People continuously whine and rant about how one genere is dying and another is not doing well and so on and so forth, whereas the game market is simply fluctuating like any other market for entertainment goods - different things are popular at different times. Call it the changing of trends. A few years ago, people were complaining about how RPGs were dead. Fallout aside, there hadn't been anything good on the market in eons. Then came along Baldur's Gate and now there are tons of RPGs - the genere is thriving.
The fact that war games or flight sims, or whatever, aren't doing well now is no indication of the death of the genere. They'll die down for a few years but then someone will pull themselves away from Quake VI, fire up Steel Panthers and realize how great a game that is, and how refreshingly different it is, and the genere will pick up once again.
Recently, I installed X-COM that came on a PCGamer CD and I've been playing it regularily, alongside with Deus Ex and Counter-Strike. It's making me miss detailed turn-based squad-level combat games. Maybe someone should make one?
Mad Dog, one of the 4,500 owners of Mig Alley, and proud of it. ----------
...posted by Gamespot. It supposedly will be using a brand new 3D engine and will be designed for the PC with possible conversions for the Mac, the Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2. It's also supposed to be, at least as it stands now, a single-player game. ----------
As they mentioned in the article, all the forces in nature are tied together somehow, except for gravity. If you assume that gravity is in fact connected to the other forces but there's just no good explanation, then the comparison is valid. Since they are looking for this explanation/connection, they probably assume that it exists and so there's nothing wrong with them making comparisons, preliminary as they may be. But, hey, don't take my (or their) word for it. If you have any doubts, jump off a tall building. Gravity will accelerate you for at least a few dozen meters (if you pick a good building) and yet the forces that hold the concrete together will decelerate (accelerate in the opposite direction, against gravity) you over a distance of a few millimeters. ----------
I think the way you type can be affected by too many things for it to be reliable as identification. So I fell down the stairs this morning and smashed myself up real good - now what, I can't log in? Or I have allergies and I drugged myself up to the point where I can barely see... Or it's early in the morning, or late at night... Or my developing RSI becomes particularily bothersome... Or I'm using a keyboard with a layout I'm not used to... Just about anything affect the speed whit which I type, or whetehr I use two hands or one. Then there is the fact that the guy in the cubicle next to me types the same way I do, or fairly close. To make sure that he can't pretend to be me, you have to crank up the sensitivity of the system, but that in turn means that the system becomes more sensitive to all the factors that affect the way you type as well. I say we just go with DNA identification - that way only my evil twin will be able to pretend to be me, disease will spread through the testing mechanisms and insurance companies will be able to buy my DNA from my employer and find out how succeptible I am to cancer. Perfect!
You make it sound like you want to live in a dictatorship - why not move to some war-torn country in Africa? You get all the glory of a brutal regime without all the redundancies we have in North America. As to the whole spy thing (to get back on topic, at least a little bit), the Russian secrets were no better guarded than the American ones. Some of the best US info on USSR capabilities came from double agents who themselves were frequently high up in the chain of command. Only in USSR you didn't hear about it because there was no such thing as free press. Now, who want's some nukes? I made a deal with eBay and I'm running their site www.nukes.ebay.com - fresh in are the schematics for high efficiency reactors, and the auction of our 42Mt warhead will only last another two days...
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The fact that war games or flight sims, or whatever, aren't doing well now is no indication of the death of the genere. They'll die down for a few years but then someone will pull themselves away from Quake VI, fire up Steel Panthers and realize how great a game that is, and how refreshingly different it is, and the genere will pick up once again.
Recently, I installed X-COM that came on a PCGamer CD and I've been playing it regularily, alongside with Deus Ex and Counter-Strike. It's making me miss detailed turn-based squad-level combat games. Maybe someone should make one?
Mad Dog, one of the 4,500 owners of Mig Alley, and proud of it.
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It would seem that this has been mentioned here as well, as crumley pointed out, even earlier that Wired, and by CmdrTaco too. heh...
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I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned here earlier. Wired had a story about this eons ago (May. 17 - not an eon, but close enough).
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...posted by Gamespot. It supposedly will be using a brand new 3D engine and will be designed for the PC with possible conversions for the Mac, the Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2. It's also supposed to be, at least as it stands now, a single-player game.
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As they mentioned in the article, all the forces in nature are tied together somehow, except for gravity. If you assume that gravity is in fact connected to the other forces but there's just no good explanation, then the comparison is valid. Since they are looking for this explanation/connection, they probably assume that it exists and so there's nothing wrong with them making comparisons, preliminary as they may be. But, hey, don't take my (or their) word for it. If you have any doubts, jump off a tall building. Gravity will accelerate you for at least a few dozen meters (if you pick a good building) and yet the forces that hold the concrete together will decelerate (accelerate in the opposite direction, against gravity) you over a distance of a few millimeters.
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...that MS doesn't use this as an example of fierce competition. ;) "Look, our rivals are alive and well. They're even actively spying on us!"
I think the way you type can be affected by too many things for it to be reliable as identification. So I fell down the stairs this morning and smashed myself up real good - now what, I can't log in? Or I have allergies and I drugged myself up to the point where I can barely see... Or it's early in the morning, or late at night... Or my developing RSI becomes particularily bothersome... Or I'm using a keyboard with a layout I'm not used to... Just about anything affect the speed whit which I type, or whetehr I use two hands or one. Then there is the fact that the guy in the cubicle next to me types the same way I do, or fairly close. To make sure that he can't pretend to be me, you have to crank up the sensitivity of the system, but that in turn means that the system becomes more sensitive to all the factors that affect the way you type as well. I say we just go with DNA identification - that way only my evil twin will be able to pretend to be me, disease will spread through the testing mechanisms and insurance companies will be able to buy my DNA from my employer and find out how succeptible I am to cancer. Perfect!
You make it sound like you want to live in a dictatorship - why not move to some war-torn country in Africa? You get all the glory of a brutal regime without all the redundancies we have in North America. As to the whole spy thing (to get back on topic, at least a little bit), the Russian secrets were no better guarded than the American ones. Some of the best US info on USSR capabilities came from double agents who themselves were frequently high up in the chain of command. Only in USSR you didn't hear about it because there was no such thing as free press. Now, who want's some nukes? I made a deal with eBay and I'm running their site www.nukes.ebay.com - fresh in are the schematics for high efficiency reactors, and the auction of our 42Mt warhead will only last another two days...