I definitely agree that there's a lot of things that were better about original UT than UT2k3, but I think there were also some improvements. The double jump/wall jump/double dodge was a great addition, it enables you to do some incredible moves that no one would have even thought of in UT (Like jumping over a gap, off a wall, landing behind the jerk who just tried to tag you with a lightning gun and blowing his guts out with flak). And the lightning gun is a huge gameplay improvment over the old sniper rifle. NOTHING was more annoying than getting your head sniped off over and over again by some n00b who couldn't do anything but sit in one place and snipe, esp. in certain CTF and Assualt maps. I also think that the new maps and just the overall gameplay tweaks create a more balanced, and enjoyable environment with less camping (I hate campers). UT had more highs, but also much more lows, whereas UT2k3 has more balance.
This whole idea is pure idiocy. First off, have you ever heard of that little thing called a trial? Last time I checked, you couldn't be punished unless you were given a lawyer, and a chance to defend yourself on trial, and all that nice constitutional stuff. On top of that, think about the consequences in a place like a college dorm. Someone piss you off? How about having a great way to put them $2000 in the hole in the 5 minutes it takes to download 3 copyrighted songs- just wait for them to go to the bathroom... And of course, there's the fact that pretty much every corporation has some unliscensed software on their computers. Wouldn't that be great? The minute this new program goes on line, America's economy collapses because half the corporate workstations in the country blow up. Yeah, pure genious.
Guys, I think we just DOSed kernel.org, I can't connect. Good job. Maybe we should do this to microsoft.com next time they release a new patch, which'll probably be tommorrow.
Ummmmm, maybe its just me, but it was nearly impossible to see the difference from looking at ONE SPECIFIC "GARBLED" FRAME of this thing running. When ATI did their cheat, it was blatantly obvious just from comparing any two screenshots of gameplay. I don't know about anyone else here, but I'll sacrifice having every one of my frames being absolutely perfect (even after I run them through filters in gimp), for 10 extra FPS.
Thinked maybe they'd pass that source code over to someone over at icculus.org ? I'm sure icculus could have us all a linux port like a day after he had the source. Not that he doesn't already have his hands full with Devastation and MOH...
If you bother reading some of the more intelligent comments, you probably noticed that that's exactly what John Carmack told us last week.
I just think the whole thing is stupid. If nVidia were paying there FutureMark taxes to be part of the beta program, we would have never heard a word about this. FM just wants to make nVidia look bad because they're not helping an IMHO useless program make money.
Seriously, it seems like FutureMark pissed nVidia off, so nVidia tried to get back at them by cheating, and now FM's trying to turn everyone against nVidia for cheating, when ATI did the same thing, but ATI pays them money to be in their beta program, so who cares? These things are worthless anyway, the FX5900 still outperformed the 9800 in most of the real world tests, and they were pretty much neck and neck otherwise, 3dMark is supposed to show how well cards perform in real situations, but from the last batch of card reviews I've read, it seems that it doesn't reflect at all on real world performance.
The product being open source and all, couldn't someone figure out how to do it, or make a modification to make it work, and then post how to do it on a their website somewhere, For all those people who don't want to pay whatever it is for the documentation? Idunno.
I don't think that Microsoft could patch it up so easily, and even they could, it wouldn't be cheap. I mean, to develope patches to counteract mod chips would doubtfully be a quick process, and then to have to bother with putting the system together to detect and "repair the linux infection" might no be the easiest task in the world either. Plus, whoever managed to get Linux running on an X-box in the first place could probably manage to write something to make it undetectable to the Xbox Live! servers.
I do think that you're right about who it really is though. I actually think it'll be fun to see, if they do get it running, and Microsoft is forced to upgrade their servers constantly to prevent people from using linuxized X-boxs. It could actually possibly throw the whole network into chaos, which would cost Microsoft millions, and definitely put a damper on X-box sales, and Live! subscriptions. If it is a big company, I think that its IBM, out to get revenge for Microsoft screwing them over, and then beating their far superior OS2 Warp with Windows 3.1.
Reading alot of these posts, I think that alot of you guys are underestimating the linux gaming community, and its size. I mean, look at how many people are transgaming members. They're shelling out good money along with the money the already paid for the games, to be able to run them in Linux. I'm sure most of the guys (other than the idiots who ask questions on the LinuxGames forums that go something like this- "How do you get Quake3/RTCW/UT to run in WineX?") would jump at the chance to be able to play games without the loss of performance, and to not have to pay beyond what they already paid for their games (yeah, I know, you can download the source code for free from SourceForge, but I have personally had trouble compiling it, and getting it to run properly, and I've heard of other people having the same problems).
I read someone post that said something to the effect that Linux gamers are about as important to game manufactors as Women over 50 (I think this might have been in the OpenGl 2.0 discussion), and I think that just the fact that companies make a fairly big deal when they release Linux binaries for a game proves that that is not true. Just the fact that MandrakeSoft was actually able to release a "Gaming Edition" without it being a 100% failure proves that we have some power.
And plus, the Linux community is a lot more vindictive than the rest of the computer community. When a company does makes some special deal with Microsoft, or does something equally offensive, you have a whole hoarde of Linux people saying not to buy/use/touch/look at their product, for the sake of making a statement or something. I don't think that Bioware is going to want to be smited by the wrath of a few hundred/.ers, and other assorted angry people.
Slashdot Mirror
I definitely agree that there's a lot of things that were better about original UT than UT2k3, but I think there were also some improvements. The double jump/wall jump/double dodge was a great addition, it enables you to do some incredible moves that no one would have even thought of in UT (Like jumping over a gap, off a wall, landing behind the jerk who just tried to tag you with a lightning gun and blowing his guts out with flak).
And the lightning gun is a huge gameplay improvment over the old sniper rifle. NOTHING was more annoying than getting your head sniped off over and over again by some n00b who couldn't do anything but sit in one place and snipe, esp. in certain CTF and Assualt maps.
I also think that the new maps and just the overall gameplay tweaks create a more balanced, and enjoyable environment with less camping (I hate campers). UT had more highs, but also much more lows, whereas UT2k3 has more balance.
This whole idea is pure idiocy. First off, have you ever heard of that little thing called a trial? Last time I checked, you couldn't be punished unless you were given a lawyer, and a chance to defend yourself on trial, and all that nice constitutional stuff.
On top of that, think about the consequences in a place like a college dorm. Someone piss you off? How about having a great way to put them $2000 in the hole in the 5 minutes it takes to download 3 copyrighted songs- just wait for them to go to the bathroom...
And of course, there's the fact that pretty much every corporation has some unliscensed software on their computers. Wouldn't that be great? The minute this new program goes on line, America's economy collapses because half the corporate workstations in the country blow up.
Yeah, pure genious.
Guys, I think we just DOSed kernel.org, I can't connect. Good job.
Maybe we should do this to microsoft.com next time they release a new patch, which'll probably be tommorrow.
I thought he was vying for the position of just plain old God.
wait, but when they say that a card is twice as fast as a previous card, does that mean that its .6(2xOldCard) or .6(2x(.6)OldCard)?
Ummmmm, maybe its just me, but it was nearly impossible to see the difference from looking at ONE SPECIFIC "GARBLED" FRAME of this thing running. When ATI did their cheat, it was blatantly obvious just from comparing any two screenshots of gameplay. I don't know about anyone else here, but I'll sacrifice having every one of my frames being absolutely perfect (even after I run them through filters in gimp), for 10 extra FPS.
Thinked maybe they'd pass that source code over to someone over at icculus.org ? I'm sure icculus could have us all a linux port like a day after he had the source. Not that he doesn't already have his hands full with Devastation and MOH...
If you bother reading some of the more intelligent comments, you probably noticed that that's exactly what John Carmack told us last week.
I just think the whole thing is stupid. If nVidia were paying there FutureMark taxes to be part of the beta program, we would have never heard a word about this. FM just wants to make nVidia look bad because they're not helping an IMHO useless program make money.
Seriously, it seems like FutureMark pissed nVidia off, so nVidia tried to get back at them by cheating, and now FM's trying to turn everyone against nVidia for cheating, when ATI did the same thing, but ATI pays them money to be in their beta program, so who cares? These things are worthless anyway, the FX5900 still outperformed the 9800 in most of the real world tests, and they were pretty much neck and neck otherwise, 3dMark is supposed to show how well cards perform in real situations, but from the last batch of card reviews I've read, it seems that it doesn't reflect at all on real world performance.
[breathe]
We should make sure the Vogons know that, so they'll at least have to leave Mexico when they come to clear us out.
The product being open source and all, couldn't someone figure out how to do it, or make a modification to make it work, and then post how to do it on a their website somewhere, For all those people who don't want to pay whatever it is for the documentation?
Idunno.
I don't think that Microsoft could patch it up so easily, and even they could, it wouldn't be cheap. I mean, to develope patches to counteract mod chips would doubtfully be a quick process, and then to have to bother with putting the system together to detect and "repair the linux infection" might no be the easiest task in the world either. Plus, whoever managed to get Linux running on an X-box in the first place could probably manage to write something to make it undetectable to the Xbox Live! servers.
I do think that you're right about who it really is though. I actually think it'll be fun to see, if they do get it running, and Microsoft is forced to upgrade their servers constantly to prevent people from using linuxized X-boxs. It could actually possibly throw the whole network into chaos, which would cost Microsoft millions, and definitely put a damper on X-box sales, and Live! subscriptions. If it is a big company, I think that its IBM, out to get revenge for Microsoft screwing them over, and then beating their far superior OS2 Warp with Windows 3.1.
CAT-4 sounds like something a Linux user would use.
that sounds like something that an Anonymous Coward would say
Reading alot of these posts, I think that alot of you guys are underestimating the linux gaming community, and its size. I mean, look at how many people are transgaming members. They're shelling out good money along with the money the already paid for the games, to be able to run them in Linux. I'm sure most of the guys (other than the idiots who ask questions on the LinuxGames forums that go something like this- "How do you get Quake3/RTCW/UT to run in WineX?") would jump at the chance to be able to play games without the loss of performance, and to not have to pay beyond what they already paid for their games (yeah, I know, you can download the source code for free from SourceForge, but I have personally had trouble compiling it, and getting it to run properly, and I've heard of other people having the same problems). I read someone post that said something to the effect that Linux gamers are about as important to game manufactors as Women over 50 (I think this might have been in the OpenGl 2.0 discussion), and I think that just the fact that companies make a fairly big deal when they release Linux binaries for a game proves that that is not true. Just the fact that MandrakeSoft was actually able to release a "Gaming Edition" without it being a 100% failure proves that we have some power. And plus, the Linux community is a lot more vindictive than the rest of the computer community. When a company does makes some special deal with Microsoft, or does something equally offensive, you have a whole hoarde of Linux people saying not to buy/use/touch/look at their product, for the sake of making a statement or something. I don't think that Bioware is going to want to be smited by the wrath of a few hundred /.ers, and other assorted angry people.