Games don't support GameSpy, GameSpy supports games.
Not true. Gamespy licences their engine for use in some games. Many games strip down a lot of the features that are available in say, Gamespy 3D, but some games (like BF1942) use a surprising number of options.
I don't know about your email servers, but don't you go under the assumption that your email is being read by your ISP, or your boss?
Well, for my business email, sure. Doesn't everyone put in compliments about their boss (and especially their IT staff) in their business email every once in a while?;-)
Otherwise, I use Hushmail for personal use, and I KNOW my IT department hasn't gotten it together enough to employ key loggers. Yeah, I know Hush isn't completely safe, but nothing will stop key loggers if you are trying to log in on a computer you don't know is secure...
But it wont' feel like it. The whole point of Myst was the abandoned feeling you got from the areas. Crowding a Myst world with "asl??" isn't going to make it better in any concievable way. This just isn't going to make money.
They can easily make it "abandoned" by simply making instanced versions of zones/areas. Basically, each individual person has there own instance of a place. Not a problem to implement, if that is what they are going for. Ever play Anarchy Online?
However, I disagree that they will lose money because they don't have that "abandoned feeling". You don't play online to play alone -- you play online to play with others. One of the chief complaints of the Asheron's Call 2 world is that it LOOKS abandoned and dead. They have, what, only 35k subscribers right now?
...with the entertainment consisting in exploration and storyline rather than in player status and achievement.
Sounds like the closest thing yet to an actual online RPG, and it's not even being called a MMORPG
Bartle wrote long ago how there are four types of online gamers -- killers, achievers, socializers, and explorers. While this may be somewhat simplistic, it turns out to be pretty accurate. This game simply focuses on Exploration and Socialization. The Sims Online focuses on Socialization and Achievement (get into those top-10 lists!). AC2 focuses almost entirely on Killing.
There are lots of "actual online RPGs" out there, they just never made it very big. If you want true roleplaying, try out Underlight for example.
Besides, I don't see anything how this game is going to "enforce roleplaying" at all.
I totally agree -- what's missing in virtual worlds right now is the ability for players to travel between them. Obviously, Stormtroopers shouldn't be invading the Sims Online, but there should be a virtual "border crossing" where you can step into the guise of a new character, appropriate to the realm you're traveling to, even exchanging coin of one realm for coin of another if both realms can agree on an exchange rate. For megaMMORPGs like EverQuest, this is something they want to avoid, since lock-in is an important part of their business strategy.
Avoid? They are very happy to charge you $50 to change to another server. In fact, it's a revenue stream that's made them a million dollars.
Ideally, individual users should be able to design their own virtual worlds and host them in the Metaverse
This is what Neverwinter Nights is doing. You can gate between worlds. However, no revenue is involved.
thank you very much for posting that text i really enjoyed reading it and was afraid i wouldn't get a chance since the server is slashdotted why slashdot doesn't create their own cache to avoid this problem is completely beyond me thank you once again for your service to this community i will place you in my friends list sircrashalot
Oh come on, -1? Even though it's from an Anonymous Coward it rates a "Funny". Too bad I don't have any mod points left...
I'm looking at this on one of the Dell FP-2000s running off a *DVI* connection at 1600x1200. I wasn't aware some people were having problems. And yes, it IS DVI -- it looks substantially better than the analog input.
I AM running a Radeon 8500 however - at the time I bought the card I couldn't find an Nvidia that supported DVI past 1280x1024. Maybe that is causing problems?
Btw, the side with the weakest case (which is not necessarily the same as the "guilty" party) has a better chance of throwing out the "logical" thinkers, as they are the ones most apt to follow the judge's instructions.
Geez, I was suprised you didn't put in that the RIAA and MPAA were going to use a Beowulf cluster, while using an MS backend. You could have been modded up to a 6 that way;-)
Actually, RFI chokes are just magnets that clamp over a wire. A better solution (one I have done successfully) is to buy that magnet tape stuff -- it has sticky stuff on one side, and is made to fasten things to metal. The stuff is much cheaper, and you just wind it around the wire you want to protect. Put some duct tape over it so it won't come loose and you are good to go.
This is going to be a great year for competition. Just a year ago Pocket PC's had huge advantages in both hardware and software. Palm OS 4 devices were stuck using 16-bit Motorola processors that for the most part ran at 33MHz, while on the PPC the norm was a 200Mhz 32-bit StrongARM processor with around 20 times the MIPS. The PPC OS was multithreaded, the Palm OS was not. The normal PPC could run 320x240 full screen resolution; the majority of Palm models were running 160x160 with a hard graffiti area. About the only advantage Palm units had was battery life, and even that was being challenged by lithium-powered PPC units such as the iPAQ. A lot can change in a year.
Software is more equal now. OS 5 is a 32-bit, (from the 32-bit OS experience of 4 dozen former BeOS employees inherited by Palmsource), multithreaded, offers system-wide 128-bit encryption, SSL support, and has new multimedia video and audio APIs. It will run code on Intel, Motorola, and TI ARM-based processors, without recompiling thanks to translation layers. And it is lean; it can fit under 4 megs.
OS 5 also has a large advantage over PPC 2002 -- native support of the ARM V5 instruction set. The PPC 2002 OS does not, eliminating what could have been large performance increases. While the next PPC OS will undoubtedly rectify this, some analysts are predicting this may not be released until 2004. This is partly why the new XScale PPCs are not showing the speed improvements everyone was expecting over the older StrongARM PPCs. For some tasks, new PPCs actually run slower.
Not upgrading the PPC OS to use V5 was a rational decision on Microsoft's part, as it would have made "obsolete all SA1110 iPAQ devices" and "strand[ed] an installed base of over 2 million iPAQ users", according to MS (same link above.) Palm in is a much better position. OS 5 only has to emulate the old Motorola code to run programs written exclusively for OS 4. While emulation usually slows things down considerably, the Motorola was *so* slow that the ARM V5 processors are actually running many apps faster than before (if marketing can be believed).
The Palm OS also has a huge advantage as it can already use the ARM V5's automatic clock and voltage throttling abilities. For example, if you run a CPU-intensive game the Xscale can run full-bore (200-400Mhz), while if you run your datebook it throttles back (say 50Mhz), conserving battery life. This function is so important the XScale was named after it (it "scales" itself). Current XScale PPC's don't seem able to do this little trick. (The ASUS MyPal PPC worked out a kludge for this -- a software control so you can throttle the processor manually -- and is promising a more elegant OS patch in future MyPal's to throttle automatically, "fixing" this part of the PPC 2002 OS.)
What about hardware? Well, both Palms and PPCs can now use basically the same hardware (and even vendors). ASUS is making both current PPCs and upcoming (1Q 2003) Palms. Palm OS 5 units have an advantage as they can use a varied range of ARM processors, and already some Palm OS units (like this Sony) have a higher resolution . The Ipaq is rumored to be going up to 480x320 next year, but we will have to wait and see.
Even though these particular Clieâ(TM)s are not my bag (too bulky), it wonâ(TM)t be long until the entire high-end Clie line is ported over to XScale, including the smaller form factor models.
Earths mag field periodically reverses too, which could cause all sorts of mischief such as affecting climate.
Nature reported that the magnetic field off the southern tip of Africa has already flipped. Anomalies like these have already reduced the strength of the planet's magnetic field by about 10 percent.
The mantle has been passed in the Palm front. Sony has one hell of a product right now. The NR70 has 320x480 res, virtual grafitti, and can do practically everything a PPC can do, but with 1/20 the MIPs. Plus it looks a lot cooler. And did I mention that the NR70 was just discontinued? Let's see what happens when they announce their Xscale version of the NR70 in a few days. Should be an interesting next couple of months. Competition is good.
Note to get here it took two things -- Sony to pump up the Palm brand, and MS to fumble and not support Xscale routines in the PPC OS. I find it amazing, after years of Palm letting its OS rot, that the Palm OS will actually have a (rather large) advantage in at least one aspect -- ability to actually use Xscale routines and power-saving modes that will have to wait until the next version of the MS OS. Not to mention the Palm OS can use other processors as well. I would never have guessed this happening a year ago, when PPCs had a large lead in both software and hardware.
Sony is going to eat their lunch in the high-end as well. Note that they discontinued their top two Palm OS models a few days ago (NR70 and NR70V). Obviously, they are announcing an OS 5 in a few days as well. Maybe Monday, to steal Palm's thunder a bit. Except the Sony will have 320x480 full screen resolution with a virtual graffiti area.
Well, If going with arm means getting these feeble battery-lives that ipaq's and zaurus are getting, then please, no!
The older StrongArm processor required over 900 mW at 233MHz (in the Ipaqs of just a few months ago), while the older Motorola (like in the Palm V) consumed 50 mW (66 mW peak). Meaning the StrongArm required 18x the power at 233MHz.
The newer Xscales require about 50mW at 200MHz. Supposedly the Motorola's that this palm is using requires even less. That's the real benefit of the newer processor, the battery-life increase.
Ironic that the power-savings features in the newer Xscales are not used in the current OS for Pocket PCs. However, Asus in it's branded PPCs coming out will have a software patch to the OS to help this out a bit. For that matter, you can't really see that much of an increase in speed either in the newer PPCs.
Slashdot Mirror
Games don't support GameSpy, GameSpy supports games.
Not true. Gamespy licences their engine for use in some games. Many games strip down a lot of the features that are available in say, Gamespy 3D, but some games (like BF1942) use a surprising number of options.
This is hardly a research paper. It is more like a 20-page powerpoint presentation that doesn't really give any new info. Am I missing something here?
So is this new and improved power supply FLAMMABLE or INFLAMMABLE ;-)
Another reason to use always use preview...
I don't know about your email servers, but don't you go under the assumption that your email is being read by your ISP, or your boss?
;-)
Well, for my business email, sure. Doesn't everyone put in compliments about their boss (and especially their IT staff) in their business email every once in a while?
Otherwise, I use Hushmail for personal use, and I KNOW my IT department hasn't gotten it together enough to employ key loggers. Yeah, I know Hush isn't completely safe, but nothing will stop key loggers if you are trying to log in on a computer you don't know is secure...
But it wont' feel like it. The whole point of Myst was the abandoned feeling you got from the areas. Crowding a Myst world with "asl??" isn't going to make it better in any concievable way. This just isn't going to make money.
They can easily make it "abandoned" by simply making instanced versions of zones/areas. Basically, each individual person has there own instance of a place. Not a problem to implement, if that is what they are going for. Ever play Anarchy Online?
However, I disagree that they will lose money because they don't have that "abandoned feeling". You don't play online to play alone -- you play online to play with others. One of the chief complaints of the Asheron's Call 2 world is that it LOOKS abandoned and dead. They have, what, only 35k subscribers right now?
...with the entertainment consisting in exploration and storyline rather than in player status and achievement.
Sounds like the closest thing yet to an actual online RPG, and it's not even being called a MMORPG
Bartle wrote long ago how there are four types of online gamers -- killers, achievers, socializers, and explorers. While this may be somewhat simplistic, it turns out to be pretty accurate. This game simply focuses on Exploration and Socialization. The Sims Online focuses on Socialization and Achievement (get into those top-10 lists!). AC2 focuses almost entirely on Killing.
There are lots of "actual online RPGs" out there, they just never made it very big. If you want true roleplaying, try out Underlight for example.
Besides, I don't see anything how this game is going to "enforce roleplaying" at all.
I totally agree -- what's missing in virtual worlds right now is the ability for players to travel between them. Obviously, Stormtroopers shouldn't be invading the Sims Online, but there should be a virtual "border crossing" where you can step into the guise of a new character, appropriate to the realm you're traveling to, even exchanging coin of one realm for coin of another if both realms can agree on an exchange rate. For megaMMORPGs like EverQuest, this is something they want to avoid, since lock-in is an important part of their business strategy.
Avoid? They are very happy to charge you $50 to change to another server. In fact, it's a revenue stream that's made them a million dollars.
Ideally, individual users should be able to design their own virtual worlds and host them in the Metaverse
This is what Neverwinter Nights is doing. You can gate between worlds. However, no revenue is involved.
thank you very much for posting that text i really enjoyed reading it and was afraid i wouldn't get a chance since the server is slashdotted why slashdot doesn't create their own cache to avoid this problem is completely beyond me thank you once again for your service to this community i will place you in my friends list sircrashalot
Oh come on, -1? Even though it's from an Anonymous Coward it rates a "Funny". Too bad I don't have any mod points left...
Really? They seem in now ;-)
I'm looking at this on one of the Dell FP-2000s running off a *DVI* connection at 1600x1200. I wasn't aware some people were having problems. And yes, it IS DVI -- it looks substantially better than the analog input.
I AM running a Radeon 8500 however - at the time I bought the card I couldn't find an Nvidia that supported DVI past 1280x1024. Maybe that is causing problems?
Well, that's too bad, as it seems you have them
Btw, the side with the weakest case (which is not necessarily the same as the "guilty" party) has a better chance of throwing out the "logical" thinkers, as they are the ones most apt to follow the judge's instructions.
Do you think the lights are ON or OFF? We will never know what the default was...
Lol. This guy's brother sold him out for the 5 karma points he got for getting his story posted...
Geez, I was suprised you didn't put in that the RIAA and MPAA were going to use a Beowulf cluster, while using an MS backend. You could have been modded up to a 6 that way ;-)
Team Fortress II to be the headliner ;-)
Actually, RFI chokes are just magnets that clamp over a wire. A better solution (one I have done successfully) is to buy that magnet tape stuff -- it has sticky stuff on one side, and is made to fasten things to metal. The stuff is much cheaper, and you just wind it around the wire you want to protect. Put some duct tape over it so it won't come loose and you are good to go.
Your a nerd aren't you? Make it into Polyhedral Dice.
This is going to be a great year for competition. Just a year ago Pocket PC's had huge advantages in both hardware and software. Palm OS 4 devices were stuck using 16-bit Motorola processors that for the most part ran at 33MHz, while on the PPC the norm was a 200Mhz 32-bit StrongARM processor with around 20 times the MIPS. The PPC OS was multithreaded, the Palm OS was not. The normal PPC could run 320x240 full screen resolution; the majority of Palm models were running 160x160 with a hard graffiti area. About the only advantage Palm units had was battery life, and even that was being challenged by lithium-powered PPC units such as the iPAQ. A lot can change in a year.
Software is more equal now. OS 5 is a 32-bit, (from the 32-bit OS experience of 4 dozen former BeOS employees inherited by Palmsource), multithreaded, offers system-wide 128-bit encryption, SSL support, and has new multimedia video and audio APIs. It will run code on Intel, Motorola, and TI ARM-based processors, without recompiling thanks to translation layers. And it is lean; it can fit under 4 megs.
OS 5 also has a large advantage over PPC 2002 -- native support of the ARM V5 instruction set. The PPC 2002 OS does not, eliminating what could have been large performance increases. While the next PPC OS will undoubtedly rectify this, some analysts are predicting this may not be released until 2004. This is partly why the new XScale PPCs are not showing the speed improvements everyone was expecting over the older StrongARM PPCs. For some tasks, new PPCs actually run
slower.
Not upgrading the PPC OS to use V5 was a rational decision on Microsoft's part, as it would have made "obsolete all SA1110 iPAQ devices" and "strand[ed] an installed base of over 2 million iPAQ users", according to MS (same link above.) Palm in is a much better position. OS 5 only has to emulate the old Motorola code to run programs written exclusively for OS 4. While emulation usually slows things down considerably, the Motorola was *so* slow that the ARM V5 processors are actually running many apps faster than before (if marketing can be believed).
The Palm OS also has a huge advantage as it can already use the ARM V5's automatic clock and voltage throttling abilities. For example, if you run a CPU-intensive game the Xscale can run full-bore (200-400Mhz), while if you run your datebook it throttles back (say 50Mhz), conserving battery life. This function is so important the XScale was named after it (it "scales" itself). Current XScale PPC's don't seem able to do this little trick. (The ASUS MyPal PPC worked out a kludge for this -- a software control so you can throttle the processor manually -- and is promising a more elegant OS patch in future MyPal's to throttle automatically, "fixing" this part of the PPC 2002 OS.)
What about hardware? Well, both Palms and PPCs can now use basically the same hardware (and even vendors). ASUS is making both current PPCs and upcoming (1Q 2003) Palms. Palm OS 5 units have an advantage as they can use a varied range of ARM processors, and already some Palm OS units (like this Sony) have a higher resolution . The Ipaq is rumored to be going up to 480x320 next year, but we will have to wait and see.
Even though these particular Clieâ(TM)s are not my bag (too bulky), it wonâ(TM)t be long until the entire high-end Clie line is ported over to XScale, including the smaller form factor models.
Omg, and check out young-earth's posts too. Thanks, now I can test out the new /. system for modding down foes.
Someone mod parent up as funny, just based on the link.
Earths mag field periodically reverses too, which could cause all sorts of mischief such as affecting climate.
Nature reported that the magnetic field off the southern tip of Africa has already flipped. Anomalies like these have already reduced the strength of the planet's magnetic field by about 10 percent.
link
The mantle has been passed in the Palm front. Sony has one hell of a product right now. The NR70 has 320x480 res, virtual grafitti, and can do practically everything a PPC can do, but with 1/20 the MIPs. Plus it looks a lot cooler. And did I mention that the NR70 was just discontinued? Let's see what happens when they announce their Xscale version of the NR70 in a few days. Should be an interesting next couple of months. Competition is good.
Note to get here it took two things -- Sony to pump up the Palm brand, and MS to fumble and not support Xscale routines in the PPC OS. I find it amazing, after years of Palm letting its OS rot, that the Palm OS will actually have a (rather large) advantage in at least one aspect -- ability to actually use Xscale routines and power-saving modes that will have to wait until the next version of the MS OS. Not to mention the Palm OS can use other processors as well. I would never have guessed this happening a year ago, when PPCs had a large lead in both software and hardware.
Sony is going to eat their lunch in the high-end as well. Note that they discontinued their top two Palm OS models a few days ago (NR70 and NR70V). Obviously, they are announcing an OS 5 in a few days as well. Maybe Monday, to steal Palm's thunder a bit. Except the Sony will have 320x480 full screen resolution with a virtual graffiti area.
Well, If going with arm means getting these feeble battery-lives that ipaq's and zaurus are getting, then please, no!
The older StrongArm processor required over 900 mW at 233MHz (in the Ipaqs of just a few months ago), while the older Motorola (like in the Palm V) consumed 50 mW (66 mW peak). Meaning the StrongArm required 18x the power at 233MHz.
The newer Xscales require about 50mW at 200MHz. Supposedly the Motorola's that this palm is using requires even less. That's the real benefit of the newer processor, the battery-life increase.
Ironic that the power-savings features in the newer Xscales are not used in the current OS for Pocket PCs. However, Asus in it's branded PPCs coming out will have a software patch to the OS to help this out a bit. For that matter, you can't really see that much of an increase in speed either in the newer PPCs.