Is Deliberately Misleading People On the Internet Free Speech? -- If it is, then you'd have to do something about almost every salesman and corporation lying about the quality of their products, etc in the country. (and I'm not against making them tell the truth) But I'm afraid it is free speech. And I also seem to hold the radical opinion (these days) that opinions that aren't currently popular are also free speech. Nazi assholes, white supremacists, Antifa, have as much right to share their opinions as anyone else, as long as they are not directed specifically at one person, and NOT accompanied by violence. Sorry, you can't have free speech for only the majority or only the people with who you agree.
I wish we could figure out how to limit the money they can spend or "is spent in their behalf". And I am annoyed as hell with paying for serving officials working on behalf of their own or a member of their party's campaign. It's our money they're being paid with.
I think part of what he's talking about is just the plain old lack of forward progress. Here we are 11 years after the UO beta, like what... 14 years after Master of Orion... and we are still recreating practically every thing for every game. I'll give you an example because it's been on my mind.
Ever since I started posting in another place about what games have cooperative campaigns and skirmish modes, I've been thinking about why so few do and why the AI is so often bad in them. It's because it takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money to do correct AI in a game. Well, all this time and we haven't done a dern thing to improve that.
What's needed is some sort of open resource library somewhere of unit AI behavior that would define how units should act in a game. Let all the devs be able to use it. Most of these game companies don't have the money or time to hire a dedicated AI designer/programmer and with every game, they've got to research and define and code how every unit would act in every situation. Good luck with that. Units could be regiments or companies or individuals depending on the game, RTS, or FPS or MMO etc. Each unit would have to be identified by by "epoch" or "age" I guess, ie: like Ancient, Medieval, Napoleonic, Modern etc. Then by type of unit, Cavalry, Infantry, Line Infantry, Artillery, Horse Artillery, magician(s), priest, healer, Sloop of War, patrol boat, frigate, bomb ketch, ship of the line, etc. Then the activities, what to do if attacked by X and movement is Y and you get the picture. Can't just jump into it though, you have to have a group of AI savvy experts define the methodology and what categorizations would be generic enough to be useful. This is just meant to think about, I'm not an AI codemonkey - better brains than mine would have to do it.
That's the reason a lot of these games don't have intelligent AI even for single player, and that's the stumbling block for co-op multiplayer against the computer. It would take someone just working on this one aspect of it, for each developer for each game, a loooong time to define these things correctly. And every developer has to do it over and over.
Now that's just an example because I was thinking about that particular topic a couple days.
That is the "kind" of advance to which R. Garriot refers I believe. Doing the kind of things like this which would free up all the game companies to be more creative. Standardization and availability of those things that further the industry freeing the developers up to be more creative and honestly, let the smaller ones make more money so they can make more games.
I'll be unlikely to buy it without coop vs the computer. That's a real shame. I have some great memories of playing the original Doom and Doom II and all the level mods people made to keep coop going for years and years. Shame...
I didn't know I was emotionally attached to a game until I read that. System Shock 2 is one of the best games I've ever played. Only one patch issued (or needed) and that was to add multiplayer - something they didn't promise in the game in the first place. It's got to set some kind of record for a developer going out of business so soon after winning so many sites and mags "Game of the Year and of the Year awards" Just about everything they released over the years was innovative and ahead of it's time - in some way, Ultima Underworlds, Terra Nova, System Shock 1&2, Flight Unlimited 1-3, Theif 1&2. They pushed the envelope everywhere they went. This is just a damned shame.
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Is Deliberately Misleading People On the Internet Free Speech? -- If it is, then you'd have to do something about almost every salesman and corporation lying about the quality of their products, etc in the country. (and I'm not against making them tell the truth) But I'm afraid it is free speech. And I also seem to hold the radical opinion (these days) that opinions that aren't currently popular are also free speech. Nazi assholes, white supremacists, Antifa, have as much right to share their opinions as anyone else, as long as they are not directed specifically at one person, and NOT accompanied by violence. Sorry, you can't have free speech for only the majority or only the people with who you agree.
This is a headline? One useless face says "You stoopid!" and the other one answers "Nyah nyah!" Really...
I wish we could figure out how to limit the money they can spend or "is spent in their behalf". And I am annoyed as hell with paying for serving officials working on behalf of their own or a member of their party's campaign. It's our money they're being paid with.
I think part of what he's talking about is just the plain old lack of forward progress. Here we are 11 years after the UO beta, like what... 14 years after Master of Orion... and we are still recreating practically every thing for every game. I'll give you an example because it's been on my mind.
Ever since I started posting in another place about what games have cooperative campaigns and skirmish modes, I've been thinking about why so few do and why the AI is so often bad in them. It's because it takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money to do correct AI in a game. Well, all this time and we haven't done a dern thing to improve that.
What's needed is some sort of open resource library somewhere of unit AI behavior that would define how units should act in a game. Let all the devs be able to use it. Most of these game companies don't have the money or time to hire a dedicated AI designer/programmer and with every game, they've got to research and define and code how every unit would act in every situation. Good luck with that. Units could be regiments or companies or individuals depending on the game, RTS, or FPS or MMO etc. Each unit would have to be identified by by "epoch" or "age" I guess, ie: like Ancient, Medieval, Napoleonic, Modern etc. Then by type of unit, Cavalry, Infantry, Line Infantry, Artillery, Horse Artillery, magician(s), priest, healer, Sloop of War, patrol boat, frigate, bomb ketch, ship of the line, etc. Then the activities, what to do if attacked by X and movement is Y and you get the picture. Can't just jump into it though, you have to have a group of AI savvy experts define the methodology and what categorizations would be generic enough to be useful. This is just meant to think about, I'm not an AI codemonkey - better brains than mine would have to do it.
That's the reason a lot of these games don't have intelligent AI even for single player, and that's the stumbling block for co-op multiplayer against the computer. It would take someone just working on this one aspect of it, for each developer for each game, a loooong time to define these things correctly. And every developer has to do it over and over.
Now that's just an example because I was thinking about that particular topic a couple days.
That is the "kind" of advance to which R. Garriot refers I believe. Doing the kind of things like this which would free up all the game companies to be more creative. Standardization and availability of those things that further the industry freeing the developers up to be more creative and honestly, let the smaller ones make more money so they can make more games.
Make one that won't spill when it falls 15 feet.
I'll be unlikely to buy it without coop vs the computer. That's a real shame. I have some great memories of playing the original Doom and Doom II and all the level mods people made to keep coop going for years and years. Shame...
I didn't know I was emotionally attached to a game until I read that. System Shock 2 is one of the best games I've ever played. Only one patch issued (or needed) and that was to add multiplayer - something they didn't promise in the game in the first place. It's got to set some kind of record for a developer going out of business so soon after winning so many sites and mags "Game of the Year and of the Year awards" Just about everything they released over the years was innovative and ahead of it's time - in some way, Ultima Underworlds, Terra Nova, System Shock 1&2, Flight Unlimited 1-3, Theif 1&2. They pushed the envelope everywhere they went. This is just a damned shame.