As far as I am concerned. Good riddance to a horrible mode of play that nobody ( that isn't crazy ) really liked.
I picked up the PSone version of Diablo in early 98. It's a decent port, but of course the PSone didn't have online connectivity. (Other than the Lightspan modem).
So in PSone Diablo you can't spread out, and if one player has the menu open it basically pauses the game and only ONE player can access their inventory at once which slows down gameplay. I actually did play that game same-screen with another player, but knew about Battle.net and thought "I hope with the next generation of game consoles we can play games like this online."
Which did happen in the next generation. Playing Champions of Norrath online is hella better than CoN splitscreen even with CoN's "split-menu in splitscreen" feature.
I don't see how online helps in a rural area, as rural areas are generally slower to get wired broadband
Depends on how you #define rural. If you mean people out on country roads in farmland that's one thing, but if you mean small towns that's another.
If indie game developers were willing to make PC games designed from the ground up for sharing a screen, would you be willing to buy/build a gaming PC for the living room?
Why do you ask a question you already know the answer to? As a demographic, PC gamers have VERY LITTLE interest in the type of same-screen multiplayer games you want to design even if they have a PC in the living room.
The type of gamers who DO have that interest are console gamers, and even amongst those, same-screen multi is a niche market. Sure you can make a game with same-screen multi, but it needs to have online multiplayer as well.
even if everyone else thinks they're kind of annoying wankers about the whole "if it isn't a K+M it's not a real FPS".
Not "kind of annoying wankers", the ARE wankers, because anyone with some experience knows that for movement analog sticks are better than keyboards.
Because a lot of the people who started playing video games in the 80s fall into that category now. They still want to game, aren't going to splash out several grand on a gaming rig, and can only devote so much of their time to gaming.
Or are people actually buying external gamepads like MOGA for use with their tablets and phones?
Do you see people using them on public transportation, or when waiting? Then no.
But you knew that already. If you want to design a game that's played best with physical controls, any phone/tablet version is not going to be the primary platform.
And as a game player, if I'm going to buy a game that would be played best with physical controls, I'm not going to buy it for a phone/tablet, that's what the Vita is for.
If you want to design console games, it would be best to be familiar with modern console gaming dont you think?
where might he find a working DS3 or Sixaxis controller with which to try the Sixaxis Compatibility Checker app?
For one, don't even think about a pre-DS3 Sixaxis, just get the DS3. As for where to get one, how about your local pawnshop or a store that carries used games/controllers?
I imagine video game stores' return policies don't cover incompatibility with non-PS3 game systems as a valid reason.
Probably not, but why return it, you can always use the DS3/DS4 with a PC.
Even in terms of mechanics, consoles are lousy for FPSs: controller vs. K+M; the mouse always wins.
Even in terms of mechanics, PC's are ALSO lousy for FPS's, for intuitive movement, analog stick always wins. And need I remind you that the players of the first FPS games without mouse aiming, considering FPS games with mouse aiming to be easy-mode games for casuals.
What would work best is analog stick for movement, but mouse for aiming. This is sometimes called hybrid-mode by some PC and console gamers who prefer it. It works VERY well.
Besides, there are games other than FPS's. Unless, of course, you're one of those guys playing de_dust in CS to exclusion of everything else, over and over and over.
They wanted to play split screen 1 on 1 vs mode and....couldn't. To boot, they had to have a ps4 live account just to access the vs mode which was online only.
It's not really online only, it's just that with PS3 and PS4 games each player needs either a PSN account (which allows MP profiles/stats to be tracked/saved) or be signed in as a guest. (Depends on game)
You also need to have that PS4 activated as the Primary PS4 for the owners PSN account.
And it doesn't help if someone else in the household needs to use the family PC the same night.
More and more households are multiple PC these days, not even taking into account that many people can do their facebooking and whatnot on phones and tablets.
Good luck hauling that behind your bike.
Are you 12? (Yes I know you're not 12.)
Or what am I missing?
You're missing the fact that adults and most teens of 16+ age, drive. The fact that you don't drive is one of the things that keeps your "mindset" at the "pre-teen after-school same-screen gaming on SDTV" level. You suffer from "arrested gaming development" in a way.
Better? For competitive split screen certainly not. For cooperative games it's tolerable, but not optimal depending on the game.
Take action RPG's for example. In Secret of Mana for SNES, if any player has the menu open, gameplay basically pauses and the other players can't do anything.
The same applies to games like Diablo on the PSone and the many Diablo clones on the PS2.
Happens with Diablo UEE as well, basically the game thinks network has gone down so when it resumes it's in LAN mode. all you have to do in UEE is just to put it back to whatever mode you want.
I ditched GNOME the day that I received the new Evince after an update. After encountering the new 'pretty' interface, it took me over 10 minutes to find out how to open a fucking file.
If you open up evince on it's own, you get a selection of recent documents and a button that looks like a file folder. Hovering over that shows "Open".
And considering how few buttons Evince with a document open has, it shouldn't take 10 minutes to see what that triple-line hamburger does.
Some of those older GUI's had some nice ideas. For example in GEOS you can print documents directly from the file manager, either from the menu or you can just drag and drop documents on the printer icon.
The Thunar file manager for XFCE doesn't have a print action by default, though you can add one with a custom action.
Which, I've noticed, is still how people handle common applications, with "copy it to the taskbar" a close second and the two "pin" options vying for a distant third.
I run Linux, Fedora 22 using the XFCE desktop. My "panel", which I call the "taskbar" is at the bottom, as the Goddess intended. On that taskbar just to the left of the buttons showing my running applications/windows, are 4 quick launch buttons for my most commonly used applications, in the usual place for quick launch buttons. At the far right of the taskbar is the clock, the notification area is to the left of the clock. I use a specific theme for window decorations where the window title bars are blue and the close button is red.
We've gone from having something like Pidgin being able to run all instant messaging clients ad free to now having to download a separate app for every messager, for example (no one uses the older ones anymore, or they've been shut down).
You can blame the pidgin developers for that, for deciding to NOT implement Voice and video support as was earlier planned. Also, since the Pidgin developers mostly used the finch with XMMP on the console it meant that the protocols especially used by "normal" users got short shrift and didn't keep up featurewise.
You can also blame some of the silly UI changes to pidgin, made by some of those finch using developers that were ill-advised.
We do have to cut him "some" slack on this because he formulated his movement BEFORE the mass adoption of home computers and gaming.
When he joined the MIT AI Lab, computer access was still pretty much limited to the "bearded priesthood". It's also why I think he needs more pragmatism. He's out of touch with the actual needs of people who "aren't" members of the MIT AI Lab style bearded priesthood. As I've said before, he mostly computes as if it was 1964, since he uses EMACS on the console EMACs originally being macros for TECO.
He just simply doesn't "get" how others use computers and how his views would actually remove the freedom from others to do what THEY wan't to do.
Hey now, I may be no fan of Stallman, preferring more pragmatism in the open source movement, but I don't consider him a troll.
A better way of putting it might be:
Stallman has a skewed view of "living in the real world" since he squatted at MIT till 1998 and spents most of his time traveling to foreign countries to speak about "free software" now.
Someone should tell him that while foreigners invite him to talk about software freedom, the really care more about free as in beer part of it. Part of the reason hardcore FSF zealots tend to be non-americans is because they were former pirates who simply don't want to pay for software and "free software" now gives them free-as-in-beer software without the guilt.
Notice how some of the keys are actually wider at their base than the top of the key. Also notice that the pipe/backslash key is next to the Z key. This keyboard was NOT loved by those who had used other keyboards especially the selectric.
It's better, but the delete key is small (1 key width rather than 1.5) and the caps lock is in the wrong place for someone trained on a selectric. Which was just about everyone.
It's better even if the return key is small, the only way to make the return key bigger would be to shrink the pipe/backslash to 1 keywidth rather than the 1.5.
LOL... who the hell still has access to usenet feeds?
For the binaries groups? Obsessive gotta-collect-all-the-media pirates, mostly.
My ISP doesn't have their own netnews server anymore. At first they farmed it out to a third party but still included the service, but then they dropped it entirely.
I've been looking around for a service that suits my needs, I don't need/want binaries and I don't want to have to pay whatever month to something like Giganews to help bankroll the piracy for everyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
You are conflating HTPC interest with YOUR interests
Just because someone is interested in HTPCs, doesn't mean they want to play some SNES/NES style same-screen multiplayer game on it.
As far as I am concerned. Good riddance to a horrible mode of play that nobody ( that isn't crazy ) really liked.
I picked up the PSone version of Diablo in early 98. It's a decent port, but of course the PSone didn't have online connectivity. (Other than the Lightspan modem).
So in PSone Diablo you can't spread out, and if one player has the menu open it basically pauses the game and only ONE player can access their inventory at once which slows down gameplay. I actually did play that game same-screen with another player, but knew about Battle.net and thought "I hope with the next generation of game consoles we can play games like this online."
Which did happen in the next generation. Playing Champions of Norrath online is hella better than CoN splitscreen even with CoN's "split-menu in splitscreen" feature.
I don't see how online helps in a rural area, as rural areas are generally slower to get wired broadband
Depends on how you #define rural. If you mean people out on country roads in farmland that's one thing, but if you mean small towns that's another.
If indie game developers were willing to make PC games designed from the ground up for sharing a screen, would you be willing to buy/build a gaming PC for the living room?
Why do you ask a question you already know the answer to? As a demographic, PC gamers have VERY LITTLE interest in the type of same-screen multiplayer games you want to design even if they have a PC in the living room.
The type of gamers who DO have that interest are console gamers, and even amongst those, same-screen multi is a niche market. Sure you can make a game with same-screen multi, but it needs to have online multiplayer as well.
even if everyone else thinks they're kind of annoying wankers about the whole "if it isn't a K+M it's not a real FPS".
Not "kind of annoying wankers", the ARE wankers, because anyone with some experience knows that for movement analog sticks are better than keyboards.
Because a lot of the people who started playing video games in the 80s fall into that category now. They still want to game, aren't going to splash out several grand on a gaming rig, and can only devote so much of their time to gaming.
Indeed. (I'm 48.)
Or are people actually buying external gamepads like MOGA for use with their tablets and phones?
Do you see people using them on public transportation, or when waiting? Then no.
But you knew that already. If you want to design a game that's played best with physical controls, any phone/tablet version is not going to be the primary platform.
And as a game player, if I'm going to buy a game that would be played best with physical controls, I'm not going to buy it for a phone/tablet, that's what the Vita is for.
For someone who doesn't already own a PS3,
If you want to design console games, it would be best to be familiar with modern console gaming dont you think?
where might he find a working DS3 or Sixaxis controller with which to try the Sixaxis Compatibility Checker app?
For one, don't even think about a pre-DS3 Sixaxis, just get the DS3. As for where to get one, how about your local pawnshop or a store that carries used games/controllers?
I imagine video game stores' return policies don't cover incompatibility with non-PS3 game systems as a valid reason.
Probably not, but why return it, you can always use the DS3/DS4 with a PC.
Even in terms of mechanics, consoles are lousy for FPSs: controller vs. K+M; the mouse always wins.
Even in terms of mechanics, PC's are ALSO lousy for FPS's, for intuitive movement, analog stick always wins. And need I remind you that the players of the first FPS games without mouse aiming, considering FPS games with mouse aiming to be easy-mode games for casuals.
What would work best is analog stick for movement, but mouse for aiming. This is sometimes called hybrid-mode by some PC and console gamers who prefer it. It works VERY well.
Besides, there are games other than FPS's. Unless, of course, you're one of those guys playing de_dust in CS to exclusion of everything else, over and over and over.
They wanted to play split screen 1 on 1 vs mode and....couldn't. To boot, they had to have a ps4 live account just to access the vs mode which was online only.
It's not really online only, it's just that with PS3 and PS4 games each player needs either a PSN account (which allows MP profiles/stats to be tracked/saved) or be signed in as a guest. (Depends on game)
You also need to have that PS4 activated as the Primary PS4 for the owners PSN account.
And it doesn't help if someone else in the household needs to use the family PC the same night.
More and more households are multiple PC these days, not even taking into account that many people can do their facebooking and whatnot on phones and tablets.
Good luck hauling that behind your bike.
Are you 12? (Yes I know you're not 12.)
Or what am I missing?
You're missing the fact that adults and most teens of 16+ age, drive. The fact that you don't drive is one of the things that keeps your "mindset" at the "pre-teen after-school same-screen gaming on SDTV" level. You suffer from "arrested gaming development" in a way.
Better? For competitive split screen certainly not. For cooperative games it's tolerable, but not optimal depending on the game.
Take action RPG's for example. In Secret of Mana for SNES, if any player has the menu open, gameplay basically pauses and the other players can't do anything.
The same applies to games like Diablo on the PSone and the many Diablo clones on the PS2.
Happens with Diablo UEE as well, basically the game thinks network has gone down so when it resumes it's in LAN mode. all you have to do in UEE is just to put it back to whatever mode you want.
I ditched GNOME the day that I received the new Evince after an update. After encountering the new 'pretty' interface, it took me over 10 minutes to find out how to open a fucking file.
If you open up evince on it's own, you get a selection of recent documents and a button that looks like a file folder. Hovering over that shows "Open".
And considering how few buttons Evince with a document open has, it shouldn't take 10 minutes to see what that triple-line hamburger does.
His UID Is higher than yours so I'm disappointed you didn't use "You Must be New Here" on him.
Some of those older GUI's had some nice ideas. For example in GEOS you can print documents directly from the file manager, either from the menu or you can just drag and drop documents on the printer icon.
The Thunar file manager for XFCE doesn't have a print action by default, though you can add one with a custom action.
Which, I've noticed, is still how people handle common applications, with "copy it to the taskbar" a close second and the two "pin" options vying for a distant third.
I run Linux, Fedora 22 using the XFCE desktop. My "panel", which I call the "taskbar" is at the bottom, as the Goddess intended. On that taskbar just to the left of the buttons showing my running applications/windows, are 4 quick launch buttons for my most commonly used applications, in the usual place for quick launch buttons. At the far right of the taskbar is the clock, the notification area is to the left of the clock. I use a specific theme for window decorations where the window title bars are blue and the close button is red.
Why yes it DOES resemble WinXP, why do you ask?
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/...
Strangely I was exposed to KDE and FVWM BEFORE I ever used WinXP. And I had used WinNT4 before I used Win95.
Those folks who came up with the CDE that inspired em all knew what they were doing...designing a GUI that WORKED.
Otherwise known as soft links or symbolic links, which DEC and RDOS have had since 1978.
and in Unix even before that
.
We've gone from having something like Pidgin being able to run all instant messaging clients ad free to now having to download a separate app for every messager, for example (no one uses the older ones anymore, or they've been shut down).
You can blame the pidgin developers for that, for deciding to NOT implement Voice and video support as was earlier planned. Also, since the Pidgin developers mostly used the finch with XMMP on the console it meant that the protocols especially used by "normal" users got short shrift and didn't keep up featurewise.
You can also blame some of the silly UI changes to pidgin, made by some of those finch using developers that were ill-advised.
We do have to cut him "some" slack on this because he formulated his movement BEFORE the mass adoption of home computers and gaming.
When he joined the MIT AI Lab, computer access was still pretty much limited to the "bearded priesthood". It's also why I think he needs more pragmatism. He's out of touch with the actual needs of people who "aren't" members of the MIT AI Lab style bearded priesthood. As I've said before, he mostly computes as if it was 1964, since he uses EMACS on the console EMACs originally being macros for TECO.
He just simply doesn't "get" how others use computers and how his views would actually remove the freedom from others to do what THEY wan't to do.
Hey now, I may be no fan of Stallman, preferring more pragmatism in the open source movement, but I don't consider him a troll.
A better way of putting it might be:
Stallman has a skewed view of "living in the real world" since he squatted at MIT till 1998 and spents most of his time traveling to foreign countries to speak about "free software" now.
Someone should tell him that while foreigners invite him to talk about software freedom, the really care more about free as in beer part of it. Part of the reason hardcore FSF zealots tend to be non-americans is because they were former pirates who simply don't want to pay for software and "free software" now gives them free-as-in-beer software without the guilt.
You mean the tilde? " ~ "?
Slashdot accepts it just fine.
apparently he does sometimes access the web with IceCat via TOR, that's relatively new thing for him I think.
https://www.stallman.org/stall...
Why the US Keyboard has a smaller "enter" key compared to the Latin America Keyboard? I fell more important having a big enter key :)
It has a smaller enter key to have a larger delete key
This is the original PC keyboard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Notice how some of the keys are actually wider at their base than the top of the key. Also notice that the pipe/backslash key is next to the Z key. This keyboard was NOT loved by those who had used other keyboards especially the selectric.
This is the AT keyboard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's better, but the delete key is small (1 key width rather than 1.5) and the caps lock is in the wrong place for someone trained on a selectric. Which was just about everyone.
This is the mighty Model M:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's better even if the return key is small, the only way to make the return key bigger would be to shrink the pipe/backslash to 1 keywidth rather than the 1.5.
Doesn't even have to be LOGO these days:
#!/bin/python
import turtle
turtle.shape("turtle")
turtle.forward(50)
turtle.right(90)
turtle.forward(50)
turtle.right(90)
turtle.forward(50)
turtle.right(90)
turtle.forward(50)
turtle.exitonclick()
It's turtle.pendown all the way down.
Thats PervECT!
LOL ... who the hell still has access to usenet feeds?
For the binaries groups? Obsessive gotta-collect-all-the-media pirates, mostly.
My ISP doesn't have their own netnews server anymore. At first they farmed it out to a third party but still included the service, but then they dropped it entirely.
I've been looking around for a service that suits my needs, I don't need/want binaries and I don't want to have to pay whatever month to something like Giganews to help bankroll the piracy for everyone else.