Whatever the case, it would be a very sad thing if Halo 3 was limited to 16 or 24 players, while PC gamers could blast away at 150 or 200 of their closest friends in another game.
150 or 200?! Holy crap, how many friends does this guy have? Let alone how many of them play video games? I have like 10-20, but 150?! Christ dude, why not go and form a small village of gamers with that many friends?
Additionally because the market seems more concerned with minimizing laptop sizes over fixing other issues. (Touch pad/the little pointer in the middle of the keyboard still sucks for gaming, laptops are still flimsy and fall apart after being sat on, laptop monitors still cost about half of the entire system, battery power length still isn't impressive since all we've been doing is turning down how much we let the system sucks up, etc...)
Well chosing an alternative route doesn't necessarily mean that their better than the obvious choice. Based on the example given think of it in these three ways:
1. The door on the left is the locked door, the player decides to open it. However instead of finding what hes looking for he find a room full of guards, some items he doesn't want, or simply failed to open the lock.
2. The window is straight ahead, and the player jumps through. However the height it too great and the guy takes damage from the fall, finds himself back at the beginning of the stage, or has actually jumped three rooms ahead and landed in the middle of 10 guards who were supposed to appear in grounds of 3 or 4 in the previous rooms. (Try playing any of the Hitman games and taking alternative paths/actions while killing seemingly random guards and that patrol that always annoyed you might not appear because you already killed them.)
3. The guy goes to the right having a 90% idea of whats going to happen and what the developers have setup in that hallway, the obvious and maybe a few guards that magicly appear and come through the door at the end of the hall.
There's just not a lot of profit to be made... the infrastructure stuff is not really that expensive or difficult a piece of the online game process, so the outsourcing players can't charge a whole lot.
I don't know about most people but if I was given the choice of paying an extra dollar a month for absolutely no time EVER and much less lag, or not paying that one dollar and having to deal with downtime and annoying lag... well, I'd have to go with the extra dollar plan. I spend more on candy a month than I do on subscription based games so an extra dollar isn't gonna cause me to starve.
The Stryker vehicle is currently implemented as a stationary vehicle with a fully functioning.50 cal turret usable by the player.
Currently huh? Does this mean we should expect future versions (maybe 3.0) to allow players to drive vehicles? Maybe helicopters as well (though thats a stretch.)
They used to do this with DOS. A stripped down OS that was so stripped down you couldn't do anything with it without more software. And then it required driver software to be installed. Then boot disks. Then requiring to restart your computer whenever you wanted to do something else after running boot disks.
We've come a long from those days. As much as I hate Microsoft and Windows, I'd hate the idea of going back to the days of DOS. (Good luck getting games like Wing Commander II running back then...)
Na, there was an easier way to create an 'impossible' level. Burn your own music CD with just one track with over a hour of music playing. If fatigue didn't beat you and lack of skill didn't beat you, then the sheer length of the song would kill you.
Course if you were hardcore enough to beat that then you could just throw in some techno, rap, or rock songs in...
Well to be slightly fairer, in 1984 Big Brother is the government while in your example the ACLU is just a civil organization who wants to prevent exactly what is feared in 1984.
Secondly, to be fair it depends on how you look at this. You could say civil organizations such as the ACLU are the REAL 'Big Brother' of the future in the U.S. People are extremely distrustful of the government (admittedly fairly) and are therefore more likely to believe that guy who had his photo taken with an oil covered cute looking seal. Give lobbyists a few more years and who knows what they'll say, let alone what people will believe.
Text based MUDs are generally unmoderated and have no set standard of rules. Players are generally considered to self moderate themselves (ie not make themselves gods). Some MUDs are simply graphical with no combat or actual RP system coded in, so there aren't many rules.
To draw a fairer image between MUDs and MMORPGs, I think you need to look at gaming from the widespread gameplay point of view. Now I'm guessing from your post that you've played a MUD one time or another so you know one of the biggest problems with them. "God players". Anybody who's played a table top role playing gaming or a text-based MUD has run into these types of people one time or another. They're the ones who always seem to land critical hits, never get touched by attacks that fill the entire room, are ninja-gods with +99 swords of doom, etc. If nothing else, they're the idiots who don't know wth they're doing because they didn't read the manual.
In comparison, modern MMORPGs have succeeded in one thing if nothing else. Making it possible for the casual gamer to jump into a game with a set standard of rules that they can learn on the fly. Wanna go drown yourself? Theres water over there, oh wait for some reason you can't enter it. I guess you can't do that. Wanna go blow up that town with your fireball spell? Its not targetable, so I guess you can't do that. Wanna go try and kill that dragon that owned a group of 20 people 50 levels higher than you? Sure, but you just got your ass smeared across the ground. I guess you're not experienced enough.
Guess which of the two types of games will appeal to the casual gamer first? Yes MUDs are free, expansions are free, and support is unbeatable (I've seenen MUDs where the programmer is the GM, hard to top that). But the casual gamer (who has money) would rather spend a few dollars on a game he doesn't have to read a 20 page manual just to get started and then spend weeks learning the tricks of trade in the game.
Do you REALLY think Microsoft can control the PC hardware industry when they can't even take out Apple for almost 10 years? (Yeah they have a 'monopoly' but not a 100% one yet.)
Without Doom conceiving the multiplayer deathmatch, it could be radically touted that the PC today would be an abandoned platform insofar as gaming is concerned.
While tradition alone will endear Doom 3 to many, the long-anticipated game may yet fail to make the evolving grade it was fundamental in establishing.
By that first line it sounds as if Doom 1 was REVOLUTIONARY (and it was to be honest). However Doom 3 will probably be evolutionary and does not attempt to be revolutionary as Doom 1 was. When you look at it that way, Doom 1 managed to strike the right balance of singleplayer action and increable multiplayer action. Doom 3 simply attempts to return to the days of bloodpumping, 'not sure if the next room will hold some horrible monster that will use up half your ammo' singleplayer action, and four player 'run for your frikin life because someone got the BFG before you' multiplayer action.
I don't know about THPS, but games like Ikaruga and Mario Kart 64 didn't require too many buttons in the first place. For Ikaruga you had the shoot button, the change polarities button, and the special attack button. Not much there... Same with Mario Kart 64. You had your brakes, accelerators, and fire buttons for beginners. You also had the lean left/right and camera changing angles but face it those weren't make or break buttons you needed to master.
IMO the only time a game is truely a 'pick-up and play game' is when a newbie can play the game with one hand and be able to beat the stage (though he'll probably die a couple dozen times). Atari 2600 games? A joystick and a button, you could play with one finger and chin. Turn-based games, nuff said. Tetris, Super Mario Bros (early ones), Sonic are all pick up and play games. Looking at modern ones is kinda... well strange when you look at how many buttons there are. (ALL FPSs, RTS games, any online game, even the new Sonic and Mario games.)
The problems with games like Lemmings and The Incredible Machine (both of which I played and loved) is that they're redundant. Not redundant in the sense that "been there, done that" but redundant in a computer's ability to randomly generate these puzzles on the fly. Think about it this way...
Ten years ago : The internet is run by government associations, colleges, and geeks with enough time write a program that could crash every computer in the world... assuming they have the hard drive space. You got a copy of Lemmings? You're stuck on stage 4 of Crazy? Who you gonna call? Uhh... you're parents?
Fast forward to today : The internet is five steps ahead of you, even when you're breaking new ground. Picked up a copy of Doom 3 today? I warezed it last week. Think no ones done any research on online gaming because your college doesn't have courses for it? Wrong. You're STILL stuck on stage 4 of Crazy in Lemmings? Go look it up on GameFAQs, I beat that stage years ago but I'm too old to remember. Can't find every last secret and easter egg in FFVII? Screw that, I'll tell you how to get the developer's room. You found the hidden grunt in Halo? Big deal people on the net found 'the Megg' months ago, the LAST easter egg uncovered in the game. Etc, etc, etc...
...most of which are bad, niche based games, or just plain don't get any attention. Additionally some games CAN be played if you're blind and/or deaf. As for impaired and/or a combination of the above, nothing short of VR would even come close to solving that (good luck playing a FPS if you're blind, deaf, missing your right arm, and had a triple bypass so you're not allowed to do anything that would dramatically increase your blood pressure.)
Some of these games include:
Dance Dance Revolution : not for the leg impared and would have to be a modded version. Vib-Ribbon : again would require modding but overall one of the most potential games, not for the hand impaired or the blind and deaf. Doom : now think about it, the game is really 2-D, if you could adjust the sound so you could play through the game if you were blind. On easier difficulties you could get through with one hand. Naturally level design would have to be changed though.
But there is a catch: If they don't court 3rd parties they are never going to even begin to catch Sony.
True, but a step today is a leap tomorrow. Microsoft has the money, so stepping back and reorganizing themselves in North America (maybe don't region code the X-Box 2 as well for the importers) wouldn't be such a bad idea. After they figured out what games and developers works best (*cough*Halo*cough*) they could do some kinda 'special edition, once-in-a-lifetime, must-see' launch celebration for a MUCH lately arrived X-Box 2.
Course from a business perspective this is suicide.. From a logical point of view this is an excellent move instead of throwing money into a so far unsuccessful venture, an alien market, and into a culture grown on decades of systems built and developed in their home country.
why can't the rest of the world block the polution that China is transmitting?
Because the moment the world accidently blocks John Chang's e-mail from China to his son in the USA, people would start bitching about 'censorship of the internet' and how 'the first amendment was being trampled on because they can't chose to recieve thousands of spam messages.' The only reason China can get away with this is because they have a communist government. The moment it falls apart (if ever) you can expect to see the filters fall away too, a la Berlin Wall.
You never played a Sega Saturn have you? While the PS1 was truely revolutionary in terms of graphics, it wasn't for a nearly a year did it make some advances in gameplay. Who here still plays PS1 launch games like Battle Arena Tosheden(sp) or Loaded? No, they play games like Mega Man 8 which used the old tried-and-true gameplay and FFVII which is a mixed bag depending on how you looked at it.
as long as you follow the simple rule of never trust the client
But in an open source project, the whole idea is to trust the client. The whole ideology of an open source project is that everyone contributes (large and little) for the greater good. The problem with this is, as the "project team" grows the chance of assholes and jerks getting in increases. Do you really think Linux will remain virus free if MILLIONS of Windows users suddenly switched to Linux?
Same thing in an open source MMO game. Do you really think there isn't some spoiled little 13 year old kid out there who'd submit a cheat program in hope of it getting implemented so he can cheat and ruin the game for everyone else? Ultima Online suffered from the gold duplication trick a while back, even though the game is a relic by computing standards. And Ultima Online is a closed source project.
Slashdot Mirror
So I can play my computer games without having to learn an entire new OS. And if Windows pissed me off enough, I'd go play my Gamecube.
Whatever the case, it would be a very sad thing if Halo 3 was limited to 16 or 24 players, while PC gamers could blast away at 150 or 200 of their closest friends in another game.
150 or 200?! Holy crap, how many friends does this guy have? Let alone how many of them play video games? I have like 10-20, but 150?! Christ dude, why not go and form a small village of gamers with that many friends?
Who here has ever jumped into a 32+ player online game, dedicated, non-private server and EXPECTED to find teamwork?
Additionally because the market seems more concerned with minimizing laptop sizes over fixing other issues. (Touch pad/the little pointer in the middle of the keyboard still sucks for gaming, laptops are still flimsy and fall apart after being sat on, laptop monitors still cost about half of the entire system, battery power length still isn't impressive since all we've been doing is turning down how much we let the system sucks up, etc...)
1. The door on the left is the locked door, the player decides to open it. However instead of finding what hes looking for he find a room full of guards, some items he doesn't want, or simply failed to open the lock.
2. The window is straight ahead, and the player jumps through. However the height it too great and the guy takes damage from the fall, finds himself back at the beginning of the stage, or has actually jumped three rooms ahead and landed in the middle of 10 guards who were supposed to appear in grounds of 3 or 4 in the previous rooms. (Try playing any of the Hitman games and taking alternative paths/actions while killing seemingly random guards and that patrol that always annoyed you might not appear because you already killed them.)
3. The guy goes to the right having a 90% idea of whats going to happen and what the developers have setup in that hallway, the obvious and maybe a few guards that magicly appear and come through the door at the end of the hall.
Yeah I have some serious expectations for Quake 4 as well. The U... what the UR2004?
I don't know about most people but if I was given the choice of paying an extra dollar a month for absolutely no time EVER and much less lag, or not paying that one dollar and having to deal with downtime and annoying lag... well, I'd have to go with the extra dollar plan. I spend more on candy a month than I do on subscription based games so an extra dollar isn't gonna cause me to starve.
Well mine cost... wait, UK2k4?
We should try and /. Toyota's website.
Currently huh? Does this mean we should expect future versions (maybe 3.0) to allow players to drive vehicles? Maybe helicopters as well (though thats a stretch.)
We've come a long from those days. As much as I hate Microsoft and Windows, I'd hate the idea of going back to the days of DOS. (Good luck getting games like Wing Commander II running back then...)
Course if you were hardcore enough to beat that then you could just throw in some techno, rap, or rock songs in...
Secondly, to be fair it depends on how you look at this. You could say civil organizations such as the ACLU are the REAL 'Big Brother' of the future in the U.S. People are extremely distrustful of the government (admittedly fairly) and are therefore more likely to believe that guy who had his photo taken with an oil covered cute looking seal. Give lobbyists a few more years and who knows what they'll say, let alone what people will believe.
Text based MUDs are generally unmoderated and have no set standard of rules. Players are generally considered to self moderate themselves (ie not make themselves gods). Some MUDs are simply graphical with no combat or actual RP system coded in, so there aren't many rules.
In comparison, modern MMORPGs have succeeded in one thing if nothing else. Making it possible for the casual gamer to jump into a game with a set standard of rules that they can learn on the fly. Wanna go drown yourself? Theres water over there, oh wait for some reason you can't enter it. I guess you can't do that. Wanna go blow up that town with your fireball spell? Its not targetable, so I guess you can't do that. Wanna go try and kill that dragon that owned a group of 20 people 50 levels higher than you? Sure, but you just got your ass smeared across the ground. I guess you're not experienced enough.
Guess which of the two types of games will appeal to the casual gamer first? Yes MUDs are free, expansions are free, and support is unbeatable (I've seenen MUDs where the programmer is the GM, hard to top that). But the casual gamer (who has money) would rather spend a few dollars on a game he doesn't have to read a 20 page manual just to get started and then spend weeks learning the tricks of trade in the game.
Do you REALLY think Microsoft can control the PC hardware industry when they can't even take out Apple for almost 10 years? (Yeah they have a 'monopoly' but not a 100% one yet.)
While tradition alone will endear Doom 3 to many, the long-anticipated game may yet fail to make the evolving grade it was fundamental in establishing.
By that first line it sounds as if Doom 1 was REVOLUTIONARY (and it was to be honest). However Doom 3 will probably be evolutionary and does not attempt to be revolutionary as Doom 1 was. When you look at it that way, Doom 1 managed to strike the right balance of singleplayer action and increable multiplayer action. Doom 3 simply attempts to return to the days of bloodpumping, 'not sure if the next room will hold some horrible monster that will use up half your ammo' singleplayer action, and four player 'run for your frikin life because someone got the BFG before you' multiplayer action.
I don't know about THPS, but games like Ikaruga and Mario Kart 64 didn't require too many buttons in the first place. For Ikaruga you had the shoot button, the change polarities button, and the special attack button. Not much there... Same with Mario Kart 64. You had your brakes, accelerators, and fire buttons for beginners. You also had the lean left/right and camera changing angles but face it those weren't make or break buttons you needed to master.
IMO the only time a game is truely a 'pick-up and play game' is when a newbie can play the game with one hand and be able to beat the stage (though he'll probably die a couple dozen times). Atari 2600 games? A joystick and a button, you could play with one finger and chin. Turn-based games, nuff said. Tetris, Super Mario Bros (early ones), Sonic are all pick up and play games. Looking at modern ones is kinda... well strange when you look at how many buttons there are. (ALL FPSs, RTS games, any online game, even the new Sonic and Mario games.)
Ten years ago : The internet is run by government associations, colleges, and geeks with enough time write a program that could crash every computer in the world... assuming they have the hard drive space. You got a copy of Lemmings? You're stuck on stage 4 of Crazy? Who you gonna call? Uhh... you're parents?
Fast forward to today : The internet is five steps ahead of you, even when you're breaking new ground. Picked up a copy of Doom 3 today? I warezed it last week. Think no ones done any research on online gaming because your college doesn't have courses for it? Wrong. You're STILL stuck on stage 4 of Crazy in Lemmings? Go look it up on GameFAQs, I beat that stage years ago but I'm too old to remember. Can't find every last secret and easter egg in FFVII? Screw that, I'll tell you how to get the developer's room. You found the hidden grunt in Halo? Big deal people on the net found 'the Megg' months ago, the LAST easter egg uncovered in the game. Etc, etc, etc...
Some of these games include:
Dance Dance Revolution : not for the leg impared and would have to be a modded version.
Vib-Ribbon : again would require modding but overall one of the most potential games, not for the hand impaired or the blind and deaf.
Doom : now think about it, the game is really 2-D, if you could adjust the sound so you could play through the game if you were blind. On easier difficulties you could get through with one hand. Naturally level design would have to be changed though.
True, but a step today is a leap tomorrow. Microsoft has the money, so stepping back and reorganizing themselves in North America (maybe don't region code the X-Box 2 as well for the importers) wouldn't be such a bad idea. After they figured out what games and developers works best (*cough*Halo*cough*) they could do some kinda 'special edition, once-in-a-lifetime, must-see' launch celebration for a MUCH lately arrived X-Box 2.
Course from a business perspective this is suicide.. From a logical point of view this is an excellent move instead of throwing money into a so far unsuccessful venture, an alien market, and into a culture grown on decades of systems built and developed in their home country.
Because the moment the world accidently blocks John Chang's e-mail from China to his son in the USA, people would start bitching about 'censorship of the internet' and how 'the first amendment was being trampled on because they can't chose to recieve thousands of spam messages.' The only reason China can get away with this is because they have a communist government. The moment it falls apart (if ever) you can expect to see the filters fall away too, a la Berlin Wall.
You never played a Sega Saturn have you? While the PS1 was truely revolutionary in terms of graphics, it wasn't for a nearly a year did it make some advances in gameplay. Who here still plays PS1 launch games like Battle Arena Tosheden(sp) or Loaded? No, they play games like Mega Man 8 which used the old tried-and-true gameplay and FFVII which is a mixed bag depending on how you looked at it.
But in an open source project, the whole idea is to trust the client. The whole ideology of an open source project is that everyone contributes (large and little) for the greater good. The problem with this is, as the "project team" grows the chance of assholes and jerks getting in increases. Do you really think Linux will remain virus free if MILLIONS of Windows users suddenly switched to Linux?
Same thing in an open source MMO game. Do you really think there isn't some spoiled little 13 year old kid out there who'd submit a cheat program in hope of it getting implemented so he can cheat and ruin the game for everyone else? Ultima Online suffered from the gold duplication trick a while back, even though the game is a relic by computing standards. And Ultima Online is a closed source project.