I probably should not respond to your post, as you give every indication of being a troll, but, just on the off chance that you are not, do a slight bit of research before you post your remarks - please?
You claim that Apple is not releasing innovative products. Let's look at the releases in the past year. As has been pointed out, there already is a video iPod. Great new server? Hmm... I guess you haven't heard of the Xserve clusters at Virginia Tech. New systems? How about the Quad Core systems released late last year? You aren't going to find those in the consumer line systems from Dell or any other manufacturer on the PC side right now... Software? What about Aperture, which can save a lot of time for photographers - and time is, as they say, money. Based on the releases of the past year, I think people have every right to expect something interesting and possibly even innovative to be announced at MacWorld this coming week.
Anyhow, you have strayed from the subject, which I will try to return to... there are plenty of stories about demos blowing up in Jobs' face. They don't get the degree of press that Gates does, but, then, this is usually the case... Every tech firm has stories of demos gone bad. Some are humorous, many tragic, and some are truly acts of Murphy.
Many of us would like to see you re-visit Alpha Centauri. Have there been any serious thoughts about a new version (one that is OS X native would be excellent!)? Barring this, is there any way to recreate SMAC using the tools and scripting that comes with Civ 4?
I had a conversation with some Chinese graduate students this week. They said, "we tried this for one, maybe two years - then we stopped it. No one liked it. Do Americans really like it?"
I replied that no one I knew liked it - in fact no one I knew had a feeling warmer than great disdain for it.
I've read enough of the comments that cite energy savings and doubts about those savings. All I can say is, unless the savings are staggering (much more than I have seen cited), it isn't worth the trouble. All of my co-workers, employees, students and clients are tired, grumpy or simply call in sick. The work done frequently has to be redone once inspected (if the inspector catches it, of course). The productivity hit, the lag of folks who forget about the change, and the accidents that happen from sleepy people just is just not worth it.
The firm I was doing programming for was a possible acquisition target by another firm that we had been doing subcontracting for. The CEO and I flew to the city that had their corporate headquarters, which would also be where we would be expected to move to should the buyout happen.
We were wined and dined. We got to see the work environment and noted that there were lots of perks (fridge stocked every kind of soft drink, paid/catered lunches, etc.). The pay sounded good. Too good. And then we heard what sort of hours everyone (except the CEO, of course) was putting in - 80+ hours a week. The only guy who was still married in the firm was the CEO. All of the divorced guys couldn't figure out what had happened - they were making good money, after all...
Needless to say, I didn't take that offer. I found a different job that paid a lot less, but had regular hours.
when the buyout of TechTV happened. Pity, though - TechTV, like its predecessor ZDTV, was one of the few channels where a technophile like me could feel at home.
Admittedly, the quality of the content was heading downhill as the different personalities left over time (Jim Louderback, John Dvorak, Kate Botello, and Sumi Das all spring immediately to mind). Some of the newer offerings did nothing for me (Unscrewed, Battlebots (or whatever it's called), Body Hits, etc.). The channel was definitely losing steam even before the G4 buyout.
Still, what has been announced today was exactly what folks predicted when the buyout was announced. The smaller network has bought the bigger one, junked the content of the bigger network, run off their talent pool, and we're left with the same old junk that G4 ran - just more folks are able to be subjected to it.
The thing that G4's management has not (apparently) figured out is that TechTV was bigger for a reason - their content was better than G4's!
If new titles won't play back on older units, we're all screwed.
I'd like to say that I have everything I would want on DVD, but, frankly, there's a lot of older catalog titles that the studios have not yet released.
I can only hope that this one dies a painful (and expensive to the proposing companies) death.
I'm not sure which is worse, the DRM idiots or the idiots who consistantly refuse to set one standard for media...
I know that I'm preaching to the choir, but you
would think that the entertainment industry would have learned from its past mistakes...
The only thing that has been done right in this is preserving compatability for the existing DVD standard.
I really see no reason to upgrade to anything above DVD for my home video system at this point in time (and can't foresee a need to do it - ever - other than lack of new titles on DVD), anymore than I see the need to upgrade to anything above CD for my home audio. They've done such a great job of muddling the standard for high-end audio (DVD-Audio, SACD, etc.) that I'm sure that the enthusiast will have to get two units if they really want to upgrade and enjoy everyone's product.
I think there are some fundamental design reasons why cop-op is tough to implement. Most games that tell a story attempt to do so through scripted events. HL2's scripted events happen in real-time, inside the game engine. How do you handle these when two players are in there at once? They could be in totally different parts of the level. One person would see all of the scripted stuff, and one wouldn't.
What happens if one player's actions make part of the level impassable to the other player? The environments in HL2 are pretty dynamic and having completed the game, I can forsee a lot of instances when a player could be "cut off" if he were lagging behind the other player, with no way to proceed through the level. I guess you could have some sort of "teleport" function to let the other player catch up to the first player, but.... that's kind of corny.
Agreed and understood. This is the classic argument made against making co-op friendly games.
I'm not sure that it is entirely valid. Yes, cut scenes make it hard to do a co-op game, but are they truly necessary? Maybe I'm the atypical player, but I always found cut-scenes to be more annoying than helpful. I dislike situations that I can't interact with, affect, or prevent. They are intended to help the sense of immersion in the game world/story, but, to me (at least), they snap me back to the realization that this is just a game and I can't do anything about some things...
I mean, co-op is a lot of fun, but I don't think companies are willing to sacrifice the design of their single-player game to make it compatible with a co-op play mode. I can see how a simple blast-em-'up like Serious Sam (god, I loved that game)
I agree. Simple game, but a ton of fun with some buddies to share it with... not pulitzer prize stuff, but more fun than I have had in many other games...
or Q2 works well for co-op, but I can't see it working too well for a "richer" game like HL2.
And I counter that HL2 is, in reality, poorer for it. It can be done - Valve chose not to do it (just as they did for HL1). I refuse to buy the argument that a game can not be co-op friendly and immersive (or "rich" as you term it).
The third design trend that I see, is what I will call the "beauty over brains" trend. The graphics in games are so much better than they were, but so much is being invested in the development of the graphics that the actual design of the game is being neglected. Doom 3, based on the reviews that I have read, certainly suffers from this (no, I did not buy it, either). Half Life 2 has a better story than Doom 3, I'm sure. I'm not so sure that any improvement of the underlying game actually happened, though.
In a sense, yeah. HL2 is the same old FPS, executed very well in terms of story and graphics. However, the use of physics in HL2 is pretty revolutionary. Objects fly around like actual, well... objects and it's not just eye candy - a lot of the puzzles in the game depend on the clever manipulation of those objects.
For example, at one point, there's a ramp you need to drive your hovercraft over. But it's too low, and it's partially submerged in water. I found some floaty plastic barrels and placed them in the water under the ramp. Their buoyancy caused the ramp to rise to the proper angle. I was then able to drive my hovercraft over it and continue with the level.
There are a lot of puzzles like that, and even when you're not doing puzzles like that, most of the objects in the environment act in a "realistic" physical manner which adds to the fun when things are being thrown about by explosions.
Sounds like they did do some interesting work, but not enough to make me change my mind, or negate my remarks about their design choices. BioWare, in explaining their choices for NeverWinter Nights expansions, used the term "zots". Zots represent programming/design effort to make something work. In any project, there are a fixed
Unreal Tourneyment 2004 beat it and Doom3 out the door, so when it comes to multiplayer:
who cares?
Uh... the several million people who have already bought HL2 or are considering it? I don't think anybody's buying HL2 strictly for the HL2 DM multiplayer, but it's a fun bonus.
I'm not buying HL2 because of the lack of multiplayer options that interest me (no co-op, no 'bots). HL1 was an interesting game, but I didn't find it to be very fun without friends to share the game with - share being the operative and important word. To be more explicit, deathmatch isn't sharing - at least to me (and the folks that I play with). I played it for a couple of hours and went back to Quake II - an inferior game in every way except the one that mattered to me - it had co-op.
I realize this puts me in the minority, but, sooner or later, I think that most of us will begin to tire of blasting our buddies. I think it is part of the maturing process, but maybe that's just me... Of course, with new players picking up games all the time, the trend won't be recognized by the gaming companies.
As I sit here and type this, I realize that a few design trends are shutting me (and people like me) out of the gaming market. I see them and I hope that things will shift back, but I suspect that they won't...
One factor that has influenced design trends with many recent games is the growth of console games. I think this has dumbed down designs. Designers look for a way to make a cross-platform (console/computer - not the same as Windows/Mac/Linux) design, and they design for the lowest common denominator. Things that work well on computers, but do not work well on consoles (like co-op or interesting multiplayer modes) get axed. Call of Cthulhu originally was supposed to have a co-op mode. Now that a cosole port is being made, all mention of the co-op mode has vanished from the previews, website, etc. It is not alone in this trend.
A second trend is the rise of the massively multiplayer on-line game. I think that the co-op market in standard games is being abandoned because the designers assume that those who desire co-op play are being catered to by the MMOGs, and they will gravitate there. This might be true for some, but I can say with conviction that it is not true for everyone. Some of us don't enjoy the MMOG game. This is certainly true for me.
The third design trend that I see, is what I will call the "beauty over brains" trend. The graphics in games are so much better than they were, but so much is being invested in the development of the graphics that the actual design of the game is being neglected. Doom 3, based on the reviews that I have read, certainly suffers from this (no, I did not buy it, either). Half Life 2 has a better story than Doom 3, I'm sure. I'm not so sure that any improvement of the underlying game actually happened, though.
The only recent releases I can see innovation and improvement happening is in the Unreal engine games (UT2004 was a massive improvement over UT2003) and Red Storm's multiplayer games (not Splinter Cell). In fact, at the last LAN party I attended, we played NeverWinter Nights more than anything else. The fact that we're still playing two year old games at LAN parties speaks to the lack of interest in modern designs.
Anyhow, back to the subject of the original posting... Adding two DM maps to HL2 does nothing to increase my desire to purchase the game. I hope that, as some point, we'll see a real, fully functional (all of the levels, all of the encounters) co-op mode added to the game.
1) Firefox will never be integrated to the OS (or Office). There will always be functions that Windows or Office will call IE for.
2) The vast majority of people will not use anything other than the software bundled with their system. I have had no end of trouble convincing people to try either Mozilla or Firefox. When I tell them that the programs are made by the same people that made Netscape in the past, some will be willing to give it a try.
3) They'll figure out a way to kill Firefox, legal or otherwise, and will stall and wheedle in the courts long enough to make sure that the dagger is good and twisted. Until our legal folks realize that Microsoft is a monopoly and it has no incentive to play fair with competing products, it will continue to destroy the competition.
Actually, I can't be sure that the Micro$oft patch is worth even what I pay for it.
Since Micro$oft won't disclose whether this vulnerability affects older versions of Office, Windows, etc. (knowing Micro$oft's history, I would not be surprised if this actually dates back to Office 97 and Windows 9x)
All the Micro$oft tool appears to do is look for the latest versions of the file - at least the Tom Liston's tool (http://isc.sans.org/gdiscan.php - mentioned on/. earlier today) looks for the vulnerability itself. Irritating, but predictable...
ASCAP and BMI have been doing this for years in the US. I used to manage a retail store and we had to prominantly display our ASCAP and BMI stickers, according to corporate policy.
I have a fairly new (just made the first payment...) Civic Hybrid (with automatic continuously variable transmission, which means that it does not get as high mpg figures as the manual tranmission models do). EPA mileage: 49 city/48 highway. So far, I am averaging 40.9 mpg (combined). I've taken it on a long highway vacation trip (where I got it up to 45 mpg), but most of the driving has been in town.
I have discovered that there is a learning curve to driving this car, almost like a manual transmission car. You can achieve very different mileages based on how aggresive you are on your starts and such. The average is rising as I learn the tricks of driving the car - past couple of tanks of gas have averaged 42 mpg or better.
I have heard that Toyota and Honda would love to post slightly lower figures, but that the EPA requires the figures to be the ones actually created by their testing (which involves a track on ideal conditions with a professional driver who knows the car inside and out). Just as the EPA does not want a car company to inflate the figures (for Hummers and such), they don't want the figures downgraded. Thus, it appears that the figures for all vehicles are higher than any of us will likely encounter unless we're coasting down a mountain pass with a good tailwind...
The conspiracy theorist in me wonders about the timing of this. If I recall correctly, WordPerfect 12 is the first release since Micro$oft divested its shares in Corel... the previous Linux versions vanished remarkably close to the announcement of the Micro$oft bailout of Corel.
I have contacted Corel several times about WordPerfect for Mac OS X. I have users that are asking me for it, even though the last version of WP for the Mac came out many years ago.
It seems to me that there's a real possibility of Corel making inroads into the Office monopoly on the Mac platform as there are many Mac users who shun anything Micro$oft, but wind up using Office due to the lack of a viable alternative. Oddly enough, Micro$oft's biggest (percentage-wise) monopoly is Office on the Mac. Corel needs to move quickly on this, however. As Mac users move themselves into OS X, they are becoming less inclined to run things in the classic mode.
Personally, a new WordPerfect port to Linux would be a great plus. As others have mentioned, the WP9 package was more of an simulated port - a lot of it was done via WINE. That's better (at least to dedicated WP users like myself) than no WP for Linux, but a native version would be even better. I'm waiting for the 15th and will order it. I just hope that they do a good job, and bring some other titles to Linux (Bryce would be fun!)
Luckily, I'm not in one of the markets affected by the CBS blackout. It's the only one of the Viacom channels that's watched in my home and even it is rarely watched.
A dollar off the bill for channels I don't watch? Works for me...
By the way, DirectTV does not have some of the channels, I do watch, so it's not really a better deal. The posts yesterday and today almost have the tone of a DirectTV salesman...
One area that Palm had a clear and obvious edge over the PocketPC/Windows CE/whatever-Microsoft-will-call-the- next-version is that Palms, out of the box, work with both Windows and Macintosh systems. Giving this market niche up will be a serious mistake - almost all Mac users that bought handhelds were going to buy Palms until now, that probably is a major bolster to Palm's shrinking market share.
If I were to guess as to a reason, I would point at the beginnings of a competing product in the iPod - which already does the contact and calendar functions. One wonders how easy it would be to add the other functions to make an iPod a true PDA. That and the additional expense of developing for two more platforms (don't forget OS 9) that supporting Macs includes. I hope that the reason is not due to Palm using Microsoft's tools or code somewhere...
Cool! I'll have to give this a try. I figured it was doable, but I have not been able to find anything on it. Of course, I have not had a tremendous amount of time to devote to a search, either...
Here at Texas A&M University, we have a central IP registry called NIM (Network Information Manager). Until about a year ago, anyone with access to NIM could look up any IP on campus.
Then, citing privacy concerns, administrators restricted lookups in NIM to systems associated with the searcher's group (in other words, I can look up any system in my department, but can not look up other IPs or (what I more frequently need) mac addresses, even if they are in one of the buildings I administer systems in. Even folks in the campus-wide Computing and Information Services can not look things up unless they are part of the small group permitted to do so. Amazingingly enough, the same folks who decided to restrict access are the ones who can still look anything up.
Of course, what concerned me at the time, and continues to be a problem is the ability to trace a hijacked IP or an infected system. If I have to go through the priviledged few who can look up the IP, it takes more time and it escalates issues which could probably be solved quickly.
While WHOIS entries have information that could prove troublesome from a privacy standpoint, NIM should not. Usually it has the name of the administrator and some notes about the system. Some admins (like me) also add info to better identify the system, but should not have info that would cross the privacy line.
In truth, once the suits set their sites on a matter and start waving the privacy flag, it is too late. We need to start figuring out an alternative now, because WHOIS is doomed. Logic and need will not save it, and reason will not prevail.
I'm trying to think back to my first mouse - I seem to recall having one for my C64 to run GeoWorks.
Since that time I have worked with a ton of models, including most of the models that Apple, Logitech and Micro$oft have produced and several by companies I can't even recall
The worst mouse I've ever handled has to be the Apple puck that shipped with every Apple prior to the Apple optical mouse. It made even the soap-bar monstrosities of the 80s look good by comparison. How they could release a mouse that made it hard to verify mouse orientation without a visual check I will never know. I have one Mac user who actually likes the design, but most of them tossed the stock mouse for a Logitech as quickly as they could run to Best Buy...
The best design? I am torn between several designs. I really love the Logitech Dual Opticals that are attached to all of my home systems, but I am also very happy with the Logitech MX700 and Logitech MX500 I have on my work systems. The only drawback to all of them is that Logitech does not have Linux drivers for them and I have not been able to get them to work correctly on my Linux boxes - I have to remember to switch mice before booting into Linux. (If anyone has a hint on making any of these, especially the MX500/700, work in Linux, I would be very grateful!)
It's about time - CDs have been overpriced for years.
I'm basing this on my memories of working in the music industry (on the retail end) in the 1980s, so things may be a bit fuzzy...
Originally, the record labels justified the high price of CDs by saying that they were recovering the cost of setting up CD manufacturing plants. They had pretty much done this by 1987 or 1988, but had discovered that people were willing to pay the inflated the prices in droves, so they did not lower the prices across the board. Some manufacturers did actually lower the suggested retail of some of their top-tier titles, but this was never a complete roll-back like this, and was always retracted several months later.
Unfortunately, this does not address the major arguments of the consumer:
1) CDs are still over-priced at $12.98 (US). It is cheaper to manufacture a compact disc than it is to manufacture a cassette tape (no moving parts in a CD) once the initial costs of starting the manufacturing process have been paid off.
2) There is no cheap way to purchase single songs in a digital format. CD singles are even more over-priced than the full-length titles, and this is, to my mind, the major factor that opened the door for the mp3.
3) The mp3 has allowed several things to thrive that the record labels have neglected - alternative music styles to the teen pop and rap that seems to be dominating radio, access to old catalog titles/artists that the labels have allowed to die, and promotion for new bands that the labels aren't willing to sign and/or promote.
The price cut does nothing to address any of these, nor is it likely to change the behavior of those who download.
But when a large segment of the public is going to be comparing $12.98 with the $0.00 filesharing price, I have to wonder if it will have any effect at all.
Probably not.
I wonder what the artists think of this? This price reduction has to impact their bottom line...
For most artists, the amount that they make is not based on the sale price of the format, rather it is fixed to unit sales. This may, in the future, cause the labels to lower this figure, but it will not affect most artists - it may help with those who actually move more units.
as the others have said, it did get a bit repetitive. I, too, found that the spells in no way scaled as well as the weapons did (and thanks to the non-existant manual, there was no way to know what was going to be a useful spell until you found it and tried it out). I got every one of followers trained up in ranged weapons as soon as I found the nifty toys in the Goblin Caves (flamethrowers and grenade launchers - woo-hoo!). I kept a couple of these sufficiently trained in Nature Magic to do healing spells and found little trouble once the folks were able to use the more powerful ranged weapons.
I have found that repetitive games can be greatly improved by having friends along for the ride. But DS1 really missed the mark on this. Since the save system only lets you save the character and not the status of the map, it really means that you have to complete a chapter each time you play or have to wade through the same bunch of scaled-up critters you ran through before.
I hope that they rethink this for DS2. The engine for DS1 was nice-looking, but, as soon as I got through the original map, I stopped with the game. Multiplay is where the real longevity of a game can be found for me.
As a comparison, NeverWinter Nights, with its easy-to-use editor and great support for multi-player is still getting played extensively during the LAN parties I have been at...
In short, I got DS for free (Best Buy had a deal with buying EasyCD Creator 6 that gave any game under $30 for free) - at that price, I was happy with what I got. If I had paid the $30, I might not have been as happy.
"We have prior experience with private weekend-long gaming parties (with 20-30 people) a handful of times per year at the homes of attendees, and usually they conclude with few problems...
I'm not sure how you do this in homes of attendees unless you are unmarried, have very understanding spouses or are actually hosting the LAN party in several adjacent houses... I've been hosting LAN parties for several years and I've never been able to fit more eight people in. Any more than that and you run into room problems with wives/significant others, children and such. Of course, I'm in Texas, where having a LAN party in a garage is simply a stupid idea 95% of the time and basements are extremely rare (they flood). In more moderate environments, I can see a garage or basement making this possible.
Here are my suggestions (and I have been involved a few bigger LAN parties held on a college campus in conjunction with science fiction and gaming conventions):
A. Have a network admin (or a team) that are the only ones who touch the servers. Ideally, the servers should be in an area that is isolated, so that the admin does not have to deal with wanna-be admins pestering him.
B. In adddition to the admin (or team), there should be one or more trouble-shooters. These can be members of the admin team that are not currently minding the servers. Their job is to handle the networking issues on the gamers systems.
C. Some have discussed using DHCP vs. fixed IPs. I would suggest not using DHCP. A fixed IP means you can figure out where the errors are coming into play.
D. I would strongly suggest that when you give out the sheets with the fixed IP info (that was a great idea and would have made the on-campus LAN parties much smoother), you also have some basic
network advice (like turning off unprotected file shares).
E. Have CDs with the cab files for all of the many flavors of Windows you will be encountering. You probably don't need the full install CDs (those these are not a bad idea, either), but anyone who has set up a system without the cabs in Win 9x will be wanting them when they start making network changes.
F. In addition, you should hand out burnt CDs with anti-virus software (AVG is free and good) and the update files from the other (commercial) programs. Make sure that every system has running AV software that is up-to-date and has run a complete scan before they are allowed to connect to the network. Nothing like a good epidemic to turn a LAN party into a real bummer...
G. People have already mentioned having the latest patches, maps, mods, etc. for the games being played available on a file server for easy installation. This is good. I would also recommend having a set of install disks for each game (with no CD-keys, serial numbers or anything else that would make them warez-able). These CDs should never leave the sight of the trouble-shooters.
H. A map should be available with local restaurants, hotels, groceries, software stores and hardware stores. Sample menus and phones numbers for food-delivery places are a plus.
I. A small reserve of commonly forgotten parts (network cables, cheap headphones) and easy replacement parts (known good network cards donated by folks that no longer need them (I have about five from various systems that have been upgraded/replaced - I suspect that many people are in the same boat) should be set aside for the trouble-shooters. Anything beyond these basics will require a trip to the hardware store, but a quick fix is good to have available.
J. In that ever-growing CD binder, a set of commonly-used drivers is a good thing, especially for network and video cards.
K. Likewise, a set of basic utilities for emergency work is very useful for the trouble-shooters.
General site ideas:
1) Find out what the alcohol policy is for your site, post it prominently and be prepared to enforce it.
2) Have a ton of big trash cans available and a regular schedule for having them emptied.
3) If the
If no one else has mentioned it, X-Wing came out in 1993. That's right - ten years ago! There have been a ton of great titles that have come out since then.
Here are some of the highlights, as I see them:
Quake (1995)
Quake II (1997) (only for multiplayer, though)
Baldur's Gate (1998)
Half Life (1998)
Unreal (1998)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire (the best civ-type turn-based strategy game ever)(1999)
Unreal Tournament (1999)
Baldur's Gate II (2000)
NeverWinter Nights (2002)
I don't do driving games or real-time strategy, so I'll leave them for others to recommend.
I hope these help and don't cause you to lose your job - all nighters do not make for easy work days!
Slashdot Mirror
I probably should not respond to your post, as you give every indication of being a troll, but, just on the off chance that you are not, do a slight bit of research before you post your remarks - please?
You claim that Apple is not releasing innovative products. Let's look at the releases in the past year. As has been pointed out, there already is a video iPod. Great new server? Hmm... I guess you haven't heard of the Xserve clusters at Virginia Tech. New systems? How about the Quad Core systems released late last year? You aren't going to find those in the consumer line systems from Dell or any other manufacturer on the PC side right now... Software? What about Aperture, which can save a lot of time for photographers - and time is, as they say, money. Based on the releases of the past year, I think people have every right to expect something interesting and possibly even innovative to be announced at MacWorld this coming week.
Anyhow, you have strayed from the subject, which I will try to return to... there are plenty of stories about demos blowing up in Jobs' face. They don't get the degree of press that Gates does, but, then, this is usually the case... Every tech firm has stories of demos gone bad. Some are humorous, many tragic, and some are truly acts of Murphy.
Many of us would like to see you re-visit Alpha Centauri. Have there been any serious thoughts about a new version (one that is OS X native would be excellent!)? Barring this, is there any way to recreate SMAC using the tools and scripting that comes with Civ 4?
I hate Daylight Savings Time.
I had a conversation with some Chinese graduate students this week. They said, "we tried this for one, maybe two years - then we stopped it. No one liked it. Do Americans really like it?"
I replied that no one I knew liked it - in fact no one I knew had a feeling warmer than great disdain for it.
I've read enough of the comments that cite energy savings and doubts about those savings. All I can say is, unless the savings are staggering (much more than I have seen cited), it isn't worth the trouble. All of my co-workers, employees, students and clients are tired, grumpy or simply call in sick. The work done frequently has to be redone once inspected (if the inspector catches it, of course). The productivity hit, the lag of folks who forget about the change, and the accidents that happen from sleepy people just is just not worth it.
The firm I was doing programming for was a possible acquisition target by another firm that we had been doing subcontracting for. The CEO and I flew to the city that had their corporate headquarters, which would also be where we would be expected to move to should the buyout happen.
We were wined and dined. We got to see the work environment and noted that there were lots of perks (fridge stocked every kind of soft drink, paid/catered lunches, etc.). The pay sounded good. Too good. And then we heard what sort of hours everyone (except the CEO, of course) was putting in - 80+ hours a week. The only guy who was still married in the firm was the CEO. All of the divorced guys couldn't figure out what had happened - they were making good money, after all...
Needless to say, I didn't take that offer. I found a different job that paid a lot less, but had regular hours.
when the buyout of TechTV happened. Pity, though - TechTV, like its predecessor ZDTV, was one of the few channels where a technophile like me could feel at home.
Admittedly, the quality of the content was heading downhill as the different personalities left over time (Jim Louderback, John Dvorak, Kate Botello, and Sumi Das all spring immediately to mind). Some of the newer offerings did nothing for me (Unscrewed, Battlebots (or whatever it's called), Body Hits, etc.). The channel was definitely losing steam even before the G4 buyout.
Still, what has been announced today was exactly what folks predicted when the buyout was announced. The smaller network has bought the bigger one, junked the content of the bigger network, run off their talent pool, and we're left with the same old junk that G4 ran - just more folks are able to be subjected to it.
The thing that G4's management has not (apparently) figured out is that TechTV was bigger for a reason - their content was better than G4's!
If new titles won't play back on older units, we're all screwed.
I'd like to say that I have everything I would want on DVD, but, frankly, there's a lot of older catalog titles that the studios have not yet released.
I can only hope that this one dies a painful (and expensive to the proposing companies) death.
I'm not sure which is worse, the DRM idiots or the idiots who consistantly refuse to set one standard for media...
I know that I'm preaching to the choir, but you would think that the entertainment industry would have learned from its past mistakes...
The only thing that has been done right in this is preserving compatability for the existing DVD standard.
I really see no reason to upgrade to anything above DVD for my home video system at this point in time (and can't foresee a need to do it - ever - other than lack of new titles on DVD), anymore than I see the need to upgrade to anything above CD for my home audio. They've done such a great job of muddling the standard for high-end audio (DVD-Audio, SACD, etc.) that I'm sure that the enthusiast will have to get two units if they really want to upgrade and enjoy everyone's product.
I think there are some fundamental design reasons why cop-op is tough to implement. Most games that tell a story attempt to do so through scripted events. HL2's scripted events happen in real-time, inside the game engine. How do you handle these when two players are in there at once? They could be in totally different parts of the level. One person would see all of the scripted stuff, and one wouldn't.
What happens if one player's actions make part of the level impassable to the other player? The environments in HL2 are pretty dynamic and having completed the game, I can forsee a lot of instances when a player could be "cut off" if he were lagging behind the other player, with no way to proceed through the level. I guess you could have some sort of "teleport" function to let the other player catch up to the first player, but.... that's kind of corny.
Agreed and understood. This is the classic argument made against making co-op friendly games. I'm not sure that it is entirely valid. Yes, cut scenes make it hard to do a co-op game, but are they truly necessary? Maybe I'm the atypical player, but I always found cut-scenes to be more annoying than helpful. I dislike situations that I can't interact with, affect, or prevent. They are intended to help the sense of immersion in the game world/story, but, to me (at least), they snap me back to the realization that this is just a game and I can't do anything about some things...
I mean, co-op is a lot of fun, but I don't think companies are willing to sacrifice the design of their single-player game to make it compatible with a co-op play mode. I can see how a simple blast-em-'up like Serious Sam (god, I loved that game)
I agree. Simple game, but a ton of fun with some buddies to share it with... not pulitzer prize stuff, but more fun than I have had in many other games...
or Q2 works well for co-op, but I can't see it working too well for a "richer" game like HL2.
And I counter that HL2 is, in reality, poorer for it. It can be done - Valve chose not to do it (just as they did for HL1). I refuse to buy the argument that a game can not be co-op friendly and immersive (or "rich" as you term it).
The third design trend that I see, is what I will call the "beauty over brains" trend. The graphics in games are so much better than they were, but so much is being invested in the development of the graphics that the actual design of the game is being neglected. Doom 3, based on the reviews that I have read, certainly suffers from this (no, I did not buy it, either). Half Life 2 has a better story than Doom 3, I'm sure. I'm not so sure that any improvement of the underlying game actually happened, though.
In a sense, yeah. HL2 is the same old FPS, executed very well in terms of story and graphics. However, the use of physics in HL2 is pretty revolutionary. Objects fly around like actual, well... objects and it's not just eye candy - a lot of the puzzles in the game depend on the clever manipulation of those objects.
For example, at one point, there's a ramp you need to drive your hovercraft over. But it's too low, and it's partially submerged in water. I found some floaty plastic barrels and placed them in the water under the ramp. Their buoyancy caused the ramp to rise to the proper angle. I was then able to drive my hovercraft over it and continue with the level.
There are a lot of puzzles like that, and even when you're not doing puzzles like that, most of the objects in the environment act in a "realistic" physical manner which adds to the fun when things are being thrown about by explosions.
Sounds like they did do some interesting work, but not enough to make me change my mind, or negate my remarks about their design choices. BioWare, in explaining their choices for NeverWinter Nights expansions, used the term "zots". Zots represent programming/design effort to make something work. In any project, there are a fixed
Unreal Tourneyment 2004 beat it and Doom3 out the door, so when it comes to multiplayer: who cares?
Uh... the several million people who have already bought HL2 or are considering it? I don't think anybody's buying HL2 strictly for the HL2 DM multiplayer, but it's a fun bonus.
I'm not buying HL2 because of the lack of multiplayer options that interest me (no co-op, no 'bots). HL1 was an interesting game, but I didn't find it to be very fun without friends to share the game with - share being the operative and important word. To be more explicit, deathmatch isn't sharing - at least to me (and the folks that I play with). I played it for a couple of hours and went back to Quake II - an inferior game in every way except the one that mattered to me - it had co-op.
I realize this puts me in the minority, but, sooner or later, I think that most of us will begin to tire of blasting our buddies. I think it is part of the maturing process, but maybe that's just me... Of course, with new players picking up games all the time, the trend won't be recognized by the gaming companies.
As I sit here and type this, I realize that a few design trends are shutting me (and people like me) out of the gaming market. I see them and I hope that things will shift back, but I suspect that they won't...
One factor that has influenced design trends with many recent games is the growth of console games. I think this has dumbed down designs. Designers look for a way to make a cross-platform (console/computer - not the same as Windows/Mac/Linux) design, and they design for the lowest common denominator. Things that work well on computers, but do not work well on consoles (like co-op or interesting multiplayer modes) get axed. Call of Cthulhu originally was supposed to have a co-op mode. Now that a cosole port is being made, all mention of the co-op mode has vanished from the previews, website, etc. It is not alone in this trend.
A second trend is the rise of the massively multiplayer on-line game. I think that the co-op market in standard games is being abandoned because the designers assume that those who desire co-op play are being catered to by the MMOGs, and they will gravitate there. This might be true for some, but I can say with conviction that it is not true for everyone. Some of us don't enjoy the MMOG game. This is certainly true for me.
The third design trend that I see, is what I will call the "beauty over brains" trend. The graphics in games are so much better than they were, but so much is being invested in the development of the graphics that the actual design of the game is being neglected. Doom 3, based on the reviews that I have read, certainly suffers from this (no, I did not buy it, either). Half Life 2 has a better story than Doom 3, I'm sure. I'm not so sure that any improvement of the underlying game actually happened, though.
The only recent releases I can see innovation and improvement happening is in the Unreal engine games (UT2004 was a massive improvement over UT2003) and Red Storm's multiplayer games (not Splinter Cell). In fact, at the last LAN party I attended, we played NeverWinter Nights more than anything else. The fact that we're still playing two year old games at LAN parties speaks to the lack of interest in modern designs.Anyhow, back to the subject of the original posting... Adding two DM maps to HL2 does nothing to increase my desire to purchase the game. I hope that, as some point, we'll see a real, fully functional (all of the levels, all of the encounters) co-op mode added to the game.
The reasons why Microsoft is not worried?
1) Firefox will never be integrated to the OS (or Office). There will always be functions that Windows or Office will call IE for.
2) The vast majority of people will not use anything other than the software bundled with their system. I have had no end of trouble convincing people to try either Mozilla or Firefox. When I tell them that the programs are made by the same people that made Netscape in the past, some will be willing to give it a try.
3) They'll figure out a way to kill Firefox, legal or otherwise, and will stall and wheedle in the courts long enough to make sure that the dagger is good and twisted. Until our legal folks realize that Microsoft is a monopoly and it has no incentive to play fair with competing products, it will continue to destroy the competition.
If there was an x86 port of OS X, I'd have to pick it up.
Actually, I can't be sure that the Micro$oft patch is worth even what I pay for it.
Since Micro$oft won't disclose whether this vulnerability affects older versions of Office, Windows, etc. (knowing Micro$oft's history, I would not be surprised if this actually dates back to Office 97 and Windows 9x)
All the Micro$oft tool appears to do is look for the latest versions of the file - at least the Tom Liston's tool (http://isc.sans.org/gdiscan.php - mentioned on /. earlier today) looks for the vulnerability itself. Irritating, but predictable...
ASCAP and BMI have been doing this for years in the US. I used to manage a retail store and we had to
prominantly display our ASCAP and BMI stickers, according to corporate policy.
I have a fairly new (just made the first payment...) Civic Hybrid (with automatic continuously variable transmission, which means that it does not get as high mpg figures as the manual tranmission models do). EPA mileage: 49 city/48 highway. So far, I am averaging 40.9 mpg (combined). I've taken it on a long highway vacation trip (where I got it up to 45 mpg), but most of the driving has been in town.
I have discovered that there is a learning curve to driving this car, almost like a manual transmission car. You can achieve very different mileages based on how aggresive you are on your starts and such. The average is rising as I learn the tricks of driving the car - past couple of tanks of gas have averaged 42 mpg or better.
I have heard that Toyota and Honda would love to post slightly lower figures, but that the EPA requires the figures to be the ones actually created by their testing (which involves a track on ideal conditions with a professional driver who knows the car inside and out). Just as the EPA does not want a car company to inflate the figures (for Hummers and such), they don't want the figures downgraded. Thus, it appears that the figures for all vehicles are higher than any of us will likely encounter unless we're coasting down a mountain pass with a good tailwind...
The conspiracy theorist in me wonders about the timing of this. If I recall correctly, WordPerfect 12 is the first release since Micro$oft divested its shares in Corel... the previous Linux versions vanished remarkably close to the announcement of the Micro$oft bailout of Corel.
I have contacted Corel several times about WordPerfect for Mac OS X. I have users that are asking me for it, even though the last version of WP for the Mac came out many years ago.
It seems to me that there's a real possibility of Corel making inroads into the Office monopoly on the Mac platform as there are many Mac users who shun anything Micro$oft, but wind up using Office due to the lack of a viable alternative. Oddly enough, Micro$oft's biggest (percentage-wise) monopoly is Office on the Mac. Corel needs to move quickly on this, however. As Mac users move themselves into OS X, they are becoming less inclined to run things in the classic mode.
Personally, a new WordPerfect port to Linux would be a great plus. As others have mentioned, the WP9 package was more of an simulated port - a lot of it was done via WINE. That's better (at least to dedicated WP users like myself) than no WP for Linux, but a native version would be even better. I'm waiting for the 15th and will order it. I just hope that they do a good job, and bring some other titles to Linux (Bryce would be fun!)
Luckily, I'm not in one of the markets affected by the CBS blackout. It's the only one of the Viacom channels that's watched in my home and even it is rarely watched.
A dollar off the bill for channels I don't watch? Works for me...
By the way, DirectTV does not have some of the channels, I do watch, so it's not really a better deal. The posts yesterday and today almost have the tone of a DirectTV salesman...
One area that Palm had a clear and obvious edge over the PocketPC/Windows CE/whatever-Microsoft-will-call-the- next-version is that Palms, out of the box, work with both Windows and Macintosh systems. Giving this market niche up will be a serious mistake - almost all Mac users that bought handhelds were going to buy Palms until now, that probably is a major bolster to Palm's shrinking market share.
If I were to guess as to a reason, I would point at the beginnings of a competing product in the iPod - which already does the contact and calendar functions. One wonders how easy it would be to add the other functions to make an iPod a true PDA. That and the additional expense of developing for two more platforms (don't forget OS 9) that supporting Macs includes. I hope that the reason is not due to Palm using Microsoft's tools or code somewhere...
Cool! I'll have to give this a try. I figured it was doable, but I have not been able to find anything on it. Of course, I have not had a tremendous amount of time to devote to a search, either...
Thanks, again!
Here at Texas A&M University, we have a central IP registry called NIM (Network Information Manager). Until about a year ago, anyone with access to NIM could look up any IP on campus.
Then, citing privacy concerns, administrators restricted lookups in NIM to systems associated with the searcher's group (in other words, I can look up any system in my department, but can not look up other IPs or (what I more frequently need) mac addresses, even if they are in one of the buildings I administer systems in. Even folks in the campus-wide Computing and Information Services can not look things up unless they are part of the small group permitted to do so. Amazingingly enough, the same folks who decided to restrict access are the ones who can still look anything up.
Of course, what concerned me at the time, and continues to be a problem is the ability to trace a hijacked IP or an infected system. If I have to go through the priviledged few who can look up the IP, it takes more time and it escalates issues which could probably be solved quickly.
While WHOIS entries have information that could prove troublesome from a privacy standpoint, NIM should not. Usually it has the name of the administrator and some notes about the system. Some admins (like me) also add info to better identify the system, but should not have info that would cross the privacy line.
In truth, once the suits set their sites on a matter and start waving the privacy flag, it is too late. We need to start figuring out an alternative now, because WHOIS is doomed. Logic and need will not save it, and reason will not prevail.
I'm trying to think back to my first mouse - I seem to recall having one for my C64 to run GeoWorks.
Since that time I have worked with a ton of models, including most of the models that Apple, Logitech and Micro$oft have produced and several by companies I can't even recall
The worst mouse I've ever handled has to be the Apple puck that shipped with every Apple prior to the Apple optical mouse. It made even the soap-bar monstrosities of the 80s look good by comparison. How they could release a mouse that made it hard to verify mouse orientation without a visual check I will never know. I have one Mac user who actually likes the design, but most of them tossed the stock mouse for a Logitech as quickly as they could run to Best Buy...
The best design? I am torn between several designs. I really love the Logitech Dual Opticals that are attached to all of my home systems, but I am also very happy with the Logitech MX700 and Logitech MX500 I have on my work systems. The only drawback to all of them is that Logitech does not have Linux drivers for them and I have not been able to get them to work correctly on my Linux boxes - I have to remember to switch mice before booting into Linux. (If anyone has a hint on making any of these, especially the MX500/700, work in Linux, I would be very grateful!)
People tend to forget that Texas A&M claimed to be able to produce Cold Fusion, too, shortly after the Utah "discoveries."
Folks in the lab had t-shirts that said "I might have discovered cold fusion and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"
I'm basing this on my memories of working in the music industry (on the retail end) in the 1980s, so things may be a bit fuzzy...
Originally, the record labels justified the high price of CDs by saying that they were recovering the cost of setting up CD manufacturing plants. They had pretty much done this by 1987 or 1988, but had discovered that people were willing to pay the inflated the prices in droves, so they did not lower the prices across the board. Some manufacturers did actually lower the suggested retail of some of their top-tier titles, but this was never a complete roll-back like this, and was always retracted several months later.
Unfortunately, this does not address the major arguments of the consumer:
1) CDs are still over-priced at $12.98 (US). It is cheaper to manufacture a compact disc than it is to manufacture a cassette tape (no moving parts in a CD) once the initial costs of starting the manufacturing process have been paid off.
2) There is no cheap way to purchase single songs in a digital format. CD singles are even more over-priced than the full-length titles, and this is, to my mind, the major factor that opened the door for the mp3.
3) The mp3 has allowed several things to thrive that the record labels have neglected - alternative music styles to the teen pop and rap that seems to be dominating radio, access to old catalog titles/artists that the labels have allowed to die, and promotion for new bands that the labels aren't willing to sign and/or promote.
The price cut does nothing to address any of these, nor is it likely to change the behavior of those who download.
But when a large segment of the public is going to be comparing $12.98 with the $0.00 filesharing price, I have to wonder if it will have any effect at all.Probably not.
I wonder what the artists think of this? This price reduction has to impact their bottom line...For most artists, the amount that they make is not based on the sale price of the format, rather it is fixed to unit sales. This may, in the future, cause the labels to lower this figure, but it will not affect most artists - it may help with those who actually move more units.
as the others have said, it did get a bit repetitive. I, too, found that the spells in no way scaled as well as the weapons did (and thanks to the non-existant manual, there was no way to know what was going to be a useful spell until you found it and tried it out). I got every one of followers trained up in ranged weapons as soon as I found the nifty toys in the Goblin Caves (flamethrowers and grenade launchers - woo-hoo!). I kept a couple of these sufficiently trained in Nature Magic to do healing spells and found little trouble once the folks were able to use the more powerful ranged weapons.
I have found that repetitive games can be greatly improved by having friends along for the ride. But DS1 really missed the mark on this. Since the save system only lets you save the character and not the status of the map, it really means that you have to complete a chapter each time you play or have to wade through the same bunch of scaled-up critters you ran through before.
I hope that they rethink this for DS2. The engine for DS1 was nice-looking, but, as soon as I got through the original map, I stopped with the game. Multiplay is where the real longevity of a game can be found for me.
As a comparison, NeverWinter Nights, with its easy-to-use editor and great support for multi-player is still getting played extensively during the LAN parties I have been at...
In short, I got DS for free (Best Buy had a deal with buying EasyCD Creator 6 that gave any game under $30 for free) - at that price, I was happy with what I got. If I had paid the $30, I might not have been as happy.
I'm not sure how you do this in homes of attendees unless you are unmarried, have very understanding spouses or are actually hosting the LAN party in several adjacent houses... I've been hosting LAN parties for several years and I've never been able to fit more eight people in. Any more than that and you run into room problems with wives/significant others, children and such. Of course, I'm in Texas, where having a LAN party in a garage is simply a stupid idea 95% of the time and basements are extremely rare (they flood). In more moderate environments, I can see a garage or basement making this possible.
Here are my suggestions (and I have been involved a few bigger LAN parties held on a college campus in conjunction with science fiction and gaming conventions):
A. Have a network admin (or a team) that are the only ones who touch the servers. Ideally, the servers should be in an area that is isolated, so that the admin does not have to deal with wanna-be admins pestering him.
B. In adddition to the admin (or team), there should be one or more trouble-shooters. These can be members of the admin team that are not currently minding the servers. Their job is to handle the networking issues on the gamers systems.
C. Some have discussed using DHCP vs. fixed IPs. I would suggest not using DHCP. A fixed IP means you can figure out where the errors are coming into play.
D. I would strongly suggest that when you give out the sheets with the fixed IP info (that was a great idea and would have made the on-campus LAN parties much smoother), you also have some basic network advice (like turning off unprotected file shares).
E. Have CDs with the cab files for all of the many flavors of Windows you will be encountering. You probably don't need the full install CDs (those these are not a bad idea, either), but anyone who has set up a system without the cabs in Win 9x will be wanting them when they start making network changes.
F. In addition, you should hand out burnt CDs with anti-virus software (AVG is free and good) and the update files from the other (commercial) programs. Make sure that every system has running AV software that is up-to-date and has run a complete scan before they are allowed to connect to the network. Nothing like a good epidemic to turn a LAN party into a real bummer...
G. People have already mentioned having the latest patches, maps, mods, etc. for the games being played available on a file server for easy installation. This is good. I would also recommend having a set of install disks for each game (with no CD-keys, serial numbers or anything else that would make them warez-able). These CDs should never leave the sight of the trouble-shooters.
H. A map should be available with local restaurants, hotels, groceries, software stores and hardware stores. Sample menus and phones numbers for food-delivery places are a plus.
I. A small reserve of commonly forgotten parts (network cables, cheap headphones) and easy replacement parts (known good network cards donated by folks that no longer need them (I have about five from various systems that have been upgraded/replaced - I suspect that many people are in the same boat) should be set aside for the trouble-shooters. Anything beyond these basics will require a trip to the hardware store, but a quick fix is good to have available.
J. In that ever-growing CD binder, a set of commonly-used drivers is a good thing, especially for network and video cards.
K. Likewise, a set of basic utilities for emergency work is very useful for the trouble-shooters.
General site ideas:
1) Find out what the alcohol policy is for your site, post it prominently and be prepared to enforce it.
2) Have a ton of big trash cans available and a regular schedule for having them emptied.
3) If the
If no one else has mentioned it, X-Wing came out in 1993. That's right - ten years ago! There have been a ton of great titles that have come out since then.
Here are some of the highlights, as I see them:
Quake (1995)
Quake II (1997) (only for multiplayer, though)
Baldur's Gate (1998)
Half Life (1998)
Unreal (1998)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire (the best civ-type turn-based strategy game ever)(1999)
Unreal Tournament (1999)
Baldur's Gate II (2000)
NeverWinter Nights (2002)
I don't do driving games or real-time strategy, so I'll leave them for others to recommend.
I hope these help and don't cause you to lose your job - all nighters do not make for easy work days!