Not a problem, except that there seems to be a good chance that programming talent would be relocated to the MMO department from those that could otherwise be making games of other great genres...
Why can't we have interpreters for compiled code, and compilers for interpreted?
That is to say, when I'm developing and/or debugging, I'd much rather be running my C/C++ code through some form of interpreter, and watching/debugging as events occur. No mysterious segmentation faults, no inserting a gazillion "printf('Works at line X'); ", statements to find that one screwed up line or even character.
By the same token, I'd love to have more interpreted languages happily compile. Perhaps it could boost the speed a bit, and sometimes it would make the packaging a bit more convenient. Also useful when there are things in one's code you just don't want visible (even though I am a fan of open-source, some security/etc routines are best left safe from the unwashed masses). Between the two, neither one is better than the other, but there's no reason we shouldn't be able to enjoy the best of both worlds.
Personally, I think that MMO's are draining way too much focus from the other gaming genre's. Right now they're a big cash-cow, which unfortunately makes them more attractive Vs other games.
I'd much rather see a proper Starcraft sequel... full 3d environments, and all the coolness of an in-space RTS that Starcraft introduced. Warcraft III has been fun, but I find that the races tend towards being a bit too linear, especially in terms of special abilities. In Starcraft, the mix was awesome... with zerg being your massive-rush force, protoss being brute-force, terran being in-between, and the technological aspects mixing all three together (protoss carrier rush=massiveness) and all the cool techs such as the arbitor abilities and the nastly little zerg devourer slime. Combined with the strategic elements such as invisibility, scanning, shields, etc... the strategic element of Starcraft far exceeded Warcraft III, and would make for a much more worthy sequel if done right...
But for Aiur's sake, please don't wash all that out with an MMORPG. It works for some things, but it's a good way to absolutely murder good games from other genre's.
I would be quite interested in seeing what differences would occur over time in humans living off-planet. One of the more obvious things would be the reaction/development of a human body to a greater gravity than that of earth. If humans were able to live and grow under heavier gravities, the assumption would be that they'd grow to be relatively stronger. A weak geek on a high-grav planet could very well be of comparable strengh to an earthbound body-builder. By the same token, somebody growing up on a lower-grav planet might be expected to be relatively weaker in earth-gravity, but also grow to be taller, etc (given the same nutrients etc).
Other factors might include atmospheric conditions (radiation, although I'm assuming early cities would be 'domed' to trap air etc) and such things as the length of a day, etc. All these could have a longterm effect on human physiology, and we could end up having several specialized and distinct branches of our own species over a few centuries.
Yes, but don't forget all the pointy end-points on soldering of the motherboard, video cards, etc... even with a nice case those litle guys are still around to remove some skin from your knuckles (of course, with a nice case one oftimes has more room to work with too, so less knuckle-skinning).
The "Bank of America"... with the proud name it has, is moving to offshore workers. Does anyone recall a case where an overseas worker (health sector, I believe) threatened to release confidential client info unless being paid a 'bonus.'
Sounds like a reaaaaaaally safe place to put your money... I hope the customers think so too.
At least to some extent... and while somebody may be making money off of it it's not exactly ready to compete with the real (2d) thing for the majority of people.
Official support and system requirements are two different things. Perhaps these particular games might work on windows 98, though if they do I have doubts of how well, but I've had plenty that give the "This program requests Microsoft Windows 2000 or higher" error message. And for the record, games requiring a crack don't count... if they did I'd happily pronounce many games that work just fine on linux as well.
NO they don't. Hence my point. The game doesn't just have to support direct9, they have to support win98.
Of the three mentioned, Galactic Civ 2 is the only one which runs on windows 98
Hence my point. The games may run use DirectX 9, MS may have been patching Win98 and have given it support for directX 9, but the games themselves do not. In other words... it doesn't work... because the venders have decided not to support windows 98 anymore (directX 9 notwithstanding)
I think the word you want is batty, as in freakin nuts.
SCO is like some crazy old drunk ranting at a group of kids to get off his lawn... except that he's sitting in the middle of a park... and not wearing any clothes... and the kids are actually a bunch of squirrels in a nearby tree...
SCO is continuously claiming ownership to something they have no right to, they're threatening to attack the wrong people even if they did have ownership (SCO licenses for Linux users), and meanwhile their ass is flapping in the wind for everyone to see how nuts they really are.
While MS may have stopped supporting win98 in terms of patches etc, the industry stopped supporting it a long time ago. MS also stopped supporting it for much of their office products quite a while back. Even hardware such as printers have been not supporting the old OS in the last few years.
Basically win98 was good if you still need to run some legacy 9x apps, maybe some DOS stuff, and get on the internet for email or browsing. It seems now that it's day has passed even for browsing, as the forthcoming versions of both IE and firefox have stopped support, and now patch support has stopped as well.
However, what to do with all those businesses (especially low-profit government entities such as schools) with older machines, win98 licenses, and not a lot of money to spend on either hardware or operating systems? To me, it looks this is just another push for those entities towards a linux desktop, not based on any technical details, but due to just plain ol' dollars and cents.
I suppose one of the major factors would be the aspect of health detriment, in terms of self or dependants. Buying lots of magazines isn't an addiction unless it puts you in an unhealthy financial situation (say, you can't afford proper food). Spending hours on activity X could be considered addiction if your own health suffers (lack of nourishment) or that of your dependants (ignored, unhealthy children). Plenty of people watch 2-4h of TV a day... it's comparable to gaming, less interactive in fact, but not really an addiction unless they are neglecting themselves or their children etc in a critical way.
Now, somebody who comes home from work (or misses work) orders pizza every day, doesn't maintain proper hygeine, and absolutely must login to WoW every day, is an addict. TV is less easy to define as it's a more passive engagement (what's on depends on a specific time), but if you're watching re-runs all day or DVD's, etc... again neglecting your personal situation, then it is also addiction.
Car shows and hobbies etc tend to be an incorporated part of one's life. It's when they start massively overruling the other parts that they move into becoming addiction.
The problem is that somebody has no shame. Plenty of people get away with this sort of shit, and happily go on screwing others for the rest of their lives because in the grand scheme nobody notices or cares. Now maybe if those people realize that others are watching, and judging, perhaps they'll start acting more like decent human beings.
The other side of the false accusation also falls under law, and there plenty of both legal and social repercussions for that, as well.
The article wasn't quite clear on what "per item" meant. Does it mean per each type of violation occured, or per sold game in violation of each type. One doesn't add up to much, the other could add up to quite a lot.
Not all the readers would necessarily know that the two are the same, so it might be just to impress both names in their mind. That or make the 'conspiracy' larger than it seems./
Somehow I think that selling a "Zelda" collection of old Zelda titles, or something similar, would work a lot better than a music album. The concept is rather different, as I was suggested a collection of known and well-liked titles, whereas albums tend to sneak in a known and like song with unknown and crap filler.
It seems that they tend to price the games higher than their age reflects in value. Wouldn't it be a better idea to sell games as collections and then sell them for a midline amount? I might not pay $20-30 for an old Zelda game, but I might pay $30-50 for a bunch of them in a collection.
Not I, that lesson was learned with my first Acer. It was a former employer who saw "oooo lotsa gadgets for only $1000" that was the culprit for the continued Acer purchases... I'm just the one that got to deal with the warranty issues and fixing 'em.
From my understanding of the article, this is intended as a wireless protocol for USB devices. That being so, why would you need it to go through walls, or better yet, why would you want it to?
Personally, in 99% of the cases, I'd be more than happy to have my USB signals stay put where nobody but me can read them... despite the assurance about "security being mandatory" we all know that in most cases if a signal can be picked up, it can be hacked.
The only reason I might want something that passes through walls is if I decided to stick a media server, etc in the closet, and have it controlled by a local device connected by UWB... and either a wireless or hardwired connection for the video.
What I've found with Acer in general is that they throw a lot of quantity (in terms fancy features) with not a lot of quality. Fragile frames, dying screens, and various other problems have been a plague to Acer machines for years. Moreover, I've seen the same type of power issues occur in their notebooks from my old 233MMX (T310 I think) notebook all the way to the last Acer machines we bought (about a year ago).
Having a notebook with features is great, but not when you can't use the thing or have to keep sending it in for repair due to poor design. I'm not sure that this laptop would be any more or less reliable than previous models, but I'd be careful that all those great "features" don't cause one to overlook the issues of reliability.
Slashdot Mirror
Not a problem, except that there seems to be a good chance that programming talent would be relocated to the MMO department from those that could otherwise be making games of other great genres...
Why can't we have interpreters for compiled code, and compilers for interpreted?
That is to say, when I'm developing and/or debugging, I'd much rather be running my C/C++ code through some form of interpreter, and watching/debugging as events occur. No mysterious segmentation faults, no inserting a gazillion "printf('Works at line X'); ", statements to find that one screwed up line or even character.
By the same token, I'd love to have more interpreted languages happily compile. Perhaps it could boost the speed a bit, and sometimes it would make the packaging a bit more convenient. Also useful when there are things in one's code you just don't want visible (even though I am a fan of open-source, some security/etc routines are best left safe from the unwashed masses). Between the two, neither one is better than the other, but there's no reason we shouldn't be able to enjoy the best of both worlds.
Personally, I think that MMO's are draining way too much focus from the other gaming genre's. Right now they're a big cash-cow, which unfortunately makes them more attractive Vs other games.
I'd much rather see a proper Starcraft sequel... full 3d environments, and all the coolness of an in-space RTS that Starcraft introduced. Warcraft III has been fun, but I find that the races tend towards being a bit too linear, especially in terms of special abilities. In Starcraft, the mix was awesome... with zerg being your massive-rush force, protoss being brute-force, terran being in-between, and the technological aspects mixing all three together (protoss carrier rush=massiveness) and all the cool techs such as the arbitor abilities and the nastly little zerg devourer slime. Combined with the strategic elements such as invisibility, scanning, shields, etc... the strategic element of Starcraft far exceeded Warcraft III, and would make for a much more worthy sequel if done right...
But for Aiur's sake, please don't wash all that out with an MMORPG. It works for some things, but it's a good way to absolutely murder good games from other genre's.
I would be quite interested in seeing what differences would occur over time in humans living off-planet. One of the more obvious things would be the reaction/development of a human body to a greater gravity than that of earth. If humans were able to live and grow under heavier gravities, the assumption would be that they'd grow to be relatively stronger. A weak geek on a high-grav planet could very well be of comparable strengh to an earthbound body-builder. By the same token, somebody growing up on a lower-grav planet might be expected to be relatively weaker in earth-gravity, but also grow to be taller, etc (given the same nutrients etc).
Other factors might include atmospheric conditions (radiation, although I'm assuming early cities would be 'domed' to trap air etc) and such things as the length of a day, etc. All these could have a longterm effect on human physiology, and we could end up having several specialized and distinct branches of our own species over a few centuries.
Yes, but don't forget all the pointy end-points on soldering of the motherboard, video cards, etc... even with a nice case those litle guys are still around to remove some skin from your knuckles (of course, with a nice case one oftimes has more room to work with too, so less knuckle-skinning).
The "Bank of America"... with the proud name it has, is moving to offshore workers. Does anyone recall a case where an overseas worker (health sector, I believe) threatened to release confidential client info unless being paid a 'bonus.'
Sounds like a reaaaaaaally safe place to put your money... I hope the customers think so too.
At least to some extent... and while somebody may be making money off of it it's not exactly ready to compete with the real (2d) thing for the majority of people.
Link (warning: not work friendly)
Official support and system requirements are two different things. Perhaps these particular games might work on windows 98, though if they do I have doubts of how well, but I've had plenty that give the "This program requests Microsoft Windows 2000 or higher" error message. And for the record, games requiring a crack don't count... if they did I'd happily pronounce many games that work just fine on linux as well.
NO they don't. Hence my point. The game doesn't just have to support direct9, they have to support win98.
Of the three mentioned, Galactic Civ 2 is the only one which runs on windows 98
WoW does not support win98
San Andreas also requires windows 2000 or XP
Hence my point. The games may run use DirectX 9, MS may have been patching Win98 and have given it support for directX 9, but the games themselves do not. In other words... it doesn't work... because the venders have decided not to support windows 98 anymore (directX 9 notwithstanding)
Perhaps you missed This article
Great, it has driver support. Now show me all the new games that run on 9x... kinda like having a screwdriver and no screws, eh?
I think the word you want is batty, as in freakin nuts.
SCO is like some crazy old drunk ranting at a group of kids to get off his lawn... except that he's sitting in the middle of a park... and not wearing any clothes... and the kids are actually a bunch of squirrels in a nearby tree...
SCO is continuously claiming ownership to something they have no right to, they're threatening to attack the wrong people even if they did have ownership (SCO licenses for Linux users), and meanwhile their ass is flapping in the wind for everyone to see how nuts they really are.
While MS may have stopped supporting win98 in terms of patches etc, the industry stopped supporting it a long time ago. MS also stopped supporting it for much of their office products quite a while back. Even hardware such as printers have been not supporting the old OS in the last few years.
Basically win98 was good if you still need to run some legacy 9x apps, maybe some DOS stuff, and get on the internet for email or browsing. It seems now that it's day has passed even for browsing, as the forthcoming versions of both IE and firefox have stopped support, and now patch support has stopped as well.
However, what to do with all those businesses (especially low-profit government entities such as schools) with older machines, win98 licenses, and not a lot of money to spend on either hardware or operating systems? To me, it looks this is just another push for those entities towards a linux desktop, not based on any technical details, but due to just plain ol' dollars and cents.
I suppose one of the major factors would be the aspect of health detriment, in terms of self or dependants. Buying lots of magazines isn't an addiction unless it puts you in an unhealthy financial situation (say, you can't afford proper food). Spending hours on activity X could be considered addiction if your own health suffers (lack of nourishment) or that of your dependants (ignored, unhealthy children). Plenty of people watch 2-4h of TV a day... it's comparable to gaming, less interactive in fact, but not really an addiction unless they are neglecting themselves or their children etc in a critical way.
Now, somebody who comes home from work (or misses work) orders pizza every day, doesn't maintain proper hygeine, and absolutely must login to WoW every day, is an addict. TV is less easy to define as it's a more passive engagement (what's on depends on a specific time), but if you're watching re-runs all day or DVD's, etc... again neglecting your personal situation, then it is also addiction.
Car shows and hobbies etc tend to be an incorporated part of one's life. It's when they start massively overruling the other parts that they move into becoming addiction.
The problem is that somebody has no shame. Plenty of people get away with this sort of shit, and happily go on screwing others for the rest of their lives because in the grand scheme nobody notices or cares. Now maybe if those people realize that others are watching, and judging, perhaps they'll start acting more like decent human beings.
The other side of the false accusation also falls under law, and there plenty of both legal and social repercussions for that, as well.
The article wasn't quite clear on what "per item" meant. Does it mean per each type of violation occured, or per sold game in violation of each type. One doesn't add up to much, the other could add up to quite a lot.
How about if a virus ran around goatse'ing the solitaire deck. I wonder how many people would notice and/or complain.
Not all the readers would necessarily know that the two are the same, so it might be just to impress both names in their mind. That or make the 'conspiracy' larger than it seems./
Somehow I think that selling a "Zelda" collection of old Zelda titles, or something similar, would work a lot better than a music album. The concept is rather different, as I was suggested a collection of known and well-liked titles, whereas albums tend to sneak in a known and like song with unknown and crap filler.
Has anyone get the info on which port it uses or hosts it contacts? I'm thinking that it might be time to update my outgoing NAT firewall rules...
It seems that they tend to price the games higher than their age reflects in value. Wouldn't it be a better idea to sell games as collections and then sell them for a midline amount? I might not pay $20-30 for an old Zelda game, but I might pay $30-50 for a bunch of them in a collection.
Not I, that lesson was learned with my first Acer. It was a former employer who saw "oooo lotsa gadgets for only $1000" that was the culprit for the continued Acer purchases... I'm just the one that got to deal with the warranty issues and fixing 'em.
From my understanding of the article, this is intended as a wireless protocol for USB devices. That being so, why would you need it to go through walls, or better yet, why would you want it to?
Personally, in 99% of the cases, I'd be more than happy to have my USB signals stay put where nobody but me can read them... despite the assurance about "security being mandatory" we all know that in most cases if a signal can be picked up, it can be hacked.
The only reason I might want something that passes through walls is if I decided to stick a media server, etc in the closet, and have it controlled by a local device connected by UWB... and either a wireless or hardwired connection for the video.
As a flash-module that snapped in beside a hard-drive, rather than with it. That would make it quite a bit easier to upgrade, etc.
On the other hand, the upside is that you wouldn't necessarily need a seperate IDE channel/cable for it this way.
What I've found with Acer in general is that they throw a lot of quantity (in terms fancy features) with not a lot of quality. Fragile frames, dying screens, and various other problems have been a plague to Acer machines for years. Moreover, I've seen the same type of power issues occur in their notebooks from my old 233MMX (T310 I think) notebook all the way to the last Acer machines we bought (about a year ago).
Having a notebook with features is great, but not when you can't use the thing or have to keep sending it in for repair due to poor design. I'm not sure that this laptop would be any more or less reliable than previous models, but I'd be careful that all those great "features" don't cause one to overlook the issues of reliability.