I'm sorry, who's coffin is the nail for? SOE's? Sorry to break it to you, but Star Wars Galaxies is going to sell, sell, sell and then sell some more. Even if they game utterly sucks they're going to make a whole wad of cash from the initial sales of the game and the ongoing monthly tithes from the players.
Admittedly, there's a lot of that kind of stuff that goes on in ever MMORPG when a beta ends. Beta testers ALWAYS say the game shouldn't be released, it's too full of bugs, blah blah blah. The thing is, they're RIGHT. These games aren't released bug-free, there's always stuff broken, missing, and the client is generally unstable for a sizable percentage of people who play. That's precisely why you wait at least two or three months before buying in.
I guess what I'm saying is, I agree with half of what you're saying, and disagree with the contradicting parts.:-) Note; I'm not a SWG beta player either, but I also beta'd EVE and holy shit was that game screwed leading up to release. Yes they fixed a lot of the bugs, but I found the problem with EVE wasn't the client stability (was pretty good on my system actually, better than most) but the entire game itself. Great concept, fucking boring execution. That being said, I'm still keeping my eye on it to see how(/if) it grows.
I'm not entirely sure I'd like Planetside either, the idea of paying monthly for what amounts to a first-person shooter doesn't make any sesne to me. I mean I know there's development of your character and whatnot so it's not just a normal FPS, but with so many other decent ones out there that don't charge monthly.....
At any rate, thanks a bunch -- it's good to know SOE is up to its old tricks with SWG, so I can ignore their products entirely and spend my money elsewhere too.:-)
Sounds like standard fare for MMOGs to me. Personally, I welcome these kinds of limitations on naming. Kind of hard to immerse yourself in the game when you're wandering around and spot people named purely to amuse themselves and all their 10 year old buddies, and to annoy everyone else. I also have no sympathy for people who skip that little bit of text when they start playing the game, create a retarded name for their avatar and then get all pissy when a GM renames it for him.
From what I'm reading of some of the comments in the SWG forums from beta players, this is going to be a MMORPG first and a Star Wars game second. I suppose that's good in some ways and bad in others. I DO like what the Penny Arcade guys had to say about it a week or two ago here. Paraphrased, basically that SWG could probably be considered to be a great MMORPG in its own rights, but many people play to be immersed in the Star Wars universe you imagine, as depicted in the Star Wars movies-- and it's simply not that.
Disclaimer, I haven't played the beta at all, simply going on comments from others, and I fully realize gaming forums aren't the BEST place for opinions. I'll probably wait for a buddy to pick it up and check it out then... in the meantime, I'll stick with Dark Age of Camelot.
I'm having a hard time understanding how anyone (even an uberfan of Gundam, 20 years!! my respects, sir) can be truly disappointed by this. Were you expecting anything else, really? After years and years of the/vast/ majority of games only coming out on the Windows platform?
As "artists", looking at what songs are downloaded more than others can be invaluable feedback on what kind of music you're creating is popular. How often do these people get the kind of feedback from their loving labels that tells them out of fifteen songs on their last album users thought songs one, four and eight are their most popular? And that say songs fourteen and fifteen were the least popular? I mean technically they could look at that and say "Whoa, if we did an album that sounded like those two songs it's going to not sell as well, or get such crummy reviews we'd be out of the biz."
Given the fact that the average pop music act has an average life expectancy in the limelight of a year or two at best, I think they should be looking at this kind of information seriously. And currently, I think the best source of that information is going to be single-file download services where the user can preview the entire album before picking the wheat from the chaff.
Interesting! One article I'd read stated that he had admitted some measure of guilt and offered up his savings. That's probably more a measure of differing editorial opinions on what his monetary offer meant.
I agree. But I think the reason these things get so much attention is that the RIAA isn't just being bitchy, they're utterly ruining peoples' lives over this stuff. Take for example the student some weeks ago that admitted his guilt and offered to fork over his entire goddamn life savings as compensation-- which the RIAA gladly did, instead of simply saying 'ok, he learned his lesson'.
I totally agree with you that they can't take everyone to court and that others will continue mooching files. However, I also look at it your post and wonder if your thinking would be adjusted if they smacked you with a gajillion dollar lawsuit; that's my issue with people taking an apathetic stance on these things.
I don't think they're making too big a deal out of this. This IS a big deal for Windows users (not the average ones mind you, but that should go without saying), especially system administrators. I would rather not take this issue and do an OS to OS comparison as a segue into which one is better than the other -- it's meaningless in this case.
I'm not entirely sure you understand what WinFS is trying to do.
For one, the directory tree is NOT being cast aside. A directory tree will merely be a view of the file system. One of the main advantages of this system is that your view of it can potentially be whatever you want. Imagine being able to run your own SQL type queries against your filesystem; the possibilities are nearly endless. You'd essentially be able to perform searches on your files with a broad scope all the way to an exceedingly fine scope -- and the results can be displayed to you however you wish. SQL Server currently can retrieve data and output it in XML-- if WinFS maintains this functionality on some level you could parse the data on your filesystem in whatever manner you wish.
Second, you mention how you can use a relational database to keep track of files and let the filesystem do the storage work -- that's precisely what's happening with WinFS. MS is basically just integrating (for lack of a better term) the two together in a transparent manner to the user.
I don't see this as reinventing the wheel at all. I see it as them taking the big ugly square wheel the've been using in the past and making it round(er), with a nice rubber tire on the outside for grip. Admittedly I'm no expert on WinFS (and nobody here can really claim to be since so little is known about it). What I've read so far on other sites, this Tom's article telling us jack shit really, it's a step in the right direction.
Just what I expected. The review barely qualifies as such, but its overview covers what most suspect -- that these are low power machines built for low power work. That being said, I think the concept is fantastic. For the starving students out there this can be an utterly cheap solution for having a PC to type stuff up on. This would also be good for having "dumb terminals" for other rooms around the house.
Since when was the Lindows market huge? I see nothing that states authoritatively that Lindows is nipping at he heels of anyone in terms of market share. I don't think they're after the Lindows market at all, I think it's simply to stomp out a product that's the victim of idiotic naming.
I wonder how much they'd be going after students if they started receiving their settlements in the form of quarters or nickels (I doubt you could scrounge up 1.2 million pennies, but hey -- never underestimate the power of/. )
One of the interesting aspects of 13th Floor is how there were rules inherent in the system designed to prevent the simulated individuals from realizing they were being simulated. In the movie, the only reason the sims (for lack of a better term) found out was because of outside meddling by the simulation creators into the simulation itself, by them taking control of a particular sim as an avatar. If one were to create a perfect simulation of human existence, I figure a couple of things would hold true:
1. It would be fully observable from outside the simulation itself requiring no interaction with the environment or the simulated persons
2. You would have a series of rules inherent in the system that would prevent the simulated people from ever realizing they were being simulated in the first place
Of course if you look at articles and discussions like these you have to wonder: has someone violated rule #1 in our own particular simulacrum?:)
This is too common a phenomenon!
Where's the actual story?
Glad I wasn't the only one. I clicked all the links and found no article that had anything to do with computational requirements of The Matrix (I was expecting stuff like HD space, memory, etc).
... and yet none of you actually subscribe in order to keep the site going. Typical attitude here: "Let's fund a new k001 slashdot cruiser "
Hey I'd subscribe to/. if it meant I could hold lan parties on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Find a jerk using a cheat in CS? Use the deck catapult to fling his box a few km away
Lets put together a trust fund to buy this thing in the name of nerd news and matter-ful stuff. With the sizable readership of this site we could probably drop in a few bucks a piece to purchase it.:)
Of course the task force is small now. I've never worked on a project where a gigantic team of hundreds was allocated the task of the initial analysis. I can guarantee that tomorrow these ten people will not be sitting down and writing code. Come back to this in six months or a year and see how big the team is.
... for those night-vision wearing voyeuristic pigs to watch me playing tonsil hockey with my girlfriend during a movie? Last I heard they charged people for that kind of thing...
Wasn't there an article a while back about research into peizoelectric layers in cement? The idea being that if you had this on the roads, sidewalks, floors, whatever, the act of walking and driving would cause miniscule amounts of electricity to be created. Multiply the effect of a single person's step or a single car driving across a whole city, country, continent or whatever and you have something.
IIRC, this doesn't offset the energy cost to actually move the cars on the road or whatever, but it's simply a supplemental return. I have no idea how viable the whole thing would be, it just felt pertinent to mention again. Comments, corrections, etc?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, who's coffin is the nail for? SOE's? Sorry to break it to you, but Star Wars Galaxies is going to sell, sell, sell and then sell some more. Even if they game utterly sucks they're going to make a whole wad of cash from the initial sales of the game and the ongoing monthly tithes from the players.
I guess what I'm saying is, I agree with half of what you're saying, and disagree with the contradicting parts. :-) Note; I'm not a SWG beta player either, but I also beta'd EVE and holy shit was that game screwed leading up to release. Yes they fixed a lot of the bugs, but I found the problem with EVE wasn't the client stability (was pretty good on my system actually, better than most) but the entire game itself. Great concept, fucking boring execution. That being said, I'm still keeping my eye on it to see how(/if) it grows.
At any rate, thanks a bunch -- it's good to know SOE is up to its old tricks with SWG, so I can ignore their products entirely and spend my money elsewhere too. :-)
Sounds like standard fare for MMOGs to me. Personally, I welcome these kinds of limitations on naming. Kind of hard to immerse yourself in the game when you're wandering around and spot people named purely to amuse themselves and all their 10 year old buddies, and to annoy everyone else. I also have no sympathy for people who skip that little bit of text when they start playing the game, create a retarded name for their avatar and then get all pissy when a GM renames it for him.
Disclaimer, I haven't played the beta at all, simply going on comments from others, and I fully realize gaming forums aren't the BEST place for opinions. I'll probably wait for a buddy to pick it up and check it out then... in the meantime, I'll stick with Dark Age of Camelot.
I'm having a hard time understanding how anyone (even an uberfan of Gundam, 20 years!! my respects, sir) can be truly disappointed by this. Were you expecting anything else, really? After years and years of the /vast/ majority of games only coming out on the Windows platform?
Given the fact that the average pop music act has an average life expectancy in the limelight of a year or two at best, I think they should be looking at this kind of information seriously. And currently, I think the best source of that information is going to be single-file download services where the user can preview the entire album before picking the wheat from the chaff.
1,084,184 BioWare Users:
179 Logged In
20 Hidden
536 Guests
3226 Playing Online
Not too shabby.
Interesting! One article I'd read stated that he had admitted some measure of guilt and offered up his savings. That's probably more a measure of differing editorial opinions on what his monetary offer meant.
I totally agree with you that they can't take everyone to court and that others will continue mooching files. However, I also look at it your post and wonder if your thinking would be adjusted if they smacked you with a gajillion dollar lawsuit; that's my issue with people taking an apathetic stance on these things.
I don't think they're making too big a deal out of this. This IS a big deal for Windows users (not the average ones mind you, but that should go without saying), especially system administrators. I would rather not take this issue and do an OS to OS comparison as a segue into which one is better than the other -- it's meaningless in this case.
For one, the directory tree is NOT being cast aside. A directory tree will merely be a view of the file system. One of the main advantages of this system is that your view of it can potentially be whatever you want. Imagine being able to run your own SQL type queries against your filesystem; the possibilities are nearly endless. You'd essentially be able to perform searches on your files with a broad scope all the way to an exceedingly fine scope -- and the results can be displayed to you however you wish. SQL Server currently can retrieve data and output it in XML-- if WinFS maintains this functionality on some level you could parse the data on your filesystem in whatever manner you wish.
Second, you mention how you can use a relational database to keep track of files and let the filesystem do the storage work -- that's precisely what's happening with WinFS. MS is basically just integrating (for lack of a better term) the two together in a transparent manner to the user.
I don't see this as reinventing the wheel at all. I see it as them taking the big ugly square wheel the've been using in the past and making it round(er), with a nice rubber tire on the outside for grip. Admittedly I'm no expert on WinFS (and nobody here can really claim to be since so little is known about it). What I've read so far on other sites, this Tom's article telling us jack shit really, it's a step in the right direction.
Just what I expected. The review barely qualifies as such, but its overview covers what most suspect -- that these are low power machines built for low power work. That being said, I think the concept is fantastic. For the starving students out there this can be an utterly cheap solution for having a PC to type stuff up on. This would also be good for having "dumb terminals" for other rooms around the house.
Probably don't want to use Cappuccinos because they'd like to finish rendering by the December release date of THIS year.
Figure that out all by yourself? They've been doing that since the 80's.
Since when was the Lindows market huge? I see nothing that states authoritatively that Lindows is nipping at he heels of anyone in terms of market share. I don't think they're after the Lindows market at all, I think it's simply to stomp out a product that's the victim of idiotic naming.
(the text messagers out there should get it at least)
I wonder how much they'd be going after students if they started receiving their settlements in the form of quarters or nickels (I doubt you could scrounge up 1.2 million pennies, but hey -- never underestimate the power of /. )
1. It would be fully observable from outside the simulation itself requiring no interaction with the environment or the simulated persons
2. You would have a series of rules inherent in the system that would prevent the simulated people from ever realizing they were being simulated in the first place
Of course if you look at articles and discussions like these you have to wonder: has someone violated rule #1 in our own particular simulacrum? :)
Glad I wasn't the only one. I clicked all the links and found no article that had anything to do with computational requirements of The Matrix (I was expecting stuff like HD space, memory, etc).
Hey I'd subscribe to /. if it meant I could hold lan parties on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Find a jerk using a cheat in CS? Use the deck catapult to fling his box a few km away
Lets put together a trust fund to buy this thing in the name of nerd news and matter-ful stuff. With the sizable readership of this site we could probably drop in a few bucks a piece to purchase it. :)
Of course the task force is small now. I've never worked on a project where a gigantic team of hundreds was allocated the task of the initial analysis. I can guarantee that tomorrow these ten people will not be sitting down and writing code. Come back to this in six months or a year and see how big the team is.
... for those night-vision wearing voyeuristic pigs to watch me playing tonsil hockey with my girlfriend during a movie? Last I heard they charged people for that kind of thing...
IIRC, this doesn't offset the energy cost to actually move the cars on the road or whatever, but it's simply a supplemental return. I have no idea how viable the whole thing would be, it just felt pertinent to mention again. Comments, corrections, etc?