I guess they expect to get away with ridicoulously light penalties for monopoly abuse like in the USA. This state of mind will probably persist until Microsoft loses a few of the court cases elsewhere and actually has to pay up. And considering how large Microsoft's profits are, it might actually take repeated fines of the size demanded by the EU commission to enforce a change.
In this case, the system is designed to run a P4. I agree that this is a stupid decision, an Opteron or Athlon64 would make more sense. But tell that to the designers of the system, not to CoolTyler5.
In the long run, I agree that things will balance out somehow, with taxes on the software manufacturer included in the price of software on "purchase". Or maybe software publishers like Microsoft will drop the EULA clauses that say "licensed not owned", to make sure they are not taxed as the owners.
In the short run however, the wording of the law will make a massive difference. Because for all the software already sold, the sales contracts cannot be retroactively changed without both parties agreeing. In these cases, whoever gets to pay the taxes is stuck with the loss.
The "licensed not owned" part might not be enforcable in every legislation. Just because the software publishing industry makes a legal claim, it is not necessarily binding. Besides, if the government really wants to, it can usually get parliament to change the laws as desired.
Lastly, Yonah is a landmark chip for Intel; it's a chip that finally reunites the low-end server, the desktop and the laptop on one core design, and it's quite simply one of the most feature-rich, effecient chips ever built (including anything AMD has put out, though the Athlon's are currently faster, the Yohan chip at full tilt produces less heat than the AMD64's do at Idle).
Rejoice, for next year's CPU battle should be a hundred times more entertaining than this years, and finally, finally we might see CPU prices drop again. Maybe I'll finally scrounge up enough money to buy a new machine! Next year's CPU battle should be entertaining indeed. Because I don't think that progress will stop on the AMD side. I guess we will see a bit higher clockspeed out of the existing 90nm process, plus eventually a switch to 65nm manufacturing by AMD. So once the desktop version of Yonah comes out, expect some really tough competition. Probably with the current AMD single cores slipping in the role the Sempron has now: Cheap but still more than sufficient for most uses.
AMD are gaining ground, just not as fast as one would expect from the difference in product quality. http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20051025PR210.html In terms of mass manufacture, AMD's second fab in Dresden should become available in 2006. That will help with the available numbers.
That was the version proposed at the request of the media industry. Now it appears that parliament has turned the law into something quite different. But I'd like to read a bit more about the decision before commenting further.
In the case of 9/11, the government could point to a really spectacular terrorist attack as reason for the Patriot act. Where is the equivalent for the *AAs?
I think BMW had a good idea there, but maybe there is an easier way? In the "Deutsches Museum" for technology in Munich, there is an old plane engine on display that has a turbocharger which is coupled to the crankshaft. The idea is taking the excess energy from the turbine in the exhaust and using it to increase the motor's power. The description claims a 15-20% better efficiency than conventional engines, essentially the same as BMW claimed for its concept. And I suspect the additional mechanics might be way smaller and cheaper than the extra steam engine.
Once almost all computers have a working TPM (possibly by 2015), both the local cable company and the local telephone company are likely to see TNC as a cash cow for their Internet access customers, and they're likely to deny you an IP address unless your machine is "trusted". Those 2 percent or fewer customers using a computer without a TPM would just be considered collateral damage who can just go back to dial-up. Cash cow is the important point: It seems quite credible that you might get the latest ultra-cheap broadband tariff only in connection with TPM. But at the same time, I would expect TPM-free access to persist for a few dollars more.
If Chinese tech avoids DRM while others embrace it, that alone might give them a few percent of marketshare. Another area to gain some marketshare might be Open Source-friendly graphics gards, right now both ATI and NVIDIA are not exactly forthcoming with specifications. Intel's integrated chipset graphics have OS drivers but are not the fastest. So even something equivalent to a Radeon9600 might be able to take the title of "fastest GPU with full specs".
Heh. Fortunately I've known about this before buying HL2. My reaction is what Pendersempai suggested two posts above yours: I will simply pay less in the first place, so I have a sort of "compensation in advance" for the hassle. Considering HL2 in particular, my idea of an acceptable price is 20 Euros. Right now, discount offers seem to start at 25 Euros. Well, Valve, maybe in 2006;-)
Games that do not do stat tracking, matchmaking, and auto-update get lambasted in reviews and rightfully so. Multiple installs means multiple accounts even if the original account is not in use there is a maintenance cost. Considering the (old, inactive) accounts itself, we are talking about a few records in a database. That means some cost but in the age of multi-gigabyte drives it should be small enough to be no trouble to the publisher. Matchmaking happens at runtime and is no issue at all for inactive accounts. Auto-Update probably happens once per installation (simplified) and I guess is the most significant cost involved here. But when the initial release comes with reasonable quality, the amount of data transfer needed should still be acceptable.
Years after a game is sold there is still a team in place for play balance updates and patches whenever a new video card or set of drivers is released. If people are not buying the game first-hand anymore this support will stop. In most games that rely on box sales only, this sort of support stops after a short time anyway. You will get patches for a few months but then you are left with whatever the last patch offers. Companies like Valve (who supported CS for years) are an exception. For subscription-based games, like most MMORPGS, your argumentation fails completely because a few months of gameplay cost as much as the box. If one of these games is re-sold, the subscription fees from the buyer will pay for the support.
Client-side yes, but I admit that things will be harder on the server: I am assuming that you want to send data for all (n) nearby players to each player (m) times per second, with m being a constant determined by the max. acceptable lag. Then the required network throughput will be (n)*(m)*(amount of data for one nearby player) per second for one client. That is a complexity of O(n). On the server side, you have to do this for (n) clients, so you have a complexity of O(n^2). That could make things expensive for the company offering the game.
In case of a MMORPG-like game with significant character advancement, deleting extremely misbehaving chars could have the desired effect. Team-killed all the time? Oops, character gone, start at level 1 again. In the meantime, the less retarded players who started with you are level 20 and got to keep their account. Next time you shoot at them, they just whip out their much bigger guns and blow you away.
4. Ah, see, here is the thing. The vast majority of players don't necessarily want balance in a FPS. They want to find the right weapon/vehicle, and use it to blast the shit out of the other helpless players. Yeah, they want some challenge, but they sure don't want everything to always be evened out. And NOBODY likes to be forced into using certain weapons. The individual player might not want balance. As long as the unbalance is in his favor. But if he is on the receiving end, he gets unhappy pretty fast. That makes for plenty of annoyed ex-customers. That is why you DO need some sort of balance between the skill-capped players of different classes. The do not need to be (and should not be IMHO) equal in everything, but their overall power must be on the same level.
5. Fair fights are NOT always fun, see above. Fairness is a concept that people like in RPGs because they don't want to be at a disadvantage when squaring off against someone at their level. But keep in mind RPGs are a numbers based game whereas FPS are a skill based one. To me, fairness in a shooter-MMORPG means equal chances against someone of the same character level. If the other guy has more playing skill, tough luck but I can accept that.
I'm still playing it, and I can confirm it has both great strengths and annoying weaknesses. Combat BTW is FPS-like but not quite equal to existing shooters: Where Half-Life 1 and its mods (Counterstrike;-) had a reasonably accurate ballistics simulation, Neocron is more like "you have to aim to get a hitbox, but the rest is a roll as in other MMORPGs". You see that in little details like the impossibility to shoot semi-covered opponents, where Half-Life would have let you shoot, simulated the path of the bullet and calculated if it went into the ground or into the enemy.
The recent graphics upgrade is actually quite nice, but it does not cover everything. Obviously upgraded are the graphics for -weapons -vegetation -some clothes This list may not be complete, as I'm more of a casual player who does not spend huge amounts of time ingame.
Considering the PVP balance, I'm not much into Neocron PVP but most players agree that Monks are overpowered. It is a constant source of complaints in the official forums.
I can remember playing Day Of Defeat (Half-Life 1 mod) on a 56k modem. It worked fine up to 10 players, and with tolerable lag up to maybe 20 players. Now let us consider only the data transmission needs for a moment, and assume 1) the necessary bandwith is proportional to the number of the other players on the map 2) you have a 1000k DSL connection (which is not uncommon these days). In that case, the above numbers scale to 200 people with good performance and 400 people with tolerable lag.
I have one common (but not quite as easy to guess) pasword for several internet forums. Things that are really critical, however, get their own password. My computer access at work, for instance (and so far I don't do homebanking at all).
I would try to give a 6 month written notice then. The company might fire you in return at the shortest possible date. So if you want to game the system, find out how long the mandatory notice in your case is. Then give YOUR notice at the most convenient time. Example: Your work contract says that it can be terminated ony at the end of a month, with notice required 4 weeks prior. Then hand in your resignation letter 3 1/2 weeks before the end of the month. Result: Almost 8 weeks of paid holiday;-)
I agree to that. Besides, anyone who wants to screw the company can steal confidential material before handing in his resignation letter. The practice of escorting people out has more justification if the company fires the employee. In that case, the fired worker might get ideas of revenge, and removing him from the scene will have genuine security advantages. It is still a pretty rude way of handling things, but it makes more sense than with people who resigned by themselves.
With the planned encyclopedia, proving prior art is easier because you just can point to the encyclopedia text. Proving that a medicine is traditional should do the job as well, but may be somewhat more time-consuming because you will have to find sufficient witnesses.
On both sides. The new processors Intel has promised are also not available yet. I guess AMD will get its new fab going before Yonah is available in significant quantity.
AMD is getting close to starting its second fab in Dresden, Germany. Some time in 2006, it should reach full capacity. So I don't expect a shortage of AMD processors.
Considering the low power usage of the tested chip, Intel can probably afford to raise the clock speed for the desktop versions. They may also achieve some performance optimization between now and the release of the desktop version. On the other hand, AMD will have the 65nm version of its Athlon X2 by that time. My guess is that AMD will stay ahead for now, but Intel is back on a reasonable course (no more Prescotts).
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I guess they expect to get away with ridicoulously light penalties for monopoly abuse like in the USA. This state of mind will probably persist until Microsoft loses a few of the court cases elsewhere and actually has to pay up.
And considering how large Microsoft's profits are, it might actually take repeated fines of the size demanded by the EU commission to enforce a change.
In this case, the system is designed to run a P4. I agree that this is a stupid decision, an Opteron or Athlon64 would make more sense. But tell that to the designers of the system, not to CoolTyler5.
In the long run, I agree that things will balance out somehow, with taxes on the software manufacturer included in the price of software on "purchase". Or maybe software publishers like Microsoft will drop the EULA clauses that say "licensed not owned", to make sure they are not taxed as the owners.
In the short run however, the wording of the law will make a massive difference. Because for all the software already sold, the sales contracts cannot be retroactively changed without both parties agreeing. In these cases, whoever gets to pay the taxes is stuck with the loss.
The "licensed not owned" part might not be enforcable in every legislation. Just because the software publishing industry makes a legal claim, it is not necessarily binding.
Besides, if the government really wants to, it can usually get parliament to change the laws as desired.
Lastly, Yonah is a landmark chip for Intel; it's a chip that finally reunites the low-end server, the desktop and the laptop on one core design, and it's quite simply one of the most feature-rich, effecient chips ever built (including anything AMD has put out, though the Athlon's are currently faster, the Yohan chip at full tilt produces less heat than the AMD64's do at Idle).
Rejoice, for next year's CPU battle should be a hundred times more entertaining than this years, and finally, finally we might see CPU prices drop again. Maybe I'll finally scrounge up enough money to buy a new machine!
Next year's CPU battle should be entertaining indeed.
Because I don't think that progress will stop on the AMD side. I guess we will see a bit higher clockspeed out of the existing 90nm process, plus eventually a switch to 65nm manufacturing by AMD.
So once the desktop version of Yonah comes out, expect some really tough competition. Probably with the current AMD single cores slipping in the role the Sempron has now:
Cheap but still more than sufficient for most uses.
AMD are gaining ground, just not as fast as one would expect from the difference in product quality.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20051025PR210.html
In terms of mass manufacture, AMD's second fab in Dresden should become available in 2006. That will help with the available numbers.
That was the version proposed at the request of the media industry.
Now it appears that parliament has turned the law into something quite different. But I'd like to read a bit more about the decision before commenting further.
In the case of 9/11, the government could point to a really spectacular terrorist attack as reason for the Patriot act. Where is the equivalent for the *AAs?
I think BMW had a good idea there, but maybe there is an easier way?
In the "Deutsches Museum" for technology in Munich, there is an old plane engine on display that has a turbocharger which is coupled to the crankshaft. The idea is taking the excess energy from the turbine in the exhaust and using it to increase the motor's power.
The description claims a 15-20% better efficiency than conventional engines, essentially the same as BMW claimed for its concept. And I suspect the additional mechanics might be way smaller and cheaper than the extra steam engine.
Once almost all computers have a working TPM (possibly by 2015), both the local cable company and the local telephone company are likely to see TNC as a cash cow for their Internet access customers, and they're likely to deny you an IP address unless your machine is "trusted". Those 2 percent or fewer customers using a computer without a TPM would just be considered collateral damage who can just go back to dial-up.
Cash cow is the important point:
It seems quite credible that you might get the latest ultra-cheap broadband tariff only in connection with TPM. But at the same time, I would expect TPM-free access to persist for a few dollars more.
If Chinese tech avoids DRM while others embrace it, that alone might give them a few percent of marketshare.
Another area to gain some marketshare might be Open Source-friendly graphics gards, right now both ATI and NVIDIA are not exactly forthcoming with specifications. Intel's integrated chipset graphics have OS drivers but are not the fastest.
So even something equivalent to a Radeon9600 might be able to take the title of "fastest GPU with full specs".
Heh. Fortunately I've known about this before buying HL2. ;-)
My reaction is what Pendersempai suggested two posts above yours:
I will simply pay less in the first place, so I have a sort of "compensation in advance" for the hassle. Considering HL2 in particular, my idea of an acceptable price is 20 Euros. Right now, discount offers seem to start at 25 Euros. Well, Valve, maybe in 2006
Games that do not do stat tracking, matchmaking, and auto-update get lambasted in reviews and rightfully so. Multiple installs means multiple accounts even if the original account is not in use there is a maintenance cost.
Considering the (old, inactive) accounts itself, we are talking about a few records in a database. That means some cost but in the age of multi-gigabyte drives it should be small enough to be no trouble to the publisher.
Matchmaking happens at runtime and is no issue at all for inactive accounts.
Auto-Update probably happens once per installation (simplified) and I guess is the most significant cost involved here. But when the initial release comes with reasonable quality, the amount of data transfer needed should still be acceptable.
Years after a game is sold there is still a team in place for play balance updates and patches whenever a new video card or set of drivers is released. If people are not buying the game first-hand anymore this support will stop.
In most games that rely on box sales only, this sort of support stops after a short time anyway. You will get patches for a few months but then you are left with whatever the last patch offers. Companies like Valve (who supported CS for years) are an exception.
For subscription-based games, like most MMORPGS, your argumentation fails completely because a few months of gameplay cost as much as the box. If one of these games is re-sold, the subscription fees from the buyer will pay for the support.
Client-side yes, but I admit that things will be harder on the server:
I am assuming that you want to send data for all (n) nearby players to each player (m) times per second, with m being a constant determined by the max. acceptable lag.
Then the required network throughput will be (n)*(m)*(amount of data for one nearby player) per second for one client. That is a complexity of O(n).
On the server side, you have to do this for (n) clients, so you have a complexity of O(n^2). That could make things expensive for the company offering the game.
In case of a MMORPG-like game with significant character advancement, deleting extremely misbehaving chars could have the desired effect.
Team-killed all the time? Oops, character gone, start at level 1 again. In the meantime, the less retarded players who started with you are level 20 and got to keep their account. Next time you shoot at them, they just whip out their much bigger guns and blow you away.
4. Ah, see, here is the thing. The vast majority of players don't necessarily want balance in a FPS. They want to find the right weapon/vehicle, and use it to blast the shit out of the other helpless players. Yeah, they want some challenge, but they sure don't want everything to always be evened out. And NOBODY likes to be forced into using certain weapons.
The individual player might not want balance. As long as the unbalance is in his favor. But if he is on the receiving end, he gets unhappy pretty fast. That makes for plenty of annoyed ex-customers.
That is why you DO need some sort of balance between the skill-capped players of different classes. The do not need to be (and should not be IMHO) equal in everything, but their overall power must be on the same level.
5. Fair fights are NOT always fun, see above. Fairness is a concept that people like in RPGs because they don't want to be at a disadvantage when squaring off against someone at their level. But keep in mind RPGs are a numbers based game whereas FPS are a skill based one.
To me, fairness in a shooter-MMORPG means equal chances against someone of the same character level. If the other guy has more playing skill, tough luck but I can accept that.
I'm still playing it, and I can confirm it has both great strengths and annoying weaknesses. Combat BTW is FPS-like but not quite equal to existing shooters: ;-) had a reasonably accurate ballistics simulation, Neocron is more like "you have to aim to get a hitbox, but the rest is a roll as in other MMORPGs".
Where Half-Life 1 and its mods (Counterstrike
You see that in little details like the impossibility to shoot semi-covered opponents, where Half-Life would have let you shoot, simulated the path of the bullet and calculated if it went into the ground or into the enemy.
The recent graphics upgrade is actually quite nice, but it does not cover everything. Obviously upgraded are the graphics for
-weapons
-vegetation
-some clothes
This list may not be complete, as I'm more of a casual player who does not spend huge amounts of time ingame.
Considering the PVP balance, I'm not much into Neocron PVP but most players agree that Monks are overpowered. It is a constant source of complaints in the official forums.
I can remember playing Day Of Defeat (Half-Life 1 mod) on a 56k modem. It worked fine up to 10 players, and with tolerable lag up to maybe 20 players.
Now let us consider only the data transmission needs for a moment, and assume
1) the necessary bandwith is proportional to the number of the other players on the map
2) you have a 1000k DSL connection (which is not uncommon these days).
In that case, the above numbers scale to 200 people with good performance and 400 people with tolerable lag.
I have one common (but not quite as easy to guess) pasword for several internet forums.
Things that are really critical, however, get their own password. My computer access at work, for instance (and so far I don't do homebanking at all).
I would try to give a 6 month written notice then. ;-)
The company might fire you in return at the shortest possible date. So if you want to game the system, find out how long the mandatory notice in your case is. Then give YOUR notice at the most convenient time.
Example:
Your work contract says that it can be terminated ony at the end of a month, with notice required 4 weeks prior. Then hand in your resignation letter 3 1/2 weeks before the end of the month. Result:
Almost 8 weeks of paid holiday
I agree to that. Besides, anyone who wants to screw the company can steal confidential material before handing in his resignation letter.
The practice of escorting people out has more justification if the company fires the employee. In that case, the fired worker might get ideas of revenge, and removing him from the scene will have genuine security advantages. It is still a pretty rude way of handling things, but it makes more sense than with people who resigned by themselves.
With the planned encyclopedia, proving prior art is easier because you just can point to the encyclopedia text.
Proving that a medicine is traditional should do the job as well, but may be somewhat more time-consuming because you will have to find sufficient witnesses.
On both sides. The new processors Intel has promised are also not available yet. I guess AMD will get its new fab going before Yonah is available in significant quantity.
AMD is getting close to starting its second fab in Dresden, Germany. Some time in 2006, it should reach full capacity. So I don't expect a shortage of AMD processors.
Considering the low power usage of the tested chip, Intel can probably afford to raise the clock speed for the desktop versions. They may also achieve some performance optimization between now and the release of the desktop version.
On the other hand, AMD will have the 65nm version of its Athlon X2 by that time. My guess is that AMD will stay ahead for now, but Intel is back on a reasonable course (no more Prescotts).