OOo 2.0 improved MS compatability substantially, but there's still a handful of problems that are irritating. I deal primarily with PowerPoint==>Impress, so these all relate to PPT import:
1) OOo does not support half as sophisticated gradient model as PowerPoint. 2) OOo does not support half as sophisticated shadow model as PowerPoint. 3) Though much improved in 2.0, WordArt compatability is still not complete. 4) This can drive you crazy: different white space handling. In PowerPoint, white spice tends to be ignored, whereas in OOo it can cause lines to wrap or empty bullet points to appear. 5) Though improved in 2.0, there are still some line spacing elements of PPT that OOo can't handle. 6) This is annoying because OOo actually supports this feature, but just doesn't import it from PPT: bullet point renumbering. Ie, taking the second bullet point and telling it to display as #5, making the third #6 and so on. 7) This is incredibly minor, but in PowerPoint, if you put shadows on text, the bullet point also gets a shadow. 8) In PowerPoint, you can set a shape's (like a rectangle etc) background to be "Background" by which it means the slide's background. 9) OOo doesn't yet offer a way of editing custom animation paths, although it imports them correctly. 10) I don't remember all the details off the top of my head anymore, but there are still a few animation properties that don't have quite the same range of options.
And yes, there are bug reports for some of these, and the devs are aware of the others. I'm actually a (minor) contributor to OOo and have a working relationship with the team.
I'll admit I haven't played the latest-and-greatest games, so maybe teamwork AI has improved, but it always seemed to me that some fairly simple rulesets could dramatically improve enemy AI. Getting the bad guys to coordinate, lay down covering fire, simulate communication through phones or walkie talkies, try and cut you off, flank you, try and trap you into a corner, sneak up behind you, all kinds of basic stuff that could be randomly selected from a weighted ruleset based on character type (ie rank, weapon type, human/alien, etc) or intelligence. Also, if you take out the higher ranked officer, teamwork and communication can degrade. Perhaps other posters are correct that developers avoid this due to difficulty, but giving adjustable difficulty settings could cure that I'm sure.
Next, I base these comments on my experience playing ChessMaster. Chess might not be considered "real" AI anymore, however, there is one area that really is AI and I don't think is persued very much: trying to get the computer to play like a human. Let me explain, in case you haven't played a recent chessmaster. Newer versions provide a whole bunch of virtual opponents of different skill levels for you to practice against. Most of us mere mortals are never going to beat a chess program, so it's good to have easier opponents to practice against. The problem is, these weaker opponents don't screw up in anything remotely resembling the way a human screws up. They have these little dials that let you control look-ahead, time-to-think, randomness, and other factors. So you'll get an opponent nominally rated as a 1200 level player who will play with the strategic and tactical adeptness of a 2100 level player, and then suddenly throw away the queen by making a *random* move. Also, the computer is able to make moves instantly, say in 1/100 of a second. It is literally impossible to beat the computer on time, and the computer doesn't play differently when time is running out. Against a 1200 level human who only has 15 seconds left on the clock, you can almost certainly pressure them into mistakes by playing quickly and aggressively yourself. These same ideas apply to all computer controlled opponents. People always complained that Street Fighter AI could do things impossible for a human pull off, or that Civ AI got secret production bonuses, etc. But this would require a careful study of *poor* human play, to get a sense of what people thought they were doing and why. Hair-brained strategies and a lack of tactical awareness, doing things "just because I like to" or social reasons (being nice to/going easy on a friend IRL etc), unawareness of your opponent's strategy/options/impending attacks, unawareness of strongpoints/weakpoints for either side, not knowing how to captalize on them even if you are aware, and the list goes on. When I play chess at the local coffee shop, I see all kinds of weird reasons for people making stupid moves. If you could simulate that, at various human skill levels, it would change everything.
Coming out with another year's worth of development time, and the cheap version is still $100 more than MicroSoft's expensive model. That should tell you that it probably will pack the most graphical punch. I'm sorry, though, $499 is just too much. If MicroSoft announces a price cut for the holidays, say $350 or $329 or some such, or a bundle with HD-DVD playback still at $399, a lot of people will probably find the 360 "good enough." Hell, it's quite possible you will be able to get a 360 and a Wii-volution for the price of the PS3. I thought the 360 was going to be dead as soon as the PS3's launch info was announced. Now, I'm not so sure. Just flat out, $499 is out of the question for "working class" people, especially with rising gas prices etc. It's also out of the question for most kids and college students. It's going to be the new Neo-Geo: sure, everybody would *like* to have one, but they buy something they can afford instead. Hell, I make professional wages and have plenty of spending money, but the 360 was already more than I'm willing to spend for a console.
I predict:
1) The PS2 continues to outsell both the 360 and the PS3 through 2007. 2) The 360 outsells PS3 in the US during holiday 2006 season. 3) The PS3 outsells the 360 in Japan during holiday 2006 season. Duh. 4) The DS Lite continues to be the top seller overall. 5) The tilt-sensing abilities of the PS3 controller will be seriously under-utilized, especially in first-gen software as developers scramble to handle HD and online capabilities.
I won't make any Wii-volution predictions until the details come out tomorrow. However, while the PS3's controller might make things interesting for hard-core gamers, it will utterly fail to attract non-gamers, which is really the point of the Wii-mote. One final prediction, though:
6) Nintendo continues to make gobs and gobs of profits, while MS and Sony continue to lose money hand-over-fist.
Obviously, "hard to find" for used CDs depends very much on the (geographical) market you're in. The thing with the Stones is, they have so many albums that finding the particular one you're looking for can be quite hard--if you're looking for the good ones, that is. A friend bought me a copy of Let it Bleed new as a gift; to this day I've never seen it used, and I was quite happy to turn up Exile on Main St, as I'd never found it before. Around here, Radiohead never sticks around very long in the used rack, and this was the first time I'd ever come across Pablo Honey used. Naturally, it was the only Radiohead CD in the store...
Doing a quick check on eBay, I only turn up 5 people selling Exile on Main St. One of them is a rare Japanese version, one is bundled with Voodoo lounge, and one ships from the UK, leaving a grand total of 2, read it, *2* normal copies in the US. As an aside, neither would have been cheaper than the $9 bucks I paid. Overstock.com doesn't have Exil on Main St at all, and Let it Bleed is still moderately expensive at $14 (before shipping)!
Pablo Honey by Radiohead looks more promising at first, with 22 listed sellers. But then you notice that: 9 are in the UK, and there's one each from Spain, Argentina, Australia, and the "Russion Federation" as the page puts it. That leaves 9 US sellers, however many have fairly steep shipping fees, but I might have been able to save a buck, it's true. Similar story with OK Computer--lots of sellers, but only 4 in the US. Of course, when shopping online, you might not care about imports, but it affects shipping time and costs, but we were talking about availability in local used CD stores. Overstock.com has these, but with shipping it's a good bit more than what I paid.
For comparison, Sheryl Crow's latest album turns up 40-some odd sellers, with 30+ being in the US. Guess what? My local shop has a dozen copies and sells them for 5 bucks. With shipping costs, eBay can't compete with that.
So, where I live, the things I cited are hard to find. YMMV
I purchase all of my music from the used CD store. While I understand that I am helping to create a market for second hand CDs, thus reducing the risk of purchasing new music for others, I am also getting the full CD experience at a price I find acceptable while supporting the RIAA only indirectly. It's a compromise that I like.
Anyhoo, when I buy used CDs I get them anywhere from $5-$12 per CD, and I average something like $7.50 after tax. It's a bit harder to figure the average number of tracks per CD though, but it's certainly more than 10. Also, I have some choice in how I skew the numbers. CDs I'm confident in and are hard to find, I'll spend more on. Artists I'm less familiar with, I spend less on, and if I can't get them at a price I find acceptable, I pass, plain and simple. But the stock changes continuously, so I'll keep checking. It's not unusual to find the same CD marked at $5, $7, and $8 or some such, so there's reason to believe you might find it cheaper at a later time.
If I have reason to believe that the album tracks by a given artist suck, then I stick to hits compilations. But I delight in finding hidden treasures, so I try and get albums. The more recent artists who don't have compilations also tend to sell for cheaper anyway, so it works out.
As an example, last week I got 7 CDs: 3@$10, 2@$7, and 2@$5. The $10 items were things that are hard to find (Rolling Stones and Radiohead), and the $7 were by an artist I like and a friend recommended, and the $5 items were by an artist I wanted to explore and my friend strongly recommended. With a 10% frequent shopper discount, sales tax, it worked out right in line with my $7.50 average. I haven't done a track count, but I'll guess that I averaged $.60 a track. This is for unencumbered, non-lossy-compressed, works-everywhere, full case and sleeve CDs.
Granted, I do a little leg work to track this stuff down, but for me that's part of the fun. Also, every single time I've gone to the ITMS looking for something, they haven't had it. Good selection or no, a download service has to compete with this market. I don't know how big this market is, so maybe it's no big deal. But I get a lot of CDs ( > 100/year), so this average cost is very important to me. If you only want a handful of songs every year, then it just really doesn't matter much, the difference between $.50 and $.99 and $1.99 per song.
I'm surprised that nobody's talking about quality control. While the throttling is indeed annoying, that's not why I contemplate cancelling Netflix every month. The problem is with the quality control. I would say that about 25-35% of the discs that I get have playback problems of varying degrees. About 10% are completely unwatchable, 10% it really ruins the movie because you can't see it all, and the last 5-15% annoy the shit out of me, but I can at least see the whole movie. One thing I've learned is that you never, EVER, watch a Netflix movie when you have friends over. Netflix is personal viewing only, because it's just not worth the risk of ruining the evening with friends by getting half way through a movie and having it crap out. At that point it's too late to start another one and everybody's mad at you.
Since the beginning of February, I've had 30 movies out. Of that total:
1 got lost in the mail (Doors concert film)
2 wouldn't play at all (Jaws, Saving Private Ryan)
3 couldn't play all the way through (School of Rock was unwatchable, Fatal Attraction couldn't play key scenes, Psycho also missed key scenes)
4 had minor but annoying glitches (Mystic River, The Gods Must be Crazy, La Cage aux Folles, Nightmare on Elm Street)
Others may have had minor glitches that I just don't remember. So why don't I cancel? Because it's still a decent $/movie, because I'm not convinced the alternative is better, and because I have hundreds of movies in the queue that I don't want to have to set up again.
What all of the comments so far really seem to be missing is THE MOST CRUCIAL POINT:
People who've never played Madden or other football videogames will be able to play this game and do relatively well right away.
When I play madden, I have a hard time remembering all of the button combinations. Every time I sit down to play again, I have to have the manual handy to refresh my memory... "Let's see, juke is square, stiff arm is circle, spin move is triangle..." Obviously, these are wrong, which kind of illustrates the point. And you know what? My dad or my uncle or... any number of middle aged guys who *love* football but who would never bother to learn all 132 button combinations (and who therefore could never compete effectively against people who do) *can* remember these gestures. Because they're reasonably intuitive. The article even says that they're testing this stuff with focus groups to make sure they correctly detect different throwing motions etc. If they do this well, we will all be amazed at how many advanced features we can use without ever reading the manual. And in so doing, they will sell 5 times as many copies of Madden to all the non-gamers out there. Brilliant.
According to this, the 360 is going nowhere in Japan (note: I can't vouch for the accuracy of the page, but I have no reason to doubt it). And these are recent numbers, about a month old. In addition, remember this:
"Microsoft's head of games division, Peter Moore, has repeatedly said that there would be no true success for Microsoft without Xbox's success in Japan," Sensui said.
Ok, so the 360 has been selling about 1000 a week in Japan. We're like, what, 15 weeks into the year? That puts them on track to have around 150,000 units sold by the end of the year. Sure, as the Reuters article states, they're going to release more games, but once people already think you've bombed and the PS3 and Rev are getting really close, who in their freakin right mind is going to jump on the 360 bandwagon (in Japan)? For reference, the DS Lite sold over 100K IN ONE WEEK. The PSP has sold over 3 million in Japan, and is still a luke-warm success (being outsold by the DS + DS Lite 5-1 week by week).
I'm having trouble finding non-Japanese numbers, but MS themselves said they needed success in Japan, and the numbers just don't look good.
Hehe, I was trying to tone down my adulation, and I didn't want anybody to point out to me how game X did something first back in 1964 or some shit. For example, in Japan there were some online games for SNES or N64, I forget, before the DC came out. But yeah, Chu Chu was the first for DC, and probably first in the US.
As for fighters, I left out several. Remember Ultimate Fighting Championship? That debuted on the DC. It was way cool and got rave reviews, but I think it had lackluster sales. We never played it 1/10 as much as Soul Caliber or MvsC. But I count over 25 fighting games for the DC on ign! Sheesh! With like 20 of them getting an 8 or better. Wow.
Regarding Skies of Arcadia, it was good as far the genre goes. I played it through to the end. It was just sooooo frickin easy. I never died once, or came close, the whole way through. And for me, enforced linearty in an RPG is repulsive. Ugh.
And sweet jebus how could I forget Guantlent Legends?? We played the shit out of that one too! A fantastic port of the Arcade version. Has there been a better version since?
And holy crap I forgot Rayman 2! First came out on on PS1 or N64 I guess, but couldn't nuthin touch the DC version! Stacks up well against the sequels on "next-gen" systems. A landmark platformer. Never finished it, alas. I need to go back to that one someday.
Personally, one of my faves was Sword of the Berserk. I thought that was an awesome game, a hidden little gem. Also, MDK2 was a fun game, but I guess forgotten now. Blue Stinger was another minor player worth a mention.
And lastly, besides fighting games, the DC had a TON of great racers. Project Gotham started on DC, remember (as Metropolis Street Racer)? I forget which all racers I had. Rush 2049. Sega GT. Test Drive Le Mans. Some Ferrari game.
All in all, if you liked fighting and driving, you could get 50 DC games without a loser in the bunch. And when you consider how many total games were released, that's abso-frickin-lutely incredible.
I am still angry to this day. The "judges" had the wrong answer to one of the problems. Of course, it was the problem that I took for my group. I had it right the first time, within a few minutes. Submit, wrong, time penalty. Hmmm... futz with it a little, submit, wrong, penalty, repeat. In the end, my team came in like third or fourth, due to these penalties. Turns out, the teams that came in ahead of us hadn't even submitted any answers for that problem. Of course, nobody in the competition got it right, and only one other team submitted an answer, I think. What *really* pissed me off, though, is that our fucking school administrators refused to take up the fight on our behalf to have the results changed. If we had hadn't had the penalties, I think we would have been 2nd, and if we'd been credited for the correct answer, we would have come in first. Either way, we would've gone to the next round or whatever. I don't know if this was standard everywhere or not, but they passed out the "official" answers when it was over, so we discovered how we'd been cheated on the way home, and it was trivial to verify that their answer was wrong.
However, I must agree with some of the other posters: it's not so much a programming competition. It's more of an algorithms and standard library memorization competition. I seem to recall that knowing *all* the ins and outs of the printf family of functions was pretty important. Looking at the site now, it looks like they provide docs for the standard libraries, I don't think this was the case where I went. Anyway, it's important that you know that Java has a regular expression parser as part of the std lib (and therefore usable in the contest) while C++ doesn't. In real life, if you need a regular expression parser, you go get one. Additionally, looking at last years problems, for example, one of them is a straightforward application of a shortest-path algorithm. Do I remember the inner workings of the common graph algorithms? No, I don't use them very often. But I have my reference book handy if I need it. 99% of the time, I'll just use boost::graph. That problem could be solved quite trivially in 20 minutes with boost::graph. If you want to test my knowledge of graph algorithms, that's fine. My algorithms textbook has many exercises which do just that. Just don't call it a programming test. Everything in my algo class was pen and paper. In fact, if you're a real progammer, and you didn't use boost::graph (or something similar) to solve that problem, you deserve to be fired. Writing your own from scratch is a horrible waste of time and a maintenance nightmare. In fact, the boost libraries probably trivialize a number of ACM problems, what with graph libraries, matrix libraries, parsing frameworks, regular expressions, state machines, and so forth. A programming contest would force you to use these well, not re-write them.
Good lord, what luddites we have today! The voice acting wasn't that bad, and you were waaay too caught up in it. And it gets better as the game progresses, which you didn't apparently do. In fact, what you played was completely non-representative of what the game was about. Hell, you probably never got to the training or fighting parts at all. Play it all the way through, and you may understand why I think criticizing the voice acting is just petty. Complaints about slow pacing or having to wait for things to happen are much more valid complaints, although I also think those are misplaced. I always had plenty of interesting things to do while waiting, and in fact that's part of what made the game cool. But complaining about the voice acting is like complaining that Mario is too kiddy to be enjoyed by adults. Rubish and besides the point.
Eh, go back to Final Fantasy XXVVIVIVIMMVXI or whatever then. I guess you missed the boat on Shenmue. Personally, I thought the voice acting was competent, and as far as game scripts go, it was actually really good. It had development, pacing, and surprises, without being strictly linear, and allowing the free-flowing time element. If you didn't think working at the docks to earn money to make an objective was really cool, well, I'm sorry, but I thought it was brilliant. More than any game before it, you really lived in Shenmue's world. Real time of day, seasons, people come and go based on the time, you have to manage your money, etc. The environments were expansive, very detailed, and highly interactive. The things you did were real-to-life but still fun, like the aforementioned docks. The activities were varied. The fighting system was better than half-way decent. Sure, it takes a while before you fight much, but some of the later fights actually required that you know what you're doing. All in all, a very unique and unparalleled experience. If you didn't like the voice acting or the script, go back to playing another freaking Final Fantasy or clone. You obviously aren't interested in anything new.
Crap, how could I forget (as other posters reminded me!):
Samba de Amigo! Awesome music game, awesome peripherals. So much fun, even for non-gamers.
Space Channel 5 was definitely associated with the DC, and it was fun but not great.
Seaman, one of those gimmicky things that went somehow grabbed people's attention. Very cool.
Rush 2049. I loved this game too, played it waaay too much. Really hard, too.
Tony Hawk, yes was most at home on the DC. The other versions just didn't stand up. Back then, the whole genre hadn't been invented, so this was something new and amazing.
Yes, I'm probably still forgetting some, but I'm sure the rest of y'all will fill in the blanks.
But I must say some of it's defining characteristics weren't good. For example, all of the Sonic games sucked. The early runs of the first Sonic game were marred with manufacturing problems, and I got one of those. But lets see,
Soul Caliber. Obviously, THE defining game for the DC. One of the greatest of all time, especially when considered in context of its era.
The aforementioned PSO, though I never played it.
Sonic, though probably more known for its suckitude and bugs and failure to deliver on it's cool possibilities.
Shenmue has to be one of the most defining DC games. Personally, I thought it was one of the greatest games of all time. Certainly, most immersive ever at the time. Just incredible.
RE: Code Veronica was an amazing game that won over a lot of people's hearts and is identified with the DC.
Chu Chu Rockets! Definitely one of the defining games of the DC. One of the first online games, if I recall.
2K Sports. Completely changed the competitive landscape of sports games, across the board. The basketball, baseball, and hockey in particular were often considered best-of-class. Eventually, they offered on-line play, a major historical accomplishment.
Crazy Taxy! Did anybody with a DC not have this game?
Jet Set Radio almost invented Cell Shading techniques that have since been done to death. Great game, too.
Legacy of Kain, I think that's what it was called. Highly regarded, though I didn't like it too much.
2D Fighting games out the wazoo. Marvel vs Capcom, Street Fighters in every incarnation, Capcom vs SNK, and just on and on and on. The DC was just heaven for fighting game fans!
Skies of Arcadia. Many people probably remember this game fondly, though for me it was just a reminder of how much I hate console RPGs.
Unreal Tournament and Quake 3, with support for online play. A console first, though I never tried it.
What a great system. You were taken from us too young, may you rest in peace.
I beg to differ. Just because you and I know what it is doesn't make it mainstream. In fact, obscure is reasonably accurate, I think. The most popular framework in the Python world doesn't add up to much. You made me curious though, so I did some checking around:
Poking around shows that there's virtually nil uptake in the business world: Dice.com shows a grand total of 9, count 'em, 9 jobs for Zope across the country (USA). Surprisingly, Ruby on Rails shows more business uptake, with about 37 jobs posted. For comparison, there are many thousands of JSP or ASP.Net jobs (so specifically comparing web frameworks, not languages here).
The relative obscurity seems flipped in Open Source world, though, with Freshmeat showing 10 RoR projects to about 40 Zope projects. However, Python has about 8.5x as many projects as Ruby (2100ish vs 250ish) so go figure. JSP has about 4 times as many projects on Freshmeat, though admittedly ASP.Net doesn't seem to have a lot of uptake in open source land (what a surprise!).
Now, on to Amazon: Zope and RoR seem about the same with 13 and 15 books respectively. JSP clocks in with around 12.5x as many books as Zope and ASP.Net with about 35x as many books. JSP doesn't represent itself too well because the Java world is so fractured. Each of Spring, Struts, and JSF turns up about 40 books, and even Hibernate by itself manages more books at 17. JBoss has 19 books, and even Apache Geronimo clocks in with 5. But then there's another 50 for WebLogic.
How about Slashdot stories? RoR has been generating a bunch of them, around 150 it looks like. Zope generated about 35. I'm not gonna check for JSP or ASP.Net since/.'s search doesn't give you a count (you have to page through the results, damn them!). But of those 35 Zope stories, only 9 of them are from 2004 or beyond, with only 2 in 2005.
All in all, my friend, I'll grant you there's a few projects up on Freshmeat, but there's no jobs, few books, and waning interest on/. in favor of up-and-comers. All this means that unless you're a Python programmer looking for a web framework, you've probably never even heard of it. So if I were to ask all of my programmer coworkers and buddies, odds are I would get nothing but blank looks. To me, that qualifies as obscure.
In addition to the other good comments here, I must add that one of the first things I look for from a FOSS project is a Roadmap. One of the primary benefits of FOSS to me, as a developer or potential developer, is my ability to affect its direction. But I need to know where the current developers intend to take it. I'm usually looking to take advantage of the 98/2 rule: get 98% of the work done for me by expending 2% of the effort. In other words, if your project almost meets my needs, then is it better for me to adapt your project rather than start from scratch? Knowing what direction you intend on taking the project helps me make that judgement.
Also, you really need to more prominently display what technologies you rely on. I see burried in the download section that you run on the Zope platform. Since Zope is such an obscure platform, you should mention how easy it is to integrate with other platforms. ie, do you have a web-services interface? Even though you don't make Zope, your potential users/developers probably want to know if you can run it side by side with Java or.Net. For example, since Zope runs it's own webserver by default, you might want to include a link for people who are already using Apache. Since you chose the obscure platform, it's your responsibility to point out this information. Linking to the Zope page and documentation would be a good call too.
Finally, you should just mention up-front that it's GPL. Making me click on a link just to see your "license" makes me think you've made your own. I might skip your project altogether without looking at the license (who wants to deal with another license?), so spare me the trouble and just say GPL.
like generics (which I think was also added to Java at some point as well, so again there is a double standard here)
The difference being that you can generally upgrade JVMs without breaking backwards compatability. People started re-writing parts of their Java apps because they *wanted* to. Those who didn't need new language features could still upgrade the JVM for performance enhancements etc without rewriting any code. From what it sounds like, though, the problem is more with the.Net frameworks than the actual VM or language changes. Java tends to require minor code-fixing as well when frameworks like JSP/JSF are updated. But these changes aren't bundled with a new VM, so you only go through the effort when you want the benefits of the new framework. Well, eventually new appservers will quit supporting old standards, so upgrading your appserver might also convince you to upgrade, but that has nothing to do with Sun or Java per se.
I think the problem may be that your a Nintendo fan.
This is so funny. I thought I would be accused of being a Nintendo fan and here you are! The problem with that theory is that I've never even played a GameCube. I really enjoyed my DreamCast and I've spent a fair amount of time playing the PS2, but I never played an FPS on either so I couldn't really make comparisons. I don't like revisionist history, and Halo fans posting on/. tend to forget the significance of GoldenEye in the history of console FPSs. Just a coincidence that it came out on a Nintendo platform. What Nintendo haters tend to forget is that the big N has turned an operational profit every quarter for like 20 years or something. They lost money one quarter because the value of the dollar went down. Sega had to give up making hardware. Atari went bankrupt. Again. The DS is hammering the PSP, doubly so in software sales. At this point, the Revo has all the hype as most people agree the 360 launch was a flop--it was DoA (hehe dead on arrival) in Japan. And from my personal observation, Nintendo is right: the controls are getting too complicated, and something needs to be done to grow the market. You might be happy with the status quo, but MS and Sony are losing lots of dollars chasing you with the new hardware. Criticizing Nintendo for not playing that game is daft. If your console of choice gets quashed like the Dreamcast did because the manufacturer can't afford/refuses to keep losing more money on it, then you'll understand why us happy Dreamcast owners pay attention to these things. It's not because we're mindless fanboys.
Halo wasn't aimed at grannies and kiddies--it was aimed at gamers
This may be true, but the original post that started this whole thread was about how halo was really easy to pick up and how inexperienced gamers could beat Quake 3 gods. So the topic at hand was kinda about how easy Halo is for new players to get the hang of, including noobs. Amazingly enough, some grannies and kiddies are curious what all the hoopla is about. I've seen them sit down and try it and walk away 20 minutes later completely bewildered. It's kind of self-selecting like that. I've also seen teenage girls and people over 40 learn to play GoldenEye and enjoy it immensely. So I'm kind of doing a compare and contrast to explain why I disagreed with the original poster that Halo was easy to pick up.
So to say that "the n64 titles" had such and such controls is to demonstrate your ignoring much of the actual n64 games
I'm sure you are correct, so I stand corrected. As I said in the first post, I played a huge amount of GoldenEye and a good amount of PD, and a much smaller amount of Turok and Doom. Seeing how it's been what, 8 years? my memory's a little fuzzy on the finer details. At any rate, with only one analog stick, even Turok and co were easier to manage for me, and I enjoyed them, so my general point kinda stands:) But thanks for the reminder.
Most console FPSs used dual stick controls before Halo did
Except other consoles didn't really have dual sticks. The difficulty with Halo originates from using two analog sticks. It requires some patience and dedication to get a steady hand on two analog sticks at the same time. Lots of over/under steering problems in addition to not being able to keep your view level. Having free-look on an analog stick takes some getting used to, especially as using two analog sticks simultaneously is delicate. By contrast, the N64 titles didn't put free-look on one stick and movement on the buttons, they mixed them. So the stick would move forward/backward and look left/right. So you could play entirely with the stick and not use the buttons at first. The c-buttons let you strafe and look up/down, and so your view would stay level unless you messed with it. Granted, it was a pain to look up/down and run at the same time and took some finess, but you didn't need to as a beginner. Anyway, I tried several different control options, but none of them seperated left/right and up/down and so all suffered the same problem.
I understand that Halo might be OK once you get good at it. But Halo is also the game that made me really understand how right Nintendo is about the Revolution. I can't be bothered to invest the time to get good, and so the game lost all interest for me and the other non-gamers I saw try it. However, the teenage boys I saw play it for hours on end enjoy it immensely. They are also unfamiliar with the competition, especially on the PC side. These same teenage boys will not have $400 to spend on a next-gen console, nor do they have access to an HDTV. Even if their families had one, they play games in their rooms. So I see difficult times ahead for MS and Sony game divisions.
I've never seen anyone who calls themself a gamer have any trouble with Halo/Halo 2
That may be true. My observations are based more on non-gamers, and people who have played little or no FPSs previously. Teenage girls, little kids, and adults over 40. None of them called themselves gamers, because, well, they didn't really play other games. Duh. Anyway, while none of them had problems with the other FPSs I described, they struggled with Halo. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that Halo is boring in addition to being harder to control. With the other games, the non-gamers had to adjust to the controls and sucked at first, but they still had fun and so stuck with it. I have played a lot of FPSs, console and PC, though I'm not hardcore by any stretch of the imagination. Halo has been the only FPS that I've ever played (out of 2 dozen maybe) that I couldn't get the hang of within minutes. Some games took a while to remember the keyboard commands for all the various item/flashlight/talking commands, but basic moving/shooting was never a problem.
It's the first console FPS that actually managed a default controller scheme that was not only as easy as using a mouse and keyboard; it was easy to pick up
I would strongly disagree with this. I distinctly remember playing early FPS: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, DN 3D, Descent, Quake, Quake II etc. The controls were really easy to pick up back then, in part because there was less to do. Admittedly, everybody took more time adjusting to Descent, but it was sooo cool people were willing to invest the effort. And it wasn't about the controls, anyway, Descent was just disorienting. Anyway, I've played enough PC FPSs that I'm reasonably competent, though I haven't played much lately, but I do OK in Quake 3, Counter Strike (the original), or UT.
Additionally, the N64 FPSs were easy to pick up. You could sit down with GoldenEye and be shooting bad guys right away. Accuracy took some development, but the game was fun within 5 minutes. I became a GoldenEye master, investing hundreds of hours in that game, and yet I never played much with two controllers because I found it awkward when I tried. I also played Perfect Dark, Turok (several) and Doom on the N64 and enjoyed them all.
I have played both Halo and Halo 2 on the XBox, maybe 5 hours total, and never had a minute of fun with either. I never settled into the controls, couldn't go where I wanted, aim for shit, or accomplish much of anything. It was frustating as #$#@! Similarly, I have observed other FPS noobs try and play Halo, and struggle way more than me. They quit within minutes because it was no fun. All the other FPSs I ever played, people had enough fun from the beginning to stick with it. Counter Strike was the worst in this area because it had no single player option for people to learn with.
What I'm saying is that Halo/Halo 2 is, hands down, the worst controlling FPS I've ever played, console or PC. Observing other people play (including FPS noobs), I doubt I'm alone in this opinion. Hell, my little sister played (and enjoyed!!) both GoldenEye and Perfect Dark (she preferred them to Zelda: OT. bizarre, I know) with no PC FPS experience, but wouldn't play Halo for more than a few minutes.
Your statutory rights under the "fair dealing" or "fair use" provision of copyright law include the right to make a copy of a computer program in the memory of a computer as a necessary step in using the program
I'm not sure what jurisdiction you are posting from, however, the validity of EULAs is entirely based on this not being true. If you do not agree to the EULA and run the program anyway, theoretically they come after you for copyright infringement for running the program. Otherwise EULAs would have no teeth, as nobody would ever need agree to it and we'd have a plethora of legally tight ways of disagreeing to the EULA and still running the program.
However, what's more interesting is that contract law allows you to alter a proposed contract, sign it, and give the altered version to the other party for signing. If they do, your alterations stick. This is significant in employment contracts--striking out sections you don't like and initialing it before you sign will stick if your employer signs it (if they don't make a habit of reading contracts before signing them, they may be in for a surprise though). Since a EULA is a proposed contract and there's no signature from the other party on it yet, you could theoretically alter it, sign it, and print it up. Send it in an envelope back to the legal department of the company, and have as the first line in your altered contract, "By openening this envelope, you agree to the following terms and conditions:..." Et voila, mon ami:)
Slashdot Mirror
OOo 2.0 improved MS compatability substantially, but there's still a handful of problems that are irritating. I deal primarily with PowerPoint==>Impress, so these all relate to PPT import:
1) OOo does not support half as sophisticated gradient model as PowerPoint.
2) OOo does not support half as sophisticated shadow model as PowerPoint.
3) Though much improved in 2.0, WordArt compatability is still not complete.
4) This can drive you crazy: different white space handling. In PowerPoint, white spice tends to be ignored, whereas in OOo it can cause lines to wrap or empty bullet points to appear.
5) Though improved in 2.0, there are still some line spacing elements of PPT that OOo can't handle.
6) This is annoying because OOo actually supports this feature, but just doesn't import it from PPT: bullet point renumbering. Ie, taking the second bullet point and telling it to display as #5, making the third #6 and so on.
7) This is incredibly minor, but in PowerPoint, if you put shadows on text, the bullet point also gets a shadow.
8) In PowerPoint, you can set a shape's (like a rectangle etc) background to be "Background" by which it means the slide's background.
9) OOo doesn't yet offer a way of editing custom animation paths, although it imports them correctly.
10) I don't remember all the details off the top of my head anymore, but there are still a few animation properties that don't have quite the same range of options.
And yes, there are bug reports for some of these, and the devs are aware of the others. I'm actually a (minor) contributor to OOo and have a working relationship with the team.
Just FYI, a completely new charting module is currently in development. You can read about it and download a beta here:
http://graphics.openoffice.org/chart/chart.html
If there's specific things you want it to do, feel free to hop on the mailing list and let them know:
dev@graphics.openoffice.org.
I have not been following it too closely, but I know it is substantially improved over the old charting module.
I'll admit I haven't played the latest-and-greatest games, so maybe teamwork AI has improved, but it always seemed to me that some fairly simple rulesets could dramatically improve enemy AI. Getting the bad guys to coordinate, lay down covering fire, simulate communication through phones or walkie talkies, try and cut you off, flank you, try and trap you into a corner, sneak up behind you, all kinds of basic stuff that could be randomly selected from a weighted ruleset based on character type (ie rank, weapon type, human/alien, etc) or intelligence. Also, if you take out the higher ranked officer, teamwork and communication can degrade. Perhaps other posters are correct that developers avoid this due to difficulty, but giving adjustable difficulty settings could cure that I'm sure.
Next, I base these comments on my experience playing ChessMaster. Chess might not be considered "real" AI anymore, however, there is one area that really is AI and I don't think is persued very much: trying to get the computer to play like a human. Let me explain, in case you haven't played a recent chessmaster. Newer versions provide a whole bunch of virtual opponents of different skill levels for you to practice against. Most of us mere mortals are never going to beat a chess program, so it's good to have easier opponents to practice against. The problem is, these weaker opponents don't screw up in anything remotely resembling the way a human screws up. They have these little dials that let you control look-ahead, time-to-think, randomness, and other factors. So you'll get an opponent nominally rated as a 1200 level player who will play with the strategic and tactical adeptness of a 2100 level player, and then suddenly throw away the queen by making a *random* move. Also, the computer is able to make moves instantly, say in 1/100 of a second. It is literally impossible to beat the computer on time, and the computer doesn't play differently when time is running out. Against a 1200 level human who only has 15 seconds left on the clock, you can almost certainly pressure them into mistakes by playing quickly and aggressively yourself. These same ideas apply to all computer controlled opponents. People always complained that Street Fighter AI could do things impossible for a human pull off, or that Civ AI got secret production bonuses, etc. But this would require a careful study of *poor* human play, to get a sense of what people thought they were doing and why. Hair-brained strategies and a lack of tactical awareness, doing things "just because I like to" or social reasons (being nice to/going easy on a friend IRL etc), unawareness of your opponent's strategy/options/impending attacks, unawareness of strongpoints/weakpoints for either side, not knowing how to captalize on them even if you are aware, and the list goes on. When I play chess at the local coffee shop, I see all kinds of weird reasons for people making stupid moves. If you could simulate that, at various human skill levels, it would change everything.
Coming out with another year's worth of development time, and the cheap version is still $100 more than MicroSoft's expensive model. That should tell you that it probably will pack the most graphical punch. I'm sorry, though, $499 is just too much. If MicroSoft announces a price cut for the holidays, say $350 or $329 or some such, or a bundle with HD-DVD playback still at $399, a lot of people will probably find the 360 "good enough." Hell, it's quite possible you will be able to get a 360 and a Wii-volution for the price of the PS3. I thought the 360 was going to be dead as soon as the PS3's launch info was announced. Now, I'm not so sure. Just flat out, $499 is out of the question for "working class" people, especially with rising gas prices etc. It's also out of the question for most kids and college students. It's going to be the new Neo-Geo: sure, everybody would *like* to have one, but they buy something they can afford instead. Hell, I make professional wages and have plenty of spending money, but the 360 was already more than I'm willing to spend for a console.
I predict:
1) The PS2 continues to outsell both the 360 and the PS3 through 2007.
2) The 360 outsells PS3 in the US during holiday 2006 season.
3) The PS3 outsells the 360 in Japan during holiday 2006 season. Duh.
4) The DS Lite continues to be the top seller overall.
5) The tilt-sensing abilities of the PS3 controller will be seriously under-utilized, especially in first-gen software as developers scramble to handle HD and online capabilities.
I won't make any Wii-volution predictions until the details come out tomorrow. However, while the PS3's controller might make things interesting for hard-core gamers, it will utterly fail to attract non-gamers, which is really the point of the Wii-mote. One final prediction, though:
6) Nintendo continues to make gobs and gobs of profits, while MS and Sony continue to lose money hand-over-fist.
Obviously, "hard to find" for used CDs depends very much on the (geographical) market you're in. The thing with the Stones is, they have so many albums that finding the particular one you're looking for can be quite hard--if you're looking for the good ones, that is. A friend bought me a copy of Let it Bleed new as a gift; to this day I've never seen it used, and I was quite happy to turn up Exile on Main St, as I'd never found it before. Around here, Radiohead never sticks around very long in the used rack, and this was the first time I'd ever come across Pablo Honey used. Naturally, it was the only Radiohead CD in the store...
Doing a quick check on eBay, I only turn up 5 people selling Exile on Main St. One of them is a rare Japanese version, one is bundled with Voodoo lounge, and one ships from the UK, leaving a grand total of 2, read it, *2* normal copies in the US. As an aside, neither would have been cheaper than the $9 bucks I paid. Overstock.com doesn't have Exil on Main St at all, and Let it Bleed is still moderately expensive at $14 (before shipping)!
Pablo Honey by Radiohead looks more promising at first, with 22 listed sellers. But then you notice that: 9 are in the UK, and there's one each from Spain, Argentina, Australia, and the "Russion Federation" as the page puts it. That leaves 9 US sellers, however many have fairly steep shipping fees, but I might have been able to save a buck, it's true. Similar story with OK Computer--lots of sellers, but only 4 in the US. Of course, when shopping online, you might not care about imports, but it affects shipping time and costs, but we were talking about availability in local used CD stores. Overstock.com has these, but with shipping it's a good bit more than what I paid.
For comparison, Sheryl Crow's latest album turns up 40-some odd sellers, with 30+ being in the US. Guess what? My local shop has a dozen copies and sells them for 5 bucks. With shipping costs, eBay can't compete with that.
So, where I live, the things I cited are hard to find. YMMV
I purchase all of my music from the used CD store. While I understand that I am helping to create a market for second hand CDs, thus reducing the risk of purchasing new music for others, I am also getting the full CD experience at a price I find acceptable while supporting the RIAA only indirectly. It's a compromise that I like.
Anyhoo, when I buy used CDs I get them anywhere from $5-$12 per CD, and I average something like $7.50 after tax. It's a bit harder to figure the average number of tracks per CD though, but it's certainly more than 10. Also, I have some choice in how I skew the numbers. CDs I'm confident in and are hard to find, I'll spend more on. Artists I'm less familiar with, I spend less on, and if I can't get them at a price I find acceptable, I pass, plain and simple. But the stock changes continuously, so I'll keep checking. It's not unusual to find the same CD marked at $5, $7, and $8 or some such, so there's reason to believe you might find it cheaper at a later time.
If I have reason to believe that the album tracks by a given artist suck, then I stick to hits compilations. But I delight in finding hidden treasures, so I try and get albums. The more recent artists who don't have compilations also tend to sell for cheaper anyway, so it works out.
As an example, last week I got 7 CDs: 3@$10, 2@$7, and 2@$5. The $10 items were things that are hard to find (Rolling Stones and Radiohead), and the $7 were by an artist I like and a friend recommended, and the $5 items were by an artist I wanted to explore and my friend strongly recommended. With a 10% frequent shopper discount, sales tax, it worked out right in line with my $7.50 average. I haven't done a track count, but I'll guess that I averaged $.60 a track. This is for unencumbered, non-lossy-compressed, works-everywhere, full case and sleeve CDs.
Granted, I do a little leg work to track this stuff down, but for me that's part of the fun. Also, every single time I've gone to the ITMS looking for something, they haven't had it. Good selection or no, a download service has to compete with this market. I don't know how big this market is, so maybe it's no big deal. But I get a lot of CDs ( > 100/year), so this average cost is very important to me. If you only want a handful of songs every year, then it just really doesn't matter much, the difference between $.50 and $.99 and $1.99 per song.
Since the beginning of February, I've had 30 movies out. Of that total:
Others may have had minor glitches that I just don't remember. So why don't I cancel? Because it's still a decent $/movie, because I'm not convinced the alternative is better, and because I have hundreds of movies in the queue that I don't want to have to set up again.
What all of the comments so far really seem to be missing is THE MOST CRUCIAL POINT:
... any number of middle aged guys who *love* football but who would never bother to learn all 132 button combinations (and who therefore could never compete effectively against people who do) *can* remember these gestures. Because they're reasonably intuitive. The article even says that they're testing this stuff with focus groups to make sure they correctly detect different throwing motions etc. If they do this well, we will all be amazed at how many advanced features we can use without ever reading the manual. And in so doing, they will sell 5 times as many copies of Madden to all the non-gamers out there. Brilliant.
People who've never played Madden or other football videogames will be able to play this game and do relatively well right away.
When I play madden, I have a hard time remembering all of the button combinations. Every time I sit down to play again, I have to have the manual handy to refresh my memory... "Let's see, juke is square, stiff arm is circle, spin move is triangle..." Obviously, these are wrong, which kind of illustrates the point. And you know what? My dad or my uncle or
According to this, the 360 is going nowhere in Japan (note: I can't vouch for the accuracy of the page, but I have no reason to doubt it). And these are recent numbers, about a month old. In addition, remember this:
"Microsoft's head of games division, Peter Moore, has repeatedly said that there would be no true success for Microsoft without Xbox's success in Japan," Sensui said.
Taken from a recent article here.
Ok, so the 360 has been selling about 1000 a week in Japan. We're like, what, 15 weeks into the year? That puts them on track to have around 150,000 units sold by the end of the year. Sure, as the Reuters article states, they're going to release more games, but once people already think you've bombed and the PS3 and Rev are getting really close, who in their freakin right mind is going to jump on the 360 bandwagon (in Japan)? For reference, the DS Lite sold over 100K IN ONE WEEK. The PSP has sold over 3 million in Japan, and is still a luke-warm success (being outsold by the DS + DS Lite 5-1 week by week).
I'm having trouble finding non-Japanese numbers, but MS themselves said they needed success in Japan, and the numbers just don't look good.
Hehe, I was trying to tone down my adulation, and I didn't want anybody to point out to me how game X did something first back in 1964 or some shit. For example, in Japan there were some online games for SNES or N64, I forget, before the DC came out. But yeah, Chu Chu was the first for DC, and probably first in the US.
As for fighters, I left out several. Remember Ultimate Fighting Championship? That debuted on the DC. It was way cool and got rave reviews, but I think it had lackluster sales. We never played it 1/10 as much as Soul Caliber or MvsC. But I count over 25 fighting games for the DC on ign! Sheesh! With like 20 of them getting an 8 or better. Wow.
Regarding Skies of Arcadia, it was good as far the genre goes. I played it through to the end. It was just sooooo frickin easy. I never died once, or came close, the whole way through. And for me, enforced linearty in an RPG is repulsive. Ugh.
And sweet jebus how could I forget Guantlent Legends?? We played the shit out of that one too! A fantastic port of the Arcade version. Has there been a better version since?
And holy crap I forgot Rayman 2! First came out on on PS1 or N64 I guess, but couldn't nuthin touch the DC version! Stacks up well against the sequels on "next-gen" systems. A landmark platformer. Never finished it, alas. I need to go back to that one someday.
Personally, one of my faves was Sword of the Berserk. I thought that was an awesome game, a hidden little gem. Also, MDK2 was a fun game, but I guess forgotten now. Blue Stinger was another minor player worth a mention.
And lastly, besides fighting games, the DC had a TON of great racers. Project Gotham started on DC, remember (as Metropolis Street Racer)? I forget which all racers I had. Rush 2049. Sega GT. Test Drive Le Mans. Some Ferrari game.
All in all, if you liked fighting and driving, you could get 50 DC games without a loser in the bunch. And when you consider how many total games were released, that's abso-frickin-lutely incredible.
I am still angry to this day. The "judges" had the wrong answer to one of the problems. Of course, it was the problem that I took for my group. I had it right the first time, within a few minutes. Submit, wrong, time penalty. Hmmm... futz with it a little, submit, wrong, penalty, repeat. In the end, my team came in like third or fourth, due to these penalties. Turns out, the teams that came in ahead of us hadn't even submitted any answers for that problem. Of course, nobody in the competition got it right, and only one other team submitted an answer, I think. What *really* pissed me off, though, is that our fucking school administrators refused to take up the fight on our behalf to have the results changed. If we had hadn't had the penalties, I think we would have been 2nd, and if we'd been credited for the correct answer, we would have come in first. Either way, we would've gone to the next round or whatever. I don't know if this was standard everywhere or not, but they passed out the "official" answers when it was over, so we discovered how we'd been cheated on the way home, and it was trivial to verify that their answer was wrong.
However, I must agree with some of the other posters: it's not so much a programming competition. It's more of an algorithms and standard library memorization competition. I seem to recall that knowing *all* the ins and outs of the printf family of functions was pretty important. Looking at the site now, it looks like they provide docs for the standard libraries, I don't think this was the case where I went. Anyway, it's important that you know that Java has a regular expression parser as part of the std lib (and therefore usable in the contest) while C++ doesn't. In real life, if you need a regular expression parser, you go get one. Additionally, looking at last years problems, for example, one of them is a straightforward application of a shortest-path algorithm. Do I remember the inner workings of the common graph algorithms? No, I don't use them very often. But I have my reference book handy if I need it. 99% of the time, I'll just use boost::graph. That problem could be solved quite trivially in 20 minutes with boost::graph. If you want to test my knowledge of graph algorithms, that's fine. My algorithms textbook has many exercises which do just that. Just don't call it a programming test. Everything in my algo class was pen and paper. In fact, if you're a real progammer, and you didn't use boost::graph (or something similar) to solve that problem, you deserve to be fired. Writing your own from scratch is a horrible waste of time and a maintenance nightmare. In fact, the boost libraries probably trivialize a number of ACM problems, what with graph libraries, matrix libraries, parsing frameworks, regular expressions, state machines, and so forth. A programming contest would force you to use these well, not re-write them.
Good lord, what luddites we have today! The voice acting wasn't that bad, and you were waaay too caught up in it. And it gets better as the game progresses, which you didn't apparently do. In fact, what you played was completely non-representative of what the game was about. Hell, you probably never got to the training or fighting parts at all. Play it all the way through, and you may understand why I think criticizing the voice acting is just petty. Complaints about slow pacing or having to wait for things to happen are much more valid complaints, although I also think those are misplaced. I always had plenty of interesting things to do while waiting, and in fact that's part of what made the game cool. But complaining about the voice acting is like complaining that Mario is too kiddy to be enjoyed by adults. Rubish and besides the point.
Eh, go back to Final Fantasy XXVVIVIVIMMVXI or whatever then. I guess you missed the boat on Shenmue. Personally, I thought the voice acting was competent, and as far as game scripts go, it was actually really good. It had development, pacing, and surprises, without being strictly linear, and allowing the free-flowing time element. If you didn't think working at the docks to earn money to make an objective was really cool, well, I'm sorry, but I thought it was brilliant. More than any game before it, you really lived in Shenmue's world. Real time of day, seasons, people come and go based on the time, you have to manage your money, etc. The environments were expansive, very detailed, and highly interactive. The things you did were real-to-life but still fun, like the aforementioned docks. The activities were varied. The fighting system was better than half-way decent. Sure, it takes a while before you fight much, but some of the later fights actually required that you know what you're doing. All in all, a very unique and unparalleled experience. If you didn't like the voice acting or the script, go back to playing another freaking Final Fantasy or clone. You obviously aren't interested in anything new.
Yes, I'm probably still forgetting some, but I'm sure the rest of y'all will fill in the blanks.
What a great system. You were taken from us too young, may you rest in peace.
I beg to differ. Just because you and I know what it is doesn't make it mainstream. In fact, obscure is reasonably accurate, I think. The most popular framework in the Python world doesn't add up to much. You made me curious though, so I did some checking around:
/.'s search doesn't give you a count (you have to page through the results, damn them!). But of those 35 Zope stories, only 9 of them are from 2004 or beyond, with only 2 in 2005.
/. in favor of up-and-comers. All this means that unless you're a Python programmer looking for a web framework, you've probably never even heard of it. So if I were to ask all of my programmer coworkers and buddies, odds are I would get nothing but blank looks. To me, that qualifies as obscure.
Poking around shows that there's virtually nil uptake in the business world: Dice.com shows a grand total of 9, count 'em, 9 jobs for Zope across the country (USA). Surprisingly, Ruby on Rails shows more business uptake, with about 37 jobs posted. For comparison, there are many thousands of JSP or ASP.Net jobs (so specifically comparing web frameworks, not languages here).
The relative obscurity seems flipped in Open Source world, though, with Freshmeat showing 10 RoR projects to about 40 Zope projects. However, Python has about 8.5x as many projects as Ruby (2100ish vs 250ish) so go figure. JSP has about 4 times as many projects on Freshmeat, though admittedly ASP.Net doesn't seem to have a lot of uptake in open source land (what a surprise!).
Now, on to Amazon: Zope and RoR seem about the same with 13 and 15 books respectively. JSP clocks in with around 12.5x as many books as Zope and ASP.Net with about 35x as many books. JSP doesn't represent itself too well because the Java world is so fractured. Each of Spring, Struts, and JSF turns up about 40 books, and even Hibernate by itself manages more books at 17. JBoss has 19 books, and even Apache Geronimo clocks in with 5. But then there's another 50 for WebLogic.
How about Slashdot stories? RoR has been generating a bunch of them, around 150 it looks like. Zope generated about 35. I'm not gonna check for JSP or ASP.Net since
All in all, my friend, I'll grant you there's a few projects up on Freshmeat, but there's no jobs, few books, and waning interest on
In addition to the other good comments here, I must add that one of the first things I look for from a FOSS project is a Roadmap. One of the primary benefits of FOSS to me, as a developer or potential developer, is my ability to affect its direction. But I need to know where the current developers intend to take it. I'm usually looking to take advantage of the 98/2 rule: get 98% of the work done for me by expending 2% of the effort. In other words, if your project almost meets my needs, then is it better for me to adapt your project rather than start from scratch? Knowing what direction you intend on taking the project helps me make that judgement.
.Net. For example, since Zope runs it's own webserver by default, you might want to include a link for people who are already using Apache. Since you chose the obscure platform, it's your responsibility to point out this information. Linking to the Zope page and documentation would be a good call too.
Also, you really need to more prominently display what technologies you rely on. I see burried in the download section that you run on the Zope platform. Since Zope is such an obscure platform, you should mention how easy it is to integrate with other platforms. ie, do you have a web-services interface? Even though you don't make Zope, your potential users/developers probably want to know if you can run it side by side with Java or
Finally, you should just mention up-front that it's GPL. Making me click on a link just to see your "license" makes me think you've made your own. I might skip your project altogether without looking at the license (who wants to deal with another license?), so spare me the trouble and just say GPL.
like generics (which I think was also added to Java at some point as well, so again there is a double standard here)
The difference being that you can generally upgrade JVMs without breaking backwards compatability. People started re-writing parts of their Java apps because they *wanted* to. Those who didn't need new language features could still upgrade the JVM for performance enhancements etc without rewriting any code. From what it sounds like, though, the problem is more with the
I think the problem may be that your a Nintendo fan.
This is so funny. I thought I would be accused of being a Nintendo fan and here you are! The problem with that theory is that I've never even played a GameCube. I really enjoyed my DreamCast and I've spent a fair amount of time playing the PS2, but I never played an FPS on either so I couldn't really make comparisons. I don't like revisionist history, and Halo fans posting on
Halo wasn't aimed at grannies and kiddies--it was aimed at gamers
This may be true, but the original post that started this whole thread was about how halo was really easy to pick up and how inexperienced gamers could beat Quake 3 gods. So the topic at hand was kinda about how easy Halo is for new players to get the hang of, including noobs. Amazingly enough, some grannies and kiddies are curious what all the hoopla is about. I've seen them sit down and try it and walk away 20 minutes later completely bewildered. It's kind of self-selecting like that. I've also seen teenage girls and people over 40 learn to play GoldenEye and enjoy it immensely. So I'm kind of doing a compare and contrast to explain why I disagreed with the original poster that Halo was easy to pick up.
So to say that "the n64 titles" had such and such controls is to demonstrate your ignoring much of the actual n64 games
I'm sure you are correct, so I stand corrected. As I said in the first post, I played a huge amount of GoldenEye and a good amount of PD, and a much smaller amount of Turok and Doom. Seeing how it's been what, 8 years? my memory's a little fuzzy on the finer details. At any rate, with only one analog stick, even Turok and co were easier to manage for me, and I enjoyed them, so my general point kinda stands
Most console FPSs used dual stick controls before Halo did
Except other consoles didn't really have dual sticks. The difficulty with Halo originates from using two analog sticks. It requires some patience and dedication to get a steady hand on two analog sticks at the same time. Lots of over/under steering problems in addition to not being able to keep your view level. Having free-look on an analog stick takes some getting used to, especially as using two analog sticks simultaneously is delicate. By contrast, the N64 titles didn't put free-look on one stick and movement on the buttons, they mixed them. So the stick would move forward/backward and look left/right. So you could play entirely with the stick and not use the buttons at first. The c-buttons let you strafe and look up/down, and so your view would stay level unless you messed with it. Granted, it was a pain to look up/down and run at the same time and took some finess, but you didn't need to as a beginner. Anyway, I tried several different control options, but none of them seperated left/right and up/down and so all suffered the same problem.
I understand that Halo might be OK once you get good at it. But Halo is also the game that made me really understand how right Nintendo is about the Revolution. I can't be bothered to invest the time to get good, and so the game lost all interest for me and the other non-gamers I saw try it. However, the teenage boys I saw play it for hours on end enjoy it immensely. They are also unfamiliar with the competition, especially on the PC side. These same teenage boys will not have $400 to spend on a next-gen console, nor do they have access to an HDTV. Even if their families had one, they play games in their rooms. So I see difficult times ahead for MS and Sony game divisions.
I've never seen anyone who calls themself a gamer have any trouble with Halo/Halo 2
That may be true. My observations are based more on non-gamers, and people who have played little or no FPSs previously. Teenage girls, little kids, and adults over 40. None of them called themselves gamers, because, well, they didn't really play other games. Duh. Anyway, while none of them had problems with the other FPSs I described, they struggled with Halo. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that Halo is boring in addition to being harder to control. With the other games, the non-gamers had to adjust to the controls and sucked at first, but they still had fun and so stuck with it. I have played a lot of FPSs, console and PC, though I'm not hardcore by any stretch of the imagination. Halo has been the only FPS that I've ever played (out of 2 dozen maybe) that I couldn't get the hang of within minutes. Some games took a while to remember the keyboard commands for all the various item/flashlight/talking commands, but basic moving/shooting was never a problem.
It's the first console FPS that actually managed a default controller scheme that was not only as easy as using a mouse and keyboard; it was easy to pick up
I would strongly disagree with this. I distinctly remember playing early FPS: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, DN 3D, Descent, Quake, Quake II etc. The controls were really easy to pick up back then, in part because there was less to do. Admittedly, everybody took more time adjusting to Descent, but it was sooo cool people were willing to invest the effort. And it wasn't about the controls, anyway, Descent was just disorienting. Anyway, I've played enough PC FPSs that I'm reasonably competent, though I haven't played much lately, but I do OK in Quake 3, Counter Strike (the original), or UT.
Additionally, the N64 FPSs were easy to pick up. You could sit down with GoldenEye and be shooting bad guys right away. Accuracy took some development, but the game was fun within 5 minutes. I became a GoldenEye master, investing hundreds of hours in that game, and yet I never played much with two controllers because I found it awkward when I tried. I also played Perfect Dark, Turok (several) and Doom on the N64 and enjoyed them all.
I have played both Halo and Halo 2 on the XBox, maybe 5 hours total, and never had a minute of fun with either. I never settled into the controls, couldn't go where I wanted, aim for shit, or accomplish much of anything. It was frustating as #$#@! Similarly, I have observed other FPS noobs try and play Halo, and struggle way more than me. They quit within minutes because it was no fun. All the other FPSs I ever played, people had enough fun from the beginning to stick with it. Counter Strike was the worst in this area because it had no single player option for people to learn with.
What I'm saying is that Halo/Halo 2 is, hands down, the worst controlling FPS I've ever played, console or PC. Observing other people play (including FPS noobs), I doubt I'm alone in this opinion. Hell, my little sister played (and enjoyed!!) both GoldenEye and Perfect Dark (she preferred them to Zelda: OT. bizarre, I know) with no PC FPS experience, but wouldn't play Halo for more than a few minutes.
Your statutory rights under the "fair dealing" or "fair use" provision of copyright law include the right to make a copy of a computer program in the memory of a computer as a necessary step in using the program
I'm not sure what jurisdiction you are posting from, however, the validity of EULAs is entirely based on this not being true. If you do not agree to the EULA and run the program anyway, theoretically they come after you for copyright infringement for running the program. Otherwise EULAs would have no teeth, as nobody would ever need agree to it and we'd have a plethora of legally tight ways of disagreeing to the EULA and still running the program.
However, what's more interesting is that contract law allows you to alter a proposed contract, sign it, and give the altered version to the other party for signing. If they do, your alterations stick. This is significant in employment contracts--striking out sections you don't like and initialing it before you sign will stick if your employer signs it (if they don't make a habit of reading contracts before signing them, they may be in for a surprise though). Since a EULA is a proposed contract and there's no signature from the other party on it yet, you could theoretically alter it, sign it, and print it up. Send it in an envelope back to the legal department of the company, and have as the first line in your altered contract, "By openening this envelope, you agree to the following terms and conditions: