Re:"Let me out! I'm not done making my wookies!"
on
The Future of MMORPGs
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· Score: 1
Better yet, throw some padlocks on the doors, but first include a bunch of top-notch desktops and order them to start working. Two years later we'll have the best online game in history.
The most important thing developers must note:
on
The Future of MMORPGs
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· Score: 4, Insightful
More games are coming out, but the gaming populace doesn't seem to be joining in. The existing market is fragmenting. Perhaps there is a substantial number of gamers who are waiting for one particular game to arrive before they join online. I have my own complaint. I chose Asheron's Call and played for three months after watching friends try out Everquest. All four of us quit EQ and AC, the other three tried both first. For us, the fundamental hook of eternal leveling simply is not enough to make us play. This incessant cycle of endless battles for weak rewards do not make these games fun for us. Two of my friends play Diablo II still, so I think they if anyone should have the will power to fight hordes for hours at a time.
What seems to be lacking for me is a real sense of accomplishment. Leveling up is not fun in and of itself. The quests I do must actually matter to the game world. The game should change because of what I do. I should have other options besides fighting to earn credits. The classic game of Pirates! comes to mind. I want to be a trader sometimes, also a politician if I desire. Not just a patron, but I want government, and generals, military commands and so on. Neocron has some of these ideas.
Unfortunately what I want is like ten games in one. But that's exactly what every company must strive for. Releasing the hack and slash game, followed by the trading game, followed by the political game, followed by the military/bounty/mercenary/thief-type game. Last but not least, if the world has horses or cars, there needs to be a racing game, not just on tracks, but street races. All of this must be available together and integrated.
I know I ask the near-impossible, but if the game makers want me to devote my real life to their virtual world for years to come, shouldn't their world be at least as interesting as reality?
The best way to make the files small is to use Variable Bit Rate encoding of the mp3 files so only when someone is talking is there any sound. Any person making their own track should listen to the movie through headphones, volume low. This way the mike won't pick up the sound. The wave file should then be altered so only sound above a number of decibels is audible, everything else is nullified. That way the mp3 wont even have background hiss. The result, ultra small mp3 files that sound excellent.
I'm not buying this argument. Consider plain wooden doors with a knob or a latch. These are completely artificial inventions that prevent cats from going places. Cats accept these. If a cat is born knowing the way outside the house is through this door with a light, why is it going to not accept this? The cat has no idea it is being scanned. It only knows not to try and bring things in or it will not succeed. It might think the door is watching it, but so what? Am I bothered when I know a security camera might have a man watching the monitor instead of just getting directly stored to tape? Not really. It depends on the circumstance. I doubt cats are smart enough to understand this distinction anyway.
Actually, given how the system is set up, I don't think the cat can drop the mouse or bird, trigger, and pick up. The cat has to drop the mouse and step on it with a paw before triggering the camera. The can then has to back up to pick up the mouse. If the system is set up properly, it will notice the cat does not look like a cat and will lock again.
The workaround I see is the cat must leave the mouse alive enough (it's planning on playing and chasing it inside the house) so it can drop the mouse. The mouse runs forward past the light up to the door. The cat then passes by and gains access, picks up the mouse and enters normally.
This could still be prevented by making sure the camera sees the mouse and compares the timing of the mouse and the cat images. If they are too close the cat will not be allowed in. Unless the cat wants to wait for a really long time with its arse sticking out unprotected from dogs and the like, this will stop the cat.
If you read the article you'd know it isn't just a webcast. What's open about it is that not only could anyone download any or all of four differnt "cuts" of the same program, they would then be encouraged to share those programs. The biggest problem with webcasting vs. broadcasting is that it costs nothing to reach more people when broadcasting. As long as the viewer is within the radius of the broadcast signal, they get it. Webcasting costs money for every additional stream. By making this "Open", the idea is for everyone to share the files in an organized manner so they are easy to find and the bandwidth burden is spread out. The four different streams would be the Uncut version for geeks wanting to watch every little thing. Then there would be an edited cut for geeks wanting to get the most information and geeky tidbits. A made-for-business cut would be shorter and condense topics down for those with less time, more like TV news instead of the newspaper. Lastly, a Headline News type cut would just cover the basic facts, keeping people up to date on stories.
Well since your user ID is only 12016 (bet that "16" pissed you off, eh?) you're either about six years old today, or you hijacked someones abandoned account. I'm guessing the latter since slashdot was hacked in 2006 and 50,000 user IDs and passwords got posted on kuro5hin.
Re:7/10? POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILERS
on
Resident Evil
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· Score: 2
And why would an AI that we find out isn't crazy start freaking out over killing the infected chick? The AI shouldn't care, it should have calmly stated kill her or you all die, instead of screaming kill her over and over like that chick just ate her cookie.
I'm pretty sure the AI was trying to use human psychology to pressure the characters to kill her. Kind of like a crowd shouting "JUMP!" to someone suicidal.
Re:Decent movies stand alone
on
Resident Evil
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· Score: 3, Informative
You could be farther from the truth, but not by much. The special effects blew, except for the after effect of the laser grid on someones face. The audio sucked. I don't know which bands they pulled tracks from, but since it was mixed to loud and distorting it I don't see how it was any different from noise. The acting was pretty good, but the characters were so thin I didn't give a damn about a single one of them. As for gore, all I saw were a bunch of shots where the main characters' hands were bloody as they clutched their wounds. The zombies don't spurt blood when hit. When the zombies pull a good guy into their clutches its just a sea of hands and no blood as his skin gets ripped open. Oh, and did I mention not many zombies got killed? Unlike the game, where ammo is improbably laying around all over the place, in the movie the good guys run almost out of ammo before the half way point. That means the whole second half is them running, getting picked off, and running some more, getting picked off again. It was obvious who was going to die, and generally predictable how.
The movie and games are full of fake science, but can anyone explain to me why the zombies can not feed on each other but must consume creatures that are alive?
This isn't flamebait. Flamebait seeks to start a flame war. This is not a flurry of insults designed to provoke attacks on the participants' mothers. This is what's known as SARCASM. Sarcasm is allowed in/. The point of this post was to show how factually baseless the entire story was. I wish/. had more sarcasm to tear down all the people who post as if they know what they're talking about, but don't really have a clue. They only spread misinformation and make work for those who have to correct them.
I coulda sworn even Windows 98 first and perhaps second edition can't address more than 768MB of RAM. What are you refering to when you talk about 1GB of memory?
I've read that 60fps is about as much as the human eye can detect. I'm not talking about reading an ad for Coke in a single frame of a movie. There have been studies showing that raising the refresh rate of a monitor up from 60Hz reduces eye strain. People are less likely to get a headache after staring a monitors for three hours at 85Hz instead of 60Hz. When I go to a movie, I lament the jerkeyness of the credits running at 24fps. maxivision is working to improve the quality of movies by among other things, speeding up the film to 48fps.
I agree we should know if an editor is moderating. Yet assuming you've read the discussion with CmdrTaco over the Oracle post, you're aware the editors have compared the meta-moderation of user's and editor's moderation. It seems the "unfair" metamoderation is almost the same for both groups. For this reason I think you should change your sig. I just don't see the editors listening to our concerns if they think the question has already been answered.
According to Roger Ebert and MaxiView, the Texas Instuments projector is 1280x1024 and uses anamorphic lenses to stretch the image as desired. Even if Lucas can record at 1900x1280, he can't get it presented that way, not yet anyhow. Having waded through MaxiVision's PDF, I'm a firm convert in their favor. While I don't like grain anymore than any of us, their system will run at 48fps, progressive of course, and will remove the analog sound track, allowing for a image %33 bigger on the print. If their resolution for film of 4850x4850 per square inch is reliable (though on the high end I'm sure) then I just can't back digital projection until it can approach these qualities. Maybe if I sat in the back of a theater I couldn't tell the difference with the current digital technology, but I sit in the fifth row to be close so the screen fills my field of vision. I see the grain clearly at times. I know I can tell the difference in resolution, because Lord of the Rings had so many effects shots that it appears many were scanned at 2000x2000 instead of 4000x4000. The projected image actually jumps back to the clairity of the film when the effect shot ends. That was distressing when I noticed it.
Could you please elaborate on this more? Why is each frame shown three times? Does the film move at a constant speed and if the shutter stayed open the image would appear more blurry? How does this happen, on a mechanical level? It's obvious when I watch credits in particular, that if the screen is 24 feet tall, then in each frame the letters are jumping a good inch or three because there's only 24 frames to show.
Media could be for all intents and purposes copy protected if a new media standard were developed. If the creator of this media created its own chips to read the media. If this company prohibited any production of "burners" for this media it help. What about storing the media on another drive? Well if the chips in the drive refused to read parts of the media to the computer, then an exact duplicate could not be made. The company that designed this system would be smart to force a media-check in the drive before accessing certain filetypes copied onto a drive. Expecting the software to be cracked eventually, the company should include software updates on newer media. This software would be read by the drive and would update the software on the computer. The drive should not play if the computer is not running the latest version of software.
While software can be defeated, it takes time. If the software can be updated quickly enough, it will remain unbroken for the duration of its intended lifespan.
Finally, the drive and/or software should insist on connecting to the internet or "secure" hardware every so often to prevent copyright infringers from copying older media with an old, cracked drive and software. If the updates don't happen, the drive and software don't play.
This is not true copy protection, but it will discourage perhaps %99.95 of potential copyright infringers. If the number of people offering copied and recompressed movies on Kazaa can be kept below a certain threshold, movies will not spread quickly enough to attract users to the service who only wish to download movies. If someone spends a week downloading one movie they spent another week just finding, it is unlikely they will see Kazaa as a worthy way of spending their time.
Very true, alas, I have tried Rush 2049 and I just can't get into it like the original. I guess it's like some people preferring classinc cars to newer models. I live in the SF Bay Area so the original was special. I could relate to the landmarks in a way that the sequel lacks.
Good God someone please mod this UP! I actually read the whole thing and it appears ToLu actually wrote this entire thing himself. This really is informative and even revealing of what might lie ahead in the video card market. Help ToLu out please!
That's the card that powered San Francisco Rush. What a dream card for its day. The thing was $500 when it came out if I remember. What pisses me off is SF Rush was never retailed for the PC, but it came with Quantum Voodoo cards and will only work with them. I have a Voodoo Banshee curtesy of a friend, but I just can't bring myself to replace my GeForce2 Pro with a Banshee.
Slashdot Mirror
What seems to be lacking for me is a real sense of accomplishment. Leveling up is not fun in and of itself. The quests I do must actually matter to the game world. The game should change because of what I do. I should have other options besides fighting to earn credits. The classic game of Pirates! comes to mind. I want to be a trader sometimes, also a politician if I desire. Not just a patron, but I want government, and generals, military commands and so on. Neocron has some of these ideas.
Unfortunately what I want is like ten games in one. But that's exactly what every company must strive for. Releasing the hack and slash game, followed by the trading game, followed by the political game, followed by the military/bounty/mercenary/thief-type game. Last but not least, if the world has horses or cars, there needs to be a racing game, not just on tracks, but street races. All of this must be available together and integrated.
I know I ask the near-impossible, but if the game makers want me to devote my real life to their virtual world for years to come, shouldn't their world be at least as interesting as reality?
I'm not buying this argument. Consider plain wooden doors with a knob or a latch. These are completely artificial inventions that prevent cats from going places. Cats accept these. If a cat is born knowing the way outside the house is through this door with a light, why is it going to not accept this? The cat has no idea it is being scanned. It only knows not to try and bring things in or it will not succeed. It might think the door is watching it, but so what? Am I bothered when I know a security camera might have a man watching the monitor instead of just getting directly stored to tape? Not really. It depends on the circumstance. I doubt cats are smart enough to understand this distinction anyway.
I wonder how much weaker the slashdot effect is on a Sunday as opposed to if this was posted Monday?
The workaround I see is the cat must leave the mouse alive enough (it's planning on playing and chasing it inside the house) so it can drop the mouse. The mouse runs forward past the light up to the door. The cat then passes by and gains access, picks up the mouse and enters normally.
This could still be prevented by making sure the camera sees the mouse and compares the timing of the mouse and the cat images. If they are too close the cat will not be allowed in. Unless the cat wants to wait for a really long time with its arse sticking out unprotected from dogs and the like, this will stop the cat.
Woohoo! We got Jon in the hizzouse! Is Philip here too?
I'm pretty sure the AI was trying to use human psychology to pressure the characters to kill her. Kind of like a crowd shouting "JUMP!" to someone suicidal.
The movie and games are full of fake science, but can anyone explain to me why the zombies can not feed on each other but must consume creatures that are alive?
Let the will of user moderation stand! No multiple mods by editors, else we waste mod points! Show editor moderation!
That's exactly 120 characters. I happen to like it so much that if you don't chose something similar I just might switch mine to it.
Could you please elaborate on this more? Why is each frame shown three times? Does the film move at a constant speed and if the shutter stayed open the image would appear more blurry? How does this happen, on a mechanical level? It's obvious when I watch credits in particular, that if the screen is 24 feet tall, then in each frame the letters are jumping a good inch or three because there's only 24 frames to show.
While software can be defeated, it takes time. If the software can be updated quickly enough, it will remain unbroken for the duration of its intended lifespan.
Finally, the drive and/or software should insist on connecting to the internet or "secure" hardware every so often to prevent copyright infringers from copying older media with an old, cracked drive and software. If the updates don't happen, the drive and software don't play.
This is not true copy protection, but it will discourage perhaps %99.95 of potential copyright infringers. If the number of people offering copied and recompressed movies on Kazaa can be kept below a certain threshold, movies will not spread quickly enough to attract users to the service who only wish to download movies. If someone spends a week downloading one movie they spent another week just finding, it is unlikely they will see Kazaa as a worthy way of spending their time.