"so Valve wins here in terms of what it can create out of the box"
??? I would not say that: Unreal has exporters for all mayor 3d platforms...more out of the box (or out of UDN) compatibility than Hammer.
"It seems the biggest factor in choosing an engine is what's going to get your mod the most exposure"
Again, I wouldn't entirely agree...a hell of a lot of people decide what engine to use more on easy of use and even more importantly on capability: 'can I do such and such, and how much time will it take me to implement it?'...basically the exact same question any gamedev asks. I'd even go so far as to say that engine market penetration is the lesser of the looked at factors (although of course there needs to be some level of installed userbase; Serious Engine is not an option for many larger mod teams, no matter how easy it is to use...or even Farcry for that matter).
But I do think you're right: due to Steam (and capability of the engine), Source is this round's winner...until Unreal Engine 3 becomes available: Unreal is much more mod friendly even as Unreal Engine 2, but the capabilities of Unreal engine 3 will far outmatch Source, seeing as it will come out soon (compared to the next Valve engine) and the fact that EPIC have some insane mod supoport going on.
You're not the only one to have followed HL2 and read those stories and more...which still leaves open my question on profit-distrubution.
Re:Slightly dissapointing
on
Creative Data Loss
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Ain't that the truth: I just put back in my SB Live and am selling my brand new audigy 2 zs. The zs sounds nice enough, but it just won't wake up after standby. And that's pretty important seeing as I use my computer as an alarm clock. And you should check out the Creative forums for a brilliant example of how a company acts when they're product is buggy as hell.
You seem to have some inside info on what the terms of the contracts between Valve and Vivendi were...somehow I doubt all that info you spout re the financial profitsharing is based on fact rather than speculation.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Valve did get at least 10% sales through Steam...especially after all the news (like the so called Vivendi six month hold up) a hefty lot of gamers broke down and bought it through Steam just to play CS:Source. I haven't checked, but having a look at the online game playing figures would give a decent indication of how well Steam has done up to now...and don't forget all the ATI card buyers, who are 'doomed' to use Steam, as their only options (realistically) are to settle for the bronze Steam package or an upgrade to that Steam install.
Hmmm...don't seem to be any cynical realists on/. today. Had I modpoints, I'd mod you insightfull; the timing of the two releases is just too fortunate.
And that's where it starts. There are now techniques, called transmutation, which can transform nuclear waste products with halflives in the hundreds of thousands of years into materials with halflives of a thousand years. When you do this on a mass-scale, that means you only have to contain that waste for a thousand years. And that is not only doable, but we currently already have the technology to contain this material for a thousand years. This effectively means that nuclear waste is no longer a problem (after everything is scaled for mass-use, which of course takes some years to ramp up to).
So we're left with catastrophic nuclear power plant failure. This is something which even in current nuclear reactors is unlikely. The only reason Chernobyl happened is becuase they where stupid: to test one safety feature, they/dissabled all the other safeguards!/. Which is just asking for it. But even then you can make the case that stupid or not, it did happen. Which is utterly true...and leads us to the next generation of reactors (which the FPP links to). These new reactors are idiotproof. The cannot meltdown. It is physically impossible due to the integrated design: if the cooling shuts down, the nuclear reaction stops. And not because someone presses a button to do so, but because the shape/design of the reactor makes it so: no cooling, no reaction. In about the same way that roller-coaster brakes work: no electricity means the brakes have to engage; look up these auto-engaging brakes to see how designs based on these kinds of physical safeguards can work.
If you don't beleive me, well, everything is google-able. Not only that, but top-environmentalists make the same case: the greenest form of energy is nuclear. Even the most hardcore eco-nut is coming 'round to this view.
And if you're only info to the contrary is that 'Greenpeace is against it'...let me tell you something: Greenpeace does some good stuff. But only because they're lucky once in a while (remember Brent-Spar?). Fact of the matter is that Greenpeace is a PR-firm. They do not employ scientists as a matter of course. In the Netherlands, they only have 5 acedemics working for them. Only one of those has a degree in the sciences...and that one is in Aerospace. At the time they came 'round to my university and told us, a class of freshman Applied Physics students, that Greenpeace didn't have a place for us unless it was as activist. GreenPeace only has one laboratory in the entire world...and they rent that one, including the labbies (not even scientists, 'just' the guys who do a soil sample analysis using the checklist) to do their work. They do not do their own research, they do not employ people who know anything about what they're protesting against: GreenPeace is a reactionary PR-firm, which just happens to do some stuff which is worthwhile. So my point is listen to the scientists: the physicists, the environmental scientists and the material scientists. They'll give you the correct data, including error-margins and safety estimations.
Even if this is teid to partisan bickering, it is something which should just be fixed. Any party against the opening up of such machinery can only do so because it has something to hide; on something as basic as the/integrety/ of the election process, there is no reason not to better it, no matter how much money it costs.
What you say could well be basically correct. The problem that arises (by the very nature of a two-party ystem) is that even though the Replubicans only just barely won, they do get to (and will, the past four years have shown) utterly disregard the other side.
And that is disregard for democracy; democracy is about rule, taking into account all of the people you rule over. Which means that if 50% want to have abortions, the other 50% will just have to live with that choice and be happy with their choice not to have abortions. This is not what will happen; the religious right gets to speak the next four years, and will make the case that they have the mandate to do so.
Which is scary, because now it is not just the arabs, but also the gay people who are the new 'niggers' on the block.
And this being an american site, I'll now have to appologise for my use of a derogatory word. But I won't: the word exacly fits here; it exactly describes their situation in much the way that 'exploited african-american a couple of decades ago' doesn't.
The even scarier thing is that now, such qualifiers will have to be added much more often, seeing as the politically correct yet radically discriminating (towards one faction or another) fundamentalist chistians have won.
Which really bugs me: religion has no place in politics, except for the fact that you have to keep in mind the various religions of the people in your country. Why? Because even if your whole country is christian/muslim/hindu/whatever, you have to look out for that lonely athiest/budhist and let him do what he wants as long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of the others. Such as in the case of abortion and gay marriage, which is argued against solely out of religious beliefs...which shouldn't be allowable in a court of law in the first place.
And the irony of course is that the america's got settled by people who wanted to get away from religious persecution in europe...
"Can we at least agree (within obvious boundaries) to trust the process?"
I'm surprised at all americans...Florida in 2000 has been proof that it is exactly the process which CAN'T be trusted. Striking thousands off the rolls based on having nothing more than the same last name as a criminal, or contesting your right to vote based solely on the fact that you didn't reply to a letter/sent by the 'other' side/. Add to that the fact that the largest supplier of voting machines, which have been proved beyond any doubt to not be secure, has ties with the ruling party and has publically said that he will do anything to help said party...
How could anyone in their right mind not be suspicious of the process? Especially when it has demonstably been abused in the past.
It's more of a general question: I've never played CoH, but I do know that in many MMORPG's griefing (which I define as a high level character fucking a low level character [don't bother, Trolls: you know/exactly/ what I mean]) occurs.
What I want to ask an actual designer of MMORPG's is why that kind of thing hasn't been implemented, because it could negate the 'PvE vs. PvP' discussion: That discussion only occurs because of people abusing it.
Furhtermore, there are many examples I didn't give (either becuase they're so far out, or because I wanne be a gamedev at one point too;P), like setting up the dev's as gods: imagine an MMORPG where there is something wrong in the gamebalance, which doesn't come up in forums (or maybe does, whatever). Now imagine someone pissed off enough to actually make a journey to the gods to complain. Screw forums: let the ingame character make that journeyt. If someone (or a group...hell, the larger the group the better!) thinks it's important enough to trouble the gods (who could have representatives ingame, for example a couple of live-team dev's posing as 'disciples' or priests or whatever, or even having msg's to those priests flagged and forwarded to the emails of those dev's)...
Anyway, imagine someone thought an issue important enough to take the trouble to finish an entire ingame quest...not only would it be cool that you could do that, but to actually have the dev's take something like that seriously...instant player gratification and instant newbies (who would resist a game where you could petition the 'gods'). Now I know something like this isn't a sinecure. It doesn't fix everything that is broken. But the player reward, the player investment...the fixes possible to the gameworld if/when a dev takes this seriously enough to actually consider it...just remeber that an MMORPG only works if peop[le buy into it...and that only happens if they think they have an investment in the world.
Man, maybe I'll reply coherently enough when I'm sober and have dealt with my break-up:P
What's stopping more real-life equivalents from crossing over into MMORPG's?
I'll give an examples to illustrate my point: -griefers are a problem; why not allow either (part of) the dedicated live team or 'the good players' (meaning those who play a lot and have good community standing [you dev's know who your cream of the crop are] and maybe an innate sense of fairness) to become cops or peacekeepers within the game? Give 'em not-exactly-admin powers, but enough to grief a griefer (maybe after being called up on an ingame 'hotline' and judging the situation).
My point is really that MMORPG's have real-world problems...so why not use more tried and true real-life solutions?
"Of course, transitions to space are handled by annoying load screens too..."
Man, that's evidence of real bad vision. It could have been so cool: you get in your ship on the ground, lift off and have a view of the sky. This image is screen captured (or generic or whatever) and serves as loading screen, progress being shown by the sky's texture palette slowly being rotated towards black. When loading is complete, the sky is totally black, the stars pop up and you're in space!
Come on, that would rock...it would look cool and be immersive: for the first time loading actually helping immersion by representing the time it takes to get to space.
Too true. And you knoww how you get that? Have a game where there is a max to stats and the only reason to play is because the actual game is fun to play!
How this would work is that you start off creating your character, spending skill points where you want...but within a reasonable time, you max out your skills to a humanly normal point. Now you have everyone within a band of skill which isn't that wide...which means the longtime players will play with the noobs, because there isn't that much difference in the actual skills, just a difference in knowledge of the game (kinda like real life, where the old dog takes the new guy under his wing).
The problem? You need gameplay which is actually fun instead of a grind, gameplay which is challenging and doesn't rely on new trinkets to keep people locked in. Basically GTA3/:VC, with lots of emergent gameplay; a fun sandbox. My god, if I where rich I'd buy Rockstar Games and force them to build a Shadowrun-esque MMORPG using the principles above.
Bullshit. If you where, you'd be crying because of how JTL incorporates nothing found in a sim. Hell, they even cut out the engine/laser/shield management found in the/real/ starwars sims like Xwing/XvT/etc. Appart from that, the JTL flightmodel sucks and is unrealistic (to the point where standing still is often the best action in a dogfight...I mean WTF?!?)...the only way you could be into sims is if you mean The Sims.
The flight model sucks and JTL is like EQ in space...what more do you need?
I've said it before and I'll say it again: had they just updated Tiefighter vs Xwing, plonked some RPG hooks in there, added bigass spacestations and a stardestroyer you could dock and walk around in (kinda like the aircraft carriers in Battlefield1942), they would have had a winner...hell, they'd have the flightsim crowd in there faster than something very fast, and have a game which anyone else just digs because it makes sense and works.
But no... instead they don't differntiate between the ships except to the extent how many parts a ship can carry (goodbye to a-wing being the space-space fighter, xwing multipurpous and b-wing being the bomber and hello to 'it's whatever you put in it, and the b-wing can be filled with the most'), add shields to Tie's and no in-space refueling (you actually have to go to the ground-game to get restocked on missiles etc! Which does mean that you have all those nice loading screens to look at:( )...whilst they do have in-space repairing!
Which leads me to the question: is this dominant or recessive, gene-wise? Then you could maybe even do it with only one of the two cats being geneticaly modified:)
Exactly. And what pisses me off on top of that is that now I still don't know if cats would enjoy zero g. I have a sneaking suspision they would, but all I know now is that cats hate being flung hard at walls in zero gravity.
Sadly to say, it's probably more a data point correlating pollution and drug use (and I'm not talking maruihana...americans over-medicate to an insane degree; as a consequence, most americans can actually have a conversation about the different medicines they (have) use(d), rattling off the names like a kid pronouncing different dinosaurs [ie fluently]...it's rather baffling to someone used to a doctor who can and will still say 'you have x, just rest a bit' without having to proscribe medicine for fear of malpractice lawsuits).
I did get that the previous poster was joking, by the way:)
"Jeff Raskin,... and/inventor of the click-and-drag interface/"
If anyone can be credited with that invention, it would have to be Vannevar Bush with his prescient thoughts on the memex (ie pc). And if not him, then the guys at Xerox-Parc most definitely preceed this Raskin guy.
I remember reading in an interview (go check the bluesnews archives) that whilst they (Bungie) wouldn't do the next Halo because they where going to focus on an all new IP, they would farm out the next Halo to another dev studio.
Which makes a lot of sense, considering the franchise.
Hmmm...interesting. I'll qualify it again by saying I don't know too much about US law, but (you knew it was coming:)) I thought a lot of 'rights' in the US where infered from the constitutaional articles. Like the right to privacy being not a direct right granted in the constitution, but something following from the wording of an article, an interpretation of the 'will' (if you will:)) of the founding fathers. Isn't that how a lot of judges come up with judgements?
IF that is the case (and I'm not saying it is), then couldn't gun ownership be curtailed by the meaning behind the words, being that having guns is only aloud to justify the end specified by the article, ie to enable the formation of militia? The whole idea of the article being that, when the revolution comes, the people have the means of deposing the corrupt government. Now I'd say that allowing everyone to own a gun doesn't ensure that. Requiring everyone who wants a gun to 'enlist' in the/unregulated/ militia of their choice, with the only requirement being that said militia train the people to be effective, would be more in line with the founders ideals.
Of course, that would mean that you have organisations around the country training people on how to overthrow a government, which said government might not want to encourage...to which I'd say that if the government is worried about that, they aren't doing a good job and/should/ be overthrown:)
Slashdot Mirror
"so Valve wins here in terms of what it can create out of the box"
??? I would not say that: Unreal has exporters for all mayor 3d platforms...more out of the box (or out of UDN) compatibility than Hammer.
"It seems the biggest factor in choosing an engine is what's going to get your mod the most exposure"
Again, I wouldn't entirely agree...a hell of a lot of people decide what engine to use more on easy of use and even more importantly on capability: 'can I do such and such, and how much time will it take me to implement it?'...basically the exact same question any gamedev asks. I'd even go so far as to say that engine market penetration is the lesser of the looked at factors (although of course there needs to be some level of installed userbase; Serious Engine is not an option for many larger mod teams, no matter how easy it is to use...or even Farcry for that matter).
But I do think you're right: due to Steam (and capability of the engine), Source is this round's winner...until Unreal Engine 3 becomes available: Unreal is much more mod friendly even as Unreal Engine 2, but the capabilities of Unreal engine 3 will far outmatch Source, seeing as it will come out soon (compared to the next Valve engine) and the fact that EPIC have some insane mod supoport going on.
You're not the only one to have followed HL2 and read those stories and more...which still leaves open my question on profit-distrubution.
Ain't that the truth: I just put back in my SB Live and am selling my brand new audigy 2 zs. The zs sounds nice enough, but it just won't wake up after standby. And that's pretty important seeing as I use my computer as an alarm clock.
And you should check out the Creative forums for a brilliant example of how a company acts when they're product is buggy as hell.
You seem to have some inside info on what the terms of the contracts between Valve and Vivendi were...somehow I doubt all that info you spout re the financial profitsharing is based on fact rather than speculation.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Valve did get at least 10% sales through Steam...especially after all the news (like the so called Vivendi six month hold up) a hefty lot of gamers broke down and bought it through Steam just to play CS:Source. I haven't checked, but having a look at the online game playing figures would give a decent indication of how well Steam has done up to now...and don't forget all the ATI card buyers, who are 'doomed' to use Steam, as their only options (realistically) are to settle for the bronze Steam package or an upgrade to that Steam install.
Hmmm...don't seem to be any cynical realists on /. today. Had I modpoints, I'd mod you insightfull; the timing of the two releases is just too fortunate.
7.000 interested custumors for a $200.000 ride. I agree: two hundred million tourist industry doesn't qualify as 'real economic value'.
And don't forget, this is the first step. Rutan and others have already made their follow-up plans...they just need time to implement them.
And that's where it starts. There are now techniques, called transmutation, which can transform nuclear waste products with halflives in the hundreds of thousands of years into materials with halflives of a thousand years. When you do this on a mass-scale, that means you only have to contain that waste for a thousand years. And that is not only doable, but we currently already have the technology to contain this material for a thousand years.
This effectively means that nuclear waste is no longer a problem (after everything is scaled for mass-use, which of course takes some years to ramp up to).
So we're left with catastrophic nuclear power plant failure. This is something which even in current nuclear reactors is unlikely. The only reason Chernobyl happened is becuase they where stupid: to test one safety feature, they
But even then you can make the case that stupid or not, it did happen. Which is utterly true...and leads us to the next generation of reactors (which the FPP links to). These new reactors are idiotproof. The cannot meltdown. It is physically impossible due to the integrated design: if the cooling shuts down, the nuclear reaction stops. And not because someone presses a button to do so, but because the shape/design of the reactor makes it so: no cooling, no reaction. In about the same way that roller-coaster brakes work: no electricity means the brakes have to engage; look up these auto-engaging brakes to see how designs based on these kinds of physical safeguards can work.
If you don't beleive me, well, everything is google-able. Not only that, but top-environmentalists make the same case: the greenest form of energy is nuclear. Even the most hardcore eco-nut is coming 'round to this view.
And if you're only info to the contrary is that 'Greenpeace is against it'...let me tell you something: Greenpeace does some good stuff. But only because they're lucky once in a while (remember Brent-Spar?). Fact of the matter is that Greenpeace is a PR-firm. They do not employ scientists as a matter of course. In the Netherlands, they only have 5 acedemics working for them. Only one of those has a degree in the sciences...and that one is in Aerospace. At the time they came 'round to my university and told us, a class of freshman Applied Physics students, that Greenpeace didn't have a place for us unless it was as activist. GreenPeace only has one laboratory in the entire world...and they rent that one, including the labbies (not even scientists, 'just' the guys who do a soil sample analysis using the checklist) to do their work. They do not do their own research, they do not employ people who know anything about what they're protesting against: GreenPeace is a reactionary PR-firm, which just happens to do some stuff which is worthwhile.
So my point is listen to the scientists: the physicists, the environmental scientists and the material scientists. They'll give you the correct data, including error-margins and safety estimations.
Even if this is teid to partisan bickering, it is something which should just be fixed. Any party against the opening up of such machinery can only do so because it has something to hide; on something as basic as the /integrety/ of the election process, there is no reason not to better it, no matter how much money it costs.
What you say could well be basically correct. The problem that arises (by the very nature of a two-party ystem) is that even though the Replubicans only just barely won, they do get to (and will, the past four years have shown) utterly disregard the other side.
And that is disregard for democracy; democracy is about rule, taking into account all of the people you rule over. Which means that if 50% want to have abortions, the other 50% will just have to live with that choice and be happy with their choice not to have abortions. This is not what will happen; the religious right gets to speak the next four years, and will make the case that they have the mandate to do so.
Which is scary, because now it is not just the arabs, but also the gay people who are the new 'niggers' on the block.
And this being an american site, I'll now have to appologise for my use of a derogatory word. But I won't: the word exacly fits here; it exactly describes their situation in much the way that 'exploited african-american a couple of decades ago' doesn't.
The even scarier thing is that now, such qualifiers will have to be added much more often, seeing as the politically correct yet radically discriminating (towards one faction or another) fundamentalist chistians have won.
Which really bugs me: religion has no place in politics, except for the fact that you have to keep in mind the various religions of the people in your country. Why? Because even if your whole country is christian/muslim/hindu/whatever, you have to look out for that lonely athiest/budhist and let him do what he wants as long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of the others. Such as in the case of abortion and gay marriage, which is argued against solely out of religious beliefs...which shouldn't be allowable in a court of law in the first place.
And the irony of course is that the america's got settled by people who wanted to get away from religious persecution in europe...
If only I had mod points. I think in some circles they would call a statement like that 'motive', and the position he was in 'means'.
"Can we at least agree (within obvious boundaries) to trust the process?"
/sent by the 'other' side/.
I'm surprised at all americans...Florida in 2000 has been proof that it is exactly the process which CAN'T be trusted. Striking thousands off the rolls based on having nothing more than the same last name as a criminal, or contesting your right to vote based solely on the fact that you didn't reply to a letter
Add to that the fact that the largest supplier of voting machines, which have been proved beyond any doubt to not be secure, has ties with the ruling party and has publically said that he will do anything to help said party...
How could anyone in their right mind not be suspicious of the process? Especially when it has demonstably been abused in the past.
It's more of a general question: I've never played CoH, but I do know that in many MMORPG's griefing (which I define as a high level character fucking a low level character [don't bother, Trolls: you know /exactly/ what I mean]) occurs.
;P), like setting up the dev's as gods: imagine an MMORPG where there is something wrong in the gamebalance, which doesn't come up in forums (or maybe does, whatever). Now imagine someone pissed off enough to actually make a journey to the gods to complain. Screw forums: let the ingame character make that journeyt. If someone (or a group...hell, the larger the group the better!) thinks it's important enough to trouble the gods (who could have representatives ingame, for example a couple of live-team dev's posing as 'disciples' or priests or whatever, or even having msg's to those priests flagged and forwarded to the emails of those dev's)...
:P
What I want to ask an actual designer of MMORPG's is why that kind of thing hasn't been implemented, because it could negate the 'PvE vs. PvP' discussion: That discussion only occurs because of people abusing it.
Furhtermore, there are many examples I didn't give (either becuase they're so far out, or because I wanne be a gamedev at one point too
Anyway, imagine someone thought an issue important enough to take the trouble to finish an entire ingame quest...not only would it be cool that you could do that, but to actually have the dev's take something like that seriously...instant player gratification and instant newbies (who would resist a game where you could petition the 'gods').
Now I know something like this isn't a sinecure. It doesn't fix everything that is broken. But the player reward, the player investment...the fixes possible to the gameworld if/when a dev takes this seriously enough to actually consider it...just remeber that an MMORPG only works if peop[le buy into it...and that only happens if they think they have an investment in the world.
Man, maybe I'll reply coherently enough when I'm sober and have dealt with my break-up
What's stopping more real-life equivalents from crossing over into MMORPG's?
I'll give an examples to illustrate my point:
-griefers are a problem; why not allow either (part of) the dedicated live team or 'the good players' (meaning those who play a lot and have good community standing [you dev's know who your cream of the crop are] and maybe an innate sense of fairness) to become cops or peacekeepers within the game? Give 'em not-exactly-admin powers, but enough to grief a griefer (maybe after being called up on an ingame 'hotline' and judging the situation).
My point is really that MMORPG's have real-world problems...so why not use more tried and true real-life solutions?
"a petrified Natlie Portman"
:)
Mmmmm-mmmm. I'm getting confused with a spiderman flashback now (the rain scene), but I don't mind that much
"Of course, transitions to space are handled by annoying load screens too..."
Man, that's evidence of real bad vision. It could have been so cool: you get in your ship on the ground, lift off and have a view of the sky. This image is screen captured (or generic or whatever) and serves as loading screen, progress being shown by the sky's texture palette slowly being rotated towards black. When loading is complete, the sky is totally black, the stars pop up and you're in space!
Come on, that would rock...it would look cool and be immersive: for the first time loading actually helping immersion by representing the time it takes to get to space.
Too true. And you knoww how you get that? Have a game where there is a max to stats and the only reason to play is because the actual game is fun to play!
How this would work is that you start off creating your character, spending skill points where you want...but within a reasonable time, you max out your skills to a humanly normal point. Now you have everyone within a band of skill which isn't that wide...which means the longtime players will play with the noobs, because there isn't that much difference in the actual skills, just a difference in knowledge of the game (kinda like real life, where the old dog takes the new guy under his wing).
The problem? You need gameplay which is actually fun instead of a grind, gameplay which is challenging and doesn't rely on new trinkets to keep people locked in. Basically GTA3/:VC, with lots of emergent gameplay; a fun sandbox.
My god, if I where rich I'd buy Rockstar Games and force them to build a Shadowrun-esque MMORPG using the principles above.
"Now, I AM a big simmer"
/real/ starwars sims like Xwing/XvT/etc.
Bullshit. If you where, you'd be crying because of how JTL incorporates nothing found in a sim. Hell, they even cut out the engine/laser/shield management found in the
Appart from that, the JTL flightmodel sucks and is unrealistic (to the point where standing still is often the best action in a dogfight...I mean WTF?!?)...the only way you could be into sims is if you mean The Sims.
The flight model sucks and JTL is like EQ in space...what more do you need?
:( )...whilst they do have in-space repairing!
I've said it before and I'll say it again: had they just updated Tiefighter vs Xwing, plonked some RPG hooks in there, added bigass spacestations and a stardestroyer you could dock and walk around in (kinda like the aircraft carriers in Battlefield1942), they would have had a winner...hell, they'd have the flightsim crowd in there faster than something very fast, and have a game which anyone else just digs because it makes sense and works.
But no... instead they don't differntiate between the ships except to the extent how many parts a ship can carry (goodbye to a-wing being the space-space fighter, xwing multipurpous and b-wing being the bomber and hello to 'it's whatever you put in it, and the b-wing can be filled with the most'), add shields to Tie's and no in-space refueling (you actually have to go to the ground-game to get restocked on missiles etc! Which does mean that you have all those nice loading screens to look at
Which leads me to the question: is this dominant or recessive, gene-wise? Then you could maybe even do it with only one of the two cats being geneticaly modified :)
Exactly. And what pisses me off on top of that is that now I still don't know if cats would enjoy zero g. I have a sneaking suspision they would, but all I know now is that cats hate being flung hard at walls in zero gravity.
Sadly to say, it's probably more a data point correlating pollution and drug use (and I'm not talking maruihana...americans over-medicate to an insane degree; as a consequence, most americans can actually have a conversation about the different medicines they (have) use(d), rattling off the names like a kid pronouncing different dinosaurs [ie fluently]...it's rather baffling to someone used to a doctor who can and will still say 'you have x, just rest a bit' without having to proscribe medicine for fear of malpractice lawsuits).
:)
I did get that the previous poster was joking, by the way
"Jeff Raskin, ... and /inventor of the click-and-drag interface/"
If anyone can be credited with that invention, it would have to be Vannevar Bush with his prescient thoughts on the memex (ie pc). And if not him, then the guys at Xerox-Parc most definitely preceed this Raskin guy.
I remember reading in an interview (go check the bluesnews archives) that whilst they (Bungie) wouldn't do the next Halo because they where going to focus on an all new IP, they would farm out the next Halo to another dev studio.
Which makes a lot of sense, considering the franchise.
Hmmm...interesting. I'll qualify it again by saying I don't know too much about US law, but (you knew it was coming :)) I thought a lot of 'rights' in the US where infered from the constitutaional articles. Like the right to privacy being not a direct right granted in the constitution, but something following from the wording of an article, an interpretation of the 'will' (if you will :)) of the founding fathers. Isn't that how a lot of judges come up with judgements?
/unregulated/ militia of their choice, with the only requirement being that said militia train the people to be effective, would be more in line with the founders ideals.
/should/ be overthrown :)
IF that is the case (and I'm not saying it is), then couldn't gun ownership be curtailed by the meaning behind the words, being that having guns is only aloud to justify the end specified by the article, ie to enable the formation of militia? The whole idea of the article being that, when the revolution comes, the people have the means of deposing the corrupt government. Now I'd say that allowing everyone to own a gun doesn't ensure that. Requiring everyone who wants a gun to 'enlist' in the
Of course, that would mean that you have organisations around the country training people on how to overthrow a government, which said government might not want to encourage...to which I'd say that if the government is worried about that, they aren't doing a good job and