Do remember that in Europe, it's been software emu from day 1. And apparently, from what's been said the vast majority of titles work fine. I've certainly not heard the same sort of compaints that the 360's had.
Starfire-the-novels are a completely seperate liscence from Starfire-the-game. So even if Marvin wanted to, he couldn't take advantage. In any case, the rulesets are wildly divergent and even the 3rd edition history diverges after ISW-4. (The 4th edition history "historical campaign" is a completely different universe and has never had anything published..).
As for Starfire going anywhere? Well, don't bet on it, frankly. Marvin even refuses to use a service like DriveThruRPG to sell Starfire, let alone take the universe anywhere... Starfireonline's interface is dreadful, there is still no deacent mapper software for the Starfire universe, The 3rd edition single-volume erulebook was killed by a selfish fan and the computerised tactical rules are tied up in a liscence with Digigamers, who have never produced anything you couldn't do far more easily with cyberboard.
Which is why I am no longer involved with the work of the SDS. (I was involved with Elite and Ultra). It's a shame, and I'd love to get involved with something similar.
Yes, the parallels to the French Revoloution are pretty heavy handed.
He's getting a ligher touch, though. It's something he's said he realises he needs to work on, and his books have been improving (although skip The Shiva Option, it's mainly written by Steve White, and I made the mistake of getting the hardback. GAH!).
At the end of the day, no, he's no Brin or OSC, but he IS a good author of space opera.
How the HELL do you get Ringo being "constantly re-hashes the same garbage"?
Yea, Weber's not the most serious reading, but I like his work (and I found Starfire the game because of him. I help dev Starfire the game these days..) and I liked Crown of Slaves by Flint.
Ringo, on the other hand, is something ELSE.
His Posleen novels are amazing, origional and deep and his new book (There Will Be Dragons) is a very unique take on a "post-apocalypse" society.
Except RTS game have HAD a game which stood out. Total Annihilation.
That was over 6 years ago. Since then, we've been treated to a series of pre-TA games. Yes, Homeworld start a new sub-genre, but apart from that..nothing.
In terms of interface, TA gives you a glimpse of something which would be a REAL change in RTS, and save us from increasing boring and/or purely tactical (NOT strategic) games.
The name TA2 is owned by Atari. What they're doing it is somewhat of a mystery.
As for the spirtual successor to TA, "RTS 2.0", yes, it's in pre-production. Chris collected a lot of data from the TA Community a while back through a forum I ran.
You pick static or dynamic IP when you sign up to the ISP I use. Only if you're on the static IP do you get the ability to run your own mail server, with the big warning that they cut your net first then investigate abuse complaints.
I think that's reasonable - if you want to run a mail server, make SURE you do it right.
Fine. But they DO need to state it up-front. I've had massive trouble in the past with "hidden" ISP policies (not dorectly related to this, but..)
Oh, and they REALLY need to list the ports they block. One perfectly legit program was blocked and it took a me and several people at the ISP several days to find out why it wasn't working.
Once we KNEW, I recompiled the program to use another port and problem was solved.
Been there, done it, got the hate. Wouldn't do it again. Dealing with idiot people you're doing web hosting for is bad enough, but at least they're paying you.
However, one of the things which inspires people to buy games is mods. In the wake of Marweas's little outburst, several mod teams have stopped work, waiting to see what kind of support Sierra will have for them.
Depends which shipset. After seeing all kinds of issues with friends and KT266A's, I got a KT333 and have had zero issues (except PERHAPS one flicker-bug in a game, but it's minor and might be the graphics driver, not sure)
Ironically...I've never had a day of trouble off my SB Live! Except when I tried in Linux. But that's a whole another story (and why I'm using SuSe rather than Mandrake).
In many ways the reverse of David Brin's _Kiln People_ (where people can copy themselves into tempory bodies, dittos or "dit's"), it explores a facinating world shaped by it's technology.
Somewhat dark, and yet different from classic cyberpunk I strongly recomend _Altered Carbon_
Shrug, you have a gun. If you don't see me until I hit you, it's too late.
There are no dangerous tools, only dangerous people. Reliance on a crutch like a gun is asking for trouble. Now, TRAINING and a gun is dangerous, but very few organisations outside the armed forces offer that kind of training.
Slashdot Mirror
Do remember that in Europe, it's been software emu from day 1. And apparently, from what's been said the vast majority of titles work fine. I've certainly not heard the same sort of compaints that the 360's had.
Starfire-the-novels are a completely seperate liscence from Starfire-the-game. So even if Marvin wanted to, he couldn't take advantage. In any case, the rulesets are wildly divergent and even the 3rd edition history diverges after ISW-4. (The 4th edition history "historical campaign" is a completely different universe and has never had anything published..).
As for Starfire going anywhere? Well, don't bet on it, frankly. Marvin even refuses to use a service like DriveThruRPG to sell Starfire, let alone take the universe anywhere... Starfireonline's interface is dreadful, there is still no deacent mapper software for the Starfire universe, The 3rd edition single-volume erulebook was killed by a selfish fan and the computerised tactical rules are tied up in a liscence with Digigamers, who have never produced anything you couldn't do far more easily with cyberboard.
Which is why I am no longer involved with the work of the SDS. (I was involved with Elite and Ultra). It's a shame, and I'd love to get involved with something similar.
Oh yea, GSF's formatting well and truly sucked.
Of course, the editing process for it involved Word. Fortunately, Marvin's never made the same mistake again!
In the EU there is just that - a right to privacy.
....is including a deacent setup wizard with the router.
Every single router I've bought has had a nice wizard for getting the WIRED side set up, but then nothing for the wireless.
A wireless wizard which also incidently stepped you through setting up at least minimal security...
Yea, shame about the people with legimitate reasons to run mail servers, eh?
I won't rely on an ISP's mail servers when they are so often unrelyable and I have NO indication if my email went through.
*Throttle* port 25. Please. I send maybe 20 emails a day, max. But don't BLOCK it.
Most *American* ISP's.
About 6 UK ADSL ISP's of 70 restrict servers. (Well, most of them specifically ban running IRC servers, but fair enough!)
Yes, the parallels to the French Revoloution are pretty heavy handed.
He's getting a ligher touch, though. It's something he's said he realises he needs to work on, and his books have been improving (although skip The Shiva Option, it's mainly written by Steve White, and I made the mistake of getting the hardback. GAH!).
At the end of the day, no, he's no Brin or OSC, but he IS a good author of space opera.
Uh.
The idea of inter-system wormholes being the only FTL model is hardly new. It's used, for one thing, in Starfire, which Weber worked on.
...
How the HELL do you get Ringo being "constantly re-hashes the same garbage"?
Yea, Weber's not the most serious reading, but I like his work (and I found Starfire the game because of him. I help dev Starfire the game these days..) and I liked Crown of Slaves by Flint.
Ringo, on the other hand, is something ELSE.
His Posleen novels are amazing, origional and deep and his new book (There Will Be Dragons) is a very unique take on a "post-apocalypse" society.
Except RTS game have HAD a game which stood out. Total Annihilation.
That was over 6 years ago. Since then, we've been treated to a series of pre-TA games. Yes, Homeworld start a new sub-genre, but apart from that..nothing.
In terms of interface, TA gives you a glimpse of something which would be a REAL change in RTS, and save us from increasing boring and/or purely tactical (NOT strategic) games.
Hey Recoil :P
And no, it's more like 4 mil when they were last selling, which they arn't anymore.
The name TA2 is owned by Atari. What they're doing it is somewhat of a mystery.
As for the spirtual successor to TA, "RTS 2.0", yes, it's in pre-production. Chris collected a lot of data from the TA Community a while back through a forum I ran.
A *LONG* time TA'er
I'd expect that was true as well. Certainly I have a package like that installed on my PC's.
Fine. As long as you state it up-front.
You pick static or dynamic IP when you sign up to the ISP I use. Only if you're on the static IP do you get the ability to run your own mail server, with the big warning that they cut your net first then investigate abuse complaints.
I think that's reasonable - if you want to run a mail server, make SURE you do it right.
Fine. But they DO need to state it up-front. I've had massive trouble in the past with "hidden" ISP policies (not dorectly related to this, but..)
Oh, and they REALLY need to list the ports they block. One perfectly legit program was blocked and it took a me and several people at the ISP several days to find out why it wasn't working.
Once we KNEW, I recompiled the program to use another port and problem was solved.
Been there, done it, got the hate. Wouldn't do it again. Dealing with idiot people you're doing web hosting for is bad enough, but at least they're paying you.
USUALLY.
However, one of the things which inspires people to buy games is mods. In the wake of Marweas's little outburst, several mod teams have stopped work, waiting to see what kind of support Sierra will have for them.
That can't help the game.
No-one soon, when open source programs are made which do the same job. RIP Bitkeeper.
Depends which shipset. After seeing all kinds of issues with friends and KT266A's, I got a KT333 and have had zero issues (except PERHAPS one flicker-bug in a game, but it's minor and might be the graphics driver, not sure)
Ironically...I've never had a day of trouble off my SB Live! Except when I tried in Linux. But that's a whole another story (and why I'm using SuSe rather than Mandrake).
...is okay, but no _Altered Carbon_
In many ways the reverse of David Brin's _Kiln People_ (where people can copy themselves into tempory bodies, dittos or "dit's"), it explores a facinating world shaped by it's technology.
Somewhat dark, and yet different from classic cyberpunk I strongly recomend _Altered Carbon_
You don't mark your laptop in a unique, hard-to-detect way? *Blinks*
ooh, I like the idea of it having to call in
Shrug, you have a gun. If you don't see me until I hit you, it's too late.
There are no dangerous tools, only dangerous people. Reliance on a crutch like a gun is asking for trouble. Now, TRAINING and a gun is dangerous, but very few organisations outside the armed forces offer that kind of training.