Yeah, Kosner sucks. I mean that ridiculous movie where he hangs out with wolves. Then the once were he swims like a dolphin and the world is totally flooded. Damn that was stupid. I'll NEVER forgive him for Robin Hood though - especially because of that Bryan Adams song.
"WoW 1-59 is totally 'directed'? Really? It seemed pretty open ended to me, you can get experence from doing almost anything. You want to quest? There are billions of them."
Yes you can choose which NPC to talk to get a scripted quest (well actually even there the quest has to be in your level range). Or you can grind. Or you can use the basic gathering/crafting system.
The point is that this is not representative of "emergent gameplay". The concept where you put together an environment that is complex enough for players to discover the interactions without having to go to NPC Bob and get a "kill 10 goblins because they are bad" quest. It is players iventing how to play the game within the construct of the gaming world rules. WoW doesn't really lend it to this type of behavior because it is a very structured game. One example of "emergent gameplay" was the player casinos in the early days of WoW. Boy that got shut down quick due to scams. Now you do see other examples of this especially since a lot of players have been playing so long that they are bored of the main game. We used to have naked Gnome alt boxing tournaments or race your level 1 alt across Azeroth contests. I'm not trying to bash WoW, I honestly don't think open ended gameplay is better than structured games - I think it's certainly easier to provide a better gaming experience if there is structure. Of course this isn't always the case, I enjoyed just messing around in the GTA world for example, but found the missions boring.
Uh, these are open source components that Apple incorporates into there closed OS. So I'm not sure there is any real benefit to open source that Apple is granting by using this. Does the BSD code in some of Microsoft Windows networking components help open source? Apple's current OS is relies on it's open source code base, but the world of open source software would be pretty much exactly the same without Apple.
Well they do have the GPU going into the Playstation 3 - but IBM seems to have a lock on at least this series of next gen consoles. All 3 CPUs (Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii) have been developed in conjunction with IBM.
What you say about the solo game is also true for small groups. Honestly I think I enjoyed doing Dire Maul with 5 good players much more than I ever enjoyed the higher end raid instances. Part of the reason is that commitment of time but also I just prefer the play style - versus follow the leader orchestration necessary in the large raids.
I agree with you on some points. CoH/CoV is definately the most repetitive MMO out there. It's a good thing the combat is a lot of fun, because well that's almost all there is (except the costume creator). Somehow I keep coming back to CoH - I've reactivated my account 3 times usually after stints on more complicated MMOs. It can be a relief to play an MMO where you can just jump in and start playing right away, either solo or on a team. Most other MMOs have a lot of other crap to juggle such as making money or forced grouping for difficult quests/raids. That stuff can be fun too, but sometimes you just want to get in game and beat the crap out of something. As far as the graphics go, the view distance blurring, bloom and ragdoll physics are about the only additions I've noticed since launch. They do make the game look a bit nicer. If I look at my old screenshots from 2004 it is noticable if not exactly dramatic. As far as video cards stress, you can turn down the particle effects and number of effects shown. I typically do this if I'm in a 8 man team doing missions set on high difficulty (especially if you have 4 or 5 Masterminds in the group). Otherwise I don't really have a problem running it on a 6800GT at 1280x1024 with AA. I do notice that Grandville is pretty damn laggy.
"From personal experience I have found that the people who tend to leave WoW are the ones who can't play along with others."
That's such a hilarious generalization. You know some people leave because they get bored of it. Or don't care for the repetitive nature of the end game. I myself just got bored with it and I was a high up guild officer who played nicely with others. It was a bit hard to walk away from the social side of it, but in the end I wasn't enjoying myself much so I left. Saying that people who quit playing are anti-social pricks is just stupid.
"About the only concern that I see as valid is the complaint that paladins are completely boring and passive to play ("Paladins are to gameplay as porn is to sex" sums that up nicely), and that doesn't impact their performance, so it isn't a balance issue."
"release M rating content hidden within a lower-rated game"
You mean A rated content hidden within a M rated game. The GTA series is rated M. The beauty of it is that according to the rating system 17 year olds are "mature" enough to deal with beating innocent bystanders to death with a baseball bat but should not be exposed to nudity or sex.
Actually the majority of our guild was about 21-26 or so. Mostly either in college or in the workforce. Second highest group was in the 30s, then the 40s and a couple in the 50s. We had very few teens because we didn't do blind recruiting. Basically we didn't want griefers or overly immature players (ok now that's something to say when talking about a fantasy game).
"I'm sure there are a lot of others like me who didn't feel like raiding another dungeon yet again for that one piece of armor"
Or more correctly: raiding the same dungeon yet again for a chance that the piece of armor I need might drop and that I might be able to win the roll or have enough DKP to actually get the item versus the other 5 people in the 40 man group who are the same class as me.
With the ultimate reward being that after running the dungeon 40 times you get to move on to the next one and do that one 40 times etc.
Yeah I'm a member of the "quite shortly after level 60 crowd" myself. Well more like after realizing I'd run the 50-60 level dungeons over 50 times and still only had 6/8 of my blue item set. The prospect of doing the same thing with 40 man groups to get an epic set was just ridiculous. Maybe if I was a teenager on summer break, independantly wealthy or on physical disability - otherwise hell no.
"Meet someone face-to-face for long enough and you'll eventually understand that person pretty much fully - but hidden behind anonymity online, you only get to see what that person wants you to see and that's why it lacks something special."
Gaming online with friends can be a great experience. We've been using voice chat systems like Teamspeak for over a year and it really has helped break the anonymity factor. As mostly casual gamers we frequently bullshit over Teamspeak and setup channels that are not dedicated to game raid. I've also met quite a few people online that I've grown to know well through voice chatting. Sure we can't all go and get a drink together, but we do talk about things outside the game world. I've also played with people from a number of different countries and learned a lot about other cultures and how the US is perceived by them. No it isn't a replacement for a regular social life but it is an interesting addition. You do get to meet people who you might normally never encounter because of differences in geography, social status, age etc. The WoW guild I was in had players from 5 different countries ranging in age from 12 to 57. I think the best thing about the game was the diverse group of people I got to meet and have fun with.
At the endgame, where I've managed to get by plodding along an hour or two a week, it can take up to an hour to find a group of people to play with in the first place. All the other MMO games are the same, and even a lot of the non-multiplayer games involve a lot of grinding or gruntwork to actually get anywhere in them.
Yeah I pretty much give up once I get near the end game. Some people love end game raiding and while I've done some, I don't have the time or desire to really be involved in it. A lot of MMOs are less time consuming in the beginner to middle levels. I like to play through these and when I find the time versus reward factor to scale too high, I quit. That's the point when the game has become boring. Kill 900 million goblins to make the knight faction like me? Fuck no. My friend calls it the three month plan, get in, explore, level a bit and quit. You are never going to see it all anyway, I'm happy enough seeing 65% of the game and limiting my sessions to a couple hours. BTW, although it's the most repetitive game in existance I have recently gone back to City of Heroes/Villains. Mostly because you can jump on and get right to playing. It's all combat pretty much and in a way has replaced the online FPS. Lightweight entertainment that's good fun with a couple friends without all that item and money orientation so common in MMOs.
Makes me wonder which other MMO... There are a lot of other good ones out there, but yeah compared to WoW most have significantly smaller numbers of players. They also have a lot fewer servers which means that from a server population standpoint that isn't always a big deal. I've bounced between a few different MMOs over the past couple years including a 10 month stint on WoW. I guess the biggest problem I've had is that many MMOs are more fun when you have a few RL friends playing with you and right now most of those are either in WoW or not playing MMOs.
If one game stifles a whole industry resulting in lowered sales of other games and this consequently results in:
1. A bunch of copycat games trying to steal market share from the leader 2. Game development being cancelled on games that don't fit the business leader's model 3. Less diversity of choice for gamers - a flood of me too MMOs and lack of games in other genres
Well that would be a bad thing.
I don't really feel this is the case. I think MMOs will have a permanent impact on PC gaming, just as online FPS games did. Although Doom may have ushered in the LAN party, games like Quake and Unreal Tournament pretty much made online multiplayer a required feature of any PC FPS (yes there are exceptions such as Max Payne). It didn't kill the market, it just changed it. MMOs are taking players away from single player gaming experiences. Since I started playing MMOs I have played (and purchased) a lot fewer single player games BUT I still play some. WoW isn't going to be the #1 game for all of eternity. The market will change again and who knows what the next big thing will be. The Titan Quest developer's biggest problem may be simply that people aren't interested in another Diablo style clicky action RPG. I was kind of surprised that Dungeon Siege 2 did as well as it did. I literally fell asleep playing the first one. And I'm a gamer who spent hundreds of hours playing the Diablo series - I guess I just burnt out on that play style. At least until someone does something really innovative with it.
The real role "Web 2.0" serves is for Internet companies looking for funding. By constantly stating they are a "Web 2.0" company using "Web 2.0" technology they are differentiating themselves from companies in the original (1.0?) dotcom boom. It doesn't matter that it doesn't mean anything so long as the suits handing out investment income THINK it does and think that it somehow makes their investment less prone to failure. It really is just marketing bullshit and it is primarily for marketing Internet companies to investors.
"I'm curious how they plan to let you get yourself out of an infinite portal loop like a portal in the floor the drops from the ceiling back into the portal in the floor. etc."
From the video it looks like infinite loop portals would be allowed. To get out you'd just shoot to make a new portal on the wall next to you. This would change the location of one of the two portals breaking the loop.
I think Feist's books would make good all around fantasy entertainment for the masses if done well. The stories are good and the characterization is decent if not particularly deep. If it was successful they sure have a number of stories to pull from. In some ways I found the Serpent War sage to be more entertaining than Rift war and it would make for some cool battle scenes. For something a bit deeper, I'd love to see the first trilogy of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever done in film. It would have to be R-rated and dark though, I don't think it would work for mainstream audiences. I wonder if the market is ready for more adult dark fantasy.
"The only thing that's pretty slow is moving layers around, applying filters, and blending effects. But that stuff doesn't need to be as real-time as actually drawing."
Uh, you don't see this as being a problem? Are you working on web oriented graphics? Try working with compositing full page 300dpi images for print. Slowdown in the areas you listed would certainly be enough to keep the G5 and wait for CS3 to come out before making the switch to Intel.
It was NEVER true for the Xeon 5100. The Mac Pro isn't out yet but PC workstations based on the Xeon 5100 are available from other companies such as Dell.
I've used RPM (which I hate - don't know if Mandriva has improved it) and APT (which I like) but only in single server instances. Is there a way to centrally control APT or RPM from a gui driven interface across a few hundred or so workstations? Also can you group those workstations into different sets and apply updates only to specific sets? I always prefer to roll updates to test stations/servers before commiting then on production machines. I'd also like to see reporting telling me what installed where and if there were any failures. Rollback to previous updates would be important as well. I'm not sure how to set this up with RPM or APT - maybe you can point me in the right direction. Is there an easy to use quick way to set this up? Say something that takes 10 minutes to get rolling on a server?
It looks like Windows will be faster on an Apple machine than on any other factory-built desktops.
What makes you think that? Workstation grade desktops have been using dual Xeons for years. For example you can buy a Dell Precision Workstation 690 with dual 5100 series Xeon processors (total of 4cores). You can even get dual Quadro FX4500 cards in SLI for 3D modeling goodness. And this is available now, not speculation on future configurations of the Mac Pro.
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Yeah, Kosner sucks. I mean that ridiculous movie where he hangs out with wolves. Then the once were he swims like a dolphin and the world is totally flooded. Damn that was stupid.
I'll NEVER forgive him for Robin Hood though - especially because of that Bryan Adams song.
"WoW 1-59 is totally 'directed'? Really? It seemed pretty open ended to me, you can get experence from doing almost anything. You want to quest? There are billions of them."
Yes you can choose which NPC to talk to get a scripted quest (well actually even there the quest has to be in your level range). Or you can grind. Or you can use the basic gathering/crafting system.
The point is that this is not representative of "emergent gameplay". The concept where you put together an environment that is complex enough for players to discover the interactions without having to go to NPC Bob and get a "kill 10 goblins because they are bad" quest. It is players iventing how to play the game within the construct of the gaming world rules. WoW doesn't really lend it to this type of behavior because it is a very structured game.
One example of "emergent gameplay" was the player casinos in the early days of WoW. Boy that got shut down quick due to scams. Now you do see other examples of this especially since a lot of players have been playing so long that they are bored of the main game. We used to have naked Gnome alt boxing tournaments or race your level 1 alt across Azeroth contests.
I'm not trying to bash WoW, I honestly don't think open ended gameplay is better than structured games - I think it's certainly easier to provide a better gaming experience if there is structure. Of course this isn't always the case, I enjoyed just messing around in the GTA world for example, but found the missions boring.
Uh, these are open source components that Apple incorporates into there closed OS. So I'm not sure there is any real benefit to open source that Apple is granting by using this. Does the BSD code in some of Microsoft Windows networking components help open source?
Apple's current OS is relies on it's open source code base, but the world of open source software would be pretty much exactly the same without Apple.
Well they do have the GPU going into the Playstation 3 - but IBM seems to have a lock on at least this series of next gen consoles. All 3 CPUs (Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii) have been developed in conjunction with IBM.
What you say about the solo game is also true for small groups. Honestly I think I enjoyed doing Dire Maul with 5 good players much more than I ever enjoyed the higher end raid instances. Part of the reason is that commitment of time but also I just prefer the play style - versus follow the leader orchestration necessary in the large raids.
I agree with you on some points. CoH/CoV is definately the most repetitive MMO out there. It's a good thing the combat is a lot of fun, because well that's almost all there is (except the costume creator). Somehow I keep coming back to CoH - I've reactivated my account 3 times usually after stints on more complicated MMOs. It can be a relief to play an MMO where you can just jump in and start playing right away, either solo or on a team. Most other MMOs have a lot of other crap to juggle such as making money or forced grouping for difficult quests/raids. That stuff can be fun too, but sometimes you just want to get in game and beat the crap out of something.
As far as the graphics go, the view distance blurring, bloom and ragdoll physics are about the only additions I've noticed since launch. They do make the game look a bit nicer. If I look at my old screenshots from 2004 it is noticable if not exactly dramatic. As far as video cards stress, you can turn down the particle effects and number of effects shown. I typically do this if I'm in a 8 man team doing missions set on high difficulty (especially if you have 4 or 5 Masterminds in the group). Otherwise I don't really have a problem running it on a 6800GT at 1280x1024 with AA. I do notice that Grandville is pretty damn laggy.
"From personal experience I have found that the people who tend to leave WoW are the ones who can't play along with others."
That's such a hilarious generalization. You know some people leave because they get bored of it. Or don't care for the repetitive nature of the end game.
I myself just got bored with it and I was a high up guild officer who played nicely with others. It was a bit hard to walk away from the social side of it, but in the end I wasn't enjoying myself much so I left. Saying that people who quit playing are anti-social pricks is just stupid.
Mmmmmmmmmmm. Donkey ears.
"About the only concern that I see as valid is the complaint that paladins are completely boring and passive to play ("Paladins are to gameplay as porn is to sex" sums that up nicely), and that doesn't impact their performance, so it isn't a balance issue."
Nah they're exciting to play!
"Can I have BoW not BoK"
"BoK please"
"BoS please"
"BoW is going out"
"Where's my damn BoK!"
"release M rating content hidden within a lower-rated game"
You mean A rated content hidden within a M rated game. The GTA series is rated M. The beauty of it is that according to the rating system 17 year olds are "mature" enough to deal with beating innocent bystanders to death with a baseball bat but should not be exposed to nudity or sex.
Actually the majority of our guild was about 21-26 or so. Mostly either in college or in the workforce. Second highest group was in the 30s, then the 40s and a couple in the 50s. We had very few teens because we didn't do blind recruiting. Basically we didn't want griefers or overly immature players (ok now that's something to say when talking about a fantasy game).
"I'm sure there are a lot of others like me who didn't feel like raiding another dungeon yet again for that one piece of armor"
Or more correctly: raiding the same dungeon yet again for a chance that the piece of armor I need might drop and that I might be able to win the roll or have enough DKP to actually get the item versus the other 5 people in the 40 man group who are the same class as me.
With the ultimate reward being that after running the dungeon 40 times you get to move on to the next one and do that one 40 times etc.
Yeah I'm a member of the "quite shortly after level 60 crowd" myself. Well more like after realizing I'd run the 50-60 level dungeons over 50 times and still only had 6/8 of my blue item set. The prospect of doing the same thing with 40 man groups to get an epic set was just ridiculous. Maybe if I was a teenager on summer break, independantly wealthy or on physical disability - otherwise hell no.
"Meet someone face-to-face for long enough and you'll eventually understand that person pretty much fully - but hidden behind anonymity online, you only get to see what that person wants you to see and that's why it lacks something special."
Gaming online with friends can be a great experience. We've been using voice chat systems like Teamspeak for over a year and it really has helped break the anonymity factor. As mostly casual gamers we frequently bullshit over Teamspeak and setup channels that are not dedicated to game raid.
I've also met quite a few people online that I've grown to know well through voice chatting. Sure we can't all go and get a drink together, but we do talk about things outside the game world. I've also played with people from a number of different countries and learned a lot about other cultures and how the US is perceived by them.
No it isn't a replacement for a regular social life but it is an interesting addition. You do get to meet people who you might normally never encounter because of differences in geography, social status, age etc. The WoW guild I was in had players from 5 different countries ranging in age from 12 to 57. I think the best thing about the game was the diverse group of people I got to meet and have fun with.
At the endgame, where I've managed to get by plodding along an hour or two a week, it can take up to an hour to find a group of people to play with in the first place. All the other MMO games are the same, and even a lot of the non-multiplayer games involve a lot of grinding or gruntwork to actually get anywhere in them.
Yeah I pretty much give up once I get near the end game. Some people love end game raiding and while I've done some, I don't have the time or desire to really be involved in it.
A lot of MMOs are less time consuming in the beginner to middle levels. I like to play through these and when I find the time versus reward factor to scale too high, I quit. That's the point when the game has become boring. Kill 900 million goblins to make the knight faction like me? Fuck no.
My friend calls it the three month plan, get in, explore, level a bit and quit. You are never going to see it all anyway, I'm happy enough seeing 65% of the game and limiting my sessions to a couple hours.
BTW, although it's the most repetitive game in existance I have recently gone back to City of Heroes/Villains. Mostly because you can jump on and get right to playing. It's all combat pretty much and in a way has replaced the online FPS. Lightweight entertainment that's good fun with a couple friends without all that item and money orientation so common in MMOs.
Makes me wonder which other MMO... There are a lot of other good ones out there, but yeah compared to WoW most have significantly smaller numbers of players. They also have a lot fewer servers which means that from a server population standpoint that isn't always a big deal. I've bounced between a few different MMOs over the past couple years including a 10 month stint on WoW. I guess the biggest problem I've had is that many MMOs are more fun when you have a few RL friends playing with you and right now most of those are either in WoW or not playing MMOs.
Let's just play devil's advocate for a minute:
If one game stifles a whole industry resulting in lowered sales of other games and this consequently results in:
1. A bunch of copycat games trying to steal market share from the leader
2. Game development being cancelled on games that don't fit the business leader's model
3. Less diversity of choice for gamers - a flood of me too MMOs and lack of games in other genres
Well that would be a bad thing.
I don't really feel this is the case. I think MMOs will have a permanent impact on PC gaming, just as online FPS games did. Although Doom may have ushered in the LAN party, games like Quake and Unreal Tournament pretty much made online multiplayer a required feature of any PC FPS (yes there are exceptions such as Max Payne). It didn't kill the market, it just changed it.
MMOs are taking players away from single player gaming experiences. Since I started playing MMOs I have played (and purchased) a lot fewer single player games BUT I still play some.
WoW isn't going to be the #1 game for all of eternity. The market will change again and who knows what the next big thing will be.
The Titan Quest developer's biggest problem may be simply that people aren't interested in another Diablo style clicky action RPG. I was kind of surprised that Dungeon Siege 2 did as well as it did. I literally fell asleep playing the first one. And I'm a gamer who spent hundreds of hours playing the Diablo series - I guess I just burnt out on that play style. At least until someone does something really innovative with it.
The real role "Web 2.0" serves is for Internet companies looking for funding. By constantly stating they are a "Web 2.0" company using "Web 2.0" technology they are differentiating themselves from companies in the original (1.0?) dotcom boom. It doesn't matter that it doesn't mean anything so long as the suits handing out investment income THINK it does and think that it somehow makes their investment less prone to failure.
It really is just marketing bullshit and it is primarily for marketing Internet companies to investors.
"I'm curious how they plan to let you get yourself out of an infinite portal loop like a portal in the floor the drops from the ceiling back into the portal in the floor. etc."
From the video it looks like infinite loop portals would be allowed. To get out you'd just shoot to make a new portal on the wall next to you. This would change the location of one of the two portals breaking the loop.
I think Feist's books would make good all around fantasy entertainment for the masses if done well. The stories are good and the characterization is decent if not particularly deep. If it was successful they sure have a number of stories to pull from. In some ways I found the Serpent War sage to be more entertaining than Rift war and it would make for some cool battle scenes.
For something a bit deeper, I'd love to see the first trilogy of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever done in film. It would have to be R-rated and dark though, I don't think it would work for mainstream audiences. I wonder if the market is ready for more adult dark fantasy.
How about Valis the Opera?
"The only thing that's pretty slow is moving layers around, applying filters, and blending effects. But that stuff doesn't need to be as real-time as actually drawing."
Uh, you don't see this as being a problem? Are you working on web oriented graphics? Try working with compositing full page 300dpi images for print. Slowdown in the areas you listed would certainly be enough to keep the G5 and wait for CS3 to come out before making the switch to Intel.
Adobe had a competitor. They were known as Macromedia. Now they are known as Adobe.
It was NEVER true for the Xeon 5100. The Mac Pro isn't out yet but PC workstations based on the Xeon 5100 are available from other companies such as Dell.
I've used RPM (which I hate - don't know if Mandriva has improved it) and APT (which I like) but only in single server instances. Is there a way to centrally control APT or RPM from a gui driven interface across a few hundred or so workstations? Also can you group those workstations into different sets and apply updates only to specific sets? I always prefer to roll updates to test stations/servers before commiting then on production machines.
I'd also like to see reporting telling me what installed where and if there were any failures. Rollback to previous updates would be important as well.
I'm not sure how to set this up with RPM or APT - maybe you can point me in the right direction. Is there an easy to use quick way to set this up? Say something that takes 10 minutes to get rolling on a server?
It looks like Windows will be faster on an Apple machine than on any other factory-built desktops.
What makes you think that? Workstation grade desktops have been using dual Xeons for years. For example you can buy a Dell Precision Workstation 690 with dual 5100 series Xeon processors (total of 4cores). You can even get dual Quadro FX4500 cards in SLI for 3D modeling goodness. And this is available now, not speculation on future configurations of the Mac Pro.