Since when does he have an obligation to help you out?
I'm sorry but this touches a nerve that I've always had. There are too many free-software advocates who act as if the very fact that their project is open source somehow obligates people to contribute. Bullshit.
Whether the software is Free or not, whether the source is available or not, and whether I know how to fix it or not, the onus is not on ME to make YOUR program better. People have every right to say that your program sucks if it does, indeed, suck.
The whole point of Free software is it is not held to any person's idea of how it should or shouldn't be used. If you demand contributions of ANY SORT, be it money, time, effort, or constructive criticism, then your software is not Free and/you/ are the whiner.
Note to mods: if you agree with my parent, then mod me into flamebait, I've got karma to burn.
Diablo was Blizzard North's first multiplayer game, and yes, they made some serious design mistakes. But in their defense, it wasn't originally meant for multiplayer. Heck, the original design was a turn-based RPG; realtime movement was a one-day hack.
There's still a decently-sized "legit" Diablo community that hangs out in private channels and only plays passworded games with other known-legit payers.
Yes, the DATA RESOURCES are streamed from the server. The game is still rendered on your client, and your keystrokes are still handled locally. The only major architectural difference between Second Life and WoW is that one comes on CDs ahead of time, and one gets downloaded in the background.
Sure, everything would be server-side if there were such things as unlimited bandwidth, unlimited processor resources, and zero-latency connections.
In reality, collision-detection and movement logic is better handled on the client side. Nobody wants a 150ms delay between when they push the "forward" key and when they start to move. And the computational cost of doing terrain collision on the server for 5000+ players is prohibitive.
The only thing that Blizzard can do is monitor for data anomolies, such as position updates that are an impossible distance apart for the given time interval. And that is probably how they are catching speed hackers.
When I go to www.google.com, the "Groups" link now takes me to the old interface again. From there, the link to groups-beta.google.com is still shown as "Preview the new version of Google Groups".
Is this the case for everybody, or are they selectively displaying the new interface only for certain visitors?
ttp://groups-beta.google.com/groups?selm=moderat ed -ng-faq-1-983174581@swcp.com
That URL isn't linked from the discussion, and it refreshes to the "proper" location, so you have to construct it yourself by cutting/pasting the message-ID. But it still works.
Ten seconds!? I wonder, did you preload via Steam or buy it retail? I have a sneaking suspicion that the load times occur only for Steam purchasers. I preloaded on Steam, and I'm in a world of hurt at each load screen.
My system is an athlon 2500 on Win2k, and it takes approximately 3 minutes for Half-Life to start, and then 1-2 minutes for each in-game break. It pisses the hell out of me. I defragmented my hard drive, which helped by maybe 10% or so. But I have no issues with other games (World of Warcraft beta was about 15 seconds from opening it up to being fully in-game, including the typing of my password).
The mods will assume that you're trolling, but that's unfair. Some people just don't know how WINE works. (Of course Slashdotters will accuse you of living in a cave, but whatever.)
I trust that you're being honest so I'll just answer the question.
"WINE Is Not an Emulator" is one of those recursive acronyms that was invented after the fact. It used to stand for WINdows Emulator. But the important thing is that the new name is pretty much right; it isn't an emulator, it's a translation layer. Windows EXE and DLL files are directly executed by the CPU; WINE's job is just to implement all the Win32 API calls that they make.
Transgaming took a branch of WINE and added some fixes, some workarounds, and a much better implementation of the DirectX APIs. Specifically, most Direct3D functions are translated into their OpenGL equivalents, so the graphics are still hardware-accelerated (assuming you have a Linux-supported video card).
So to get back to your question, there is generally very little performance loss when WINE is compared to Windows. The binary is running natively on your CPU, and the video calls are still hardware-accelerated. The only difference is another level of API indirection.
It's interesting that some programs actually perform better under WINE, due to differences in the Win32 and Linux kernel architectures.
After playing the game for about 5 minutes, the L-lock became second nature for me, so I can't quite relate to the experience that you describe.
Most players I've talked to, and most of the reviews for the original Metroid Prime, say that the jumping is better handled in Metroid Prime than just about any other FPS or third-person game they've ever played. The movement is smooth, the camera angle feels natural, and you don't have to be split-second precise to make the jumps.
If you want my opinion, I think that dual-analog controls are unnatural. What sounds better:
Metroid Prime's setup - I can move, aim, and lock onto targets using only one thumb and the triggers, so that my right hand can focus entirely on performing actions. I can simultaneosuly aim and do any of the following: sidestep/dodge, switch to a particular weapon, fire a shot, charge a shot, fire a missile, jump, or switch to morph ball.
A dual-analog setup - both thumbs are in use for movement, leaving only the triggers and the Z button available. I would constantly be moving adjusting my right hand between the right stick and the buttons. There would not be any way to select individual weapons, so I would have to cycle to the one I need. I would not be able to turn while performing most actions, and I would get carpal tunnel from using the deep-pull analog trigger to rapid-fire the charge beam.
Personally, I thought that the jumping was particularly well-done on Metroid Prime even without looking down. But if you tilt your view forward just a bit, it's almost impossible to miss a jump.
Hold down R for free-look mode, find a view you like, hold down L to lock the camera view, and release R to move around again.
It's only a "horrendous abortion of a control scheme" if you've played a lot of dual-analog games, and gotten so comfortable with that that you've come to expect it.
I love Metroid Prime's control scheme. Sure, you have to use target-lock to be able to strafe around, but how often do you want to strafe when you're not fighting something? Never once in all the times I've beaten the game have I ever felt like I was being limited by the controls. The only minor complaint is that the turning speed could be faster, but then again, you/are/ wearing a giant metal suit.
I'm glad that they haven't changed the control scheme for the sequel. Maybe a dual-analog option could have been added to satisfy the hardcore FPS fans, but I prefer the controls the way they are right now.
How can I defend Vivendi? Did you not read my post?
I think it's great that Valve wants to sell via the net. Good job on them, they deserve a bigger slice of the profits from their own hard work.
What I don't like is the fact that Valve negotiated a contract with a distributor, in which they *agreed* to receive a small percentage of the profits... and they negotiated that contract while carefully misrepresenting their plans to go over the distributor's head. They set Vivendi up, let them pay the cost of marketing the game, and then cut them out of the picture. How can/you/ defend/that/?
Also, it's clear that you don't know shit about marketing and retail.
Um, yeah. No quests are required, you don't have to learn fishing (let alone use it exclusively for long periods of time), and there is no quest that I know of that asks you to kill rabbits.
If you're not trolling, then the guys who were playing were either messing with you - or just total idiots. If some guy gives you a quest to fetch a ball of twine, nobody says you have to accept it. You can go on killing monsters and just do your own thing.
Crafting and non-combat skills are entirely optional, period. A lot of people like them. Some people like them/more/ than combat, so they are a prominent feature in the game. There are a few quests geared towards non-combat skills. There are also plenty of quests that ask you to kill things.
I don't know anyone who wants to wander all over Dwarf-Land looking for +2 Balls of Twine, either. A game that's like that sure would suck. It's a good thing that World of Warcraft isn't.
Before someone corrects me on the financing of HL2, I'm aware that my statements sound a bit misleading. Valve officially financed development out of profits from the original Half-Life. (Gabe N certainly didn't finance it personally.) But you're crazy if you think that there's no cash flowing from Vivendi to Valve. It may not be earmarked for "development costs", but it's probably being spent on/something/.
This round of lawsuits started several years ago; contractual disputes between Vivendi and Valve go back as far as the commercial release of Counter-Strike.
Gabe Newell did NOT finance Half Life 2 out of his own pocket. Valve took quite a bit of Vivendi's money in exchange for distribution rights.
Retail distribution costs are VERY HIGH; manufacturing, distribution, advertisement, retail promotion, shelf-space agreements, and other overhead add up to a significant portion of a game's budget. Stamping out CDs is cheap; getting them into the public eye (and the public's hands) is an entirely different story.
Valve negotiated their contract with Vivendi while downplaying the usage of Steam as a retail channel. They represented the sales environment as being primarily driven by retail and mail-order. Yet while they were performing these negotiations, they were secretly working on plans to aggressively push Steam and cut down Vivendi's retail distribution. This kind of two-faced policy is definately a "dirtbag thing to do".
It is also a potential source of liability in court. I don't know what the precise contract states, and I don't know who is technically in the right and who is in the wrong. But I do know that neither Valve nor Vivendi is going to come out smelling like roses, because both sides have been extremely shady about their dealings with each other.
Um... HL2 is not quake-based. It's based on "Source", a homebrew engine that has separate rendering paths for DX7, DX8.0, DX8.1, and DX9.
That means that the game is enjoyable on anything as low as a Radeon 7500 or Geforce2 MX. Low-end systems still get all the main content, while skipping the eye candy (like refractive water) that they can't draw.
And FYI, the new netcode in the Source engine (as seen in CS: Source) feels much more robust than what we previously had with CS 1.6.
Also, quantity has rarely connoted quality; it's the fundamental flaw in democracy. The majority rule has the highest LIKELIHOOD of being right. That's all. If you said the Earth revolved around the Sun, who's right? The Catholic Church, who said the Sun orbitted the Earth, or you? Why, exactly, does the majority opinion even matter?
I'd normally agree with you, but on the topic of virtual environments, I think that it's the wrong way to look at it.
If a majority of people enjoy one thing, no matter how braindead or provably incorrect that thing is to the non-majority, there is no reason not to give it to them. The difficulty arises in shaping the majority's short-term demands into a viable long-term world... and it's no cakewalk, but I believe that it can be done no matter what the demands and restrictions are.
For example, instancing may be bad design in Bartle's view, but there's no fundamental reason that a virtual world can't include instancing and still be a long-term success. There are plenty of design mechanisms that can turn instancing into a fun and social experience. If someone claims that it can't be done, what he is really saying is that he doesn't know how to do it - or isn't willing to try.
Back to permadeath... I meant to use The Sims as an example of people becoming attached to a virtual character, and specifically stayed away from The Sims Online (which I felt had too many design flaws)... but you're right, it's not a good example because there is no death in a Sims world. But the principle remains: people grow emotionally attached to characters that they've nurtured, even for a short time. Telling people not to get attached is like telling the sun not to shine or the ocean to stop being wet. It's a natural, generally uncontrollable human response - you can't design it away.
Anyway, I appreciate that Bartle has a lot more points than he put forth in that rant (which is, after all, just a rant) so I won't make a point of disagreeing with him. But there's no way you could ever convince me to buy his book:)
"Theft" long ago expanded into the domain of intellectual property, where stealing an idea doesn't remove it from anyone else's posession.
You're not going to turn back the meaning of the word by insisting that it's still only "copyright infringement". These days, that is theft. Or rather, theft is that. The word is changing, get over it.
Disclaimer: I am NOT an expert on MMORPGs. I have never designed a MUD, or even played one for very long. I have never tried EverQuest or any other pay-per-month MMORPG.
This article looks like nothing more than whining from the old guard. Bartle talks about "a virtual world" as if there is some set idea of what this thing should be, and that there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.
Bullshit. There are as many kinds of players as there are individual people on the Earth. Bartle thinks that everyone wants to play the same kind of game that he does, and he's embarassingly incorrect.
For example, perma-death. Bartle argues that it is a poor design decision, and that people who have gotten attached to their characters are only attached because of the game's poor design. Bartle has obviously never heard of The Sims.
Many people play online games/specifically/ to create a character and keep it, and watch it progress. For these people, the goal of the game is to steer their character to success in life by (completing all the quests / gaining an honorific title / becoming a PvP champion / whatever). Does that make them permanent "newbies"? Does that make their decision to grow a single character a "wrong" decision? No, it means that they aren't the same kind of player with the same goals as Bartle.
There is also an interesting (and dangerous) psychological aspect to permanent death. Virtual avatars are a way in which people express themselves. A player may build up a character to specifically match some aspect (or desired aspect) of his or her real life. For example, someone might role-play a flirtatious character because he (or she) feels socially rejected in the real world. What do you think the effect is when that character dies in a permenant and irrevocable way?
Perma-death is just one example, of course. But Bartle doesn't back up any of his claims with anything more than "that's not the way I think it should be done." Just because/he/ cannot design a viable, long-term world with non-permanent death does not mean that it's a bad idea. It just means that he cannot reconcile it with his idea of what an online world should be.
And comparing the sales figures for The Sime to the total subscription count of every MMORPG / MUD in existance, I think that Bartle is strictly in the minority. I'm sure that he's capable of designing an/excellent/ online world for people who viewpoints similar to his. But there's a universe that's a lot larger than his world, despite the fact that he can't see it.
Sales Droid: Oh yea, that's the best one out there. That card doesn't work using triangles - it works on THE PIXEL level.
See, that makes me smile because he's so obviously wrong, and yet so close to being right:) If that was a few years ago, then he was probably regurgitating the marketing buzzwords for pixel shaders. Per-pixel specular lighting! Shiny..
Slashdot Mirror
Give me a break. Even Nike has a flash mp3 player that does shuffle. It even has an arm band, designed specifically for runners.
The iPod Shuffle is not innovative, or revolutionary. In fact, it's identical to the players already available by *shoe* companies.
Wrong. The iPod shuffle is called an iPod and is made by Apple, while the Nike players are not.
Compare sales figures in six months and tell me how identical that makes it.
If I remember correctly, it's a different company now. Same website -- new ownership.
Since when does he have an obligation to help you out?
/you/ are the whiner.
I'm sorry but this touches a nerve that I've always had. There are too many free-software advocates who act as if the very fact that their project is open source somehow obligates people to contribute. Bullshit.
Whether the software is Free or not, whether the source is available or not, and whether I know how to fix it or not, the onus is not on ME to make YOUR program better. People have every right to say that your program sucks if it does, indeed, suck.
The whole point of Free software is it is not held to any person's idea of how it should or shouldn't be used. If you demand contributions of ANY SORT, be it money, time, effort, or constructive criticism, then your software is not Free and
Note to mods: if you agree with my parent, then mod me into flamebait, I've got karma to burn.
1) Every server is PvP. The "PvE" servers are just consentual instead of automatic.
2) Speedhack means that someone can beat you to every single important monster/chest/whatever.
3) Customers want a button they can click to win the game. Should Blizzard provide it?
Diablo was Blizzard North's first multiplayer game, and yes, they made some serious design mistakes. But in their defense, it wasn't originally meant for multiplayer. Heck, the original design was a turn-based RPG; realtime movement was a one-day hack.
There's still a decently-sized "legit" Diablo community that hangs out in private channels and only plays passworded games with other known-legit payers.
Yes, the DATA RESOURCES are streamed from the server. The game is still rendered on your client, and your keystrokes are still handled locally. The only major architectural difference between Second Life and WoW is that one comes on CDs ahead of time, and one gets downloaded in the background.
Sure, everything would be server-side if there were such things as unlimited bandwidth, unlimited processor resources, and zero-latency connections.
In reality, collision-detection and movement logic is better handled on the client side. Nobody wants a 150ms delay between when they push the "forward" key and when they start to move. And the computational cost of doing terrain collision on the server for 5000+ players is prohibitive.
The only thing that Blizzard can do is monitor for data anomolies, such as position updates that are an impossible distance apart for the given time interval. And that is probably how they are catching speed hackers.
When I go to www.google.com, the "Groups" link now takes me to the old interface again. From there, the link to groups-beta.google.com is still shown as "Preview the new version of Google Groups".
Is this the case for everybody, or are they selectively displaying the new interface only for certain visitors?
The old method is still there with the new URL:
t ed -ng-faq-1-983174581@swcp.com
ttp://groups-beta.google.com/groups?selm=modera
That URL isn't linked from the discussion, and it refreshes to the "proper" location, so you have to construct it yourself by cutting/pasting the message-ID. But it still works.
Ten seconds!? I wonder, did you preload via Steam or buy it retail? I have a sneaking suspicion that the load times occur only for Steam purchasers. I preloaded on Steam, and I'm in a world of hurt at each load screen.
My system is an athlon 2500 on Win2k, and it takes approximately 3 minutes for Half-Life to start, and then 1-2 minutes for each in-game break. It pisses the hell out of me. I defragmented my hard drive, which helped by maybe 10% or so. But I have no issues with other games (World of Warcraft beta was about 15 seconds from opening it up to being fully in-game, including the typing of my password).
The mods will assume that you're trolling, but that's unfair. Some people just don't know how WINE works. (Of course Slashdotters will accuse you of living in a cave, but whatever.)
I trust that you're being honest so I'll just answer the question.
"WINE Is Not an Emulator" is one of those recursive acronyms that was invented after the fact. It used to stand for WINdows Emulator. But the important thing is that the new name is pretty much right; it isn't an emulator, it's a translation layer. Windows EXE and DLL files are directly executed by the CPU; WINE's job is just to implement all the Win32 API calls that they make.
Transgaming took a branch of WINE and added some fixes, some workarounds, and a much better implementation of the DirectX APIs. Specifically, most Direct3D functions are translated into their OpenGL equivalents, so the graphics are still hardware-accelerated (assuming you have a Linux-supported video card).
So to get back to your question,
there is generally very little performance loss when WINE is compared to Windows. The binary is running natively on your CPU, and the video calls are still hardware-accelerated. The only difference is another level of API indirection.
It's interesting that some programs actually perform better under WINE, due to differences in the Win32 and Linux kernel architectures.
Most players I've talked to, and most of the reviews for the original Metroid Prime, say that the jumping is better handled in Metroid Prime than just about any other FPS or third-person game they've ever played. The movement is smooth, the camera angle feels natural, and you don't have to be split-second precise to make the jumps.
If you want my opinion, I think that dual-analog controls are unnatural. What sounds better:
I know which one I prefer.
Oh, you never figured out how to look down?
Personally, I thought that the jumping was particularly well-done on Metroid Prime even without looking down. But if you tilt your view forward just a bit, it's almost impossible to miss a jump.
Hold down R for free-look mode, find a view you like, hold down L to lock the camera view, and release R to move around again.
It's only a "horrendous abortion of a control scheme" if you've played a lot of dual-analog games, and gotten so comfortable with that that you've come to expect it.
/are/ wearing a giant metal suit.
I love Metroid Prime's control scheme. Sure, you have to use target-lock to be able to strafe around, but how often do you want to strafe when you're not fighting something? Never once in all the times I've beaten the game have I ever felt like I was being limited by the controls. The only minor complaint is that the turning speed could be faster, but then again, you
I'm glad that they haven't changed the control scheme for the sequel. Maybe a dual-analog option could have been added to satisfy the hardcore FPS fans, but I prefer the controls the way they are right now.
How can I defend Vivendi? Did you not read my post?
/you/ defend /that/?
I think it's great that Valve wants to sell via the net. Good job on them, they deserve a bigger slice of the profits from their own hard work.
What I don't like is the fact that Valve negotiated a contract with a distributor, in which they *agreed* to receive a small percentage of the profits... and they negotiated that contract while carefully misrepresenting their plans to go over the distributor's head. They set Vivendi up, let them pay the cost of marketing the game, and then cut them out of the picture. How can
Also, it's clear that you don't know shit about marketing and retail.
Um, yeah. No quests are required, you don't have to learn fishing (let alone use it exclusively for long periods of time), and there is no quest that I know of that asks you to kill rabbits.
/more/ than combat, so they are a prominent feature in the game. There are a few quests geared towards non-combat skills. There are also plenty of quests that ask you to kill things.
If you're not trolling, then the guys who were playing were either messing with you - or just total idiots. If some guy gives you a quest to fetch a ball of twine, nobody says you have to accept it. You can go on killing monsters and just do your own thing.
Crafting and non-combat skills are entirely optional, period. A lot of people like them. Some people like them
I don't know anyone who wants to wander all over Dwarf-Land looking for +2 Balls of Twine, either. A game that's like that sure would suck. It's a good thing that World of Warcraft isn't.
Before someone corrects me on the financing of HL2, I'm aware that my statements sound a bit misleading. Valve officially financed development out of profits from the original Half-Life. (Gabe N certainly didn't finance it personally.) But you're crazy if you think that there's no cash flowing from Vivendi to Valve. It may not be earmarked for "development costs", but it's probably being spent on
You are misinformed, unfortunately.
This round of lawsuits started several years ago; contractual disputes between Vivendi and Valve go back as far as the commercial release of Counter-Strike.
Gabe Newell did NOT finance Half Life 2 out of his own pocket. Valve took quite a bit of Vivendi's money in exchange for distribution rights.
Retail distribution costs are VERY HIGH; manufacturing, distribution, advertisement, retail promotion, shelf-space agreements, and other overhead add up to a significant portion of a game's budget. Stamping out CDs is cheap; getting them into the public eye (and the public's hands) is an entirely different story.
Valve negotiated their contract with Vivendi while downplaying the usage of Steam as a retail channel. They represented the sales environment as being primarily driven by retail and mail-order. Yet while they were performing these negotiations, they were secretly working on plans to aggressively push Steam and cut down Vivendi's retail distribution. This kind of two-faced policy is definately a "dirtbag thing to do".
It is also a potential source of liability in court. I don't know what the precise contract states, and I don't know who is technically in the right and who is in the wrong. But I do know that neither Valve nor Vivendi is going to come out smelling like roses, because both sides have been extremely shady about their dealings with each other.
Well, what is television except for a delivery vehicle for 30-second spots?
Yes, it's more than a marketing gimmick. It's a self-contained and enjoyable experience for those who choose to play it.
Um ... HL2 is not quake-based. It's based on "Source", a homebrew engine that has separate rendering paths for DX7, DX8.0, DX8.1, and DX9.
That means that the game is enjoyable on anything as low as a Radeon 7500 or Geforce2 MX. Low-end systems still get all the main content, while skipping the eye candy (like refractive water) that they can't draw.
And FYI, the new netcode in the Source engine (as seen in CS: Source) feels much more robust than what we previously had with CS 1.6.
Also, quantity has rarely connoted quality; it's the fundamental flaw in democracy. The majority rule has the highest LIKELIHOOD of being right. That's all. If you said the Earth revolved around the Sun, who's right? The Catholic Church, who said the Sun orbitted the Earth, or you? Why, exactly, does the majority opinion even matter?
... I meant to use The Sims as an example of people becoming attached to a virtual character, and specifically stayed away from The Sims Online (which I felt had too many design flaws)... but you're right, it's not a good example because there is no death in a Sims world. But the principle remains: people grow emotionally attached to characters that they've nurtured, even for a short time. Telling people not to get attached is like telling the sun not to shine or the ocean to stop being wet. It's a natural, generally uncontrollable human response - you can't design it away.
:)
I'd normally agree with you, but on the topic of virtual environments, I think that it's the wrong way to look at it.
If a majority of people enjoy one thing, no matter how braindead or provably incorrect that thing is to the non-majority, there is no reason not to give it to them. The difficulty arises in shaping the majority's short-term demands into a viable long-term world... and it's no cakewalk, but I believe that it can be done no matter what the demands and restrictions are.
For example, instancing may be bad design in Bartle's view, but there's no fundamental reason that a virtual world can't include instancing and still be a long-term success. There are plenty of design mechanisms that can turn instancing into a fun and social experience. If someone claims that it can't be done, what he is really saying is that he doesn't know how to do it - or isn't willing to try.
Back to permadeath
Anyway, I appreciate that Bartle has a lot more points than he put forth in that rant (which is, after all, just a rant) so I won't make a point of disagreeing with him. But there's no way you could ever convince me to buy his book
"Theft" long ago expanded into the domain of intellectual property, where stealing an idea doesn't remove it from anyone else's posession.
You're not going to turn back the meaning of the word by insisting that it's still only "copyright infringement". These days, that is theft. Or rather, theft is that. The word is changing, get over it.
Yes, and technically when you extricate a drunk driver from a car wreck, he is "suspected" of DUI.
I don't think they'd be dumb enough to bring charges unless they had reasonable evidence and an expectation of victory.
Disclaimer: I am NOT an expert on MMORPGs. I have never designed a MUD, or even played one for very long. I have never tried EverQuest or any other pay-per-month MMORPG.
/specifically/ to create a character and keep it, and watch it progress. For these people, the goal of the game is to steer their character to success in life by (completing all the quests / gaining an honorific title / becoming a PvP champion / whatever). Does that make them permanent "newbies"? Does that make their decision to grow a single character a "wrong" decision? No, it means that they aren't the same kind of player with the same goals as Bartle.
/he/ cannot design a viable, long-term world with non-permanent death does not mean that it's a bad idea. It just means that he cannot reconcile it with his idea of what an online world should be.
/excellent/ online world for people who viewpoints similar to his. But there's a universe that's a lot larger than his world, despite the fact that he can't see it.
This article looks like nothing more than whining from the old guard. Bartle talks about "a virtual world" as if there is some set idea of what this thing should be, and that there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.
Bullshit. There are as many kinds of players as there are individual people on the Earth. Bartle thinks that everyone wants to play the same kind of game that he does, and he's embarassingly incorrect.
For example, perma-death. Bartle argues that it is a poor design decision, and that people who have gotten attached to their characters are only attached because of the game's poor design. Bartle has obviously never heard of The Sims.
Many people play online games
There is also an interesting (and dangerous) psychological aspect to permanent death. Virtual avatars are a way in which people express themselves. A player may build up a character to specifically match some aspect (or desired aspect) of his or her real life. For example, someone might role-play a flirtatious character because he (or she) feels socially rejected in the real world. What do you think the effect is when that character dies in a permenant and irrevocable way?
Perma-death is just one example, of course. But Bartle doesn't back up any of his claims with anything more than "that's not the way I think it should be done." Just because
And comparing the sales figures for The Sime to the total subscription count of every MMORPG / MUD in existance, I think that Bartle is strictly in the minority. I'm sure that he's capable of designing an
Sales Droid: Oh yea, that's the best one out there. That card doesn't work using triangles - it works on THE PIXEL level.
:) If that was a few years ago, then he was probably regurgitating the marketing buzzwords for pixel shaders. Per-pixel specular lighting! Shiny..
See, that makes me smile because he's so obviously wrong, and yet so close to being right