I got carried away and totally forgot to mention the great networked multiplayer capabilities of NWN. Basically, with NWN, anybody could start a so-called "persistent world" and run its very own MMORPG. And many did.
Also, AFAIK, this is the only CRPG that integrate the notion of a game master, which make it the closest you can get to the real pen-and-paper RPG.
Again, the Gamasutra article completely failed to acknowledge these.
Have they finally released a Linux port ? If not, NWN2 remain insignificant as far as I am concerned.
Completely miss the point of Neverwinter Nights
on
The Platinum Age of CRPGs
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The guy completely miss the point of Neverwinter Nights. He talked only about the original campaign (OC), the scenario that came "in the box", which is IMHO pretty average. The real genius of NWN is that it's more than a game, it's a platform for CRPG development. It created a development community around the game that is not entirely different than what you would find around an Open-Source development platform such as PHP or Ruby on Rail. From modules to custom content (such as artwork, monster, etc) to hackpak that modified the game engine behavior, everything was open to the community. I cannot think of a single game that had as much fan content made and distributed. You could play NWN for years using just the highest rated modules from the community, all distributed for free. Not only that, but Bioware embraced the community, incorporated community developed material back into the product and still actively encourage development to this day.
Forget the OC. Go buy NWN Planitinium from the nearest bargain bin, and play the Dreamcatcher, Shadowlord, Kosigan and Penultimate series of modules. There are hundreds of hours of gameplay to be had from what the community developed, with some of the most engrossing storyline in the CRPG genre. Neglecting to acknowledge this is the the most glaring overlook from this Gamasutra article.
Sure, Linus has more powerful spells, being a pure class, but, IMHO, Stallman is more powerful because he usually carries the initiative and can cast Silence, which really screws up other casting types.
I thought RMS was mostly into Stinking Cloud. Now, if he could get the Silent Casting feat, I could put up with him.
Will I have hardware accelerated 3D video from my NVidia card without having to spend an hour doing Google searches for the proper procedure and drivers, and then spending another hour trying to find ones that actually, you know, WORK?
Yes. Got to the "System" menu -> "Preferences" -> "Desktop Effects". Click the "Enable desktop effects" button. If you would rather just install the proprietary Nvidia driver without enabling the desktop effect, install the nvidia-glx package using your choice of the "Add/Remove..." applet, or the Synaptic package manager.
Answers that contain the words "recomplile the kernel" and/or "recompile x11" are from people who really don't get my point.
You have not been paying much attention to Linux in the past few years, don't you ?
(train fares are way over operating costs of a car, even when you do include tax/milage etc.)
Wow. Train fare must be insanely expensive in your place. By my own napkin figures, a car cannot cost less than 300$ CAD per month in my area (multiply by 0.85 for USD$). More precisely:
Per km charges
Amortizing : 0.08$/km (a 20k$ car would be worth close to 0$ at 200 000 km)
Insurance : 75$ (900$/year; could be cheaper if I only get responsability)
Monthly recurring total : about 95$, but could be as low as about 50$ if I would cheap out on insurance.
And these are very conservative figure for my area. And I do not even factor in the cost parking (which would be steep in my case, as I work downtown). By comparison, my bus/subway monthly pass cost me 65$. And using public transport is actually faster than driving to work.
First, you could specify a mirror in your sources.list . I know the mirror in my country (Canada) that are extremely speedy (my ISP peer with the RISQ/CA*Net), so no problem upgrading on release day.
Second, instead of editing/etc/apt/source.lists by hand and running apt-get dist-upgrade, I suggest you do "update-manager -c". You will get a nice GUI for your upgrade, and it will take care of updating your sources.list for you.
Check the "Horde of the Underdark" expansion to NWN. You start at level 15. A fun level to play a wizard at, or to take on a prestige class or something. The nice thing is that it absolutely do not make the game less enjoyable; there's still a good scaling of foe and reward. I like it.
Nvidia have 30% market share in desktop and laptop ? Which market is that ? In my world, integrated GPU from Intel dominate the market by a wide margin (like you said), with Ati second. Nvidia is really only seen in white box built by gamers and some few high-end laptops.
Installing proprietary video driver is already a breeze in Ubuntu. You just need to install the nvidia-glx package (if you have a Nvidia GPU) or the xorg-driver-fglrx package (if you have an Ati card). You don't even need to use the command line to do it; ou could use Synaptic or gnome-app-install (The "Add/Remove..." applet in the Applications menu).
Well, she know how to use the "Add/Remove..." applet, and used it to install a few games in the past. But the nice things with Linux (at least, with Ubuntu) is that you rarely have to as the default install is pretty complete. That's unlike Windows, where it could take hours and countless reboot to install all the drivers and applications you need. And guess who was stuck with taking care of this circus back then ?
Also, I'm a geek, and I do not remember the last time I had to manually compile a software. The repositories are pretty damn complete as it is, it's mostly a thing of the past.
Here's a start: Linux needs to tuck the command line under the carpet. Blasphemy! [Runs and hides]
Not only do I absolutely agree with this, I think we are there already. Witness my wife, who have been running Ubuntu for the past two years without even knowing what a command line is.
Just because you think something is unimportant doesn't mean the other guys think that same, and it certainly doesn't make the issue go away.
I think the parent point is that most people consider the subtleties of Free vs Open-Source software unimporant. You and handful of others might disagree, but that is still a tiny minority of people interested in FOSS. Fortunately.
10) The year the net crashed (in the USA). Video overwhelms the net and we all learn that the broadband ISPs have been selling us something they can't really deliver.
If something could have killed the Net, it's P2P. Yet, it is still humming along just fine. A single dedicated file sharer can easily consume the equivalent in bandwidth of an entire neighborhood worth of crappy pixelated YouTube video viewing, and there are many dedicated file sharer already. My guess is that Akamai and Google's servers are going to melt before the Net come to its knees.
However, between the need for lower latency due to VoIP deployment and the constant massive increase in traffic from domestic Net users, it's another good year to be a network engineer.
Then get going, create an account on the Atari forum and voice your dissatisfaction. Quite frankly, the probability that we get a Linux port is paper-thin, but it does'nt hurt to get counted.
This is overblown. Québec's French is about as distant to European French than American English is to British English. That is, pronunciation and some expressions are different, but the vocabulary and grammar is still very much the same.
And I have yet to meet a French-speaking European that cannot understand what I say. Conversely, European francophone have no problem being understood in Québec (well, most of the time).
Amusingly enough, I hear this meme most often from Anglo-Canadians, and rarely from Québecois or European. Go figure.
Slashdot Mirror
... a Linux port than an expansion.
I got carried away and totally forgot to mention the great networked multiplayer capabilities of NWN. Basically, with NWN, anybody could start a so-called "persistent world" and run its very own MMORPG. And many did.
Also, AFAIK, this is the only CRPG that integrate the notion of a game master, which make it the closest you can get to the real pen-and-paper RPG.
Again, the Gamasutra article completely failed to acknowledge these.
Have they finally released a Linux port ? If not, NWN2 remain insignificant as far as I am concerned.
The guy completely miss the point of Neverwinter Nights. He talked only about the original campaign (OC), the scenario that came "in the box", which is IMHO pretty average. The real genius of NWN is that it's more than a game, it's a platform for CRPG development. It created a development community around the game that is not entirely different than what you would find around an Open-Source development platform such as PHP or Ruby on Rail. From modules to custom content (such as artwork, monster, etc) to hackpak that modified the game engine behavior, everything was open to the community. I cannot think of a single game that had as much fan content made and distributed. You could play NWN for years using just the highest rated modules from the community, all distributed for free. Not only that, but Bioware embraced the community, incorporated community developed material back into the product and still actively encourage development to this day.
Forget the OC. Go buy NWN Planitinium from the nearest bargain bin, and play the Dreamcatcher, Shadowlord, Kosigan and Penultimate series of modules. There are hundreds of hours of gameplay to be had from what the community developed, with some of the most engrossing storyline in the CRPG genre. Neglecting to acknowledge this is the the most glaring overlook from this Gamasutra article.
Did I mention it have a native Linux port ?
I thought RMS was mostly into Stinking Cloud. Now, if he could get the Silent Casting feat, I could put up with him.
7.04 is not an LTS release. I doubt 7.10 will be, either. My money is on 8.04
Yes. Got to the "System" menu -> "Preferences" -> "Desktop Effects". Click the "Enable desktop effects" button. If you would rather just install the proprietary Nvidia driver without enabling the desktop effect, install the nvidia-glx package using your choice of the "Add/Remove..." applet, or the Synaptic package manager.
You have not been paying much attention to Linux in the past few years, don't you ?
Here's a Gentoo user in the making. Fantastic !
... just post a link to the embarrassing picture in question ? I don't care about TFA being slashdotted, I just want to make fun of the idiot.
Wow. Train fare must be insanely expensive in your place. By my own napkin figures, a car cannot cost less than 300$ CAD per month in my area (multiply by 0.85 for USD$). More precisely :
Per km charges
Total perm km : 0.165$
Averaging 1500 km/month (18000/km yearly) : 247,50$/month.
Monthly recurring charge
Monthly recurring total : about 95$, but could be as low as about 50$ if I would cheap out on insurance.
And these are very conservative figure for my area. And I do not even factor in the cost parking (which would be steep in my case, as I work downtown). By comparison, my bus/subway monthly pass cost me 65$. And using public transport is actually faster than driving to work.
First, you could specify a mirror in your sources.list . I know the mirror in my country (Canada) that are extremely speedy (my ISP peer with the RISQ/CA*Net), so no problem upgrading on release day.
/etc/apt/source.lists by hand and running apt-get dist-upgrade, I suggest you do "update-manager -c". You will get a nice GUI for your upgrade, and it will take care of updating your sources.list for you.
Second, instead of editing
Check the "Horde of the Underdark" expansion to NWN. You start at level 15. A fun level to play a wizard at, or to take on a prestige class or something. The nice thing is that it absolutely do not make the game less enjoyable; there's still a good scaling of foe and reward. I like it.
PHP ? Perl ? Python ? All of them ?
No difference from Edgy, the binary drivers will still be available from the restricted repository.
... typical Slashdot staple.
Shoddy reporting and misleading title
Nvidia have 30% market share in desktop and laptop ? Which market is that ? In my world, integrated GPU from Intel dominate the market by a wide margin (like you said), with Ati second. Nvidia is really only seen in white box built by gamers and some few high-end laptops.
Installing proprietary video driver is already a breeze in Ubuntu. You just need to install the nvidia-glx package (if you have a Nvidia GPU) or the xorg-driver-fglrx package (if you have an Ati card). You don't even need to use the command line to do it; ou could use Synaptic or gnome-app-install (The "Add/Remove..." applet in the Applications menu).
Or rather :
sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrxYou could even do that from Synaptic or gnome-app-install, if you need a GUI for the tasks.
Is there a particular reason not to use the packaged binary drivers in the first place ?
Well, she know how to use the "Add/Remove..." applet, and used it to install a few games in the past. But the nice things with Linux (at least, with Ubuntu) is that you rarely have to as the default install is pretty complete. That's unlike Windows, where it could take hours and countless reboot to install all the drivers and applications you need. And guess who was stuck with taking care of this circus back then ?
Also, I'm a geek, and I do not remember the last time I had to manually compile a software. The repositories are pretty damn complete as it is, it's mostly a thing of the past.
Not only do I absolutely agree with this, I think we are there already. Witness my wife, who have been running Ubuntu for the past two years without even knowing what a command line is.
I think the parent point is that most people consider the subtleties of Free vs Open-Source software unimporant. You and handful of others might disagree, but that is still a tiny minority of people interested in FOSS. Fortunately.
That's another way of saying "sanctionned flamewar", right ?
I guess there's a market for that kind of thing.
If something could have killed the Net, it's P2P. Yet, it is still humming along just fine. A single dedicated file sharer can easily consume the equivalent in bandwidth of an entire neighborhood worth of crappy pixelated YouTube video viewing, and there are many dedicated file sharer already. My guess is that Akamai and Google's servers are going to melt before the Net come to its knees.
However, between the need for lower latency due to VoIP deployment and the constant massive increase in traffic from domestic Net users, it's another good year to be a network engineer.
Then get going, create an account on the Atari forum and voice your dissatisfaction. Quite frankly, the probability that we get a Linux port is paper-thin, but it does'nt hurt to get counted.
This is overblown. Québec's French is about as distant to European French than American English is to British English. That is, pronunciation and some expressions are different, but the vocabulary and grammar is still very much the same.
And I have yet to meet a French-speaking European that cannot understand what I say. Conversely, European francophone have no problem being understood in Québec (well, most of the time).
Amusingly enough, I hear this meme most often from Anglo-Canadians, and rarely from Québecois or European. Go figure.
Have these expletives been adopted widely outside of French Canada ?