Honestly, you cannot eat your cake and have it too.
Say what you will about Vista (as we all have), but it did get one exceptional feature: Transactional NTFS. The filesystem's default behavior is like it always was - journal enough to keep the FS correct, but screw the user's data. But there are also new APIs that let you use BEGIN/COMMIT/ROLLBACK for the filesystem. You can group file creations, deletions, moves, writes, etc. into this, just like people have been doing forever in databases. I think this is a good middle ground.
Wow, blast from the past with errors compiling standard C++ I haven't had to worry about for a long time. The Windows bundle package comes with MinGW GCC 3.4.5 built in January 2006. TDM's GCC builds to the rescue!
Making a horror game is well and good, but when you recycle the same scare tactics over and over through an entire game, it's very easy for it to devolve into a simple action game with surprise moments. Ie, Doom 3 and Left4Dead. Both good action games that I've enjoyed an unhealthy amount of, but neither are very good horror games. Play them for a few days and they quickly stop evoking any fear because it's just more of the same.
I have not played FEAR or Dead Space -- do you think they're better horror games?
There is a grain of truth here, the author probably just got confused. MS is allowing you to upgrade your XP license to Win7. You need a clean reinstall, but at least you get the lower upgrade price.
Indeed. L4D is a great game but it has far too little content. It clearly didn't cost them nearly as much to make, but they sold it at the same price of HL2. They shouldn't be charging for new levels.
Come on, was the piracy spin really needed? Youtube uses them, DVD/Bluray players use them, MP3 players use them, heck Windows 7 is even including DivX, H.264 (though not sure if it's through the new DivX codec), and AAC support now. Hate to break it to you, but these codecs are used for a lot more things other than copyright infringement.
If you want me to kick your ass in Quake to prove the point, I can... provided you can get it installed, configure the game properly, and figure out how to join a server. Then after I beat you flawlessly, I can invite someone else to beat me flawlessly, and you'll be left with an appreciation of how wide the skill range can be.
Funny you should mention that, because I run a Custom-TF server - come drop by sometime. I didn't say these games don't exist, just that there aren't enough of them. Being a fellow quake player, I'm glad to know you appreciate the type of long-term games I'm looking for. Things like RJing, bhopping, skill maps, being able to manipulate the crappy but insanely fun physics to curve around obstacles while fighting - sure I know and understand all the game mechanics and am better than most, but after 10 years of play I have yet to master them and occasionally come across someone who painfully outclasses me. And that just makes it more fun.
On the subject of MMOs, I have played a few. I have played a lot of single-player RPGs. Sometimes the stories and roleplaying are enough to keep me, sometimes the fun teamplay is enough to keep me. On one occasion, a custom UO shard had enough cool GMs to make a lot of interesting situations every week. But most of the time I burn out quick, because there just isn't enough of a skill curve involved to make it fun in the long term.
You hit the nail on the head - make it easy to learn, fun for noobs. But also make the skill gap between noob and master take years to close, and be fun doing so.
I'm getting quite sick of games with small learning curves - the ones who's mechanics you can master in less than a month without any special instruction. The ones that become a game of who went deeper into the dungeon for the better armor, who buys the more expensive weapon, who can snap-aim better (which takes skill, but is not a particularly interesting one). Give me something rewarding, where I can be playing a year or two later and still improving my skill. Items are cool, but after a while they don't cut it.
Indeed. Engines are the easy part, and there are a lot of coders ready to work on them - either starting from scratch or modifying one of the existing ones. We have trouble finding artists and content creators though. A good first step might be to get a large Creative Commons texture repository that all games can share from. Then the big problem will be finding modelers and mappers.
None of what you said matters. Think about it: what do non-techie users care about? They don't care about HTML, about standards compliance, about private VS shared memory usage. They care about ease of use, performance, security, extensibility, and most importantly that it "just works". THAT is how Firefox is gaining market share, and how it will continue to grow.
Developers may slave and complain over making it "just work" for IE users, but the great majority of those users will never actually know that. Even if they did know, most probably wouldn't care as long as it doesn't make *them* waste time getting things to work.
The OS can only do so much. Most programs have downright horrible scaling on just 4 cores, let alone the 64 cores of 5 years from now. If you want to be scalable, you need to learn how to do it and design your app for it from the start.
i wonder if it would be viable to put large solar arrays in these areas. sounds like a good opportunity for free energy. assuming we don't find a way to fix it (assuming we want to).
Like any good slashdotter, I'm not reading the article until after I post. Is 3.0 still going to be heavy on the CPU? Really, the best thing they could do is take the good stuff from firewire and slap a USB logo on it. All the cheap stuff can continue to use 2.0, while the bandwidth intensive stuff in 3.0 can have their own controllers.
I've always wondered why ISPs can't give higher speeds if you stay within their network. You'd get your download faster. You'd use less peering bandwidth, costing the ISP less money. Everybody wins.
Slashdot Mirror
At least that money is being circulated back into the economy now.
Honestly, you cannot eat your cake and have it too.
Say what you will about Vista (as we all have), but it did get one exceptional feature: Transactional NTFS. The filesystem's default behavior is like it always was - journal enough to keep the FS correct, but screw the user's data. But there are also new APIs that let you use BEGIN/COMMIT/ROLLBACK for the filesystem. You can group file creations, deletions, moves, writes, etc. into this, just like people have been doing forever in databases. I think this is a good middle ground.
woops, using a source tree from January 2006 plus some patches. but not built then.
Wow, blast from the past with errors compiling standard C++ I haven't had to worry about for a long time. The Windows bundle package comes with MinGW GCC 3.4.5 built in January 2006. TDM's GCC builds to the rescue!
Making a horror game is well and good, but when you recycle the same scare tactics over and over through an entire game, it's very easy for it to devolve into a simple action game with surprise moments. Ie, Doom 3 and Left4Dead. Both good action games that I've enjoyed an unhealthy amount of, but neither are very good horror games. Play them for a few days and they quickly stop evoking any fear because it's just more of the same.
I have not played FEAR or Dead Space -- do you think they're better horror games?
There is a grain of truth here, the author probably just got confused. MS is allowing you to upgrade your XP license to Win7. You need a clean reinstall, but at least you get the lower upgrade price.
Didn't some Firefox exec just say bundling doesn't lead to market share if a competitor is good enough?
Indeed. L4D is a great game but it has far too little content. It clearly didn't cost them nearly as much to make, but they sold it at the same price of HL2. They shouldn't be charging for new levels.
Qubit molester insists entanglement was consensual, stay tuned for details at 11.
Come on, was the piracy spin really needed? Youtube uses them, DVD/Bluray players use them, MP3 players use them, heck Windows 7 is even including DivX, H.264 (though not sure if it's through the new DivX codec), and AAC support now. Hate to break it to you, but these codecs are used for a lot more things other than copyright infringement.
I use a wallet and a silver sharpie. Not the Organizational Dream, but it's manageable for now.
Funny you should mention that, because I run a Custom-TF server - come drop by sometime. I didn't say these games don't exist, just that there aren't enough of them. Being a fellow quake player, I'm glad to know you appreciate the type of long-term games I'm looking for. Things like RJing, bhopping, skill maps, being able to manipulate the crappy but insanely fun physics to curve around obstacles while fighting - sure I know and understand all the game mechanics and am better than most, but after 10 years of play I have yet to master them and occasionally come across someone who painfully outclasses me. And that just makes it more fun.
On the subject of MMOs, I have played a few. I have played a lot of single-player RPGs. Sometimes the stories and roleplaying are enough to keep me, sometimes the fun teamplay is enough to keep me. On one occasion, a custom UO shard had enough cool GMs to make a lot of interesting situations every week. But most of the time I burn out quick, because there just isn't enough of a skill curve involved to make it fun in the long term.
You hit the nail on the head - make it easy to learn, fun for noobs. But also make the skill gap between noob and master take years to close, and be fun doing so.
I'm getting quite sick of games with small learning curves - the ones who's mechanics you can master in less than a month without any special instruction. The ones that become a game of who went deeper into the dungeon for the better armor, who buys the more expensive weapon, who can snap-aim better (which takes skill, but is not a particularly interesting one). Give me something rewarding, where I can be playing a year or two later and still improving my skill. Items are cool, but after a while they don't cut it.
An embryo is not a fetus. But you can make up whatever "definitions" suit you...
great, so now we're at 8 IPv6 sites, all of which are tunnel brokers!
Code being GPL does not mean the art it uses needs to be GPL. Incompatibilities don't matter here.
It has happened in the past that Microsoft has blamed their tech beta testers for leaks... at least we can't get blamed for this one.
Indeed. Engines are the easy part, and there are a lot of coders ready to work on them - either starting from scratch or modifying one of the existing ones. We have trouble finding artists and content creators though. A good first step might be to get a large Creative Commons texture repository that all games can share from. Then the big problem will be finding modelers and mappers.
None of what you said matters. Think about it: what do non-techie users care about? They don't care about HTML, about standards compliance, about private VS shared memory usage. They care about ease of use, performance, security, extensibility, and most importantly that it "just works". THAT is how Firefox is gaining market share, and how it will continue to grow.
Developers may slave and complain over making it "just work" for IE users, but the great majority of those users will never actually know that. Even if they did know, most probably wouldn't care as long as it doesn't make *them* waste time getting things to work.
The OS can only do so much. Most programs have downright horrible scaling on just 4 cores, let alone the 64 cores of 5 years from now. If you want to be scalable, you need to learn how to do it and design your app for it from the start.
i wonder if it would be viable to put large solar arrays in these areas. sounds like a good opportunity for free energy. assuming we don't find a way to fix it (assuming we want to).
Like any good slashdotter, I'm not reading the article until after I post. Is 3.0 still going to be heavy on the CPU? Really, the best thing they could do is take the good stuff from firewire and slap a USB logo on it. All the cheap stuff can continue to use 2.0, while the bandwidth intensive stuff in 3.0 can have their own controllers.
Note that Vista automatically tunes your receive window for each connection.
I've always wondered why ISPs can't give higher speeds if you stay within their network. You'd get your download faster. You'd use less peering bandwidth, costing the ISP less money. Everybody wins.
Here's hoping they include a PC version of this alongside the PC version of Street Fighter IV.