"he problem, according to HAL, is that the shuttle's computers do not reset to day one, as ground-based systems that support shuttle navigation do. Instead, after December 31, the 365th day of the year, shuttle computers figure January 1 is just day 366." I mean, I grew up with this guy, this sounds so much like him.
To be innovative isn't all that difficult, but what makes it hard to put it in a fun game is wrapping it up in game play mechanics that work for the player. Hence my interest. If you think out of the box (experience and books aside), fantasy and innovation (and fun) come easy. Then you take it step by step, and try to see how to make it possible technically. If you start with the premise that everything is here already, you might just as well close the industry down and give up. But I was born with the feeling that I want to make computer games, so there.
It is ok to think I won't succeed, it's the very challenge I'm taking up, so it is to be expected that people are sceptical. It will be rewarding when I can finally prove my point. I've been head to head with nearly every technical aspect that exists in a game. I know how to build one, how big it is and what issues come into play. Games I worked on scored an *average* of 7/10 in magazines.
I've taken some time to take a step back and design the framework in which I can work, technically and organisatory. And I have one key advantage. I don't have hard deadlines or marketing involvement. My only commitment is to give you a fun game. Of course I can't cover every hole in the plan, especially the art holes, but I can do a lot without that. There are 2 concepts key in my project: creativity (let the players create) and scalability (let the game grow). It will stay this way for as long as it needs to stay this way, because that will be the healthy way, and -imho- there is no other way.
..I almost never bought any games. Now I buy more frequently, but more out of game-play mechanics curiosity than to actually enjoy the game itself.
I quit recently though. I just can't get past the feeling that the once thriving wealth of audacious ideas and awe has become a barren wasteland of production devices and factory mass-marketism. Yes yes I know, don't worry. I'll do one better *myself*, even if it takes me a 100 years. I'll enjoy working on that, at least..
AMD it taking the route that will give better performance. I hear you saying that soldering some copper pipes with rubber-bands would be fine as long as it would perform. The point is that it will work... just not very well.
If you don't think I'm right, look at Intel's own product roadmap. They plan to release a new version of Kentsfield that has all four cores on one peice of Si, with a shared cache, just like AMD is about to do... only later in 2007 after AMD's version comes out. When the two major chip companies move in the same direction, usually that means it is the right one. The only difference is that AMD is going to get there sooner because they didn't bother to play around with this MCM (Multi-Chip-Module) junk. Intel just wants to get to market first; they don't seem to put quality first.
This sounds very XP. I like XP. Yet, someone please explain why all managers seem to believe that he copper pipes soldered together will hold and throw them fortunes? Is it the attractivity of the gamble in and on itself?
Incidently, chess was invented by peaceloving Hinduists to sidestep the actual waging of a war. Whenever 2 people would be in disagreement, a game of "Shah" would decide the outcome of their conflict without having to resort to bloodshed.That's why the ancient games gave elephants and ships, strange movement rules and other weird characters in them.
There are some players who use bots, mods, whatever and try to pass them off as 'skill', but for the most part they are just losers. It's much more fun to cheat, and let everyone know about it.:)
Really? The only effect it ever got on me was an empty server.
Well, if game AI worked anything like this, I might really want an AI coprocessor. But so far this is all a pipe-dream. Game AI isn't always hopelessly naive (I programmed some myself!) but it really is just a script of hand-written nested conditionals. A good scripter can get interesting behavior out of NPCs, but not in any way that would be improved by extra AI processing hardware.
Scripting is the kind of AI which for now holds the trophy for leaning in closest to our appreciation. But there are other forms of AI which are plainly impossible to script. Boardgames have it, difficulty balancing has this, FPS's have it, strategy games have it, RPG's like Black & White thrive on it. There is scripting in those solutions as well, but it is used mainly to steer the AI, or to be the result of an AI decision. A good model of reality, and a good engine to drive changes in that model can get you pretty far in simulating intelligent decision making. A copro would surely offer more breathing room.
One of the first decisions is to allocate "cpu budget" to graphics, gameplay, physics and AI. I think building games depending on a copro is wrong though, because such solutions are going to be shortlived. The hardcore gamersaudience is mainly on console anyway, so while I don't think PC games will disappear, betting on it for selling hardware is imho good for a niche, and doesn't offer much growth in prospect.. but hey, who knows..:)
.. I build my own computers, so what's the big deal anyway.
Can't run windows anymore? Such a shame, we'll have to find an alternative..
Can't run any games and apps? Even more of a shame, I'll do my own games and apps..
I am, after all, a computer wizz kid..
So what about you lot.. I mean it's time to raise the finger on this corporate IT world crap because it's populated with nitwits and zealots that are afraid of the one thing inherent to everything that is digitally switched: CHANGE!
Although, as I am still there under duress, this will obviously remain anonymous. At the PE (versionne francais, bien sur), this shit involves a particularly oderous app stack called Documentum, in addition to all the over-engineered J2EE crap.
Nice site by the way. I might buy you a beer sometime and we can swap horror stories:-)
Yeah everything is french too at the E.C. I haven't exactly left the place, but let's say that my days are numbered. Under double digit numbered. I'll be glad to do some real usefull stuff again. J2EE is so totally over.
Well, here's a true story. A DG (I will not mention which DG) of the European Union has outsourced it's software system that is responsible for the registration and follow-up of requests that basically seek funding of the EU government. That same project is running on it's last legs. The reason is quite simple.
After version 4 and 5, which worked but were not 'modern' enough (not using EJB's in a J2EE server) version 6 was outsourced, and contractor architects designed a J2EE application that should bring the next installment of the software which was untill then running just fine. The rules were a little more complex than before, and some political choices undoubtedly had their effect on the overall design of the system, but so far so good. Of course, the EU is a 'fair' institution, meaning that everybody should be allowed to bid on a contract that allowed the contractor firm to (and here it went terribly wrong) design and implement of a subsection of tha entire application. Ok, ok, not the best solution in the world, and you know, maybe this would have worked if the staff (of which most of them serve lifteme sentences):
- had at least been knowledgeable of J2EE - had reduced the complexity induced by splitting the application - if the number of contractors involved in the project would be limited. - if each project would have had a propper code-review follow-up and an architecture steering group that had an overarching view on the system - if testing frameworks had been used to test the software - if project leads would not have been pushed around like toypuppets, from 'dev' to 'organisation', from 'infrastructure' to 'dev' - if projects themselves would not have been pushed around. Basically they were extremely good in killing all forms of know-how about their own system. Hand-overs were cabinets full of stacks of paper that nobody reads or cares about.
None of these things were there. Can you imagine the mess they are in? I guess you need a little help, let me refresh what can go wrong: XML stored in relational databases, CMP and XA transaction management all over the place, code that is oblivious to memory and performance consumption, timeout periods that allow sessions to continue to run 3000 seconds, and worst of all, session security is only invoked 'once every n times', and n varies per subsection between 5 and 500. (luckily the application runs within a secured domain, but still.) Some modules implemented their own database operations when the responsibility for the tables they access belongs to other modules. Security is implemented in 3 different ways, and doesn't even have roles and users, like every other security has. Code-reviews are dangerous for your health. Tables are being updated by hand, XML's are being edited by the helpdesk by hand, and 'development' people are filling in forms because the users are unable to, while at the same time they are debugging the database because parts of it have been corrupted.. The whole server system has to be restarted each morning, and around noon at exactly 12.19, 'something' brings the servers to the point where none of the applications respond in a timely fashion. I spell it like d.i.s.a.s.t.e.r.
But there's another surprise.. the new next version 7 is due by the end of the year. And that has been decided politcally. I don't think I have ever seen a bigger mess than this one.
I worked there briefly as a contractual agent trying to clean up parts of the mess and bring rather basic things like source-control under their attention. All events, persons and organisations in this text are pure fictional and do not adhere to reality. They really don't!
I think you have never been into the real wild areas of the Adirondacks - where there is no road in any direction for 30 miles. (Yes, there are places like that in New York State.)
My comment was actually that there are too many other people in the state that will not allow any kind of development in the Park. I get a kick out of people that extoll the virtues of "forever wild" and then when they want to go visit, they want to drive to the place to see "wild" lands and then get a hotel and use their cellphone to order a pizza. You can have wild OR have cellphones and pizza delivery, not both, unless there are some other ways to get things around without cars, roads, or cell towers.
I slept in a sleeping bag in the outdoors for a month. Try again.
My parents live within sight of a farm of about 200 towers, and they are not so bad, considering that they will produce enough power to power a good part of Central NY when completed next year. I believe that more replenishable power sources are direly needed in the very near future, or we will have no choice but to reduce power consumption.
All too true. It`s a way better deal than the sight of a coal / nuclear facility I reckon.
Are you talking about your pretty "view"? Dear man, when we keep on consuming energy from nuclear of fossil fuel sources, there won`t be any view left in about x00 years. And you did mean the view with the trailer trash at the back, the little pond that looks either like an unkept zoo or a barbie doll toyshop, and the strategically planted flower beds that have no form or function other than dragging you out of your bed on a lazy sunday morning, to water them.
I also think windmills spoil the rural view. But when I think about the clean energy that provides us light and heat, and without damaging too much of our ecological biosphere, I think it`s not such a bad idea. Hey in the old times people had windmills too. They`re just a lot more efficient and clean today. 100 years from now, people will look back and smile when they see our sleek designs. But now it`s a necessary step in order to protect and to serve human energy needs.
And if you have a tower in your backyard, you can even get some money out of it.
As I understood it, the Cell comes with a VM on top, which will coordinate the actual work done on all pipes. The VM is supposed to use intelligent allocation algo's to schedule compiled code on each Cell. the code can of course be compiled using specific platform compilers for the ps3, just like they did for the ps2. So in fact what is said about the ps3 is true. It's going to be hell to program for it *directly* (where most of the power can be found) but I wouldn`t say it`s going to be impossible for sony to build a line-up of titles at the start.
If there's anybody who has more details about Cell programming, I`m interested!;)
I agree, I have tried many times to enter neutral but still interesting stories, but so far only a Quake story about J. Carmack made the frontpage..
Everything else just disappears between the supposedly shocking groundbreaking news that`s usually a science dupe, localized US crap, or just not intersting at all except for the fear factor.
Actually the value of real currency is the value of the coin + the value of a fraction of a number of stable-priced minerals for every coin. For paper money it`s the same. So every money that you own is backed by a truckload of (usually) gold in the central bank of your nation.
So it`s very simple. That judge ruled wrong, and his decision should be redrawn and he should be sent back to school, because he makes the wrong kind of decisions.
Well, developing for the 360 should actually be even easier than it was even for the xbox, if Carmack should be believed. The PS3 looks like an even more insane piece of hardware to work with, but it should run a VM so that should take away some of the headache.
You`re right on content production and development costs. Disregarding the example of Ubisoft, publisher / studios that sell games based on a license seem to have a surer bet than those who try something innovative - notable exceptions like Katamari not withstanding - which is what is killing this industry. Infogrames should have been dead 3 times by now, but somehow it manages to make a living on bad games with great names and a lot of that cash spending magazine bribery. And to stay alive, they buy up even more studios, consolidate the IP rights, cash in on crappy games with rediculous budgets, and another series of closures of once famous studios is a fact. But it`s something that seems to work so far..
I hope that standup acts of games like Katamari, and the whole Japanese culture of producing shitloads of funny crap instead of big megalomaniac projects, will slowly work it`s way up and eventually compete with the 'real' game development studios, putting 'fun' back on the shelves next to 'content'.
Did you know that SonicTeam`s individual revenue (revenue divided by staff number) is like 400 times bigger than SquareEnyx`s, even though Final Fantasy is arguably one of the greatest series in history? The problem is FF takes 2000+ of staff, where a new Sonic adventure takes 36 or so.. In the end, the risks for smaller teams are always going to be smaller than the risks for studios with batches of keyboard slaves. Small growth is key to success.
I`m currently leaving my good and dandy job at a rather large game development studio, to set out and build innovative games like you`ve described, get a little fame hopefully, and maybe, just maybe, build a company out of it.. You do realise that a lot of great simple games today run right here on the web, in a browsers, and are payed for by advertisement campaigns? They got simple control, easy to play, and provide tons of wacky (though rather shortlived, I`ll give you that) fun.
The reason why I quit is because thinking in big companies like the one I worked for is extremely backwards, and ego`s are blocking my sight everywhere. When they start a new game, everybody starts thinking about content first. How many animators, how many texture artists, how many modellers, how many leveldesigners.. fuck that! Those are great people and artists, and I am madly excited with what they can do, but when it comes to playing a game, icontent is completely secondary! The idea should come first. And honestly, the last game project I have been involved in.. it completely lacks that good idea. It`s just another one of these so so game designs that happens to have a bit of novelty in it completely unrelated to the gameplay, and for the rest of it, it talks and talks about these several different worlds and experiences and funny characters and weird magic spells blah blah blah blah.. I won`t tell you what game it is but if you do a little research you should be able to make something out of it..
Why not protect and preserve the species that are still there, along with their natural habitats?
The big reason why these species disappear is because they are sold in parts to western kapitalistic megalomaniacs, and because we otherwise manage to screw up the world in a fantastically shortsighted way. Putting up parks accross another ocean isn`t going to solve either of both, so what difference does it make?
Scalability. Yep. On a desktop I guess XP scales a lot better than w2k.
Not to mention the version specific directx.dll distributable that has to be re-supplied with your application, every time a user upgrades his directx version. Kind of makes the whole idea on DLL`s simply worthless, and simply NOT a smart move for the PC platform and it`s games.
"Rival vendors improve the inherent performance, reliability, security and scalability of their core offerings."
She says it like she`s citing the weather information in North Alaska.
I haven`t seen proof of security, I see only headlines of new virusses being written because of security issues.
I haven`t see any of that performance increase either. My XP system`s performance is completely gone after only 4 months of operation, where my old w2k system at least pulled through for the last 3 years without much problems. Granted, it boots faster.
Reliability. Well, it`s good to know that there is more reliability, but it`s a bit difficult to test it. How much more reliable was my previous version of visual studio on win2k, compared to.NET? MUCH more reliable. The.NET version simply hangs itself up and reboots with simple memory leaks. You`d have to go pretty damn far to get the old VS to break.
Scalability. Yep. On a desktop I guess XP scales a lot better than w2k.
I thought MozF would be happy with some quality product code, prefferably code that is also seen as most secure. Talking about a big number is just as boring as talking about the number of wasps that got smashed by your windshield while cruising your caddi in Downtown Bagdad. Not fucking relevant.
Heh, you post something that is a little hard to digest, and it`s promptly modded as troll. Overrated?, fine. No problem with that. I just stated what was said before by people who are respected programmers and ideologists in the OSS and non-OSS world. Like Joel Spolski and Stallman, for example.
So, I thought that we`ve had all the zealot`s by now, but no.. Linux people still need to get it thrown in their faces over and over again and learn that Linux is a Great Idea, but that the implementation and it`s use is not always per definition good when it`s related in some way to that original Great Idea.
Oh and before you go on a crussade, no need to get yourself wet here..
Slashdot Mirror
"he problem, according to HAL, is that the shuttle's computers do not reset to day one, as ground-based systems that support shuttle navigation do. Instead, after December 31, the 365th day of the year, shuttle computers figure January 1 is just day 366." I mean, I grew up with this guy, this sounds so much like him.
Boy, aren't we critical today
To be innovative isn't all that difficult, but what makes it hard to put it in a fun game is wrapping it up in game play mechanics that work for the player. Hence my interest. If you think out of the box (experience and books aside), fantasy and innovation (and fun) come easy. Then you take it step by step, and try to see how to make it possible technically. If you start with the premise that everything is here already, you might just as well close the industry down and give up. But I was born with the feeling that I want to make computer games, so there.
It is ok to think I won't succeed, it's the very challenge I'm taking up, so it is to be expected that people are sceptical. It will be rewarding when I can finally prove my point. I've been head to head with nearly every technical aspect that exists in a game. I know how to build one, how big it is and what issues come into play. Games I worked on scored an *average* of 7/10 in magazines.
I've taken some time to take a step back and design the framework in which I can work, technically and organisatory. And I have one key advantage. I don't have hard deadlines or marketing involvement. My only commitment is to give you a fun game. Of course I can't cover every hole in the plan, especially the art holes, but I can do a lot without that. There are 2 concepts key in my project: creativity (let the players create) and scalability (let the game grow). It will stay this way for as long as it needs to stay this way, because that will be the healthy way, and -imho- there is no other way.
I quit recently though. I just can't get past the feeling that the once thriving wealth of audacious ideas and awe has become a barren wasteland of production devices and factory mass-marketism. Yes yes I know, don't worry. I'll do one better *myself*, even if it takes me a 100 years. I'll enjoy working on that, at least..
AMD it taking the route that will give better performance. I hear you saying that soldering some copper pipes with rubber-bands would be fine as long as it would perform. The point is that it will work... just not very well.
If you don't think I'm right, look at Intel's own product roadmap. They plan to release a new version of Kentsfield that has all four cores on one peice of Si, with a shared cache, just like AMD is about to do... only later in 2007 after AMD's version comes out. When the two major chip companies move in the same direction, usually that means it is the right one. The only difference is that AMD is going to get there sooner because they didn't bother to play around with this MCM (Multi-Chip-Module) junk. Intel just wants to get to market first; they don't seem to put quality first.
This sounds very XP. I like XP. Yet, someone please explain why all managers seem to believe that he copper pipes soldered together will hold and throw them fortunes? Is it the attractivity of the gamble in and on itself?
..because she was simply brillant!
Incidently, chess was invented by peaceloving Hinduists to sidestep the actual waging of a war. Whenever 2 people would be in disagreement, a game of "Shah" would decide the outcome of their conflict without having to resort to bloodshed.That's why the ancient games gave elephants and ships, strange movement rules and other weird characters in them.
There are some players who use bots, mods, whatever and try to pass them off as 'skill', but for the most part they are just losers. It's much more fun to cheat, and let everyone know about it.
Really? The only effect it ever got on me was an empty server.
Great! At least one brave soul spottted the actual gist of the matter!
Leffe, anyone?
Well, if game AI worked anything like this, I might really want an AI coprocessor. But so far this is all a pipe-dream. Game AI isn't always hopelessly naive (I programmed some myself!) but it really is just a script of hand-written nested conditionals. A good scripter can get interesting behavior out of NPCs, but not in any way that would be improved by extra AI processing hardware.
Scripting is the kind of AI which for now holds the trophy for leaning in closest to our appreciation. But there are other forms of AI which are plainly impossible to script. Boardgames have it, difficulty balancing has this, FPS's have it, strategy games have it, RPG's like Black & White thrive on it. There is scripting in those solutions as well, but it is used mainly to steer the AI, or to be the result of an AI decision. A good model of reality, and a good engine to drive changes in that model can get you pretty far in simulating intelligent decision making. A copro would surely offer more breathing room.
One of the first decisions is to allocate "cpu budget" to graphics, gameplay, physics and AI. I think building games depending on a copro is wrong though, because such solutions are going to be shortlived. The hardcore gamersaudience is mainly on console anyway, so while I don't think PC games will disappear, betting on it for selling hardware is imho good for a niche, and doesn't offer much growth in prospect.. but hey, who knows..
Can't run windows anymore? Such a shame, we'll have to find an alternative..
Can't run any games and apps? Even more of a shame, I'll do my own games and apps..
I am, after all, a computer wizz kid..
So what about you lot.. I mean it's time to raise the finger on this corporate IT world crap because it's populated with nitwits and zealots that are afraid of the one thing inherent to everything that is digitally switched: CHANGE!
Although, as I am still there under duress, this will obviously remain anonymous. At the PE (versionne francais, bien sur), this shit involves a particularly oderous app stack called Documentum, in addition to all the over-engineered J2EE crap.
Nice site by the way. I might buy you a beer sometime and we can swap horror stories
Yeah everything is french too at the E.C. I haven't exactly left the place, but let's say that my days are numbered. Under double digit numbered. I'll be glad to do some real usefull stuff again. J2EE is so totally over.
As for the horror-stories-with-beer, anytime
Well, here's a true story. A DG (I will not mention which DG) of the European Union has outsourced it's software system that is responsible for the registration and follow-up of requests that basically seek funding of the EU government. That same project is running on it's last legs. The reason is quite simple.
After version 4 and 5, which worked but were not 'modern' enough (not using EJB's in a J2EE server) version 6 was outsourced, and contractor architects designed a J2EE application that should bring the next installment of the software which was untill then running just fine. The rules were a little more complex than before, and some political choices undoubtedly had their effect on the overall design of the system, but so far so good. Of course, the EU is a 'fair' institution, meaning that everybody should be allowed to bid on a contract that allowed the contractor firm to (and here it went terribly wrong) design and implement of a subsection of tha entire application. Ok, ok, not the best solution in the world, and you know, maybe this would have worked if the staff (of which most of them serve lifteme sentences):
- had at least been knowledgeable of J2EE
- had reduced the complexity induced by splitting the application
- if the number of contractors involved in the project would be limited.
- if each project would have had a propper code-review follow-up and an architecture steering group that had an overarching view on the system
- if testing frameworks had been used to test the software
- if project leads would not have been pushed around like toypuppets, from 'dev' to 'organisation', from 'infrastructure' to 'dev'
- if projects themselves would not have been pushed around. Basically they were extremely good in killing all forms of know-how about their own system. Hand-overs were cabinets full of stacks of paper that nobody reads or cares about.
None of these things were there. Can you imagine the mess they are in? I guess you need a little help, let me refresh what can go wrong: XML stored in relational databases, CMP and XA transaction management all over the place, code that is oblivious to memory and performance consumption, timeout periods that allow sessions to continue to run 3000 seconds, and worst of all, session security is only invoked 'once every n times', and n varies per subsection between 5 and 500. (luckily the application runs within a secured domain, but still.) Some modules implemented their own database operations when the responsibility for the tables they access belongs to other modules. Security is implemented in 3 different ways, and doesn't even have roles and users, like every other security has. Code-reviews are dangerous for your health. Tables are being updated by hand, XML's are being edited by the helpdesk by hand, and 'development' people are filling in forms because the users are unable to, while at the same time they are debugging the database because parts of it have been corrupted.. The whole server system has to be restarted each morning, and around noon at exactly 12.19, 'something' brings the servers to the point where none of the applications respond in a timely fashion. I spell it like d.i.s.a.s.t.e.r.
But there's another surprise.. the new next version 7 is due by the end of the year. And that has been decided politcally. I don't think I have ever seen a bigger mess than this one.
I worked there briefly as a contractual agent trying to clean up parts of the mess and bring rather basic things like source-control under their attention. All events, persons and organisations in this text are pure fictional and do not adhere to reality. They really don't!
I think you have never been into the real wild areas of the Adirondacks - where there is no road in any direction for 30 miles. (Yes, there are places like that in New York State.)
My comment was actually that there are too many other people in the state that will not allow any kind of development in the Park. I get a kick out of people that extoll the virtues of "forever wild" and then when they want to go visit, they want to drive to the place to see "wild" lands and then get a hotel and use their cellphone to order a pizza. You can have wild OR have cellphones and pizza delivery, not both, unless there are some other ways to get things around without cars, roads, or cell towers.
I slept in a sleeping bag in the outdoors for a month. Try again.
My parents live within sight of a farm of about 200 towers, and they are not so bad, considering that they will produce enough power to power a good part of Central NY when completed next year. I believe that more replenishable power sources are direly needed in the very near future, or we will have no choice but to reduce power consumption.
All too true. It`s a way better deal than the sight of a coal / nuclear facility I reckon.
Are you talking about your pretty "view"? Dear man, when we keep on consuming energy from nuclear of fossil fuel sources, there won`t be any view left in about x00 years. And you did mean the view with the trailer trash at the back, the little pond that looks either like an unkept zoo or a barbie doll toyshop, and the strategically planted flower beds that have no form or function other than dragging you out of your bed on a lazy sunday morning, to water them.
I also think windmills spoil the rural view. But when I think about the clean energy that provides us light and heat, and without damaging too much of our ecological biosphere, I think it`s not such a bad idea. Hey in the old times people had windmills too. They`re just a lot more efficient and clean today. 100 years from now, people will look back and smile when they see our sleek designs. But now it`s a necessary step in order to protect and to serve human energy needs.
And if you have a tower in your backyard, you can even get some money out of it.
As I understood it, the Cell comes with a VM on top, which will coordinate the actual work done on all pipes. The VM is supposed to use intelligent allocation algo's to schedule compiled code on each Cell. the code can of course be compiled using specific platform compilers for the ps3, just like they did for the ps2. So in fact what is said about the ps3 is true. It's going to be hell to program for it *directly* (where most of the power can be found) but I wouldn`t say it`s going to be impossible for sony to build a line-up of titles at the start.
;)
If there's anybody who has more details about Cell programming, I`m interested!
Europe wants to reform ICANN and bring it back to where it belongs: Geneva.
I agree, I have tried many times to enter neutral but still interesting stories, but so far only a Quake story about J. Carmack made the frontpage..
Everything else just disappears between the supposedly shocking groundbreaking news that`s usually a science dupe, localized US crap, or just not intersting at all except for the fear factor.
Actually the value of real currency is the value of the coin + the value of a fraction of a number of stable-priced minerals for every coin. For paper money it`s the same. So every money that you own is backed by a truckload of (usually) gold in the central bank of your nation.
So it`s very simple. That judge ruled wrong, and his decision should be redrawn and he should be sent back to school, because he makes the wrong kind of decisions.
Well, developing for the 360 should actually be even easier than it was even for the xbox, if Carmack should be believed. The PS3 looks like an even more insane piece of hardware to work with, but it should run a VM so that should take away some of the headache.
You`re right on content production and development costs. Disregarding the example of Ubisoft, publisher / studios that sell games based on a license seem to have a surer bet than those who try something innovative - notable exceptions like Katamari not withstanding - which is what is killing this industry. Infogrames should have been dead 3 times by now, but somehow it manages to make a living on bad games with great names and a lot of that cash spending magazine bribery. And to stay alive, they buy up even more studios, consolidate the IP rights, cash in on crappy games with rediculous budgets, and another series of closures of once famous studios is a fact. But it`s something that seems to work so far..
I hope that standup acts of games like Katamari, and the whole Japanese culture of producing shitloads of funny crap instead of big megalomaniac projects, will slowly work it`s way up and eventually compete with the 'real' game development studios, putting 'fun' back on the shelves next to 'content'.
Did you know that SonicTeam`s individual revenue (revenue divided by staff number) is like 400 times bigger than SquareEnyx`s, even though Final Fantasy is arguably one of the greatest series in history? The problem is FF takes 2000+ of staff, where a new Sonic adventure takes 36 or so.. In the end, the risks for smaller teams are always going to be smaller than the risks for studios with batches of keyboard slaves. Small growth is key to success.
I`m currently leaving my good and dandy job at a rather large game development studio, to set out and build innovative games like you`ve described, get a little fame hopefully, and maybe, just maybe, build a company out of it.. You do realise that a lot of great simple games today run right here on the web, in a browsers, and are payed for by advertisement campaigns? They got simple control, easy to play, and provide tons of wacky (though rather shortlived, I`ll give you that) fun.
The reason why I quit is because thinking in big companies like the one I worked for is extremely backwards, and ego`s are blocking my sight everywhere. When they start a new game, everybody starts thinking about content first. How many animators, how many texture artists, how many modellers, how many leveldesigners.. fuck that! Those are great people and artists, and I am madly excited with what they can do, but when it comes to playing a game, icontent is completely secondary! The idea should come first. And honestly, the last game project I have been involved in.. it completely lacks that good idea. It`s just another one of these so so game designs that happens to have a bit of novelty in it completely unrelated to the gameplay, and for the rest of it, it talks and talks about these several different worlds and experiences and funny characters and weird magic spells blah blah blah blah.. I won`t tell you what game it is but if you do a little research you should be able to make something out of it..
Why not protect and preserve the species that are still there, along with their natural habitats?
The big reason why these species disappear is because they are sold in parts to western kapitalistic megalomaniacs, and because we otherwise manage to screw up the world in a fantastically shortsighted way. Putting up parks accross another ocean isn`t going to solve either of both, so what difference does it make?
Scalability. Yep. On a desktop I guess XP scales a lot better than w2k.
Not to mention the version specific directx.dll distributable that has to be re-supplied with your application, every time a user upgrades his directx version. Kind of makes the whole idea on DLL`s simply worthless, and simply NOT a smart move for the PC platform and it`s games.
"Rival vendors improve the inherent performance, reliability, security and scalability of their core offerings."
She says it like she`s citing the weather information in North Alaska.
I haven`t seen proof of security, I see only headlines of new virusses being written because of security issues.
I haven`t see any of that performance increase either. My XP system`s performance is completely gone after only 4 months of operation, where my old w2k system at least pulled through for the last 3 years without much problems. Granted, it boots faster.
Reliability. Well, it`s good to know that there is more reliability, but it`s a bit difficult to test it. How much more reliable was my previous version of visual studio on win2k, compared to
Scalability. Yep. On a desktop I guess XP scales a lot better than w2k.
I thought MozF would be happy with some quality product code, prefferably code that is also seen as most secure. Talking about a big number is just as boring as talking about the number of wasps that got smashed by your windshield while cruising your caddi in Downtown Bagdad. Not fucking relevant.
Heh, you post something that is a little hard to digest, and it`s promptly modded as troll. Overrated?, fine. No problem with that. I just stated what was said before by people who are respected programmers and ideologists in the OSS and non-OSS world. Like Joel Spolski and Stallman, for example.
So, I thought that we`ve had all the zealot`s by now, but no.. Linux people still need to get it thrown in their faces over and over again and learn that Linux is a Great Idea, but that the implementation and it`s use is not always per definition good when it`s related in some way to that original Great Idea.
Oh and before you go on a crussade, no need to get yourself wet here..