Morgan Freeman - Dreamcatcher
Michael Caine - Get Carter
Liam Neeson - Krull
Gary Oldman - Lost in Space
Never say "never". Or "octothorpe". Because some geek on slashdot will always try to prove you wrong on the former, and 99.32% of the people in the world won't have any idea of what you're talking about in the case of the latter.
But yer right... I think this film looks promising.:)
I recently decided to snag a tablet because I've always found PDAs to be a pain to use for various reasons. I ended up grabbing a Toshiba Protege 3500 and it's been pretty useful so far... mainly because you can flip the screen up and around and make it into a laptop any time you want.
As a result of the Transformer-like abilities of the system, I've gotten to a point where I find myself discarding stuff like handwriting recognition.... when it's time to write emails, post to/., or whatever, the keyboard/touchpad combo is the way to go. But in meetings, I've found that the tablet mode combined with MS Journal (which is basically MS Paint with a few nifty extras thrown in) absolutely rocks. It's functionally equivalent to taking notes on a legal pad... except now I can back them up to the fileserver over the wifi link, save them to other formats and pass out my notes to cow-orkers, or easily/quickly find notes from a meeting 2 months ago that put a project on the back-burner but is now suddenly Top Priority once again.
The fancy stuff, like the handwriting and voice recognition, aren't really all that useful in the long run. The handwriting recognition gets freaked out if you write too fast, so you end up having to double check what the tablet sends to make sure it says "due date 07-30-2004" instead of "Blue d4+.)3 0l/E0-508A"... and that was pretty much my problem with the Palm-ish style PDAs.
Given all that, I've been toying around with slapping Linux on the system and hacking together a replacement app for Journal (that wouldn't save stuff in a proprietary format that needs to be converted... grrrr). As with all laptops, the biggest thing I'd miss is the power management utilties and the ability to easily reprogram the tablet buttons to do stuff (like setting one up to power off the screen or making one do ARROW_UP and another do ARROW_DOWN). But with a little bit of hacking, even that too should be reproducable.
All in all, though, if I was told they were taking away my orkstation and I would have to rely on the tablet to do my job, it wouldn't be the end of the world.:)
You obviously haven't played full contact partial differential equations.
I just wish there was more of a "defense" in math... maybe if we give the other team a chance to psyche out the guy working the problem, or the ability to randomly change a negative to a positive somewhere, then it might be more interesting.
Let's hold a huge convention featuring cash prize tournaments based on a piece of software that is testing new video card technology, has taken years to design and build, is probably going to be so massive that we'll need to ship it on DVDs, and won't even have been on the shelves for two weeks.
And just to make sure all of our eggs in one basket, let's drop support for any of the team-based competition games set in WWII even if they do seem to be kind of popular right now.
Awesome.
Hats off to iD's Doom3 QA team... ya'll must really have your stuff together to make them feel comfortable enough to do something like this.
investing in the research and development of Transformer technology is so important.
You wouldn't have to worry about this sort of stuff if you had something like Metroplex. You could just tell the city to switch to robot mode and move to a safer location.
And you'd also have a line of defense against Trypticon, to boot. It's a win-win.
So what can open source do to correct the strangle hold that talking heads have on primary information sources?
Maybe it's already doing it (at least indirectly).
I mean... commerical news organizations are distorting their reporting to try and give their customers what they think they want. Editorial sneaks in and masquerades as fact in an appeal to various demographics so that sales will get a boost.
Shock. Suprise. Disbelief.
Who could have seen that one coming? I mean, aside from that Thomas Jefferson dude who seems to have articulated a couple of thoughts on this very topic back in the day.
When I see/hear/read something that sounds like bullshit, I go hit google and look it up. The sad fact is you can't trust anyone to give you all the facts in a 6 second info blurb... about the only thing any of the old media is worth these days is simply making you aware of some event. After that, it's up to you to find out about it.
But so many people aren't interested in doing that. Which is why we're living in a country where folks are seriously considering the notion that a fscking film you pay $8 to go see could ever influence an election.
I'm serious - if there were significant sales on Linux it might persuade other software companies to start coming out with stuff for Linux too.
First off: other companies are coming out with stuff for Linux. Check out icculus's site: http://www.icculus.org/
If you're offering a multiplayer FPS, you really need to get a dedicated server binary out there ASAP. No one wants to waste a server just to run your game over Terminal Services (ggz NovaLogic).
And, it's not uncommon to see folks kick out a Linux version of the client for their game either (although those never get hyped and good luck finding 'em on the *planet mess).
Secondly, I'm not sure what the context of that quote was, nor do I know when it was made. What I am pretty sure of, however, is that aside from a version of Q3 Rocket Arena distributed through Loki, I don't really recall iD ever actually selling the Linux version of any of its games. The instructions have always been "just download the binary, and copy the paks over from the Windows cd".
Given that you could download a bin for Q3 and use the paks from the Windows cd's you had already purchased, I don't see any need for a Linux gamer to pay for a game a second time, so I don't think those sales figures are all that surprising. I'd suspect that checking out what OS clients on pub servers are using might be a better indicator of what the market looks like (like how the UT2K4 guys are doing it).
But whatever. I'm getting tired of WWII shooters... getting back to dropping the smack down on hordes of hellish minions and raging faces with a 40ft tall boss that's been engineered to dispense pain and anguish like it was being paid on a commission sounds like a good plan to me.:)
Because, believe me, when you get sucked into a parallel dimension and you're standing face to face with an 8 ft tall pink dog-demon and all you've got is teh crappy 9mm the government issued you, you're going to be glad that you've at least seen the scenario before. You'll find that having at least rehearsed it a few times you'll be able to bunnyhop to safety (or better armament) while plugging the beast with a few rounds as if it was second nature instead of just standing there in a puddle of your own making and wishing you'd paid a little more attention to that DoomIII "game" instead of wasting all your time on City of Heros (because really, how likely is *that* to happen?).
Never forget: Just because you haven't needed these skills up till now doesn't mean they're useless.
I used the new installer when I moved to Debian testing on my new workstation a few months ago. There were a couple of rough spots, but nothing a little command line prodding and correcting couldn't get around.
The installer does a nice job of addressing the long-standing issues most people have had with the installer (namely, having to deal with dselect and the 4 trillion packages Debian has:), and breaks the install down into nice, manageable chunks.
Now... if there's a way to script installs (and I believe there is, but haven't checked it out yet) like RH's kickstart so I deploy a couple hundred servers in the datacenter (yes, I know about FAI... doesn't compare to RH's kickstart), I'd be on easy street.:)
No, but it probably does mean that any taping of a new procedure will most likely be punched up with a really cool soundtrack and some interesting visual effects highlighting the really tricky parts.
I'm just waiting to see how long it takes before clan tags start making it onto nameplates for their offices....
As wonderful as binary is, it falls utterly in capturing the fuzzy analog nature of life and the real world.
I wouldn't say "utterly"... using approximation and extrapolation to fill in the weak spots and get a "close enough" answer have been good enough to let the human race put a man on the moon, collect energy from doing naughty things with atoms, and create several series of fun to play WWII first person shooters (I'm most enthusiastic about that last one, but YMMV).
I've read up on multivalent logic (mostly intro stuff by Dr. Kosko because I'm an ignorant knuckle dragger, but I think I got the gist). The thing most people seem to ignore about it is that this isn't a "black and white" issue... binary logic is still a subset of multivalent logic (it just occurs at the endpoints now) and still has a role to play in it.
I'd like to see us move to using multivalent logic too as I think it'll be the key to solving some interesting problems in the CS world (AI, mainly)... but I don't think saying "Boolean suxx0rz" is the way to effect that change.:)
I see bivalent logic as just the tip of the iceberg... it might not cover every case, but at least it's a good start in the right direction.
By all means, everyone, give your money to EV1 Servers, the company with a flair for... damn. I can't think of anything relevant to rhyme with "flair".
Nope, I wasn't aware of it (Quark), although now you mention I do seem to recall hearing about it somewhere.
I'm not really much of a level designer, but I have looked into the basics just because I was curious how it all fit together. I've only gotten to the "hello world" level of making a map, and making a simple mace in gmax.:)
All I can say is that it's a good thing my livelihood doesn't depend on my artistic skillz.
Speaking as a player, I'd encourage you to seek out any competitive communities built around the game(s) you're interested in designing for. While Neverwinter Nights is a cool enough game, I'd also reccomend you check out getting some experience with the "Quake-related" FPS games.
One of the tools that's used to create maps for several game is Radiant (supported on both Linux and Windows) and supports a bunch of games. Mappers familiar with Quake3 were able to transfer that knowledge to RtCW when it came out, and in turn that was transferrable to ET. Plugins for other games (Half Life, Soldier of Fortune, and some others I'm blanking on) is also available.
Couple that with experience working with 3DSmax (or gmax if you're on a budget) creating models, and you should be good to go.
If you're also looking for ideas on what to make maps of, I'd suggest trolling around and seeing if you can find a competitive community for the games you're interested in designing for. Stuff like Half-Life and its mods (most notably Counter Strike), Quake3/RtCW/ET, and the MOHAA/CoD stuff are going to be hot ticket items right now. Organizations like The Team Warfare League or the Cyber Athlete League might be worth a look to get an idea of how people are using the games and what kind of maps and what features they'd benefit from.
Looking to the future, everyone's pointing at stuff like Doom3 and Half-Life2 (obviously). But it might be worth taking a look at games like Far Cry and Painkiller as possible sleeper hits coming up on the horizon.
Also, I think it's worth mentioning that S2 Games brought Savage to market in a truly original fashion. You don't have to buy a CD in order to get the full version... you may purchase a key via the web, then download either your tar ball or zip file.
A few weeks after buying the game, my hard drive gave up the ghost and I had to get a new one. Reinstalling was just a matter of asking S2 for my key again, downloading the software again, and back in business after that.
AND. If that wasn't enough, Savage has a built-in autoupdater that can patch the game on the fly whenever you fire it up. This has allowed S2 to make some big changes to the game (such as adding in a "medic" class and changing up the visual effects used for various weapons) without requiring users to download patches and without forcing server admins to make a decision on when to upgrade their stuff.
There are definitely some rough spots, but overall this was an impressive game that showed off some original ideas that weren't limited to just gameplay.
There you go, talk with SCO, sign the NDA and start grep'ing the source tree, then lets really see if SCO has anything.
And basically forget about ever writing anything else ever again.
You see, an NDA is a contract. SCO has stated publically that it believes contracts are tools that you use to sue to partners. SCO also believes that a mere glimpse at the System V goodness will corrupt you for all of time and that anything you might create in the future will obviously have been inspired by the mere fact that you have seen the source code.
Never, ever forget that this isn't about protecting intellectual property. This is about highjacking money other people have made and that SCO lost out on because it didn't get with the program quick enough. SCO realizes that it's too late to come-from-behind legitimately (that'd take years and lots of R&D money), so they've opted for outright theft instead and are using some shakey legal arguments to justify it.
SCO doesn't want infringing code out of the Linux kernel... they want a piece of that phat cash everyone else seems to be pulling down. And if you sign this NDA and then go on to do something that might be worth something, they'll come after you (and your employer), too.
You won't end this any quicker, and you're just going to put yourself at risk. The better goal is to wait until SCO is forced to stop squawking and either show its code or specify exactly what should be removed from Linux.
The burden of proof is all on them... always has been. Obliging them now would rate just somewhere below signing on as a redshirt security guard with StarFleet on the Universally Truly Stupid Idea Scale.
and after a week they become a lot more proficient.
Yeah.
It doesn't take all that long to figure out how to type in "OMFG..WTF?!? HAX!" or to understand that when all hope is lost poor shots turn to the flamethrower for solace.:)
Seriously, though... Enemy Territory (which is totally, 100% free-as-in-beer free and plays under Winders and Linux nicely) or Return to Castle Wolfenstein are awesome games... especially if you want to emphasize that whole teamwork thing. We used to play RtCW after hours, and it did a lot for the whole "I got your back" mentality in the office.
ET will be more graphics hungry than RtCW, but I currently play ET on a Ti4000 without too much hassle, and was running RtCW on a honest-to-gawd 3dfx Voodoo 3000. Something like Quake3 should be no sweat for the systems you mentioned (I've played all 3 on a 850Mhz duron).
No, but introduces the old concept of "sticky" charges.
So if you're one of those gimps who goes bunny hopping off to high ground, switches to panzer, drops one shot, and then/kills... all your stamina is gone when you respawn so you won't be able to do it twice in a row.
The changes I meant were fixes to the underlying game... such as being able to choose from multiple spawn points before the match starts, buglets that allowed airstrikes to pass through walls, game restrictions on map features (ie, you have to use dynamite to blow up the ramp on battery instead of just a satchel charge, which helps because stopwatch plays with half the timelimit), locations of various displays in the HUD, etc.
Physics and the way weapons work weren't really changed that much... which keeps the competition settings close enough to the original game that newcomers won't have to "learn" a new game.
Slashdot Mirror
Morgan Freeman - Dreamcatcher
Michael Caine - Get Carter
Liam Neeson - Krull
Gary Oldman - Lost in Space
Never say "never". Or "octothorpe". Because some geek on slashdot will always try to prove you wrong on the former, and 99.32% of the people in the world won't have any idea of what you're talking about in the case of the latter.
But yer right... I think this film looks promising. :)
I recently decided to snag a tablet because I've always found PDAs to be a pain to use for various reasons. I ended up grabbing a Toshiba Protege 3500 and it's been pretty useful so far... mainly because you can flip the screen up and around and make it into a laptop any time you want.
As a result of the Transformer-like abilities of the system, I've gotten to a point where I find myself discarding stuff like handwriting recognition.... when it's time to write emails, post to /., or whatever, the keyboard/touchpad combo is the way to go. But in meetings, I've found that the tablet mode combined with MS Journal (which is basically MS Paint with a few nifty extras thrown in) absolutely rocks. It's functionally equivalent to taking notes on a legal pad... except now I can back them up to the fileserver over the wifi link, save them to other formats and pass out my notes to cow-orkers, or easily/quickly find notes from a meeting 2 months ago that put a project on the back-burner but is now suddenly Top Priority once again.
The fancy stuff, like the handwriting and voice recognition, aren't really all that useful in the long run. The handwriting recognition gets freaked out if you write too fast, so you end up having to double check what the tablet sends to make sure it says "due date 07-30-2004" instead of "Blue d4+.)3 0l/E0-508A"... and that was pretty much my problem with the Palm-ish style PDAs.
Given all that, I've been toying around with slapping Linux on the system and hacking together a replacement app for Journal (that wouldn't save stuff in a proprietary format that needs to be converted... grrrr). As with all laptops, the biggest thing I'd miss is the power management utilties and the ability to easily reprogram the tablet buttons to do stuff (like setting one up to power off the screen or making one do ARROW_UP and another do ARROW_DOWN). But with a little bit of hacking, even that too should be reproducable.
All in all, though, if I was told they were taking away my orkstation and I would have to rely on the tablet to do my job, it wouldn't be the end of the world. :)
You obviously haven't played full contact partial differential equations.
I just wish there was more of a "defense" in math... maybe if we give the other team a chance to psyche out the guy working the problem, or the ability to randomly change a negative to a positive somewhere, then it might be more interesting.
Let's hold a huge convention featuring cash prize tournaments based on a piece of software that is testing new video card technology, has taken years to design and build, is probably going to be so massive that we'll need to ship it on DVDs, and won't even have been on the shelves for two weeks.
And just to make sure all of our eggs in one basket, let's drop support for any of the team-based competition games set in WWII even if they do seem to be kind of popular right now.
Awesome.
Hats off to iD's Doom3 QA team... ya'll must really have your stuff together to make them feel comfortable enough to do something like this.
investing in the research and development of Transformer technology is so important.
You wouldn't have to worry about this sort of stuff if you had something like Metroplex. You could just tell the city to switch to robot mode and move to a safer location.
And you'd also have a line of defense against Trypticon, to boot. It's a win-win.
So what can open source do to correct the strangle hold that talking heads have on primary information sources?
Maybe it's already doing it (at least indirectly).
I mean... commerical news organizations are distorting their reporting to try and give their customers what they think they want. Editorial sneaks in and masquerades as fact in an appeal to various demographics so that sales will get a boost.
Shock. Suprise. Disbelief.
Who could have seen that one coming? I mean, aside from that Thomas Jefferson dude who seems to have articulated a couple of thoughts on this very topic back in the day.
When I see/hear/read something that sounds like bullshit, I go hit google and look it up. The sad fact is you can't trust anyone to give you all the facts in a 6 second info blurb... about the only thing any of the old media is worth these days is simply making you aware of some event. After that, it's up to you to find out about it.
But so many people aren't interested in doing that. Which is why we're living in a country where folks are seriously considering the notion that a fscking film you pay $8 to go see could ever influence an election.
Remember, the grass is always greener.
You've never dug a ditch or lived off minimum wage before, have you?
I'm serious - if there were significant sales on Linux it might persuade other software companies to start coming out with stuff for Linux too.
First off: other companies are coming out with stuff for Linux. Check out icculus's site: http://www.icculus.org/
If you're offering a multiplayer FPS, you really need to get a dedicated server binary out there ASAP. No one wants to waste a server just to run your game over Terminal Services (ggz NovaLogic).
And, it's not uncommon to see folks kick out a Linux version of the client for their game either (although those never get hyped and good luck finding 'em on the *planet mess).Secondly, I'm not sure what the context of that quote was, nor do I know when it was made. What I am pretty sure of, however, is that aside from a version of Q3 Rocket Arena distributed through Loki, I don't really recall iD ever actually selling the Linux version of any of its games. The instructions have always been "just download the binary, and copy the paks over from the Windows cd".
Given that you could download a bin for Q3 and use the paks from the Windows cd's you had already purchased, I don't see any need for a Linux gamer to pay for a game a second time, so I don't think those sales figures are all that surprising. I'd suspect that checking out what OS clients on pub servers are using might be a better indicator of what the market looks like (like how the UT2K4 guys are doing it).
But whatever. I'm getting tired of WWII shooters... getting back to dropping the smack down on hordes of hellish minions and raging faces with a 40ft tall boss that's been engineered to dispense pain and anguish like it was being paid on a commission sounds like a good plan to me. :)
Don't look at it as lost productivity.
It's "training".
Because, believe me, when you get sucked into a parallel dimension and you're standing face to face with an 8 ft tall pink dog-demon and all you've got is teh crappy 9mm the government issued you, you're going to be glad that you've at least seen the scenario before. You'll find that having at least rehearsed it a few times you'll be able to bunnyhop to safety (or better armament) while plugging the beast with a few rounds as if it was second nature instead of just standing there in a puddle of your own making and wishing you'd paid a little more attention to that DoomIII "game" instead of wasting all your time on City of Heros (because really, how likely is *that* to happen?).
Never forget: Just because you haven't needed these skills up till now doesn't mean they're useless.
I used the new installer when I moved to Debian testing on my new workstation a few months ago. There were a couple of rough spots, but nothing a little command line prodding and correcting couldn't get around.
The installer does a nice job of addressing the long-standing issues most people have had with the installer (namely, having to deal with dselect and the 4 trillion packages Debian has :), and breaks the install down into nice, manageable chunks.
Now... if there's a way to script installs (and I believe there is, but haven't checked it out yet) like RH's kickstart so I deploy a couple hundred servers in the datacenter (yes, I know about FAI... doesn't compare to RH's kickstart), I'd be on easy street. :)
Nice work, guys.
Just watch out for the ones who come bunnyhopping out of the pharmacy screaming "QUAD DAMAGE!"
No, but it probably does mean that any taping of a new procedure will most likely be punched up with a really cool soundtrack and some interesting visual effects highlighting the really tricky parts.
I'm just waiting to see how long it takes before clan tags start making it onto nameplates for their offices....
-={4M2}=- DethTherahpy, MD
|OsteoClan|SawBonez
+WheresThatSponge
As wonderful as binary is, it falls utterly in capturing the fuzzy analog nature of life and the real world.
I wouldn't say "utterly"... using approximation and extrapolation to fill in the weak spots and get a "close enough" answer have been good enough to let the human race put a man on the moon, collect energy from doing naughty things with atoms, and create several series of fun to play WWII first person shooters (I'm most enthusiastic about that last one, but YMMV).
I've read up on multivalent logic (mostly intro stuff by Dr. Kosko because I'm an ignorant knuckle dragger, but I think I got the gist). The thing most people seem to ignore about it is that this isn't a "black and white" issue... binary logic is still a subset of multivalent logic (it just occurs at the endpoints now) and still has a role to play in it.
I'd like to see us move to using multivalent logic too as I think it'll be the key to solving some interesting problems in the CS world (AI, mainly)... but I don't think saying "Boolean suxx0rz" is the way to effect that change. :)
I see bivalent logic as just the tip of the iceberg... it might not cover every case, but at least it's a good start in the right direction.
By all means, everyone, give your money to EV1 Servers, the company with a flair for... damn. I can't think of anything relevant to rhyme with "flair".
How about "snare"? :)
Nope, I wasn't aware of it (Quark), although now you mention I do seem to recall hearing about it somewhere.
:)
I'm not really much of a level designer, but I have looked into the basics just because I was curious how it all fit together. I've only gotten to the "hello world" level of making a map, and making a simple mace in gmax.
All I can say is that it's a good thing my livelihood doesn't depend on my artistic skillz.
Speaking as a player, I'd encourage you to seek out any competitive communities built around the game(s) you're interested in designing for. While Neverwinter Nights is a cool enough game, I'd also reccomend you check out getting some experience with the "Quake-related" FPS games.
One of the tools that's used to create maps for several game is Radiant (supported on both Linux and Windows) and supports a bunch of games. Mappers familiar with Quake3 were able to transfer that knowledge to RtCW when it came out, and in turn that was transferrable to ET. Plugins for other games (Half Life, Soldier of Fortune, and some others I'm blanking on) is also available.
Couple that with experience working with 3DSmax (or gmax if you're on a budget) creating models, and you should be good to go.
If you're also looking for ideas on what to make maps of, I'd suggest trolling around and seeing if you can find a competitive community for the games you're interested in designing for. Stuff like Half-Life and its mods (most notably Counter Strike), Quake3/RtCW/ET, and the MOHAA/CoD stuff are going to be hot ticket items right now. Organizations like The Team Warfare League or the Cyber Athlete League might be worth a look to get an idea of how people are using the games and what kind of maps and what features they'd benefit from.
Looking to the future, everyone's pointing at stuff like Doom3 and Half-Life2 (obviously). But it might be worth taking a look at games like Far Cry and Painkiller as possible sleeper hits coming up on the horizon.
Good luck in your efforts. :)
I know whatcha mean....
I feel the exact same way about fetchmail.
:)
I keed! I keed!
"How would you like to be king of an entire world?"
Millions of lines on sixty pages? How silly.
Yeah.
Well.
You know, you don't really even need 60 pages to say, "We ownz0r all of it. SCO > *. Pwnt."
What do you think dumbass! :)
Well, I don't know of a tool, but how about HOWTO?
Have a good one. :)
I'll second that.
Also, I think it's worth mentioning that S2 Games brought Savage to market in a truly original fashion. You don't have to buy a CD in order to get the full version... you may purchase a key via the web, then download either your tar ball or zip file.
A few weeks after buying the game, my hard drive gave up the ghost and I had to get a new one. Reinstalling was just a matter of asking S2 for my key again, downloading the software again, and back in business after that.
AND. If that wasn't enough, Savage has a built-in autoupdater that can patch the game on the fly whenever you fire it up. This has allowed S2 to make some big changes to the game (such as adding in a "medic" class and changing up the visual effects used for various weapons) without requiring users to download patches and without forcing server admins to make a decision on when to upgrade their stuff.
There are definitely some rough spots, but overall this was an impressive game that showed off some original ideas that weren't limited to just gameplay.
There you go, talk with SCO, sign the NDA and start grep'ing the source tree, then lets really see if SCO has anything.
And basically forget about ever writing anything else ever again.
You see, an NDA is a contract. SCO has stated publically that it believes contracts are tools that you use to sue to partners. SCO also believes that a mere glimpse at the System V goodness will corrupt you for all of time and that anything you might create in the future will obviously have been inspired by the mere fact that you have seen the source code.
Never, ever forget that this isn't about protecting intellectual property. This is about highjacking money other people have made and that SCO lost out on because it didn't get with the program quick enough. SCO realizes that it's too late to come-from-behind legitimately (that'd take years and lots of R&D money), so they've opted for outright theft instead and are using some shakey legal arguments to justify it.
SCO doesn't want infringing code out of the Linux kernel... they want a piece of that phat cash everyone else seems to be pulling down. And if you sign this NDA and then go on to do something that might be worth something, they'll come after you (and your employer), too.
You won't end this any quicker, and you're just going to put yourself at risk. The better goal is to wait until SCO is forced to stop squawking and either show its code or specify exactly what should be removed from Linux.
The burden of proof is all on them... always has been. Obliging them now would rate just somewhere below signing on as a redshirt security guard with StarFleet on the Universally Truly Stupid Idea Scale.
and after a week they become a lot more proficient.
:)
Yeah.
It doesn't take all that long to figure out how to type in "OMFG..WTF?!? HAX!" or to understand that when all hope is lost poor shots turn to the flamethrower for solace.
Seriously, though... Enemy Territory (which is totally, 100% free-as-in-beer free and plays under Winders and Linux nicely) or Return to Castle Wolfenstein are awesome games... especially if you want to emphasize that whole teamwork thing. We used to play RtCW after hours, and it did a lot for the whole "I got your back" mentality in the office.
ET will be more graphics hungry than RtCW, but I currently play ET on a Ti4000 without too much hassle, and was running RtCW on a honest-to-gawd 3dfx Voodoo 3000. Something like Quake3 should be no sweat for the systems you mentioned (I've played all 3 on a 850Mhz duron).
No, but introduces the old concept of "sticky" charges.
/kills... all your stamina is gone when you respawn so you won't be able to do it twice in a row.
So if you're one of those gimps who goes bunny hopping off to high ground, switches to panzer, drops one shot, and then
The changes I meant were fixes to the underlying game... such as being able to choose from multiple spawn points before the match starts, buglets that allowed airstrikes to pass through walls, game restrictions on map features (ie, you have to use dynamite to blow up the ramp on battery instead of just a satchel charge, which helps because stopwatch plays with half the timelimit), locations of various displays in the HUD, etc.
Physics and the way weapons work weren't really changed that much... which keeps the competition settings close enough to the original game that newcomers won't have to "learn" a new game.