Then, as I said, you're part of the problem. If you don't realize that, that's doubly sad.
People who say things like "I have to [...] get thinks to look the same" are saying "I don't understand the web" and should probably not be working with it until they clue on.
NO! It it not necessary. It just makes things worse in the long run, so if you're doing this _you're_ part of the problem, so don't complain about how you have to treat browsers differently.
Sheeesh. Write to the standards, not browsers.
(And no, this isn't "insightful", it's totally _obvious_ to anyone with a clue)
I'm with you completely. I've been an Opera-fanboy since the 3.x-beta series. It just get more things right than other browsers -- and I'm continually looking at the alternatives (inkl. Mozilla, Phoenix and Konq), but the feeling isn'ty there.
There's small things that I need, like the forward/backward gestures, I need my "tabs" at the bottom of the screen (the ones in Moz just looks and feels wrong). Any browser I use must absolutely be able to maintain state between sessions. I'm constantly using features like shift+ctrl+click, reload-every-X-min. I also use the mail-client and I want it on to the left of my browser window (integrated, just like it is in Opera).
Unfortunately the Opera 7.0 release was way b0rken for me, but if they can ship one or two updates more (basically I couldn't use the email client, I was getting SSL_write() errors in my server log and messages never went out (and Opera didn't mention a thing!). That's bad, but if they can fix it then Opera 7 might become the best thing since Opera 6.05 which I'm back to using now.
The only thing I truly lack in Opera now is a "developer raw tab" where I could see the HTTP requests and answers in the-raw, with a quick toggle between ASCII vs Hex+ASCII.
Other than that I guess a bit better control over plugins (enable/disable) would be nice. Don't remember if that's fixed in 7, but in the 6-series you'll have to much around a plugins-ignore.ini which is only read on startup.
And oh, seeing the raw message+headers in the mail client. Where did that go? There was this odd hidden function (ctrl+shift+y or something) to copy the headers to the C'n'P-buffer, but...
Opera software, if you're reading this; Fix the mail client and I'll give you more of my money.
There's just tno reason for JMS to touch Star Trek, he's got a better world already in B5! The only thing ST has going for it is the Borg, but they've been stripped from "mega menacing opponents" to just another random enemy, easily defeated by the end of an episode.:-\
Well, if the studios would promise him a B5 movies or series after rescuing ST... but no.
Of course you can force someone to vote some particular way. "Vote Klopper or we'll kill your child". First of all this could be a very real threat and most people would rather lose their vote than risk anything, and secondly, with todays tech checking up on that vote wouldn't be too hard. (Think small camera, tampered voting cards (radioactive marking?), etc, etc.).
Anyone proclaiming the current systems to be tamper-proof, are of course in a state of sin.
I've got to say, that isn't "insightful" at all. First, they don't want to redistribute 125MB of movies, and secondly, performance is a complete non-issue in this case. Have you actually played the game and seen the movies, or are you just pulling opinions out of... a hat?
I can only reiterate my perplexion. The movies are such a small part of the game that they could easily be replaced with stills + the voice-over and you wouldn't miss a thing.
Had the voice-over been a separate resource, which would have been good design, then using the solution I outlined would have been painless. The sound in the movies would have been separate vorbises (or mp3s if you go with the flow) which would not have to be touched at all. That leaves the animation itself, which as I said could be replaced with a few stills, which could easily be redistributed.
I gotta say, I wonder if there might not be more sinister problems with the "port" and this is just a convenient excuse to use in explaining it to the "dumb masses".
Mistakes you make early in the development process are the ones you pay the most for at the end.
One must remember that Miles has been on the market since before Windows was big for games. Programmers used Miles under DOS too, which might explain why they continue to use it even when there are alternatives. Certainly, one might prefer an API one is familiar with, to learning a new one. Since I've never used it I really can't speak with any sort on authority on the matter, but going from one Sound API to another should not be a GIGANTIG undertaking if one's code is properly encapsulated.
As for Vorbis, I'd again assume that their code is properly encapsulated. Switching to vorbis should not have been a big problem. Sure, you might say "what they have works, why change?", but such argument leads down to the road of hard porting.
If you read my posts on the NWN board you see me laying out more features with using Vorbis than just "freedom". There are _real_ benefits to be had, including solid integration with the toolkit (which would be a big feature).
"It's getting footsteps to play with shitloads of clever filters"
I've never worked with OpenAL, but I was under the impression that it provided all that is needed in the way of effects. Have you played the game? I really don't think there's much more to it than the basic positional sound, which OpenAL ought to handle.
I know sound-programming can be hell, especially if you'd have to go from one model to another like callback to pull, but I'm just sooo disappointed that they're having these problems. I really thought they were working on making it portable from day one (or at least two years back from the release).
The fact that they couldn't do their own Mac-port of the Infinity Engine games should have been a wakeup call to write NWN to be portable from the get go.
Bioware were my heroes. I thought they did everything right... and now this, first they support the evil mp3 consortium for no good reason, then they show that they have in fact not been doing regular compiles on differnt platforms (I refuse to believe that they have and that we would then find ourselves in this position), and to top it off... they didn't even have a plan for the future when they dropped all those proprietary technologies in the game.
I'm sorry biowarians -- I will always respect you enormously for what you did with BG1 and the whole CRPG scene with the IE offspring, but NWN just seems completely failed to me.
I started to get suspicious when I found out that Stan Melax left Bioware (where he'd done work on the 3D side of MGK2 and was in charge of the Aurora 3D Engine used in NWN) for EA, of all places. But maybe he had to move.
First of all, does this not sound like a gread opportunity for RAD to make a chunk-of-change by providing a BINK decompressor for linux?
Secondly, the movies are not a big part of the game. There's only eleven of them in total, including such highmarks as "AtariLogo.bik", "WOTCLogo.bik" and "BiowareLogo.bik". The in-game movies are the intro and then one per chapter and the ending. The consist mostly of images fading together and a storyteller voice. Recreating this in code (change the movies to a series of pictures) and possibly extracting the voice and layering that on top should NOT be a big problem. Sure it won't be the _same_, but it'd work
But I must tell you, I'm disappointed with Bioware on this. I _urged_ them to use more open formats. I made numerous posts on the benefits to them of them going with Vorbis instead of mp3... and that all ended with one of their engineer saying words to the effect "Don't you worry, we'll have all our licensing ducks in a row".
Well goodie, but then why are we having this problem?
I've just got to wonder if the problem with bink isn't that they _can't_ reverse-engineer it (I'm sure it can be done, especially since there are free tools so you can compress whatever you want and analyze the output. The file structure is actually very simple and I already know the header and chunk format)... or maybe there's the legal implications of doing it.
Man, those licensing ducks sure lined up fine!
(the problems with the sound API sounds odd, I don't see of SDL_sound/OpenAL wouldn't be enough)
The "news" isn't that there's a new generic "old-game-loader" out, the "news" is that you can now run Ultima 7 on Windows. For that purpose, Exult is better. That Exult is a re-implementation is hardly a secret and not something that one should feel the need to point out (it's in the domain "so obvious it hurts")
Furthermore, I haven't checked the source of this loader, but I'll wager it's very executable-specific, and I doubt that many other games would benefit from this particular loader (that is, there's already less intrusive ways of playing most games).
In short; the whole problem with U7 is the messed up hack of a memory model (real flat mode) the cracksmoking freaks chose to use. Exult, which is newsworthy in itself, solved the problem, and more.
The work pattern needn't be any different on Win32. I don't get this fixation with startup times either. My preference is Opera, and I usually start it once per boot. Then I have it running.
The nice thing about Opera though, is should I decide to shut it down, it will come up -- when I run it the next time -- in the exact same status as when I shut it down, including positioning inside documents. Can moz/phoenix do that yet? That's a pretty important feature to me.
Also, there's no lack of virtual desktops, should one want them. They're even included in the nVidia graphics drivers nowadays, so there's a nontrivial amount of people who _could_ use virtual desktops on Win32 without the need to switch "explorer" or install any extra software whatsoever.
.. so if you haven't read the book already (what kind of a geek are you?) but are watching the movies, then DON'T WATCH THIS TRAILER, IT'LL SPOIL IT FOR YOU.
Of course, the contents of a can of coke is consumed whereas after you buy a copy of windows you can use it forever (basically). That's the problem right there for MS. The "consumable OS" is their holy grail!
I'm with the OP. The biggest problem for MS (and some other software producers) is that after a certain point of software maturity, many customers will not have any reason to upgrade. This is why MS is so keen to introduce "renting" software and also why old systems are so rapidly dropped from being supported, something which is still a useful ploy to instill fear in managers. "Oh! no! No support?! Must upgrade!"
Other questions: Does it require the OS to be up to be used (basically, must I plug in a real monitor to fiddle with the BIOS?) and will these be the "Windows Modems" of monitors?
Slashdot Mirror
Then, as I said, you're part of the problem. If you don't realize that, that's doubly sad.
People who say things like "I have to [...] get thinks to look the same" are saying "I don't understand the web" and should probably not be working with it until they clue on.
I do. So what's your point, that it's okay to be an unprofessional prick when few people will notice?
..is fucking irritating. Don't mess with it!
NO! It it not necessary. It just makes things worse in the long run, so if you're doing this _you're_ part of the problem, so don't complain about how you have to treat browsers differently.
Sheeesh. Write to the standards, not browsers.
(And no, this isn't "insightful", it's totally _obvious_ to anyone with a clue)I'm with you completely. I've been an Opera-fanboy since the 3.x-beta series. It just get more things right than other browsers -- and I'm continually looking at the alternatives (inkl. Mozilla, Phoenix and Konq), but the feeling isn'ty there.
There's small things that I need, like the forward/backward gestures, I need my "tabs" at the bottom of the screen (the ones in Moz just looks and feels wrong). Any browser I use must absolutely be able to maintain state between sessions. I'm constantly using features like shift+ctrl+click, reload-every-X-min. I also use the mail-client and I want it on to the left of my browser window (integrated, just like it is in Opera).
Unfortunately the Opera 7.0 release was way b0rken for me, but if they can ship one or two updates more (basically I couldn't use the email client, I was getting SSL_write() errors in my server log and messages never went out (and Opera didn't mention a thing!). That's bad, but if they can fix it then Opera 7 might become the best thing since Opera 6.05 which I'm back to using now.
The only thing I truly lack in Opera now is a "developer raw tab" where I could see the HTTP requests and answers in the-raw, with a quick toggle between ASCII vs Hex+ASCII.
Other than that I guess a bit better control over plugins (enable/disable) would be nice. Don't remember if that's fixed in 7, but in the 6-series you'll have to much around a plugins-ignore.ini which is only read on startup.
And oh, seeing the raw message+headers in the mail client. Where did that go? There was this odd hidden function (ctrl+shift+y or something) to copy the headers to the C'n'P-buffer, but...
Opera software, if you're reading this; Fix the mail client and I'll give you more of my money.
There's just tno reason for JMS to touch Star Trek, he's got a better world already in B5! The only thing ST has going for it is the Borg, but they've been stripped from "mega menacing opponents" to just another random enemy, easily defeated by the end of an episode. :-\
Well, if the studios would promise him a B5 movies or series after rescuing ST... but no.
ADPCM is lossy, so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at...
I can assure you that FLAC and codecs specifically modelled around sound compression will -- in general -- outdo something general like lz77+huffman.
Please tell me again how Fat Babies -- a gamebiz rumor site -- is off topic in this discussion about a new gamebiz rumor site?!
Some competition for Fat Babies then...
Of course you can force someone to vote some particular way. "Vote Klopper or we'll kill your child". First of all this could be a very real threat and most people would rather lose their vote than risk anything, and secondly, with todays tech checking up on that vote wouldn't be too hard. (Think small camera, tampered voting cards (radioactive marking?), etc, etc.).
Anyone proclaiming the current systems to be tamper-proof, are of course in a state of sin.
I've got to say, that isn't "insightful" at all. First, they don't want to redistribute 125MB of movies, and secondly, performance is a complete non-issue in this case. Have you actually played the game and seen the movies, or are you just pulling opinions out of... a hat?
I can only reiterate my perplexion. The movies are such a small part of the game that they could easily be replaced with stills + the voice-over and you wouldn't miss a thing.
Had the voice-over been a separate resource, which would have been good design, then using the solution I outlined would have been painless. The sound in the movies would have been separate vorbises (or mp3s if you go with the flow) which would not have to be touched at all. That leaves the animation itself, which as I said could be replaced with a few stills, which could easily be redistributed.
I gotta say, I wonder if there might not be more sinister problems with the "port" and this is just a convenient excuse to use in explaining it to the "dumb masses".
Mistakes you make early in the development process are the ones you pay the most for at the end.
One must remember that Miles has been on the market since before Windows was big for games. Programmers used Miles under DOS too, which might explain why they continue to use it even when there are alternatives. Certainly, one might prefer an API one is familiar with, to learning a new one. Since I've never used it I really can't speak with any sort on authority on the matter, but going from one Sound API to another should not be a GIGANTIG undertaking if one's code is properly encapsulated.
As for Vorbis, I'd again assume that their code is properly encapsulated. Switching to vorbis should not have been a big problem. Sure, you might say "what they have works, why change?", but such argument leads down to the road of hard porting.
If you read my posts on the NWN board you see me laying out more features with using Vorbis than just "freedom". There are _real_ benefits to be had, including solid integration with the toolkit (which would be a big feature).
Join Mike Melanson's mailing list and try to get him on the project. Seems like he know what he's doing.
(It's pretty amazing that I read that useful text you linked to some ten hour earlier in the day, before this story hit slashdot)
Personally, I don't know what good I'd be, but I could stand by the sideline and cheer you on? ;-)
"It's getting footsteps to play with shitloads of clever filters"
I've never worked with OpenAL, but I was under the impression that it provided all that is needed in the way of effects. Have you played the game? I really don't think there's much more to it than the basic positional sound, which OpenAL ought to handle.
I know sound-programming can be hell, especially if you'd have to go from one model to another like callback to pull, but I'm just sooo disappointed that they're having these problems. I really thought they were working on making it portable from day one (or at least two years back from the release).
The fact that they couldn't do their own Mac-port of the Infinity Engine games should have been a wakeup call to write NWN to be portable from the get go.
Bioware were my heroes. I thought they did everything right... and now this, first they support the evil mp3 consortium for no good reason, then they show that they have in fact not been doing regular compiles on differnt platforms (I refuse to believe that they have and that we would then find ourselves in this position), and to top it off... they didn't even have a plan for the future when they dropped all those proprietary technologies in the game.
I'm sorry biowarians -- I will always respect you enormously for what you did with BG1 and the whole CRPG scene with the IE offspring, but NWN just seems completely failed to me.
I started to get suspicious when I found out that Stan Melax left Bioware (where he'd done work on the 3D side of MGK2 and was in charge of the Aurora 3D Engine used in NWN) for EA, of all places. But maybe he had to move.
First of all, does this not sound like a gread opportunity for RAD to make a chunk-of-change by providing a BINK decompressor for linux?
Secondly, the movies are not a big part of the game. There's only eleven of them in total, including such highmarks as "AtariLogo.bik", "WOTCLogo.bik" and "BiowareLogo.bik". The in-game movies are the intro and then one per chapter and the ending. The consist mostly of images fading together and a storyteller voice. Recreating this in code (change the movies to a series of pictures) and possibly extracting the voice and layering that on top should NOT be a big problem. Sure it won't be the _same_, but it'd work
But I must tell you, I'm disappointed with Bioware on this. I _urged_ them to use more open formats. I made numerous posts on the benefits to them of them going with Vorbis instead of mp3... and that all ended with one of their engineer saying words to the effect "Don't you worry, we'll have all our licensing ducks in a row".
Well goodie, but then why are we having this problem?
I've just got to wonder if the problem with bink isn't that they _can't_ reverse-engineer it (I'm sure it can be done, especially since there are free tools so you can compress whatever you want and analyze the output. The file structure is actually very simple and I already know the header and chunk format)... or maybe there's the legal implications of doing it.
Man, those licensing ducks sure lined up fine!
(the problems with the sound API sounds odd, I don't see of SDL_sound/OpenAL wouldn't be enough)
They're not going to "fix it", but there's a Mod that does release the camera, so if you really want it, you can have it.
I won't spend time countering your "no customizability"-statement, but I can agree that NWN was nowhere as good as I should have been.
The "news" isn't that there's a new generic "old-game-loader" out, the "news" is that you can now run Ultima 7 on Windows. For that purpose, Exult is better. That Exult is a re-implementation is hardly a secret and not something that one should feel the need to point out (it's in the domain "so obvious it hurts")
Furthermore, I haven't checked the source of this loader, but I'll wager it's very executable-specific, and I doubt that many other games would benefit from this particular loader (that is, there's already less intrusive ways of playing most games).
In short; the whole problem with U7 is the messed up hack of a memory model (real flat mode) the cracksmoking freaks chose to use. Exult, which is newsworthy in itself, solved the problem, and more.
Just use Exult instead. Must be a slow newsday?
The work pattern needn't be any different on Win32. I don't get this fixation with startup times either. My preference is Opera, and I usually start it once per boot. Then I have it running.
The nice thing about Opera though, is should I decide to shut it down, it will come up -- when I run it the next time -- in the exact same status as when I shut it down, including positioning inside documents. Can moz/phoenix do that yet? That's a pretty important feature to me.
Also, there's no lack of virtual desktops, should one want them. They're even included in the nVidia graphics drivers nowadays, so there's a nontrivial amount of people who _could_ use virtual desktops on Win32 without the need to switch "explorer" or install any extra software whatsoever.
<striped background>
Cracked by Mr.Z
</striped background>
1992? Sorry, you don't get to feel old :-)
.. so if you haven't read the book already (what kind of a geek are you?) but are watching the movies, then DON'T WATCH THIS TRAILER, IT'LL SPOIL IT FOR YOU.
What were they thinking?
I fully expect MS version of "XML based .doc" to be simply a base-64 encode of the .doc we have today, enclosed in a pair of XML-tags.
Thinking "Oh, it's XML! Then we can all understand what it says!" is naive.
SGI. The sentence use the practical reverse-bananana compression idiom, the original which was first revealed in the holy book of HAKMEM
Please add the string "I am not a" in front of your Geek Member Card.
You mean like the Micro Music Clip Players? :-)
Of course, the contents of a can of coke is consumed whereas after you buy a copy of windows you can use it forever (basically). That's the problem right there for MS. The "consumable OS" is their holy grail!
I'm with the OP. The biggest problem for MS (and some other software producers) is that after a certain point of software maturity, many customers will not have any reason to upgrade. This is why MS is so keen to introduce "renting" software and also why old systems are so rapidly dropped from being supported, something which is still a useful ploy to instill fear in managers. "Oh! no! No support?! Must upgrade!"
Other questions: Does it require the OS to be up to be used (basically, must I plug in a real monitor to fiddle with the BIOS?) and will these be the "Windows Modems" of monitors?
I don't think these are for me.