I'd beg to differ. Valve is a company that could put a picture of a crowbar on a page with no text and people immediately go nuts because they knew it was Half-Life 2.
I know I have no clue what it means. NP complete? It's one of those happy buzz phrases geeks toss around to sound cool. Come on now, how many of you have no idea or looked it up on wikipedia?
I'd be willing to bet there have been some legal moves made towards Linden Labs investigating online gambling and this is a preemptive move on their part.
With the ability to freely buy Linden dollars with real money and sell it back, there's essentially no difference between SL gambling and Casino gambling - just that in Casinos they call them poker chips. It's got nothing to do with morality, nanny states, etc.
The original Adventure/Collosal Caves was to me the real innovator and original. Zork was just a derivative work of it that made it commercial. Adventure is the classic, Zork just the commercialized imitator.
It's an MMO engine under development built on top Ogre and a number of other packages. Price is free with Multiverse taking a cut if you charge for your game.
It's a little rough around the edges but it's a diamond in the rough with a lot of potential. The people behind it are top notch and a great bunch. Case in point at GDC this year, they filled their booth with 3d party teams developing games for their engine, and let them just talk. No scripts or minders, just saying what they thought.
This is my experience too - I also would avoid it. Garage Games fails to follow up with the marketing promise. Important features in TSE/TGEA that never got delivered, previously working things broken in updates, incomplete and of date documentation, etc. It's very cheap but you get what you paid for.
Probably more people playing Solitaire on platforms from cellphones to hot Vista boxes than World of Warcraft will ever get. I don't know precisely what, but there's something to be learned from the success of Solitaire as a game on computers.
The guild I'm in also has rules that are similar. The other day we had a new person who began to let loose with some pretty mysoganistic and homophobic comments. We called him on it, not by treating him as an idiot and telling him to shut up, but by treating him as a real person and saying, "This is not acceptable to us." It doesn't work every time but just acting like a real person and then treating others like real people is a powerful way to approach it. Sometimes the act of treating someone as a person instead of a problem is the way to go.
Bullshit. Theoretically insightful because you're a troll who's posted but other than that, bullshit.
Not to put it in the same category but if your reasoning was true, we'd not have stories of civil rights changes for example. We'd be saying, "How can you really expect racism to vanish when it's just a fact that some people are racist. Just live with it, it's there, welcome to the real world."
Mod making is the best way to look good. Just don't fall into that "we must make our mod as good as a professional game" trap. Yea, make a game that kicks butt, but don't get caught up in making it "as pretty as a real game". Too many mod developers fall into that trap of thinking they need to compete with game developers. OK yea they do, but only on the level of gameplay, not visuals that one "buys" with big budgets.
As one of the original DOD developers that got "bought", I have to give Valve immense throbbing sweaty kudos for how they work. Valve bought the game IP, agreed to start paying us, then told us, "Look, you're doing a really good job at what you do. We don't want to break that, so just keep doing what you do. If you need help, we're here."
Personally I think the better approach would be to copy what works, not try and come up with something totally new. 3d modeling needs the equivalent of Open Office, not some bizarro "we do it this way because it's better than Softimage/3ds/Maya" package.
Because so much of the "industry" (pick any you want) is tied to the Softimage/3ds/Maya wordl, I have to assume that the space of people without budgets/money is pretty full of pirated copies of 3ds Max, XSI, and Maya. It's not full of idealistic people using open source tools for love, but just people who really want to get something done.
Document, document document - as in keep track of all communications and don't do any of it verbally. If you have verbal communications, email the parties involved with a conversation summary saying, "This is the summary of ourcoversation as I recall it. Please append comments or corrections if you believe them necessary".
One approach is to ask them to sign an affidavit stating you are doing this because told to, and that all parties recognize the illegality of it. If they fire you as a result of your "attitude", you probably have a case for taking them to court for illegal termination.
What ever you end up doing though, I'd get out of there ASAP.
Perhaps the most amusing part of the live webcast was just after the last second launch halt, when someone on the open mic was heard saying "Ah fuck" and a few other utterances.
Also have other web browsers open with Yahoo, CNN, Shacknews and all the other sites I always check. The faster I keep hitting reload on those pages the quicker I'll be informed just what's up with this bandwidth problem!
If you think about it, it's World of Warcraft is episodic. But instead of the episodes coming to you, you have to go to them (and find them and hunt them down). Also think of the expansions that come out for MMOs, the new quests, the new items and so on - like episodes you can choose to watch if you decide you're interested in something new.
Actually the whole way WoW unveils new quests to you as you level up is almost episodic from the players point of view. They play, they experience content, then with a certain frequency (if they keep leveling up) new content shows up that is fresh, new and challenging.
Pull it, make it longer, it gets bigger... Hmm. I think there would be a big market in the sex toy industry for "devices" made from Auxetic materials (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxetic).
Attempting to shame an organization isn't necessarily foolish and malicious. If that organization is a government body charged with insuring your safety, and it is failing spectacularly to do so, you might desire to shame it publicly in order to improve its behavior. Illegal, I'll grant -- and often the law is unjust.
How are they "failing spectacularly"? If this has been such a known issue for a long time, how come it's never been a problem? Why aren't we reading about "spectacular breaches of security" in airports?
I personally think the guy was an idiot to do what he did. Sure, he has a good point but he could have gone with far different routes and been far more successful. For example, go contact a major press outlet. Go talk to NYT, Washington Post, USA Today. Say "Hey, look at this - I think this is important and I want to get the word out." For one thing he'd have a lot of backing and a lot of legal advice right now.
Overall he's just a troll IMO. He just walked into a room with an open flame carrying a can of gasoline and started yelling, "HEY THIS IS DANGEROUS!" Yea. No shit Sherlock. If you're surprised how this has gone down, you got a lot of learnin' to do in this world Mr "Security Researcher"
I get the impression this wasn't a leak of the "source" as we coders know it, but rather it was just the binaries (executables). Let me put it this way. The article puts it like...
The availability of the code -- the written instructions that tell the machines what to do -- is important because some computer scientists worry that the machines are vulnerable to malicious and virtually undetectable vote-switching software.
That's a "I don't know what code is or I'm writing for people that don't know" sentence if I ever heard one.
Mind you not that leaking the executables is that much worse or better that source code (.cpp, etc.).
The catch is, you can't sell your Steam account - it's not allowed by the license. Here is part of the Subscriber Agreement
When you complete Steam's registration process, you create a Steam account ("Account"). Your Account may also include billing information you provide to us for the purchase of Subscriptions. You are solely responsible for all activity on your Account and for the security of your computer system. You may not reveal, share or otherwise allow others to use your password or Account. You agree that you are personally responsible for the use of your password and Account and for all of the communication and activity on Steam that results from use of your login name and password. You may not sell or charge others for the right to use your Account, or otherwise transfer your Account.
In other words, once you get the game, it's yours. You can't sell it used. And the more games that move to this kind of system (or to Steam itself) the fewer used games there will be in existance.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd beg to differ. Valve is a company that could put a picture of a crowbar on a page with no text and people immediately go nuts because they knew it was Half-Life 2.
I know I have no clue what it means. NP complete? It's one of those happy buzz phrases geeks toss around to sound cool. Come on now, how many of you have no idea or looked it up on wikipedia?
I'd be willing to bet there have been some legal moves made towards Linden Labs investigating online gambling and this is a preemptive move on their part.
With the ability to freely buy Linden dollars with real money and sell it back, there's essentially no difference between SL gambling and Casino gambling - just that in Casinos they call them poker chips. It's got nothing to do with morality, nanny states, etc.
The original Adventure/Collosal Caves was to me the real innovator and original. Zork was just a derivative work of it that made it commercial. Adventure is the classic, Zork just the commercialized imitator.
It's an MMO engine under development built on top Ogre and a number of other packages. Price is free with Multiverse taking a cut if you charge for your game.
It's a little rough around the edges but it's a diamond in the rough with a lot of potential. The people behind it are top notch and a great bunch. Case in point at GDC this year, they filled their booth with 3d party teams developing games for their engine, and let them just talk. No scripts or minders, just saying what they thought.
Website is at http://multiverse.net/
This is my experience too - I also would avoid it. Garage Games fails to follow up with the marketing promise. Important features in TSE/TGEA that never got delivered, previously working things broken in updates, incomplete and of date documentation, etc. It's very cheap but you get what you paid for.
Probably more people playing Solitaire on platforms from cellphones to hot Vista boxes than World of Warcraft will ever get. I don't know precisely what, but there's something to be learned from the success of Solitaire as a game on computers.
The guild I'm in also has rules that are similar. The other day we had a new person who began to let loose with some pretty mysoganistic and homophobic comments. We called him on it, not by treating him as an idiot and telling him to shut up, but by treating him as a real person and saying, "This is not acceptable to us." It doesn't work every time but just acting like a real person and then treating others like real people is a powerful way to approach it. Sometimes the act of treating someone as a person instead of a problem is the way to go.
Bullshit. Theoretically insightful because you're a troll who's posted but other than that, bullshit.
Not to put it in the same category but if your reasoning was true, we'd not have stories of civil rights changes for example. We'd be saying, "How can you really expect racism to vanish when it's just a fact that some people are racist. Just live with it, it's there, welcome to the real world."
Mod making is the best way to look good. Just don't fall into that "we must make our mod as good as a professional game" trap. Yea, make a game that kicks butt, but don't get caught up in making it "as pretty as a real game". Too many mod developers fall into that trap of thinking they need to compete with game developers. OK yea they do, but only on the level of gameplay, not visuals that one "buys" with big budgets.
As one of the original DOD developers that got "bought", I have to give Valve immense throbbing sweaty kudos for how they work. Valve bought the game IP, agreed to start paying us, then told us, "Look, you're doing a really good job at what you do. We don't want to break that, so just keep doing what you do. If you need help, we're here."
Personally I think the better approach would be to copy what works, not try and come up with something totally new. 3d modeling needs the equivalent of Open Office, not some bizarro "we do it this way because it's better than Softimage/3ds/Maya" package.
Because so much of the "industry" (pick any you want) is tied to the Softimage/3ds/Maya wordl, I have to assume that the space of people without budgets/money is pretty full of pirated copies of 3ds Max, XSI, and Maya. It's not full of idealistic people using open source tools for love, but just people who really want to get something done.
Document, document document - as in keep track of all communications and don't do any of it verbally. If you have verbal communications, email the parties involved with a conversation summary saying, "This is the summary of ourcoversation as I recall it. Please append comments or corrections if you believe them necessary".
One approach is to ask them to sign an affidavit stating you are doing this because told to, and that all parties recognize the illegality of it. If they fire you as a result of your "attitude", you probably have a case for taking them to court for illegal termination.
What ever you end up doing though, I'd get out of there ASAP.
Day of Defeat came out in 2001 as a free mod, pretty much making it the first and not a copycat.
Or something like that. When they start walking on two feet, I'm going to worry.
Perhaps the most amusing part of the live webcast was just after the last second launch halt, when someone on the open mic was heard saying "Ah fuck" and a few other utterances.
Also have other web browsers open with Yahoo, CNN, Shacknews and all the other sites I always check. The faster I keep hitting reload on those pages the quicker I'll be informed just what's up with this bandwidth problem!
If you think about it, it's World of Warcraft is episodic. But instead of the episodes coming to you, you have to go to them (and find them and hunt them down). Also think of the expansions that come out for MMOs, the new quests, the new items and so on - like episodes you can choose to watch if you decide you're interested in something new.
Actually the whole way WoW unveils new quests to you as you level up is almost episodic from the players point of view. They play, they experience content, then with a certain frequency (if they keep leveling up) new content shows up that is fresh, new and challenging.
Pull it, make it longer, it gets bigger... Hmm. I think there would be a big market in the sex toy industry for "devices" made from Auxetic materials (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxetic).
I think you can get charged for stupidity though. I think instead of "stupidity" they call it negligence.
How are they "failing spectacularly"? If this has been such a known issue for a long time, how come it's never been a problem? Why aren't we reading about "spectacular breaches of security" in airports?
If I had points today, I'd mod you up parent.
One man's researcher is another mans troll.
I personally think the guy was an idiot to do what he did. Sure, he has a good point but he could have gone with far different routes and been far more successful. For example, go contact a major press outlet. Go talk to NYT, Washington Post, USA Today. Say "Hey, look at this - I think this is important and I want to get the word out." For one thing he'd have a lot of backing and a lot of legal advice right now.
Overall he's just a troll IMO. He just walked into a room with an open flame carrying a can of gasoline and started yelling, "HEY THIS IS DANGEROUS!" Yea. No shit Sherlock. If you're surprised how this has gone down, you got a lot of learnin' to do in this world Mr "Security Researcher"
That's a "I don't know what code is or I'm writing for people that don't know" sentence if I ever heard one.
Mind you not that leaking the executables is that much worse or better that source code (.cpp, etc.).
In other words, once you get the game, it's yours. You can't sell it used. And the more games that move to this kind of system (or to Steam itself) the fewer used games there will be in existance.