Coincidentally, I just finished reading Greg Bear'sDarwin's Radio and Darwin's Children novels. They use the premise that "junk DNA" is not junk at all, but is used to drive evolution.
I wonder how many people actually drink straight up coffee at their gourmet coffee shops. It's been my experience here in Seattle (home to Starbucks) that most folks are ordering lattes, caramel machiattos, mochas, etc. than a regular cup o' joe.
He still works at MGS. He now works in the MSN Games by Zone.com group. The last two games he helped created were Hexic and Mozaki Blocks, both puzzle games like Tetris. Neither are enormously popular, but it's hard to match what happened with Tetris.
I'm surprised no one's mentioned The Sims in this thread (or maybe I've missed it). That's one game my wife really enjoys, and she's definately not alone. I don't think it was intentionally designed to be a "girl game", but it seems to have become one.
Also, it's been well known for a while that women dominate the online web game audience(CNN article). Puzzle and card/board games like the ones at MSN Games/Zone.com () and Yahoo! Games may not be as big as say Half-Life or Halo or Diablo, but they particularly popular among women.
When I interned on the west coast this summer, I had my computer and monitor shipped over, by going to Mailboxes Etc, having them package it all up, and then shipping it via UPS. When I received it, I plugged in my monitor and nothing happened.
Luckily, I had put $200 insurance on my old 17" monitor. Even luckier, I got a nice lady from UPS on the phone who was too lazy to send an inspector out to view the broken monitor, wrote it off as "Mailboxes Etc screwed up", and sent me a nice check for $200.
When I made the trip back, I put like $3000 worth of insurance on my PC and pretty much prayed that UPS would drop-kick my computer.:D (Didn't happen though)
Re:A PS2 with different games
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XBox Released
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· Score: 1
I think "A PS2 with different games" is a pretty darn good description of the X-Box, and even the GameCube for that matter. I think a lot of people are putting extra ideas into what the X-Box is simply because it's Microsoft behind the wheel, as if they expect MS to dominate the console world just as they have the desktop environment.
The X-Box is just another gaming console. Yes, it's powerful, but so are the other systems. It's got unique features, such as it includes a hard drive, but other systems differentiate themselves as well. (The GameCube can link with the portable GameBoy Advance, etc.) The way I see it, the X-Box fills in the void that Sega left when they exited the hardware business.
Not that any of this is *bad* for Microsoft though. I think MS will be happy as long as the X-Box contends. After all, this is their first foray into big time consumer electronics (correct me if I'm wrong... and no, I don't count UltimateTV or the MS line of keyboards and mice). They have years to work on X-Box 2, 3, etc.
Undoubtedly there are probably plans of using the X-Box to introduce other MS products into the living room. I'm also certain Sony has the same aspirations. We sure do spend a lot of money on our TVs, DVD players, stereos, speakers, gaming consoles, etc. But all of this is a few years away, and I'm not convince it's ever going to happen.
Oh well, competition is good. Now that the GameCube and X-Box both of four controller ports, Sony will finally learn and put four ports on the PS3. *sigh*
Towards the end of my undergraduate career here, we had plenty of group-oriented projects. Most notable was our Software Engineering class. The idea behind it was marvelous: The class separates into 4-person groups. Each group is responsible for designing their own project. (Being CS majors, most groups chose games, heh)
Here's the catch though... you weren't allowed to code the project you designed! You had to "hire" other people in the class to code for you. (In the meantime, you also looked for jobs as a coder or tester for other groups)
It was a wonderful little course that taught us more about communication and design/testing, than merely coding. Also, it's a great class to describe to recruiters who get a kick out of it.
Personally, I disagree with all the articles that hype "PC gaming is doomed!". The writers seem to think that because console games are much easier to write for (static platform and all that), that they have a large audience base, and yadda yadda yadda... that PC gaming as we know it will cease to exist, and "Long live the X-Box, Gamecube, and PS2!"
Its crap.
But after reading all of the articles of crackers ruining games (not just in Diablo II but in many other online games -- especially one darling massively multiplayer RTS I've been playing recently called "Shattered Galaxy"), it leads me to think... might it be better for all of us if the best online-games were made only for consoles?
Let's face it, the PC is an ample playground for "script kiddies" and the like. You know them: children and teens that think they're all "l33t" because they can run a program downloaded from http://www.gamehacks.com or (heaven forbid) use WinHack or some other hex-editing program semi-intelligently. Well, a programmer can run circles trying to find ways to circumvent this from happening. Or, maybe the game should be made for the PS2, where most crackers probably aren't going to have the same tools they're used to having for the PC. Well, certainly it'll be a lot harder for mere "script kiddies" to crack online console games?
Those are just my two cents. Someone please argue with me, because I'd like to be proven wrong.:)
Yeah I thought it was funny that they listed WC3, because I believed it was fairly common knowledge most of the work on WC3 was delayed till after Diablo 2 was released. I expect to see WC3 *maybe* by the end of this year.
Then again, only gamers would know that bit of information. That Wired journalist probably expected WC3 to come out 2 years after Warcraft 2.:)
Maybe its just me (being used to the workings of the gaming industry for so long), but neither Black & White or Tribes II count as Vaporware either. Development cycles should be *expected* to take at least 2 years now.... okay, Duke Nuke Forever, that *is* vaporware.:) (I thought it was dead too)
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Coincidentally, I just finished reading Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children novels. They use the premise that "junk DNA" is not junk at all, but is used to drive evolution.
I wonder how many people actually drink straight up coffee at their gourmet coffee shops. It's been my experience here in Seattle (home to Starbucks) that most folks are ordering lattes, caramel machiattos, mochas, etc. than a regular cup o' joe.
He still works at MGS. He now works in the MSN Games by Zone.com group. The last two games he helped created were Hexic and Mozaki Blocks, both puzzle games like Tetris. Neither are enormously popular, but it's hard to match what happened with Tetris.
I'm surprised no one's mentioned The Sims in this thread (or maybe I've missed it). That's one game my wife really enjoys, and she's definately not alone. I don't think it was intentionally designed to be a "girl game", but it seems to have become one.
Also, it's been well known for a while that women dominate the online web game audience(CNN article). Puzzle and card/board games like the ones at MSN Games/Zone.com () and Yahoo! Games may not be as big as say Half-Life or Halo or Diablo, but they particularly popular among women.
When I interned on the west coast this summer, I had my computer and monitor shipped over, by going to Mailboxes Etc, having them package it all up, and then shipping it via UPS. When I received it, I plugged in my monitor and nothing happened.
:D (Didn't happen though)
Luckily, I had put $200 insurance on my old 17" monitor. Even luckier, I got a nice lady from UPS on the phone who was too lazy to send an inspector out to view the broken monitor, wrote it off as "Mailboxes Etc screwed up", and sent me a nice check for $200.
When I made the trip back, I put like $3000 worth of insurance on my PC and pretty much prayed that UPS would drop-kick my computer.
I think "A PS2 with different games" is a pretty darn good description of the X-Box, and even the GameCube for that matter. I think a lot of people are putting extra ideas into what the X-Box is simply because it's Microsoft behind the wheel, as if they expect MS to dominate the console world just as they have the desktop environment.
... and no, I don't count UltimateTV or the MS line of keyboards and mice). They have years to work on X-Box 2, 3, etc.
The X-Box is just another gaming console. Yes, it's powerful, but so are the other systems. It's got unique features, such as it includes a hard drive, but other systems differentiate themselves as well. (The GameCube can link with the portable GameBoy Advance, etc.) The way I see it, the X-Box fills in the void that Sega left when they exited the hardware business.
Not that any of this is *bad* for Microsoft though. I think MS will be happy as long as the X-Box contends. After all, this is their first foray into big time consumer electronics (correct me if I'm wrong
Undoubtedly there are probably plans of using the X-Box to introduce other MS products into the living room. I'm also certain Sony has the same aspirations. We sure do spend a lot of money on our TVs, DVD players, stereos, speakers, gaming consoles, etc. But all of this is a few years away, and I'm not convince it's ever going to happen.
Oh well, competition is good. Now that the GameCube and X-Box both of four controller ports, Sony will finally learn and put four ports on the PS3. *sigh*
Towards the end of my undergraduate career here, we had plenty of group-oriented projects. Most notable was our Software Engineering class. The idea behind it was marvelous: The class separates into 4-person groups. Each group is responsible for designing their own project. (Being CS majors, most groups chose games, heh)
... you weren't allowed to code the project you designed! You had to "hire" other people in the class to code for you. (In the meantime, you also looked for jobs as a coder or tester for other groups)
Here's the catch though
It was a wonderful little course that taught us more about communication and design/testing, than merely coding. Also, it's a great class to describe to recruiters who get a kick out of it.
Its crap.
But after reading all of the articles of crackers ruining games (not just in Diablo II but in many other online games -- especially one darling massively multiplayer RTS I've been playing recently called "Shattered Galaxy"), it leads me to think ... might it be better for all of us if the best online-games were made only for consoles?
Let's face it, the PC is an ample playground for "script kiddies" and the like. You know them: children and teens that think they're all "l33t" because they can run a program downloaded from http://www.gamehacks.com or (heaven forbid) use WinHack or some other hex-editing program semi-intelligently. Well, a programmer can run circles trying to find ways to circumvent this from happening. Or, maybe the game should be made for the PS2, where most crackers probably aren't going to have the same tools they're used to having for the PC. Well, certainly it'll be a lot harder for mere "script kiddies" to crack online console games?
Those are just my two cents. Someone please argue with me, because I'd like to be proven wrong. :)
Yeah I thought it was funny that they listed WC3, because I believed it was fairly common knowledge most of the work on WC3 was delayed till after Diablo 2 was released. I expect to see WC3 *maybe* by the end of this year. Then again, only gamers would know that bit of information. That Wired journalist probably expected WC3 to come out 2 years after Warcraft 2. :)
Maybe its just me (being used to the workings of the gaming industry for so long), but neither Black & White or Tribes II count as Vaporware either. Development cycles should be *expected* to take at least 2 years now. ... okay, Duke Nuke Forever, that *is* vaporware. :) (I thought it was dead too)