still play my usual way. Go charging in, if the character dies, ah well. Death or glory and all that. If it's a character I'm attached too I have a mock funeral (Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, here's they come, heaven or bust) then roll up another. Lather rinse repeat.
Hell then, if we're invoking the 80's, kudos should go to Laser Squad and Lords of Chaos. Laser Squad was turn based unit action, and Lords of Chaos was 2 battling wizards. Kinda like Magic: The Gathering only less dickheads.
I agree. The old SSI AD&D games were classics for examples. Curse of the Azure Bonds was one of the coolest games ever. Nifty little copy protection device (the documentation contained journal entries needs to fully understand the story), the combat was the coolest turn-based system I've seen in a game of that sort, and the games just oozed class... If anyone has DOS kicking around I advise you to go hunting for them in Abandonware archives or perhaps download them for the C64 and use VICE to play them. That way you can have a handy window open with the copied out journals...
Starcraft, a "crappy RTS game"? What are smoking dude?! I mostly loathe RTS games. They are boring and derivative. Take Tiberian Sun (please!), that game had 1 innovative feature (random map generator) and bog all gameplay. Total Annihilation has a mass of user created addon's but to run huge wars needs a ninjascopic PC. Starcraft is a masterpiece of the genre. As gameplay experiences go I would rank it behind Half Life and just ahead of Transport Tycoon.
Don't go dissin' the craft man, you know know not of what you speak.
As far as war games go, while overall turn-based strategy is good, there is one big thing going for real-time over turn-based. It's more realistic. It's a totally different experience to say "Hmm... Flank of Panzer's coming down, better move this this and this into place" whereas in real-time, like it would be in a real war it's a case of "Oh shit! Where the **** is my backup!" as you get pummeled to death by shells. It's more visceral and war games, which face it, Starcraft, Warcraft and all that lot are, are just far more visceral than any turnbased game. Such is the nature of war.
Erm... Ever heard of chess? Perhaps the ultimate turn-based game, been around for centuries, massively popular today, people make a living playing it... There's still plenty of room for turn-based games, it's just games developers are too busy with the whizz-bang graphics and copying what's popular. There are a few turn based games left (Heroes of Might and Magic for example) but nobody is going to release a killer turn-based game because they simply don't have the balls.
Why should Square apologize? They made a business decision that paid of amazingly well. The three Final Fantasy games released on the PSX (excluding the SNES port Anthology) have sold massively, 7 and 8 are on the "Greatest Hits" label (a game used to have to sell half a million copies to get onto the label, though Sony recently lowered that number) and 9 is selling like hotcakes. All 3 games are regulars in the top 10 FAQ's on www.gamefaqs.com and that's ranked across ALL platforms.
"Square here. Sorry Nintendo. Sorry for dumping your sorry Pokemon covered asses and making a boatload of cash off the Playstation. We're also very sorry you made the tragically bad decision to go cartridge instead of CD just to make copying harder..."
My opinion. Square should keep doing what they have done. Screw Nintendo.
But what about a Minidisc? Okay, so it's not perfect, but as far as I'm aware you can record on them. Timestamps would be a problem, and I'm not sure about data transfer to a PC, but if I was in the market for something like you suggest, that is what I would probably go for.
Having been on the net for over 6 years (yeah, I know, not as hardcore as some of you), I well remember Gopher. I remember looking up info for my late mother on there and finding tons of stuff. The quality of content was very high, but then alas the web took over, now on Altavista if you're searching for information like that you're asked if you want to comparison shop for cancer...:(
This is the first good idea I've heard regarding the Internet in months! I hope Gopher makes a comeback. I miss it!
Well I hope this works out for the good since I would kill for highspeed Internet.
I leave in a small Canadian town in the middle of nowhere. Reason being that rent is cheap here and I'm not that well off. For Internet access I have a choice. I either pay the telephone company for local access, $25 CDN a month, for 100 hours, and about $4 an hour after that (no use to me as I work on the net) or I can do what I currently do which is dial long distance into Edmonton for unlimted access at $20 a month. The phone company offer a "free long distance within Canada for $20 a month" which is how I access the net.
There are NO high speed options where I live. No DSL (doesn't even come close to me), no cable (local cable company said they'd be offering it this winter. They lied). About the only option currently will be when Starchoice offer full 2 way satellite net access, but that is at best going to be next July so I was told by them.
So anyway, speaking as someone who has piss poor net service in Canada, I welcome this statement from the CRTC. If whatever they do gets me high speed net access, that's fine with me. Though I won't forgive them for Canadian content laws which advocate X% of and radio must be Canadian content...
For years I've wanted to get into HAM radio, but the tests you have to take deterred me. Apparently in Canada, if you want the first licence (which is for a particular waveband) you no longer have to learn morse code as far as I'm aware. The question is, could a first level HAM user (IE someone like me who got the licence) use the satellite?
But surely an easier solution would be a wireless link to the main CVS respository? Maybe I'm way off base here but I think to have two seperate repositories would be a nightmare.
But then what the hell do I know. Not a lot, but I'm just giving the layman (AKA braindead) perspective.
But I can make another recommendation. Whatever network you go with, make sure it's digital unless you want people listening in.
Effectively cellphones are little more than pocket radios, and despite US radio scanners having the cell frequencies "blocked" (IE, the scanners skip the bands assigned to cellphones), you can still pick them up on blocked scanners due to "imaging" (Check Strong Signals and check their glossary about imaging.)
So if you want to be entirely secure, and what good Slashdotter doesn't, avoid analogue phones like the plague, or if you have no choice, at least treat them as being as secure as shouting across a crowded room.
Can this project detect the "DNA" of tracks that were, to be blunt, done via a piss poor encoder? I mean I have tracks done at a KBPS of 128 that sound like they were recorded underwater they're so bad. I find it hard to believe that ANY software could determine what was real music, and what was compression artifacts.
No actually, I have never even been there. There are towns much closer than that, but no decent ISP's that don't want you to take it up the rear on pricing.
So no, the advertising would be ENTIRELY wasted on me since as I said, I have never even been there and I've lived here 4 years so probably aren't about to start going there.
BTW, wonder how long it will be before the number of IP addresses surpasses the number of humans on this Godforsaken little rock?
You make a very good point. I for example live in a small town some 5 hours drive away from the location of the ISP I dial into. If they have that information, they no doubt believe I live in the city I dial into, so this kind of information is practically worthless.
Of course, whether it's worthless or not, they just have to convince would be advertisers that is isn't, and advertisers are far from being the brightest bulbs in the box. Need proof? Remember my comments next time you see the same ad twice, sometimes three times in the same ad break on TV.
This kind of shit really pisses me off. No offence to any Americans, but I always thought Canada was above this sort of crap. Guess not. Blocking sites that customers may find offensive. That is such garbage. It's only the vocal minority that whine, the kinda that sit frantically masturbating over sex scenes on TV while saying "This is terrible, simply terrible, I must complain". Bunch of whiny pathetic "won't somebody think of the children" jerkoffs.
It seems everyone is so paranoid about offending someone that they takes these matters into their own hands and decided what people can and can't view. Makes me sick.
Yeah, I know, this post isn't going to get any bonuses, but I just lost it when I read this.
During the Falklands war in 1981 (or was it 80? I forget), British pilots did that as well. I remember speaking to one who said it was hysterical to see it happen.
Also knew someone who died when HMS Sheffield sank out there:( Just bought back the memory:(
Slashdot Mirror
---
---
---
---
---
Man, them were the days...
---
---
Don't go dissin' the craft man, you know know not of what you speak.
---
---
---
"Square here. Sorry Nintendo. Sorry for dumping your sorry Pokemon covered asses and making a boatload of cash off the Playstation. We're also very sorry you made the tragically bad decision to go cartridge instead of CD just to make copying harder..."
My opinion. Square should keep doing what they have done. Screw Nintendo.
---
---
---
This is the first good idea I've heard regarding the Internet in months! I hope Gopher makes a comeback. I miss it!
---
I leave in a small Canadian town in the middle of nowhere. Reason being that rent is cheap here and I'm not that well off. For Internet access I have a choice. I either pay the telephone company for local access, $25 CDN a month, for 100 hours, and about $4 an hour after that (no use to me as I work on the net) or I can do what I currently do which is dial long distance into Edmonton for unlimted access at $20 a month. The phone company offer a "free long distance within Canada for $20 a month" which is how I access the net.
There are NO high speed options where I live. No DSL (doesn't even come close to me), no cable (local cable company said they'd be offering it this winter. They lied). About the only option currently will be when Starchoice offer full 2 way satellite net access, but that is at best going to be next July so I was told by them.
So anyway, speaking as someone who has piss poor net service in Canada, I welcome this statement from the CRTC. If whatever they do gets me high speed net access, that's fine with me. Though I won't forgive them for Canadian content laws which advocate X% of and radio must be Canadian content...
---
---
But then what the hell do I know. Not a lot, but I'm just giving the layman (AKA braindead) perspective.
---
---
Again, apologies. The link in this post is correct.
---
Effectively cellphones are little more than pocket radios, and despite US radio scanners having the cell frequencies "blocked" (IE, the scanners skip the bands assigned to cellphones), you can still pick them up on blocked scanners due to "imaging" (Check Strong Signals and check their glossary about imaging.)
So if you want to be entirely secure, and what good Slashdotter doesn't, avoid analogue phones like the plague, or if you have no choice, at least treat them as being as secure as shouting across a crowded room.
---
---
So no, the advertising would be ENTIRELY wasted on me since as I said, I have never even been there and I've lived here 4 years so probably aren't about to start going there.
BTW, wonder how long it will be before the number of IP addresses surpasses the number of humans on this Godforsaken little rock?
---
Of course, whether it's worthless or not, they just have to convince would be advertisers that is isn't, and advertisers are far from being the brightest bulbs in the box. Need proof? Remember my comments next time you see the same ad twice, sometimes three times in the same ad break on TV.
Advertisers are brain dead.
---
It seems everyone is so paranoid about offending someone that they takes these matters into their own hands and decided what people can and can't view. Makes me sick.
Yeah, I know, this post isn't going to get any bonuses, but I just lost it when I read this.
---
Also knew someone who died when HMS Sheffield sank out there:( Just bought back the memory:(
---