Many of the RPGA campaigns were killing themselves off before the 4E announcement, or were effectively dead already.
The LC->LG `bridge' was a horrible, awful, terrible experience for basically everyone involved. Almost everyone involved agrees (I believe) that while they tried to do something good, they actually did something bad. Serious effort should be made to avoid another ``LC after LG'' situation.
Basically, they're killing off LG. I'm not really happy about it, but LG has had trouble with the far-more-minor conversions it has suffered in the past, and (having played both), a 3.5->4E conversion would be basically impossible. They don't have the support necessary to run LG and a new campaign at the same time, so they could either start a new LG or a new something else. They chose to start a new something else.
I'm not totally happy about it (I was very involved in LG, and prefer both Greyhawk and Eberron to Forgotten Realms), but I find it to be a pretty obvious choice, rather than a big mistake.
Virtual desktops predate Linux, as well as predating Linux distros. I used them regularly when my friends in Windows development were installing Windows for Workgroups.
In case you care, the ``cannot even wear leather...'' part is being removed in the next edition (and has been taken out piecemeal over the past couple years already).
In the coming edition, fighters have `maneuvers', which are design-space similar to spells, and wizards are getting some at-will powers, similar design-wise to the fighter's ``I attack it''. If it works, it will cut down on the instances of ``we just woke up, so the wizard totally destroys the first (couple?) obstacle(s) we find, and then hides behind the fighter the rest of the day'' situations.
The questions are: a) Will it work? b) Will it be fun?
The original collectors edition is much more valuable (in the secondary market) than the expansion CE, due to several factors. I'd guess that one of the biggest factors is simply the fact the the original CE was nearly impossible to get (a marketing snafu caused almost every game franchise in existence to pre-sell several more copies of the CE than they could actually sell).
Actually, the version of the phone with WiFi costs US$600, uses a ``pre-alpha'' toolkit, and, sadly, isn't available for purchase anyway. Supposedly it will be available in October, but history suggests that the schedule is likely to slip.
The good news, though, is that they at least now *have* plans for a model with WiFi -- until recently, that was just a hope for the future. Now, it's an announced hope for the future.
Take a look at http://www.picnik.com/ for an idea how close to the simpler end of PhotoShop you can get, today, for free, without Adobe's code base and experience with both PhotoShop and Flash/Apollo/FutureWhateverTheyCallItToday.
GURPS is a fine example of classless RPG, as is Call of Cthulu, and (more or less) Vampire 2ed (haven't played the new stuff). RoleMaster, however, combined the aspects of both skill-based and class-based systems -- each character had a class (and there were dozens of classes), and the primary function of the class was to determine the cost progression for the (dozens of) skills.
If there ever was a P&P RPG in need of computerized assistance, it was RoleMaster. *sigh*
There have been a few d20 variants that did away with classes, instead using point systems, feats, etc. My personal favorite of these is Mutants and Masterminds, but it is also one of the least balanced games I've ever played (and I play Hackmaster now and then.:-)
On a related note, one of the big lessons learned from D&D 3.0 and 3.5 over time is that, at least in level systems, players seem to prefer new abilities over raw number increases. This is the sort of thing that is harder to do in classless/levelless systems. I follow D&D pretty closely (lots of free time), and I see pretty strong trends of cross-fertilization (for example, D&D has a Player's Handbook 2 that adds a couple MMO tropes to D&D). Everything I see suggests that both sides are aware of the situation, and are deliberately riffing off one another.
The OpenMoko has a higer resolution display, but also a physically smaller one. For some things, this is nice, but at these sizes (3.5" vs. 2.8"), the raw numbers will mean alot to people -- the OpenMoko display will feel much smaller.
The OpenMoko takes memory cards, which will make it cost roughly as much as the iPhone for less storage, but there's hope that that will improve over time. Saying that the iPhone has a larger built-in memory capacity is a tiny bit disengenuous, since the OpenMoko has approximately `none'. Having been stuck in that boat already by the Nokia 770 internet tablet, I can tell you that micro-SD is a PITA.
The iPhone uses USB2.0. The OpenMoko uses USB1.1, so it will be far slower to get data onto it.
The OpenMoko does not appear to have a bluetooth radio (not %100 sure about this, but I didn't see it). I don't know how anyone would manage to put out a US$350 featurephone without at least support for headsets (and thus handsfree car sets). Probably I'm wrong about this and the final version will have bluetooth support.
The OpenMoko has no WiFi connectivity, so you'll be stuck with the GSM radio. I know that everyone prefers not to have phones locked to networks, but the way networks get lock-in with `standard' systems like GSM is to make the data protocols proprietary. The OpenMoko as a GSM phone will be able to make calls and send/receive SMS messages, but the iPhone will also be able to use Cingular's data protocols to send multimedia messages, browse the web, send/receive email, etc.
As it is now, the OpenMoko does not seem like the phone+computing device I'm looking for, and this makes me sad. With the specs as listed, I'm hoping that the newer Nokia 800 Internet Tablet (which also runs linux, but likely not quite as `open') will fit my PDA/computing device needs, even though it would have to be combined with a phone. Those of you who are more interested in `One Device' than `Connected PDA' can work on the OpenMoko, and hopefully someday we can meet in the middle.
MIT has had wireless networking essentially everywhere for about 10 years now.
The article is talking about efforts to develop and support new uses. In particular, it is surveying new uses for wireless devices at the moment (the most public being an opt-in program that will tell you where your friends are connected to the network in real time).
Years ago, when the IOpener first came out, I was moving into a new place. I ordered two of the devices, hoping one of them would be suitable for my parents (and planning on hacking the other one). As I didn't yet have home network yet (installations were slow in those days), but I did have a phone line, I signed up for the IOpener network service, tried it out, and after a short while cancelled it. They weren't terribly happy, but I did manage to cancel the service without too much trouble.
Then, about 3 months later, the service charges appeared on my credit card again. I called the CC company to contest the charges, and had oddly little trouble -- they sent me a letter to fill out, but reversed the charges immediately. I called the contact numberon the CC charge to see if I could figure out what happened, and it never answered, regardless of day of week, time of day, etc. I called the CC company again, and this time spoke to an agent of some sort. He told me that they had had so many compaints about that company that he had been assigned to handle just those issues, that no one could contact the company, and that they had given up trying to get the charges to stop coming in -- instead they just issued new card numbers to everyone who had a complaint about that company.
A few weeks later I had a new card. I never let the devices anywhere near my parents.
They also sell a `Linux Friendly' version, the WRT54GL. It's generally about $10 more than the VxWorks version (which has less memory, as you mentioned).
Sadly, it is kind of crap -- no WiFi, slow USB, little storage. You'll have to use external memory cards, which is probably a good thing, since you'll want to plug them in and put stuff on them using a real machine, instead of anything built into the phone.
Also, they've been delayed again for ``hardware issues''.
Honestly, I despair of ever seeing a decent hackable hardware device that's very portable and has both decent-speed and large-coverage communication options. For my own part, I gave in a few months ago and got a SideKick 3 and a developer key (which voids my support contract, but I wouldn't have used that anyway).
Right now, this is one of the options. The Apple iPhone with either a `developer program', or maybe just a lot more effort put into DashCode/Widgets is another. The Nokia 800 Internet Tablet+a small bluetooth-enabled phone is a third. Imperfect solutions, all.
TWM also had a maximize button, although I don't recall if it was in the default config or not.
Further, it had options to make `maximize height only' and `maximize width only' buttons......which are the easy way to do what the green-plus button does on the Mac.:-)
Quite often, you can hire your own programmers who can quite easily use OSS code -- this is (one of) key GPL v2 vs. GPL v3 difference(s), to site an obvious example. This is especially true if you don't distribute the result, which is rapidly becoming the norm.
I've known at least dozens of top-quality programmers who did exactly this, for years.
I'm surprised that people haven't used modern technology to make something with a similar size and power consumption, but with better specifications. Journalists, students... anybody who has to take notes could find it to be useful.
They have, and they're relatively popular in that segment, but most of the market you mention can afford the burdens (size, weight, power) of a modern laptop.
I do enough mobile writing that I'm tempted, now and then, but the size is an obstacle for me -- I'm ok with either my modern laptop or my variety of (paper) notebooks.
As it turns out, there are ``big brains at MIT and elsewhere'' working on that problem (notably, Dean Kamens, now usually associated with the Segway).
There are still at least two very good reasons why the CM1 is a good idea:
1.) Building techonological systems for learning, teaching, and exploration is what these guys do. You say ``big brains'' like they're all interchangeable, but you don't opine that they should be working in medicine, as one example of a field that would certainly help the target audience. Why denigrate the people who are trying to use the knowledge and experience that they do have to help?
2.) Education, as we like to say, is the Golden Ticket, Silver Bullet, Magic Carpet, and any other whacky metaphor you wish to use. Long-term education is, as near as we can tell, one of the very very few ways to make serious lasting changes, such as those imagined (quite ambitiously) by the OLPC people.
If human potential and talent were simply machines/cpus/cogs, then maybe these should be allocated somewhat differently, but that's certainly not the case.
We've learned over the years that there is incredible value in human-readable, text-based transmission protocols. Take a look at this ACM paper, for example.
Primarily, this value appears when debugging, when exploring, and when trying to do something new. The primary downside of this approach is performance. This means that `parseable, readable text versus efficient, compact binary' is usually an engineering tradeoff.
In the majority of cases, the computer is more than fast enough to handle the parsing, since, well, that's what computers do. What programmers generally do is the other stuff -- debugging, exploring, and trying something new. This often means that readable, parseable, text-based protocols are to be preferred.
Certainly, there is value in the idea of a `standard serialization system', but it's very easy to want to include everything. For example, look at any of the recent work on XML.
> TV watching is highly addictive. If you don't believe me try quitting for a year.
Been there, done that. Generally, I'd say it was a fine idea. There was one interesting effect that I noticed, though -- after going without TV for a couple years, I totally lost the ability to ignore commercials.
While they don't immediately come to mind when `not expensive' is mentioned, Sony makes some good small-sized laptops that feature small keyboards (both keycaps and spacing), and nice-quality small screens. While the latest and greatest Sony Vaois are pretty expensive, you can often find previous generations at affordable prices, and many of these devices are good travelling DVD players as well.
For both your needs and the OP, there are a number of `media keyboards' seemingly designed for living room use that might serve well -- these typically have many extra keys for navigation, program-hotkeys, etc. Even if these keys aren't labelled ins/del/pgup/pgdown/etc, that should be an easy problem to solve.
Finally, an alternative approach from my own experience: at a prior job where my desk had a good keyboard tray, I took an old buckling-spring keyboard with trackpoint (mine was from Lexmark, but I hear that UniComp owns that line now), removed the keycaps from the numeric keypad, and mounted my Logitech TrackMan Marble in that space.
It's not for everyone, but for me, clicky-keys+trackpoint+trackball-numkeys was nearly perfect.
I had for a while kept recordings of Futurama reruns, but ended up getting DVDs because they look so much better on my TV, and that's a freakin' cartoon that shouldn't be affected by quality as bad as live actors and stuff should.
Actually (and this may seem counterintuitive, but if you think it through a bit, it makes sense), animation is hit much harder by compression/encoding effects than `live actors and stuff'. Effectively, there's less `visual noise' in animation for the effects to `hide behind'.
As to skipping commercials... Studies have shown that viewer retention of commericals is very high on faster-than-normal playback. While not quite optimal, TiVo's `one-FF' speed is an excellent choice for viewer retention. It seems hard to believe that this is accidental, or that it's unrelated to TiVo's (default) preference for fast-forward over skip-forward.
The combination of clamshell form-factor and PDA capability is the `hardest' requirement for you. If all you want is Outlook sync, you no longer need avoid Palm-based phones, and that's good, because there are very few PocketPC/SmartPhone/Windows Mobile/etc phones that use a clamshell form-factor.
You might be interested in the Kyocera 7135 Palm clamshell.
Sadly, this is looking to be a large disappointment, designed for gee-whiz factor in the press releases rather than for actual use. The `snazzy' dual hinge design seems to get in the way of important buttons regardless of which orientation you choose, the actual specs on the device are not as nice as people had predicted, and the device was ``supposed'' to be out in September, and then in November, and now ``sometime next year''.
With any luck, Motorola will use the extra half-year to fix the various hardware problems, but it would be a pleasant surprise, rather than a reasonable expectation (phone hardware must be approved well in advance).
In City of Heroes, everyone starts off as a super hero. I don't know about you, but I've started several characters (for variety, to try out various types), and I end up fleeing far more often with my higher level characters than with the lower level ones.
There are 3 or 4 different types of bad guys you can fight right out of the gate, each with their own feel and (if you bother reading the clues, souvenirs, and dialog) story line. You get missions from contacts, and as you succeed at missions for a given contact, they give you increased access and put you in touch with other contacts. If you're doing missions, the contact tells you what good you're doing, and why, and there's often a small storyline. If you're out `just hunting', then you'll often find npc's in need, who thank you afterward (and give you small bonuses).
Perhaps most importantly, teaming is easy and helpful, but not always required. There are some parts of the game where going solo will require *far* more time and patience than even a 2-person team, but this tends to increase the general spirit of the game -- calls to the Request channel of ``Anyone want to help with lvl 14 'door mission?'' feel close enough to `heroes calling for backup'.
Finally, the Sidekick feature -- a natural of the genre, the implementation is simple: if I'm 5 or more levels below you, then you can sign me up as your Sidekick. When I'm close to you, you assist me in such a way that my level-based stats are bumped up to just under yours. Since powers/enhancements are gained with levels, I don't have any more powers than I did before (and I'll have at least 2/3 less than you), but those that I have will actually be effective on targets of our new level.
The next big push (Sept/Oct) is supposed to add `Reverse Sidekicking', where an experienced player can play down with a group of newer friends. We'll see how that goes.
Also, anyone can fly at level 6 (which generally takes around 3-4 hours of solo play, from scratch). The Fly that you mention is the`faster than a run' fly, whereas the 6th level fly is slow. The balance seems cool.
It sounds to me like maybe you've read about CoH but not played it? I might be wrong, but if I'm not, I encourage you to give it a try. The game has some flaws (most notably: the chat system is far from the best; nearly all the gameplay is `combat'), but if you can afford ~$65 for a month of potential fun, you might find it to be a lot of fun.
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Many of the RPGA campaigns were killing themselves off before the 4E announcement, or were effectively dead already.
The LC->LG `bridge' was a horrible, awful, terrible experience for basically everyone involved. Almost everyone involved agrees (I believe) that while they tried to do something good, they actually did something bad. Serious effort should be made to avoid another ``LC after LG'' situation.
Basically, they're killing off LG. I'm not really happy about it, but LG has had trouble with the far-more-minor conversions it has suffered in the past, and (having played both), a 3.5->4E conversion would be basically impossible. They don't have the support necessary to run LG and a new campaign at the same time, so they could either start a new LG or a new something else. They chose to start a new something else.
I'm not totally happy about it (I was very involved in LG, and prefer both Greyhawk and Eberron to Forgotten Realms), but I find it to be a pretty obvious choice, rather than a big mistake.
Virtual desktops predate Linux, as well as predating Linux distros. I used them regularly when my friends in Windows development were installing Windows for Workgroups.
Also, you kids get off my damn porch.
..cue all the people playing Madden/Call of Duty/etc:
``They got a new font ??!?!''
In case you care, the ``cannot even wear leather...'' part is being removed in the next edition (and has been taken out piecemeal over the past couple years already).
In the coming edition, fighters have `maneuvers', which are design-space similar to spells, and wizards are getting some at-will powers, similar design-wise to the fighter's ``I attack it''. If it works, it will cut down on the instances of ``we just woke up, so the wizard totally destroys the first (couple?) obstacle(s) we find, and then hides behind the fighter the rest of the day'' situations.
The questions are: a) Will it work? b) Will it be fun?
We'll see.
The original collectors edition is much more valuable (in the secondary market) than the expansion CE, due to several factors. I'd guess that one of the biggest factors is simply the fact the the original CE was nearly impossible to get (a marketing snafu caused almost every game franchise in existence to pre-sell several more copies of the CE than they could actually sell).
Actually, the version of the phone with WiFi costs US$600, uses a ``pre-alpha'' toolkit, and, sadly, isn't available for purchase anyway. Supposedly it will be available in October, but history suggests that the schedule is likely to slip.
The good news, though, is that they at least now *have* plans for a model with WiFi -- until recently, that was just a hope for the future. Now, it's an announced hope for the future.
Take a look at http://www.picnik.com/ for an idea how close to the simpler end of PhotoShop you can get, today, for free, without Adobe's code base and experience with both PhotoShop and Flash/Apollo/FutureWhateverTheyCallItToday.
GURPS is a fine example of classless RPG, as is Call of Cthulu, and (more or less) Vampire 2ed (haven't played the new stuff). RoleMaster, however, combined the aspects of both skill-based and class-based systems -- each character had a class (and there were dozens of classes), and the primary function of the class was to determine the cost progression for the (dozens of) skills.
:-)
If there ever was a P&P RPG in need of computerized assistance, it was RoleMaster. *sigh*
There have been a few d20 variants that did away with classes, instead using point systems, feats, etc. My personal favorite of these is Mutants and Masterminds, but it is also one of the least balanced games I've ever played (and I play Hackmaster now and then.
On a related note, one of the big lessons learned from D&D 3.0 and 3.5 over time is that, at least in level systems, players seem to prefer new abilities over raw number increases. This is the sort of thing that is harder to do in classless/levelless systems. I follow D&D pretty closely (lots of free time), and I see pretty strong trends of cross-fertilization (for example, D&D has a Player's Handbook 2 that adds a couple MMO tropes to D&D). Everything I see suggests that both sides are aware of the situation, and are deliberately riffing off one another.
The OpenMoko has a higer resolution display, but also a physically smaller one. For some things, this is nice, but at these sizes (3.5" vs. 2.8"), the raw numbers will mean alot to people -- the OpenMoko display will feel much smaller.
The OpenMoko takes memory cards, which will make it cost roughly as much as the iPhone for less storage, but there's hope that that will improve over time. Saying that the iPhone has a larger built-in memory capacity is a tiny bit disengenuous, since the OpenMoko has approximately `none'. Having been stuck in that boat already by the Nokia 770 internet tablet, I can tell you that micro-SD is a PITA.
The iPhone uses USB2.0. The OpenMoko uses USB1.1, so it will be far slower to get data onto it.
The OpenMoko does not appear to have a bluetooth radio (not %100 sure about this, but I didn't see it). I don't know how anyone would manage to put out a US$350 featurephone without at least support for headsets (and thus handsfree car sets). Probably I'm wrong about this and the final version will have bluetooth support.
The OpenMoko has no WiFi connectivity, so you'll be stuck with the GSM radio. I know that everyone prefers not to have phones locked to networks, but the way networks get lock-in with `standard' systems like GSM is to make the data protocols proprietary. The OpenMoko as a GSM phone will be able to make calls and send/receive SMS messages, but the iPhone will also be able to use Cingular's data protocols to send multimedia messages, browse the web, send/receive email, etc.
As it is now, the OpenMoko does not seem like the phone+computing device I'm looking for, and this makes me sad. With the specs as listed, I'm hoping that the newer Nokia 800 Internet Tablet (which also runs linux, but likely not quite as `open') will fit my PDA/computing device needs, even though it would have to be combined with a phone. Those of you who are more interested in `One Device' than `Connected PDA' can work on the OpenMoko, and hopefully someday we can meet in the middle.
MIT has had wireless networking essentially everywhere for about 10 years now.
The article is talking about efforts to develop and support new uses. In particular, it is surveying new uses for wireless devices at the moment (the most public being an opt-in program that will tell you where your friends are connected to the network in real time).
Years ago, when the IOpener first came out, I was moving into a new place. I ordered two of the devices, hoping one of them would be suitable for my parents (and planning on hacking the other one). As I didn't yet have home network yet (installations were slow in those days), but I did have a phone line, I signed up for the IOpener network service, tried it out, and after a short while cancelled it. They weren't terribly happy, but I did manage to cancel the service without too much trouble.
Then, about 3 months later, the service charges appeared on my credit card again. I called the CC company to contest the charges, and had oddly little trouble -- they sent me a letter to fill out, but reversed the charges immediately. I called the contact numberon the CC charge to see if I could figure out what happened, and it never answered, regardless of day of week, time of day, etc. I called the CC company again, and this time spoke to an agent of some sort. He told me that they had had so many compaints about that company that he had been assigned to handle just those issues, that no one could contact the company, and that they had given up trying to get the charges to stop coming in -- instead they just issued new card numbers to everyone who had a complaint about that company.
A few weeks later I had a new card. I never let the devices anywhere near my parents.
They also sell a `Linux Friendly' version, the WRT54GL. It's generally about $10 more than the VxWorks version (which has less memory, as you mentioned).
Also, many of the early core Darwin/MacOSX people were recruited directly from FreeBSD...
Sadly, it is kind of crap -- no WiFi, slow USB, little storage. You'll have to use external memory cards, which is probably a good thing, since you'll want to plug them in and put stuff on them using a real machine, instead of anything built into the phone.
Also, they've been delayed again for ``hardware issues''.
Honestly, I despair of ever seeing a decent hackable hardware device that's very portable and has both decent-speed and large-coverage communication options. For my own part, I gave in a few months ago and got a SideKick 3 and a developer key (which voids my support contract, but I wouldn't have used that anyway).
Right now, this is one of the options. The Apple iPhone with either a `developer program', or maybe just a lot more effort put into DashCode/Widgets is another. The Nokia 800 Internet Tablet+a small bluetooth-enabled phone is a third. Imperfect solutions, all.
TWM also had a maximize button, although I don't recall if it was in the default config or not.
...which are the easy way to do what the green-plus button does on the Mac. :-)
Further, it had options to make `maximize height only' and `maximize width only' buttons...
Quite often, you can hire your own programmers who can quite easily use OSS code -- this is (one of) key GPL v2 vs. GPL v3 difference(s), to site an obvious example. This is especially true if you don't distribute the result, which is rapidly becoming the norm.
I've known at least dozens of top-quality programmers who did exactly this, for years.
They have, and they're relatively popular in that segment, but most of the market you mention can afford the burdens (size, weight, power) of a modern laptop.
AlphaSmart's Neo and Dana
I do enough mobile writing that I'm tempted, now and then, but the size is an obstacle for me -- I'm ok with either my modern laptop or my variety of (paper) notebooks.
As it turns out, there are ``big brains at MIT and elsewhere'' working on that problem (notably, Dean Kamens, now usually associated with the Segway).
There are still at least two very good reasons why the CM1 is a good idea:
1.) Building techonological systems for learning, teaching, and exploration is what these guys do. You say ``big brains'' like they're all interchangeable, but you don't opine that they should be working in medicine, as one example of a field that would certainly help the target audience. Why denigrate the people who are trying to use the knowledge and experience that they do have to help?
2.) Education, as we like to say, is the Golden Ticket, Silver Bullet, Magic Carpet, and any other whacky metaphor you wish to use. Long-term education is, as near as we can tell, one of the very very few ways to make serious lasting changes, such as those imagined (quite ambitiously) by the OLPC people.
If human potential and talent were simply machines/cpus/cogs, then maybe these should be allocated somewhat differently, but that's certainly not the case.
We've learned over the years that there is incredible value in human-readable, text-based transmission protocols. Take a look at this ACM paper, for example.
Primarily, this value appears when debugging, when exploring, and when trying to do something new. The primary downside of this approach is performance. This means that `parseable, readable text versus efficient, compact binary' is usually an engineering tradeoff.
In the majority of cases, the computer is more than fast enough to handle the parsing, since, well, that's what computers do. What programmers generally do is the other stuff -- debugging, exploring, and trying something new. This often means that readable, parseable, text-based protocols are to be preferred.
Certainly, there is value in the idea of a `standard serialization system', but it's very easy to want to include everything. For example, look at any of the recent work on XML.
> TV watching is highly addictive. If you don't believe me try quitting for a year.
Been there, done that. Generally, I'd say it was a fine idea. There was one interesting effect that I noticed, though -- after going without TV for a couple years, I totally lost the ability to ignore commercials.
While they don't immediately come to mind when `not expensive' is mentioned, Sony makes some good small-sized laptops that feature small keyboards (both keycaps and spacing), and nice-quality small screens. While the latest and greatest Sony Vaois are pretty expensive, you can often find previous generations at affordable prices, and many of these devices are good travelling DVD players as well.
For both your needs and the OP, there are a number of `media keyboards' seemingly designed for living room use that might serve well -- these typically have many extra keys for navigation, program-hotkeys, etc. Even if these keys aren't labelled ins/del/pgup/pgdown/etc, that should be an easy problem to solve.
Finally, an alternative approach from my own experience: at a prior job where my desk had a good keyboard tray, I took an old buckling-spring keyboard with trackpoint (mine was from Lexmark, but I hear that UniComp owns that line now), removed the keycaps from the numeric keypad, and mounted my Logitech TrackMan Marble in that space.
It's not for everyone, but for me, clicky-keys+trackpoint+trackball-numkeys was nearly perfect.
Actually (and this may seem counterintuitive, but if you think it through a bit, it makes sense), animation is hit much harder by compression/encoding effects than `live actors and stuff'. Effectively, there's less `visual noise' in animation for the effects to `hide behind'.
As to skipping commercials... Studies have shown that viewer retention of commericals is very high on faster-than-normal playback. While not quite optimal, TiVo's `one-FF' speed is an excellent choice for viewer retention. It seems hard to believe that this is accidental, or that it's unrelated to TiVo's (default) preference for fast-forward over skip-forward.
The combination of clamshell form-factor and PDA capability is the `hardest' requirement for you. If all you want is Outlook sync, you no longer need avoid Palm-based phones, and that's good, because there are very few PocketPC/SmartPhone/Windows Mobile/etc phones that use a clamshell form-factor.
You might be interested in the Kyocera 7135 Palm clamshell.
You might also be interested in the Samsung SPH-i500 clamshell Palm phone, or it's Windows Mobile cousins, the Samsung SP-i600 and the Samsung SCH-i600.
You may have to switch carriers to get the phone that you want, which is a shame, but that's also the way our markets work.
Sadly, this is looking to be a large disappointment, designed for gee-whiz factor in the press releases rather than for actual use. The `snazzy' dual hinge design seems to get in the way of important buttons regardless of which orientation you choose, the actual specs on the device are not as nice as people had predicted, and the device was ``supposed'' to be out in September, and then in November, and now ``sometime next year''.
With any luck, Motorola will use the extra half-year to fix the various hardware problems, but it would be a pleasant surprise, rather than a reasonable expectation (phone hardware must be approved well in advance).
In City of Heroes, everyone starts off as a super hero. I don't know about you, but I've started several characters (for variety, to try out various types), and I end up fleeing far more often with my higher level characters than with the lower level ones.
There are 3 or 4 different types of bad guys you can fight right out of the gate, each with their own feel and (if you bother reading the clues, souvenirs, and dialog) story line. You get missions from contacts, and as you succeed at missions for a given contact, they give you increased access and put you in touch with other contacts. If you're doing missions, the contact tells you what good you're doing, and why, and there's often a small storyline. If you're out `just hunting', then you'll often find npc's in need, who thank you afterward (and give you small bonuses).
Perhaps most importantly, teaming is easy and helpful, but not always required. There are some parts of the game where going solo will require *far* more time and patience than even a 2-person team, but this tends to increase the general spirit of the game -- calls to the Request channel of ``Anyone want to help with lvl 14 'door mission?'' feel close enough to `heroes calling for backup'.
Finally, the Sidekick feature -- a natural of the genre, the implementation is simple: if I'm 5 or more levels below you, then you can sign me up as your Sidekick. When I'm close to you, you assist me in such a way that my level-based stats are bumped up to just under yours. Since powers/enhancements are gained with levels, I don't have any more powers than I did before (and I'll have at least 2/3 less than you), but those that I have will actually be effective on targets of our new level.
The next big push (Sept/Oct) is supposed to add `Reverse Sidekicking', where an experienced player can play down with a group of newer friends. We'll see how that goes.
Also, anyone can fly at level 6 (which generally takes around 3-4 hours of solo play, from scratch). The Fly that you mention is the`faster than a run' fly, whereas the 6th level fly is slow. The balance seems cool.
It sounds to me like maybe you've read about CoH but not played it? I might be wrong, but if I'm not, I encourage you to give it a try. The game has some flaws (most notably: the chat system is far from the best; nearly all the gameplay is `combat'), but if you can afford ~$65 for a month of potential fun, you might find it to be a lot of fun.