"This time." Centralization and decentralization has always been a pendulum sort of affair, varying with the relative costs of bandwidth, CPU, and storage.
With Vista, the user has to buy a computer that provides all the ressources and is still depending on some server being available / working correctly. In this case the WGA server, which does not give any advantage to the user. The only one who has an advantage is Microsoft (from disallowing pirated Windows versions), and that is questionable as I doubt Vista will stay uncracked;-)
They could just add a registry entry of "maximum network packets per millisecond when playing multimedia files" or something.
Better yet, allow "throttling as needed if multimedia buffers run low". That would allow unimpaired network performance in systems with enough CPU power.
But then again, that would have required early planning to include the necessary feedback in audio and graphics drivers. I speculate that the problem was discovered late in the development of Vista, and since nobody wanted to be responsible for another delayof Vista's release, some quick hack was applied;-)
I second that. It seems that GP is doing everyone else in the process a favor by working for free. If he criticizes the system and his publisher is pissed about it, what can they do?
Graphics cards that were designed for DirectX 9 will not support DirectX 10. So if you have an older graphics card, "upgrading" to Vista won't bring you DirectX 10 unless you buy a new DirectX 10 card as well. I hasten to add that I do not recommend buying Vista. Aside from the lousy reviews, the few people I know who tried it were not impressed. And don't get me started on DRM and product activation...
The reason Comcast doesnt tell you is if they did, asshat downloaders would lawyer the total and if lets say it was 100, they'd use 99.9999 then whine if they were denied that much. The approach would backfire. Plus its a competitive disadvantage for Comcast if their competitors know what a soft limit on dl's is. You'd generate a race to the bottom over max downloads, again, the tactic would backfire.
It would still be fair advertising as opposed to the current practice.
If you have to impose a limit as provider, then state it clearly in your terms of use. Set it to something you can live with if the "asshat downloaders" actually use it. Personally, I'd do fine with 50 GByte/month - safety margin for future online games that really require broadband included. Any provider who advertizes his service as "unlimited" and hides cutoff clauses in the fine print deserves the bad publicity he gets on/.
While the UK nanny state has not emulated the banning of games yet, I think it is quite possible they might do so in the future. In some regards, the UK is already worse than Germany. I think it would be smarter for Crytek to do what they hinted at and make their office in Budapest the new headquarters;-)
Two successful examples: -Valve's Steam (while I personally dislike the DRM aspects, it seems to be accepted by enough customers). -EVE Online is so far distributed exclusively by download. There are rumors about a boxed version being planned, but even without it, EVE has reached around 200.000 subscribers.
Personally, I hope that the HVD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile _Disc makes it to market as writable disc. A 500GB harddisk in a USB enclosure is nice, and I use that approach myself these days. But it is still more bulky and fragile than a CD-like disk. I also guess that the blank HVD media could be produced cheaper than a harddisk drive.
After that sort of crash, for most drivers the car will go out of control anyway. It is flattering that you think it would be different for me, but probably not realistic.
Couple this with the near-impossibility to get into any kind of social interaction (all corporations want 3 or more months experience, and while I easily have more than that, many mistreat their members and are demanding) and you can see why such a good idea has gone bad.
My current corp frequently takes on newbies and is quite nice towards them. The only major restriction is strictly limited hangar access, which we have introduced after a newbie cleared out most of the corp hangars one day (turned out she was an alt only created for such theft).
I'll even give you a name - my game name - if you feel like you need someone who can run factory slots at maximum build efficiency from 10 jumps out.
Thanks but we can that handle this ourselves. My own char (8 1/2 months, 10.5 million skillpoints) also has Production Efficiency at 5. Capable of building most T2 stuff and currently skilling up for Invention. All that is missing is the remote skill, and there was little need for that so far...
You're really going to use open container laws and speed limits as examples of why "the State" is just trying to find things to enforce? I bet you really hate mandatory seat belt laws too. Yes. Not using the seatbelt only endangers myself. As an adult, I insist on deciding for myself what risks I take. Unfortunately, many politicians seem to think otherwise. I disagree with that and the result is that I'm not voting for the big parties anymore (SPD and CDU in Germany, increasingly similar to US Democrats and Republicans). There are others that have at least a bit of respect for freedom left.
Open container laws are a public safety matter. You don't want drivers to be drinking in the car and the same goes for their passengers. (emphasis mine). I call bullshit on the passenger part. While impaired driving skills from alcohol are a problem in the driver, they are completely irrelevant for the passengers.
I'm also under the impression that a twitch-based space sim would be very very hard to pull off with current technology (or technology from 4 years ago), while still keeping the obscenely huge size of EVE's single-'shard' cluster. Heck, the cluster barely holds up as-is.
Probably true.
AFAIK, the best effort in that direction so far is Freelancer, which offers twitch-based multiplayer for a few dozen players per server. Scaling that up to 30.000 seems a big step to me, even if you distribute the load over multiple computers in a cluster.
Vendetta Online is twitch-based as well, but cannot keep up with the graphics and fun factor of Freelancer. When I tried it a year ago or so, the size and population of the game world was not much bigger than what is possible in Freelancer. So it does not count as proof that large-scale, twitch-based space sim MMOs are possible;-)
IANAL, but out of common sense I'd also send them a registered letter (or whatever gives you proof of delivery) that says that you don't accept the change in terms and that you only pay the next bill because of an existing obligation, not as an agreement to the new terms.
If things end up in court, I think that would improve GP's chances.
Hmm, I found it not that annoying. Does not deserve an "insightful" of course but I might grant him a "funny". Then again, I understand that not everyone does enjoy that sort of crude humour...
In this context, it seems like abusing the legal process to maintain the impression of a legitimate legal campaign as long as possible. Technically legal but IMHO unethical. I hope it comes round to bite them in the ass.
SCO vs. IBM looked pretty big with its multi-billion dollar claims. This is peanuts in comparison.
Of course the RIAA's tactics are just as slimy as those of SCO, but so far the RIAA stuff has a lot less publicity. This may change if they do something really stupid and get thrown in jail for contempt of court (which would be news by itself), but I guess a lot more has to happen before that. US courts seem rather tolerant to abuse of the court system.
It is interesting that successful community projects happen mostly in software, a field where all of the necessary tools are affordable to hobbyists, and manufacturing/distribution is even cheaper.
I guess Marx wanted to achieve that for all fields by socializing the means of production, but that did not work out because in many cases the tools are simply too expensive to give everyone a chance at playing with them. The result was management by bureaucracy and a less efficient economy than in capitalism. If we ever get really cheap and versatile manufacturing tools for hardware, we may see a repetition of that success. But I think we are a few generations of machine tools away from that (think Star Trek style replicators as an extreme scenario).
Vista isn't fatally broken. It has better hardware support, by a wide margin, than any previous Microsoft OS.
I doubt that one. At least for now.
For almost 6 years, XP has been the current version of Windows, and about every hardware vendor made sure to have drivers for it. And will continue to support it for a few more years.
Vista, in contrast, is in the same situation that XP was in when it was new: No drivers available for a lot of older hardware, because the hardware vendor does not sell it anymore and couldn't care less. Of course, this will change over time, assuming that most users will eventually adopt Vista instead of deserting to Linux & Co. I guess that 5 years from now Vista will have better hardware support than XP.
Windows Vista is just a hack on top of all the prior Microsoft Windows releases. While Microsoft Windows itself is just a hack on top the profoundly insecure and stunningly badly-coded DOS.
Considering the lousy reviews, it seems that Windows Vista is indeed "just a hack" on top of XP.
But it is no longer correct that it is a hack based on DOS. Parallel to Windows 9x, Microsoft introduced the Windows NT line. Windows 2000, XP and Vista are based on that. In a direct comparison of Windows 2000 to Windows 98 (yes I've used both), Windows 2000 is a lot more stable, especially when confronted with bad applications. It is not perfect but definitely good enough for desktop use. I'm using XP only occasionally, but it seems OK as well. Vista - cough - no thanks. The reviews and personal accounts I've read are reason enough not to even try it. And the quality is only half of it, the EULA is even more inacceptable. Even if I strongly suspect it would be unenforceable in my country, I'd rather avoid getting anywhere near it.
I have no idea how this is fucking relevant, so I must conclude that you added it for the benefit of the retards who mod you up.
(emphasis mine) I don't mind the occasional swear word, but when you call people "retards" for modding up something you don't like, that is not a constructive way of discussion. Civilized people can refute the other guy's arguments without insults.
Another example: The Linux graphical system is X windows. The base comes from MIT/project Athena in 1986. One system server package was called XFree86. The group behind XFree86 decided at one point to change the license....to make it just a bit more restrictive. Many Linux distributions refused to include the newer versions because it violated the Free Software Licenses. FORK! X.org has a similar (enough) base, and after a few weeks of mods and extensions, everyone switched.
More exactly, X.org was built on the last GPLed version of XFree86. So this is a classic fork where some people take advantage of the Free Software License and build their own stuff.
The longer the development cycle, the more difficult it is to target the hardware that will be available when you ship the game.
Having better hardware than planned for does usually not hurt. A drawback will be that your graphics are not as smooth as they could be on the very latest hardware generation. But on the other hand, even people with somewhat older machines will be able to run your game. If you look at WOW screenshots for instance, it seems that Blizzard did aim at running on less capable machines too. That did not diminish their success...
I usually buy out the inventory of anyone undercutting my prices. Fine, try that with my stuff someday. I'll notice a market that will accept lots of goods and produce more;-)
Of course, I try to find markets that have been neglected by the suppliers in the first place. That's where the best profits are. So it might take a while until we run into each other as competition...
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With Vista, the user has to buy a computer that provides all the ressources and is still depending on some server being available / working correctly.
In this case the WGA server, which does not give any advantage to the user. The only one who has an advantage is Microsoft (from disallowing pirated Windows versions), and that is questionable as I doubt Vista will stay uncracked
Better yet, allow "throttling as needed if multimedia buffers run low". That would allow unimpaired network performance in systems with enough CPU power.
But then again, that would have required early planning to include the necessary feedback in audio and graphics drivers. I speculate that the problem was discovered late in the development of Vista, and since nobody wanted to be responsible for another delayof Vista's release, some quick hack was applied
I second that. It seems that GP is doing everyone else in the process a favor by working for free. If he criticizes the system and his publisher is pissed about it, what can they do?
Graphics cards that were designed for DirectX 9 will not support DirectX 10. So if you have an older graphics card, "upgrading" to Vista won't bring you DirectX 10 unless you buy a new DirectX 10 card as well.
I hasten to add that I do not recommend buying Vista. Aside from the lousy reviews, the few people I know who tried it were not impressed. And don't get me started on DRM and product activation...
It would still be fair advertising as opposed to the current practice.
If you have to impose a limit as provider, then state it clearly in your terms of use. Set it to something you can live with if the "asshat downloaders" actually use it. Personally, I'd do fine with 50 GByte/month - safety margin for future online games that really require broadband included.
Any provider who advertizes his service as "unlimited" and hides cutoff clauses in the fine print deserves the bad publicity he gets on
The examples given by Rodriguez do indeed only prove that Microsoft's implementation sucks. Parent's assertion is correct.
s
;-)
On the other hand, a rather lengthy list of objections against the standard itself can be found here:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objection
So it seems that both the standard and its implementation suck
While the UK nanny state has not emulated the banning of games yet, I think it is quite possible they might do so in the future. In some regards, the UK is already worse than Germany. ;-)
I think it would be smarter for Crytek to do what they hinted at and make their office in Budapest the new headquarters
Two successful examples:
-Valve's Steam (while I personally dislike the DRM aspects, it seems to be accepted by enough customers).
-EVE Online is so far distributed exclusively by download. There are rumors about a boxed version being planned, but even without it, EVE has reached around 200.000 subscribers.
Personally, I hope that the HVDe _Disc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatil
makes it to market as writable disc. A 500GB harddisk in a USB enclosure is nice, and I use that approach myself these days. But it is still more bulky and fragile than a CD-like disk. I also guess that the blank HVD media could be produced cheaper than a harddisk drive.
After that sort of crash, for most drivers the car will go out of control anyway. It is flattering that you think it would be different for me, but probably not realistic.
My current corp frequently takes on newbies and is quite nice towards them. The only major restriction is strictly limited hangar access, which we have introduced after a newbie cleared out most of the corp hangars one day (turned out she was an alt only created for such theft).
Thanks but we can that handle this ourselves. My own char (8 1/2 months, 10.5 million skillpoints) also has Production Efficiency at 5. Capable of building most T2 stuff and currently skilling up for Invention.
All that is missing is the remote skill, and there was little need for that so far...
You're really going to use open container laws and speed limits as examples of why "the State" is just trying to find things to enforce? I bet you really hate mandatory seat belt laws too.
Yes. Not using the seatbelt only endangers myself. As an adult, I insist on deciding for myself what risks I take.
Unfortunately, many politicians seem to think otherwise. I disagree with that and the result is that I'm not voting for the big parties anymore (SPD and CDU in Germany, increasingly similar to US Democrats and Republicans). There are others that have at least a bit of respect for freedom left.
Open container laws are a public safety matter. You don't want drivers to be drinking in the car and the same goes for their passengers. (emphasis mine).
I call bullshit on the passenger part. While impaired driving skills from alcohol are a problem in the driver, they are completely irrelevant for the passengers.
Probably true.
AFAIK, the best effort in that direction so far is Freelancer, which offers twitch-based multiplayer for a few dozen players per server. Scaling that up to 30.000 seems a big step to me, even if you distribute the load over multiple computers in a cluster.
Vendetta Online is twitch-based as well, but cannot keep up with the graphics and fun factor of Freelancer. When I tried it a year ago or so, the size and population of the game world was not much bigger than what is possible in Freelancer. So it does not count as proof that large-scale, twitch-based space sim MMOs are possible
IANAL,
but out of common sense I'd also send them a registered letter (or whatever gives you proof of delivery) that says that you don't accept the change in terms and that you only pay the next bill because of an existing obligation, not as an agreement to the new terms.
If things end up in court, I think that would improve GP's chances.
Hmm, I found it not that annoying. Does not deserve an "insightful" of course but I might grant him a "funny". Then again, I understand that not everyone does enjoy that sort of crude humour...
In this context, it seems like abusing the legal process to maintain the impression of a legitimate legal campaign as long as possible.
Technically legal but IMHO unethical. I hope it comes round to bite them in the ass.
SCO vs. IBM looked pretty big with its multi-billion dollar claims. This is peanuts in comparison.
Of course the RIAA's tactics are just as slimy as those of SCO, but so far the RIAA stuff has a lot less publicity. This may change if they do something really stupid and get thrown in jail for contempt of court (which would be news by itself), but I guess a lot more has to happen before that. US courts seem rather tolerant to abuse of the court system.
It is interesting that successful community projects happen mostly in software, a field where all of the necessary tools are affordable to hobbyists, and manufacturing/distribution is even cheaper.
I guess Marx wanted to achieve that for all fields by socializing the means of production, but that did not work out because in many cases the tools are simply too expensive to give everyone a chance at playing with them. The result was management by bureaucracy and a less efficient economy than in capitalism.
If we ever get really cheap and versatile manufacturing tools for hardware, we may see a repetition of that success. But I think we are a few generations of machine tools away from that (think Star Trek style replicators as an extreme scenario).
I doubt that one. At least for now.
For almost 6 years, XP has been the current version of Windows, and about every hardware vendor made sure to have drivers for it. And will continue to support it for a few more years.
Vista, in contrast, is in the same situation that XP was in when it was new:
No drivers available for a lot of older hardware, because the hardware vendor does not sell it anymore and couldn't care less.
Of course, this will change over time, assuming that most users will eventually adopt Vista instead of deserting to Linux & Co. I guess that 5 years from now Vista will have better hardware support than XP.
Considering the lousy reviews, it seems that Windows Vista is indeed "just a hack" on top of XP.
But it is no longer correct that it is a hack based on DOS. Parallel to Windows 9x, Microsoft introduced the Windows NT line. Windows 2000, XP and Vista are based on that.
In a direct comparison of Windows 2000 to Windows 98 (yes I've used both), Windows 2000 is a lot more stable, especially when confronted with bad applications. It is not perfect but definitely good enough for desktop use.
I'm using XP only occasionally, but it seems OK as well.
Vista - cough - no thanks. The reviews and personal accounts I've read are reason enough not to even try it. And the quality is only half of it, the EULA is even more inacceptable. Even if I strongly suspect it would be unenforceable in my country, I'd rather avoid getting anywhere near it.
I don't mind the occasional swear word, but when you call people "retards" for modding up something you don't like, that is not a constructive way of discussion. Civilized people can refute the other guy's arguments without insults.
More exactly, X.org was built on the last GPLed version of XFree86. So this is a classic fork where some people take advantage of the Free Software License and build their own stuff.
Because that post deserves it.
The argumentation is too good for "flamebait" or "troll", but the uncivilized attacks on GP still deserve a whacking...
Having better hardware than planned for does usually not hurt.
A drawback will be that your graphics are not as smooth as they could be on the very latest hardware generation. But on the other hand, even people with somewhat older machines will be able to run your game. If you look at WOW screenshots for instance, it seems that Blizzard did aim at running on less capable machines too. That did not diminish their success...
I usually buy out the inventory of anyone undercutting my prices. ;-)
Fine, try that with my stuff someday. I'll notice a market that will accept lots of goods and produce more
Of course, I try to find markets that have been neglected by the suppliers in the first place. That's where the best profits are. So it might take a while until we run into each other as competition...