Though it might help, a universal format isn't what's hampering ebooks. It's price. I refuse to pay full price (and sometimes more!) for an etext of something I can get on paper; especially when I only get the etext.
Halfprice, maybe even quarter price, compared to deadtree is what ebooksellers should be going for...but if I still have to pay fullprice and I don't even get my dead tree, I'll pay the same for something slightly more tangible.
Now I would pay a couple of bucks (ie $2) more for a deadtree book which includes the etext.
Have fun doing finite element analysis without a computer. Or how about modeling stuff in matlab...without a pc handy. Or what about CAD/CAM?
Just face it; technical studies nowadays demand pc's or laptops. Legal, management and other easy studies otoh should only use toiletpaper for taking notes:)
Heh...have a care what you say and to who you say it. I've consistently scored between 136 and 144 on several iq tests (and no, these aren't those dippy online ones). Lowest score I ever got was 122, but I was still drunk at the time.
I'd say I'm therefore quite qualified to comment on the use of iq tests...and the fact is that they don't correspond to anything relevant IRL.
Actually, the architect pretty much tells Neo what's up. When Neo makes his choice, then 'exits' the matrix...he only exits the matrix in the matrix...he's still in the matrix! That's why he still has his powers. The architect mentions this with his speech about having to create a matrix where everyone has the choice, even on a subconcious level. That all comes back to the whole red pill/blue pill thing: everyone gets the same choice neo gets! If they choose blue, they go back to the matrix as is, if they choose red, they go to the second level matrix, ie the one neo, trinity and morpheus inhabit.
The fatal flaw in the whole argument is that you presume that you actually need to simulate every bit (or pixel) of the lowest grain of a universe. But you forget that a lot is rule based...I can make a pretty convincing fake of the view through an electron based microscope using a few algorithms and other rules. Reality is quite compressible that way.
In other words, you won'tr need a computer the size of the universe to simulate the universe.
What I find even more interesting and usefull is that you can have near absolutely accurate data sets to play with; stuff can get logged a whole lot more accurately online than in (m)any other psych study.
Just one thing I picked up in a meta way (ie I didn't read the studies myself, but I have read somewhere that...) is that the calculation is flawed; that 8,3 billion is only for grossed earnings on films in the US, while the ten billion is for games and paraphenelia (dunno if that includes merchandise) worldwide.
Personally, I go for the 'anyone who's interested in one or more subjects to know some obscure arcana about it' instead of the 'anyone who does things with computers' definition.
Dunno which one gives a larger population of geeks, though:)
Analogy doesn't work here...it usually doesn't, but especially not here.
Sure, the airframes are old. As are the tanks etc. OTOH, duh! The reason for that is twofold: it takes 10-20 years to develop an airframe/tank whatever. There is a huge amount of money spent on the Osprey, stealth tank and stealth ships. Also, nowadays the buzzword is asymetric warfare...numbers aren't important, effectiveness is (yeah, it's finally also penentrated the armed forces...took it's bloody time though). Above points combined means that you have to pay more per unit. Looking at the budget, fact remains that the US spends vastly more than Europe, whilst the EU has more inhabitants.
And that's rediculous, if you think about it. The US can do all it want's with it's wars, but it's just fighting the symptoms. And while it is doing that, the US is actually making the situation worse: thanks to it's own actions, a whole new cadre of terrorists has been born. The EU is trying it through diplomatic means, which I beleive is much more likely to work, as it takes away root causes of violence.
Anyway, taking out the Taliban and Saddam is most definatley a good thing. But turning Afghanistan and Iraq into vassal states is dumb. Hell, just look at history and you just/know/ it's gonna bite the US in the ass (as most of the US' actions post WWII have). Not only that, but it makes the US embassy in the Hague look like the embassy of a fsking dictatorship, with all the tanks, APC's and netted fences in front.
"I posit that you'll have fewer truly original and creative games, because everybody's looking at the same code to begin their project."
I agree with you on that...but if you can draw that conclusion, you'll also have to allow that there must by definition (statistical treatment of the rising numbers) also be more innovative games. Even if it's just one more innovative, original game compared to 200 extra crap re-hashes.
Not only that, but I've seen more innovation in the mod scene than from publishers in general, the last 3 or 4 years.
I just can't see how that happens, though. Modern game engines hardly restrict you; you can turn UT2k3's engine into a chess game, or monopoly, an rts, an rpg, or any other crazy, wacky idea you can think of. Scripting and open sdk's have opened up the engine to a point where the engine is really irrelevant...
Sure, if you want to make an rpg, using NWN would be the best bet...but the thing is that using quake can get you there too.
Me, I see no reason to beleive the s/n ratio will change...it hasn't much (or at all) in the past: every so often an innovation occurs, and a new genre is born. Hell, look at books; only seven genre's, but still innovation occurs.
As to the article...well, it's a rant, period. What do you expect? Guy want's to make a point, and forums like/. are there to set 'em straight (or make fools of ourselves:) ).
And as to reality bearing out your point...I say look up a couple of mod-boards, the idea's which have been and are worked on and out, and all I can say is maybe you haven't looked at enough mods. 'Cause I'd say there's some great stuff out there, for all game engines.
Well, if you can trqack 5 objects at the same time, you're doing better than GTA: Vice City can do:)
I mean, I can't be the only one who's noticed that GTA:VC does a rather nasty job of tracking vehicle which drive towards you and end up to your rear...yuou look back, and they've dissapeared! Same goes for the sim-people. So I'm wondering how they got this '5 object' thing...'cos GTA can't track 5:)
Welll, as a non-programmer, stuff like UT2k3 and NWN is what I use to build my mods. And the scripting languages built in are flexible enough for me to change the whole gameplay (POV, physics, nature of weaponry...hell, I can choose to not have weaponry in the mod!). So for me and loads more like me the game engine is both framework and tool. Thank god for scripting languages:)
Thing is a game engine is more then just the gfx or what keeps score...it's also the fundamental core game mechanics which are available and changable. You can keep or rip out as much of that as you want, but in combination with modern scripting, you can pretty much make deep changes in gameplay.
"Making games easier to make doesn't improve the signal-to-noise ratio, it just improves the overall number of games."
But that's the whole thing I'm trying to say! A greater amount of games, with the same signal to noise ratio, means that in the end you do get more original games (assuming the definition of signal here is originality)!
"If the better the tools, the better the work, then the worse the tools, the worse the work. You can't have it both ways"
Yeah...but the whole point is it/doesn't/ work that way. If your tools are good, your artists have an easier time of it, and they are more likely to make good work...but only if they are good artists. And if the tools are bad, it's harder to make good work, but it still will be done if you have quality artists.
Case in point: Halflife and Quake. Halflife has dreadfull tools. Just ask anyone who has (had) to work with 'em. But there is no denying that Halflife and many of it's mods are great.
Then look at Quake 3. Great toolset, and there's a whole host of shit games out which use the engine.
"First off, game engines aren't tools"
Where the hell do you get that from? A game engine is the tool you use to construct a game. Even if you want to call it a framework, what's the difference between a framework and a tool?
As for the right tools...kinda. It help to have the correct tools, but in the abscence of that, a good artists can make do with whatever is around. Case in point; people can still make great stuff with MS Paint, even though it's no Photoshop. The latter makes it easier to make good stuff, but you have to be a good artist in the first place.
As for your statement on dev teams, you use a strange definition. To me, a good dev team is one which can get a good game out on time, looking good enough. Anything else is a not so good to bad dev team. And bad dev teams with creative ideas just won't see their game come out.
AQs for why no-one is coming out with new ideas, I recomend you look at my original post; it's because gamedev-ing is costly and time consuming. That means that publishers take sure bets...sequels and known game concepts. For originality, go have a look at the mods out there, the smaller publishers and the independants.
I also recomend you have a look at places like www.polycount.com, gamasutra.com and gamedev.net. You might get some more insight into how games get made and what people are doing with the resources and tools they have.
Actually, theer are quite a few mods out there which differ significantly from the game they use the engine from.
Anyway, modable game engine do mean that many more people can work out their idea...and with more people trying, you'll automatically get more idea's worked out, and thus more original games.
Anyway, if modable game engines aren't a key part in getting innovative gameplay, what is?
The fact that all the EU country's have seperate defense budgets mean that there is a large amount of overlap in spending. The fact that a geographical area with a larger population then still spends way less on defense than the US is rediculous. Just goes to show how much the US spends...in an absolute sence and on a per capita basis; seeing as you'd think that without that overlap in spending, the US should make great savings, it makes even less sence.
Then factor in the fact that the US spends more on defense than the next 8/combined/ on the list of countries with the largest defense budgetes, and you will just have to realise that the US spends way too much on the military.
What about the rest of the nations in the middle east, asia, africa and south america? Doesn't toppling a democratically elected president caount all of the sudden (something which the US has done multiple time)?
More to the point, the US was one of the nations which had recognised the Taliban government...
The numbers in the link are for income, iirc. Social security is an expense. Not only that, but you're trying to compare social security in the US to european social security...please don't.
As for spending at federal level in europe...pleasse get the situation. It's only in the last months that europe is heading anywhere near a USian federal spending level; in europe, money is spent on a national level, and very little is spent by the EU itself.
As for comparisons, the only real comparison would be to compare total expenditure devided by inhabitants (especially since the EU has a larger populace than the US)...and then the US still spends a lot more per capita.
Well, that's exactly what I said,/in the quote you mention/! It won't get easier, but it will mean you get more done...you're saying exactly what I was, but in slightly different words. Told you it was subtle;)
Slashdot Mirror
Though it might help, a universal format isn't what's hampering ebooks. It's price. I refuse to pay full price (and sometimes more!) for an etext of something I can get on paper; especially when I only get the etext.
Halfprice, maybe even quarter price, compared to deadtree is what ebooksellers should be going for...but if I still have to pay fullprice and I don't even get my dead tree, I'll pay the same for something slightly more tangible.
Now I would pay a couple of bucks (ie $2) more for a deadtree book which includes the etext.
Then again, somehow I bet the actors have actually read the script in it's entirety. At least once.
Ah, but I bet the George Lucas toilet paper would sell quite well.
Have fun doing finite element analysis without a computer. Or how about modeling stuff in matlab...without a pc handy. Or what about CAD/CAM?
:)
Just face it; technical studies nowadays demand pc's or laptops. Legal, management and other easy studies otoh should only use toiletpaper for taking notes
Are you really that economically uninformed?
I know you're a troll, but isn't your point exactly the one I made?
Heh...have a care what you say and to who you say it. I've consistently scored between 136 and 144 on several iq tests (and no, these aren't those dippy online ones). Lowest score I ever got was 122, but I was still drunk at the time.
I'd say I'm therefore quite qualified to comment on the use of iq tests...and the fact is that they don't correspond to anything relevant IRL.
Actually, the architect pretty much tells Neo what's up. When Neo makes his choice, then 'exits' the matrix...he only exits the matrix in the matrix...he's still in the matrix! That's why he still has his powers. The architect mentions this with his speech about having to create a matrix where everyone has the choice, even on a subconcious level. That all comes back to the whole red pill/blue pill thing: everyone gets the same choice neo gets! If they choose blue, they go back to the matrix as is, if they choose red, they go to the second level matrix, ie the one neo, trinity and morpheus inhabit.
It's all there in the speech the architect gives.
Sounds like you're discribing the planck lenght :)
The fatal flaw in the whole argument is that you presume that you actually need to simulate every bit (or pixel) of the lowest grain of a universe. But you forget that a lot is rule based...I can make a pretty convincing fake of the view through an electron based microscope using a few algorithms and other rules. Reality is quite compressible that way.
In other words, you won'tr need a computer the size of the universe to simulate the universe.
That's absolutely true...the only thing indicative of a high iq is a high score on an iq test.
And anyway, wtf does that then mean...that you're good at doing iq tests, period.
What I find even more interesting and usefull is that you can have near absolutely accurate data sets to play with; stuff can get logged a whole lot more accurately online than in (m)any other psych study.
Just one thing I picked up in a meta way (ie I didn't read the studies myself, but I have read somewhere that...) is that the calculation is flawed; that 8,3 billion is only for grossed earnings on films in the US, while the ten billion is for games and paraphenelia (dunno if that includes merchandise) worldwide.
Kinda unfair comparison, that way.
Depends on your definition of 'geek'.
:)
Personally, I go for the 'anyone who's interested in one or more subjects to know some obscure arcana about it' instead of the 'anyone who does things with computers' definition.
Dunno which one gives a larger population of geeks, though
Analogy doesn't work here...it usually doesn't, but especially not here.
/know/ it's gonna bite the US in the ass (as most of the US' actions post WWII have). Not only that, but it makes the US embassy in the Hague look like the embassy of a fsking dictatorship, with all the tanks, APC's and netted fences in front.
Sure, the airframes are old. As are the tanks etc. OTOH, duh! The reason for that is twofold: it takes 10-20 years to develop an airframe/tank whatever. There is a huge amount of money spent on the Osprey, stealth tank and stealth ships. Also, nowadays the buzzword is asymetric warfare...numbers aren't important, effectiveness is (yeah, it's finally also penentrated the armed forces...took it's bloody time though).
Above points combined means that you have to pay more per unit. Looking at the budget, fact remains that the US spends vastly more than Europe, whilst the EU has more inhabitants.
And that's rediculous, if you think about it. The US can do all it want's with it's wars, but it's just fighting the symptoms. And while it is doing that, the US is actually making the situation worse: thanks to it's own actions, a whole new cadre of terrorists has been born. The EU is trying it through diplomatic means, which I beleive is much more likely to work, as it takes away root causes of violence.
Anyway, taking out the Taliban and Saddam is most definatley a good thing. But turning Afghanistan and Iraq into vassal states is dumb. Hell, just look at history and you just
"I posit that you'll have fewer truly original and creative games, because everybody's looking at the same code to begin their project."
I agree with you on that...but if you can draw that conclusion, you'll also have to allow that there must by definition (statistical treatment of the rising numbers) also be more innovative games. Even if it's just one more innovative, original game compared to 200 extra crap re-hashes.
Not only that, but I've seen more innovation in the mod scene than from publishers in general, the last 3 or 4 years.
I just can't see how that happens, though. Modern game engines hardly restrict you; you can turn UT2k3's engine into a chess game, or monopoly, an rts, an rpg, or any other crazy, wacky idea you can think of. Scripting and open sdk's have opened up the engine to a point where the engine is really irrelevant...
/. are there to set 'em straight (or make fools of ourselves :) ).
Sure, if you want to make an rpg, using NWN would be the best bet...but the thing is that using quake can get you there too.
Me, I see no reason to beleive the s/n ratio will change...it hasn't much (or at all) in the past: every so often an innovation occurs, and a new genre is born. Hell, look at books; only seven genre's, but still innovation occurs.
As to the article...well, it's a rant, period. What do you expect? Guy want's to make a point, and forums like
And as to reality bearing out your point...I say look up a couple of mod-boards, the idea's which have been and are worked on and out, and all I can say is maybe you haven't looked at enough mods. 'Cause I'd say there's some great stuff out there, for all game engines.
Well, if you can trqack 5 objects at the same time, you're doing better than GTA: Vice City can do :)
:)
I mean, I can't be the only one who's noticed that GTA:VC does a rather nasty job of tracking vehicle which drive towards you and end up to your rear...yuou look back, and they've dissapeared! Same goes for the sim-people. So I'm wondering how they got this '5 object' thing...'cos GTA can't track 5
"and identify relationships between shapes (the dropping piece, and the holes in the playfield.)"
:)
Hmmmm...I can think of another activity where you have a dropping 'piece' which has to go into a hole in the 'playingfield'
Welll, as a non-programmer, stuff like UT2k3 and NWN is what I use to build my mods. And the scripting languages built in are flexible enough for me to change the whole gameplay (POV, physics, nature of weaponry...hell, I can choose to not have weaponry in the mod!). So for me and loads more like me the game engine is both framework and tool. Thank god for scripting languages :)
Thing is a game engine is more then just the gfx or what keeps score...it's also the fundamental core game mechanics which are available and changable. You can keep or rip out as much of that as you want, but in combination with modern scripting, you can pretty much make deep changes in gameplay.
"Making games easier to make doesn't improve the signal-to-noise ratio, it just improves the overall number of games."
But that's the whole thing I'm trying to say! A greater amount of games, with the same signal to noise ratio, means that in the end you do get more original games (assuming the definition of signal here is originality)!
"If the better the tools, the better the work, then the worse the tools, the worse the work. You can't have it both ways"
/doesn't/ work that way. If your tools are good, your artists have an easier time of it, and they are more likely to make good work...but only if they are good artists. And if the tools are bad, it's harder to make good work, but it still will be done if you have quality artists.
Yeah...but the whole point is it
Case in point: Halflife and Quake. Halflife has dreadfull tools. Just ask anyone who has (had) to work with 'em. But there is no denying that Halflife and many of it's mods are great.
Then look at Quake 3. Great toolset, and there's a whole host of shit games out which use the engine.
"First off, game engines aren't tools"
Where the hell do you get that from? A game engine is the tool you use to construct a game. Even if you want to call it a framework, what's the difference between a framework and a tool?
As for the right tools...kinda. It help to have the correct tools, but in the abscence of that, a good artists can make do with whatever is around. Case in point; people can still make great stuff with MS Paint, even though it's no Photoshop. The latter makes it easier to make good stuff, but you have to be a good artist in the first place.
As for your statement on dev teams, you use a strange definition. To me, a good dev team is one which can get a good game out on time, looking good enough. Anything else is a not so good to bad dev team. And bad dev teams with creative ideas just won't see their game come out.
AQs for why no-one is coming out with new ideas, I recomend you look at my original post; it's because gamedev-ing is costly and time consuming. That means that publishers take sure bets...sequels and known game concepts. For originality, go have a look at the mods out there, the smaller publishers and the independants.
I also recomend you have a look at places like www.polycount.com, gamasutra.com and gamedev.net. You might get some more insight into how games get made and what people are doing with the resources and tools they have.
Actually, theer are quite a few mods out there which differ significantly from the game they use the engine from.
Anyway, modable game engine do mean that many more people can work out their idea...and with more people trying, you'll automatically get more idea's worked out, and thus more original games.
Anyway, if modable game engines aren't a key part in getting innovative gameplay, what is?
Numbers really aren't your thing, are they?
/combined/ on the list of countries with the largest defense budgetes, and you will just have to realise that the US spends way too much on the military.
The fact that all the EU country's have seperate defense budgets mean that there is a large amount of overlap in spending. The fact that a geographical area with a larger population then still spends way less on defense than the US is rediculous.
Just goes to show how much the US spends...in an absolute sence and on a per capita basis; seeing as you'd think that without that overlap in spending, the US should make great savings, it makes even less sence.
Then factor in the fact that the US spends more on defense than the next 8
What about the rest of the nations in the middle east, asia, africa and south america? Doesn't toppling a democratically elected president caount all of the sudden (something which the US has done multiple time)?
More to the point, the US was one of the nations which had recognised the Taliban government...
The numbers in the link are for income, iirc. Social security is an expense. Not only that, but you're trying to compare social security in the US to european social security...please don't.
As for spending at federal level in europe...pleasse get the situation. It's only in the last months that europe is heading anywhere near a USian federal spending level; in europe, money is spent on a national level, and very little is spent by the EU itself.
As for comparisons, the only real comparison would be to compare total expenditure devided by inhabitants (especially since the EU has a larger populace than the US)...and then the US still spends a lot more per capita.
Well, that's exactly what I said, /in the quote you mention/! It won't get easier, but it will mean you get more done...you're saying exactly what I was, but in slightly different words. Told you it was subtle ;)
Anyway, microwave: push button tech.