I would say that there was a "Window of Goodness" in EQ back like around 6 to 8 months after it was released where it was a fun game. This is before I understood that it was only a treadmill game, but it was fun exploring, and meeting people and raids etc etc. It was a pain in the ass to get anywhere, but that was part of the fun. Back then it was also a real challenge if you were one of the evil races to get around...but now of course being an evil race means nothing. I kinda liked it then. But that little window of goodness didn't last long.
Now of course, it's just a treadmill/money making machine for SOE.
It's good to see SOE sticks to their guns and follows the tried-and-true policy of "release now/fix later"...and in the case of SWG fix MUCH later.
And of course, this policy is in full effect as they are about to release EQ2 almost a full year before they really should. Yes folks, this game needs at least 6-12 more months of development before they unleash it...but why do that when you have plenty of people willing to pay a monthly fee to beta-test it for you!
Good luck to you all that try them...I wish you well.
Sorry, I've tried reading this and I just don't understand it...
Games that try to create their own races generally don't do well...Games that create their own races and do well...Games that create their own races, do well,
Interesting contest. I was wondering though, (as I have no experience or knowledge of programming and my math is laughed at by my 11 year old) wouldn't a program like Mathematica or Maple be able to handle something like this with ease? Don't they have programming interfaces?
Or is the problem so simple that it's kinda overkill for them? Or is it just plain easier to do it with Lisp or Python?
I wish all the luck to SOE and the people that buy and play EQ2, but the simple fact is, this game is in NO shape to ship yet. This in fact is in worse shape than SWG was when it shipped, and you know how that fiasco finally turned out, they're STILL trying to fix things in it.
Honestly, they need at LEAST another 6 months on this game before shipping. But we all know it's marketing that's forcing them to ship early.
and how movies get rated today it probably would get a PG-13...as long as there is no nudity. If they show a boob then it's R or if they show two boobs: NC-17!
Which is also why the original 1964 "The Haunting" was MUCH more frightening than the special effect laden remake just a few years ago.
It's what you don't see that scares me. Which is why none of the Freddy or Jason movies were at all frightening. I mean, not even in the least.
I like creepy. "The Ring" was creepy. Kubrick's "The Shining" was creepy. "The Changling" was creepy. "28 Days Later" also. All creepy...at least to me, your miliage may vary of course.
Creepy is cool. Just blood and gore for no reason is not creepy. It's not scary...just looks messy to me. What I think when I see a really bloody scene in a so called horror movie is "wow, who get's to clean that up" or "that looks fake"...which totally takes you out of the movie experience.
Of course, there are gore movies that are also creepy. "Evil Dead 2" comes to mind. That hit on all cylinders because it was cheezy, funny AND creepy.
Oh well, we're all different I guess. Some people may find "Gigli" a creepy film, and who can argue with them?
Um, this movie has nothing to do with the game...it's a drama.
Also, Valve has already stated that the "hollywood" guys have tried to get them to make a movie based on Half-Life...but when they started talking about "Gordon's love interest" they high-tailed it back home!
Last I looked, Id software was still in business, though they're not active in supporting Doom 1 and 2, they have released the source code so the game itself is "in the wild" of open source...which in a way is still supported by the ones that want to support it. But my statement was more of abandonware...where there is nothing left of the game at all other than you wanting to play it...which people are saying will happen to Valve and Steam in the future.
The people that get the cracked version of the game yet buy the game anyway...at least they say they are buying the game...seem to want to put up with a possible virus/trojan infested crack than go with Steam.
Wow.
Is it a pain in the ass, is it inconveniencing the customer. Yeah. And I guess I am trying to justify it.
But when it's all said and done. When I've calmed down and still think about it, I still don't see what the big deal is. Oh well.
net connection is just an artificial requirement to the single player game(to make tie the purchase you made to just you... more theoretical profits as you can't loan it to your friend after you played it through. would you buy a dvd you wouldn't be able to loan to your friends?)
What is so goddamn wrong with making a profit? Who elected YOU to tell Valve "hey, you're making enough money"? No, your friends will have to buy it too. Why the FUCK is that so wrong? Why is a company so evil because it wants to try...at least try to get compensated for the games out there. They KNOW there will be little fuck-wads running around cracking the game and giggling like Beavis and Butthead because they think their so goddamn clever.
Yes, Valve will make a shitload of cash from this game. But again, who are you to say they've made enough and decide that you can just give it to whoever you want? Huh?
Don't buy the game. Don't like what their doing, don't buy it. Plain and simple. But no, I'm sure you'll go and get a cracked copy of it because you think you're "stickin it to the man". You'll justify it somehow in your brain that you're doing the right thing because Valve wanted a fucking little program on your computer. HOW DARE THEY!
wow....just.....wow.
So again, you need a net connection to play this game. Don't have one, fucking don't buy it. My analogy still stands.
What about people without 3D cards? What about people without CD-ROMs? What about people without computers at all? What about people with Macs? What about people running Amiga's?
no, it isn't tied to your hardware. In fact, you can install it on 100 machines if you have 100 machines...yet you can only play it on one at a time.
I've reformated my HD and even upgraded quite a bit of hardware...Steam loads right in and I install up my games. Hell, I don't even know where my original HL CD is anymore...lost in so many moves...yet my account is right there and I loaded it up and off I was playing again.
Thanks...but it was ment to be funny, not serious...as I even started off with a sarcastic tone.
I of course don't see them doing any of the things I listed.
But then again, no one bitches about NEEDING a connection to play like Everquest or SWG or other online games. Ok, you may say bad example because it's listed on the box before you buy that you need a connection to play. Well, it also lists on the box that you need a connection with HL.
But anyway, 8+ years from now I'll be playing something else. There isn't one game from 8 years ago that's gone belly up that I still play. Name one game from 8 years ago that the company is no longer around supporting that you still on a regular basis. Come on, give me one game. And be honest, don't go looking at Google, I mean that YOU play. And we're talking about games that there are no support for anymore from anywhere.
I have a 12 year old and I can tell you, he isn't interested in HL2 at all. He's like...what's that?
But anyway, I love how people all of a sudden turn on a company and to the old "sold out" routine that is as old as the hills. Of course they care about cash, but from everything I've seen, they care about the quality of their game. I've heard great things about this game, but bottom line, if it isn't good, it isn't good and they will NOT rake in the cash.
Word get's out now. Not everyone is lumped into the "dipshit" masses any longer. There is too much competition out there to just release a crappy game and hope people will buy it just because of the name. Look at Doom3, it was an "ok" game, but it's certainly not breaking sales records across the world.
Having everyone install Steam does give them some control...control that you can buy directly from them and also update the games as a patch comes out. I see as being helpfull and easy.
But hey, they don't have control over my computer. No one does. If in the future they want to get into a pay-per-use model, I'll leave. It's no big deal. It's not like it's spy-ware that you can't get off your computer.
I don't see it as a big deal, but I guess others do. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months.
Of course I was trying to be amusing, certainly not a troll.
But I really don't see what the big deal is. I use Steam now. I have been since day one. It has been nothing more than a way to launch the game. It doesn't take info from my computer like my bank account or keep track of what websites I go to. It's NOT SPYWARE.
Why does everyone jump over this, yet not any antivirus software that has to connect all the time to the net to get updates? What about iTunes checking for updates? Real player? Photoshop? etc etc etc. The list goes on.
Then again, I understand people are upset about this. They don't want to jump through hoops. Nothing I can say can sooth that feeling other than suggest if you truely are afraid of some info leaking out on the net, simply give them false information when registering. Give them a yahoo mail account and be done with. I have a yahoo account set up simply to register with many different things. That way, any junk goes there and is filtered out. It never sees my computer.
Yes, it's a pain, but I don't see it as one anymore because I just work through it and go on with my life.
Yeah, big pain in the ass. But you know, you could register with Steam giving bogus info then just block steam from accessing the Net.
But look at Steam this way, it's just a Valve game launcher. It's how you launch Valve games. That's how Valve does it.
It's minor. A very minor thing and yet people act like Valve is asking for the their first born child! Let's see what happens first next month before we start jumping to conclusions.
HOW DARE THEY! They expect us to have a net connection! What year do they think this is? 2004 or something?!?! Don't they understand that people that have the horsepower in a computer to run the Source engine as in HL2 usually do NOT have any sort of net connection! What do they think we are, NASA?!?!
Valve is nothing but a bunch of money-grubbing jerks to make us pay for a game...A GAME! They should open source it!
Here is a list of demands for Valve:
1. Stop lying to us! We trusted you...er...don't know with what, but lots of people are saying you let us down...somehow...so stop it!
2. I don't want you spying on me 24/7. I know Valve is out there, looking through my window, looking through my mailbox, now you want to invade my machine and spread all your viruses and spyware to watch everything I do so you can sell it to the Iraqis for some oil-for-games program you have going! YOU'RE EVIL!
3. I want every game and every map and every mod ever made for HL/CS/DoD etc etc to be converted to the Source engine AND be included on the HL2 CD. AND I want everything on one CD.
4. I want Source to run 150fps on my Pentium 90 with Stock VGA graphics...using DX9.0c. Anything more than that and you guys just don't know how to program.
5. I don't want any bugs, none. If one bug shows up I'll sue you!
6. I don't want any type of security on these games. I should be able to install on any number of computers. I have 150 friends that all would like to "try out" this game so I want to burn 150 CD's with a copy on it so I can let them have it for a low price of $20 (that covers the cost of the CD).
Do these things and perhaps maybe I'll play the game...but only maybe.
Oh man, I agree! I can see ads in an article to helps support the site, but when it starts off as an ad as if it's part of the article, it's a bit confusing. Plus you have to scroll down to the middle to even start reading the article!
Slashdot Mirror
hehe, that's classic!
Mod this up as funny!
I would say that there was a "Window of Goodness" in EQ back like around 6 to 8 months after it was released where it was a fun game. This is before I understood that it was only a treadmill game, but it was fun exploring, and meeting people and raids etc etc. It was a pain in the ass to get anywhere, but that was part of the fun. Back then it was also a real challenge if you were one of the evil races to get around...but now of course being an evil race means nothing. I kinda liked it then. But that little window of goodness didn't last long.
Now of course, it's just a treadmill/money making machine for SOE.
It's good to see SOE sticks to their guns and follows the tried-and-true policy of "release now/fix later"...and in the case of SWG fix MUCH later.
And of course, this policy is in full effect as they are about to release EQ2 almost a full year before they really should. Yes folks, this game needs at least 6-12 more months of development before they unleash it...but why do that when you have plenty of people willing to pay a monthly fee to beta-test it for you!
Good luck to you all that try them...I wish you well.
Sorry, I've tried reading this and I just don't understand it...
Games that try to create their own races generally don't do well...Games that create their own races and do well...Games that create their own races, do well,
which one is it?
A recent poll reveiled that if the election were held today most people would be confused because the election is normally held in November.
More later on the 11 o'clock news....
Interesting contest. I was wondering though, (as I have no experience or knowledge of programming and my math is laughed at by my 11 year old) wouldn't a program like Mathematica or Maple be able to handle something like this with ease? Don't they have programming interfaces?
Or is the problem so simple that it's kinda overkill for them? Or is it just plain easier to do it with Lisp or Python?
I wish all the luck to SOE and the people that buy and play EQ2, but the simple fact is, this game is in NO shape to ship yet. This in fact is in worse shape than SWG was when it shipped, and you know how that fiasco finally turned out, they're STILL trying to fix things in it.
Honestly, they need at LEAST another 6 months on this game before shipping. But we all know it's marketing that's forcing them to ship early.
Again, I wish the best, but be warned.
and how movies get rated today it probably would get a PG-13...as long as there is no nudity. If they show a boob then it's R or if they show two boobs: NC-17!
Which is also why the original 1964 "The Haunting" was MUCH more frightening than the special effect laden remake just a few years ago.
It's what you don't see that scares me. Which is why none of the Freddy or Jason movies were at all frightening. I mean, not even in the least.
I like creepy. "The Ring" was creepy. Kubrick's "The Shining" was creepy. "The Changling" was creepy. "28 Days Later" also. All creepy...at least to me, your miliage may vary of course.
Creepy is cool. Just blood and gore for no reason is not creepy. It's not scary...just looks messy to me. What I think when I see a really bloody scene in a so called horror movie is "wow, who get's to clean that up" or "that looks fake"...which totally takes you out of the movie experience.
Of course, there are gore movies that are also creepy. "Evil Dead 2" comes to mind. That hit on all cylinders because it was cheezy, funny AND creepy.
Oh well, we're all different I guess. Some people may find "Gigli" a creepy film, and who can argue with them?
Um, this movie has nothing to do with the game...it's a drama.
Also, Valve has already stated that the "hollywood" guys have tried to get them to make a movie based on Half-Life...but when they started talking about "Gordon's love interest" they high-tailed it back home!
Ok, let's give it a go here on /.
Here it is, exactly as you posted:
ei - 1 = 0
What happened to the pi? Is this what you mean?
I submitted it the equation to /. wrong...(thanks for calling me stupid btw, very helpfull)
But the equation IS e^(i*pi)+1 = 0
That's Eurler's equation. That's it. You're simply writing it in a different way.
Hell you can even plug in e^(i*pi)+1 into Google and it will spit out zero. Go ahead, give it a try.
Also, I won't call you stupid for making this mistake....I'll let it slide.
yes, I just copied and pasted from the article.
It was my mistake in the original posting. Not the article from Physics world, as I couldn't put in special characters.
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater!
Last I looked, Id software was still in business, though they're not active in supporting Doom 1 and 2, they have released the source code so the game itself is "in the wild" of open source...which in a way is still supported by the ones that want to support it. But my statement was more of abandonware...where there is nothing left of the game at all other than you wanting to play it...which people are saying will happen to Valve and Steam in the future.
The people that get the cracked version of the game yet buy the game anyway...at least they say they are buying the game...seem to want to put up with a possible virus/trojan infested crack than go with Steam.
Wow.
Is it a pain in the ass, is it inconveniencing the customer. Yeah. And I guess I am trying to justify it.
But when it's all said and done. When I've calmed down and still think about it, I still don't see what the big deal is. Oh well.
net connection is just an artificial requirement to the single player game(to make tie the purchase you made to just you... more theoretical profits as you can't loan it to your friend after you played it through. would you buy a dvd you wouldn't be able to loan to your friends?)
What is so goddamn wrong with making a profit? Who elected YOU to tell Valve "hey, you're making enough money"? No, your friends will have to buy it too. Why the FUCK is that so wrong? Why is a company so evil because it wants to try...at least try to get compensated for the games out there. They KNOW there will be little fuck-wads running around cracking the game and giggling like Beavis and Butthead because they think their so goddamn clever.
Yes, Valve will make a shitload of cash from this game. But again, who are you to say they've made enough and decide that you can just give it to whoever you want? Huh?
Don't buy the game. Don't like what their doing, don't buy it. Plain and simple. But no, I'm sure you'll go and get a cracked copy of it because you think you're "stickin it to the man". You'll justify it somehow in your brain that you're doing the right thing because Valve wanted a fucking little program on your computer. HOW DARE THEY!
wow....just.....wow.
So again, you need a net connection to play this game. Don't have one, fucking don't buy it. My analogy still stands.
What about people without 3D cards? What about people without CD-ROMs? What about people without computers at all? What about people with Macs? What about people running Amiga's?
I could go on...but I'm not.
no, it isn't tied to your hardware. In fact, you can install it on 100 machines if you have 100 machines...yet you can only play it on one at a time.
I've reformated my HD and even upgraded quite a bit of hardware...Steam loads right in and I install up my games. Hell, I don't even know where my original HL CD is anymore...lost in so many moves...yet my account is right there and I loaded it up and off I was playing again.
But again, no. It's NOT TIED to your hardware.
Thanks...but it was ment to be funny, not serious...as I even started off with a sarcastic tone.
I of course don't see them doing any of the things I listed.
But then again, no one bitches about NEEDING a connection to play like Everquest or SWG or other online games. Ok, you may say bad example because it's listed on the box before you buy that you need a connection to play. Well, it also lists on the box that you need a connection with HL.
But anyway, 8+ years from now I'll be playing something else. There isn't one game from 8 years ago that's gone belly up that I still play. Name one game from 8 years ago that the company is no longer around supporting that you still on a regular basis. Come on, give me one game. And be honest, don't go looking at Google, I mean that YOU play. And we're talking about games that there are no support for anymore from anywhere.
I have a 12 year old and I can tell you, he isn't interested in HL2 at all. He's like...what's that?
But anyway, I love how people all of a sudden turn on a company and to the old "sold out" routine that is as old as the hills. Of course they care about cash, but from everything I've seen, they care about the quality of their game. I've heard great things about this game, but bottom line, if it isn't good, it isn't good and they will NOT rake in the cash.
Word get's out now. Not everyone is lumped into the "dipshit" masses any longer. There is too much competition out there to just release a crappy game and hope people will buy it just because of the name. Look at Doom3, it was an "ok" game, but it's certainly not breaking sales records across the world.
Having everyone install Steam does give them some control...control that you can buy directly from them and also update the games as a patch comes out. I see as being helpfull and easy.
But hey, they don't have control over my computer. No one does. If in the future they want to get into a pay-per-use model, I'll leave. It's no big deal. It's not like it's spy-ware that you can't get off your computer.
I don't see it as a big deal, but I guess others do. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months.
Of course I was trying to be amusing, certainly not a troll.
But I really don't see what the big deal is. I use Steam now. I have been since day one. It has been nothing more than a way to launch the game. It doesn't take info from my computer like my bank account or keep track of what websites I go to. It's NOT SPYWARE.
Why does everyone jump over this, yet not any antivirus software that has to connect all the time to the net to get updates? What about iTunes checking for updates? Real player? Photoshop? etc etc etc. The list goes on.
Then again, I understand people are upset about this. They don't want to jump through hoops. Nothing I can say can sooth that feeling other than suggest if you truely are afraid of some info leaking out on the net, simply give them false information when registering. Give them a yahoo mail account and be done with. I have a yahoo account set up simply to register with many different things. That way, any junk goes there and is filtered out. It never sees my computer.
Yes, it's a pain, but I don't see it as one anymore because I just work through it and go on with my life.
Yeah, big pain in the ass. But you know, you could register with Steam giving bogus info then just block steam from accessing the Net.
But look at Steam this way, it's just a Valve game launcher. It's how you launch Valve games. That's how Valve does it.
It's minor. A very minor thing and yet people act like Valve is asking for the their first born child! Let's see what happens first next month before we start jumping to conclusions.
Here we go again!
(in sarcastic tones)
HOW DARE THEY! They expect us to have a net connection! What year do they think this is? 2004 or something?!?! Don't they understand that people that have the horsepower in a computer to run the Source engine as in HL2 usually do NOT have any sort of net connection! What do they think we are, NASA?!?!
Valve is nothing but a bunch of money-grubbing jerks to make us pay for a game...A GAME! They should open source it!
Here is a list of demands for Valve:
1. Stop lying to us! We trusted you...er...don't know with what, but lots of people are saying you let us down...somehow...so stop it!
2. I don't want you spying on me 24/7. I know Valve is out there, looking through my window, looking through my mailbox, now you want to invade my machine and spread all your viruses and spyware to watch everything I do so you can sell it to the Iraqis for some oil-for-games program you have going! YOU'RE EVIL!
3. I want every game and every map and every mod ever made for HL/CS/DoD etc etc to be converted to the Source engine AND be included on the HL2 CD. AND I want everything on one CD.
4. I want Source to run 150fps on my Pentium 90 with Stock VGA graphics...using DX9.0c. Anything more than that and you guys just don't know how to program.
5. I don't want any bugs, none. If one bug shows up I'll sue you!
6. I don't want any type of security on these games. I should be able to install on any number of computers. I have 150 friends that all would like to "try out" this game so I want to burn 150 CD's with a copy on it so I can let them have it for a low price of $20 (that covers the cost of the CD).
Do these things and perhaps maybe I'll play the game...but only maybe.
Oh man, I agree! I can see ads in an article to helps support the site, but when it starts off as an ad as if it's part of the article, it's a bit confusing. Plus you have to scroll down to the middle to even start reading the article!