Bethesda doesn't have a partner publishing program like EA and THQ do. That implies it will be a more traditional, "We own the IP" publisher/developer relationship. That's especially worrisome for smaller independent studios. Larger studios can possibly have the clout to maintain their IP. But, most large studios are not independent, they're owned by publishers that compete with Bethesda.. There's no way an EA, Activision, THQ, TakeTwo, or Ubisoft studio will use idtech5. Along with that liability on the engine there are no shipped games to prove the engine is viable, it's not known what the dev support will be like, and there is no one outside of Id that has experience with it.
Unreal rules the roost right now. There's no publisher lock-in, there are hundreds of games to prove it's viability, the dev support is all online, easily referenced, and complete, and the widespread use of it means that it is easy to find programmers, designers, and artists that have experience on the toolset. idtech5 has to not only be as good as unreal in all of those areas, it arguably has to be better. A studio that knows how to make games with Unreal would have to dump all of their institutional knowledge if they went with idtech5. That's a huge loss of competitive advantage.
Idtech5 might do amazingly well. Given the long timespan since choosing an id engine to make a game was commonplace, the explosion of Unreal as the defacto engine middleware, a decent number of other competing engine middleware packages (Gamebryo, Crytek, Unity, etc...), and the Bethesda lockin I am not expecting idtech5 to be a disrupting force in the game development industry.
Look at their title list. If all they have to show for nine years of work is less than two dozen second rate PC titles then it's not surprising they've gone out of business.
Nine years ago it might have made sense to have a Linux game porting company. Unfortunately the gaming landscape has changed quite a bit since then; the XBox 360, PS3, and Wii all came out and sold huge, pushing gaming back into the living room; Macintosh hardware changed to be identical to PCs, at least in terms of motherboards, graphic cards, and processors; releases of PC games, excepting MMOs, declined; and major publishers, like EA, started to (tentatively) use CodeWeavers' CrossOver tech to make non-Windows releases of their PC games. The need for a company like LGP is insignificant at this point.
The gaming world has changed dramatically in the past nine years. The PS3, 360, and Wii all came out and have each sold large quantities of units, PC gaming itself declined rapidly, and for what little PC gaming has remained major publishers have started to use CodeWeavers' CrossOver tech for their Mac and Linux clients.
I'm unclear as to how a defunct and destroyed cut-rate '70's era NASA space station that was built out of Atlas rocket parts would have either a web server or the ability to annihilate humanity.
But it is *exactly* like electricity. The power company still has to pay for the generators, lines, transformers, etc... and yet they can do per-usage billing without problem.
You believe that gameplay can't be copyrighted. You cherry picked some unnamed and unknown sites that support your believe about gameplay and copyright. You kind of half heartedly mention patents in a way that seems to bolster your opinion. That's all well and good, but where is the part where you actually went beyond your belief, spoke to a lawyer/professor/industry professional, and learned if gameplay is copyrightable or patentable?
You copied someone else's idea. They're not happy about that. Maybe they're in the right or maybe you are. Either way you should hold off on the righteous indignation until you give up your opinions and educate yourself on the matter at hand.
Maybe you should read Spolsky's 2000 article. He doesn't use his small company as an example. He uses the rewrite trials and failures of such other 'small' companies as Microsoft, Borland, and Netscape.
It's sort of like selling you a car that has a note in the glovebox that reads "you are not allowed to use this car to transport women between the ages 20 and 28"
The average Slashdot reader would have no problems whatsoever with such an automobile.
Well, ok, then, I guess that's settled. Since you seem to be in charge of determining what an electronic device with a CPU, RAM, I/O, and a display is called, how should we refer to it?
They said that when spears beat rocks. They said that when guns won against swords, spears, and bows. They said it when machine guns decimated rifle ranks. They said it when airplanes and tanks rolled or flew over the trenches. They said it when V1s and V2s were raining on London. They said it when the US nuked Hiroshima. They said it when the US adopted stealth, night vision and GPS, and on and on. Face it, technology wins wars and ensures safety for the side that has the better tech. War is as much a technological battle as it is a physical one.
It's admirable that you are so specific and resolute in your statement. It's too bad that your statement is demonstrably incorrect. All Macbook and Macbook Pro models, except for the Macbook Air, have analog line-in jacks. the 15" and 17" Macbook Pros have a dedicated line in jack. The Macbook and the 13" Macbook Pro both use a single 1/8" jack for either analog out, digital out, or analog line in, depending on how that port is configured in the system preferences.
Macbooks ship with a line in jack. Macbook Pros use the same 1/8" jack for either input or output. You just have to go to the Audio preferences and set it for the mode you need at that time.
It's much the same on any modern motherboard. The line out jack is also a line in jack. You just need to configure it as such.
Wow, so you ask a question, get a reasonable and correct reply and your response is to...take it as an affront to your ignorance, spew crap to try and change the context of your original (arguably naive) question and then resort to personal attacks for no apparent reason...other than to possibly try to deflect attention away from your ignorance.
You must feel so very superior in your anonymity.
In email usage 'RE:' is short for regarding. Getting an email that says 'Regarding:(previous email subject)' makes sense. Getting an email that says, 'Redoing:(previous email subject)' is nonsensical. So, no, 're' does not always mean re-doing. In regards (aka re:) to what you are referring the 'regarding' context should be assumed.
That you are more worried about making art with 3D models, and wanting a CAD package that will easily import into your 3D modeler of choice, instead of being worried about actual engineering makes me think this project will never get off the ground (all puns intended).
Here's a free CAD package that seems to be just the right caliber for your organization...Google SketchUp.
>> If Firefox included it by default, it would be in almost 1/4 of all browsers globally. Sites will pay attention to that.
Except for the fact that you mentioned right above that statement the real issue...Flash (and Silverlight, et al.) would continue to exist. It doesn't matter if Firefox put it in by default because sites can still require Flash or Silverlight. Yes, Slashdot owners may not care for those but the vast majority of people don't care. If they can get video in their browser they don't concern themselves with the whys or the hows of how it got there. Against that apathy and along with the fact that Adobe and Microsoft will continue to push their solutions and offer engineering support, etc... this tech has a HUGE uphill battle.
Find me in five years and tell me how this is going. I've got my opinion as to what you will say at that time.
Ah yes, another stab at (this is a killer!). Those predictions never pan out.
Specifically for this:
* All existing websites would need to be retrofitted to host.swf (.flv?) movies differently
* All popular browsers would need to embrace HTML5 video playback
* Microsoft would have to emphasize this over their own product.
* Adobe would have to emphasize this over their own product.
* The marketing department being utilized for this tech (at this time that would be 'no one') would have to be better funded and more highly motivated than both the Microsoft and Adobe marketing departments
* The vast majority of web users would have to care.
So, yeah, no.
I'd turn my electronics off at random times and for random intervals. I'd log every time I did that and for how long I had them powered down. Then, if the case went to court I'd throw the log out there and say, "I had my stuff powered off at these times, did you realize this and go back into your house?" When the paranoid litigant said "Uh, no." I'd ask for a case dismissal since it's pretty obvious the guy can't tell when his allergic reaction is kicking in or not.
Displaying documents on screen in a device independent way isn't the original intended goal of PDF. PDF was designed to get around the issue of offset press operators not having the correct fonts, introducing errors into printed page layouts due to slight differences in page rendering of *.ps files between different seperation software packages, etc... PDF was designed to make digital prepress operations work in a device independent manner. The idea that such standardization would help for on screen rendering (especially in early 90's, pre-CSS days of HTML) came later.
Slashdot Mirror
Bethesda doesn't have a partner publishing program like EA and THQ do. That implies it will be a more traditional, "We own the IP" publisher/developer relationship. That's especially worrisome for smaller independent studios. Larger studios can possibly have the clout to maintain their IP. But, most large studios are not independent, they're owned by publishers that compete with Bethesda.. There's no way an EA, Activision, THQ, TakeTwo, or Ubisoft studio will use idtech5. Along with that liability on the engine there are no shipped games to prove the engine is viable, it's not known what the dev support will be like, and there is no one outside of Id that has experience with it.
Unreal rules the roost right now. There's no publisher lock-in, there are hundreds of games to prove it's viability, the dev support is all online, easily referenced, and complete, and the widespread use of it means that it is easy to find programmers, designers, and artists that have experience on the toolset. idtech5 has to not only be as good as unreal in all of those areas, it arguably has to be better. A studio that knows how to make games with Unreal would have to dump all of their institutional knowledge if they went with idtech5. That's a huge loss of competitive advantage.
Idtech5 might do amazingly well. Given the long timespan since choosing an id engine to make a game was commonplace, the explosion of Unreal as the defacto engine middleware, a decent number of other competing engine middleware packages (Gamebryo, Crytek, Unity, etc...), and the Bethesda lockin I am not expecting idtech5 to be a disrupting force in the game development industry.
Look at their title list. If all they have to show for nine years of work is less than two dozen second rate PC titles then it's not surprising they've gone out of business. Nine years ago it might have made sense to have a Linux game porting company. Unfortunately the gaming landscape has changed quite a bit since then; the XBox 360, PS3, and Wii all came out and sold huge, pushing gaming back into the living room; Macintosh hardware changed to be identical to PCs, at least in terms of motherboards, graphic cards, and processors; releases of PC games, excepting MMOs, declined; and major publishers, like EA, started to (tentatively) use CodeWeavers' CrossOver tech to make non-Windows releases of their PC games. The need for a company like LGP is insignificant at this point. The gaming world has changed dramatically in the past nine years. The PS3, 360, and Wii all came out and have each sold large quantities of units, PC gaming itself declined rapidly, and for what little PC gaming has remained major publishers have started to use CodeWeavers' CrossOver tech for their Mac and Linux clients.
I'm unclear as to how a defunct and destroyed cut-rate '70's era NASA space station that was built out of Atlas rocket parts would have either a web server or the ability to annihilate humanity.
Because Ricoh never put out a press release in hopes that the gadget websites would run it as news and someone would submit that 'news' to Slashdot.
nVidia has a Tegra & Android based tablet coming out this fall that looks like it could be a very nice device.
But it is *exactly* like electricity. The power company still has to pay for the generators, lines, transformers, etc... and yet they can do per-usage billing without problem.
You've got it completely backwards. Google has said on numerous occasions that ChromeOS is for netbooks. They are pushing Android as their tablet OS.
You copied someone else's idea. They're not happy about that. Maybe they're in the right or maybe you are. Either way you should hold off on the righteous indignation until you give up your opinions and educate yourself on the matter at hand.
Maybe you should read Spolsky's 2000 article. He doesn't use his small company as an example. He uses the rewrite trials and failures of such other 'small' companies as Microsoft, Borland, and Netscape.
The average Slashdot reader would have no problems whatsoever with such an automobile.
Well, ok, then, I guess that's settled. Since you seem to be in charge of determining what an electronic device with a CPU, RAM, I/O, and a display is called, how should we refer to it?
I've never heard of a Nokia S60, but I recognize Palm. Obscurity is relative.
I guess if an idea is 20+ years old the statute of limitations has run out and someone can use it again as NEW and EXCITING.
They said that when spears beat rocks. They said that when guns won against swords, spears, and bows. They said it when machine guns decimated rifle ranks. They said it when airplanes and tanks rolled or flew over the trenches. They said it when V1s and V2s were raining on London. They said it when the US nuked Hiroshima. They said it when the US adopted stealth, night vision and GPS, and on and on. Face it, technology wins wars and ensures safety for the side that has the better tech. War is as much a technological battle as it is a physical one.
It's admirable that you are so specific and resolute in your statement. It's too bad that your statement is demonstrably incorrect. All Macbook and Macbook Pro models, except for the Macbook Air, have analog line-in jacks. the 15" and 17" Macbook Pros have a dedicated line in jack. The Macbook and the 13" Macbook Pro both use a single 1/8" jack for either analog out, digital out, or analog line in, depending on how that port is configured in the system preferences.
It's much the same on any modern motherboard. The line out jack is also a line in jack. You just need to configure it as such.
Wow, so you ask a question, get a reasonable and correct reply and your response is to...take it as an affront to your ignorance, spew crap to try and change the context of your original (arguably naive) question and then resort to personal attacks for no apparent reason...other than to possibly try to deflect attention away from your ignorance. You must feel so very superior in your anonymity.
In email usage 'RE:' is short for regarding. Getting an email that says 'Regarding:(previous email subject)' makes sense. Getting an email that says, 'Redoing:(previous email subject)' is nonsensical. So, no, 're' does not always mean re-doing. In regards (aka re:) to what you are referring the 'regarding' context should be assumed.
Spoken like someone who is too self-important and socially inept to ever get to the point of being a parent.
Here's a free CAD package that seems to be just the right caliber for your organization...Google SketchUp.
Except for the fact that you mentioned right above that statement the real issue...Flash (and Silverlight, et al.) would continue to exist. It doesn't matter if Firefox put it in by default because sites can still require Flash or Silverlight. Yes, Slashdot owners may not care for those but the vast majority of people don't care. If they can get video in their browser they don't concern themselves with the whys or the hows of how it got there. Against that apathy and along with the fact that Adobe and Microsoft will continue to push their solutions and offer engineering support, etc... this tech has a HUGE uphill battle.
Find me in five years and tell me how this is going. I've got my opinion as to what you will say at that time.
Ah yes, another stab at (this is a killer!). Those predictions never pan out. Specifically for this: * All existing websites would need to be retrofitted to host .swf (.flv?) movies differently
* All popular browsers would need to embrace HTML5 video playback
* Microsoft would have to emphasize this over their own product.
* Adobe would have to emphasize this over their own product.
* The marketing department being utilized for this tech (at this time that would be 'no one') would have to be better funded and more highly motivated than both the Microsoft and Adobe marketing departments
* The vast majority of web users would have to care.
So, yeah, no.
I'd turn my electronics off at random times and for random intervals. I'd log every time I did that and for how long I had them powered down. Then, if the case went to court I'd throw the log out there and say, "I had my stuff powered off at these times, did you realize this and go back into your house?" When the paranoid litigant said "Uh, no." I'd ask for a case dismissal since it's pretty obvious the guy can't tell when his allergic reaction is kicking in or not.
He's not allowed to talk about it because there is now ongoing litigation between Take2 and 3DRealms over contracts, monetary advances, etc...
Displaying documents on screen in a device independent way isn't the original intended goal of PDF. PDF was designed to get around the issue of offset press operators not having the correct fonts, introducing errors into printed page layouts due to slight differences in page rendering of *.ps files between different seperation software packages, etc... PDF was designed to make digital prepress operations work in a device independent manner. The idea that such standardization would help for on screen rendering (especially in early 90's, pre-CSS days of HTML) came later.