If you want those things you better call it a real time LOGISTICS game (RTL). Strategy really denotes something large-scale. Tactics/Logistics are much more smaller scale (think of it in terms of nukes...a strategic nuke is a city-buster multi-hundred megaton thermo-nuclear device and a tactical nuke is measured in kilotons and used near the front lines), but beyond that nit-pick it's all a matter of time-sharing (as someone has already said). Every person has a finite amount of concentration (good players obviously have more) so (taking the venerable starcraft as an example) if you have 2 expansions as well as your main to take care of, you don't have much time for scouting, planning, building, etc... If you toss in such trivial things as supply lines and unit moral, forget real time: the game better be turn based.
Besides, once the rush period is over (and rushing is a fine real-world strategy, just look at the blitzkrieg) that's when most games really start to shine. Again taking starcraft as an example...if you have a resource-limited map, you pretty much have to take control of the resources to win and to do that each race has an amazing array of unique things to do...from nukes to drops to the One Big Attack that lots of people are fond of (mass your units all game then watch the blood spill in a huge attack). Obviously you've mostly seen the One Big Attack strategy...but try that against good people and see how well it goes. Heck, I was playing with a friend the other day on Lost Temple, I teched up to dark templars to go for a drop, meanwhile my friend started just getting destroyed by some early protoss zealots (it was a 2v2 game). Then I start getting tank-pushed as I get my last dark temp...I drop the guy tank pushing me and take out the mineral line in his main base before they manage to kill my dtemps. Meanwhile I take my shuttle and move off to an island because my drop stopped his push (he had to give his attention to his main to defend it). It then continues but I escape to the island...then my friend gets dropped by some reavers before he can get some tanks out...game over. That was a 15 minute rock-paper-scissors game where we were on the losing end of it, but there were no massed mid-tech units at all. For the tank push the terran had his floating engineering bay for sight, brought in scvs to build towers and supply depots (mainly as a shield) etc..etc...
Oh, and stop playing on Big Game Hunters and you'll see much more (good) strategy much more frequently...supposing you're good enough.
he was quoting from an article about IIS security flaws...it was a comment from a M$ spokesman claiming that the supposed buffer overflows were completely theoretical and could NEVER happen (I believe that's what he said, anyway)
But in this case they'd have to see the actual 'stolen bits' being transferred to your ip...they can't simply root your comp, search your harddrive then wipe it as that is NOT self defense, it's vigilantism ie, the taking of law into one's own hands.
In the physical world, it's like giving them the right to pick your locks, then smash everything in your house looking for stuff that you're not allowed to have.
But by then you've already BOUGHT the stuff, OPENED the stuff, and put the CD in the drive...at that point, how many retailers'll let you return the software?
Well, not the corner of game developers I watch...Bliizard Entertainment certainly seems to be doing well...every single title since warcraft 2 (maybe even warcraft) has been a wild success, and sold an amazing amount for its time period...Diablo2, for instance, had something like 2 million units pretty close to the release date (it had some huge number of pre orders). What's 2*10^6 * 50? one hundred MILLION dollars...and a significant number of people also bought the $35 expansion...
The 2002 Edition of the Guinness Book of World Records includes two pretty remarkable entries:
Battle.net is listed as the World's Largest Free On-Line Gaming Service. The entry features a lovely image of the Sorceress, and states that since opening in 1997, more than 8.2 million active accounts log more than six million games daily. Peak concurrent usage tops more than 210,000 players per day.
Diablo II is listed as the Fastest Selling Computer Game, having sold more than one million copies within the first two weeks of being released in June 2000, and with 2.75 million sold worldwide. (Yes, both figures are lower then the true sales figures, but hey, even then it made the book!) Additionally, they cite Diablo as having sold in excess of 2.3 million copies since its release in 1997.
Thanks to Prysym for the note."
That's just diablo 2! Then you can factor in starcraft, the starcraft expansion, diablo 1, even the warcraft series. Warcraft 3 is going to sell extremely well too it looks like, and the new game, World of Warcraft, will probably provide an assured source of monthly income for the company (assuming these sales figures continue).
"Your game is going to be late, overbudget, buggy and outdated, or really, really short." Late, sure, but that's np...later and better is better than never. Overbudget? Maybe, depends how realistic you planned it. Buggy? there may be a few bugs...Starcraft was extremely late but also 1. hardly buggy at all and 2. very VERY well balanced. Was it outdated? sure a few RTS's used 3d engines (Total Annihilation for ex.), but it's still wildly popular even today, years after its release. It may even out do quake 1 for longevity (depends when starcraft 2 is released, hehe). As for shortness, well...depends on the game type...Quake 3 single player is extremely short...but it's not supposed to be played for that. Max Payne is also short (it took me ~15 hours to beat the first difficulty level...didn't bother doing New York Minute or the other ones after I finished) but it's single player only so that's less acceptable (but it was so fun to play I didn't really care).
So...what? imho the future of gaming is rosy for the companies that 'get it'...electronic darwinism or something...As for consoles well, I don't follow consoles at all so I don't really care what happens to 'em...
I believe this was already discussed before, and there's something about not being able to form a religion for the purpose of circumventing laws after they have been passed.
Actually I'm curious...how many people actually BELIEVE in what christianity is about, rather than just saying they're christians and knowing some facts about it. From my experience with people it seems like people just say they are of such and such a religion because that's the way it's always been rather than a strong belief in it.
But maybe my views are skewed, I think religion is just so much hocus pocus and what not, I do not feel any urge to believe in some 'all powerful being(s)' and stuff...as for afterlife, well...if there is one it's not necessarily religion-based (think Gaia (did I spell it right? I can't seem to find any of my later foundation books (foundations edge, foundation and earth, etc...) from the foundation series), so that takes care of that...
Well the problem is...most of the (enlisted) guys I've come across have trouble enough getting windows to do what they want. You can't really tell people how to use computers, they have to *know*...otherwise you might see a high incidence of 'rm -rf/' style mistakes going on when someone wants to delete a single file or something.
hmmm ok, first lemme just make a line of logic so I can call the WTC attacks attacks by afghanistan...Osama bin Laden under protection of Taliban == consent of taliban for any actions of osama bin laden...taliban == afghanistan. Ok.
Now, How much warning have we given the area? 3 weeks? How much warning were we given before the WTC attacks? none. Had we gotten warning, I doubt the towers would've been occupied (hell, I bet the entire area would've been evacuated!). Now, 3 weeks...plenty of time for everyone to leave possible target areas if they wanted to. So, everyone who didn't leave obviously didn't want to. Thus, they are supporting the taliban, thus they are NOT INNOCENT BYSTANDERS! support by action or inaction is still support.
"...you don't give a damn in the good intentions if your family was killed." that may be true for some people and not for others...I couldn't say which I am so please don't put words in my mouth...use "I" or "most people" or something insead of "you" ok??
The afghanis have known for weeks of an attack, so wouldn't it be logical, then, to say that everyone who didn't feel they could side w/ the taliban's actions have left the country? (or at least moved to remote parts of it?) And don't try and say they didn't want to leave their homes...every single report/article I've seen about afghanistan says how it is basically a country of rubble....bombed out, mined, and pretty much in a terrible state.
Hell, if the US does something I don't agree w/ to canada and canada gets pissed off and says it's gonna attack us, hell yeah I'd put my money where my mouth is and leave the country! (for a while at least, probably not permanently)
Do you have any specific sections in mind of the USC (and USCS and USCA)? Hell, it seems to me executive orders are precedents themselves...take the no assassination one. We had a choice to assassinate or not, and the chief executive (ie the president) said we will not do that stuff...and that set a precedent. But any other chief executive (AFAIK) could 'overturn' that and set a new precedent (preferably on Soddamn Insane in Iraq).
wellll......*cough* french revolution *cough* Of course the world was different back then...but the revolution started w/ the upper-middle class and ended w/ the sans culottes. But I agree, these days that probably wouldn't happen (maybe).
Wars aren't won in the air, they're won on the ground. Sure planes are good at support and softening targets etc..., but they can't hold ground (besides by expending massive ordinance continuously...which would deny the ground to friendly troops as well).
Aviation tech is cool and all, but in the end the ground troops win it or lose it.
Personally I'd rather lose some accuracy and have a durable weapon that doesn't jam too often, than a pinpoint-accurate gun that jams when you walk too hard...but that's just me =P
Have you thought about why countries hate us and who actually does? Take iraq...think the average iraqi has cable tv and access to western news programs (skynews or cnn for example)? I doubt it...most people are spoon-fed information from the gov't...and what makes up the iraqi government? 'Yes men' to Saddam Hussein.
IMHO (and this is total opinion), I think we are so unpopular out there because if people had western liberties the governments would topple pretty fast.
As for the mines...yes we'll expect losses, but SF most likely are getting training in how to move as safely as possible in a mine environment. If you know there are mines in afghanistan you can be damn sure the planners do.
Ok, afaik, the problem with vietnam wasn't non-objectives, it was we didn't have the political will do do anything. We knew the enemy...north vietnam. We knew what we had to do, but washington wouldn't permit it...collateral and political cost was too great, etc...etc... So we ended up just fooling around losing people.
At this point, it WILL be political acceptable to broadside the enemy with everything we have (nukes excluded unless they use WMD (weapons of mass destruction) first...I believe the US policy regarding WMD is that biological = chemical = nuclear, and since we don't really have bio or chem weapons, we respond with nukes.
There really is no comparable war because it's not us vs another state, it's us vs...whoever the enemies turn out to be (states or terrorists or something new).
Frankly I don't understand anti-war sentiments, since our military forces are volunteer. They (we) wanted to join knowing that war could come at any time, and by god if the president says there's a clear and present danger...let's rock. If people were drafted that's different, imho.
I was very underwhelmed by the test myself...even after rtfm'ing and trying it again a second time...it seems very hard to see if you're hitting anything or doing any damage or whatnot to me (compared to DoD, for example).
This is probably due to the fact that it is new and I've only played it a few hours...I will play it a lot more and hopefully it'll eventually start getting better (the lack of low-ping servers with empty spots is also very frustrating!)
"There is very little money in playing live, most bands in fact make money by selling merchandise, i.e. T-shirts and CDs." Ermmm yeah...try telling that to my old flute teacher eh? lessons and gigs are a huuuge part of many musicians income, just 'cause it's not a huge part of a certain segment doesn't mean it's not a very important source of income (hell, look at the SNL band...I haven't seen many SNL band t-shirts or cds, so they make their money playing gigs every saturday night (and probably many other times as well...)
Yes they do, I doubt most people will even think twice...and when it appears in a newspaper article or something, they'll think about it and then forget about it.
Slashdot Mirror
If you want those things you better call it a real time LOGISTICS game (RTL). Strategy really denotes something large-scale. Tactics/Logistics are much more smaller scale (think of it in terms of nukes...a strategic nuke is a city-buster multi-hundred megaton thermo-nuclear device and a tactical nuke is measured in kilotons and used near the front lines), but beyond that nit-pick it's all a matter of time-sharing (as someone has already said). Every person has a finite amount of concentration (good players obviously have more) so (taking the venerable starcraft as an example) if you have 2 expansions as well as your main to take care of, you don't have much time for scouting, planning, building, etc... If you toss in such trivial things as supply lines and unit moral, forget real time: the game better be turn based.
Besides, once the rush period is over (and rushing is a fine real-world strategy, just look at the blitzkrieg) that's when most games really start to shine. Again taking starcraft as an example...if you have a resource-limited map, you pretty much have to take control of the resources to win and to do that each race has an amazing array of unique things to do...from nukes to drops to the One Big Attack that lots of people are fond of (mass your units all game then watch the blood spill in a huge attack). Obviously you've mostly seen the One Big Attack strategy...but try that against good people and see how well it goes. Heck, I was playing with a friend the other day on Lost Temple, I teched up to dark templars to go for a drop, meanwhile my friend started just getting destroyed by some early protoss zealots (it was a 2v2 game). Then I start getting tank-pushed as I get my last dark temp...I drop the guy tank pushing me and take out the mineral line in his main base before they manage to kill my dtemps. Meanwhile I take my shuttle and move off to an island because my drop stopped his push (he had to give his attention to his main to defend it). It then continues but I escape to the island...then my friend gets dropped by some reavers before he can get some tanks out...game over. That was a 15 minute rock-paper-scissors game where we were on the losing end of it, but there were no massed mid-tech units at all. For the tank push the terran had his floating engineering bay for sight, brought in scvs to build towers and supply depots (mainly as a shield) etc..etc...
Oh, and stop playing on Big Game Hunters and you'll see much more (good) strategy much more frequently...supposing you're good enough.
--Jubedgy
he was quoting from an article about IIS security flaws...it was a comment from a M$ spokesman claiming that the supposed buffer overflows were completely theoretical and could NEVER happen (I believe that's what he said, anyway)
--Jubedgy
youth-oriented ugh....might as well shape it like a big pokemon and be done with it!
--Jubedgy
But in this case they'd have to see the actual 'stolen bits' being transferred to your ip...they can't simply root your comp, search your harddrive then wipe it as that is NOT self defense, it's vigilantism ie, the taking of law into one's own hands.
In the physical world, it's like giving them the right to pick your locks, then smash everything in your house looking for stuff that you're not allowed to have.
--Jubedgy
But by then you've already BOUGHT the stuff, OPENED the stuff, and put the CD in the drive...at that point, how many retailers'll let you return the software?
--Jubedgy
Well, not the corner of game developers I watch...Bliizard Entertainment certainly seems to be doing well...every single title since warcraft 2 (maybe even warcraft) has been a wild success, and sold an amazing amount for its time period...Diablo2, for instance, had something like 2 million units pretty close to the release date (it had some huge number of pre orders). What's 2*10^6 * 50? one hundred MILLION dollars...and a significant number of people also bought the $35 expansion...
w ww.diabloii.net/+diablo+2+sales+figures&hl=en
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:gPH2eeM6r70:
"Guinness, Anyone? - Gaile [20:38:PST]
The 2002 Edition of the Guinness Book of World Records includes two pretty remarkable entries:
Battle.net is listed as the World's Largest Free On-Line Gaming Service. The entry features a lovely image of the Sorceress, and states that since opening in 1997, more than 8.2 million active accounts log more than six million games daily. Peak concurrent usage tops more than 210,000 players per day.
Diablo II is listed as the Fastest Selling Computer Game, having sold more than one million copies within the first two weeks of being released in June 2000, and with 2.75 million sold worldwide. (Yes, both figures are lower then the true sales figures, but hey, even then it made the book!) Additionally, they cite Diablo as having sold in excess of 2.3 million copies since its release in 1997.
Thanks to Prysym for the note."
That's just diablo 2! Then you can factor in starcraft, the starcraft expansion, diablo 1, even the warcraft series. Warcraft 3 is going to sell extremely well too it looks like, and the new game, World of Warcraft, will probably provide an assured source of monthly income for the company (assuming these sales figures continue).
"Your game is going to be late, overbudget, buggy and outdated, or really, really short." Late, sure, but that's np...later and better is better than never. Overbudget? Maybe, depends how realistic you planned it. Buggy? there may be a few bugs...Starcraft was extremely late but also 1. hardly buggy at all and 2. very VERY well balanced. Was it outdated? sure a few RTS's used 3d engines (Total Annihilation for ex.), but it's still wildly popular even today, years after its release. It may even out do quake 1 for longevity (depends when starcraft 2 is released, hehe). As for shortness, well...depends on the game type...Quake 3 single player is extremely short...but it's not supposed to be played for that. Max Payne is also short (it took me ~15 hours to beat the first difficulty level...didn't bother doing New York Minute or the other ones after I finished) but it's single player only so that's less acceptable (but it was so fun to play I didn't really care).
So...what? imho the future of gaming is rosy for the companies that 'get it'...electronic darwinism or something...As for consoles well, I don't follow consoles at all so I don't really care what happens to 'em...
--Jubedgy
I believe this was already discussed before, and there's something about not being able to form a religion for the purpose of circumventing laws after they have been passed.
--Jubedgy
Actually I'm curious...how many people actually BELIEVE in what christianity is about, rather than just saying they're christians and knowing some facts about it. From my experience with people it seems like people just say they are of such and such a religion because that's the way it's always been rather than a strong belief in it.
But maybe my views are skewed, I think religion is just so much hocus pocus and what not, I do not feel any urge to believe in some 'all powerful being(s)' and stuff...as for afterlife, well...if there is one it's not necessarily religion-based (think Gaia (did I spell it right? I can't seem to find any of my later foundation books (foundations edge, foundation and earth, etc...) from the foundation series), so that takes care of that...
--Jubedgy
None is really agnostic...
As far as I understand it, atheism is a belief in itself that there is no god or whatever.
Agnosticism is saying sure there might or might not be a god, I don't care either way, let's just get on w/ our lives.
So I'd equate 'None' meaning 'no religion' with agnosticism rather than atheism (which could, itself, be considered a form of religion).
--Jubedgy
Well the problem is...most of the (enlisted) guys I've come across have trouble enough getting windows to do what they want. You can't really tell people how to use computers, they have to *know*...otherwise you might see a high incidence of 'rm -rf /' style mistakes going on when someone wants to delete a single file or something.
--Jubedgy
hmmm ok, first lemme just make a line of logic so I can call the WTC attacks attacks by afghanistan...Osama bin Laden under protection of Taliban == consent of taliban for any actions of osama bin laden...taliban == afghanistan. Ok.
Now, How much warning have we given the area? 3 weeks? How much warning were we given before the WTC attacks? none. Had we gotten warning, I doubt the towers would've been occupied (hell, I bet the entire area would've been evacuated!). Now, 3 weeks...plenty of time for everyone to leave possible target areas if they wanted to. So, everyone who didn't leave obviously didn't want to. Thus, they are supporting the taliban, thus they are NOT INNOCENT BYSTANDERS! support by action or inaction is still support.
"...you don't give a damn in the good intentions if your family was killed." that may be true for some people and not for others...I couldn't say which I am so please don't put words in my mouth...use "I" or "most people" or something insead of "you" ok??
--Jubedgy
The afghanis have known for weeks of an attack, so wouldn't it be logical, then, to say that everyone who didn't feel they could side w/ the taliban's actions have left the country? (or at least moved to remote parts of it?) And don't try and say they didn't want to leave their homes...every single report/article I've seen about afghanistan says how it is basically a country of rubble....bombed out, mined, and pretty much in a terrible state.
Hell, if the US does something I don't agree w/ to canada and canada gets pissed off and says it's gonna attack us, hell yeah I'd put my money where my mouth is and leave the country! (for a while at least, probably not permanently)
Doesn't necessarily have to take one person to buy a copy to get it warezed...if you know someone Inside, I'm sure they could snag a copy...
--Jubedgy
Do you have any specific sections in mind of the USC (and USCS and USCA)? Hell, it seems to me executive orders are precedents themselves...take the no assassination one. We had a choice to assassinate or not, and the chief executive (ie the president) said we will not do that stuff...and that set a precedent. But any other chief executive (AFAIK) could 'overturn' that and set a new precedent (preferably on Soddamn Insane in Iraq).
--Jubedgy
errr lawyer is doing this pro bono, that means free, FYI
--Jubedgy
Hey no problem...sell the peroxide to the health industry or whatever...isn't peroxide used to clean wounds?
wellll......*cough* french revolution *cough* Of course the world was different back then...but the revolution started w/ the upper-middle class and ended w/ the sans culottes. But I agree, these days that probably wouldn't happen (maybe).
--Jubedgy
Wars aren't won in the air, they're won on the ground. Sure planes are good at support and softening targets etc..., but they can't hold ground (besides by expending massive ordinance continuously...which would deny the ground to friendly troops as well).
Aviation tech is cool and all, but in the end the ground troops win it or lose it.
Personally I'd rather lose some accuracy and have a durable weapon that doesn't jam too often, than a pinpoint-accurate gun that jams when you walk too hard...but that's just me =P
--Jubedgy
Have you thought about why countries hate us and who actually does? Take iraq...think the average iraqi has cable tv and access to western news programs (skynews or cnn for example)? I doubt it...most people are spoon-fed information from the gov't...and what makes up the iraqi government? 'Yes men' to Saddam Hussein.
IMHO (and this is total opinion), I think we are so unpopular out there because if people had western liberties the governments would topple pretty fast.
As for the mines...yes we'll expect losses, but SF most likely are getting training in how to move as safely as possible in a mine environment. If you know there are mines in afghanistan you can be damn sure the planners do.
--Jubedgy
Ok, afaik, the problem with vietnam wasn't non-objectives, it was we didn't have the political will do do anything. We knew the enemy...north vietnam. We knew what we had to do, but washington wouldn't permit it...collateral and political cost was too great, etc...etc... So we ended up just fooling around losing people.
At this point, it WILL be political acceptable to broadside the enemy with everything we have (nukes excluded unless they use WMD (weapons of mass destruction) first...I believe the US policy regarding WMD is that biological = chemical = nuclear, and since we don't really have bio or chem weapons, we respond with nukes.
There really is no comparable war because it's not us vs another state, it's us vs...whoever the enemies turn out to be (states or terrorists or something new).
Frankly I don't understand anti-war sentiments, since our military forces are volunteer. They (we) wanted to join knowing that war could come at any time, and by god if the president says there's a clear and present danger...let's rock. If people were drafted that's different, imho.
--Jubedgy
I was very underwhelmed by the test myself...even after rtfm'ing and trying it again a second time...it seems very hard to see if you're hitting anything or doing any damage or whatnot to me (compared to DoD, for example).
This is probably due to the fact that it is new and I've only played it a few hours...I will play it a lot more and hopefully it'll eventually start getting better (the lack of low-ping servers with empty spots is also very frustrating!)
--Jubedgy
yeah, they bought it oO
--Jubedgy
u....no wait, down! I don't want my download to slow down to a crawl...
--Jubedgy
"There is very little money in playing live, most bands in fact make money by selling merchandise, i.e. T-shirts and CDs." Ermmm yeah...try telling that to my old flute teacher eh? lessons and gigs are a huuuge part of many musicians income, just 'cause it's not a huge part of a certain segment doesn't mean it's not a very important source of income (hell, look at the SNL band...I haven't seen many SNL band t-shirts or cds, so they make their money playing gigs every saturday night (and probably many other times as well...)
--Jubedgy
Yes they do, I doubt most people will even think twice...and when it appears in a newspaper article or something, they'll think about it and then forget about it.
--Jubedgy