Yup, Q3 and UT sure are bloatware. I mean, who wants something that looks better than what they had before? We should all be happy with Wolfenstein 3d-quality graphics in our games for all eternity.
And CAD applications sure are bloated, too. I mean, who would actually *want* to be able to model something and then preview it in real time? God, what a wasteful practice. They should've been happy with 16-color VGA graphics at 1024x768 interlaced. They should use their *imagination* for the preview, since isn't design all about imagination anyway?
And don't even get me started on OSes. Who wants a GUI? Everyone should be smart enough to figure out how to use a command line, or they shouldn't use a computer. Simple as that. I mean, it's not like 90% of our sensory input is visual or anything. There's no reason to try to give someone a graphical representation of information simply to make it easier to parse.
Now don't get me wrong, bloatware is out there. But it's *not* the driving force behind new PC sales. This sounds like something that one of my Windows-hating dinosaur-profs at school would say. ('I remember when non-volatile memory was punch cards! And that was good enough!')
And part of new hardware sales come from (gasp!) people who have never owned a computer before -- so they might as well buy new (the latest) hardware.
Besides -- if hardware hast to be fast enough to run everyone else's bloatware, imagine how fast it'll run your highly optimized, ultra-efficient apps. Are you going to complain about that?
He had a substantial amount of code... that was verbatim with another student
The code that students come up with may be similar, but the odds that they just happen to come up with the exact same spacing, variable names, capitalization isn't too likely. And it's pretty easy to spot when someone just does a search/replace on a few selected items, too. (I've helped grade programs before, and have seen some of this stuff at the university level)
People always seem to forget Abuse (1995, Crack Dot Com, www.abuse2.com) when they discuss 'moddable' game engines.
When Abuse came out, to my knowledge, there were no other games with a built-in script interpreter. All of the game's AI routines were done in LISP, all easily editable by anyone who knew LISP (granted: most people don't know LISP), and the game engine has an integrated level editor. But this game came out a full year before Quake 1, and still never gets mentioned in these discussions. Hell, they even had a $1000 level creation contest when the game came out.
Truly a shame, because it's a great game, and the engine was way ahead of its time.
They sell me an experience? Give me a break and come back to reality.
So you mean you buy stuff 'cuz you like the shiny CDs? You just like the smell of paper and ink? You don't actually buy it for the bits and letters on the surface?
Why not, then, just go out and buy blank CDs and paper? It's a hell of a lot cheaper that way.
You whiny people make me want to beat the crap out of something.
Who's whining? The person advocating the support of artists, or the person who complains that it's 'too expensive' (or whatever argument) to do so?
The content industries don't like this because a service-based model is MUCH more profitable.
Let me just make one thing clear: I'm not siding with the content industries. I'm siding with the authors and artists that create this stuff. Unfortunately, the only way to support them is to also support the industry that exploits them until a reasonable alternative is found.
Maybe it's just that I'm hyper-sensitive to artists' rights, but I feel obligated to compensate someone who has had a positive impact on my life. It seems only fair.
If you like paying for things you don't own, thats great, and have fun with it. I hope you also never move and sell your house, and that garage space for all your cars doesn't get too expensive.
Who extended my argument to real estate and automobiles? I assumed that the topic at hand would make it easy enough to discern the kinds of things I was talking about. Do I have to explicitly *list* everything, just to avoid responses like this? (which seem all too common...)
Do you realize how incredibly stupid that argument is? Who do you think produced and sold that "used" car? God?
His argument is that unlike cars, used books *can* be produced in a very short time. You read a new book in a day, then take it back. You've just created a used book.
Is someone going to buy a Mustang, drive it for a day, and then take it back? Sure, it *could* happen. But if we're going to be dealing in the realm of "could," you *could* send me your entire next paycheck.
The person who sold that car to the used car dealership *probably* replaced it with a new model. So the manufacturer ("publisher/author") made money.
The person who sold that used book back to the bookstore doesn't need to buy a new one. The bookstore gets to profit from it, but there's no guarantee that money made it back to the author because that person also bought another new book.
How about the used software bin?
In Japan, used video game sales are illegal, and here's why (I don't understand why most people don't get this): A video game creator doesn't sell you a catridge, or a CD, or a DVD, or whatever. They sell you an *experience* that *they* created, and *they* own. The media that you get this experience on is just a delivery tool for this experience. Think of it as your ticket to get into the movie theatre. After the experience is over, the author still owns it. It is *not* yours to sell. Fortunately with movies and concerts, you *can't* sell it, but it just doesn't work that way with video games, books, or CDs.
Let me reiterate: customers of mass-produced entertainment media do not own the experience on that media. It is not theirs to sell.
Did you help create Zelda: Ocarina of Time? No? Then you get to pay 50 bucks to play it, and you don't get to expect to make any money off of it later.
Sure, there's always the case where you get a crappy book or game. You should have every right to return it to the retailer and ask for a refund. But when you've gone through the game or book, and (gasp!) enjoyed it, that's it. You should put it on the shelf with your ticket stubs, because that's all it is (should be).
Now, if you can explain to me why you should get 1-time royalties for someone else's work, simply because you purchased 1 "ticket to ride," I'd be happy to hear.
Yes, I buy new whenever I can find a new copy. No, I don't sell my old copies. Of *anything*.
By the way, I'd guess 90% of the "mega-polygon-fests" are now done almost entirely with standard toolsets. The engines, sound, models and animations are almost all done in slick, automatic GUIs with full 3D view options and instant in-engine integration.
For a game using a pre-built engine, sure. But for anything else, your guess is wrong. Read some of the post-mortems on Gamasutra for some insight on how development goes. Almost every one will mention something about "I wish we'd had better tools to work with." Or "the tool we developed after the game was 95% complete would have saved us dozens/hundreds of hours if we'd built it earlier."
And if you're programming on a console (especially the PS2) and *aren't* coding "down to the metal," your game isn't going to look as good as other games that come out in the same timeframe. In the console world, people usually refer to "generations" of software, indicating the huge leaps in visuals between years, and that's almost entirely because the programmers get more familiar with the hardware's capabilities.
Microsoft WANTS things to break if you remove IE. Microsoft sabotages any competing product.
Of course, their own products break as well. So they're also sabotaging their own products.
And how many of those OS's give a damn if you use a different browser?
Umm, so far as I know, zero. It's the applications that rely on them that give a damn. Windows will happily boot without IE installed.
You are arguing that a school cafeteria cook should not be forced to stop putting cocaine in the food because that would inconvience the addicted students.
That's a stretch. How's this? You are arguing that it should be illegal for that same cafeteria to start including a free breath mint with the lunch, because it'll put the vending machine next door that sells them out of business.
And what does this mean for those who still can't program their VCR? Good one MS!
They'll still be able to 'play their tapes' and 'record their shows.' People who want to set up to automatically 'record on a sechedule' will have to RTFM.
As opposed to (long) past OSes where they couldn't figure out how to 'insert the tape.'
Remove obvious VCR analogies and replace with something PC related.
No FF, no MGS, not to mention their games tend to be kiddie games.
This is BS. Nintendo just doesn't make games with a lot of blood.
Mario 64 was an incredible game with wide appeal. Mario Kart 64 was an incredible game with wide appeal. Zelda: Ocarina of Time was an incredible game with wide appeal. Seeing a pattern? Smash Brothers, Majora's Mask, Star Fox, and dozens of great farmed out titles like Mario Tennis/Mario Party... Not to mention 2nd party Rare titles like Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, Jet Force Gemini...
Some people have just been programmed by (a long time ago) Sega and (now) Sony/MS that they're 'too cool for Nintendo.' I see it *all* the time when I'm in game shops and some foolish 16-year-old tells me that the Xbox has all the cool games like (and I quote): "Halo and Shrek" Shrek?
If you use your choice of video game console to somehow make you feel more 'mature,' take a look at this and think. (everyone else should, too. It's a good laugh.)
As far as Mature games for the 'Cube -- RE1 is coming out on April 30, and Eternal Darkness in June, then RE0 in September/October, as well as Metroid later this year. Rockstar also refuses to deny the possibility of a port of GTA3 to the 'Cube.
And while you're waiting for those, check out Pikmin if your masculinity can handle it, and Smash Brothers: Melee if you have friends that'll play it with you. Super Monkey Ball has been a huge hit for a multiplayer party game at my place. And there are plenty of other ports of this year's sports games if that's what you're into. NBA Street has been occupying a lot of my time recently, and a little Extreme G 3.
However, there's nothing stopping a developer from writing their own controls or using a library such as Qt for their UI.
And then the whole standard feel of Windows gets thrown out the proverbial window. Why are MS products easy to use for most people? They're consistent. The biggest reason for this is the almost exclusive use of common controls in most applications.
The crux of this is: Did Microsoft embed Internet Exploder into Windows? Yes. Is it mandatory to use this? NO!
Ok, so it's not mandatory to use. That's 100% correct. MS removes IE from Windows and makes it a separate product (or whatever unreasonable 'solution' is forced on MS' customers). Now 95% of the software written for Windows in the last 5 years is broken, because the IE controls aren't there. Sure, MS can include just the controls -- but since the controls basically *are* IE (I can write a fully functional web browser in about 20 lines of code using them), how's this different than just packaging IE with the OS?
Does anyone even think that IE *should* be removed from Windows anymore? Be honest. How many OSes have you installed recently that *didn't* come with a free browser. Should edit be removed from Windows because it unfairly competes with UltraEdit? Should Explorer be removed because it chokes out 3rd party filesystem browsers? Should the goddamn control panel be scrapped because it makes 'tweaking' programs unnecessary?
Note: I acknowledge that MS is a slimy company. I don't care for a lot of their actions. But this lawsuit's focus on IE is complete BS. It's a legitimate enhancement to the OS software bundle that also, conveniently, cut off Netscape's air supply. (which is fine by me, because anything beyond Nav3 was just buggy and slow)
--Jeremy
I didn't write what you wanted to hear. Mod me down.
You seem to be upset with the current technologies available to developers simply because they aren't photo-realistic. Or, in the case of bump mapping, it's a "cheap shortcut to REAL modeling." Well, yeah. That's exactly what it is. And, used correctly, it's extremely effective. (See Star Wars:Rogue Squardon 2 for an example)
But as for photo-realism, who cares? I, personally, think that the solutions people have come up with to maximize the hardware's potential are fascinating. And playing non-photo-realistic games has never been a problem for me, any more than watching a non-photo-realistic episode of the Simpsons.
Not that this has anything to do with nVidia vs. ATi. My $.02: Buy nVidia's high end cards if you're rich or like to waste money. Buy ATi's high end cards if you just want to play games and don't care about an extra 2% on your framerate.
The playstation reviews attack the platform as being inferior.
Well, it [the PS2] is. And no, there's no argument. The XBox has better hardware. So does the Gamecube.
But I'd buy a PS2 over an XBox any day of the week. So would a lot of other people, apparently, since the PS2 outsold the XBox and Gamecube combined nearly 2 to 1 last holiday season. (Sorry -- no link to source. Check IGN.com) Not everyone is fooled by marketing hype... Unfortunately, too many people still are.
I have a hard time using shooter games on a console. It's so much harder to control.
I completely disagree with this. The control isn't *harder*, it's just a little slower (since you can't whip your view around like with a mouse).
As long as the game is designed with this in mind, it's easy to tune the action and level design to compensate. I've played through several console FPSes and had a lot of fun with them.
Of course, if your idea of a fun FPS is a simple twitch action game, then a console FPS is not for you. (Neither is anything like Deus Ex).
I think the part in bold should be left out. I don't see the PC gaming industry as being any better. You just get more uninspired carbon-copy games on PC, and less of the commercial tie-in garbage.
The highlight/middle buttion is far better than the menu/keyboard shortcut method used in Gnome and Windows.
First: a Linux user saying that a mouse method is "far better than the menu/keyboard shortcut method"? Better than a keyboard method? Isn't it *nix advocates that love the command line?
Second: Bull-fskin'-shit. Any "shortcut" that forces me to take my hands off the keyboard, *ESPECIALLY* when I'm typing/coding, is not a shortcut. Here's a shortcut:
pressing ctrl-shift-left arrow to highlight previous word. ctrl-c to copy. down arrow, end key to move to end of next line. ctrl-v to paste.
It also helps that this works in *every* Windows application that I use. Anything that uses the standard text edit controls have the exact same command set.
If you really think the mouse is faster, you're fooling yourself. The mouse is still a great navigation tool, but it sucks for doing anything related to text-entry.
I don't understand *how* these posts that are written with a 4th-grade, finger-pointing, "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude are so consistently modded up. Is this really the best way to appeal to the typical slashdot readership?
The worst thing about this *entire* thread is that almost everyone is arguing the *same* points, just with different spins on them. Apparently, the more attitude you throw in with your post, the more popular it'll make you.
Now, call me a fuck face to feel better about yourself and watch the karma roll in.
2) Linux, unlike MS IE, is actually coming from a technical position of strength, if you all remember the version of IE that MS first put out, you'll understand where I'm coming from here, IE 1.0 was a joke, it was completely laughable, there was nothing even remotely in it that was percievably a threat to the dominant browser.
So, what, you're saying that, unlike IE/browsers, Linux version 1.0 *was* a threat to the (then) dominant OS?
Note: I'm not implying that v1.0 was laughable. Or that the article was well-written. But this whole IE/Netscape analogy is pretty weak to begin with. That was just the cherry on top.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? I bought a SBLive years ago, and am still using it today with zero problems.
98 worked great, 98se worked great, 2000 has been working great since the day I got it.
Hell, even the DOS soudcard emulation worked fine in both Windows 98 and straight DOS. Not supported under 2k, tho' -- for obvious reasons.
And when I bought it, it was the only reasonably-priced card I knew of that had EAX and 4-speaker output, as well as SPDIF input.
I still say it was worth every penny of the $89.99 I bought it for.
I've liked other Creative Labs hardware as well... Graphics Blaster TNT, Dxr2 DVD decoder, older hardware... Maybe I'm just lucky.
--Jeremy
Now it seems all they and the hardcore gamers care about is eye candy.
Someone who only cares about eye candy is not a hardcore gamer.
--Jeremy
Yup, Q3 and UT sure are bloatware. I mean, who wants something that looks better than what they had before? We should all be happy with Wolfenstein 3d-quality graphics in our games for all eternity.
And CAD applications sure are bloated, too. I mean, who would actually *want* to be able to model something and then preview it in real time? God, what a wasteful practice. They should've been happy with 16-color VGA graphics at 1024x768 interlaced. They should use their *imagination* for the preview, since isn't design all about imagination anyway?
And don't even get me started on OSes. Who wants a GUI? Everyone should be smart enough to figure out how to use a command line, or they shouldn't use a computer. Simple as that. I mean, it's not like 90% of our sensory input is visual or anything. There's no reason to try to give someone a graphical representation of information simply to make it easier to parse.
Now don't get me wrong, bloatware is out there. But it's *not* the driving force behind new PC sales. This sounds like something that one of my Windows-hating dinosaur-profs at school would say. ('I remember when non-volatile memory was punch cards! And that was good enough!')
And part of new hardware sales come from (gasp!) people who have never owned a computer before -- so they might as well buy new (the latest) hardware.
Besides -- if hardware hast to be fast enough to run everyone else's bloatware, imagine how fast it'll run your highly optimized, ultra-efficient apps. Are you going to complain about that?
--Jeremy
The parent poster said:
... that was verbatim with another student
He had a substantial amount of code
The code that students come up with may be similar, but the odds that they just happen to come up with the exact same spacing, variable names, capitalization isn't too likely. And it's pretty easy to spot when someone just does a search/replace on a few selected items, too. (I've helped grade programs before, and have seen some of this stuff at the university level)
--Jeremy
People always seem to forget Abuse (1995, Crack Dot Com, www.abuse2.com) when they discuss 'moddable' game engines.
When Abuse came out, to my knowledge, there were no other games with a built-in script interpreter. All of the game's AI routines were done in LISP, all easily editable by anyone who knew LISP (granted: most people don't know LISP), and the game engine has an integrated level editor. But this game came out a full year before Quake 1, and still never gets mentioned in these discussions. Hell, they even had a $1000 level creation contest when the game came out.
Truly a shame, because it's a great game, and the engine was way ahead of its time.
--Jeremy
and this gave performance gains for AMD over Intel, then Intel would suddenly switch into second place.
'Switch' into second place? AMD chips already outperform Intel chips (especially if you factor in price), and Intel still sells significantly more.
--Jeremy
Even with today's situation, there are several examples of such API standards, such as TCP/IP, OpenGL, HTML, XML, etc.
I hate to be nit-picky, but only one of the standards you mentioned above is actually an API.
Slashdot readers *do* know what an API is, right? Or is everyone like my CS classmates?
--Jeremy
They sell me an experience? Give me a break and come back to reality.
So you mean you buy stuff 'cuz you like the shiny CDs? You just like the smell of paper and ink? You don't actually buy it for the bits and letters on the surface?
Why not, then, just go out and buy blank CDs and paper? It's a hell of a lot cheaper that way.
You whiny people make me want to beat the crap out of something.
Who's whining? The person advocating the support of artists, or the person who complains that it's 'too expensive' (or whatever argument) to do so?
--Jeremy
The content industries don't like this because a service-based model is MUCH more profitable.
Let me just make one thing clear: I'm not siding with the content industries. I'm siding with the authors and artists that create this stuff. Unfortunately, the only way to support them is to also support the industry that exploits them until a reasonable alternative is found.
Maybe it's just that I'm hyper-sensitive to artists' rights, but I feel obligated to compensate someone who has had a positive impact on my life. It seems only fair.
If you like paying for things you don't own, thats great, and have fun with it. I hope you also never move and sell your house, and that garage space for all your cars doesn't get too expensive.
Who extended my argument to real estate and automobiles? I assumed that the topic at hand would make it easy enough to discern the kinds of things I was talking about. Do I have to explicitly *list* everything, just to avoid responses like this? (which seem all too common...)
--Jeremy
Do you realize how incredibly stupid that argument is? Who do you think produced and sold that "used" car? God?
His argument is that unlike cars, used books *can* be produced in a very short time. You read a new book in a day, then take it back. You've just created a used book.
Is someone going to buy a Mustang, drive it for a day, and then take it back? Sure, it *could* happen. But if we're going to be dealing in the realm of "could," you *could* send me your entire next paycheck.
--Jeremy
Why? Do you get creeped out by the used car lot?
The person who sold that car to the used car dealership *probably* replaced it with a new model. So the manufacturer ("publisher/author") made money.
The person who sold that used book back to the bookstore doesn't need to buy a new one. The bookstore gets to profit from it, but there's no guarantee that money made it back to the author because that person also bought another new book.
How about the used software bin?
In Japan, used video game sales are illegal, and here's why (I don't understand why most people don't get this): A video game creator doesn't sell you a catridge, or a CD, or a DVD, or whatever. They sell you an *experience* that *they* created, and *they* own. The media that you get this experience on is just a delivery tool for this experience. Think of it as your ticket to get into the movie theatre. After the experience is over, the author still owns it. It is *not* yours to sell. Fortunately with movies and concerts, you *can't* sell it, but it just doesn't work that way with video games, books, or CDs.
Let me reiterate: customers of mass-produced entertainment media do not own the experience on that media. It is not theirs to sell.
Did you help create Zelda: Ocarina of Time? No? Then you get to pay 50 bucks to play it, and you don't get to expect to make any money off of it later.
Sure, there's always the case where you get a crappy book or game. You should have every right to return it to the retailer and ask for a refund. But when you've gone through the game or book, and (gasp!) enjoyed it, that's it. You should put it on the shelf with your ticket stubs, because that's all it is (should be).
Now, if you can explain to me why you should get 1-time royalties for someone else's work, simply because you purchased 1 "ticket to ride," I'd be happy to hear.
Yes, I buy new whenever I can find a new copy. No, I don't sell my old copies. Of *anything*.
--Jeremy
By the way, I'd guess 90% of the "mega-polygon-fests" are now done almost entirely with standard toolsets. The engines, sound, models and animations are almost all done in slick, automatic GUIs with full 3D view options and instant in-engine integration.
For a game using a pre-built engine, sure. But for anything else, your guess is wrong. Read some of the post-mortems on Gamasutra for some insight on how development goes. Almost every one will mention something about "I wish we'd had better tools to work with." Or "the tool we developed after the game was 95% complete would have saved us dozens/hundreds of hours if we'd built it earlier."
And if you're programming on a console (especially the PS2) and *aren't* coding "down to the metal," your game isn't going to look as good as other games that come out in the same timeframe. In the console world, people usually refer to "generations" of software, indicating the huge leaps in visuals between years, and that's almost entirely because the programmers get more familiar with the hardware's capabilities.
--Jeremy
Microsoft WANTS things to break if you remove IE. Microsoft sabotages any competing product.
Of course, their own products break as well. So they're also sabotaging their own products.
And how many of those OS's give a damn if you use a different browser?
Umm, so far as I know, zero. It's the applications that rely on them that give a damn. Windows will happily boot without IE installed.
You are arguing that a school cafeteria cook should not be forced to stop putting cocaine in the food because that would inconvience the addicted students.
That's a stretch. How's this? You are arguing that it should be illegal for that same cafeteria to start including a free breath mint with the lunch, because it'll put the vending machine next door that sells them out of business.
The IE focus of the lawsuit is still BS.
--Jeremy
Nope. Only for the 'Cube. PS2/XBox owners are too cool to play a kiddie game like Sonic.
--Jeremy
And what does this mean for those who still can't program their VCR? Good one MS!
They'll still be able to 'play their tapes' and 'record their shows.' People who want to set up to automatically 'record on a sechedule' will have to RTFM.
As opposed to (long) past OSes where they couldn't figure out how to 'insert the tape.'
Remove obvious VCR analogies and replace with something PC related.
--Jeremy
do wish they had that Oddworld ported to the GameCube though ...
... No you don't. At least, not if the demo is any indication of what the game is like.
Ugh
--Jeremy
No FF, no MGS, not to mention their games tend to be kiddie games.
... Not to mention 2nd party Rare titles like Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, Jet Force Gemini...
This is BS. Nintendo just doesn't make games with a lot of blood.
Mario 64 was an incredible game with wide appeal. Mario Kart 64 was an incredible game with wide appeal. Zelda: Ocarina of Time was an incredible game with wide appeal. Seeing a pattern? Smash Brothers, Majora's Mask, Star Fox, and dozens of great farmed out titles like Mario Tennis/Mario Party
Some people have just been programmed by (a long time ago) Sega and (now) Sony/MS that they're 'too cool for Nintendo.' I see it *all* the time when I'm in game shops and some foolish 16-year-old tells me that the Xbox has all the cool games like (and I quote): "Halo and Shrek" Shrek?
If you use your choice of video game console to somehow make you feel more 'mature,' take a look at this and think. (everyone else should, too. It's a good laugh.)
As far as Mature games for the 'Cube -- RE1 is coming out on April 30, and Eternal Darkness in June, then RE0 in September/October, as well as Metroid later this year. Rockstar also refuses to deny the possibility of a port of GTA3 to the 'Cube.
And while you're waiting for those, check out Pikmin if your masculinity can handle it, and Smash Brothers: Melee if you have friends that'll play it with you. Super Monkey Ball has been a huge hit for a multiplayer party game at my place. And there are plenty of other ports of this year's sports games if that's what you're into. NBA Street has been occupying a lot of my time recently, and a little Extreme G 3.
--Jeremy
However, there's nothing stopping a developer from writing their own controls or using a library such as Qt for their UI.
And then the whole standard feel of Windows gets thrown out the proverbial window. Why are MS products easy to use for most people? They're consistent. The biggest reason for this is the almost exclusive use of common controls in most applications.
The crux of this is: Did Microsoft embed Internet Exploder into Windows? Yes. Is it mandatory to use this? NO!
Ok, so it's not mandatory to use. That's 100% correct. MS removes IE from Windows and makes it a separate product (or whatever unreasonable 'solution' is forced on MS' customers). Now 95% of the software written for Windows in the last 5 years is broken, because the IE controls aren't there. Sure, MS can include just the controls -- but since the controls basically *are* IE (I can write a fully functional web browser in about 20 lines of code using them), how's this different than just packaging IE with the OS?
Does anyone even think that IE *should* be removed from Windows anymore? Be honest. How many OSes have you installed recently that *didn't* come with a free browser. Should edit be removed from Windows because it unfairly competes with UltraEdit? Should Explorer be removed because it chokes out 3rd party filesystem browsers? Should the goddamn control panel be scrapped because it makes 'tweaking' programs unnecessary?
Note: I acknowledge that MS is a slimy company. I don't care for a lot of their actions. But this lawsuit's focus on IE is complete BS. It's a legitimate enhancement to the OS software bundle that also, conveniently, cut off Netscape's air supply. (which is fine by me, because anything beyond Nav3 was just buggy and slow)
--Jeremy
I didn't write what you wanted to hear. Mod me down.
You seem to be upset with the current technologies available to developers simply because they aren't photo-realistic. Or, in the case of bump mapping, it's a "cheap shortcut to REAL modeling." Well, yeah. That's exactly what it is. And, used correctly, it's extremely effective. (See Star Wars:Rogue Squardon 2 for an example)
But as for photo-realism, who cares? I, personally, think that the solutions people have come up with to maximize the hardware's potential are fascinating. And playing non-photo-realistic games has never been a problem for me, any more than watching a non-photo-realistic episode of the Simpsons.
Not that this has anything to do with nVidia vs. ATi. My $.02: Buy nVidia's high end cards if you're rich or like to waste money. Buy ATi's high end cards if you just want to play games and don't care about an extra 2% on your framerate.
--Jeremy
The playstation reviews attack the platform as being inferior.
Well, it [the PS2] is. And no, there's no argument. The XBox has better hardware. So does the Gamecube.
But I'd buy a PS2 over an XBox any day of the week. So would a lot of other people, apparently, since the PS2 outsold the XBox and Gamecube combined nearly 2 to 1 last holiday season. (Sorry -- no link to source. Check IGN.com) Not everyone is fooled by marketing hype... Unfortunately, too many people still are.
Note: I'm currently a Gamecube owner.
--Jeremy
I have a hard time using shooter games on a console. It's so much harder to control.
I completely disagree with this. The control isn't *harder*, it's just a little slower (since you can't whip your view around like with a mouse).
As long as the game is designed with this in mind, it's easy to tune the action and level design to compensate. I've played through several console FPSes and had a lot of fun with them.
Of course, if your idea of a fun FPS is a simple twitch action game, then a console FPS is not for you. (Neither is anything like Deus Ex).
--Jeremy
has been standard on the console
I think the part in bold should be left out. I don't see the PC gaming industry as being any better. You just get more uninspired carbon-copy games on PC, and less of the commercial tie-in garbage.
--Jeremy
The highlight/middle buttion is far better than the menu/keyboard shortcut method used in Gnome and Windows.
First: a Linux user saying that a mouse method is "far better than the menu/keyboard shortcut method"? Better than a keyboard method? Isn't it *nix advocates that love the command line?
Second: Bull-fskin'-shit. Any "shortcut" that forces me to take my hands off the keyboard, *ESPECIALLY* when I'm typing/coding, is not a shortcut. Here's a shortcut:
pressing ctrl-shift-left arrow to highlight previous word. ctrl-c to copy. down arrow, end key to move to end of next line. ctrl-v to paste.
It also helps that this works in *every* Windows application that I use. Anything that uses the standard text edit controls have the exact same command set.
If you really think the mouse is faster, you're fooling yourself. The mouse is still a great navigation tool, but it sucks for doing anything related to text-entry.
--Jeremy
I don't understand *how* these posts that are written with a 4th-grade, finger-pointing, "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude are so consistently modded up. Is this really the best way to appeal to the typical slashdot readership?
The worst thing about this *entire* thread is that almost everyone is arguing the *same* points, just with different spins on them. Apparently, the more attitude you throw in with your post, the more popular it'll make you.
Now, call me a fuck face to feel better about yourself and watch the karma roll in.
--Jeremy
2) Linux, unlike MS IE, is actually coming from a technical position of strength, if you all remember the version of IE that MS first put out, you'll understand where I'm coming from here, IE 1.0 was a joke, it was completely laughable, there was nothing even remotely in it that was percievably a threat to the dominant browser.
So, what, you're saying that, unlike IE/browsers, Linux version 1.0 *was* a threat to the (then) dominant OS?
Note: I'm not implying that v1.0 was laughable. Or that the article was well-written. But this whole IE/Netscape analogy is pretty weak to begin with. That was just the cherry on top.
--Jeremy