Lost Vikings featured co-op play and was a puzzle-action platformer.
Diablo invented the action RPG.
Starcraft was the first RTS to feature truly differentiated races (technically, Warcraft had "differences" as did other games...notably C&C, but not completely different tech trees/methods of building/etc).
Warcraft 3 was the first RTS with an action-RPG "hero" system (yes, you could get experience in games like Myth...but there was no choice in the matter, no items, etc).
WoW was the first MMO where you primarily leveled through non-repeatable quests (to my knowledge).
I don't think Blizzard has ever been known for technical innovation...but they've also managed to do quite well in the past with innovative gameplay.
If the reason for BNetd was piracy, why did they ask Blizzard to help them authenticate folk and weed out pirates? What was Blizzard's response? Oh, taking them to court!
And yes, I used BNetd for WC3 to participate in the beta, and promptly bought the game the day of launch. Was this piracy? Well, the beta was free, so I don't see how Blizzard lost any money. Was it control? Surely.
Even now, I wish there were an unofficial BNetD server sometimes. I live in a place called "Texas" and I'm not sure whether I'm BNet West or BNet East. What I do know is the lag is so bad that I can't compete on either effectively. I had no such problem with BNetd or any FPS for that matter.
I responded to your thoughts above. Basically, certain parts of the game are cut off anyway, and it'd be possible for friends to run a dungeon together, for example, without killing the in-game economy.
I don't mean put everyone on one realm because I realize this is impossible. Possible thoughts:
* Cross-realm communication: Maybe just IMing and not mail as this'll screw up the in-game economy. And no, it's not that hard; AOL managed to do it for many more people over a decade ago...and they're AOL;)
* Instances: If I want to enter an instance with a bunch of friends from different realms, this shouldn't be hard. I'm already cut off from the rest of the world. If I leave the dungeon, I'm back on my server.
* PvP: Already partially implemented with battlegroups, but it would be nice to be able to enter a friend's battle group "on demand".
* Free cross-realm transfer: Maybe it takes time, but I have a feeling the reason all the realms are so crowded is everyone wants to play with their friends and are on their friend's realm. And each friend has 5 more friends. If you could log onto a no population realm without penalty and just play without having to leave permanently, I have a feeling some people might stay and server balance may be a non-issue.
While hard drive is a technical term lag is not. At least, not yet. And even in hardware, I would would describe it as layer agnostic.
In the old days, I hooked my PS1 up to a TV tuner. There was a ~500 ms lag between the sound/controls and what I saw on the screen due to the hardware/driver layer it went through. The term lag is also used in film to describe when sound/video aren't synced.
I think lag being an agnostic term describing a temporal disconnect between the controls and reaction on the screen. There's also the term "lag spike" for when you temporarily lose control of the game.
Whether the cause is sudden increase in network latency, packet loss, or your graphics card overheating is irrelevant for the usage of the term (but you can't find the cure without describing the symptoms.)
I've never had any problems in WC3 with cheating. There used to be a lot, but I've been playing solid for the past 2 weeks and have not noticed a single person.
I have been accused of "cheating" on occasion, since I love using recon on my enemies...but I do it through the in-game mechanisms.
(If you get bored, I'm AgnosticPope on BNet (West/East, but mostly play West, if ya wanna play.)
WoW is the only game I can't play with all my friends. Because some are are on realm A, some are on realm B, and some are in realm C. And while I can create 3 different characters to play with each of them, I could not tackle a dungeon with all of them. If I was playing Warcraft 3, Guild Wars, or any number of first person shooters, this wouldn't a problem -- and I don't pay a subscription to any of them.
Are there any plans (aside from the current "Paid Character Transfer") to enhance cross-realm gameplay? Or is this low on your priority list and are never going to do it (like allowing flying mounts in pre-BC areas)?
(And yes: I realize I'm in the minority by having met most of my friends who play WoW IRL...rather than the reverse)
Single payer has come up several times as a system and several more progressive groups are angry that Obama has said quite simply, that it's off the table for discussion. However, while he never said he'd like a single payer system now, he did say if we were starting from scratch, that's what he would do. It almost seems contradictory, but here's an example: "Well, if I had to start over, I'd buy a Mac. As it is, I'm going to upgrade to Windows 7 rather than sticking with Windows XP".
I don't necessarily see anything wrong with the current proposals, but I'm a liberal. I also really like the healthcare co-op idea that's been floated -- but unfortunately the early report is that pundits can't tell the difference between a non-profit and a gov't I guess -- despite its success in conservative places like northern Idaho.
None of the plans the Dems are proposing have the gov't take over the health care. The most they're proposing is a public option. The main objection is that it's a trojan horse -- the gov't will run health care and this is the first step. However, that would be another bill, that people can vote against if they'd like.
I used to be a little conservative, but in my view, the Republicans aren't anymore. They stand for big government (so long as it's used for spying and pork barrel military projects) and restricting freedom (USA PATRIOT Act). And while the Dems went along for the ride, they've not gotten out of the car.
Sony is retarded for removing backwards compatibility. It's the only one of the 3 consoles where the developer got the bright idea to remove features.
I bought a PS3 last year since I wanted to play Metal Gear, but I also wanted to get rid of my PS2 (DDR is still played on occasion).
You can still find them on Craiglist/etc. Be sure to look for the 60 GB one as it's the only one that has it in hardware.
(But it's not as good as Nintendo's. You have to buy a memory card converter to actually get save games on it and buy another peripheral if you want to use you Guitar Hero instruments on it (is there another way to play the GH1 track?). But the play itself is solid/perfect as far as I can tell.)
The job of a public university is to serve the public. (Hence, you know, the name.) It's not in the interest of the public to hire a foreign worker (makes the employer happy) when there's a qualified domestic worker (satisfying the needs the employer as well as the public good).
From an economic standpoint, domestic workers are also more likely to spend their money locally, which again, serves the public good.
It's not that hiring foreign workers is bad; it's merely that hiring domestic workers is better.
My system was an Athlon 2200+ with 2 GB RAM and a GeForce 6800. HL2 ran just fine -- albeit not at max res/max detail. As another anecdote, even upgrading my brother's old box (Athlon64 3000+) to from a GF5500 to a GF7200 yielded tremendous performance gains.
If history tells us anything, it's quite the opposite. For years, graphics cards have been getting more and more cores and applications (especially games or anything 3D) have come to rely on them much more than the CPU. I remember playing Half-life 2 with a 5 year old processor and a new graphics card...and it worked pretty well.
The CPU folk, meanwhile, are being pretty useless. CPUs haven't gotten much faster in the past 5 years; they just add more cores. Which is fine from the perspective of a multiprocess OS, but the fact remains that some algorithms you can parallelize, others you can't...and a GPU with hundreds of cores is only going to be as fast at one of these as its fastest core.
We'll see. My bet is if Intel/AMD just keep dumping more cores in the processors, they'll risk becoming irrelevant as we'll have more processors than we know what to do with (see the SGI's Prism...which was terribly slow despite having dozens of processors.)
But you don't actually get to *be* evil. Sure, you can practice an evil speech, do an evil dance, steal candy from babies, and even become the evil overlord. But any actual evil behavior (rape, murder, torture) is conspicuously absent from the game.
It featured support for 3D accelerators and internet multiplayer and you can fly the Millennium Falcon. Fans have even added new models so it doesn't look too terrible on a modern machine -- especially since space is so sparsely populated anyway.
I think that pressure from Gnome and the fundamentalists helped make Qt change their license to the LGPL.
On the other hand, Qt's innovation list have provided the Gnome project with a lot a good ideas for feature work.
There's a give and take here...it's not so much a zero-sum battle as a mutually beneficial collaboration...without the parties believing they're cooperating;)
I couldn't agree more. The rhythm game genre constantly evolves. Frequency->Guitar Hero->Rock Band (all the same developers). We'll see where they go next.
Where to go next? Well, right now the drums and voice are both analogue instruments that could be hooked up to do whatever. Guitar/bass are not.
It would be terribly interesting to make a game where you tried to play as close to the "notes" as possible, but it actually sounds slightly different from play to play because there is no "master track".
If 1 hp healed == 1 xp, what difference does it make when you heal them, late vs early? And to account for regen, 1 point healed via regen== 1 xp. Same for prevention.
Maybe even give a +20% exp bonus while each party member has their health above 80%.
Mechanics are simple, but it takes a lifetime to master.
Take WoW. The mechanics are complex, require a tome, a wiki, and a calculator to figure out.
Trying to figure out "where can my king move to get out of check" is infinitely easier, and requires fewer mechanics than "How much damage does my mage's spell do?" ("Which spell?" "Frostbolt level 8", "What stats do you have?", "[stats]", "Can you give me your build?", "Man, you'd get +1.429% DPS if you used this staff I read about that came out yesterday!")
The only thing up for debate then, is whether rote memorization is a skill, which I'd say it's not.
Versus, ya know, actually figuring out complex strategies, using psychology to outwit your enemy, and hell, even twitch gaming.
I really think Guild Wars is the only MMO where something like skill, as opposed to bunny hopping, loot gathering, and spending 3 weeks of your life getting a character up to 80, only to discover the class categorically sucks at PvP. I also think the class definitions are more complex than the traditional tank/healer/dps.
I also really really love the multiclass aspect which yields a much larger amount of viable and interesting builds, combined with the free skill rebalancing, makes tweaking your character/skill setup part of the game. Unlike other MMOs where you essentially go to a website and download the build for your class based on the most recent patch.
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Uh. Yes. They used to be known for this:
Lost Vikings featured co-op play and was a puzzle-action platformer.
Diablo invented the action RPG.
Starcraft was the first RTS to feature truly differentiated races (technically, Warcraft had "differences" as did other games...notably C&C, but not completely different tech trees/methods of building/etc).
Warcraft 3 was the first RTS with an action-RPG "hero" system (yes, you could get experience in games like Myth...but there was no choice in the matter, no items, etc).
WoW was the first MMO where you primarily leveled through non-repeatable quests (to my knowledge).
I don't think Blizzard has ever been known for technical innovation...but they've also managed to do quite well in the past with innovative gameplay.
This is the most original thing I've seen to come out of the RTS genre in a long time.
And to think, there's no reason Blizzard couldn't have done something just as innovative and different for SC2...they just don't want to take risk.
If the reason for BNetd was piracy, why did they ask Blizzard to help them authenticate folk and weed out pirates? What was Blizzard's response? Oh, taking them to court!
And yes, I used BNetd for WC3 to participate in the beta, and promptly bought the game the day of launch. Was this piracy? Well, the beta was free, so I don't see how Blizzard lost any money. Was it control? Surely.
Even now, I wish there were an unofficial BNetD server sometimes. I live in a place called "Texas" and I'm not sure whether I'm BNet West or BNet East. What I do know is the lag is so bad that I can't compete on either effectively. I had no such problem with BNetd or any FPS for that matter.
I responded to your thoughts above. Basically, certain parts of the game are cut off anyway, and it'd be possible for friends to run a dungeon together, for example, without killing the in-game economy.
I don't mean put everyone on one realm because I realize this is impossible. Possible thoughts:
* Cross-realm communication: Maybe just IMing and not mail as this'll screw up the in-game economy. And no, it's not that hard; AOL managed to do it for many more people over a decade ago...and they're AOL;)
* Instances: If I want to enter an instance with a bunch of friends from different realms, this shouldn't be hard. I'm already cut off from the rest of the world. If I leave the dungeon, I'm back on my server.
* PvP: Already partially implemented with battlegroups, but it would be nice to be able to enter a friend's battle group "on demand".
* Free cross-realm transfer: Maybe it takes time, but I have a feeling the reason all the realms are so crowded is everyone wants to play with their friends and are on their friend's realm. And each friend has 5 more friends. If you could log onto a no population realm without penalty and just play without having to leave permanently, I have a feeling some people might stay and server balance may be a non-issue.
While hard drive is a technical term lag is not. At least, not yet. And even in hardware, I would would describe it as layer agnostic.
In the old days, I hooked my PS1 up to a TV tuner. There was a ~500 ms lag between the sound/controls and what I saw on the screen due to the hardware/driver layer it went through. The term lag is also used in film to describe when sound/video aren't synced.
I think lag being an agnostic term describing a temporal disconnect between the controls and reaction on the screen. There's also the term "lag spike" for when you temporarily lose control of the game.
Whether the cause is sudden increase in network latency, packet loss, or your graphics card overheating is irrelevant for the usage of the term (but you can't find the cure without describing the symptoms.)
I've never had any problems in WC3 with cheating. There used to be a lot, but I've been playing solid for the past 2 weeks and have not noticed a single person.
I have been accused of "cheating" on occasion, since I love using recon on my enemies...but I do it through the in-game mechanisms.
(If you get bored, I'm AgnosticPope on BNet (West/East, but mostly play West, if ya wanna play.)
WoW is the only game I can't play with all my friends. Because some are are on realm A, some are on realm B, and some are in realm C. And while I can create 3 different characters to play with each of them, I could not tackle a dungeon with all of them. If I was playing Warcraft 3, Guild Wars, or any number of first person shooters, this wouldn't a problem -- and I don't pay a subscription to any of them.
Are there any plans (aside from the current "Paid Character Transfer") to enhance cross-realm gameplay? Or is this low on your priority list and are never going to do it (like allowing flying mounts in pre-BC areas)?
(And yes: I realize I'm in the minority by having met most of my friends who play WoW IRL...rather than the reverse)
Single payer has come up several times as a system and several more progressive groups are angry that Obama has said quite simply, that it's off the table for discussion. However, while he never said he'd like a single payer system now, he did say if we were starting from scratch, that's what he would do. It almost seems contradictory, but here's an example: "Well, if I had to start over, I'd buy a Mac. As it is, I'm going to upgrade to Windows 7 rather than sticking with Windows XP".
I don't necessarily see anything wrong with the current proposals, but I'm a liberal. I also really like the healthcare co-op idea that's been floated -- but unfortunately the early report is that pundits can't tell the difference between a non-profit and a gov't I guess -- despite its success in conservative places like northern Idaho.
Isn't it a bit cynical?
None of the plans the Dems are proposing have the gov't take over the health care. The most they're proposing is a public option. The main objection is that it's a trojan horse -- the gov't will run health care and this is the first step. However, that would be another bill, that people can vote against if they'd like.
I used to be a little conservative, but in my view, the Republicans aren't anymore. They stand for big government (so long as it's used for spying and pork barrel military projects) and restricting freedom (USA PATRIOT Act). And while the Dems went along for the ride, they've not gotten out of the car.
Sony is retarded for removing backwards compatibility. It's the only one of the 3 consoles where the developer got the bright idea to remove features.
I bought a PS3 last year since I wanted to play Metal Gear, but I also wanted to get rid of my PS2 (DDR is still played on occasion).
You can still find them on Craiglist/etc. Be sure to look for the 60 GB one as it's the only one that has it in hardware.
(But it's not as good as Nintendo's. You have to buy a memory card converter to actually get save games on it and buy another peripheral if you want to use you Guitar Hero instruments on it (is there another way to play the GH1 track?). But the play itself is solid/perfect as far as I can tell.)
The quality lenses required for high quality photography are MUCH too large for a camera.
Which is why I use the Hubble space telescope for my photography needs.
According to your link, that proc only runs at 2.67 Ghz, which is a far cry from 3.4.
Maybe the link is wrong?
The job of a public university is to serve the public. (Hence, you know, the name.) It's not in the interest of the public to hire a foreign worker (makes the employer happy) when there's a qualified domestic worker (satisfying the needs the employer as well as the public good).
From an economic standpoint, domestic workers are also more likely to spend their money locally, which again, serves the public good.
It's not that hiring foreign workers is bad; it's merely that hiring domestic workers is better.
Whatever.
My system was an Athlon 2200+ with 2 GB RAM and a GeForce 6800. HL2 ran just fine -- albeit not at max res/max detail. As another anecdote, even upgrading my brother's old box (Athlon64 3000+) to from a GF5500 to a GF7200 yielded tremendous performance gains.
You could have provided the article in question you submitted along with your summary.
Otherwise, it just reads as bitter criticism.
If history tells us anything, it's quite the opposite. For years, graphics cards have been getting more and more cores and applications (especially games or anything 3D) have come to rely on them much more than the CPU. I remember playing Half-life 2 with a 5 year old processor and a new graphics card...and it worked pretty well.
The CPU folk, meanwhile, are being pretty useless. CPUs haven't gotten much faster in the past 5 years; they just add more cores. Which is fine from the perspective of a multiprocess OS, but the fact remains that some algorithms you can parallelize, others you can't...and a GPU with hundreds of cores is only going to be as fast at one of these as its fastest core.
We'll see. My bet is if Intel/AMD just keep dumping more cores in the processors, they'll risk becoming irrelevant as we'll have more processors than we know what to do with (see the SGI's Prism...which was terribly slow despite having dozens of processors.)
But you don't actually get to *be* evil. Sure, you can practice an evil speech, do an evil dance, steal candy from babies, and even become the evil overlord. But any actual evil behavior (rape, murder, torture) is conspicuously absent from the game.
Not that EA would want the ESRB rating.
Try X-Wing Alliance, a sequel to XvT.
It featured support for 3D accelerators and internet multiplayer and you can fly the Millennium Falcon. Fans have even added new models so it doesn't look too terrible on a modern machine -- especially since space is so sparsely populated anyway.
I think that pressure from Gnome and the fundamentalists helped make Qt change their license to the LGPL.
On the other hand, Qt's innovation list have provided the Gnome project with a lot a good ideas for feature work.
There's a give and take here...it's not so much a zero-sum battle as a mutually beneficial collaboration...without the parties believing they're cooperating;)
I couldn't agree more. The rhythm game genre constantly evolves. Frequency->Guitar Hero->Rock Band (all the same developers). We'll see where they go next.
Where to go next? Well, right now the drums and voice are both analogue instruments that could be hooked up to do whatever. Guitar/bass are not.
It would be terribly interesting to make a game where you tried to play as close to the "notes" as possible, but it actually sounds slightly different from play to play because there is no "master track".
The lion king would not work as well as a live action movie
Seemed to do well on Broadway....
Granted, the stagecraft was amazing.
I don't see the issue.
If 1 hp healed == 1 xp, what difference does it make when you heal them, late vs early? And to account for regen, 1 point healed via regen== 1 xp. Same for prevention.
Maybe even give a +20% exp bonus while each party member has their health above 80%.
I'd disagree. Take Chess or Go.
Mechanics are simple, but it takes a lifetime to master.
Take WoW. The mechanics are complex, require a tome, a wiki, and a calculator to figure out.
Trying to figure out "where can my king move to get out of check" is infinitely easier, and requires fewer mechanics than "How much damage does my mage's spell do?" ("Which spell?" "Frostbolt level 8", "What stats do you have?", "[stats]", "Can you give me your build?", "Man, you'd get +1.429% DPS if you used this staff I read about that came out yesterday!")
The only thing up for debate then, is whether rote memorization is a skill, which I'd say it's not.
Versus, ya know, actually figuring out complex strategies, using psychology to outwit your enemy, and hell, even twitch gaming.
I really think Guild Wars is the only MMO where something like skill, as opposed to bunny hopping, loot gathering, and spending 3 weeks of your life getting a character up to 80, only to discover the class categorically sucks at PvP. I also think the class definitions are more complex than the traditional tank/healer/dps.
I also really really love the multiclass aspect which yields a much larger amount of viable and interesting builds, combined with the free skill rebalancing, makes tweaking your character/skill setup part of the game. Unlike other MMOs where you essentially go to a website and download the build for your class based on the most recent patch.