1) They have a rabid army of people fighting to support their old product, courtesy of the gpl.
2) On the off chance that you discover a one-in-a-million bug that only occurs on your machine, it is possible for you or someone you know to troubleshoot it, again due to the open-source nature of their product.
Of course, this doesn't apply to quake 3 and later (YET), but you were referring to id's old "unsupported" product.
As for me, I will take id's approach to software support over valve's "stuff crapware on your machine and make you host our update patches and online store" method any day of the week.
Could the old, pre-valve purchased, free version be used then? Perhaps with a free engine like TomazQuake to load the half life media, since using the HL engine is obviously out.
I have nothing against casual gamers. I do, however, believe that their great abundance skews the market towards games with less depth, since they don't care about depth, as they never unlock everything anyway.
Makes no difference to me, I create my own depth in games... try running through Super Mario World juggling turtle shells.:D
That's all well and good, but to my knowledge there are no single player mods for quake 3. Single player mods require much more effort than ctf or other multiplayer mods, at least to create. I could see where multiplayer mods would make up for that in maintenance and keeping up with patches, though...
Strategy guides were definitely around during the days of nes. After I finished turning Mario 3 with no warps, I bought the strategy guide, just because that game has an incredible amount of content and I wanted to see it all.
As much as I want to agree with your assertion that the old school games trained gamers better (being old school myself), I have to admit that there are modern games being made that require just as much (if not more) skillz as anything in the NES library (Ghouls & Ghosts is not considered, as it represents a theoretical "absolute difficulty and skews the average.)
Ironically, one of the games you named, Goldeneye, is packed with "try everything" gameplay, due to the cheat that is locked in each of its levels. To earn the cheat, you must complete the level at a specified difficulty in a specified time. There are a few gimmes, like the Runway (complete at Agent difficulty in under 5 minutes, a cakewalk), but most cheats require numerous tries to find the shortest path through the level. After beaten at all difficulty settings, the settings are unlocked to tweak the enemy A.I. for difficulty.
And of course, nothing flips the script on you and makes you think on your toes like playing against an actual human being. Goldeneye supports up to four, with teams, handicapping, and various gameplay modes.
My take on the situation: It is not the games that are at fault, but the mass influx of casual gamers during the PlayStation days. I doubt that half the people who bought Goldeneye unlocked everything, and I half suspect there may yet be things in it that I haven't seen...
An "interesting feature" of the first Dragon Warrior game for NES is that when you first confront the last boss after weeks (months?) of exploring and leveling, he offers a truce and invites you to join him and rule alongside him.
If you refuse, then the battle ensues.
If you agree, then he says something like, "Sleep, then, for all eternity..."
The game resets and your save file is GONE. DAMN YOU ENIX!!!
As always, a model that equals the complexity of its subject would be the size of its subject. So I predict that you won't be able to read the novels/watch the dvd's/peruse the pr0n that your Sims keep on their shelf in the near future.;)
Television is the absolute worst medium for education I can think of, except perhaps, say, oil pastels or "meatloaf smeared on canvas" or something ridiculous like that. It requires nothing of its audience except a slack jaw and a vacant stare, all the while emphasizing loudness over integrity and pandering, pandering, pandering. Read a book you filthy apes!
Quake's not made for internet play. Grab the quakeworld client , a version of quake that is optimized for the real world of dropped packets and lag. Much better.
I, Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's, have recently discovered they are cutting their ground beef with sawdust. This outrages me and I call for a boycott until they return to their previous recipe of ground worm and kangaroo.
To my knowledge, gnutella has had "100% uptime" since its inception. File reliability may have been iffy for a while there, and still is not up to emule standards, but the gnutella net has never ceased, nor can it to my knowledge, as long as there are at least two peers interested in trading files.
that is exactly what shareaza does. once a download is running, search for the file. you can add sources from any network shareaza supports (a number which i predict will increase, swiftly.) also, each network can be turned off with checkboxes, so if you don't like torrent/ed2k/gnutella/g2, you don't have to use them.
Every time I've been searched and asked for a warrant, the policeman just pulls out a blank one. Doesn't seem to make much difference, for all the hoorah about warrants...
I actually started preparing a counter-argument to your comment, here it is...
There are numerous examples of evidence for his argument, but look at the SegWay. If there were no patents, then as soon as it was release, it would be bought and reverse engineered, and the SegWay would become a commodity, with manufacturers competing on price alone. This will happen anyway after the patent expires, but the limited exclusive rights were what inspired the SegWay's creation to begin with...
Now, here is where it occurred to me that the SegWay was actually made because of its owners dislike for the current state of transportation. Certainly, the quality of inventions made for their own sake exceeds that of those created to fill an articial niche. Perhaps innovation is actually mostly from people trying to change the world, in which case commoditizing the product swiftly would be the most efficient method.
However, the ideal solution in my opinion, would be to allow the inventor to choose (patents or public domain) for himself on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps we should have an Office of Public Domain Ideas to streamline the process of establishing prior art so that Free ideas don't get patented? The best of them could be culled and added to textbooks, and passed on to the children! Won't someone think of the children?
I get that exact same message... "You or your family or a friend probably entered you into this contest, and you won!", not a direct quote, just a paraphrase. Makes me wonder how many senior citizens get ripped off down here in Florida, thinking that some relative they don't even remember entered them in a contest (retired people are notorious suckers for contests)...
Believe we will give it back to them when it actually happens, not before. All I've seen is a lot of mumbling and foot shuffling whenever the subject of what will actually happen June 30 comes up... which makes me think a cute little puppet government is more likely than anything with actual autonomy/sovereignty. What, you think we went to war with Iraq just to let them do what they wanted? That defeats the whole point of going to war, lol.
Slashdot Mirror
Couldn't you put a caching server between steam and and the network?
Could the old, pre-valve purchased, free version be used then? Perhaps with a free engine like TomazQuake to load the half life media, since using the HL engine is obviously out.
I have nothing against casual gamers. I do, however, believe that their great abundance skews the market towards games with less depth, since they don't care about depth, as they never unlock everything anyway.
:D
Makes no difference to me, I create my own depth in games... try running through Super Mario World juggling turtle shells.
That's all well and good, but to my knowledge there are no single player mods for quake 3. Single player mods require much more effort than ctf or other multiplayer mods, at least to create. I could see where multiplayer mods would make up for that in maintenance and keeping up with patches, though...
Cigarettes. ;)
Strategy guides were definitely around during the days of nes. After I finished turning Mario 3 with no warps, I bought the strategy guide, just because that game has an incredible amount of content and I wanted to see it all.
As much as I want to agree with your assertion that the old school games trained gamers better (being old school myself), I have to admit that there are modern games being made that require just as much (if not more) skillz as anything in the NES library (Ghouls & Ghosts is not considered, as it represents a theoretical "absolute difficulty and skews the average.)
Ironically, one of the games you named, Goldeneye, is packed with "try everything" gameplay, due to the cheat that is locked in each of its levels. To earn the cheat, you must complete the level at a specified difficulty in a specified time. There are a few gimmes, like the Runway (complete at Agent difficulty in under 5 minutes, a cakewalk), but most cheats require numerous tries to find the shortest path through the level. After beaten at all difficulty settings, the settings are unlocked to tweak the enemy A.I. for difficulty.
And of course, nothing flips the script on you and makes you think on your toes like playing against an actual human being. Goldeneye supports up to four, with teams, handicapping, and various gameplay modes.
My take on the situation: It is not the games that are at fault, but the mass influx of casual gamers during the PlayStation days. I doubt that half the people who bought Goldeneye unlocked everything, and I half suspect there may yet be things in it that I haven't seen...
An "interesting feature" of the first Dragon Warrior game for NES is that when you first confront the last boss after weeks (months?) of exploring and leveling, he offers a truce and invites you to join him and rule alongside him.
If you refuse, then the battle ensues.
If you agree, then he says something like, "Sleep, then, for all eternity..."
The game resets and your save file is GONE.
DAMN YOU ENIX!!!
As always, a model that equals the complexity of its subject would be the size of its subject. So I predict that you won't be able to read the novels/watch the dvd's/peruse the pr0n that your Sims keep on their shelf in the near future. ;)
Emperor unveils new Summer wardrope.
Television is the absolute worst medium for education I can think of, except perhaps, say, oil pastels or "meatloaf smeared on canvas" or something ridiculous like that. It requires nothing of its audience except a slack jaw and a vacant stare, all the while emphasizing loudness over integrity and pandering, pandering, pandering. Read a book you filthy apes!
Quake's not made for internet play. Grab the quakeworld client , a version of quake that is optimized for the real world of dropped packets and lag. Much better.
I, Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's, have recently discovered they are cutting their ground beef with sawdust. This outrages me and I call for a boycott until they return to their previous recipe of ground worm and kangaroo.
To my knowledge, gnutella has had "100% uptime" since its inception. File reliability may have been iffy for a while there, and still is not up to emule standards, but the gnutella net has never ceased, nor can it to my knowledge, as long as there are at least two peers interested in trading files.
Well, I thought it was funny...
that is exactly what shareaza does.
once a download is running, search for the file. you can add sources from any network shareaza supports (a number which i predict will increase, swiftly.)
also, each network can be turned off with checkboxes, so if you don't like torrent/ed2k/gnutella/g2, you don't have to use them.
How is a street team going to perform to a laptop anyway?
Every time I've been searched and asked for a warrant, the policeman just pulls out a blank one. Doesn't seem to make much difference, for all the hoorah about warrants...
Just like state authorities have the power to decriminalize marijuana for medicinal purposes?
I've never had anyone ever say anything to me about that incident, not has it ever prevented me from getting a job.
Ah, but how can you be certain, comrade? Never been turned down for a job?
I feel compelled to mention that the author has written other engines besides cube; those can be viewed here. Oh yeah, he worked on Far Cry, too!
I actually started preparing a counter-argument to your comment, here it is...
There are numerous examples of evidence for his argument, but look at the SegWay. If there were no patents, then as soon as it was release, it would be bought and reverse engineered, and the SegWay would become a commodity, with manufacturers competing on price alone. This will happen anyway after the patent expires, but the limited exclusive rights were what inspired the SegWay's creation to begin with...
Now, here is where it occurred to me that the SegWay was actually made because of its owners dislike for the current state of transportation. Certainly, the quality of inventions made for their own sake exceeds that of those created to fill an articial niche. Perhaps innovation is actually mostly from people trying to change the world, in which case commoditizing the product swiftly would be the most efficient method.
However, the ideal solution in my opinion, would be to allow the inventor to choose (patents or public domain) for himself on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps we should have an Office of Public Domain Ideas to streamline the process of establishing prior art so that Free ideas don't get patented? The best of them could be culled and added to textbooks, and passed on to the children! Won't someone think of the children?
I get that exact same message... "You or your family or a friend probably entered you into this contest, and you won!", not a direct quote, just a paraphrase. Makes me wonder how many senior citizens get ripped off down here in Florida, thinking that some relative they don't even remember entered them in a contest (retired people are notorious suckers for contests)...
Unless, of course, it is a variable bitrate codec. Such as those used in situations where bandwidth efficiency is important. Like VOIP.
Believe we will give it back to them when it actually happens, not before. All I've seen is a lot of mumbling and foot shuffling whenever the subject of what will actually happen June 30 comes up... which makes me think a cute little puppet government is more likely than anything with actual autonomy/sovereignty. What, you think we went to war with Iraq just to let them do what they wanted? That defeats the whole point of going to war, lol.