TMW is a 2D MMORPG still alive and kicking after spending over five years in pre-alpha already.
We're slowly approaching alpha now so we can finally leave behind the temporary test platform. Using our awful circa 2004 eAthena testbed (a server emulator for Ragnarok Online, based on the tangled up source code of an old MUD) we have been able to get our client technology into rather good shape. It'll be nice to work on our own server, own gamesystem and have properly designed content instead of the current pseudo content to attract testers with bright colors.
http://themanaworld.org/ - should be good enough to kill a few hours every now and then even as it is now. The community is generally rather warm and welcoming.
Incidentally, if someone has the urge to waste time on C++, we're always looking for new programmers too. Especially if you'd be crazy enough to port (rewrite in this case) the entire client into QT. Lua skills might be nice too since we're going to use that for scripting the dynamical aspects of the gameworld and if that gets too heavy, we've already been considering luaJIT too.
Coming from Finland: I have monthly fee of 0,64eur, calling costs 0,064eur per minute, SMS costs 0,064eur per message. For 3G I pay 2,90eur for every starting 24hour of usage without any usage limits, which fits my random travel usage rather perfectly. (For unlimited 3G, it would be about 10eur per month, which I do not need: unnecessary 120 annually versus the current annual ~10eur I'm spending.)
I do not get a bill until I exceed 20eur worth of billing. In my average usage, this happens every two to four months. (As a younger person, using the internet has taken over the majority of my phone usage in the last ten years.)
So yes, paying ~30eur monthly would be rather expensive from my point of view. For that about 30eur / month you can also get a cover-it-all deal here if you use your phone a lot.
With bundled deals you usually end up paying more for the phone in total over time than you would have spent just buying it new. The deals also tie you to the prices of your current subscription for two years, which is bad: you cannot reap the benefits of lowering prices.
Within EU I pay about 0,50eur per minute for calling and about 0,50eur per sms. This is somehow regulated within EU, so of course every company maxes out their roaming prices to the limit. I hope they start lowering the limits sometime soon again. Data roaming is so ridiculously expensive that mostly only corporate users afford to use it on their company phones.
Make the low end - GUI toolkits, audio subsystems, graphic subsystems - coherent and leave the user experience to the users.
Exactly the thing making people not use open source. The so called "out of the box experience" makes or breaks the product in question for most people. Especially if they are expecting something based on past experience. (Which at least in my universe is most likely to come from Microsoftian solutions.)
The Mars rovers are working far beyond their expected lifetime. This I would call a lucky fluke.
The Voyager probes were made back when overoptimizing was not yet possible. Also they were ideological testaments from the cold war era. (Yes, they were designed to study the big planets and also exceeded their expected usage.)
Slashdot Mirror
Since when has a workstation processor been considered server hardware?
TMW is a 2D MMORPG still alive and kicking after spending over five years in pre-alpha already.
We're slowly approaching alpha now so we can finally leave behind the temporary test platform. Using our awful circa 2004 eAthena testbed (a server emulator for Ragnarok Online, based on the tangled up source code of an old MUD) we have been able to get our client technology into rather good shape. It'll be nice to work on our own server, own gamesystem and have properly designed content instead of the current pseudo content to attract testers with bright colors.
http://themanaworld.org/ - should be good enough to kill a few hours every now and then even as it is now. The community is generally rather warm and welcoming.
Incidentally, if someone has the urge to waste time on C++, we're always looking for new programmers too. Especially if you'd be crazy enough to port (rewrite in this case) the entire client into QT. Lua skills might be nice too since we're going to use that for scripting the dynamical aspects of the gameworld and if that gets too heavy, we've already been considering luaJIT too.
Coming from Finland: I have monthly fee of 0,64eur, calling costs 0,064eur per minute, SMS costs 0,064eur per message. For 3G I pay 2,90eur for every starting 24hour of usage without any usage limits, which fits my random travel usage rather perfectly. (For unlimited 3G, it would be about 10eur per month, which I do not need: unnecessary 120 annually versus the current annual ~10eur I'm spending.)
I do not get a bill until I exceed 20eur worth of billing. In my average usage, this happens every two to four months. (As a younger person, using the internet has taken over the majority of my phone usage in the last ten years.)
So yes, paying ~30eur monthly would be rather expensive from my point of view. For that about 30eur / month you can also get a cover-it-all deal here if you use your phone a lot.
With bundled deals you usually end up paying more for the phone in total over time than you would have spent just buying it new. The deals also tie you to the prices of your current subscription for two years, which is bad: you cannot reap the benefits of lowering prices.
Within EU I pay about 0,50eur per minute for calling and about 0,50eur per sms. This is somehow regulated within EU, so of course every company maxes out their roaming prices to the limit. I hope they start lowering the limits sometime soon again. Data roaming is so ridiculously expensive that mostly only corporate users afford to use it on their company phones.
Make the low end - GUI toolkits, audio subsystems, graphic subsystems - coherent and leave the user experience to the users.
Exactly the thing making people not use open source. The so called "out of the box experience" makes or breaks the product in question for most people. Especially if they are expecting something based on past experience. (Which at least in my universe is most likely to come from Microsoftian solutions.)
The Mars rovers are working far beyond their expected lifetime. This I would call a lucky fluke.
The Voyager probes were made back when overoptimizing was not yet possible. Also they were ideological testaments from the cold war era. (Yes, they were designed to study the big planets and also exceeded their expected usage.)
With a decent voiceover it could work. The concept definitely has potential.