Now, I for one don't see why 90% of the PC population shouldn't be heroic (or aspiring-to-be-heroic). As long as there are 90 NPC norms for every badass PC, there shouldn't be any real problem. It also lends itself well to the basis for player distribution around the world. If you have 10,000 players, then you need 1,000,000 NPCs, which tells you how much world space you need to have for such a population to be reasonable. That's probably going to be something on the order of western europe I'd say. (Anyone know any population numbers in different midieval centuries?) Pretty damned big for characters who shouldn't have any faster transport than horses, or maybe coastal ships. (Assuming a fantasy setting). Different settings / time periods would dictate different population ratios. In a Star Wars style game (lots & lots of planets with billions of people each instead of a few cities with maybe a hundred thousand each) you might want 1,000,000,000 NPCs per 10,000 PCs.
I'd say that Neverwinter Nights (or even to some extent, Vampire) will be capable of 'invite only' gaming. The person who wants to DM tells certain people that (s)he's starting a game, and they can play if they want to. Of course, they're not really MM, more like the password protected servers when playing CounterStrike...
Yeah, but a lot of those 12yobrats are going to seek out the planet/station/whatever that the serious players are hanging out at, and be obnoxious and annoying as hell. That's what 71137 12yobrats do.
Hmmm. I guess I forgot about my original point about why China's no good...
"Them" has to be mysterious, barely known beyond "not like us" to really work the same way as communism did. There's too much basic knowledge in America today for basic propaganda campaigns about an unknown enemy to really work. Some mysterious alien menace might do it, but I don't think anything terrestrial will. Even then, the propaganda's going to have to be a lot more sophisticated. I suspect 12 year olds would just point and laugh at the idea of hiding under a desk or newspaper to protect oneself from nuclear destruction...
I don't think China could work. The Americans had (have?) a belief in the inherant superiority of all things American, with little good reason for it beyond the belief itself. With propaganda running rampant about the "red menace" giving the impression that something as un-American as Communism (not that most people understood what it meant) was capable of being a critical threat to everything American, it had to lead to doubt and uncertainty. Can't have the commies beating us to the moon! After all, we're better than they are!
Well, I don't think they do share the same cg. They always show the pilot as being near the front of the ship so they can do that pan back through the glass of the cockpit until the whole thing is visible. I'm especially sure that the ones that are larger than a single pilot craft contain people far enough from the cg of the ship that someone should at least be yelling about the spin. And if I spun my chair as fast as they spin those ships, I'd have to grab a shelf or something quite hard to stop the spin quickly, and I think I might just lose my balance as my chair and body tried to keep going.
I don't know about B5. Never understood how the pilots survived some of the turns they pull off. How the hell do they pivot 180 degrees then stop perfectly to start firing at the guy chasing them?
Greens would probably be afraid that rocket exhaust was damaging the atmosphere...
Well, they are. The shuttles' boosters do rather large amounts of damage to the ozone, and I'd think (anyone got numbers/data?) that the air quality around Canaveral's probably not well balanced for the area's population.
The problem with trying to get that drive back is the total lack of a "THEM" to beat. There's no one out there to make the US look (and feel) bad enough for the whole country to get behind the massive push to achieve. On top of this, I don't think the public is cohesive enough to ever get solidly behind a new space race, or even to really accept any new menace that absolutely must be beaten for "the american way of life" to survive.
Yeah, they are ensuring a variety of machines and connections, but it will still be random. Unless you've got an incredibly unique setup, you're still very unlikely to get in.
Maybe in two weeks time, we should have a poll of how many slashdot readers got in? 1) I'm in HAHAHAHA 2) Damn you people! I didn't get picked! 3) Uh, there was a beta sign up? 4) Uh, Dee-ab-lo?
But, how many of the slashdot readers who didn't already know by checking diabloii.net or blizzard.com every day since they told us it was going to be announced this past week are going to be signing up? I would think that most of the readers who want to beta test already knew...
Yeeaaah, OooooK... That's kindof like saying that Americans shouldn't be engaging in for profit health care because it's illegal in Canada, and they should respect our laws.
Oh no! A SOCIALIST! Run away, screaming in terror! Hey! I know, I'll really scare the hell out of the poor American! I'm a socialist too!!!! So are many others! And we like to laugh at silly people who think that socialism is evil!
Yeah, the names were on them, but the fact that some people never noticed makes it clear that there wasn't any of the blatant product-placement that the other poster(s) are talking about. It's easy to spot movies with intentional product placement, the product is either the focus of a shot, or are placed prominantly, with the logo clearly visible to the camera, in the foreground of a fairly still shot, such as two people having a conversation where one grabs a soda can, opens it while holding it low enough to show the Pepsi logo (which faces the camera straight-on), drinks it, and sets in on the table, dead in the center of the shot.
Yes, the practice of feeding chickens and pigs (and I suppose they probably do it with cows too) the waste products of their butchered brethren is commonplace in North America (other contintents too???), and its a wonderful method of spreading certain diseases throughout the population.
That's just plain wrong. (I was tempted to say bullshit, but then I'd be flaimbait...) That may be what they claim its supposed to do, but I know that my roomate had to hook his player directly to my TV instead of through the VCR (and from there into his reciever) because the brightness goes up and down while you're watching otherwise...
Yes, the N64 did come out after Sony. That's not really all that important when talking about developer migration, especially since they were originally to come out around the same time. The first round of games start development long before the hardware is fully developed, let alone released. There have been many articles & interviews with developers that talk about the huge production cost difference between carts & discs. As for Sony stealing from Sega, who did they steal? Sega didn't have a lot of exclusive third party support going into Saturn to begin with. Any developers that Sony stole there was primarily due to superior hardware and dev environment.
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Now, I for one don't see why 90% of the PC population shouldn't be heroic (or aspiring-to-be-heroic). As long as there are 90 NPC norms for every badass PC, there shouldn't be any real problem. It also lends itself well to the basis for player distribution around the world. If you have 10,000 players, then you need 1,000,000 NPCs, which tells you how much world space you need to have for such a population to be reasonable. That's probably going to be something on the order of western europe I'd say. (Anyone know any population numbers in different midieval centuries?) Pretty damned big for characters who shouldn't have any faster transport than horses, or maybe coastal ships. (Assuming a fantasy setting). Different settings / time periods would dictate different population ratios. In a Star Wars style game (lots & lots of planets with billions of people each instead of a few cities with maybe a hundred thousand each) you might want 1,000,000,000 NPCs per 10,000 PCs.
I'd say that Neverwinter Nights (or even to some extent, Vampire) will be capable of 'invite only' gaming. The person who wants to DM tells certain people that (s)he's starting a game, and they can play if they want to. Of course, they're not really MM, more like the password protected servers when playing CounterStrike...
Yeah, but a lot of those 12yobrats are going to seek out the planet/station/whatever that the serious players are hanging out at, and be obnoxious and annoying as hell. That's what 71137 12yobrats do.
Hmmm. I guess I forgot about my original point about why China's no good...
"Them" has to be mysterious, barely known beyond "not like us" to really work the same way as communism did. There's too much basic knowledge in America today for basic propaganda campaigns about an unknown enemy to really work. Some mysterious alien menace might do it, but I don't think anything terrestrial will. Even then, the propaganda's going to have to be a lot more sophisticated. I suspect 12 year olds would just point and laugh at the idea of hiding under a desk or newspaper to protect oneself from nuclear destruction...
I don't think China could work. The Americans had (have?) a belief in the inherant superiority of all things American, with little good reason for it beyond the belief itself. With propaganda running rampant about the "red menace" giving the impression that something as un-American as Communism (not that most people understood what it meant) was capable of being a critical threat to everything American, it had to lead to doubt and uncertainty. Can't have the commies beating us to the moon! After all, we're better than they are!
Well, I don't think they do share the same cg. They always show the pilot as being near the front of the ship so they can do that pan back through the glass of the cockpit until the whole thing is visible. I'm especially sure that the ones that are larger than a single pilot craft contain people far enough from the cg of the ship that someone should at least be yelling about the spin. And if I spun my chair as fast as they spin those ships, I'd have to grab a shelf or something quite hard to stop the spin quickly, and I think I might just lose my balance as my chair and body tried to keep going.
I don't know about B5. Never understood how the pilots survived some of the turns they pull off. How the hell do they pivot 180 degrees then stop perfectly to start firing at the guy chasing them?
Greens would probably be afraid that rocket exhaust was damaging the atmosphere...
Well, they are. The shuttles' boosters do rather large amounts of damage to the ozone, and I'd think (anyone got numbers/data?) that the air quality around Canaveral's probably not well balanced for the area's population.
The problem with trying to get that drive back is the total lack of a "THEM" to beat. There's no one out there to make the US look (and feel) bad enough for the whole country to get behind the massive push to achieve. On top of this, I don't think the public is cohesive enough to ever get solidly behind a new space race, or even to really accept any new menace that absolutely must be beaten for "the american way of life" to survive.
Yeah, they are ensuring a variety of machines and connections, but it will still be random. Unless you've got an incredibly unique setup, you're still very unlikely to get in.
Ok, just so long as I don't have to actually install or *use* AOL, I'm still game.
Maybe in two weeks time, we should have a poll of how many slashdot readers got in? 1) I'm in HAHAHAHA 2) Damn you people! I didn't get picked! 3) Uh, there was a beta sign up? 4) Uh, Dee-ab-lo?
If someone can't configure their email or call the tech guys at their ISP to baby-step them through it, are they going to be much use in a beta test?
The demo is most likely going to come out shortly after release, which of course means that almost no one is going to bother with it...
But, how many of the slashdot readers who didn't already know by checking diabloii.net or blizzard.com every day since they told us it was going to be announced this past week are going to be signing up? I would think that most of the readers who want to beta test already knew...
Yeeaaah, OooooK... That's kindof like saying that Americans shouldn't be engaging in for profit health care because it's illegal in Canada, and they should respect our laws.
Shouldn't Canadians be complaining about the greedy, corrupt, freedom-stealing Americans?
I do. All the time. And for a new reason every so often. Anyone remember Helms-Burton?
Oh no! A SOCIALIST! Run away, screaming in terror! Hey! I know, I'll really scare the hell out of the poor American! I'm a socialist too!!!! So are many others! And we like to laugh at silly people who think that socialism is evil!
Yeah, the names were on them, but the fact that some people never noticed makes it clear that there wasn't any of the blatant product-placement that the other poster(s) are talking about. It's easy to spot movies with intentional product placement, the product is either the focus of a shot, or are placed prominantly, with the logo clearly visible to the camera, in the foreground of a fairly still shot, such as two people having a conversation where one grabs a soda can, opens it while holding it low enough to show the Pepsi logo (which faces the camera straight-on), drinks it, and sets in on the table, dead in the center of the shot.
Yes, the practice of feeding chickens and pigs (and I suppose they probably do it with cows too) the waste products of their butchered brethren is commonplace in North America (other contintents too???), and its a wonderful method of spreading certain diseases throughout the population.
That's just plain wrong. (I was tempted to say bullshit, but then I'd be flaimbait...) That may be what they claim its supposed to do, but I know that my roomate had to hook his player directly to my TV instead of through the VCR (and from there into his reciever) because the brightness goes up and down while you're watching otherwise...
Very interesting, possibly water-shaped rocks.
Yes, the N64 did come out after Sony. That's not really all that important when talking about developer migration, especially since they were originally to come out around the same time. The first round of games start development long before the hardware is fully developed, let alone released. There have been many articles & interviews with developers that talk about the huge production cost difference between carts & discs. As for Sony stealing from Sega, who did they steal? Sega didn't have a lot of exclusive third party support going into Saturn to begin with. Any developers that Sony stole there was primarily due to superior hardware and dev environment.
So in other words, you let your zealotry and blind bias against Microsoft completely dominate any rational or logical judgement you can produce?
Yes.
So in other words, they suck if they fail, and they suck if they succeed?
Yes.