To make Linux a modding platform, you have to overcome a psuedo-Catch-22: All the games are released on Windows because the vast majority of gamers use Windows. But the gamers won't leave Windows because all the games are released on Windows! And, who wants to make a mod if nobody's going to play it?
There is a solution - you need to have an engine for as many genres as possible, and you need to have major features of those engines be easy to change. You also need to make adding/replacing content easy; WarCraft III, by virtue of its design, is fairly easy to modify (content-wise), but it could be easier. A very important thing to do is make Blizzard-quality map editors, with as much power as possible - although you might want to include differing display types, with varying levels of detailed options.
On the topic of engines, you'll want to include a powerful language to change aspects of the game like items/weapons (FPS), spells/abilities (RTS, RPG) and such. Ideally, you would be able to tie this to the editor; for instance, you could define a function in the language (let's say "freezing"), and then use the editor to assign that effect to one or more weapons. In WarCraft III modding, the most difficult part is making new unit abilities, and a careful design can eliminate that difficulty.
You definitely want the big companies to port to Linux. Gamers don't think "I wanna play an RTS", they think "I wanna play StarCraft". I guarantee you, if you make an RTS engine, eventually you will have a group of people trying to make StarCraft. While the open-source community strengthens their offerings (which will take a while. Mods take a long time to make), big names like Half-Life and WarCraft will attract new users. Let them get acquainted with Linux.
There's also one extremely important factor in building a mod community: You need tools to make content. GIMP already covers Photoshop, but there's more to games than textures. You'll need a 3D model-making progam a la 3DS Max, and a good sound manipulation program (I don't do sounds, so I wouldn't know about that). All you need is to make them work for a few different games - at least a few of the modders will also be coders, and therefore could help improve the programs they use.
The last responsibility lies on the game companies. If they port their games to Linux, and someone makes a mod for the Linux version, it will have to work for the Windows version. There will always be a large number of gamers using Windows, and being able to capture them will be important to would-be modders.
What is it with scientists? "Yeah, we found this awesome drug that makes you live thirteen years longer, three times smarter, and makes you absolutely irresistable to the opposite sex. But there are a couple of side effects too.
The problem with that system is that it would attract non-griefer "bandit" players who would play for the fun of being a fugitive.
Admit it, it would kick ass being a high level wanted character. If you could kill the "police force" members (who would, let's say, respawn at the dept.), instead of being just a griefer-penalty, it could be a whole new dimension in the gameplay. Rob banks, mug characters, run from the police... you could become a famous criminal! Even some of the griefers might play by the rules, because they can make people fear them without really griefing. Put up bounties, and you get the rest of the players in on it.
Then, let players do things in jail, like fight or hold hostages (risking death of course). If you could get players to sign up for guards, you could award experience for breaking up fights or defusing a hostage situation. It would make being a guard interesting enough for people to want to play them, and give griefers another legitimate way to become notorious. If you limited the prisoners' shenanigans to the prison, it wouldn't have much effect on the rest of the world.
How would you advertise it, though? "Buy the new Everquest! We've added all kinds of features, like prisons, fugitives, and bounty hunting! The first MMORPG with a criminal underworld!"
Who said it was highbrow? We all know these aren't the jokes you tell to your company's CEO. For instance, it would be entirely inappropriate to tell him how much dyslexics hate Fuddrucker's restaurant.
Maybe it's because the musicians I listen to actually have talent and can function without the need to offend or shock.
The album "lovehatetragedy", by Papa Roach, has no content that would offend or shock, except a few instances of the words "fuck" and "God-damn", used as intensifiers. They are only words, and they clearly convey the intensity of the emotion. These words weren't used to cover for a lack of other content - they were simply the best tool for the job, so to speak. Does this signify a lack of talent? I think not.
Maybe you just read Slashdot to snipe at people who articulate a different view from yours. Maybe you like the pablum manufactured to satisfy your manufactured taste for a week.
Who said his view was different? His post contained nothing that would suggest he liked "the pablum". We don't know that you actually had a worse experience - did you actually find the song on iTunes? Was the search better on iTunes? You have to tell us that, because some of us don't use iTunes. I, personally, use Kazaa, and find the selection astounding. My only complaint is that I can't find Asia on there... but I can easily find it at a Virgin Megastore. I don't mean to snipe at the view you're articulating, but maybe you should try Kazaa. It offers many different bitrates, and the files have no DRM.
I admire your constitution. I can hardly take one showing of Finding Nemo, let alone 113.
Seriously... if you're not talking to each other, you're not talking to each other. Being two inches away from each other doesn't change that. This will effectively deter your children from accessing any forbidden material, but spoken from experience: an antisocial troll in the living room is still an antisocial troll.
This, of course, applies mostly to teenagers. Your son shouldn't give you much trouble for a few years... but if he does turn into an antisocial troll, you'll have to do more than chase him out of his "cave" to get him to open up.
The thing that really irks me about it is that (like most fashion shows) the guy goes from merely badly-dressed to looking like a complete tool. Only on Queer Eye, he looks like a stereotypically gay tool.
As another poster commented before, the "Queer Eyes" are all stereotypically gay, too. Surprise - maybe most gay men act like straight men! I would never have thought.
It is another work of reality TV, and must be burned - just like its unholy kin.
The passage you quoted also brings up another point: You can do all these things, but you don't have to. You can pick up a prostitute, but you don't have to kill her afterwards. The game offers several ways to acquire weapons, most of which are better than killing cops.
A concise way of putting it would be Postal 2's smug tagline: "It's only as violent as you are."
I think the spam business now consists of mostly addresses being sold to other spammers.
That's an interesting idea. If they don't actually get money from sending spam, that would make it a pyramid-scheme like business. People just getting in to the business buy addresses and software from the established spammers. Then, later on, they become established spammers themselves, and sell to new spammers...
The new spammers would hopefully see the trap and stay away. Once there are no new spammers to sell to, the established spammers will miss their payments to the Mafia loanshark, and we won't have to deal with them anymore.
Gimme a break - How many of us spend so long away from a PC that we need more than 800 songs on a portable device?
Well, since you asked... I'd say a good deal of Slashdotters go to school of some kind. Even if you have a laptop, a small mp3 player is better for listening to a song or two between classes. Some school-going Slashdotters listen to music enough that 800 songs isn't all that much.
My personal opinion is that if you're going to buy an mp3 player, you might as well be able to carry all of your music on it. And besides, this is Slashdot... who really has 10,000 songs they want to listen to? Why buy a 60gb iPod? Because we can.
Slashdot Mirror
To make Linux a modding platform, you have to overcome a psuedo-Catch-22: All the games are released on Windows because the vast majority of gamers use Windows. But the gamers won't leave Windows because all the games are released on Windows! And, who wants to make a mod if nobody's going to play it?
There is a solution - you need to have an engine for as many genres as possible, and you need to have major features of those engines be easy to change. You also need to make adding/replacing content easy; WarCraft III, by virtue of its design, is fairly easy to modify (content-wise), but it could be easier. A very important thing to do is make Blizzard-quality map editors, with as much power as possible - although you might want to include differing display types, with varying levels of detailed options.
On the topic of engines, you'll want to include a powerful language to change aspects of the game like items/weapons (FPS), spells/abilities (RTS, RPG) and such. Ideally, you would be able to tie this to the editor; for instance, you could define a function in the language (let's say "freezing"), and then use the editor to assign that effect to one or more weapons. In WarCraft III modding, the most difficult part is making new unit abilities, and a careful design can eliminate that difficulty.
You definitely want the big companies to port to Linux. Gamers don't think "I wanna play an RTS", they think "I wanna play StarCraft". I guarantee you, if you make an RTS engine, eventually you will have a group of people trying to make StarCraft. While the open-source community strengthens their offerings (which will take a while. Mods take a long time to make), big names like Half-Life and WarCraft will attract new users. Let them get acquainted with Linux.
There's also one extremely important factor in building a mod community: You need tools to make content. GIMP already covers Photoshop, but there's more to games than textures. You'll need a 3D model-making progam a la 3DS Max, and a good sound manipulation program (I don't do sounds, so I wouldn't know about that). All you need is to make them work for a few different games - at least a few of the modders will also be coders, and therefore could help improve the programs they use.
The last responsibility lies on the game companies. If they port their games to Linux, and someone makes a mod for the Linux version, it will have to work for the Windows version. There will always be a large number of gamers using Windows, and being able to capture them will be important to would-be modders.
Hope This Helps.
I missed the joke. I've been thinking about Magic: The Gathering and that throws off my sense of humor.
"Quicktime... Realplayer... Hm, wonder what Goblin Piledrivers are going for on eBay right now"
MOV is Quicktime. HTH
What is it with scientists? "Yeah, we found this awesome drug that makes you live thirteen years longer, three times smarter, and makes you absolutely irresistable to the opposite sex. But there are a couple of side effects too.
"Like, uh, brain damage, heart attacks, coma, and/or death."
Take an F-15 and turn it into Starscream.
Or, optionally, find a thirty-foot-long alien ray gun and turn it into Shockwave.
Don't forget Unicron!
The problem with that system is that it would attract non-griefer "bandit" players who would play for the fun of being a fugitive.
Admit it, it would kick ass being a high level wanted character. If you could kill the "police force" members (who would, let's say, respawn at the dept.), instead of being just a griefer-penalty, it could be a whole new dimension in the gameplay. Rob banks, mug characters, run from the police... you could become a famous criminal! Even some of the griefers might play by the rules, because they can make people fear them without really griefing. Put up bounties, and you get the rest of the players in on it.
Then, let players do things in jail, like fight or hold hostages (risking death of course). If you could get players to sign up for guards, you could award experience for breaking up fights or defusing a hostage situation. It would make being a guard interesting enough for people to want to play them, and give griefers another legitimate way to become notorious. If you limited the prisoners' shenanigans to the prison, it wouldn't have much effect on the rest of the world.
How would you advertise it, though? "Buy the new Everquest! We've added all kinds of features, like prisons, fugitives, and bounty hunting! The first MMORPG with a criminal underworld!"
Do you mean the Magic 8 ball?
Or the Magic Hate ball?
Two words: "Tar" and "Feathers".
Who said it was highbrow? We all know these aren't the jokes you tell to your company's CEO. For instance, it would be entirely inappropriate to tell him how much dyslexics hate Fuddrucker's restaurant.
That has to be the most violent analogy I've ever seen used.
"Animated corpse?" Iron Maiden's known about that for years.
So listen to Band X's music, and decide for yourself.
Also... remember, "All absolute statements are wrong."
He didn't actually say "elite," but he directly implied it by saying they don't sell music, they sell pop culture.
I admire your constitution. I can hardly take one showing of Finding Nemo, let alone 113.
Seriously... if you're not talking to each other, you're not talking to each other. Being two inches away from each other doesn't change that. This will effectively deter your children from accessing any forbidden material, but spoken from experience: an antisocial troll in the living room is still an antisocial troll.
This, of course, applies mostly to teenagers. Your son shouldn't give you much trouble for a few years... but if he does turn into an antisocial troll, you'll have to do more than chase him out of his "cave" to get him to open up.
The thing that really irks me about it is that (like most fashion shows) the guy goes from merely badly-dressed to looking like a complete tool. Only on Queer Eye, he looks like a stereotypically gay tool.
As another poster commented before, the "Queer Eyes" are all stereotypically gay, too. Surprise - maybe most gay men act like straight men! I would never have thought.
It is another work of reality TV, and must be burned - just like its unholy kin.
The passage you quoted also brings up another point: You can do all these things, but you don't have to. You can pick up a prostitute, but you don't have to kill her afterwards. The game offers several ways to acquire weapons, most of which are better than killing cops.
A concise way of putting it would be Postal 2's smug tagline: "It's only as violent as you are."
The new spammers would hopefully see the trap and stay away. Once there are no new spammers to sell to, the established spammers will miss their payments to the Mafia loanshark, and we won't have to deal with them anymore.
My personal opinion is that if you're going to buy an mp3 player, you might as well be able to carry all of your music on it. And besides, this is Slashdot... who really has 10,000 songs they want to listen to? Why buy a 60gb iPod? Because we can.
And an easier, higher-paying job...
Yeah, that's what I think he was referring to.