Let's face it, there has been little to no innovation in Game markets
I might have agreed with you a year or two ago, but companies seem to be starting to do some pretty interesting stuff, and if you haven't at least looked at games like Sacrifice, No One Lives Forever (a FPS, admittedly, but very clever), Giants, and up-coming titles like Black and White, you're missing out on some cool stuff.
Of course, the article was about consoles, so I have to mention some of the more innovative recent console games, like Jet Grind Radio, Shenmue, Perfect Dark, SSX, etc.
I worked at an organization that had been using good old sendmail and pop3 and Eudora and things were okay. Then, the command came from up high to switch over to Exchange.
While it's possible that the IT dept. didn't set things up well [although this is unlikely, since the company was large and had a pretty experienced IT team], without question, retrieving email was significantly slower. For remote users connecting via modem, it was even worse. Also, the servers had a tendancy to go down a lot. I seem to recall everyone had to install some sort of Outlook plugin that auto-compressed attachments, which may have reduced strain on the server, but made opening email with attachments slower still. I ended up yanking that plugin.
Of course, this is just my experience, and it doesn't mean all Exchange setups are going to be slower. Likewise, I can sort of see the pros to going Exchange/Outlook -- the synchronized appointment/scheduling stuff is useful, and the contact lists, when set up right, are useful. Although, I suspect you could do all of this with other tools as well.
Parting advice -- do not install cc:Mail, no matter what the admins say.
"The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, (2001). Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug."
What ever happened to the new 3D API, called Farenheit, that was to be co-developed by MS and SGI? I remember it was announced not long after the GL vs. DX wars went into full swing, about 3 years ago. Where did that go?
Farenheit was basically dropped by both MS and SGI. SGI opted to concentrate more on the open-source, OpenGL on Linux, etc. There's a lot of debate on whether MS really ever intended to do stuff with Farenheit, or if it was a merely something they did to keep folks busy while they simultaneously marketed DX/D3D.
Does really matter, however. The end result is that Farenheit is effectively dead.
Gabriel Knight isn't exactly the best choice to represent all of adventure-based gaming. It does make for pretty humorous commentary.
Of course, those who still want to play adventure games can always check out the adventure games that continue to be produced by a small but dedicated community of clever authors via ftp.gmd.de, or get involved with ongoing debates on usenet at rec.arts.int-fiction.
But, I'm wondering whether folks think that some of the puzzle-based tricks of old adventure games are actually finding their way back into current FPS. Examples that come to mind are the Thief series, and maybe Deus Ex. Thoughts?
Isn't openness one reason ethernet is so successful?
Hmm. Maybe, but I'd have to say the main reason Ethernet was successful was because it was simple to implement, and worked. There were (and are) other LAN protocols standardized at roughly the same time (other IEEE 802's include Token Ring and Token Bus, among others) that haven't been nearly as popular, not because they have significant failings, but because they're more expensive to implement. The IEEE specifications for things like Token Ring were just as "open" as Ethernet.
The invention of Ethernet (which was more or less directly a result of Metcalf's PhD. thesis) lead to the propagation of Local Area Networks (LANs). The Internet is really a WAN, and owes a lot more of it's creation to things like TCP/IP.
Ethernet doesn't really have an "open specification". It has roots in the official IEEE 802.3 specification, but this isn't really "open" by today's open-source standards.
Bob (IMHO) is really more of a hardware/low-level person, so he's really looking at things from a different perspective. OpenSource and hardware is still working out some kinks (c.f. open-source video and network drivers). Oh, and there's that whole CEO-of-3COM thing he did for a while, so assume that he has a slight corporate slant.
I can't wait until my display device has comparable resolution to my hardcopy device.
Actually, this exists already (sorry, no link). Read in some graphics magazine that the military uses a special grayscale display that has 600DPI and is as sharp as a printed page. Costs an obscene amount of money of course.
I remember back in 1992, at SIGGRAPH, I was watching a demonstration where someone (at UNC, I think) had spent a ton of research grant money on connecting a electron tunneling microscope to a force-feedback arm. In his demonstration, he showed how he used this to provide tactile sensations of the molecular surface being scanned. "I could actually _feel_ the surface of the molecules" he said.
There was a "cool" factor to this, certainly, but I said to myself, "Self, how is _feeling_ the molecule surface really useful for, well, anything? Will it make things easier to figure out what compounds will bond? Doubt it, unless you're good at braille." Basically, the whole thing seemed like a waste of money to me.
Years later, force feedback still has yet to impress me. There have been some things that are partially interesting (some FF 3D modeling tools recently), but on the whole, even in places where FF seems applicable (e.g. Driving games), it just doesn't work for me. This Logitech thing seems particularly useless...why would I want to feel my UI or images, again, unless I was blind.
John Carmack was quoted once as saying force-feedback was a gimick (feel free to let me know I'm misquoting). I tend to agree.
The text-adventure gaming world still exists, albeit in a more fan-driven form. Take a look at
http://www.ifarchive.org, or even look up "interactive fiction" on about.com or any search engine.
Granted, Halo looks simply awesome. However, I'm fairly sure that Bungie has stated that they won't abandon PC (and notably Mac) users [Steve Jobs would look pretty stupid using Halo as a conference keynote, and then not be able to deliver it...but maybe Bungie won't care about pissing off Jobs, since MS pays their bills now...].
In any event, I'm not certain I'd buy an X-Box just for one title, even if it does look like an amazing title. Bear in mind that you won't be able to buy Halo until 2001, and assume that by that time, someone will come out with a title that looks and plays almost as good, and then Halo won't really be as strong a selling point anymore.
The hard-core (or, as you put it, "desperate") gamer might still buy an X-Box for Halo, but will there be the millions of hard-core buyers MS needs to compete against Sony and the rest? They'll need more than one killer title to do that.
Anyone getting rid of any old Nextstep OS CDs?
on
Looking Back At NeXT
·
· Score: 1
I'm starting a collection of "dead operating system" CDs as wall-decoration. I need a Nextstep CD, and if anyone has one that they're just planning on tossing, I'll take it off your hands.
I went hunting on EBay, but some crazy people were paying $50 and up for used Nextstep CDs, which I couldn't justify for my particular purposes.
Yeah, sure. Too bad it was such a huge PITA to code for. There's a reason some cool-but-too-hard-to-use technology often finds its way to the landfills of America...
Carmack's noteworthy comment in his talk that id's plans to port Doom III to the X-Box are pretty much set, but it's less likely for PSX2 or other consoles demonstrates one big point in the X-Box's favor...easy to develop for for PC game programmers.
Hmm. As I sit here thinking about your post, I have to respectfully disagree. The razor-blade analogy works for some things. For example, I would not be surprised if in a few years, HP starts giving away all their consumer-level printers free, and charges $50.00 for ink cartridges. However, this process usually works best when there aren't existing, cheaper-in-the-long-run alternatives.
In the case of the X-Box, the odds are extremely good that anyone buying one in 2001 will have a home PC of some sort. The major selling point for consoles has, and will always be the actual availability of game titles that either play better or are otherwise unavailable for PCs. I just don't see people buying non-game "applications" if they already have a PC, and it already does non-game applications better and easier.
Of course, MS can still make a killing using the usual game-titles-royalties model if they come up with enough good titles in what will be a fairly well saturated market by that point (c.f. PSX2, Dreamcast and Dolphin, amongst others). We'll have to wait and see on that one.
IMHO, Nethack is certainly a "classic" game, but not in the same vein as the article (e.g. "classic arcade game"). I'd rate it as classic mainly due to age, although it is still maintained, and also, modern games have essentially used it as "inspiration" -- Blizzard's Diablo series, for example.
Reyes-Infografica was one of the larget plugin makers for MAX, until they had some financial difficulties. They're back now, thankfully.
Current rumor is that they will release some updated versions of the plugins they had for older releases of MAX (Cloth simulator, Metaballs modeller, etc) for free. See the rumor at: http://www.maxundergro und.com/mu/news.php3?mode=read&key=483
As far as I can tell, there is no immediate application for NURBS (non-uniform rational b-slines; see Rhino3d for more info). I think that the PS2 is the only gaming platform that supports them, and even there it is too slow for much.
Not full-blown NURBs, perhaps, but Bezier patches are definitely going to make their way into more and more games very soon. PSX2 and the Dolphin will support patches, and ATI's latest does too (albeit in a hacked kind of way).
Good character animation tools are critical too, as well as Level-of-detail tools, and now, things like sub-div surfaces. Just poly+texture really isn't enough anymore, if you want to be competitive in the game market.
People have already commented that there is a good deal of anime that actually rivals western film/tv work in plot/theme/characters, so I won't dwell on this.
However, you did mention that perhaps reading Japanese literature is one solution. I just wanted to point out that most Anime videos actually came about due to original "Manga", or Japanese 'comic books' (so to speak). In many cases, the manga are much better than the videos (if you understand Japanese) and are filled with plot/theme/characterization...far more so than your typical Wolverine(tm) title.
Articles like this really annoy me, because they give the appearance of delivering the "truth" to the masses, when, in actuality, they're only serving up "hype".
In this case, Katz's article seeks to position the current situation as "old-versus-young". The emphasis on the "versus". Old folks are standing in the way of young folks' progress.
In the real world(tm), emphasizing antagonism between groups never produces progress. So why write articles that seek to popularize these sort of ideas? Is it because Katz was badly mistreated as a child and needs to make sure that he doesn't get along with people of a different age group?
In the new media, 18-year olds are going to have to work with 40-year olds eventually. It's not like everyone under 30 can cut themselves off from society. Who does the accounting and has surplus cash that the younger folks use for their startup money? Who produces the goods that eCommerce sites sell? Do people like Katz really think that the younger generation is so naive that they believe that they can suddenly exist on their own, autonomously, like some weird version of Brave New World?
And before you start flaming, yes, I'm under 30, and yes, I work in the web+new-media industry. Okay, now you can start flaming.
If MAME folks and those who review MAME are concerned about copyright issues and what-not, they should consider releasing a devkit to write old-style arcade games. Preserve old classics by preserving the platform (emulators in this case) by making new games that popularize the platform. Besides, my last programmable Z80 fried last week...
Well, okay, only partially serious here. But for you real old-timers, look at what Inform and others did to prevent old text adventures from dying out completely.
Well, Win4Lin appears to be a similar product. I don't think it comes from the original Locus Merge, however -- after doing a little research, Locus Computing was bought by Platinum, which in turn was bought by CA, and along the way, Locus Merge seems to have fallen into a black hole.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's face it, there has been little to no innovation in Game markets
I might have agreed with you a year or two ago, but companies seem to be starting to do some pretty interesting stuff, and if you haven't at least looked at games like Sacrifice, No One Lives Forever (a FPS, admittedly, but very clever), Giants, and up-coming titles like Black and White, you're missing out on some cool stuff.
Of course, the article was about consoles, so I have to mention some of the more innovative recent console games, like Jet Grind Radio, Shenmue, Perfect Dark, SSX, etc.
I worked at an organization that had been using good old sendmail and pop3 and Eudora and things were okay. Then, the command came from up high to switch over to Exchange.
While it's possible that the IT dept. didn't set things up well [although this is unlikely, since the company was large and had a pretty experienced IT team], without question, retrieving email was significantly slower. For remote users connecting via modem, it was even worse. Also, the servers had a tendancy to go down a lot. I seem to recall everyone had to install some sort of Outlook plugin that auto-compressed attachments, which may have reduced strain on the server, but made opening email with attachments slower still. I ended up yanking that plugin.
Of course, this is just my experience, and it doesn't mean all Exchange setups are going to be slower. Likewise, I can sort of see the pros to going Exchange/Outlook -- the synchronized appointment/scheduling stuff is useful, and the contact lists, when set up right, are useful. Although, I suspect you could do all of this with other tools as well.
Parting advice -- do not install cc:Mail, no matter what the admins say.
"The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, (2001). Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug."
What ever happened to the new 3D API, called Farenheit, that was to be co-developed by MS and SGI? I remember it was announced not long after the GL vs. DX wars went into full swing, about 3 years ago. Where did that go?
Farenheit was basically dropped by both MS and SGI. SGI opted to concentrate more on the open-source, OpenGL on Linux, etc. There's a lot of debate on whether MS really ever intended to do stuff with Farenheit, or if it was a merely something they did to keep folks busy while they simultaneously marketed DX/D3D.
Does really matter, however. The end result is that Farenheit is effectively dead.
Gabriel Knight isn't exactly the best choice to represent all of adventure-based gaming. It does make for pretty humorous commentary.
Of course, those who still want to play adventure games can always check out the adventure games that continue to be produced by a small but dedicated community of clever authors via ftp.gmd.de, or get involved with ongoing debates on usenet at rec.arts.int-fiction.
But, I'm wondering whether folks think that some of the puzzle-based tricks of old adventure games are actually finding their way back into current FPS. Examples that come to mind are the Thief series, and maybe Deus Ex. Thoughts?
Isn't openness one reason ethernet is so successful?
Hmm. Maybe, but I'd have to say the main reason Ethernet was successful was because it was simple to implement, and worked. There were (and are) other LAN protocols standardized at roughly the same time (other IEEE 802's include Token Ring and Token Bus, among others) that haven't been nearly as popular, not because they have significant failings, but because they're more expensive to implement. The IEEE specifications for things like Token Ring were just as "open" as Ethernet.
The invention of Ethernet (which was more or less directly a result of Metcalf's PhD. thesis) lead to the propagation of Local Area Networks (LANs). The Internet is really a WAN, and owes a lot more of it's creation to things like TCP/IP.
Ethernet doesn't really have an "open specification". It has roots in the official IEEE 802.3 specification, but this isn't really "open" by today's open-source standards.
Bob (IMHO) is really more of a hardware/low-level person, so he's really looking at things from a different perspective. OpenSource and hardware is still working out some kinks (c.f. open-source video and network drivers). Oh, and there's that whole CEO-of-3COM thing he did for a while, so assume that he has a slight corporate slant.
I can't wait until my display device has comparable resolution to my hardcopy device.
Actually, this exists already (sorry, no link). Read in some graphics magazine that the military uses a special grayscale display that has 600DPI and is as sharp as a printed page. Costs an obscene amount of money of course.
I remember back in 1992, at SIGGRAPH, I was watching a demonstration where someone (at UNC, I think) had spent a ton of research grant money on connecting a electron tunneling microscope to a force-feedback arm. In his demonstration, he showed how he used this to provide tactile sensations of the molecular surface being scanned. "I could actually _feel_ the surface of the molecules" he said.
There was a "cool" factor to this, certainly, but I said to myself, "Self, how is _feeling_ the molecule surface really useful for, well, anything? Will it make things easier to figure out what compounds will bond? Doubt it, unless you're good at braille." Basically, the whole thing seemed like a waste of money to me.
Years later, force feedback still has yet to impress me. There have been some things that are partially interesting (some FF 3D modeling tools recently), but on the whole, even in places where FF seems applicable (e.g. Driving games), it just doesn't work for me. This Logitech thing seems particularly useless...why would I want to feel my UI or images, again, unless I was blind.
John Carmack was quoted once as saying force-feedback was a gimick (feel free to let me know I'm misquoting). I tend to agree.
The text-adventure gaming world still exists, albeit in a more fan-driven form. Take a look at http://www.ifarchive.org, or even look up "interactive fiction" on about.com or any search engine.
This is a good point. Racing games had faded away for a while, but now they appear to be making a comeback, mostly thanks to Atari.
Sometimes, however, genres do really die out. I certainly hope the time of Tetris and Tetris-clones is dead and buried.
One word (name): Halo.
Granted, Halo looks simply awesome. However, I'm fairly sure that Bungie has stated that they won't abandon PC (and notably Mac) users [Steve Jobs would look pretty stupid using Halo as a conference keynote, and then not be able to deliver it...but maybe Bungie won't care about pissing off Jobs, since MS pays their bills now...].
In any event, I'm not certain I'd buy an X-Box just for one title, even if it does look like an amazing title. Bear in mind that you won't be able to buy Halo until 2001, and assume that by that time, someone will come out with a title that looks and plays almost as good, and then Halo won't really be as strong a selling point anymore.
The hard-core (or, as you put it, "desperate") gamer might still buy an X-Box for Halo, but will there be the millions of hard-core buyers MS needs to compete against Sony and the rest? They'll need more than one killer title to do that.
I'm starting a collection of "dead operating system" CDs as wall-decoration. I need a Nextstep CD, and if anyone has one that they're just planning on tossing, I'll take it off your hands.
I went hunting on EBay, but some crazy people were paying $50 and up for used Nextstep CDs, which I couldn't justify for my particular purposes.
in some respects it was way ahead of it's time
Yeah, sure. Too bad it was such a huge PITA to code for. There's a reason some cool-but-too-hard-to-use technology often finds its way to the landfills of America...
Carmack's noteworthy comment in his talk that id's plans to port Doom III to the X-Box are pretty much set, but it's less likely for PSX2 or other consoles demonstrates one big point in the X-Box's favor...easy to develop for for PC game programmers.
Hmm. As I sit here thinking about your post, I have to respectfully disagree. The razor-blade analogy works for some things. For example, I would not be surprised if in a few years, HP starts giving away all their consumer-level printers free, and charges $50.00 for ink cartridges. However, this process usually works best when there aren't existing, cheaper-in-the-long-run alternatives.
In the case of the X-Box, the odds are extremely good that anyone buying one in 2001 will have a home PC of some sort. The major selling point for consoles has, and will always be the actual availability of game titles that either play better or are otherwise unavailable for PCs. I just don't see people buying non-game "applications" if they already have a PC, and it already does non-game applications better and easier.
Of course, MS can still make a killing using the usual game-titles-royalties model if they come up with enough good titles in what will be a fairly well saturated market by that point (c.f. PSX2, Dreamcast and Dolphin, amongst others). We'll have to wait and see on that one.
VRML's primarily concerned with 3D, SVG 2D. Fairly different uses.
VRML has been quiet for a while, but some folks are using it...actually more than I would've expected -- take a look at http://www.web3droundup.org.
IMHO, Nethack is certainly a "classic" game, but not in the same vein as the article (e.g. "classic arcade game"). I'd rate it as classic mainly due to age, although it is still maintained, and also, modern games have essentially used it as "inspiration" -- Blizzard's Diablo series, for example.
Reyes-Infografica was one of the larget plugin makers for MAX, until they had some financial difficulties. They're back now, thankfully.
Current rumor is that they will release some updated versions of the plugins they had for older releases of MAX (Cloth simulator, Metaballs modeller, etc) for free. See the rumor at: http://www.maxundergro und.com/mu/news.php3?mode=read&key=483
As far as I can tell, there is no immediate application for NURBS (non-uniform rational b-slines; see Rhino3d for more info). I think that the PS2 is the only gaming platform that supports them, and even there it is too slow for much.
Not full-blown NURBs, perhaps, but Bezier patches are definitely going to make their way into more and more games very soon. PSX2 and the Dolphin will support patches, and ATI's latest does too (albeit in a hacked kind of way).
Good character animation tools are critical too, as well as Level-of-detail tools, and now, things like sub-div surfaces. Just poly+texture really isn't enough anymore, if you want to be competitive in the game market.
People have already commented that there is a good deal of anime that actually rivals western film/tv work in plot/theme/characters, so I won't dwell on this.
However, you did mention that perhaps reading Japanese literature is one solution. I just wanted to point out that most Anime videos actually came about due to original "Manga", or Japanese 'comic books' (so to speak). In many cases, the manga are much better than the videos (if you understand Japanese) and are filled with plot/theme/characterization...far more so than your typical Wolverine(tm) title.
If I remember correctly, Taco Bell uses SCO. If the merger happens, does this mean Taco Bell will open source their infamous "green sauce"?
Sorry, was just feeling a little random today.
Articles like this really annoy me, because they give the appearance of delivering the "truth" to the masses, when, in actuality, they're only serving up "hype".
In this case, Katz's article seeks to position the current situation as "old-versus-young". The emphasis on the "versus". Old folks are standing in the way of young folks' progress.
In the real world(tm), emphasizing antagonism between groups never produces progress. So why write articles that seek to popularize these sort of ideas? Is it because Katz was badly mistreated as a child and needs to make sure that he doesn't get along with people of a different age group?
In the new media, 18-year olds are going to have to work with 40-year olds eventually. It's not like everyone under 30 can cut themselves off from society. Who does the accounting and has surplus cash that the younger folks use for their startup money? Who produces the goods that eCommerce sites sell? Do people like Katz really think that the younger generation is so naive that they believe that they can suddenly exist on their own, autonomously, like some weird version of Brave New World?
And before you start flaming, yes, I'm under 30, and yes, I work in the web+new-media industry. Okay, now you can start flaming.
If MAME folks and those who review MAME are concerned about copyright issues and what-not, they should consider releasing a devkit to write old-style arcade games. Preserve old classics by preserving the platform (emulators in this case) by making new games that popularize the platform. Besides, my last programmable Z80 fried last week...
Well, okay, only partially serious here. But for you real old-timers, look at what Inform and others did to prevent old text adventures from dying out completely.
I believe, if memory serves, that Pong comes "built-in" to the current version of MAME. No ROM required.
Well, Win4Lin appears to be a similar product. I don't think it comes from the original Locus Merge, however -- after doing a little research, Locus Computing was bought by Platinum, which in turn was bought by CA, and along the way, Locus Merge seems to have fallen into a black hole.