Minecraft is a sandbox game. It doesn't need NPCs to give the player quests. When NPC villagers are added, I'm hoping they just meander mysteriously and keep to themselves for the most part.
>Halo is an FPS. It has a "story," meaning we tell you something for 5 minutes and say "GO KILLING. BY THE WAY, GRAPHICS!!!"... that's all; most of the story is imaginary, and the game really has just about no plot
I don't see how these things really connect. Of course what the player does is killing. Just because the player is doing things besides exclusively pondering the story just make the story imaginary and make the game have no plot. The main Halo trilogy games are intensely story-driven.
>The books for many, many sci-fi games like Doom/Doom3, Myst, Halo, and Starcraft are epic. They actually weave a story, and the story's usually written by someone not involved with the games: they find a scifi writer, say "this game has this little framework so have fun,"
Bungie worked closely with the writers of the different Halo novels to flesh out the path that the novels should take, and made sure that they matched up well with and continued the Halo canon.
The Spartan 1 program is rarely mentioned at all in the Halo stories (unless it's in the last two books).
Spartan 2s were kidnapped children who were trained and then augmented to be stronger. The Spartan 3s were similar, but their training and augmentations were quicker and a bit shoddier than that of the Spartan 2's. They also aged at an accelerated rate IIRC.
I didn't see much in Halo Reach that went against what happened in Fall of Reach - there were plenty of Spartans in Fall of Reach - just Master Chief was the only surviving one up for fighting left on the Pillar of Autumn. Though Halo Reach may have changed some details about where the Pillar of Autumn and Cortana were at some parts of Fall of Reach but I can't really remember too much of Fall of Reach.
So clients have something like a sharing folder, and connect to a hub to see the other clients' sharing folders? Guess it's closer to a limited Gnutella network than a simple ftp file server.
>Wow, a filesharing protocol I hadn't stumbled across! Thanks Slashdot!
My same first reaction too!
Though what would the difference be between a DC hub and an (s)ftp server? From only reading about it, the main thing seems to be that hubs can redirect to each other, which doesn't seem too much more useful than a text file on an (s)ftp server listing other servers to check out too.
>we should really implement some kind of a universal public key system to take care of this problem. Instead of trying to keep a different password for every service you use, you would only have 1 private key to manage.
JFDuke has been out of development for a long time. The most active and advanced (more features for mods) source port now is Eduke32, which has taken a lot of code from JFDuke.
I believe an exploit was found for older consoles to be able to run an older exploitable (homebrew compatible) kernel from a modchip even if the machine had been updated to the latest. But otherwise you're right, running actual homebrew on the 360 instead of just warez is much more difficult.
Especially if you use a good port of it (it was open-sourced!). Zdoom is a great port of pretty much all known doom-engine games to Windows and Linux (Mac version is kind of unsupported but possible) and adds a lot of features for complex mods. It's extremely easy to script a level, or add an enemy or weapon with its own code. Gzdoom is another port based on zdoom (that stays very up-to-date to zdoom) that adds OpenGL acceleration, and allowing fuller 3d levels (floor above floor, etc).
And then Skulltag is based off of Gzdoom (but isn't open source - though it does have a linux version), and is specialized for online multiplayer. Last time I was into playing it a few months ago there were usually 40 to 100 players online at any time.
OpenSolaris looks polished in many areas, but I see Linux as ahead of it as a Desktop OS. I hope that Desktop Linux distributions (and Linux kernel hackers) take note of what OpenSolaris does right (easy snapshot support - sure Linux doesn't have ZFS, but it has LVM which appears to be able to do snapshots) and play a bit of catch-up. And who knows, maybe OpenSolaris will do the same and try to catch up to Linux.
It's possible to have a NAT-like firewall, where the clients can't take incoming connections, but where all the clients have a global address, IPv6 style. Though that would still suck majorly (just slightly less than NAT). It's up to every IP-address holding device to filter their own connections.
Big deal, Canonical is a company that pushes a giant open-source project, and it not coincidentally has a lot of control over it and uses its name in a service they offer (it's not even necessarily a paid service - I believe the 2gb plan is free!). I think they've earned that much.
GPL v3 requires that the user can compile the code and substitute it in place of the original binary. However it sounds like ScummVM is GPL v2.
The problem is that it also sounds like Nintendo's NDA prohibits them publishing code using their SDK.
So ScummVM's GPL license says that code must be published. Nintendo's NDA says that code using the SDK must not be published.
So the game will have to stop being distributed (unless ScummVM decides to dual-license the code to the publisher) and there might be a copyright-infringement fine.
I could care less if my UI is some brand-new redesigned thing, or something that looks just like Windows 95.
I want basic features that I've been used to on Windows. When I'm playing a game, and I want to change the volume, pressing the volume control buttons on my keyboard should change the volume. Pressing the next song button better get my media player running in the background to the next song. And if I get an instant message while playing a game, I certainly should be able to alt-tab away from the game to Pidgin to type a reply.
I can do none of these things when a program grabs control of the keyboard and mouse in Ubuntu. Some games I can release the mouse grab by dropping down the console (thank you Quake 3), but if a game doesn't let me do this (UT2004), then the system is perfectly happy to keep me locked into it until hell freezes over or I exit the game prematurely just to message my friend I'm in a game... or was.
And it's not even limited to games. If I have a drop-down menu open, such as Firefox's bookmarks menu, then same thing: the volume and media control keys don't work. I end up mashing the key several times wondering when it will catch up before I remember this frustrating glitch.
On top of all this, almost to add insult to injury, the screensaver will come on while playing certain games, even if you're actively pressing keys. At least there's a bug report for this-- er, a 3 year old bug report for this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/gnome-screensaver/+bug/32457
Quake 3 Arena Open Arena Rocket Arena Team Arena Generations Arena etc... Maybe I've spent too much time in the past playing many different Quake mods, but after a while everything fitting the name * Arena runs together in my head.
Since I started using Ubuntu at 7.10, the Restricted Drivers (now just "Hardware Drivers") icon would pop up in the panel telling me that there were drivers available shortly after logging in for the first time on a new install.
The game also has "Arena" in the title, so it is kinda hard to take it seriously as anything but a cheap Quake clone. (Coming from a long-time fan of Quake and older FPS games.)
If Ubuntu sees it has a video card which the proprietary Nvidia drivers are available for, then it will prompt the user to permit it to download and install the drivers itself. It doesn't have the drivers installed by default.
Regular people just care that whatever is on their computer isn't directly costing them money or causing it to visibly malfunction. From experience, I know most would ignore any offers to help, sadly. Guess the trick is to find a way to make them want to disinfect their computers.
With wireless networks, that problem is mostly back. (I think WPA can encrypt different clients on a network with different keys and get around this problem though.)
Slashdot Mirror
Minecraft is a sandbox game. It doesn't need NPCs to give the player quests. When NPC villagers are added, I'm hoping they just meander mysteriously and keep to themselves for the most part.
>Halo is an FPS. It has a "story," meaning we tell you something for 5 minutes and say "GO KILLING. BY THE WAY, GRAPHICS!!!" ... that's all; most of the story is imaginary, and the game really has just about no plot
I don't see how these things really connect. Of course what the player does is killing. Just because the player is doing things besides exclusively pondering the story just make the story imaginary and make the game have no plot. The main Halo trilogy games are intensely story-driven.
>The books for many, many sci-fi games like Doom/Doom3, Myst, Halo, and Starcraft are epic. They actually weave a story, and the story's usually written by someone not involved with the games: they find a scifi writer, say "this game has this little framework so have fun,"
Bungie worked closely with the writers of the different Halo novels to flesh out the path that the novels should take, and made sure that they matched up well with and continued the Halo canon.
The Spartan 1 program is rarely mentioned at all in the Halo stories (unless it's in the last two books).
Spartan 2s were kidnapped children who were trained and then augmented to be stronger. The Spartan 3s were similar, but their training and augmentations were quicker and a bit shoddier than that of the Spartan 2's. They also aged at an accelerated rate IIRC.
I didn't see much in Halo Reach that went against what happened in Fall of Reach - there were plenty of Spartans in Fall of Reach - just Master Chief was the only surviving one up for fighting left on the Pillar of Autumn. Though Halo Reach may have changed some details about where the Pillar of Autumn and Cortana were at some parts of Fall of Reach but I can't really remember too much of Fall of Reach.
So clients have something like a sharing folder, and connect to a hub to see the other clients' sharing folders? Guess it's closer to a limited Gnutella network than a simple ftp file server.
>Wow, a filesharing protocol I hadn't stumbled across! Thanks Slashdot!
My same first reaction too!
Though what would the difference be between a DC hub and an (s)ftp server? From only reading about it, the main thing seems to be that hubs can redirect to each other, which doesn't seem too much more useful than a text file on an (s)ftp server listing other servers to check out too.
>we should really implement some kind of a universal public key system to take care of this problem. Instead of trying to keep a different password for every service you use, you would only have 1 private key to manage.
OpenID?
If you had a phone that did magical things, why would your first response be to get rid of it?
JFDuke has been out of development for a long time. The most active and advanced (more features for mods) source port now is Eduke32, which has taken a lot of code from JFDuke.
You should have sold Audacity to her.
I believe an exploit was found for older consoles to be able to run an older exploitable (homebrew compatible) kernel from a modchip even if the machine had been updated to the latest. But otherwise you're right, running actual homebrew on the 360 instead of just warez is much more difficult.
Especially if you use a good port of it (it was open-sourced!). Zdoom is a great port of pretty much all known doom-engine games to Windows and Linux (Mac version is kind of unsupported but possible) and adds a lot of features for complex mods. It's extremely easy to script a level, or add an enemy or weapon with its own code. Gzdoom is another port based on zdoom (that stays very up-to-date to zdoom) that adds OpenGL acceleration, and allowing fuller 3d levels (floor above floor, etc).
And then Skulltag is based off of Gzdoom (but isn't open source - though it does have a linux version), and is specialized for online multiplayer. Last time I was into playing it a few months ago there were usually 40 to 100 players online at any time.
Could you elaborate on this? I've just started looking into how LVM works, so I'm a bit inexperienced here.
OpenSolaris looks polished in many areas, but I see Linux as ahead of it as a Desktop OS. I hope that Desktop Linux distributions (and Linux kernel hackers) take note of what OpenSolaris does right (easy snapshot support - sure Linux doesn't have ZFS, but it has LVM which appears to be able to do snapshots) and play a bit of catch-up. And who knows, maybe OpenSolaris will do the same and try to catch up to Linux.
It's possible to have a NAT-like firewall, where the clients can't take incoming connections, but where all the clients have a global address, IPv6 style. Though that would still suck majorly (just slightly less than NAT). It's up to every IP-address holding device to filter their own connections.
Well, it's at least much closer to Doom 3 graphics than Doom 2 graphics.
Big deal, Canonical is a company that pushes a giant open-source project, and it not coincidentally has a lot of control over it and uses its name in a service they offer (it's not even necessarily a paid service - I believe the 2gb plan is free!). I think they've earned that much.
You need to uninstall a toolbar? I'd call that a plus on most systems I see with too many Yahoo/Google/MSN toolbars installed on the browser.
GPL v3 requires that the user can compile the code and substitute it in place of the original binary. However it sounds like ScummVM is GPL v2.
The problem is that it also sounds like Nintendo's NDA prohibits them publishing code using their SDK.
So ScummVM's GPL license says that code must be published.
Nintendo's NDA says that code using the SDK must not be published.
So the game will have to stop being distributed (unless ScummVM decides to dual-license the code to the publisher) and there might be a copyright-infringement fine.
I could care less if my UI is some brand-new redesigned thing, or something that looks just like Windows 95.
I want basic features that I've been used to on Windows.
When I'm playing a game, and I want to change the volume, pressing the volume control buttons on my keyboard should change the volume. Pressing the next song button better get my media player running in the background to the next song.
And if I get an instant message while playing a game, I certainly should be able to alt-tab away from the game to Pidgin to type a reply.
I can do none of these things when a program grabs control of the keyboard and mouse in Ubuntu. Some games I can release the mouse grab by dropping down the console (thank you Quake 3), but if a game doesn't let me do this (UT2004), then the system is perfectly happy to keep me locked into it until hell freezes over or I exit the game prematurely just to message my friend I'm in a game... or was.
And it's not even limited to games. If I have a drop-down menu open, such as Firefox's bookmarks menu, then same thing: the volume and media control keys don't work. I end up mashing the key several times wondering when it will catch up before I remember this frustrating glitch.
On top of all this, almost to add insult to injury, the screensaver will come on while playing certain games, even if you're actively pressing keys. At least there's a bug report for this-- er, a 3 year old bug report for this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/gnome-screensaver/+bug/32457
Quake 3 Arena
Open Arena
Rocket Arena
Team Arena
Generations Arena
etc...
Maybe I've spent too much time in the past playing many different Quake mods, but after a while everything fitting the name * Arena runs together in my head.
Since I started using Ubuntu at 7.10, the Restricted Drivers (now just "Hardware Drivers") icon would pop up in the panel telling me that there were drivers available shortly after logging in for the first time on a new install.
The game also has "Arena" in the title, so it is kinda hard to take it seriously as anything but a cheap Quake clone. (Coming from a long-time fan of Quake and older FPS games.)
If Ubuntu sees it has a video card which the proprietary Nvidia drivers are available for, then it will prompt the user to permit it to download and install the drivers itself. It doesn't have the drivers installed by default.
Regular people just care that whatever is on their computer isn't directly costing them money or causing it to visibly malfunction. From experience, I know most would ignore any offers to help, sadly. Guess the trick is to find a way to make them want to disinfect their computers.
With wireless networks, that problem is mostly back. (I think WPA can encrypt different clients on a network with different keys and get around this problem though.)