...from the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley". A young Bill Gates is about to talk with some bigwigs at IBM before MS even made any sellable products. He's confident anyway, because, as he says, "Success fools smart people into thinking they can't lose."
This is why games like EverQuest which require every user to give a wealth of info (credit card numbers for billing, etc.) are able to effectively deal with people who break the rules, unlike rather anonymous games like Quake 3.
You forgot to mention something important: Need For Speed is also a great substitute for a normal Driver's Ed class. Especially if you buy one of those wheels.
The problem with Deus Ex was, while it was a fantastic game, the lip-moving looked a bit like an old Clutch Cargo episode. Us gamers didn't mind much because we'd dealt with much worse, but the moviegoing public would think it to be quite an eyesore.
I suppose Square could spend a lot of time creating a good system, but that would be a substantial investment of time and money. Probably more effort than lip-syncing. And a lot more effort than dubbing or subtitles.
Senator Maria CantwellD-WA is my home Senator. If you read Steven Levy's Crypto, you'll remember she fought hard for Crypto companies to overcome draconian government regulations and help get strong crypto to us common folk. She has been supporting tech companies in the Senate.
Now, is this because her constituents are big corporations like Microsoft, or is she genuinely interested in the tech world? Who knows, but she's a million times more likey to help us geeks out than G.W. "I'm not gonna use E-mail" Bush.
I'd say there's some merit in what you have to say about hardcore game designers appealing to a hardcore gaming audience. I personally don't feel as involved in RPGs as I did back in the days of the good ol' epic Square RPGs on the SNES. But I think you're making a rather hasty conclusion about the state of games today.
I would argue that games like Half-Life (a little old, but still alive and kicking), Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, Baldur's Gate II, and Icewind Dale are all good examples of a group of dedicated designers trying to appeal to gamers using their prior experience with games. Admittedly, Unreal Tournament was kind of a graphic romp, but it had very solid and open-ended gameplay nonetheless.
I'd say the best example of a (somewhat) recent game that strictly appealed to a group of hardcore gamers was System Shock 2. I suggest you pick up a copy post-haste to see what I mean. It's a great game for those who have become jaded by simple tricks that developers try to pull on many gamers today.
One big reason to purchase this card is that it supports all those new DirectX8 extensions. Stuff like vertex blending (I think that's what it's called) and pixel shaders. And the nFiniteFX engine. Still, you already have one big video card investment right now. Maybe in a few months they'll shrink it down to a more managable and cost effective size with more features (a la the GeForce to GeForce2 transition).
Psh, you have no base for your claims. Unreal 2 is specifically using several GeForce3-specific features in it, if you read the previews. ELSA is shipping a new build with their GF3 card of Giants: Citizen Kabuto that specifically takes advantage of the new features.
By the way, you also claim that all the "hardware features of nvidia's last few generations" which I'll assume means "Hardware-assisted T&L" has "no software taking full advantage of it."
This is just outright false. Every game made using the Quake 3 engine uses T&L (like Alice, FAKK, and that new Star Trek shooter), as do Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Sacrifice, all are examples of current 3d titles using T&L. You may say "they're not taking FULL advantage! They're not using Hardware Mipmapping!" or some other obscure function, but we all know that T&L was the GeForce's flagship technical function and developers have rallied behind it.
What am I trying to say? Don't dismiss nVidia's new innovations as things developers are not going to support, because there's a damned good chance they will.
First off, this isn't a "Quake clone", unless you consider "Quake clone" to be "Any game that uses a polygon rendering engine".
Secondly, the reason you see polygons (which I'll assume to mean "pointy edges") is that, surprise surprise, they have to target the game at the midrange PC, not the high-performance polygon pushers. Not everyone has a GeForce2 Ultra that can render a gazillion polygons, they have to target the average schmo with a P3-500 and a standard 16-meg D3D video card if they wanna make any money.
That said, there's plenty of full-motion video games out there. They were really big on the Sega CD, in its heyday. But then everyone realized they sucked. Sewer Shark, anyone?
Tim Sweeney? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought he was largely responsible for the original Unreal technology. He's not as famous as Carmack, but pretty dang famous for a graphics programmer.
You make some interesting points, but I disagree with your assertion that the failure of these laws to adequately uphold order will lead to their dismissal.
One need not look farther than our nation's "war on drugs" to see that policies that are in the name of the "common good" (as dubbed by politicians mainly) are allowed to suck up endless resources and operate nearly indefinitely. These snitch programs seem only beneficial in the eyes of the public, with a few unpleasant side effects like the news story mentioned above.
Schools are in a position to add more of these ridiculous policies, rather than do away with the broken ones. As long as we focus on political correctness in our educational policies we're going to have absurd regulations like this.
Remember when Sega said they're pretty much selling off their hardware business? And all those rumors of the sale to Nintendo? Sega probably isn't ever making another system again, no matter how much you love 'em. You can thank Sony's marketing machine for that.
I imagine HD manufacturers would be pretty dang apprehensive about implementing these changes, but that's assuming they'd do it of their free will.
The fact is, entertainment companies, scared of increased freedom on the part of the consumer, are going to go to, where else, the federal government to solve their woes. With all the cash they're reigning in from CDs that are sold at huge profit, they'll be perfectly capable of lobbying legislators and pouring cash into campaigns. This practice of buying politicians is so commonplace that there's little to no public acknowledgement or outrcry in American society today.
Welcome to America, where the rich buy politicians and make their own laws (so they can get richer, of course).
I was a John McCain supporter back when the primaries were just "10 other guys and Bush". I was really disheartened to see him lose, and now I'm certain he would've won it all if he captured the nomination.
Why? Because he never was trying to compromise every single issue he could in order to win over independents. His views were already appealing to centrists and independents, and unlike Bush or Gore, he wasn't changing his ethics based on opinion polls, which is probably why people are so disheartened with them and the election was so close.
Say what harsh things you may, he has a definite belief system, which is more than either of the two major presidential candidates can claim.
If one of the naysayers is right, I wonder how we'll ever know what happened to her. What if she blacks out? Is fried to a crisp? Gets her body broken in several places? All we'll have is...well, maybe a crater.
Let's see, there's probably several hundred 3d games on the market, at the very least. All of them have varying levels of complexity. There are lots of 3d cards out there, all with various levels of processing power.
My new Voodoo5 runs Jedi Knight like a dream, in fact, it's probably too fast. This is because all the geometry and textures are very simple. It stutters when I'm playing Deus Ex and 10 high-polygon terrorists start running around and shooting at me and running all their complex AI routines.
The point is, no 3d card will ever permanently pass the complexity developers put into their games. If you want a card that runs Quake 3 at 200 fps no matter the conditions, then I suggest you wait a few years when 3d games become much more complex, and 3d card manufacturers decide they need more power (and they've figured out how to do it, of course).
I'm surprised this article didn't mention that Sony is kicking ass with mindshare right now. Since the original Playstation was such a hit with casual and hardcore gamers alike, a second one sounds great to people who haven't done much research. It sounds like the same thing with more power.
Still, the casual gaming public hasn't had much of a chance to try out the Playstation 2, thanks to Sony's shortages. I always find it a bit ironic when I see a Sony or PS2 game ad on TV, when you literally can't buy one of the consoles, no matter how bad you want to (unless you're willing to shell out a few grand).
I can't help but wonder if this move won't mark Nintendo's possible entry into the world of modern arcade gaming. A quick visit to any large arcade will show that Sega is clearly king of the ring there. It would be interesting if Miyamoto or someone equivalent at Nintendo started focusing their energy on arcade games.
I'm not sure if anyone will ever notice this after the topic's so big, but here's another book people may be interested in:
After Man
It's a pretty interesting book about what animal life might be like some number of thousand years in the future after man kills himself off. I personally haven't read it in years but I think it'd be worth a look to those interested in that sort of thing.
Maybe if we worry about this a lot, perhaps lose quite a bit of sleep over it, and discuss it all the time, the potential devestation of an asteroid or comet striking the earth will never happen. It IS something we have control over, after all.
Perhaps I've just been looking in the wrong places, but I've never heard of this. Got any links or info? Sounds to me like something like this happening to such a popular game wouldn't just slip through the cracks.
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody wants to read a "these games are nifty!" page. Well, not enough to make your sponsors happy.
I make sure to keep it very obscure, though.
Pretty ironic, huh?
This is why games like EverQuest which require every user to give a wealth of info (credit card numbers for billing, etc.) are able to effectively deal with people who break the rules, unlike rather anonymous games like Quake 3.
You forgot to mention something important: Need For Speed is also a great substitute for a normal Driver's Ed class. Especially if you buy one of those wheels.
I suppose Square could spend a lot of time creating a good system, but that would be a substantial investment of time and money. Probably more effort than lip-syncing. And a lot more effort than dubbing or subtitles.
Now, is this because her constituents are big corporations like Microsoft, or is she genuinely interested in the tech world? Who knows, but she's a million times more likey to help us geeks out than G.W. "I'm not gonna use E-mail" Bush.
I would argue that games like Half-Life (a little old, but still alive and kicking), Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, Baldur's Gate II, and Icewind Dale are all good examples of a group of dedicated designers trying to appeal to gamers using their prior experience with games. Admittedly, Unreal Tournament was kind of a graphic romp, but it had very solid and open-ended gameplay nonetheless.
I'd say the best example of a (somewhat) recent game that strictly appealed to a group of hardcore gamers was System Shock 2. I suggest you pick up a copy post-haste to see what I mean. It's a great game for those who have become jaded by simple tricks that developers try to pull on many gamers today.
One big reason to purchase this card is that it supports all those new DirectX8 extensions. Stuff like vertex blending (I think that's what it's called) and pixel shaders. And the nFiniteFX engine. Still, you already have one big video card investment right now. Maybe in a few months they'll shrink it down to a more managable and cost effective size with more features (a la the GeForce to GeForce2 transition).
By the way, you also claim that all the "hardware features of nvidia's last few generations" which I'll assume means "Hardware-assisted T&L" has "no software taking full advantage of it." This is just outright false. Every game made using the Quake 3 engine uses T&L (like Alice, FAKK, and that new Star Trek shooter), as do Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Sacrifice, all are examples of current 3d titles using T&L. You may say "they're not taking FULL advantage! They're not using Hardware Mipmapping!" or some other obscure function, but we all know that T&L was the GeForce's flagship technical function and developers have rallied behind it.
What am I trying to say? Don't dismiss nVidia's new innovations as things developers are not going to support, because there's a damned good chance they will.
Secondly, the reason you see polygons (which I'll assume to mean "pointy edges") is that, surprise surprise, they have to target the game at the midrange PC, not the high-performance polygon pushers. Not everyone has a GeForce2 Ultra that can render a gazillion polygons, they have to target the average schmo with a P3-500 and a standard 16-meg D3D video card if they wanna make any money.
That said, there's plenty of full-motion video games out there. They were really big on the Sega CD, in its heyday. But then everyone realized they sucked. Sewer Shark, anyone?
Tim Sweeney? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought he was largely responsible for the original Unreal technology. He's not as famous as Carmack, but pretty dang famous for a graphics programmer.
One need not look farther than our nation's "war on drugs" to see that policies that are in the name of the "common good" (as dubbed by politicians mainly) are allowed to suck up endless resources and operate nearly indefinitely. These snitch programs seem only beneficial in the eyes of the public, with a few unpleasant side effects like the news story mentioned above.
Schools are in a position to add more of these ridiculous policies, rather than do away with the broken ones. As long as we focus on political correctness in our educational policies we're going to have absurd regulations like this.
Remember when Sega said they're pretty much selling off their hardware business? And all those rumors of the sale to Nintendo? Sega probably isn't ever making another system again, no matter how much you love 'em. You can thank Sony's marketing machine for that.
The fact is, entertainment companies, scared of increased freedom on the part of the consumer, are going to go to, where else, the federal government to solve their woes. With all the cash they're reigning in from CDs that are sold at huge profit, they'll be perfectly capable of lobbying legislators and pouring cash into campaigns. This practice of buying politicians is so commonplace that there's little to no public acknowledgement or outrcry in American society today.
Welcome to America, where the rich buy politicians and make their own laws (so they can get richer, of course).
A swift blow to the cranium will also do the trick.
Actually, you could probably just change all the snow textures into sand textures in the first MGS and you'd have it.
Why? Because he never was trying to compromise every single issue he could in order to win over independents. His views were already appealing to centrists and independents, and unlike Bush or Gore, he wasn't changing his ethics based on opinion polls, which is probably why people are so disheartened with them and the election was so close.
Say what harsh things you may, he has a definite belief system, which is more than either of the two major presidential candidates can claim.
If one of the naysayers is right, I wonder how we'll ever know what happened to her. What if she blacks out? Is fried to a crisp? Gets her body broken in several places? All we'll have is...well, maybe a crater.
Let's see, there's probably several hundred 3d games on the market, at the very least. All of them have varying levels of complexity. There are lots of 3d cards out there, all with various levels of processing power.
My new Voodoo5 runs Jedi Knight like a dream, in fact, it's probably too fast. This is because all the geometry and textures are very simple. It stutters when I'm playing Deus Ex and 10 high-polygon terrorists start running around and shooting at me and running all their complex AI routines.
The point is, no 3d card will ever permanently pass the complexity developers put into their games. If you want a card that runs Quake 3 at 200 fps no matter the conditions, then I suggest you wait a few years when 3d games become much more complex, and 3d card manufacturers decide they need more power (and they've figured out how to do it, of course).
Still, the casual gaming public hasn't had much of a chance to try out the Playstation 2, thanks to Sony's shortages. I always find it a bit ironic when I see a Sony or PS2 game ad on TV, when you literally can't buy one of the consoles, no matter how bad you want to (unless you're willing to shell out a few grand).
I can't help but wonder if this move won't mark Nintendo's possible entry into the world of modern arcade gaming. A quick visit to any large arcade will show that Sega is clearly king of the ring there. It would be interesting if Miyamoto or someone equivalent at Nintendo started focusing their energy on arcade games.
I'm not sure if anyone will ever notice this after the topic's so big, but here's another book people may be interested in:
After Man
It's a pretty interesting book about what animal life might be like some number of thousand years in the future after man kills himself off. I personally haven't read it in years but I think it'd be worth a look to those interested in that sort of thing.
Maybe if we worry about this a lot, perhaps lose quite a bit of sleep over it, and discuss it all the time, the potential devestation of an asteroid or comet striking the earth will never happen. It IS something we have control over, after all.
Perhaps I've just been looking in the wrong places, but I've never heard of this. Got any links or info? Sounds to me like something like this happening to such a popular game wouldn't just slip through the cracks.