BF2 is buggy, crashes on some computers What game isn't, and doesn't? I've had HL2 and Doom3 crash. If anything BF2 is more stable than half the other games I have bought recently. I've had it drop me to the desktop once in 3 weeks, and I have stopped using the three options on the server list that dont function correctly.
very very laggy You are mistakenly identifying as lag what is most often attributable to servers without enough CPU power or RAM to handle the number of players. Yourself and other players jerking from place to place, as well as "rubber banding", is a symptom of this. The average game server can NOT handle a 64 player game of BF2 (nor could it for BF1942 in its day) reliably. This is a realization slow in coming to people used to running five CS servers on the same below-average machine.
unbalanced In what way? I find the game to be extremely well balanced, with every class and vehicle having strengths and weakenesses against others in a rock-paper-scissors style.
rewards the hardcore with weapons that throw the idea of individuality out the window. (Medics getting rifles? Wth?!) Not giving players in a FPS game a rifle of some sort would defeat the purpose of the game. The unlockable weapons are all slightly more useful than the base weapons in SOME way, but generally also have failings. The medic unlockable offers superb accuracy and repeat rate, with the penalty of doing the least damage of any rifle in the game. The assault unlockable rivals the support weapon in rate of fire and damage output, but has less accuracy and sacrifices the grenade launcher of the default assault rifle.
The anti-team killing system is too strict against commanders (if people run into their own artillery its their own damned fault) This is both true and not in different cases. The most fair assessment would be to examine how many kills are achieved. 3 team kills for the sake of one enemy kill indicates poor aim on the part of the commander, and he should be punished for it. Vice versa is excellent, and the score from the 3 kills will outweigh the loss from the single punish if the player chooses to punish. Commanders also have the discretion to ignore support requests from players who make poor decisions.
vehicles are still overpowered (a good helicopter pilot can rip most ground troops to shreds in seconds) Every vehicle has its own severe weaknesses. If you have just started playing the game then I understand why helicopters might seem overly powerful to you. You are obviously not sufficiently utilizing the available weaponry. Any of the rocket or explosion-based weapons can take out the helicopters in 2-3 hits. If they are hovering then the grenade launcher or anti-tank rocket make short work of them, if they are making strafing runs then the vehicular or ground-mounted anti-tank or anti-air rocket emplacements can scare them off or take them down.
the game feels like a fanmade mod that spent too long in development. (Nice graphics, now how about something beyond an extra 2 classes and a 'commander' system?) Something like the squad system, VOIP, online ranking and statistics tracking, seeking and laser/wire/tv-guided missiles, destroyable bridges, etc?
I ditched mine about 4 years ago. I carry my desktop to LAN parties quite often, and the consideration of WEIGHT actually came into play when making this decision. Aluminum case, no floppy, etc. Shave a pound here, 4 ounces there, it all adds up.
Let me reiterate this point for you then... Their website has nothing to do with the reliability of their software. Two completely different things. When their new host gets hit by a meteor that won't be their fault either.
Once? Nice fantasy. Try "patching" at a LAN party. Or playing if you forgot to log^H^H^Hclose^H^H^H^H^Hquit^H^H^H^H do whatever contortions they require of you this week to be able to play offline after you turn your PC off.
A CMS solves the problem of having 30 (or 300000, Slash is a CMS) people modify the site at the same time. Try doing that with flat html or custom written php. It also simplifies the routine management of the site, like archiving and indexing old news items (or blog posts, or whatever other C youre M'ing).
wtf does their hardware uptime have to do with the quality of their software? they could even not have a website at all and just sell their software on CDs, would that make it any less reliable?
in your next life try staying with your family til youre 26 instead of 18. 8 years of $20000/yr into the bank lets you start off your independent life a hell of a lot more comfortably.
40% interest is a serious step up for people whose only credit option is things like car title loans, where interest rates are usually in the range of 1400% (yes, one thousand four hundred percent).
... - "Yes, we're looking for a game that doesn't have any violence." "Easy enough. I've got lots of games without violence. Anything in particular you want?" - "The game can't have any violence at all." "Ok." - "I mean nothing." "Well, Crash Team racing doesn't have any violence in it." - "Yes it does. You can hit each other's cars." "Uhm.. ok...so, no conflict at all you mean?" - "Yes." "Hmm... Here, try Bust A Move. It's a very good game with no conflict." - "We've tried it before. It's too violent." "...Too violent? There isn't any violence in the game at all." - "You shoot things and monsters fall out." "Ok...here, try Intelligent Cube. Great game, no monsters and no shooting." - "You can fall off the edge and the moving blocks can kill the character. Too violent." "Uh...ok...uhm...well, there are a lot of racing games without violence." - "Racing games have competition. The game can't have any competition."...
If it is safe for a 80000 pound truck to do 45 or 65, I contend that I am equally, if not more so, safe doing (respectively) 60 or 80 in the exact same location and conditions in my 1500 pound Metro. I have a shorter stopping distance and less force behind any impact, and I can avoid impacts far more effectively.
And don't forget all the stupid 5mph speed limits in various places. Most cars IDLE faster than that.
I prefer competitions that involve short problems.
Top Coder is a very large event, with thousands of participants. They have weekly-ish small competitions, and multiple times per year they have cash prizes ranging from $1000 to $100000.
Sphere Online Judge is another great competition, although far smaller and with no real time limit. No prizes, but much more varied and fun problems, with a HUGE selection of programming languages and completely automated judging.
the lan option may or may not work, but the big feature of bnetd is that it provides the chat rooms to arrange games in. when theres 1000+ people at a lan party thats important
If you enjoy any three of these games then a Station Pass is a very good investment. I was an EQ addict for a number of years, and have kicked that habit, but often consider going back to Sony because I would still enjoy Tanarus (bzflag with better graphics) and Planetside (PS:UT2XMP::UT2XMP::UT2k4ONS).
news flash, they make perfectly adequate IDE controllers if your ignore their shitty "hardware" (lol, can you say winmodem?) RAID offerings. but even that doesnt work in linux right now.
Yet another kernel release without fixed/rolledback highpoint RAID drivers:( Kernel Oopses and Panics abound and they insist on keeping the broken code merged in around 2.6.9. Well, there's always hope for 2.6.13!
I would suggest researching some examples of software patents in the wild that have already impacted the marketplace in some important way. Any patents responsible for stopping upcoming technologies is one great situation where the evils can be pointed out, and I am sure that searching the last few months of/. stories will provide plenty of ammunition there.
Also look for places where software patents have impacted the non-software world. I cannot think of anything, but I am bad at association. Something related to e-voting would be particularly handy, but anything legally oriented (were there patents involved in that breathalyzer case recently?) should get his attention.
That is precisely how the last 4 or 5 banks I have used have worked, including AmSouth and USBank, which are probably among the top 20 consumer banks in the USA.
In the exact same way that Word is not 100% Compatible, right? If Word 2003 cant open Word 2000, Word XP, Word 97, and Word documents reliably, why should OOo be able to? It even does BETTER in some cases.
Not to sound obvious, but you could make that assumption about anyone and be right more than half the time. For there to be managers there have to be subordinates, and the latter is the majority.
It just so happens I have been responsible for the work of others. I did not enjoy it and, given the choice, will probably not do it again.
Slashdot Mirror
BF2 is buggy, crashes on some computers
What game isn't, and doesn't? I've had HL2 and Doom3 crash. If anything BF2 is more stable than half the other games I have bought recently. I've had it drop me to the desktop once in 3 weeks, and I have stopped using the three options on the server list that dont function correctly.
very very laggy
You are mistakenly identifying as lag what is most often attributable to servers without enough CPU power or RAM to handle the number of players. Yourself and other players jerking from place to place, as well as "rubber banding", is a symptom of this. The average game server can NOT handle a 64 player game of BF2 (nor could it for BF1942 in its day) reliably. This is a realization slow in coming to people used to running five CS servers on the same below-average machine.
unbalanced
In what way? I find the game to be extremely well balanced, with every class and vehicle having strengths and weakenesses against others in a rock-paper-scissors style.
rewards the hardcore with weapons that throw the idea of individuality out the window. (Medics getting rifles? Wth?!)
Not giving players in a FPS game a rifle of some sort would defeat the purpose of the game. The unlockable weapons are all slightly more useful than the base weapons in SOME way, but generally also have failings. The medic unlockable offers superb accuracy and repeat rate, with the penalty of doing the least damage of any rifle in the game. The assault unlockable rivals the support weapon in rate of fire and damage output, but has less accuracy and sacrifices the grenade launcher of the default assault rifle.
The anti-team killing system is too strict against commanders (if people run into their own artillery its their own damned fault)
This is both true and not in different cases. The most fair assessment would be to examine how many kills are achieved. 3 team kills for the sake of one enemy kill indicates poor aim on the part of the commander, and he should be punished for it. Vice versa is excellent, and the score from the 3 kills will outweigh the loss from the single punish if the player chooses to punish. Commanders also have the discretion to ignore support requests from players who make poor decisions.
vehicles are still overpowered (a good helicopter pilot can rip most ground troops to shreds in seconds)
Every vehicle has its own severe weaknesses. If you have just started playing the game then I understand why helicopters might seem overly powerful to you. You are obviously not sufficiently utilizing the available weaponry. Any of the rocket or explosion-based weapons can take out the helicopters in 2-3 hits. If they are hovering then the grenade launcher or anti-tank rocket make short work of them, if they are making strafing runs then the vehicular or ground-mounted anti-tank or anti-air rocket emplacements can scare them off or take them down.
the game feels like a fanmade mod that spent too long in development. (Nice graphics, now how about something beyond an extra 2 classes and a 'commander' system?)
Something like the squad system, VOIP, online ranking and statistics tracking, seeking and laser/wire/tv-guided missiles, destroyable bridges, etc?
I ditched mine about 4 years ago. I carry my desktop to LAN parties quite often, and the consideration of WEIGHT actually came into play when making this decision. Aluminum case, no floppy, etc. Shave a pound here, 4 ounces there, it all adds up.
Given the premise that Auto Team Balance is a good thing, I do not see how 4+ people could ever join a server together and all get on the same team.
Let me reiterate this point for you then... Their website has nothing to do with the reliability of their software. Two completely different things. When their new host gets hit by a meteor that won't be their fault either.
Once? Nice fantasy. Try "patching" at a LAN party. Or playing if you forgot to log^H^H^Hclose^H^H^H^H^Hquit^H^H^H^H do whatever contortions they require of you this week to be able to play offline after you turn your PC off.
Why do you switch for WoW? It wouldn't take more than an hour or so to remap all the key bindings to their proper (or better) positions.
A CMS solves the problem of having 30 (or 300000, Slash is a CMS) people modify the site at the same time. Try doing that with flat html or custom written php. It also simplifies the routine management of the site, like archiving and indexing old news items (or blog posts, or whatever other C youre M'ing).
wtf does their hardware uptime have to do with the quality of their software? they could even not have a website at all and just sell their software on CDs, would that make it any less reliable?
Personally I use OS-9? Can you please support that too?
Absolutely. Tens of thousands of people use Java based e-tax software in various jurisdictions, I am sure that would work just fine for you on OS-9.
Sure we would. You would see numerous booming industries, such as heavier than air flying machines!
Linky
in your next life try staying with your family til youre 26 instead of 18. 8 years of $20000/yr into the bank lets you start off your independent life a hell of a lot more comfortably.
40% interest is a serious step up for people whose only credit option is things like car title loans, where interest rates are usually in the range of 1400% (yes, one thousand four hundred percent).
... ...
- "Yes, we're looking for a game that doesn't have any violence."
"Easy enough. I've got lots of games without violence. Anything in particular you want?"
- "The game can't have any violence at all."
"Ok."
- "I mean nothing."
"Well, Crash Team racing doesn't have any violence in it."
- "Yes it does. You can hit each other's cars."
"Uhm.. ok...so, no conflict at all you mean?"
- "Yes."
"Hmm... Here, try Bust A Move. It's a very good game with no conflict."
- "We've tried it before. It's too violent."
"...Too violent? There isn't any violence in the game at all."
- "You shoot things and monsters fall out."
"Ok...here, try Intelligent Cube. Great game, no monsters and no shooting."
- "You can fall off the edge and the moving blocks can kill the character. Too violent."
"Uh...ok...uhm...well, there are a lot of racing games without violence."
- "Racing games have competition. The game can't have any competition."
An excerpt from The Acts of Gord
If it is safe for a 80000 pound truck to do 45 or 65, I contend that I am equally, if not more so, safe doing (respectively) 60 or 80 in the exact same location and conditions in my 1500 pound Metro. I have a shorter stopping distance and less force behind any impact, and I can avoid impacts far more effectively.
And don't forget all the stupid 5mph speed limits in various places. Most cars IDLE faster than that.
I prefer competitions that involve short problems.
Top Coder is a very large event, with thousands of participants. They have weekly-ish small competitions, and multiple times per year they have cash prizes ranging from $1000 to $100000.
Sphere Online Judge is another great competition, although far smaller and with no real time limit. No prizes, but much more varied and fun problems, with a HUGE selection of programming languages and completely automated judging.
the lan option may or may not work, but the big feature of bnetd is that it provides the chat rooms to arrange games in. when theres 1000+ people at a lan party thats important
If you enjoy any three of these games then a Station Pass is a very good investment. I was an EQ addict for a number of years, and have kicked that habit, but often consider going back to Sony because I would still enjoy Tanarus (bzflag with better graphics) and Planetside (PS:UT2XMP::UT2XMP::UT2k4ONS).
bnetd is also used to play the games when battle.net is down, especially during betas (the lawsuit started during the WC3 beta I believe)
it is also used at LAN parties, where battle.net is not available.
news flash, they make perfectly adequate IDE controllers if your ignore their shitty "hardware" (lol, can you say winmodem?) RAID offerings. but even that doesnt work in linux right now.
Yet another kernel release without fixed/rolledback highpoint RAID drivers :( Kernel Oopses and Panics abound and they insist on keeping the broken code merged in around 2.6.9. Well, there's always hope for 2.6.13!
The tax is not being levied agaist you. It is being levied against Borders. They choose to pass the cost along to you. Bitch at Borders.
I would suggest researching some examples of software patents in the wild that have already impacted the marketplace in some important way. Any patents responsible for stopping upcoming technologies is one great situation where the evils can be pointed out, and I am sure that searching the last few months of /. stories will provide plenty of ammunition there.
Also look for places where software patents have impacted the non-software world. I cannot think of anything, but I am bad at association. Something related to e-voting would be particularly handy, but anything legally oriented (were there patents involved in that breathalyzer case recently?) should get his attention.
That is precisely how the last 4 or 5 banks I have used have worked, including AmSouth and USBank, which are probably among the top 20 consumer banks in the USA.
In the exact same way that Word is not 100% Compatible, right? If Word 2003 cant open Word 2000, Word XP, Word 97, and Word documents reliably, why should OOo be able to? It even does BETTER in some cases.
Not to sound obvious, but you could make that assumption about anyone and be right more than half the time. For there to be managers there have to be subordinates, and the latter is the majority.
It just so happens I have been responsible for the work of others. I did not enjoy it and, given the choice, will probably not do it again.