When killing is the ultimate goal in the game, yes PvP will just boil down to these kinds of problems, tactics, and boredom. Which is why I think a lot of people are tiring of the same old FPS. What happens when the "monsters" and the "players" have asymmetric goals? What happens if you really can't kill them at all in the PvP setting? I think there's been a lot of progress lately in this respect wrt level design in single player that can be directly applied to a PvP setting.
e.g. 2 types of multiplayer "monsters" battle it out in a turf war. The single player game can then be to: a) survive in the midst of the greater conflict b) become an initiate of one of the opposing factions c) run a trade and logistics business in the war d) become a heavily armed merc and sway the battle for the under dogs for prestige e) serve as a diplomat by politically controlling game resources etc...
In fact, the "monsters" might not even have an incentive to kill the single player at all. If the single player provides some strategic advantage against the other faction, the "monsters" might very well want to court the single player and keep him alive and in the game helping their side. Alternatively, they may want to eliminate him to reduce the other faction's advantage...
In any case, there's plenty of opportunity. I think the real progress here is if the developers are willing to challenge the expectations of what a FPS should be. Whether the game turns out good, bad, popular, or unpopular, it's still valuable progress.
Seeing as to how my university caps all users' total bandwidth (combined upstream & downstream) to 5GB per any 7 consecutive days Is that bandwidth to the WAN? Why not distribute the WAN resources to a swarm running inside the University network? 1) Choose 7 or so friends to download with inside the network. 2) Have everybody log on to the same outside tracker/torrent. 3) Unchoke only IPs within your network (coordination will be the hard part). 4) everybody shares bandwidth.
Certainly this is pretty doable if you've got willing dormmates/CSClubMembers/fratbros/etc. Plan a movie night and share the result.
I love how people will gladly pay this and much more for a computer that does NOT:
*fit in the palm of your hand *have a touchscreen *have an OS redesigned around the touchscreen *have a display *make and receive phone calls *deliver email the very second it arrives on the server Man, if only the MessagePad 2000 fit in the palm of your hand!
1) You don't have nearly the screen real estate compared to a mac. Thus, you don't have the ridiculous RAM requirements to double buffer all the large windows. 2) The main storage is Flash. Even if you don't have all the RAM to keep paging to a minimum, a read from main storage is going to be fast. Thus, paging won't greatly affect your performance.
Given that, I'd be surprised if this thing needed any more than 256MB of main memory (if that).
Price point looks very familiar. Why is the PS3 dumped on for $599 price point while this is praised as a second coming? Where did Sony mess up? Because when the customer scoffs at the $599 price point for the PS3, they run out and get a Nintendo Wii for $249. When the customer scoffs at the $599 price point for the iPhone, they run out and get an iPod or an iPod Nano for $249 and hang on to their free RAZR.
In this case, I'm pretty sure Apple has it covered.
My girlfriend is a reality tv nut. And while I do prefer to watch my HD torrents on my 32"TV with screen spanning and VLC, she's perfectly happy watching YouTube episodes in the Wii Internet Channel.
peoples aftershave and perfumes are most times extreme and putrid (I believe it must be animal urine in them) Excuse me... is that 'sex panther' you're wearing?
I understand your pain with the palettes disappearing. This doesn't really seem like a app "foreground" problem though, more of a "there should be an option to keep non-fore palettes from disappearing" problem. Certainly, many activities require that only one app be in the foreground. (i.e. short cut keys: any guess as to what cmd-I will do when you have multiple "foreground" apps?).
If basic window placement is a problem, you can always grab and move "background" windows (and manipulate their control widgets) by holding the command key.
* I hate the fact that I can never find *anything* I'm looking for. I spend entirely too long searching around for applications, their support files, and system configuration options. I realize that Apple designs these things for people who aren't familiar with computers, but fuck, it makes it hard for someone that is quite comfy with Linux and Windows configurations. Applications are under/Applications. All the support files are inside the Application package; if you want to uninstall, just trash the App icon. App prefs are in your home folder. System configs are in System Preferences. Stop me if I'm moving too fast for you...
* I hate the fact that I have no idea what the fuck is going on behind the scenes with the Mac. Yeah, XP has gotten to this point but I guess because I have a basic idea built up over the years from other versions of Windows, I don't mind as much. Being built on Unix, I would expect to understand more about what OS X is doing -- but I don't. /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor (hmn... that's right about where I'd expect it to be...) Since you seem to be fine with *nix, why not/Applications/Utilities/Terminal (type top) Surely both of these options are a helluva lot more descriptive than Windows Task Manager.
* I really don't like the fact that I *could* do stuff on the CLI but I can never find out how. The files aren't in the locations I would expect. System stuff is under... wait for it.../System User stuff is under/Users/youraccountname Oh and FYI, all those *nix commands that you supposedly are familiar with... yeah they work exactly like they're supposed to.
Further, I think you'll find a lot fewer violations of these practices on MacOSX than say WinXP. Surely, I can find the user, system, and program directories under WinXP, but damned if I can find where that adware stuck itself.
(like putting the minimize and close options on the "correct" side of the window;)) Okay, you got me there. Damn whey didn't they just stick with close on the left, shade/zoom on the right??? That's it, I'm throwing my MacBookPro in the bog!
Mod parent up informative. Not only is it a problem, but Apple Engineers know it's a problem and don't know how to fix it. Just look back a few versions and you'll see that the date in the icon stuck when you quit iCal, thus if you let it stay quit for a few days you would see a date in the recent past and think it's legit. Fast forward to v2.0 and you'll see they went back to "Just set it back to July 17 when it's not running" because at least then the user knows for certain that it's the wrong date when he sees it. (unless of course it actually is mid July...)
Never even mind that as you launch new apps, minimize windows, or use the Magnification the icon slides around. I don't know about you, but tracking an icon on a dock with potentially 30 or 40 tiny icons for me is a pain in the ass. I just want a quick affirmation of the current date without having to question if it's right or not. F13 dashboard will have to do for now.
"The decision comes after reports that some users in the United States threw their controllers when playing with Wii sports software," Minagawa said. Nintendo rejects reports of Wii recalls I find it depressing and embarrassing that this is the first thought I had even before finding this article. I fully expect other countries to have idiots as stupid as ours, but why oh why must ours be the loudest?
Imagine: (iTunes 6) Average user puts CD in computer, rips song, no artwork. Declares,"lame!," types song name in itms search field, clicks 1-click buy. Stop. Next song, average user says, "fuck it", types in itms search field, clicks 1-click buy. Stop.
(iTunes 7) iTunes upgrade says "new! we'll give you the artwork anyways!" Average user puts CD in computer, rips song, artwork auto-downloaded. Stop.
Now, as easy as it is for you or I to: Cmd-tab to browser, type "gim songname albumname" into the yubnub searchfield, click the best image, drag the image to iTunes, Stop. The average user is not going to do this. They don't even know that they can do this. Even if they did, they're too lazy to do this. I've even shown some people how to do this (it's really only 3 steps), 2 hours later they don't know how or don't care.
Most people don't care to know how to do anything requiring even the simplest of steps for the most marginal amount of extra time. Changing the oil in your car requires fewer than 4 tools and less than 30 minutes. Yet most people would rather just spend $60 at the jiffy-lube and spend the same amount of time waiting.
Why would anybody buy a song they already own on CD??? Coincidentally, what is the correlation between ITMS sales and iTunes 7? Others have mentioned the poor quality of iTunes 7, but put that aside for a second and consider: iTunes 7 lets you download cover art for ripped tracks. Were people just rebuying ITMS tracks because of cover art? Among my non-technical friends, "having the booklet" is a fair point of persuasion when buying CDs. Now that you get the artwork when ripping there's even less incentive to get a downloaded track. I'm not saying artwork is a big advantage, but people have been known to buy things for less.
Golf: Putting is amazingly hard. The game does not register slight movements consistently, so the easiest putts in real life take the utmost care and effort. Lock your wrists, swing with your arms and hands as once solid pendulum, and mind the delay. You'll be putting 1/2 bar shots in no time.
(Oh yeah, and push the 1 button if you haven't already ^_^d)
Wireless connection troubles...the only way I can get my Wii to connect consistently is to turn off WEP and WPA/WPA2. I have to make my WAP open (and I've tried two different access points/routers) for it to work consistently and reliably...again, that seems just wrong to me. I had the same problems. I switched my wireless channel to 11 and they have since subsided (WPA is still on). Others are reporting that channel 1 or 11 work best and channel 4 and 6, for whatever reason, work the worst.
The bad: Controller eats batteries. Lacks the advanced HD graphics and surround sound found on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 Um, dude, drop by Home Depot and buy a four-battery recharger, and get four rechargeable batteries.
Problem solved.
Seriously, doing that costs less than a new controller combo (wii-mote plus nunchuk). The problem is not the remotes eating batteries while playing, the problem is that the remotes remain in search mode even when the Wii is off or not being used. This happens when any of the buttons is accidentally held down.
Leave your remote upside down under a throw pillow? By the time you come back and notice it the next day, it's dead. This has happened to me personally twice. I bought one of those custom Wii carrying bags for easy transport. The first time I used it I just put all my controllers in the front pocket. While in transport they all kind of turned and ended up smashing against each other, draining the batteries to red in 2 of my 3 remotes. Do you know how much of a pain it is to have to replace the batteries before you even start playing??? In the case of me bringing it to my relatives house to play, this was quite embarrassing to have to ask for batteries before even powering it up.
Now I make sure to remove a battery from each remote before transporting it and I'm careful to make sure the remotes are right side up on the table when I finish playing. These are problems I've never had to deal with with any other wireless controller that I've ever used. Hell, even my wave bird has an off switch.
Aside from this problem though, the battery life is very good. I finished Zelda in 46 hours with 2-3 bars remaining on the battery meter (default sound, rumble on).
So far I've got 3 Wiis registered on mine. I keep getting my friend Jeff's relatives in my Mii parade. The thing is, I don't know these people. So while it's somewhat interesting that they are there, I don't ever plan on upgrading them to plaza status. So either they just sit there or I delete them. With my friends' Mii profiles, they're actually sent to me so they never end up in the parade.
Far as I can tell, the only thing the parade does is put people I don't care about in the stands during my boxing(/tennis/bowling/baseball) games. Overall, I'd say it's an idea with potential just poorly implemented. Though I haven't heard from my friends if they've been invaded by Winky, my bald, no-mouth, no-eyebrow, no-nose, cycloptic midget Mii...
Slashdot Mirror
Up and AT THEM!</reiner>
step 1) Buy "real" yogurt and milk at supermarket.
step 2) Go home, dump yogurt into milk, place in fridge.
step 3) Wait a few weeks.
It really doesn't take that long, and once you have your first supply, you can make more just by adding milk.
When killing is the ultimate goal in the game, yes PvP will just boil down to these kinds of problems, tactics, and boredom. Which is why I think a lot of people are tiring of the same old FPS.
What happens when the "monsters" and the "players" have asymmetric goals? What happens if you really can't kill them at all in the PvP setting? I think there's been a lot of progress lately in this respect wrt level design in single player that can be directly applied to a PvP setting.
e.g. 2 types of multiplayer "monsters" battle it out in a turf war. The single player game can then be to:
a) survive in the midst of the greater conflict
b) become an initiate of one of the opposing factions
c) run a trade and logistics business in the war
d) become a heavily armed merc and sway the battle for the under dogs for prestige
e) serve as a diplomat by politically controlling game resources
etc...
In fact, the "monsters" might not even have an incentive to kill the single player at all. If the single player provides some strategic advantage against the other faction, the "monsters" might very well want to court the single player and keep him alive and in the game helping their side. Alternatively, they may want to eliminate him to reduce the other faction's advantage...
In any case, there's plenty of opportunity. I think the real progress here is if the developers are willing to challenge the expectations of what a FPS should be. Whether the game turns out good, bad, popular, or unpopular, it's still valuable progress.
1) Choose 7 or so friends to download with inside the network.
2) Have everybody log on to the same outside tracker/torrent.
3) Unchoke only IPs within your network (coordination will be the hard part).
4) everybody shares bandwidth.
Certainly this is pretty doable if you've got willing dormmates/CSClubMembers/fratbros/etc.
Plan a movie night and share the result.
Don't her 3 kids disqualify her for a Darwin Award?
Strange as that may be...
*fit in the palm of your hand
*have a touchscreen
*have an OS redesigned around the touchscreen
*have a display
*make and receive phone calls
*deliver email the very second it arrives on the server Man, if only the MessagePad 2000 fit in the palm of your hand!
1) You don't have nearly the screen real estate compared to a mac. Thus, you don't have the ridiculous RAM requirements to double buffer all the large windows.
2) The main storage is Flash. Even if you don't have all the RAM to keep paging to a minimum, a read from main storage is going to be fast. Thus, paging won't greatly affect your performance.
Given that, I'd be surprised if this thing needed any more than 256MB of main memory (if that).
When the customer scoffs at the $599 price point for the iPhone, they run out and get an iPod or an iPod Nano for $249 and hang on to their free RAZR.
In this case, I'm pretty sure Apple has it covered.
300 terabits = 37.5 TB (terabytes)
My girlfriend is a reality tv nut. And while I do prefer to watch my HD torrents on my 32"TV with screen spanning and VLC, she's perfectly happy watching YouTube episodes in the Wii Internet Channel.
Not a perfect solution, but if you just want to do it via the keyboard...
1) Control-F3 to keyselect the dock.
2) Arrow keys to hilight the window you want to un-minimize.
3) Enter key to un-minimize.
I understand your pain with the palettes disappearing. This doesn't really seem like a app "foreground" problem though, more of a "there should be an option to keep non-fore palettes from disappearing" problem. Certainly, many activities require that only one app be in the foreground. (i.e. short cut keys: any guess as to what cmd-I will do when you have multiple "foreground" apps?).
If basic window placement is a problem, you can always grab and move "background" windows (and manipulate their control widgets) by holding the command key.
App prefs are in your home folder.
System configs are in System Preferences.
Stop me if I'm moving too fast for you...
* I hate the fact that I have no idea what the fuck is going on behind the scenes with the Mac. Yeah, XP has gotten to this point but I guess because I have a basic idea built up over the years from other versions of Windows, I don't mind as much. Being built on Unix, I would expect to understand more about what OS X is doing -- but I don't. /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor (hmn... that's right about where I'd expect it to be...)
Since you seem to be fine with *nix, why not
Surely both of these options are a helluva lot more descriptive than Windows Task Manager.
* I really don't like the fact that I *could* do stuff on the CLI but I can never find out how. The files aren't in the locations I would expect. System stuff is under... wait for it...
User stuff is under
Oh and FYI, all those *nix commands that you supposedly are familiar with... yeah they work exactly like they're supposed to.
Further, I think you'll find a lot fewer violations of these practices on MacOSX than say WinXP. Surely, I can find the user, system, and program directories under WinXP, but damned if I can find where that adware stuck itself. (like putting the minimize and close options on the "correct" side of the window
Mod parent up informative.
Not only is it a problem, but Apple Engineers know it's a problem and don't know how to fix it. Just look back a few versions and you'll see that the date in the icon stuck when you quit iCal, thus if you let it stay quit for a few days you would see a date in the recent past and think it's legit. Fast forward to v2.0 and you'll see they went back to "Just set it back to July 17 when it's not running" because at least then the user knows for certain that it's the wrong date when he sees it. (unless of course it actually is mid July...)
Never even mind that as you launch new apps, minimize windows, or use the Magnification the icon slides around. I don't know about you, but tracking an icon on a dock with potentially 30 or 40 tiny icons for me is a pain in the ass. I just want a quick affirmation of the current date without having to question if it's right or not. F13 dashboard will have to do for now.
Nintendo rejects reports of Wii recalls I find it depressing and embarrassing that this is the first thought I had even before finding this article.
I fully expect other countries to have idiots as stupid as ours, but why oh why must ours be the loudest?
How about shrinking them?
Oh, even better: melt down your pre-1982 pennies to make the copper shrink coil!
Imagine:
(iTunes 6)
Average user puts CD in computer, rips song, no artwork. Declares,"lame!," types song name in itms search field, clicks 1-click buy. Stop.
Next song, average user says, "fuck it", types in itms search field, clicks 1-click buy. Stop.
(iTunes 7)
iTunes upgrade says "new! we'll give you the artwork anyways!"
Average user puts CD in computer, rips song, artwork auto-downloaded. Stop.
Now, as easy as it is for you or I to:
Cmd-tab to browser, type "gim songname albumname" into the yubnub searchfield, click the best image, drag the image to iTunes, Stop.
The average user is not going to do this. They don't even know that they can do this. Even if they did, they're too lazy to do this.
I've even shown some people how to do this (it's really only 3 steps), 2 hours later they don't know how or don't care.
Most people don't care to know how to do anything requiring even the simplest of steps for the most marginal amount of extra time. Changing the oil in your car requires fewer than 4 tools and less than 30 minutes. Yet most people would rather just spend $60 at the jiffy-lube and spend the same amount of time waiting.
Others have mentioned the poor quality of iTunes 7, but put that aside for a second and consider: iTunes 7 lets you download cover art for ripped tracks.
Were people just rebuying ITMS tracks because of cover art? Among my non-technical friends, "having the booklet" is a fair point of persuasion when buying CDs. Now that you get the artwork when ripping there's even less incentive to get a downloaded track. I'm not saying artwork is a big advantage, but people have been known to buy things for less.
(Oh yeah, and push the 1 button if you haven't already ^_^d)
Problem solved.
Seriously, doing that costs less than a new controller combo (wii-mote plus nunchuk). The problem is not the remotes eating batteries while playing, the problem is that the remotes remain in search mode even when the Wii is off or not being used. This happens when any of the buttons is accidentally held down.
Leave your remote upside down under a throw pillow? By the time you come back and notice it the next day, it's dead. This has happened to me personally twice. I bought one of those custom Wii carrying bags for easy transport. The first time I used it I just put all my controllers in the front pocket. While in transport they all kind of turned and ended up smashing against each other, draining the batteries to red in 2 of my 3 remotes. Do you know how much of a pain it is to have to replace the batteries before you even start playing??? In the case of me bringing it to my relatives house to play, this was quite embarrassing to have to ask for batteries before even powering it up.
Now I make sure to remove a battery from each remote before transporting it and I'm careful to make sure the remotes are right side up on the table when I finish playing. These are problems I've never had to deal with with any other wireless controller that I've ever used. Hell, even my wave bird has an off switch.
Aside from this problem though, the battery life is very good. I finished Zelda in 46 hours with 2-3 bars remaining on the battery meter (default sound, rumble on).
So far I've got 3 Wiis registered on mine. I keep getting my friend Jeff's relatives in my Mii parade. The thing is, I don't know these people. So while it's somewhat interesting that they are there, I don't ever plan on upgrading them to plaza status. So either they just sit there or I delete them. With my friends' Mii profiles, they're actually sent to me so they never end up in the parade.
Far as I can tell, the only thing the parade does is put people I don't care about in the stands during my boxing(/tennis/bowling/baseball) games. Overall, I'd say it's an idea with potential just poorly implemented. Though I haven't heard from my friends if they've been invaded by Winky, my bald, no-mouth, no-eyebrow, no-nose, cycloptic midget Mii...
I own a launch Wii and it's still funny! Zonk honestly made my day.