1) IIRC, Verant updated the EQ EULA specifically banning the auctioning of items and plat on ebay because they got sick of whining bitches petitioning the GMs saying "I bought 100K off this guy on ebay and now he wont give it to me! Can you get it for me please?!?!?"
2) If anyone ever discovers an exploit which allows item duping, the items immediately become worthless. No doubt there would be a large amount of loud, vocal, hardcore gamers looking for a convenient scapegoat. Blame the company for its "crappy programming" and them "not testing enough for exploits".
3) Being able to buy your way to the top makes the game pointless. Parting of being uber is being uber enough to stick it out and work your way up all those levels. Getting to level 60 on Everquest requires months of dedication to a character. How pissed would you be if some little shit down the street got his parents to buy him a Level 60 character for his birthday and he goes around boasting about it?
More shaders, More pixel pipelines, More memory bandwidth... whoopee...
When the hell are they going to ditch the antiquated scanline rendering method and go work on some tile based rendering methods?
Hell, the reason why the Geforce line has to keep doubling its fill rates every generation is because its architechture is so god damn ineffecient. Look at the memory bandwidth requirements for the cards! Instead of using the relatively limited bandwidth of AGP for streaming textures from main memory (where it should god damn be) to the texture cache, the card is busy wasting bandwidth on the damn Z-buffer (which would be eliminated if they implemented hidden surface removal like the PowerVR chipsets).
Also, tile based renderers scale better. You stick another graphics chip in, you instantly double the performance of the graphics card because you can process 2 tiles at once.
How about seeing some new innovation in the field rather than just adding a few new pixel pipelines and a shader that nobody has any freaking idea on how to use!
I see it uses an ARM-7 just like the GBA... only running at 75MHz rather than the measly (IIRC) 16MHz that the GBA pushes...
With the right software, would it be possible to emulate the rest of the GBA hardware in realtime and use the SMC to store GBA roms, thereby giving this handheld an already large library GBA games?
Just a thought, though the legality of that kind of thing would be dubious at best really...
The Card/GF thing just didnt feel right... I'm sorry for such a sucky and troll-like answer but for me it just didn't click. It's different... but just not different in a good way... Its not like how FF5 went from classes to FF6 espers in a good way...
I've played and enjoyed many different battle systems. Some of my personal favourites are the FF5 class system, FF6 Esper System, Shining Force 2 semi-strategy system and Golden Sun's Djinni system. FF8 just doesn't strike me like a battle system I enjoy does.
While I'm not denying Squaresoft's ability to write one hell of a story, the problem is that I play these games based on how well it battles as a primary trait rather than a bullet point on the box.
ATB has long been the bane of PSX FF games. It was a relic of the limited integer processing capabilities of the SNES's processor and should be left firmly on that platform. It's about time they ditched it altogether and went for something more plausible like Grandia 2.
If you've ever been lucky enough to be graced with this game's precense, you wont be sorry until you complete it, roughly 30 hours later. For those who'd rather get back to the old school days where battling was the game rather than watching an FMV-athon (FF8 ugh!), I'd heartily recommend this game.
The battle system works by having a bar. At the left, you have WAIT. About two thirds of the way across you have COM. On the very end, you have ACT.
The time between WAIT and COM is about as close as you get to ATB. From there, all hell brakes loose. The time between WAIT and COM is purely based upon character speed. The faster your character, the less time until it gets to choose its move.
At COM phase time all time stops. You get a menu of possible actions.
Combo attacks are quick to ACT but also require positioning, a swing and then a retreat. This can take much longer than a well powered special move and may not be appropriate for every situation. On the plus side they do between 2-4 hits depending on items equipped by the character.
Combos will also keep a character pinned. Their icon on the COM-ACT bar will stop momentarily while being slapped down. Yes it is technically possible to keep a bossed pinned using normal attacks until you can Cancel them. More on that in a sec.
Cancel attacks work by basically dragging a character back in the COM-ACT bar. The further advanced along their attack is, the greater amount you drag them back into the WAIT-COM portion. If you hit them before COM you will drag them back about 10-15%. Many a time it has been nailbitingly close to cancelling someone right after they get into COM. They are slower than combo attacks and only hit once so be careful how you use them too.
Both these types of attacks can also Counter. If an enemy is at ACT phase and about to hit, a character can counter that enemy by using a faster initiative attack. Using something like a combo attack on an enemy about to dig into your healer is not only a brilliant way to save the healer but it also does extra damage! If you can time it perfectly, you can even cancel them, not only doing extra damage, but dragging them right back into the WAIT-COM phase.
Last but not least is the special attack. These take the longest to charge but instantly start when you get to ACT. Some specials may even cancel. One of the cheapest moves in the game is to power up Ryudo to max ACT and then use his Tenseiken Slash to cancel a boss attack in process. This actually happens in under a tick when you have enough act and 5 star special. Specials also include magic so theres no need to explain that.
While I havent begun to scratch the surface on the underlying mechanics of the special and magic egg system, I hope that this little explanation will tempt you to go out and grab it. With Dreamcasts being as cheap as they are, you could probably grab one and Grandia 2 for maybe $80 if your lucky. Even less second hand.
Anyway, it'd be nice to see some alternatives reviewed rather than just overrated mainstream hype machines (IMHO anyway, but then again, I live for the battle so YMMV). Oh well, I hope that FFXI will outshine G2 and FFX by a long, long way.
Also, if you are planning to complete this game, it take a few hours from getting the final weapon to seeing the last of the ending. Plan for at least 2-4 hours depending on how well you are along. I must warn you, the final boss is sheer endurance. He has an insane amount of hitpoints >:)
Over here in Western Australia, our official high school calculator is the HP38G. Some students use the Casios (being seduced by the colour screen) but for the most part, we're trained to use HP calculators and like it:)
Personally, I started with my HP38G in grade 10. I was the first one in my year with the calculator and at A$190 (about US$100), they were a very pretty toy to play with. I started coding up a few simple programs, eventually writing a small text based RPG for it:)
Then when I got to university, I convinced my dad to splurge out on the latest HP49G when my 38 was stolen... At $349 (about US$180), it was more expensive than the Sega Dreamcast I got for my 18th birthday. I still use it today to do some basic physics stuff and just for looking at those plain cool things on hpcalc.org
And in other news... Cesium(sp?) created by those guys at MIT was just released... Can you at least find supporting evidence (and no, those crackpots that whinge on talkback radio arent evidence) before you post something so final.
Cesium's architecture and abilities are enough to make even the most jaded computer enthusiast start frothing at the mouth.
*starts frothing at the mouth*
I've tried out "3D" Windows desktops to little satisfaction. Most of them are just crap, buggy, DirectX8 overlays. If this does what it says it does, I dont think I'll ever need another operating system for hobby use.
Heh... should be fun when this little sucker is released... I hope it can run on plain old x86 hardware:)
Cesium's architecture and abilities are enough to make even the most jaded computer enthusiast start frothing at the mouth.
*starts frothing at the mouth*
I've tried out "3D" Windows desktops to little satisfaction. Most of them are just crap, buggy, DirectX8 overlays. If this does what it says it does, I dont think I'll ever need another operating system for hobby use.
Heh... should be fun when this little sucker is released... I hope it can run on plain old x86 hardware:)
Talez
I've been using XOSL for months... this is when you had to search google for it! I originally got it since Lilo refused to co-operate with BeOS and RedHat 6.2 decided to be a whore and install lilo by default.
Anyway, I was pretty pissed about that so I decided to go look for something that would load all my OSes by default... XOSL looked good, under a meg, supports 24 options, default boots, point and click. Something my grandmother could use to load an operating system:)
Some things learnt from experience:
You need to install lilo. Put it at the start of the linux partition and not on the MBR. Then point XOSL to the Linux partition and tell it the partition is bootable (which it is now:)
If you are like me and share a machine with others, you can put the default OS as something like Windoze and put a 3 second timeout for automatically booting windoze. Quite handy if you have many annoying and rather technically illiterate relatives:)
We Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
Say you don't know me, or recognize my face.
Say you don't know this, command line interface.
Knee deep in the debug, coding for the fight.
Too many forkings, building in the night
Slashdot splits the factions, listen to them bitch an moan, don't you remember.
We built this Linux, We built this Linux on G-N-U
We Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
Microsoft's always playing corporation games.
Who cares they're always changing, licensing games.
We just want to code here, no compiler is a cage.
They call us irresponsible, then fill up the page.
Slashdot splits the factions, listen to them bitch an moan, don't you remember.
We built this Linux, We built this Linux on G-N-U
Its just another Sunday, and were tired on the street
You just lost your kernel, and you just lost your beat.
Who counts the money, for the people on the bar?
Who codes an editor, in two wild compiles!
Don't tell us you need us you need us, cause you're the simple fools.
Looking for an OS, coming through universities and schools.
Slashdot splits the factions, listen to them bitch an moan, don't you remember.
We built this Linux, We built this Linux on G-N-U
We Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
(repeat ad nauseam)
Its a bit... incoherent... in parts... but I think a couple of people might get a laugh:)
Slashdot Mirror
1) IIRC, Verant updated the EQ EULA specifically banning the auctioning of items and plat on ebay because they got sick of whining bitches petitioning the GMs saying "I bought 100K off this guy on ebay and now he wont give it to me! Can you get it for me please?!?!?"
2) If anyone ever discovers an exploit which allows item duping, the items immediately become worthless. No doubt there would be a large amount of loud, vocal, hardcore gamers looking for a convenient scapegoat. Blame the company for its "crappy programming" and them "not testing enough for exploits".
3) Being able to buy your way to the top makes the game pointless. Parting of being uber is being uber enough to stick it out and work your way up all those levels. Getting to level 60 on Everquest requires months of dedication to a character. How pissed would you be if some little shit down the street got his parents to buy him a Level 60 character for his birthday and he goes around boasting about it?
More shaders, More pixel pipelines, More memory bandwidth... whoopee...
When the hell are they going to ditch the antiquated scanline rendering method and go work on some tile based rendering methods?
Hell, the reason why the Geforce line has to keep doubling its fill rates every generation is because its architechture is so god damn ineffecient. Look at the memory bandwidth requirements for the cards! Instead of using the relatively limited bandwidth of AGP for streaming textures from main memory (where it should god damn be) to the texture cache, the card is busy wasting bandwidth on the damn Z-buffer (which would be eliminated if they implemented hidden surface removal like the PowerVR chipsets).
Also, tile based renderers scale better. You stick another graphics chip in, you instantly double the performance of the graphics card because you can process 2 tiles at once.
How about seeing some new innovation in the field rather than just adding a few new pixel pipelines and a shader that nobody has any freaking idea on how to use!
I see it uses an ARM-7 just like the GBA... only running at 75MHz rather than the measly (IIRC) 16MHz that the GBA pushes...
With the right software, would it be possible to emulate the rest of the GBA hardware in realtime and use the SMC to store GBA roms, thereby giving this handheld an already large library GBA games?
Just a thought, though the legality of that kind of thing would be dubious at best really...
Talez
uh, australia? what the fook does that have to do with the United States?
Isn't it obvious? He's a kiwi and sick of always hearing about those loud bastards across the tasman !
The Card/GF thing just didnt feel right... I'm sorry for such a sucky and troll-like answer but for me it just didn't click. It's different... but just not different in a good way... Its not like how FF5 went from classes to FF6 espers in a good way...
I've played and enjoyed many different battle systems. Some of my personal favourites are the FF5 class system, FF6 Esper System, Shining Force 2 semi-strategy system and Golden Sun's Djinni system. FF8 just doesn't strike me like a battle system I enjoy does.
Tal
1) Get ZSNES and get FF6. You wont be disappointed.
2a) FF4
b) FF6
c) Draw between FF5 or FF6. Fanboys exist for both camps.
d) Get all of the SNES versions on an emultator and just quit your school/job for a month or three.
e) FFX
3) 8. Don't touch it.
While I'm not denying Squaresoft's ability to write one hell of a story, the problem is that I play these games based on how well it battles as a primary trait rather than a bullet point on the box.
ATB has long been the bane of PSX FF games. It was a relic of the limited integer processing capabilities of the SNES's processor and should be left firmly on that platform. It's about time they ditched it altogether and went for something more plausible like Grandia 2.
If you've ever been lucky enough to be graced with this game's precense, you wont be sorry until you complete it, roughly 30 hours later. For those who'd rather get back to the old school days where battling was the game rather than watching an FMV-athon (FF8 ugh!), I'd heartily recommend this game.
The battle system works by having a bar. At the left, you have WAIT. About two thirds of the way across you have COM. On the very end, you have ACT.
The time between WAIT and COM is about as close as you get to ATB. From there, all hell brakes loose. The time between WAIT and COM is purely based upon character speed. The faster your character, the less time until it gets to choose its move.
At COM phase time all time stops. You get a menu of possible actions.
Combo attacks are quick to ACT but also require positioning, a swing and then a retreat. This can take much longer than a well powered special move and may not be appropriate for every situation. On the plus side they do between 2-4 hits depending on items equipped by the character.
Combos will also keep a character pinned. Their icon on the COM-ACT bar will stop momentarily while being slapped down. Yes it is technically possible to keep a bossed pinned using normal attacks until you can Cancel them. More on that in a sec.
Cancel attacks work by basically dragging a character back in the COM-ACT bar. The further advanced along their attack is, the greater amount you drag them back into the WAIT-COM portion. If you hit them before COM you will drag them back about 10-15%. Many a time it has been nailbitingly close to cancelling someone right after they get into COM. They are slower than combo attacks and only hit once so be careful how you use them too.
Both these types of attacks can also Counter. If an enemy is at ACT phase and about to hit, a character can counter that enemy by using a faster initiative attack. Using something like a combo attack on an enemy about to dig into your healer is not only a brilliant way to save the healer but it also does extra damage! If you can time it perfectly, you can even cancel them, not only doing extra damage, but dragging them right back into the WAIT-COM phase.
Last but not least is the special attack. These take the longest to charge but instantly start when you get to ACT. Some specials may even cancel. One of the cheapest moves in the game is to power up Ryudo to max ACT and then use his Tenseiken Slash to cancel a boss attack in process. This actually happens in under a tick when you have enough act and 5 star special. Specials also include magic so theres no need to explain that.
While I havent begun to scratch the surface on the underlying mechanics of the special and magic egg system, I hope that this little explanation will tempt you to go out and grab it. With Dreamcasts being as cheap as they are, you could probably grab one and Grandia 2 for maybe $80 if your lucky. Even less second hand.
Anyway, it'd be nice to see some alternatives reviewed rather than just overrated mainstream hype machines (IMHO anyway, but then again, I live for the battle so YMMV). Oh well, I hope that FFXI will outshine G2 and FFX by a long, long way.
Also, if you are planning to complete this game, it take a few hours from getting the final weapon to seeing the last of the ending. Plan for at least 2-4 hours depending on how well you are along. I must warn you, the final boss is sheer endurance. He has an insane amount of hitpoints >:)
Nov 99 - irc.core.com breaks 14000 clients
:P
Dec 99 - irc.core.com breaks 15000 clients
Dec 99 - irc.core.com breaks 16000 clients
Big deal! Windows has broken way more than 16000 clients!
Talez
It looks perfect for the type of situation that I'm in. Thanks for showing me this :)
Talez
<Insert Poster's Name Here>
<Insert Sig Here>
Over here in Western Australia, our official high school calculator is the HP38G. Some students use the Casios (being seduced by the colour screen) but for the most part, we're trained to use HP calculators and like it :)
:)
Personally, I started with my HP38G in grade 10. I was the first one in my year with the calculator and at A$190 (about US$100), they were a very pretty toy to play with. I started coding up a few simple programs, eventually writing a small text based RPG for it
Then when I got to university, I convinced my dad to splurge out on the latest HP49G when my 38 was stolen... At $349 (about US$180), it was more expensive than the Sega Dreamcast I got for my 18th birthday. I still use it today to do some basic physics stuff and just for looking at those plain cool things on hpcalc.org
Talez
And in other news... Cesium(sp?) created by those guys at MIT was just released... Can you at least find supporting evidence (and no, those crackpots that whinge on talkback radio arent evidence) before you post something so final.
Talez
Cesium's architecture and abilities are enough to make even the most jaded computer enthusiast start frothing at the mouth.
:)
*starts frothing at the mouth*
I've tried out "3D" Windows desktops to little satisfaction. Most of them are just crap, buggy, DirectX8 overlays. If this does what it says it does, I dont think I'll ever need another operating system for hobby use.
Heh... should be fun when this little sucker is released... I hope it can run on plain old x86 hardware
Talez
Cesium's architecture and abilities are enough to make even the most jaded computer enthusiast start frothing at the mouth. *starts frothing at the mouth* I've tried out "3D" Windows desktops to little satisfaction. Most of them are just crap, buggy, DirectX8 overlays. If this does what it says it does, I dont think I'll ever need another operating system for hobby use. Heh... should be fun when this little sucker is released... I hope it can run on plain old x86 hardware :)
Talez
Anyway, I was pretty pissed about that so I decided to go look for something that would load all my OSes by default... XOSL looked good, under a meg, supports 24 options, default boots, point and click. Something my grandmother could use to load an operating system
Some things learnt from experience:
Talez
*orchestral introduction*
*climactic overture*
*Disney execs come out on stage*
Zip-e-de-doo-dah, zip-e-dee-ey
My oh my, file sharing is gay!
Plenty of sunshine, heading our way
when we strengthen, that DMCA!
Mr Bill Gates on our shoulders
its the truth, its factual!
Everything is Digitally Rights Managed!
(Including this slashdot post!)
Zip-e-de-doo-dah, zip-e-dee-ey
My oh my, file sharing is gay!
Plenty of sunshine, heading our way
when we strengthen, that DMCA!
*rousing applause from the MPAA and RIAA*
Heh... enjoy
Talez
ISP stands for 'infrastructure service provider.
:D
This is about where I switched off
Talez
With all the architechtures and operating systems listed on the page, I wouldn't be suprised :)
:)
I wonder about that internet fridge... if you could hook a keyboard and keep the light on, it'd be great for hacking away over the summer months
Talez
IF REFFERINGURL="http://www.slashdot.org"
:P
THEN chmod 000 slashdottedpage.html
Sorry bout the pseudocode, it would probably work though
Talez
OK... I'm sorry... but I couldn't resist :D
:)
640 megs should be enough for anyone!
Talez
The space is exactly where the input field broke the URL up onto the next line...
:P
Very perculiar indeed
Talez
URL is wroing... Real URL is:
a rs teeth.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20010827/m
Do people read the bit which says "Check URLS" anymore?
Talez
Hehehe...
I think that was my first post too...
Talez
Sorry... But I just HAD to do this :)
:)
We Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
Say you don't know me, or recognize my face.
Say you don't know this, command line interface.
Knee deep in the debug, coding for the fight.
Too many forkings, building in the night
Slashdot splits the factions, listen to them bitch an moan, don't you remember.
We built this Linux, We built this Linux on G-N-U
We Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
Microsoft's always playing corporation games.
Who cares they're always changing, licensing games.
We just want to code here, no compiler is a cage.
They call us irresponsible, then fill up the page.
Slashdot splits the factions, listen to them bitch an moan, don't you remember.
We built this Linux, We built this Linux on G-N-U
Its just another Sunday, and were tired on the street
You just lost your kernel, and you just lost your beat.
Who counts the money, for the people on the bar?
Who codes an editor, in two wild compiles!
Don't tell us you need us you need us, cause you're the simple fools.
Looking for an OS, coming through universities and schools.
Slashdot splits the factions, listen to them bitch an moan, don't you remember.
We built this Linux, We built this Linux on G-N-U
We Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
Built this Linux, We built this linux on G-N-U
(repeat ad nauseam)
Its a bit... incoherent... in parts... but I think a couple of people might get a laugh
Talez