Company announces Game, the newest innovation in Genre.
Company creates message boards so fans can talk about the minimal information leaked about Game.
Enthusiastic fans flock to the idea of Game, which sounds just like what they wish that Other Game was, or the sum of Average Game and Other Game. Fan sites start appearing, although nobody knows anything about Game.
Company shows nonplayable movies or screenshots of Game at E3. Booth babes and souveniers are rampant.
As the months get closer to ship date, Company buys more and more favorable industry hype. Favorable reviews for Game start appearing in professional game review houses, despite the fact that nobody has played it yet.
Finally, Game ships! Attractive boxes ship are in stores, except that all the screens are mockups. Each box is covered in favorable review quotes from every recognizable game review house.
Game sells like crazy.
In reality, when the company raises $200k, work begins, aka first line of code is written.
Three months later, people who bought the box can download a buggy demo with half the features done, and they are happy.
Four months after that, the paying customers are playing a mostly working game of some sort. Well, except for multiplayer.
Finally, 1 year later, you have a game that works, although multiplayer is still an unsupported hack, and nobody plays it without some mods released by fans.
Meanwhile, Game 2 is only 6 months away from release... and the message boards are jumping.
Two of the three revolutionary things that you list about Linux (distributed development, GPL) have to do with the development side, not the end product. Yes, they're both cool. But, I got the impression that Mr. Miller was talking about the features it brings to the table. Your first point (insane portability) is a strong one, but also your only one.
It's the same way in Massachusetts, which is really funny because it's right up there with the most liberal of states. You can't buy liquor on Sundays except in resteraunts, at sporting events...
But another couple of interesting twists are:
- that stores within five miles of New Hampshire can be open on Sunday. Why? See, because people were driving there to get booze, and the state can't lose that money.
- they can be open for the month of December and also New Year's Day. Why? Same reason. Mass. is small enough that people will leave it to buy liquor, and the holidays are big party times, so the state doesn't want to lose money.
But the rest of the year, "No it's bad to buy liquor on Sunday." Funny, huh?
I'm with you. Since I got the first HoMM years ago, other games have only been installed for short amounts of time before I go back to Heroes. I buy the upgrades as soon as they come out. The series just has the staying power.:)
I'm sure that the university would like to allow free speech, but this isn't about that. The university sees potential fault on their part. If one of the kids snaps, and they have evidence that he was making threatening statements, and the threats were posted on their computers, don't you think they'd be sued? This is the headline that the university sees in the future:
"Kent allows group of kids to post death threats on their own servers, even after being alerted to their presence. This 'hate board' was a key factor in the organization of actions that led to the murder of Joe Smith, a fellow game player 25 miles from Kent State. The Smith family is suing the university for not forcing the students to take the hate messages off their computer system."
I'm no journalist, but you can imagine a (better worded) message with that content in the news. Whether they "did wrong" or not, they got sued. Bad press doesn't wash away with a not guilty. Which is why they're trying to cover their ass prematurely.
I'm not saying that the university is right in cracking down on l33t starcrafters, it's just a sucky situation all around. The nation's tense over all these stupid mass murders, and companies are so afraid of these rampant, frivolous lawsuits, so everything is getting more paranoid.
I offer no solution, just trying to shed some light on the problem.
That's because if the breakup goes through, Microsoft will have to play fair...
It hasn't even been decided what "fair" means yet, in terms of the breakup. If they don't get absolutely crippled in terms of what they can do in business practices, they'll do everything they have to hold market share. Microsoft is one of the best led companies around, so no matter what happens with the breakup, expect a serious effort from them.
Sorry, should have prefaced it with quote from article:
"Beowulf parallel computing cluster; 3 nodes for $1,305.95. A build-your-own supercomputer: three bargain PCs with Ethernet cards ($415 each), one four-port network hub ($16), and one Building Linux Clusters book from O'Reilly and Associates ($44.95), which includes Red Hat Linux and cluster software on CD. Perfect for trolls who lack a single iota of creativity, or that guy you know who always wants to simulate weather patterns."
Let me just say that I haven't read the book or seen the prior movie, and was just trying to enjoy it on it's own.
My entire enjoyment of the show was destroyed by the villains. I couldn't get past Harkenin (sp), the non-threatening, one-dimensional obese plotter and his lieutenant, the one-dimensional rage machine, who keeps getting sent to screw up plans for the obese plotter.
Plotter: "Ha ha ha, my evil plan will gain me power as I betray everyone. We've always hated the good guys."
Lieutenant: "Grr. GRR!"
(foppish minions laugh aristocratically)
I'm thinking to myself: -This- is who prompt the spoiled brat to become a hero? You're kidding! No sense of menace or dread at all.
I imagine it must be much more rewarding to see a great book given life in another medium, but as an open-minded outsider, it was pretty tough watching.
The terms "distributed" and "peer-to-peer" are halfway between marketing and concrete tech, and both are used when desired.
In the case of Napster, there is a head to the system. But clients only register that they're online (IP) to the Napster HQ, and the info about the files they're sharing. Searches all go through that HQ's list. When a client finds a file on someone's machine that they want, Napster HQ points that client at the other guy's IP (and the Napster app). That's all. Everything else is just chrome and twinkles.
In Napster's case, they want to emphasize the point that mp3s don't ever pass through their wires. Just the link info. Technically, this stuff should be lumped into the hyperlinking laws, since it's just a link index.
Gnutella, on the other hand, works just like how everyone thinks Napster works; namely that it's "headless".:) File searches actually get propogated across many clients. This is a lot hairier, technically. I hear that this works pretty well under small loads (aka current load). My friend is doing a small research paper for grad school about how gnutella totally broke down under the high volume of new clients when Napster was briefly shut down.
A lot of comments about Sega strongarming an innocent news site.
Would it be illegal to post a news site with the topic of... oh, how about Cmdr Taco's house: www.tacohome.com. There could be different sections, like:
Of course, the links would be to stores that sell stuff that would be useful in a home invasion. Or online gun stores. Maybe simple HOWTOs on how to disable phone lines and other communication.
It's just freedom of speech, baby. I'm not doing anything wrong. You can't prosecute me.
Oh, but wait, that's different. Is there some area where I can be legally right, but morally wrong? How?
Because this situation isn't what the framers of the consititution had in mind. Big troop movement was horses, and guns had firing rates of one round per minute. Information traveled at horse-speed. Information travel was so slow and so deliberate that it took weeks for wars to end. No concept of fast information transfer... no idea that information transfer would become the center of the economy. I'm not saying they were unintelligent or wrong, they built the best system in the world, for it's time.
Stories like this are why I secretly pray for some kind of magical legal armageddon, so that we can start over and write relevant laws. Because our legal system is the best, it's the best in the world, but the laws under it are like a software architechture that's been hacked to work for over 200 years. The design is good, but you can hardly see through the spaghetti of maintenance.
So why talk about how ISOnews is legally right? Sure it is, and Sega is doing the legally wrong thing to go after the website. But why not talk about how what ISOnews is doing is morally wrong?
I mean, this isn't Cuecat and their dopey business strategy, and using lawyers to make money. This is theft, and someone "innocently" being the center of that community.
I know that arguing morals is a slippery slope, but man, I love my Dreamcast and it just pisses me off to see people stealing what is pretty much an awesome toy made by brilliant people.
[Sorry I singled out Taco, but he doesn't obviously know dreamcast sales from Slashdot's back end.:) ]
Third-person shooters have only come out in the past few years, after FPS. My friends and I call them "Chasers", because of how the camera behaves when following the main character.
On the PC, examples are Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones. On the consoles, these are the biggest selling games of the past 5 years, and are now staple of the industry: Sonic, Crash, Mario, Zelda, the list goes on and on.
It looks like this judge is ruling merely on the merits of the DMCA as passed by Congress, rather than considering the larger question of whether the law is constitutional.
You are correct in your half-declaration that he merely an exectuor of the law. The DCMA clearly says this behavior is illegal, he can disagree with the philosophy all he wants, but the law is the law. He did his job correctly. If he didn't obey the DCMA, it would have been quickly overturned in appeal.
Actually, I was just updating his outdated console input data. He based his assertion on the fact that consoles only had digital input, which isn't true.
The analog sticks on consoles indeed provide gradated input -- good for driving games, especially. But there is a limit as to how far you can move the sticks -- and the sensitivity cannot be set to a satisfactory level to achieve the same degree of control you get with a mouse.
When I hear something like this, I think that there is more work to be done, not that the keyboard and mouse need to be ported.
Every time I "rev" my mouse, due to turning greater than my sensitivity and the width of my mouse pad can accomodate, it's a failure in the input scheme, and my brain wrinkles. I guess I could increase of both, but I already have an Everglide Giganta.:)
Out of curiosity, have you played a PC FPS with the keyboard and the mouse? Most people who try it quickly realize there's just no other way to play a FPS...
I have, and I fairly enjoy the keyboard/mouse combo. I'm not bad, either... I can rail someone in mid rocket-jump occasionally.:) But regarding the topic, I would say that it's the best way to play a FPS right now, not that "there's no other way to play FPS." A subtle distinction, but important.
I often dream of better inputs/interaction with computers, and what a breakthrough in pervasiveness and appeal would be if we could get past that. I think that one of the main reasons that we haven't advanced as quickly as we could is that input is primarily a secondary concept in technology, everyone just goes with what we have, and makes it fit... which prevents new, possibly better ways of thinking from emerging.
Do you think that the keyboard/mouse was designed as the input for games? Why do you think it became so? Because it was there, and it happened to be a better match than keyboard alone. Could you imagine a day where someone comes up with an interface better? I can, and I keep hoping that someone'll do it.
This tangent just explains why I need to reply when someone says that some particular interface is hands-down, end-the-issue the _best_ (or worse, when they don't have all the facts regarding the current state of input). Someone, somewhere is going to need to come up with something better, or we're going to be slaves to the clunky keyboard/mouse combo forever. And somehow, figuring out how to control an FPS with a console controller is adding to the global input/control accumulated knowledge, and bring us all closer to the input nirvana I dream of.:)
This means minimal movement, a fraction of an inch, to accomplish gymnastic moves you simply CANNOT do with a device that provides upper-limit movement like arrow pads on consoles and arrow keys on keyboards.
This is false.
Have you ever seen a Dreamcast or N64 basic controller? They each have an analog stick, would could be used in the same way that you describe. Maybe better, even, since you'll never reach the end of the mouse pad.
"During his tenure, 112 men and one woman have been executed. That's nearly 20 percent of the 600 people who have been executed in the United States since 1976."
Keep in mind that he hasn't just seen 20% of death traffic, but he's seen it all in his tenure, which means his state's death rate is pretty high. While he didn't push the red button, he chose not to push the "disable red button" button. Every time. Which, for me, is functionally the same.
Of course, they've slowed down now that election time is getting closer, and the majority of the country doesn't like to think about the government killing anyone, even horrible criminals.
FWIW, I'm actually in support of the death penalty, I just think that the president should not be for it.:)
You're right, this is an age of epic length games.
But there's hope: I bought Chu Chu Rocket and Bust a Move 4 for the Dreamcast, and they have the classic arcade feel to them. Simple, addictive, non-story gameplay that is just plain fun. And they're only $30 each!
Good recommendation on Design Patterns. Another book, "Applying UML and Patterns" (ISBN 0-13-748880-7) by Craig Larman, is also great. It's a fantastic introduction to both UML and patterns, and the examples use Java.
I usually recommend the two hand-in-hand. You can never read enough good stuff about patterns, they're the point of OO.:)
I think someone should make a persistent world game designed for programmers. Instead of having them focus their energy destroying the experience for other players, why not make a game that encourages programming/hacking - in fact it requires it.
Like it says in the article, the cheaters are not looking to demonstrate their programming skills in an online gaming medium. They're just lame; they want to feel cool and/or want to wreck it for everyone else.
So I don't think that an all-programmer game would help. I mean, a semi-implementation of what you describe was present in Baldur's Gate. In that game, you control characters in real-time, but they have default behavior when they enter conflict. There is a scripting language that lets you programmatically regualte the default behavior of your characters. That was last year. AFAIK, it was never used by the public.
Slashdot Mirror
I know, I'm crazy.
Two of the three revolutionary things that you list about Linux (distributed development, GPL) have to do with the development side, not the end product. Yes, they're both cool. But, I got the impression that Mr. Miller was talking about the features it brings to the table. Your first point (insane portability) is a strong one, but also your only one.
It's the same way in Massachusetts, which is really funny because it's right up there with the most liberal of states. You can't buy liquor on Sundays except in resteraunts, at sporting events...
But another couple of interesting twists are:
- that stores within five miles of New Hampshire can be open on Sunday. Why? See, because people were driving there to get booze, and the state can't lose that money.
- they can be open for the month of December and also New Year's Day. Why? Same reason. Mass. is small enough that people will leave it to buy liquor, and the holidays are big party times, so the state doesn't want to lose money.
But the rest of the year, "No it's bad to buy liquor on Sunday." Funny, huh?
I'm with you. Since I got the first HoMM years ago, other games have only been installed for short amounts of time before I go back to Heroes. I buy the upgrades as soon as they come out. The series just has the staying power. :)
It was a reference to Dungeons and Dragons. A good one, too. :)
I'm sure that the university would like to allow free speech, but this isn't about that. The university sees potential fault on their part. If one of the kids snaps, and they have evidence that he was making threatening statements, and the threats were posted on their computers, don't you think they'd be sued? This is the headline that the university sees in the future:
"Kent allows group of kids to post death threats on their own servers, even after being alerted to their presence. This 'hate board' was a key factor in the organization of actions that led to the murder of Joe Smith, a fellow game player 25 miles from Kent State. The Smith family is suing the university for not forcing the students to take the hate messages off their computer system."
I'm no journalist, but you can imagine a (better worded) message with that content in the news. Whether they "did wrong" or not, they got sued. Bad press doesn't wash away with a not guilty. Which is why they're trying to cover their ass prematurely.
I'm not saying that the university is right in cracking down on l33t starcrafters, it's just a sucky situation all around. The nation's tense over all these stupid mass murders, and companies are so afraid of these rampant, frivolous lawsuits, so everything is getting more paranoid.
I offer no solution, just trying to shed some light on the problem.
That's because if the breakup goes through, Microsoft will have to play fair...
It hasn't even been decided what "fair" means yet, in terms of the breakup. If they don't get absolutely crippled in terms of what they can do in business practices, they'll do everything they have to hold market share. Microsoft is one of the best led companies around, so no matter what happens with the breakup, expect a serious effort from them.
Sorry, should have prefaced it with quote from article:
"Beowulf parallel computing cluster; 3 nodes for $1,305.95. A build-your-own supercomputer: three bargain PCs with Ethernet cards ($415 each), one four-port network hub ($16), and one Building Linux Clusters book from O'Reilly and Associates ($44.95), which includes Red Hat Linux and cluster software on CD. Perfect for trolls who lack a single iota of creativity, or that guy you know who always wants to simulate weather patterns."
Let me just say that I haven't read the book or seen the prior movie, and was just trying to enjoy it on it's own.
My entire enjoyment of the show was destroyed by the villains. I couldn't get past Harkenin (sp), the non-threatening, one-dimensional obese plotter and his lieutenant, the one-dimensional rage machine, who keeps getting sent to screw up plans for the obese plotter.
Plotter: "Ha ha ha, my evil plan will gain me power as I betray everyone. We've always hated the good guys."
Lieutenant: "Grr. GRR!"
(foppish minions laugh aristocratically)
I'm thinking to myself: -This- is who prompt the spoiled brat to become a hero? You're kidding! No sense of menace or dread at all.
I imagine it must be much more rewarding to see a great book given life in another medium, but as an open-minded outsider, it was pretty tough watching.
The terms "distributed" and "peer-to-peer" are halfway between marketing and concrete tech, and both are used when desired.
:) File searches actually get propogated across many clients. This is a lot hairier, technically. I hear that this works pretty well under small loads (aka current load). My friend is doing a small research paper for grad school about how gnutella totally broke down under the high volume of new clients when Napster was briefly shut down.
In the case of Napster, there is a head to the system. But clients only register that they're online (IP) to the Napster HQ, and the info about the files they're sharing. Searches all go through that HQ's list. When a client finds a file on someone's machine that they want, Napster HQ points that client at the other guy's IP (and the Napster app). That's all. Everything else is just chrome and twinkles.
In Napster's case, they want to emphasize the point that mp3s don't ever pass through their wires. Just the link info. Technically, this stuff should be lumped into the hyperlinking laws, since it's just a link index.
Gnutella, on the other hand, works just like how everyone thinks Napster works; namely that it's "headless".
Anyway, hope this helped.
A lot of comments about Sega strongarming an innocent news site.
:) ]
Would it be illegal to post a news site with the topic of... oh, how about Cmdr Taco's house: www.tacohome.com. There could be different sections, like:
Blueprints
Resident Traffic News *updated frequently*
Resident Traffic Patterns : daily
Security Analysis : 9/27
Invasion Scenarios : 9/29 (2 new)
Likely Valuables / Locations
Links
Of course, the links would be to stores that sell stuff that would be useful in a home invasion. Or online gun stores. Maybe simple HOWTOs on how to disable phone lines and other communication.
It's just freedom of speech, baby. I'm not doing anything wrong. You can't prosecute me.
Oh, but wait, that's different. Is there some area where I can be legally right, but morally wrong? How?
Because this situation isn't what the framers of the consititution had in mind. Big troop movement was horses, and guns had firing rates of one round per minute. Information traveled at horse-speed. Information travel was so slow and so deliberate that it took weeks for wars to end. No concept of fast information transfer... no idea that information transfer would become the center of the economy. I'm not saying they were unintelligent or wrong, they built the best system in the world, for it's time.
Stories like this are why I secretly pray for some kind of magical legal armageddon, so that we can start over and write relevant laws. Because our legal system is the best, it's the best in the world, but the laws under it are like a software architechture that's been hacked to work for over 200 years. The design is good, but you can hardly see through the spaghetti of maintenance.
So why talk about how ISOnews is legally right? Sure it is, and Sega is doing the legally wrong thing to go after the website. But why not talk about how what ISOnews is doing is morally wrong?
I mean, this isn't Cuecat and their dopey business strategy, and using lawyers to make money. This is theft, and someone "innocently" being the center of that community.
I know that arguing morals is a slippery slope, but man, I love my Dreamcast and it just pisses me off to see people stealing what is pretty much an awesome toy made by brilliant people.
[Sorry I singled out Taco, but he doesn't obviously know dreamcast sales from Slashdot's back end.
I found college fun, and it was a good way for me to hook up with some job experience in computers. But other than that, it was a waste of money.
How is fun a waste of money? Why else are you here?
Did you read the article? Athletes have to sign it to compete. If they break any rule of the contract they signed, they get thrown from the Olympics.
Third-person shooters have only come out in the past few years, after FPS. My friends and I call them "Chasers", because of how the camera behaves when following the main character.
On the PC, examples are Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones. On the consoles, these are the biggest selling games of the past 5 years, and are now staple of the industry: Sonic, Crash, Mario, Zelda, the list goes on and on.
It looks like this judge is ruling merely on the merits of the DMCA as passed by Congress, rather than considering the larger question of whether the law is constitutional.
You are correct in your half-declaration that he merely an exectuor of the law. The DCMA clearly says this behavior is illegal, he can disagree with the philosophy all he wants, but the law is the law. He did his job correctly. If he didn't obey the DCMA, it would have been quickly overturned in appeal.
We need to get the law changed.
That's not what he was talking about.
:)
:) But regarding the topic, I would say that it's the best way to play a FPS right now, not that "there's no other way to play FPS." A subtle distinction, but important.
:)
Actually, I was just updating his outdated console input data. He based his assertion on the fact that consoles only had digital input, which isn't true.
The analog sticks on consoles indeed provide gradated input -- good for driving games, especially. But there is a limit as to how far you can move the sticks -- and the sensitivity cannot be set to a satisfactory level to achieve the same degree of control you get with a mouse.
When I hear something like this, I think that there is more work to be done, not that the keyboard and mouse need to be ported.
Every time I "rev" my mouse, due to turning greater than my sensitivity and the width of my mouse pad can accomodate, it's a failure in the input scheme, and my brain wrinkles. I guess I could increase of both, but I already have an Everglide Giganta.
Out of curiosity, have you played a PC FPS with the keyboard and the mouse? Most people who try it quickly realize there's just no other way to play a FPS...
I have, and I fairly enjoy the keyboard/mouse combo. I'm not bad, either... I can rail someone in mid rocket-jump occasionally.
I often dream of better inputs/interaction with computers, and what a breakthrough in pervasiveness and appeal would be if we could get past that. I think that one of the main reasons that we haven't advanced as quickly as we could is that input is primarily a secondary concept in technology, everyone just goes with what we have, and makes it fit... which prevents new, possibly better ways of thinking from emerging.
Do you think that the keyboard/mouse was designed as the input for games? Why do you think it became so? Because it was there, and it happened to be a better match than keyboard alone. Could you imagine a day where someone comes up with an interface better? I can, and I keep hoping that someone'll do it.
This tangent just explains why I need to reply when someone says that some particular interface is hands-down, end-the-issue the _best_ (or worse, when they don't have all the facts regarding the current state of input). Someone, somewhere is going to need to come up with something better, or we're going to be slaves to the clunky keyboard/mouse combo forever. And somehow, figuring out how to control an FPS with a console controller is adding to the global input/control accumulated knowledge, and bring us all closer to the input nirvana I dream of.
This means minimal movement, a fraction of an inch, to accomplish gymnastic moves you simply CANNOT do with a device that provides upper-limit movement like arrow pads on consoles and arrow keys on keyboards.
This is false.
Have you ever seen a Dreamcast or N64 basic controller? They each have an analog stick, would could be used in the same way that you describe. Maybe better, even, since you'll never reach the end of the mouse pad.
>>>>"Having such a trigger-happy moron at the head of a very powerful country is suicide"
:)
i've yet to see anything in him that makes him either, you're such a troll.
A clip from a Salon article, dated Jan. 13, 2000:
"During his tenure, 112 men and one woman have been executed. That's nearly 20 percent of the 600 people who have been executed in the United States since 1976."
Keep in mind that he hasn't just seen 20% of death traffic, but he's seen it all in his tenure, which means his state's death rate is pretty high. While he didn't push the red button, he chose not to push the "disable red button" button. Every time. Which, for me, is functionally the same.
Of course, they've slowed down now that election time is getting closer, and the majority of the country doesn't like to think about the government killing anyone, even horrible criminals.
FWIW, I'm actually in support of the death penalty, I just think that the president should not be for it.
Well, when I was 8, it was cool. Hey, an interactive cartoon, where if I don't make quick correct decisions, Dirk gets bopped on the head!
Actually, I'm 90% sure that Dragon's Lair was a Bakshi (Secret of Nymh, Iron Giant) production.
You're right, this is an age of epic length games.
But there's hope: I bought Chu Chu Rocket and Bust a Move 4 for the Dreamcast, and they have the classic arcade feel to them. Simple, addictive, non-story gameplay that is just plain fun. And they're only $30 each!
Good recommendation on Design Patterns. Another book, "Applying UML and Patterns" (ISBN 0-13-748880-7) by Craig Larman, is also great. It's a fantastic introduction to both UML and patterns, and the examples use Java.
:)
I usually recommend the two hand-in-hand. You can never read enough good stuff about patterns, they're the point of OO.
Thank you. :)
I agree. 2000 year old religious names and concepts are public domain. :)
I think someone should make a persistent world game designed for programmers. Instead of having them focus their energy destroying the experience for other players, why not make a game that encourages programming/hacking - in fact it requires it.
Like it says in the article, the cheaters are not looking to demonstrate their programming skills in an online gaming medium. They're just lame; they want to feel cool and/or want to wreck it for everyone else.
So I don't think that an all-programmer game would help. I mean, a semi-implementation of what you describe was present in Baldur's Gate. In that game, you control characters in real-time, but they have default behavior when they enter conflict. There is a scripting language that lets you programmatically regualte the default behavior of your characters. That was last year. AFAIK, it was never used by the public.
Cheaters are just lame.
I do get really pissed off when people accuse me of cheating just because I got them 20 times and they haven't got me.
:)
Really? My friends and I have come to take it as the ultimate unintentional compliment. Personally, I think of it as the winning the online game.
We try to remember to take screenshots with the accusation on screen, for bragging rights. It's fun.