My char was a wookie TKA. I love monks and always play them in every RPG when I got the opportunity (No spirtual reason, I am just to cheap to buy armour and weapons).
This left me with enough points to be a bit of a scout, harvest, and a bit of crafting. Oh nothing major, just fireworks. I liked them and very few people seemed to want to bother making them but there was always a need for them.
I actually was rather good at it and I got fairly frequent requests for packages with some amazing money offers. 1 million for a fire display? Payed in ADVANCE? Why yes sir, thank you sir! Oh sorry madam.
The wide grouping was also a lot of fun. Another char I think was ranger/creature handler. Yeah I know but it was fun pre-doc-buff. Had 2 big red rats and 1 small black one. Called Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis. The ratpack. Got a few laughs and they were pretty good.
Granted cats were better as they could keep up with your swoop but anway we were talking about grouping.
Dancers, crafters, rangers the whole non-combat group hanging out together. Oh sure the medic/docs had to pay a lot of attention but on the whole it was no super hassle. It could be done and everyone would even get xp. Such groups were especially good for getting some of the less common resources.
No more dabbling (worse if you respec to crafter/entertainer with an existing char you instantly a master) and grouping only in your own level range. Yuck. There is a reason EQ2 isn't setting any sales record either you know? No need to make it EQ2 in space.
Almost every RPG like game gives you a health bar. As you take damage it lowers. To counter that you usually are given some way to heal yourself (or get members of your party to do it for you) as well as way to temporarily or permantly increase it. Improve the self-healing/regeneration capability and of course ways to prevent getting damaged in the first place like armour or agility.
Next you get an action bar or mana bar or whatever from you pay your special attacks. The heavier the attack the more action points taken. Drain them all and you depend on your basic usually weak attack. Mana bars usually have mana potions to refill it. Basically the action/mana bar is a tool I think to prevent players from just spamming their most powerfull attacks constantly.
In MMO's it seems extremely important to limit the players power. I hit the "not enough energy/action/mana" limit far more often then in any single player RPG. Most often it seems to be method used to limit wich levels of enemies you can fight and wich level of enemies you can fight with.
Let me explain. You make a group with a fighter a healer and a heavy hitter (mage). You can then take on enemies that are a lot tougher then any of you could take on solo. Why? Well the fighter will be the one taking all the damage, this is called tanking, but that doesn't matter because the healer will just spam his heal spells. As long as the enemy isn't so hard they kill the fighter between heals you can then just wait for the mage to do his work.
So most game limit the healer. This doesn't just prevent you from taking on enemies that the designers have deemed to though for you. It also prevents grouping outside your level range.
A low level healer just can't cast his weak healing spells fast enough to be in a high level group.
I don't know why MMORPG designers desire this. Lord of the Rings has noobs and maxed specced characters going on an adventure together but this is a NO-NO in MMORPG land for some reason. I think the logic goes along these lines, well everybody else does it so we should as well.
Why is it so bad? MMORPG's survive or not because of their ability to give a social game. Artifically limiting who can group with whom divides up your player base. Or put it another way. You run the risk of alienating new players because they can't find anyone to group with.
Anyway, I was talking about the Health/Action bar.
SWG did this a little different. It gave you 3 primary bars, Health Action and Mind (HAM) each with 2 subbars.
Now unusual for most RPG games an enemy could damage each one of the HAM bars. So you could be killed if either reached 0. Or rather you were knocked out and then killed by the more lethal critters. This is a HUGE difference from other MMO's. Remember special actions take away from your action bar in every RPG BUT you do not then also have to worry about dying if it goes empty. Even if it is drained completly you still can keep on fighting.
In SWG you could easily kill yourselve in a fight by using up your HAM points doing special attacks only then to suffer one enemy hit and bam you were down. Depleting the ham bars was a typical newbie mistake.
The two subbars to each HAM bar dictated how much points a special move cost and how fast you recovered. Most players maxed these at the cost of their total HAM points. Faster recovery was better then having more points and obviously special actions costing less was a boon as well.
SWG was also unique in another aspect. You did not gain extra HAM points as you levelled up. You could redistribute them within certain limits set by your species but the total remained the same throughout the game.
The experienced RPG players will spot the problem. What about about later enemies, do they do increased damage. Why yes they do. So while in the beginning an enemy needs to land a dozen or more hits to deplete your bars a later enemy can do it in one hit.
Yeah well but you gain better armour and skills to reduce the
When your current server is growing to small but you are not yet ready or willing to go to the big boys and simply buy a solution.
The easiest way is to split your server. A typical website has 4 pieces wich can be easily seperated. Scripts (if you use lamp perl or php), images/static content, the database and finally logging.
If you site is "normal" you can get some very good results by splitting these tasks up across different servers. Each task really asks for a different hardware setup.
Scripts tend to be small but require a fair chunk of crunching power. There is little point in scsi as the scripts could just remain in memory without ever needing to swap. Depending on your scripts you don't need gigs of memory either. What you could really use is a multi-core machine. server side scripting practically begs for multicore. Why process one page request when you can do 2 or 4 etc. It may be me but I had better results with dual P3 then single P4.
Images are almost the opposite. Depending of course on your site they could easily come to several gigs and worse constantly change. IF you cannot fit your content in memory you better have a fast hd. SCSI still is the best for this. CPU power on the other hand is less important. What you may want to look into is that your hardware is optomized. I believe that Linux has some support for more direct throughput (reducing the amount of times the image is shuffled around before going out of your network card). Raw CPU is less needed. Here I also got some really good experiences in preffering multi core over raw gigahertz power.
Database is in a class of its own. With certain databases there isn't even a benefit to having multicore it seems perhaps due to whole table locking. The main advantage you can get by seperating it from the rest is that it means your apache server can concentrate on one task. Also removing the outside connection on your database is a nice bit of extra security. Database server really depends all on the way your site is setup. For a typical page request I usually asume the following, 1 script request, a dozen image requests, 3 database queries. (verification, retrieval, update)
Logging is often overlooked but it takes up a serious amount of resources. Not logging is an option of sorts but I don't like it. Switching it to a machine dedicated to the task can seriously speed up your other servers AND provide a level of extra security. A logging server can be very lightweight and just needs a decent HD setup.
Anyway that is the amateurs way to save a website creaking at the seams when their is no money to get a pro solution. It is a hazzle as you now got four machines to admin but it is easy to setup and usually does not require a major redesign.
Load balancing and stuff sounds nice but most customers get such odd reactions when they here the prices charged.
Well I been posting lengthy posts so far about SWG so why should this story be an exception eh?
Well I tried the trial and was less then impressed with the "tutorial" level. I since spotted you can skip it wich is great since it at least allows you to go down to where the action is.
I then found out that for some reason my account is active until the 3rd of jan, no Idon't see any payments to sony on my bankstatements, perhaps as part of a free trial for old players?
I had of course to check it out. The game has changed. And yet it is the same. It is not nearly as dead as some claim BUT it is being deserted. Oh and don't count subscription figures to much. One guy in my guild seems to have 11 alts. 11 accounts being played by one person. Coupled with people who simply stopped playing but whose account is still running this means the game has far fewer players then subscription numbers would have you believe.
So is it as bad as everyone claims.
Well yes. The engine just isn't up to the changes. It never been designed like this. One of the problems? Well enemies can be inside each other, there is no proper collision detection but this makes it very hard to target in the new combat mode that critter wich you want. Usually you target 1 kill then do the next in a group. Now you find yourselve attacking two critters at random meaning it takes longer and you take more damage.
No they took a bugged game and forced it into a new outfit that doesn't fit and stuffed it with new bugs. There is still a hint of what SWG could have become in more capable hands but the NGE just shows that SOE isn't capable.
There really is something fundamentally wrong at SOE were each design decission just doesn't seem to be properly analyzed. It is weird but SOE with SWG seems to have had a nice idea at the beginning and then somehow managed to screw EVEYTHING up. Not big not majorily.
Imagine it like this. Say that for each decision you had four choices. A perfect choice, a totally crap one, a middle of the road one. Well sony then always picks the fourth, the not crap and not middle of the road one. The one choice that is yuck.
Sony would stock their soda dispensers with Pepsi. That says it all really. SWG is pepsi. Nobody drinks pepsi by choice, only because coca-cola isn't sold in some places.
No, we have a debit card system wich is called giro and works across europe.
HOWEVER that is not a system accepted by default by american companies. See those little symbols behind a credit card form? American Express, VISA, Master card and another? Well those are american, some banks do offer a combo but then you simply have a combo debit credit card with each credit payment being charged to your credit account. With very bad conditions like interest and subscription fees.
Paypal? Credit Card. it is a well known problem and the reason companies like Global Collect and Bibit exist. They take the hassle away from companies like sony and do the collecting for it. Bibit offers sometimes a dozen ways to pay for each country. I know I worked with them for a european wide ISP.
Sadly like you, and the guy I responded to before american just can't get their head around the fact that europe has a different banking system.
Oh and the GDP of europe is a bit bigger. Although I do suppose I must clarify that I did not mean just the EU. Even fairly advanced countries are not in the EU and you would be suprised by how many poles and other ex-soviets play online (yet for some reason can't get a credit card) http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2001rank.html
The eu is fraction behind the US count the non-eu european nations and you will have a larger GDP.
As to the reason online shopping here could be bigger. Easy, why wait 6 months to buy a dvd when it is on sale in the US already? Region protection you say. Fraid not. France ruled it illegal a while ago. meaning that you can now legally circumvent it.
I searched, I tried, the CC companies do not seem to offer debit cards here. Trust me, it has been researched on every MMO beta forum. We got our own debit system here, in fact it is the norm here.
Just doesn't seem to exist. It is a real case of americans not being able to understand that the rest of the world is not like america.
Credit Cards in europe are expensive, rarely accepted and just not popular. Some american companies realize this, most don't. The ones that don't are the ones who say that europe doesn't do business over the net. Despite the fact that europe got more money, more people, more broadband AND a bigger reason to buy via the net (get dvd's NOW instead of 6 months later).
Just download the free trial. Granted it is about 1-1.5 gig but hey that is nothing over broadband. There is no credit card info needed to get a trial account so no risk. Try it, don't speculate.
You can then see for yourselve what it is all about.
But okay, most will not want to bother because it is easier to just talk about.
So here is my review of Star Wars Galaxies, New Game Experience.
First is the same as it was before. Create a new character on a server of your choice. DO NOT CHOOSE RECOMMENDED. That is the most underpopulated server. It could well mean that for the whole trial you never see an other player. Choose the one in red (if there still is one)
Now the character creation itself is still as good as it ever was with you really being able to design a character you like better then in any current MMORPG. Breast size, fatness make sure that not all characters look alike even from a distance. You can now also decide you starter outfit and this introduces you to another SWG good point, the wide selection of clothing further allowing you to make your character unique.
Satisfied with your character (don't worry it can be changed in game by a specific player class) you then get put in the game.
Well almost, SWG used to have a short tutorial and then dump you in the main game (lately Mos Eisley) but now the tutorial is bigger.
The old tutorial is gone and your now being called by C3-PO to do some basic stuff. Look around, move, talk to droid, get gun from cabinet, equip, shoot at target. WHOOPS. BIG FUCKING CHANGE. The first change is cosmetic. The camera now hovers behind your character offset to the right. Meaning you sorta look over your characters gun hand. Odd, I don't like it but livable. Now to the big change the NGE brought. Most MMO's you target your enemy, then trigger attack and from then on attack the target on auto doing the occasional special move.
No longer. NGE is FPS. You click, you fire. You actually have to aim at the target to hit it. For now it seems easy enough but these boxes take one hit to destroy. I can forsee difficulty later.
Anyway next task is to blast open door and there nobody else then Han Solo and Chewbacca (on a diet) is waiting to safe you. Follow him and you come to a big hangar with a lot parked vehicles as well as the Millenium Falcon and 3 storm troopers. You are told to take cover and you get in a brief fight. Here the FPS switch starts to show its ugly head. Yes you got to aim in a mode that looks a bit FPS like. Yes you got to hold the mouse button down to keep firing BUT it feels nothing like a fps. There is no ducking, there is no AI there is no cover, really this is FPS pre-wolfenstein. Played GTA San Andreas? Well it is like that but worse. You just stand there, hold the mouse button down over you enemy, watch their health drop, hopefully before yours do and rince and repeat.
Before NGE your first fight would actually be a challenge. Now it isn't. I didn't die ONCE!
Run aboard the MF and you will take off. Here we see a second change, a lot more FMV cutscenes. In fact I don't remeber any apart from the intro before.
You are now in space "YEAH" about the MF (you need to be told this as it looks nothing like in the movies. Here another problem starts to emerge. SWG did not have much in the way of scripting. So now they have to add story telling scripting to an engine that does not support it. The result that the following bit is incredibily slow and unbelievable and prone to you rushing ahead and getting stuck.
Your under attack and told to man the turret. WAIT. DO NOT MOVE. Wait for the script to catch up and after a number of pauses you will be instructed to climb in. If you do it before the game will not realize you did and will keep telling you to climb in. Have a character stuck there.
Shoot at the TIE's actually looks decent but no real challenge, get out and go to the cockpit (this engine just isn't desinged to render the MF I guess) and next bit.
I have serious case of XXXXX and spend at least 9 months of a year in hospital, have you got good medical care?
You expect me to start work at WHAT hour?
Any, you know, perks to this job? Last job at Intel me and my family never bought a pc, wink wink.
You want me to learn skill x, what is in it for me?
Pure hypothetical, If you send me on this 1 million dollar training course, can I still, in theory, quit 1 week later and work a company that pays me a decent wage and not the slave money you are offering me?
So where is my company car?
(To female interviewer) my boss won't be a woman right?
(To male interviewer) watch any good yaoi lately?
In Rotterdam: How about Ajax eh? (replace with town Y NOT owning soccer X)
My office machine, it is an alienware right?
How fast is your internet connection?
Slashdot isn't blocked is it?
I saw your companies product, I think I can seriously improve it. I mean who built the current version, a team of monkeys?
To owner of company: Communism really deserves a second try doesn't it.
To goverment interviewer: So is it really true bureaucrats spend all their day playing with their dicks?
To charity: I don't care what they say I think all immigrants should be dumped at sea.
(interview for santa job): Bah humbug
Interview in kansas: Wow, that darwin, what a guy.
Interview for sony: Information wants to be free man.
Interview at Microsoft: I never release a product if it contains a single bug and test my apps to destruction.
Interview for an advertising agency: don't you agree that a good product sells itself?
Can I have days of to visit my parole officer?
Does a criminal record count against you?
To a canadian on the subject of salary: So how much is that in real money?
To a german tech company: Can I work on the secret projects designing the weapons to start the next world war with?
To japanese company: Can I order my desk from the grownups section so it reaches above my knees?
To black interviewer: Will the company lunches always be fried chicken?
Well it shows that the rest of the world does not have a clue and has been succesfully brainwashed. What next? A woman who has sex with a man for free is charged with not being a hooker?
This really is to weird for words. I suppose next those people who stand at the sideline of marathons with free water for the participants are going to be taken to court by SPA? People who pick up hitchhiker sued by Public Transport?
If I create something I can do with it as I please. I know this is a radical thought but not every musical artist dreams of being rich, some just want others to enjoy their music.
A dutch artist (Peter Blanker) performed at the opening of a supermarket or something (I was really young at the time) and my mother talked to him about the songs wich she couldn't buy in the store. He send her a tape wich I and my sister listened to a lot. Side A where childeren songs and Side B were adult songs. (I am not certain on th exact details, just know the tape was in our collection with his handwriting on it)
He later hosted a very popular radio show focusing on dutch music until it was cancelled during one of the many facelifts of public radio but it has remained next to impossible to buy the songs on that tape.
It is not nice to think that in this day and age his action of sending us a tape would have been considered illegal.
I suppose I shouldn't comment on spelling and grammar, english might not be this guys first language, I am not to good at it myself and anyway this is slashdot where the editors are to busy raking in their fat profits to do anything but hit submit.
Anyway, on with your question. Search the web for absolute beginner guides to the web. You don't even seem to known the difference between presentation (HTML) data (XML) server side scripting (Perl) client side scripting (Javascript) etc.
I am not suprised then that your current efforts don't give you the result you want. I think even google would find it a challenge to make a weblog with nothing but HTML.
You don't "code" in HTML, you design. If the distinction isn't obvious to you, give up now. Perhaps I have just been exposed to too many highly intelligent people hired during the internet boom and who I had to teach how to code. My boss at the time didn't seem to be able to grasp that just because somebody scores highly in logic tests does not mean they can code. I remember one guy I knew for a fact was much more intelligent then me who just couldn't get his head around the way a PHP website deals with variables being passed. If you don't know, if you put something like this in php
<php $count++; echo $count; ?>
you will not have made a programming error, it will not give an error and will display 1 on your page. Expecting it to however ever go higher on reloads means you have not grasped the fundamental nature of the web.
In short the guy could just not grasp the stateless nature of the web. Amazing but I seen examples like this to often to believe that everyone has it in them to program (++$count vs $count++ anyone?. Nothing odd really, everyone knows some people can do art and others can't. Why should the other half of the brain not exclude certain people. (Ever tried explaining that "0 is false". No not "and 1 is true". Nothing is true except that wich isn't false.)
Then there is another count against you. You ask on slashdot without seemingly having done any research beyond noticing some buzzwords. Good coders do not ask, they find things for themselves. Good or even mediocre programming skill comes from having that drive to figure things out, to question, to search, to test.
It not like it has hard to google for beginner guides. But you are to lazy or to dumb to do that. I see lazy wannabe coders all the time, just make the mistake of hanging around in game modding forums. Guys who want to create the next counterstrike while they shouldn't be allowed within a mile of an ini file. As for dumb, recent post suggested the following. (like it anyway)
mood=stress,boredom,fame,salery $actor=2,0.1,3,5
To modify fame set it to 15.
Question: so it becomes like $actor=15
Answer: DO NOT EVER CHANGE YOUR JOB TO PROGRAMMER
Some people can code, some people can't. Yes I am bitter from having to train a lot of them (the ones who could didn't need to be trained, just given a good book, a practice enviroment and a month or two with maybe the odd session on monday to introduce some advanced subjects and hard earned practical knowledge) during the boom. Maybe I was just a bad teacher, I seen others fail as well, but some people just should not try it.
You sound like one of those people. I really don't want to be mean or anything but look at your post. You confuse HTML with a coding language wich it isn't. Perhaps the L of the acronym confuses you, it does a lot of people, but then a bit of basic googling should have set you straight.
You claim to know HTML but are unable to make proffesional looking sites with it. NEWSFLASH, HTML is what all the pros use. One sign of a person who cannot code is the believe there is a magic tool/language out there that everyone is hiding from them that will instantly turn them leet. There is one but it there is already a job shortage so we are
I fucking hate them. Not as much as I hate people that preach about database abstraction but I do fucking hate them.
Why? Because of maintenance. But templates are supposed to make it easier to maintain aren't they.
No. Templates are there to add another layer of complexity to an app. Seperating the html from the php so that the designers are not confused? Hire better designers. Easily allow you to modify the site?
Well yeah if you think changing the color is a modification that should be in the html (should be in css) then yeah.
Perhaps I only seen bad implementiations of templates but in my experience the end result was always that you could never tell wich part of the fucking site was controlling what and that even simple modifications meant you had to figure out the template engine being used.
In my experience sites either have tiny changes that can be done by the coder and designer working together in a good team OR should have been in css anyway. The big redesigns usually require a code change anyway.
Worse, I had to handle more then one site where the answer was simple, Oh you want that change, sorry no that can't be done in the template. Template changes is for cosmetic changes, not functionality changes. Most buyers of e-commerce sites just don't seem to realize it. They think template means you can change your website. Yeah, in the same way a skin can change your winamp/xmms.
Perhaps I just build my sites wrong, I tend to make the html and php far to intertwined with a lot of the html being build by the code not just the php filling in certain blanks.
Database abstraction is usually defended by how easy it makes it to switch databases without having to switch code.
Eh yeah right. How often does this happen anyway? Like the site redesign it just is not a frequent occurence. Worse you often find that in favor of abstraction they leave out nice handy features one database supports but nobody else. Mysql_return_id. Every handy and only done by Mysql.
Again perhaps it was just bad experience but I seen several cases where the abstraction layer used did not support this feature forcing me to code around it. Extra PHP code to handle stuff already in the engine. Oh I am happy now!
The company that insisted the most on the abstraction NEVER switched in the two years I was there. Extra code extra bugs for something that is never used.
Image this in the real world. Your car doors being welded shut because one day you might want to turn it into a race car. WTF?
What is my point? Well that theory and practice do not mix. Yeah I 3 tired apps are usefull sometimes BUT that does not mean every bloody application has to use it. Database abastraction is usefull for code that is certain to grow. 99% of websites do not. Templates are usefull when you know you will get a lot of requests for cosmetic changes that are to big to complex to fit into css.
As for the whole saving you hours of work deal. At how many hours cost? I once read a quote that went something like this, "Do not code for code re-use unless you know in advance you are going to re-use it at least 3 times. Else the time coding for re-use will simply not recovered".
Some show has a intro tune or something that a listener likes. Used to be the D.J. then get a letter (yeah I am old) asking what song it is. Nothing unusual but recently I have heard a few times when the listener asked the D.J. if the could send the song to him. One of them must have been new and said sure he would make an mp3 of it and email it after the show. Next day. "Oops sorry, heard that I can't do that. Legal reasons. You know what. Let me know when your home and I will play the song whole and you can then record it."
In the future that D.J. will face a firing squad.
Used to be nothing unusual, a long lasting news show had an somewhat obscure german song as their intro. Every few months they would just play it whole to give people a chance to record it. Buying it was impossible but hey, who cares. That is 1 euro iTunes won't be seeing times, well at least a dozen people who recorded it.
I can't wait for the revolution to start. My little red book is starting to overflow with names that are on the list.
Just check on the tax on dvd-r in holland. Depending on the format 50 euro cent or a full euro. No they don't care what you use them for, the music industry was not making giant enough profits so now when you buy a product that has nothing to do with them they still get your money.
Same with proposed or already introduced taxes on such things like mp3 players and even harddisks.
It just has troubles delivering them. Remember it had an awfull lot of this talk with the launch of the original x-box. Oh and with internet tv and a whole lot of other stuff. Just somehow it never seems to come together.
The x-box was an odd product in that it reached no new homes. It was bought by gamers. Now in itself that is not a problem except that this is not what this vision is all about.
Why does everyone want to get non-gamers to game? Non-gamers don't game because they don't like playing computer games. Even all geeks don't like to game, just look at the responses a game story gets vs every other kind of story.
Then you got the whole problem with the split 360 market. Either every game is not going to make full use of the HD OR people without one are going to fill left out. True broadband? Yeah we haven't heard that one before.
No reading this guy I think he needs to lay of the marketing hype and get a dose of reality check.
It is all going to depend on wether the cell is indeed the monster machine claimed, wether sony will avoid crippling it with bad hardware decisions (lack of memory is a real problem for all consoles to date) and wether there will be games that will make use of its power to create some stunning games.
I am not just talking HD. If you watched "the making of fear" video you see how the developers complain about only being able to have a few lights with a max of 7 ai. Now if the cell is truly that powerfull could it be used to, with the same engine, scale this up massivly? How about fear like AI with the population of Call of Duty. That russian bit with dozens of soldiers moving with intelligence? Droooooool
If you ever designed a level yourselve you quickly come to realize how fucking limiting current hardware is. Want to build a massive hangar with lights hanging from the ceiling and worklights and emergency lights. Oops, you can only have a dozen my friend. Want to have a big firefight with a squad on your side and a squad of enemies blazing away. Oops, more then a dozen and it is lagville.
IF the PS3 delivers in hardware and game makers will and can make full use of it then it might very well ruin MS'es party.
The stumbling blocks? Well first we don't know how powerfull the PS3 will really be. Second sony has always had problems with developers not being able to tap the true power until years later. Put it another way, playstations are a bitch to develop for.
Then there is the cross platform capabilty. It is easy to make a game work on multiple platforms by changing the graphics. Other CPU intensive stuff like AI, physics is however a lot harder to scale down without changing the game. A PS3 version of fear with dozens of AI running around could not be ported to a platform with a fraction of the power without fundamentally changing the game. It is the reason FEAR on the PC allows you to adjust all kinds of performance settings EXCEPT the number of AI in game. Scale the graphics down and it will just look horrible, scale the AI down and you will not have a game.
I am far more intrested in the capabilties of new hardware in delivering more gameplay then adding an extra layer of resolution. Graphics are important but I really would like games to start offering some real advances in AI and physics. Half-Life 2 and FEAR showed the way forward to me a lot more then Doom3 did (and no not just because it was to dark). GTA is also an eyeopener but boy could it use some serious CPU power to get some decent AI in it. Currently it is a dump as shit. The chases are never a challenge.
In some ways Sony now has a huge advantage, the race to be first has been run. Now Sony can take the time to do a proper launch with some real must have titles. So far the customers seem to realize that if they wait a year they can then properly decide on wich platform to buy and not have to end up owning them all with 2 just not being used.
Oh and that whole persistent world thing? MS talking about MMO's? Sorry, but MS is the big loser here with NONE of their MMO's surviving. Sony was at least until WoW came along the absolute master of the MMO market. MS having a vision that is really somebody's elses. Oh yeah nothing new there.
Didn't they try this whole seperate internet thing? Didn't it work something like this. AOL spends huge amounts of money luring customer on to their Internet, customer spends time on that internet, discovers it ain't the real internet, gets tired of being laughed at by 99% of the online population, switches to a real ISP?
I never used AOL so can't judge how bad it really seems pretty clear that the majority of customers do not want them.
Now they want to lobby congress to make the AOL model the only way (No can't RTFA the server is gone)?
Oh well if congres is corrupt enough and the american voter stupid enough (and later the EU parlement and european voter (just as corrupt and stupid just a bit behind the times) then this could happen. For now the movement seems actually to be in the opposite direction (at least in europe) with more and more ISP's offering bare bones service. Just the internet and no portals and content crap. Funny thing? Seems you can make profit just selling only access.
The struggle lies in ISP's trying to sell content. Usually because it is A crap B expensive C hidden on sites that are a pain to navigate and finally D totally out of touch with customers tastes. So what is your an ISP offering the latest news. Who cares? I can get that from a hundred sites. Faster and without the ads. Oh well, big companies trying to keep alive a dying business model. It must be contagious
Some of you may have heard that MS is supposed to be having some legal troubles in europe. Stuff about its current OS. So here I was expecting to read about MS proposing something to fix the problems. You know like vista with a clear seperation between components.
Instead we get some lame gadgets. What is so special about it that this should be shown to people that are supposed to be keeping MS on a short leash?
At best this is a non article about time wasters. At worsed(?) this is the EU being blinded by MS into giving up on its plans to call MS to order.
For some reason I am not to thrilled either about MS research projects. The company always promises a rosy future yet never seems able to deliver. Remember what NT4 was supposed to be? Windows ME? Windows XP? Longhorn/Vista? Exactly when are we getting that damn database like filesystem?
Mods I know this is of topic so mod away, just wanted to answer this guy
Porn sites advertise there. Now there is a nasty bit about the world of economics that works like this. Banks are perfectly happy to TAKE money from the porn industry but will never ever lend it. You must be very discreet about even being a porn company to be allowed to open an account and them to hold your money.
Porn does not have huge stock market launches. The money invested is either your own savings or belongs to the kind of people who do not believe in loss leaders. No I am not going to say mafia but lets just say that you could at times be fooled.
So the porn industry is about making money and it is about making money now. A tactic like MS launch of the x-box with subsidie and making a loss on it simply CANNOT be done. So if porn companies pay to advertise on a site dedicated to free content you can bet they are certain to still somehow make a profit even from piracy.
Piracy has however three sorts. The commercial piracy were content is stolen and resold as if it was their own (very big problem) and "free" piracy were someone shares the content they BOUGHT (very important) for free. There is also a mix (like "free" sites like empornium wich make money from ads they can only sell because they are giving away others peoples content for free). So 3 types of piracy not looking good so far eh?
Luckily we have a couple of factors in our advantage compared to other industries having to deal with (non-commerical) piracy. Our production costs are a tiny fraction of the costs of producing even the lowest forms of "normal" entertainment. In hollywood $20 million is apparently considered a low budget. You could make the porn movie of all porn movies with that kind of money.
There is also an insatiable demand for "new" content. I say new in quotes because it doesn't have to be new as in hollywood new. You can have the exact same scene and just film it with different actors/actrices and make a line of sequels that make Rocky look fresh and exciting. And the customers will lap them up and demand MORE. No need for trilling plotlines or brilliant special effects. Doggy style NEVER gets old. Just look at how many porn titles have something like vol 24 behind them.
While there are some star with staying power who can be in the industry for years a very large segment is dependant on customers always wanting something new. The girls who are not clearly suckered into it in general go from being models to nude models to girl-girl to boy-girl and usually from photos to video. And then they disappear. "Fans" will eagerly demand their favorite does X next and then when she has done it all she will be quickly forgotten for the next fresh thing. Some erotic stars of old new this very well and NEVER went beyond a certain level ALWAYS leaving their fans wanting more and being able to last years were some last barely a few movies.
The low production cost and constant demand for more is important because there is a huge supply and products just don't last long. While there is a market for classics it is but a tiny portion.
So how can you still make money when everything you produce is also available for free? Well first reason is simple, the majority of customer do not realize it is free or have used kazaa. Now searching for porn on kazaa delivers you A virusses B worms C sickening stuff D not what you want. So a large group just doesn't think porn can be gotten free (just google for free porn to see what I mean). Even that group that does know (the visitors of the sites you mention) sometimes just want their fix NOW. Not when someone else has posted it. Rememeber ALL the content hosted has been bought by someone. Remember also that production costs are low? We do not need 100 million people to pay for our content like hollywood does to make a profit. Also remember that most paid content is insanely expensive. Most video stores sell porn dvd's for a far higher price then blockbuster hollywood releases. Pay
You say breasts stand out more. Well yeah. To guys. I in general do not look at men's crotches. Nothing there that intrests me.
Women on the other hand do look down there. Even if they deny it, it has been shown to be true during research where the movement of the eye was followed and they definitly do a quick check down there when they meet a man.
Oh and as for the whole size matters. This is what one woman told me. When she masturbates she frequently doesn't even penetrate and when she does she uses at most 2 fingers.
Now if your penis is no bigger then a woman's finger THEN you got a problem. For the rest, it is skill and the most important piece of knowledge? If you penis might be a bit small, you still got 10 fingers and a tongue. Some women even seem to like this whole foreplay thing.
Check if you can the most popular masturbation aids for women. A very good seller is always the egg/butterfly devices wich do not even do penetration. They just are smooth rounded objects that vibrate and are used on the outside. The huge 15inch black rubber slongs? Not for solo use. Women on their own seem to prefer simple small designs, the outlandish stuff is usually bought by males (possibly for their girls).
Think of it like this, if women enjoyed being stretched to the max they would look forward to their pap smear exam.
How do I know this? Well I worked in a side branch of the porn industry, maintaining those pay porn sites you all know and love. I also dealt with a local guy who owns several establishements in the amsterdam red light district. He makes a lot of money NOT from grubby old men but from females (often tourists) who come to buy a little helper.
Americans, and of course there are always exceptions, tend to have something against taxes. I sometimes feel that a significant portion of US citizens would prefer living in anarchy if it meant they would not have to pay taxes. Rather no police, no roads then a single cent to the state. As for taxes that go to benefit someone else? COMMUNISM.
As a person in holland wich at the moment is struggling with partly going the american way and partly the swedish way I can see arguments on both sides. Americans will claim that their low social security improves employement rates hinting at their low unemployment figures. The swedes on the other hand point at their low poverty levels and figure it is worth it.
A good article I read by the dutch institution that handles benefits relating to disability suggested this: That any social security system survives or dies on wether the middle class thinks it is to their benefit or not. If the middle classes think that paying a chunk of their income to social security makes their world better (directly because they themselves might one day need it or indirectly because low poverty means a better live for all) then they are prepared to do so. Even if there are people who openly choose not to work. In sweden it is believed that their social security costs the workers a lot of spendable income BUT makes up for it by making their country a nicer place to live in. Sweden is a democracy and that is how they choose to live.
America is perhaps the other extreme. Give an american the choice between a low tax rate and childeren of poor families starving and well... Of course they wouldn't do that. Americans ain't heartless but when a politician stands up and says that goverment is wasting taxes and he is going to cut them most of the voters seem not to question were the tax cuts come from. America is a democracy and that is how they choose to live.
To those who argue that low taxes encourage employment I ask this, explain outsourcing being considered such a problem? America got super low taxes and still it is not enough. While Nokia on the other hand seems not to want to leave sweden were it easily could, just a thought
So what has all this got to do with Bill Gates? Well I have in the past read news stories that seem to suggest that Bill Gates and his company while making record sums of money are not exactly at the top of paying taxes on those incomes. Some nasty commies even suggest that Microsoft makes Enron and Worldcom look like complete amateurs or even that MS showed Worldcom execs the way in shunting money round and round until you can make billions in profit and yet have to pay no taxes. It is not unusual, ask that guy behind spiderman about how much money he got from his percentage of the profits deal.
Now some damned red communists might suggest that if MS behaved more like a responsible company then there might be less need for say schools to be donated money as they could simply buy new computers from taxes.
Of course that would allow schools to make their own decissions as to wich software to buy. Mmmm, so I am paranoid but I think I see a pattern here.
I am nasty, selfserving and paranoid and I do not believe in good samaritans. Mother Theresa? Good? Eheh, she was a devout christian, was she doing good for goodness sake OR was she buying a ticket into heaven? Yeah I know. Suspicious bastard ain't I. Yet everyone accepts that kids behave "good" at the end of the year just to make sure they get a fat loot from "santa".
But now apply this to Bill Gates. He could simply pay taxes normally without shunting his and his companies income through so many loopholes that the state comes out owning him money. If he paid his full taxes the state could then grant the money to schools and other projects. Leaving those projects free to spend the money in the best way according to the voters wishes. OR he can limit the taxes he spends by exploiting every loophole, amass HUGE wealth and then donate money to those projects that do
What do I care who this "Berners-Lee" guy is anyway. Another useless nobody, why I bet that if I travel back in time and shoot him it will have absolutly no eff
How many indians have been slaughtered or been made sick or been forced to starve to death on bad lands while their own lands were taken away?
What about black slaves? How significant were there deaths in allowing the US to become the power it is today? How many million were worked to death?
How many slaughtered in your foreign wars? When will the US attone for its purposefull bombing of civilians in Vietnam?
Yet you americans happily quote the founders of your "free" nation who were slave owners. They are heros who thought the owning of other human beings was okay.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. This means that the US cannot even LOOK at the stone.
The chinese revolution has caused many a death but so have many things wich eventually have led to so called better things. I dare say the american revolution, Oh I am sorry war of independance, caused more then a couple of deaths.
It is not that I am defending the chinese, more that I am questioning your right to question them. Of course I really have no right to question you but hey, that never stopped anyone before has it.
"The Library didn't only contain magical books, the ones which are chained to their shelves and are very dangerous. It also contained perfectly ordinary books, printed on commonplace paper in mundane ink. It would be a mistake to think that they weren't also dangerous, just because reading them didn't make fireworks go off in the sky. Reading them sometimes did the more dangeous trick of making fireworks go off in the privacy of the reader's brain." -- Terry Pratchett, Soul Music
Books are lethal. Books can make you dream and if you ever actually read the little red book, I inherited it from a real communist, it has some intresting ideas. Yeah sure our current western world is very comfy but it is also.... well rotten and boring. Young people of today seem more intrested in getting the latest cell phone BUT the powers that be are old enough to remember the 60's and 70's when young kids came close to destabalizing a country. Lets see, republicans in power, abusing their power, fighting an unpopular foreign war with no end in sight. Oh yeah all they need is a bunch of commies running around to make it complete.
There was a time cars claimed lives. This was in the day when it was thought that having a sharp metal pin aimed at the drivers chest and directly connected to the front of the car was a good design feature. Same with regular glass windows and nice sharp metal knobs. Saves you the worry of how to get out of your vehicle after a crash I suppose.
In that way cars killed their passengers although the more accurate claim would be that it was the designers of the car that killed the passengers.
You can say that smoke claims lives (smoke as from a fire) but this again is a fairly direct form. You would not say that love claims lives despite the fact that an awfull lot of people commit suicide over a broken heart.
It is not the gameplay that killed them. If say you were playing a DDR game that just kept getting more and more intense until the user falls dead THEN the game would claim lives. If you played fear and got so scared you suffered a heart attack THEN the game would have claimed a live.
Just taking bad care of yourselve is not the games fault. Sitting motionless in a chair eating bad food is not restricted to gaming. Just ask your average soccer widow.
All these guys seemed to have neglected their body for a prolonged time and were probably not the most healthy in the first place.
One article claimed the 38 year old male in question had existed on a 20 day diet of instant noodles. Eheh and before? Because I know from personal experience that the body can live a lot longer then that on instant noodles. I am willing to bet a few bucks that before he wasn't exactly a 2fruit+veg a day man either. So the real newsstory is, man who neglects his health totally does not live to a ripe old age (38 was once an advanced age for a human to reach)
The other has someone having a 9 hour gaming session? Well I doubt anyone would be able to do that without having to pee and even then so what? I done far longer sessions. Perhaps this person was not the most prime example of the human species? If 9 hours in chair kills you then all this proves that darwin was on to something. You know there are people out there who for fun do 12 hour marches? What about pole-sitting contests?
Nah I am afraid that as I read these stories it is just, not very healthy person dies doing something to extreme. I had an elderly neighbour who died going to the toilet (yeah how do you like to discover that eh?) Apperently the "pressure" caused a bloodvessel (internally) to burst and she bled to death. Going to the toilet is bad for you? No she just was old and that was her time. If it hadn't been then it would have been if she had bend down to lift something heavy. Sad but that is live. No need to make a headline off it.
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This left me with enough points to be a bit of a scout, harvest, and a bit of crafting. Oh nothing major, just fireworks. I liked them and very few people seemed to want to bother making them but there was always a need for them.
I actually was rather good at it and I got fairly frequent requests for packages with some amazing money offers. 1 million for a fire display? Payed in ADVANCE? Why yes sir, thank you sir! Oh sorry madam.
The wide grouping was also a lot of fun. Another char I think was ranger/creature handler. Yeah I know but it was fun pre-doc-buff. Had 2 big red rats and 1 small black one. Called Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis. The ratpack. Got a few laughs and they were pretty good.
Granted cats were better as they could keep up with your swoop but anway we were talking about grouping.
Dancers, crafters, rangers the whole non-combat group hanging out together. Oh sure the medic/docs had to pay a lot of attention but on the whole it was no super hassle. It could be done and everyone would even get xp. Such groups were especially good for getting some of the less common resources.
No more dabbling (worse if you respec to crafter/entertainer with an existing char you instantly a master) and grouping only in your own level range. Yuck. There is a reason EQ2 isn't setting any sales record either you know? No need to make it EQ2 in space.
Almost every RPG like game gives you a health bar. As you take damage it lowers. To counter that you usually are given some way to heal yourself (or get members of your party to do it for you) as well as way to temporarily or permantly increase it. Improve the self-healing/regeneration capability and of course ways to prevent getting damaged in the first place like armour or agility.
Next you get an action bar or mana bar or whatever from you pay your special attacks. The heavier the attack the more action points taken. Drain them all and you depend on your basic usually weak attack. Mana bars usually have mana potions to refill it. Basically the action/mana bar is a tool I think to prevent players from just spamming their most powerfull attacks constantly.
In MMO's it seems extremely important to limit the players power. I hit the "not enough energy/action/mana" limit far more often then in any single player RPG. Most often it seems to be method used to limit wich levels of enemies you can fight and wich level of enemies you can fight with.
Let me explain. You make a group with a fighter a healer and a heavy hitter (mage). You can then take on enemies that are a lot tougher then any of you could take on solo. Why? Well the fighter will be the one taking all the damage, this is called tanking, but that doesn't matter because the healer will just spam his heal spells. As long as the enemy isn't so hard they kill the fighter between heals you can then just wait for the mage to do his work.
So most game limit the healer. This doesn't just prevent you from taking on enemies that the designers have deemed to though for you. It also prevents grouping outside your level range.
A low level healer just can't cast his weak healing spells fast enough to be in a high level group.
I don't know why MMORPG designers desire this. Lord of the Rings has noobs and maxed specced characters going on an adventure together but this is a NO-NO in MMORPG land for some reason. I think the logic goes along these lines, well everybody else does it so we should as well.
Why is it so bad? MMORPG's survive or not because of their ability to give a social game. Artifically limiting who can group with whom divides up your player base. Or put it another way. You run the risk of alienating new players because they can't find anyone to group with.
Anyway, I was talking about the Health/Action bar.
SWG did this a little different. It gave you 3 primary bars, Health Action and Mind (HAM) each with 2 subbars.
Now unusual for most RPG games an enemy could damage each one of the HAM bars. So you could be killed if either reached 0. Or rather you were knocked out and then killed by the more lethal critters. This is a HUGE difference from other MMO's. Remember special actions take away from your action bar in every RPG BUT you do not then also have to worry about dying if it goes empty. Even if it is drained completly you still can keep on fighting.
In SWG you could easily kill yourselve in a fight by using up your HAM points doing special attacks only then to suffer one enemy hit and bam you were down. Depleting the ham bars was a typical newbie mistake.
The two subbars to each HAM bar dictated how much points a special move cost and how fast you recovered. Most players maxed these at the cost of their total HAM points. Faster recovery was better then having more points and obviously special actions costing less was a boon as well.
SWG was also unique in another aspect. You did not gain extra HAM points as you levelled up. You could redistribute them within certain limits set by your species but the total remained the same throughout the game.
The experienced RPG players will spot the problem. What about about later enemies, do they do increased damage. Why yes they do. So while in the beginning an enemy needs to land a dozen or more hits to deplete your bars a later enemy can do it in one hit.
Yeah well but you gain better armour and skills to reduce the
The easiest way is to split your server. A typical website has 4 pieces wich can be easily seperated. Scripts (if you use lamp perl or php), images/static content, the database and finally logging.
If you site is "normal" you can get some very good results by splitting these tasks up across different servers. Each task really asks for a different hardware setup.
Scripts tend to be small but require a fair chunk of crunching power. There is little point in scsi as the scripts could just remain in memory without ever needing to swap. Depending on your scripts you don't need gigs of memory either. What you could really use is a multi-core machine. server side scripting practically begs for multicore. Why process one page request when you can do 2 or 4 etc. It may be me but I had better results with dual P3 then single P4.
Images are almost the opposite. Depending of course on your site they could easily come to several gigs and worse constantly change. IF you cannot fit your content in memory you better have a fast hd. SCSI still is the best for this. CPU power on the other hand is less important. What you may want to look into is that your hardware is optomized. I believe that Linux has some support for more direct throughput (reducing the amount of times the image is shuffled around before going out of your network card). Raw CPU is less needed. Here I also got some really good experiences in preffering multi core over raw gigahertz power.
Database is in a class of its own. With certain databases there isn't even a benefit to having multicore it seems perhaps due to whole table locking. The main advantage you can get by seperating it from the rest is that it means your apache server can concentrate on one task. Also removing the outside connection on your database is a nice bit of extra security. Database server really depends all on the way your site is setup. For a typical page request I usually asume the following, 1 script request, a dozen image requests, 3 database queries. (verification, retrieval, update)
Logging is often overlooked but it takes up a serious amount of resources. Not logging is an option of sorts but I don't like it. Switching it to a machine dedicated to the task can seriously speed up your other servers AND provide a level of extra security. A logging server can be very lightweight and just needs a decent HD setup.
Anyway that is the amateurs way to save a website creaking at the seams when their is no money to get a pro solution. It is a hazzle as you now got four machines to admin but it is easy to setup and usually does not require a major redesign.
Load balancing and stuff sounds nice but most customers get such odd reactions when they here the prices charged.
Well I tried the trial and was less then impressed with the "tutorial" level. I since spotted you can skip it wich is great since it at least allows you to go down to where the action is.
I then found out that for some reason my account is active until the 3rd of jan, no Idon't see any payments to sony on my bankstatements, perhaps as part of a free trial for old players?
I had of course to check it out. The game has changed. And yet it is the same. It is not nearly as dead as some claim BUT it is being deserted. Oh and don't count subscription figures to much. One guy in my guild seems to have 11 alts. 11 accounts being played by one person. Coupled with people who simply stopped playing but whose account is still running this means the game has far fewer players then subscription numbers would have you believe.
So is it as bad as everyone claims.
Well yes. The engine just isn't up to the changes. It never been designed like this. One of the problems? Well enemies can be inside each other, there is no proper collision detection but this makes it very hard to target in the new combat mode that critter wich you want. Usually you target 1 kill then do the next in a group. Now you find yourselve attacking two critters at random meaning it takes longer and you take more damage.
No they took a bugged game and forced it into a new outfit that doesn't fit and stuffed it with new bugs. There is still a hint of what SWG could have become in more capable hands but the NGE just shows that SOE isn't capable.
There really is something fundamentally wrong at SOE were each design decission just doesn't seem to be properly analyzed. It is weird but SOE with SWG seems to have had a nice idea at the beginning and then somehow managed to screw EVEYTHING up. Not big not majorily.
Imagine it like this. Say that for each decision you had four choices. A perfect choice, a totally crap one, a middle of the road one. Well sony then always picks the fourth, the not crap and not middle of the road one. The one choice that is yuck.
Sony would stock their soda dispensers with Pepsi. That says it all really. SWG is pepsi. Nobody drinks pepsi by choice, only because coca-cola isn't sold in some places.
They had to if you think about it. SWG was launched before R2-D2 got those horrible jetpacks in the prequel movies.
Forget about rights of the disabled, how about the rights of the spunky little robots!
HOWEVER that is not a system accepted by default by american companies. See those little symbols behind a credit card form? American Express, VISA, Master card and another? Well those are american, some banks do offer a combo but then you simply have a combo debit credit card with each credit payment being charged to your credit account. With very bad conditions like interest and subscription fees.
Paypal? Credit Card. it is a well known problem and the reason companies like Global Collect and Bibit exist. They take the hassle away from companies like sony and do the collecting for it. Bibit offers sometimes a dozen ways to pay for each country. I know I worked with them for a european wide ISP.
Sadly like you, and the guy I responded to before american just can't get their head around the fact that europe has a different banking system.
Oh and the GDP of europe is a bit bigger. Although I do suppose I must clarify that I did not mean just the EU. Even fairly advanced countries are not in the EU and you would be suprised by how many poles and other ex-soviets play online (yet for some reason can't get a credit card) http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2001rank.html
The eu is fraction behind the US count the non-eu european nations and you will have a larger GDP.
As to the reason online shopping here could be bigger. Easy, why wait 6 months to buy a dvd when it is on sale in the US already? Region protection you say. Fraid not. France ruled it illegal a while ago. meaning that you can now legally circumvent it.
Just doesn't seem to exist. It is a real case of americans not being able to understand that the rest of the world is not like america.
Credit Cards in europe are expensive, rarely accepted and just not popular. Some american companies realize this, most don't. The ones that don't are the ones who say that europe doesn't do business over the net. Despite the fact that europe got more money, more people, more broadband AND a bigger reason to buy via the net (get dvd's NOW instead of 6 months later).
Oh well.
You can then see for yourselve what it is all about.
But okay, most will not want to bother because it is easier to just talk about.
So here is my review of Star Wars Galaxies, New Game Experience.
First is the same as it was before. Create a new character on a server of your choice. DO NOT CHOOSE RECOMMENDED. That is the most underpopulated server. It could well mean that for the whole trial you never see an other player. Choose the one in red (if there still is one)
Now the character creation itself is still as good as it ever was with you really being able to design a character you like better then in any current MMORPG. Breast size, fatness make sure that not all characters look alike even from a distance. You can now also decide you starter outfit and this introduces you to another SWG good point, the wide selection of clothing further allowing you to make your character unique.
Satisfied with your character (don't worry it can be changed in game by a specific player class) you then get put in the game.
Well almost, SWG used to have a short tutorial and then dump you in the main game (lately Mos Eisley) but now the tutorial is bigger.
The old tutorial is gone and your now being called by C3-PO to do some basic stuff. Look around, move, talk to droid, get gun from cabinet, equip, shoot at target. WHOOPS. BIG FUCKING CHANGE. The first change is cosmetic. The camera now hovers behind your character offset to the right. Meaning you sorta look over your characters gun hand. Odd, I don't like it but livable. Now to the big change the NGE brought. Most MMO's you target your enemy, then trigger attack and from then on attack the target on auto doing the occasional special move.
No longer. NGE is FPS. You click, you fire. You actually have to aim at the target to hit it. For now it seems easy enough but these boxes take one hit to destroy. I can forsee difficulty later.
Anyway next task is to blast open door and there nobody else then Han Solo and Chewbacca (on a diet) is waiting to safe you. Follow him and you come to a big hangar with a lot parked vehicles as well as the Millenium Falcon and 3 storm troopers. You are told to take cover and you get in a brief fight. Here the FPS switch starts to show its ugly head. Yes you got to aim in a mode that looks a bit FPS like. Yes you got to hold the mouse button down to keep firing BUT it feels nothing like a fps. There is no ducking, there is no AI there is no cover, really this is FPS pre-wolfenstein. Played GTA San Andreas? Well it is like that but worse. You just stand there, hold the mouse button down over you enemy, watch their health drop, hopefully before yours do and rince and repeat.
Before NGE your first fight would actually be a challenge. Now it isn't. I didn't die ONCE!
Run aboard the MF and you will take off. Here we see a second change, a lot more FMV cutscenes. In fact I don't remeber any apart from the intro before.
You are now in space "YEAH" about the MF (you need to be told this as it looks nothing like in the movies. Here another problem starts to emerge. SWG did not have much in the way of scripting. So now they have to add story telling scripting to an engine that does not support it. The result that the following bit is incredibily slow and unbelievable and prone to you rushing ahead and getting stuck.
Your under attack and told to man the turret. WAIT. DO NOT MOVE. Wait for the script to catch up and after a number of pauses you will be instructed to climb in. If you do it before the game will not realize you did and will keep telling you to climb in. Have a character stuck there.
Shoot at the TIE's actually looks decent but no real challenge, get out and go to the cockpit (this engine just isn't desinged to render the MF I guess) and next bit.
You are now
Funnily enough, not all of them are made up.
This really is to weird for words. I suppose next those people who stand at the sideline of marathons with free water for the participants are going to be taken to court by SPA? People who pick up hitchhiker sued by Public Transport?
If I create something I can do with it as I please. I know this is a radical thought but not every musical artist dreams of being rich, some just want others to enjoy their music.
A dutch artist (Peter Blanker) performed at the opening of a supermarket or something (I was really young at the time) and my mother talked to him about the songs wich she couldn't buy in the store. He send her a tape wich I and my sister listened to a lot. Side A where childeren songs and Side B were adult songs. (I am not certain on th exact details, just know the tape was in our collection with his handwriting on it)
He later hosted a very popular radio show focusing on dutch music until it was cancelled during one of the many facelifts of public radio but it has remained next to impossible to buy the songs on that tape.
It is not nice to think that in this day and age his action of sending us a tape would have been considered illegal.
I suppose I shouldn't comment on spelling and grammar, english might not be this guys first language, I am not to good at it myself and anyway this is slashdot where the editors are to busy raking in their fat profits to do anything but hit submit.
Anyway, on with your question. Search the web for absolute beginner guides to the web. You don't even seem to known the difference between presentation (HTML) data (XML) server side scripting (Perl) client side scripting (Javascript) etc.
I am not suprised then that your current efforts don't give you the result you want. I think even google would find it a challenge to make a weblog with nothing but HTML.
You don't "code" in HTML, you design. If the distinction isn't obvious to you, give up now. Perhaps I have just been exposed to too many highly intelligent people hired during the internet boom and who I had to teach how to code. My boss at the time didn't seem to be able to grasp that just because somebody scores highly in logic tests does not mean they can code. I remember one guy I knew for a fact was much more intelligent then me who just couldn't get his head around the way a PHP website deals with variables being passed. If you don't know, if you put something like this in php
you will not have made a programming error, it will not give an error and will display 1 on your page. Expecting it to however ever go higher on reloads means you have not grasped the fundamental nature of the web.
In short the guy could just not grasp the stateless nature of the web. Amazing but I seen examples like this to often to believe that everyone has it in them to program (++$count vs $count++ anyone?. Nothing odd really, everyone knows some people can do art and others can't. Why should the other half of the brain not exclude certain people. (Ever tried explaining that "0 is false". No not "and 1 is true". Nothing is true except that wich isn't false.)
Then there is another count against you. You ask on slashdot without seemingly having done any research beyond noticing some buzzwords. Good coders do not ask, they find things for themselves. Good or even mediocre programming skill comes from having that drive to figure things out, to question, to search, to test.
It not like it has hard to google for beginner guides. But you are to lazy or to dumb to do that. I see lazy wannabe coders all the time, just make the mistake of hanging around in game modding forums. Guys who want to create the next counterstrike while they shouldn't be allowed within a mile of an ini file. As for dumb, recent post suggested the following. (like it anyway)
To modify fame set it to 15.
Question: so it becomes like $actor=15
Answer: DO NOT EVER CHANGE YOUR JOB TO PROGRAMMER
Some people can code, some people can't. Yes I am bitter from having to train a lot of them (the ones who could didn't need to be trained, just given a good book, a practice enviroment and a month or two with maybe the odd session on monday to introduce some advanced subjects and hard earned practical knowledge) during the boom. Maybe I was just a bad teacher, I seen others fail as well, but some people just should not try it.
You sound like one of those people. I really don't want to be mean or anything but look at your post. You confuse HTML with a coding language wich it isn't. Perhaps the L of the acronym confuses you, it does a lot of people, but then a bit of basic googling should have set you straight.
You claim to know HTML but are unable to make proffesional looking sites with it. NEWSFLASH, HTML is what all the pros use. One sign of a person who cannot code is the believe there is a magic tool/language out there that everyone is hiding from them that will instantly turn them leet. There is one but it there is already a job shortage so we are
Why? Because of maintenance. But templates are supposed to make it easier to maintain aren't they.
No. Templates are there to add another layer of complexity to an app. Seperating the html from the php so that the designers are not confused? Hire better designers. Easily allow you to modify the site?
Well yeah if you think changing the color is a modification that should be in the html (should be in css) then yeah.
Perhaps I only seen bad implementiations of templates but in my experience the end result was always that you could never tell wich part of the fucking site was controlling what and that even simple modifications meant you had to figure out the template engine being used.
In my experience sites either have tiny changes that can be done by the coder and designer working together in a good team OR should have been in css anyway. The big redesigns usually require a code change anyway.
Worse, I had to handle more then one site where the answer was simple, Oh you want that change, sorry no that can't be done in the template. Template changes is for cosmetic changes, not functionality changes. Most buyers of e-commerce sites just don't seem to realize it. They think template means you can change your website. Yeah, in the same way a skin can change your winamp/xmms.
Perhaps I just build my sites wrong, I tend to make the html and php far to intertwined with a lot of the html being build by the code not just the php filling in certain blanks.
Database abstraction is usually defended by how easy it makes it to switch databases without having to switch code.
Eh yeah right. How often does this happen anyway? Like the site redesign it just is not a frequent occurence. Worse you often find that in favor of abstraction they leave out nice handy features one database supports but nobody else. Mysql_return_id. Every handy and only done by Mysql.
Again perhaps it was just bad experience but I seen several cases where the abstraction layer used did not support this feature forcing me to code around it. Extra PHP code to handle stuff already in the engine. Oh I am happy now!
The company that insisted the most on the abstraction NEVER switched in the two years I was there. Extra code extra bugs for something that is never used.
Image this in the real world. Your car doors being welded shut because one day you might want to turn it into a race car. WTF?
What is my point? Well that theory and practice do not mix. Yeah I 3 tired apps are usefull sometimes BUT that does not mean every bloody application has to use it. Database abastraction is usefull for code that is certain to grow. 99% of websites do not. Templates are usefull when you know you will get a lot of requests for cosmetic changes that are to big to complex to fit into css.
As for the whole saving you hours of work deal. At how many hours cost? I once read a quote that went something like this, "Do not code for code re-use unless you know in advance you are going to re-use it at least 3 times. Else the time coding for re-use will simply not recovered".
It made a lot of sense.
Perhaps I am just allergic to buzzwords.
In the future that D.J. will face a firing squad.
Used to be nothing unusual, a long lasting news show had an somewhat obscure german song as their intro. Every few months they would just play it whole to give people a chance to record it. Buying it was impossible but hey, who cares. That is 1 euro iTunes won't be seeing times, well at least a dozen people who recorded it.
I can't wait for the revolution to start. My little red book is starting to overflow with names that are on the list.
Same with proposed or already introduced taxes on such things like mp3 players and even harddisks.
The future is now and it is not funny.
The x-box was an odd product in that it reached no new homes. It was bought by gamers. Now in itself that is not a problem except that this is not what this vision is all about.
Why does everyone want to get non-gamers to game? Non-gamers don't game because they don't like playing computer games. Even all geeks don't like to game, just look at the responses a game story gets vs every other kind of story.
Then you got the whole problem with the split 360 market. Either every game is not going to make full use of the HD OR people without one are going to fill left out. True broadband? Yeah we haven't heard that one before.
No reading this guy I think he needs to lay of the marketing hype and get a dose of reality check.
It is all going to depend on wether the cell is indeed the monster machine claimed, wether sony will avoid crippling it with bad hardware decisions (lack of memory is a real problem for all consoles to date) and wether there will be games that will make use of its power to create some stunning games.
I am not just talking HD. If you watched "the making of fear" video you see how the developers complain about only being able to have a few lights with a max of 7 ai. Now if the cell is truly that powerfull could it be used to, with the same engine, scale this up massivly? How about fear like AI with the population of Call of Duty. That russian bit with dozens of soldiers moving with intelligence? Droooooool
If you ever designed a level yourselve you quickly come to realize how fucking limiting current hardware is. Want to build a massive hangar with lights hanging from the ceiling and worklights and emergency lights. Oops, you can only have a dozen my friend. Want to have a big firefight with a squad on your side and a squad of enemies blazing away. Oops, more then a dozen and it is lagville.
IF the PS3 delivers in hardware and game makers will and can make full use of it then it might very well ruin MS'es party.
The stumbling blocks? Well first we don't know how powerfull the PS3 will really be. Second sony has always had problems with developers not being able to tap the true power until years later. Put it another way, playstations are a bitch to develop for.
Then there is the cross platform capabilty. It is easy to make a game work on multiple platforms by changing the graphics. Other CPU intensive stuff like AI, physics is however a lot harder to scale down without changing the game. A PS3 version of fear with dozens of AI running around could not be ported to a platform with a fraction of the power without fundamentally changing the game. It is the reason FEAR on the PC allows you to adjust all kinds of performance settings EXCEPT the number of AI in game. Scale the graphics down and it will just look horrible, scale the AI down and you will not have a game.
I am far more intrested in the capabilties of new hardware in delivering more gameplay then adding an extra layer of resolution. Graphics are important but I really would like games to start offering some real advances in AI and physics. Half-Life 2 and FEAR showed the way forward to me a lot more then Doom3 did (and no not just because it was to dark). GTA is also an eyeopener but boy could it use some serious CPU power to get some decent AI in it. Currently it is a dump as shit. The chases are never a challenge.
In some ways Sony now has a huge advantage, the race to be first has been run. Now Sony can take the time to do a proper launch with some real must have titles. So far the customers seem to realize that if they wait a year they can then properly decide on wich platform to buy and not have to end up owning them all with 2 just not being used.
Oh and that whole persistent world thing? MS talking about MMO's? Sorry, but MS is the big loser here with NONE of their MMO's surviving. Sony was at least until WoW came along the absolute master of the MMO market. MS having a vision that is really somebody's elses. Oh yeah nothing new there.
I never used AOL so can't judge how bad it really seems pretty clear that the majority of customers do not want them.
Now they want to lobby congress to make the AOL model the only way (No can't RTFA the server is gone)?
Oh well if congres is corrupt enough and the american voter stupid enough (and later the EU parlement and european voter (just as corrupt and stupid just a bit behind the times) then this could happen. For now the movement seems actually to be in the opposite direction (at least in europe) with more and more ISP's offering bare bones service. Just the internet and no portals and content crap. Funny thing? Seems you can make profit just selling only access.
The struggle lies in ISP's trying to sell content. Usually because it is A crap B expensive C hidden on sites that are a pain to navigate and finally D totally out of touch with customers tastes. So what is your an ISP offering the latest news. Who cares? I can get that from a hundred sites. Faster and without the ads. Oh well, big companies trying to keep alive a dying business model. It must be contagious
Instead we get some lame gadgets. What is so special about it that this should be shown to people that are supposed to be keeping MS on a short leash?
At best this is a non article about time wasters. At worsed(?) this is the EU being blinded by MS into giving up on its plans to call MS to order.
For some reason I am not to thrilled either about MS research projects. The company always promises a rosy future yet never seems able to deliver. Remember what NT4 was supposed to be? Windows ME? Windows XP? Longhorn/Vista? Exactly when are we getting that damn database like filesystem?
Oh well the MS fanboys should have a nice day.
Mods I know this is of topic so mod away, just wanted to answer this guy Porn sites advertise there. Now there is a nasty bit about the world of economics that works like this. Banks are perfectly happy to TAKE money from the porn industry but will never ever lend it. You must be very discreet about even being a porn company to be allowed to open an account and them to hold your money.
Porn does not have huge stock market launches. The money invested is either your own savings or belongs to the kind of people who do not believe in loss leaders. No I am not going to say mafia but lets just say that you could at times be fooled.
So the porn industry is about making money and it is about making money now. A tactic like MS launch of the x-box with subsidie and making a loss on it simply CANNOT be done. So if porn companies pay to advertise on a site dedicated to free content you can bet they are certain to still somehow make a profit even from piracy.
Piracy has however three sorts. The commercial piracy were content is stolen and resold as if it was their own (very big problem) and "free" piracy were someone shares the content they BOUGHT (very important) for free. There is also a mix (like "free" sites like empornium wich make money from ads they can only sell because they are giving away others peoples content for free). So 3 types of piracy not looking good so far eh?
Luckily we have a couple of factors in our advantage compared to other industries having to deal with (non-commerical) piracy. Our production costs are a tiny fraction of the costs of producing even the lowest forms of "normal" entertainment. In hollywood $20 million is apparently considered a low budget. You could make the porn movie of all porn movies with that kind of money.
There is also an insatiable demand for "new" content. I say new in quotes because it doesn't have to be new as in hollywood new. You can have the exact same scene and just film it with different actors/actrices and make a line of sequels that make Rocky look fresh and exciting. And the customers will lap them up and demand MORE. No need for trilling plotlines or brilliant special effects. Doggy style NEVER gets old. Just look at how many porn titles have something like vol 24 behind them.
While there are some star with staying power who can be in the industry for years a very large segment is dependant on customers always wanting something new. The girls who are not clearly suckered into it in general go from being models to nude models to girl-girl to boy-girl and usually from photos to video. And then they disappear. "Fans" will eagerly demand their favorite does X next and then when she has done it all she will be quickly forgotten for the next fresh thing. Some erotic stars of old new this very well and NEVER went beyond a certain level ALWAYS leaving their fans wanting more and being able to last years were some last barely a few movies.
The low production cost and constant demand for more is important because there is a huge supply and products just don't last long. While there is a market for classics it is but a tiny portion.
So how can you still make money when everything you produce is also available for free? Well first reason is simple, the majority of customer do not realize it is free or have used kazaa. Now searching for porn on kazaa delivers you A virusses B worms C sickening stuff D not what you want. So a large group just doesn't think porn can be gotten free (just google for free porn to see what I mean). Even that group that does know (the visitors of the sites you mention) sometimes just want their fix NOW. Not when someone else has posted it. Rememeber ALL the content hosted has been bought by someone. Remember also that production costs are low? We do not need 100 million people to pay for our content like hollywood does to make a profit. Also remember that most paid content is insanely expensive. Most video stores sell porn dvd's for a far higher price then blockbuster hollywood releases. Pay
Women on the other hand do look down there. Even if they deny it, it has been shown to be true during research where the movement of the eye was followed and they definitly do a quick check down there when they meet a man.
Oh and as for the whole size matters. This is what one woman told me. When she masturbates she frequently doesn't even penetrate and when she does she uses at most 2 fingers.
Now if your penis is no bigger then a woman's finger THEN you got a problem. For the rest, it is skill and the most important piece of knowledge? If you penis might be a bit small, you still got 10 fingers and a tongue. Some women even seem to like this whole foreplay thing.
Check if you can the most popular masturbation aids for women. A very good seller is always the egg/butterfly devices wich do not even do penetration. They just are smooth rounded objects that vibrate and are used on the outside. The huge 15inch black rubber slongs? Not for solo use. Women on their own seem to prefer simple small designs, the outlandish stuff is usually bought by males (possibly for their girls).
Think of it like this, if women enjoyed being stretched to the max they would look forward to their pap smear exam.
How do I know this? Well I worked in a side branch of the porn industry, maintaining those pay porn sites you all know and love. I also dealt with a local guy who owns several establishements in the amsterdam red light district. He makes a lot of money NOT from grubby old men but from females (often tourists) who come to buy a little helper.
Americans, and of course there are always exceptions, tend to have something against taxes. I sometimes feel that a significant portion of US citizens would prefer living in anarchy if it meant they would not have to pay taxes. Rather no police, no roads then a single cent to the state. As for taxes that go to benefit someone else? COMMUNISM.
As a person in holland wich at the moment is struggling with partly going the american way and partly the swedish way I can see arguments on both sides. Americans will claim that their low social security improves employement rates hinting at their low unemployment figures. The swedes on the other hand point at their low poverty levels and figure it is worth it.
A good article I read by the dutch institution that handles benefits relating to disability suggested this: That any social security system survives or dies on wether the middle class thinks it is to their benefit or not. If the middle classes think that paying a chunk of their income to social security makes their world better (directly because they themselves might one day need it or indirectly because low poverty means a better live for all) then they are prepared to do so. Even if there are people who openly choose not to work. In sweden it is believed that their social security costs the workers a lot of spendable income BUT makes up for it by making their country a nicer place to live in. Sweden is a democracy and that is how they choose to live.
America is perhaps the other extreme. Give an american the choice between a low tax rate and childeren of poor families starving and well... Of course they wouldn't do that. Americans ain't heartless but when a politician stands up and says that goverment is wasting taxes and he is going to cut them most of the voters seem not to question were the tax cuts come from. America is a democracy and that is how they choose to live.
To those who argue that low taxes encourage employment I ask this, explain outsourcing being considered such a problem? America got super low taxes and still it is not enough. While Nokia on the other hand seems not to want to leave sweden were it easily could, just a thought
So what has all this got to do with Bill Gates? Well I have in the past read news stories that seem to suggest that Bill Gates and his company while making record sums of money are not exactly at the top of paying taxes on those incomes. Some nasty commies even suggest that Microsoft makes Enron and Worldcom look like complete amateurs or even that MS showed Worldcom execs the way in shunting money round and round until you can make billions in profit and yet have to pay no taxes. It is not unusual, ask that guy behind spiderman about how much money he got from his percentage of the profits deal.
Now some damned red communists might suggest that if MS behaved more like a responsible company then there might be less need for say schools to be donated money as they could simply buy new computers from taxes.
Of course that would allow schools to make their own decissions as to wich software to buy. Mmmm, so I am paranoid but I think I see a pattern here.
I am nasty, selfserving and paranoid and I do not believe in good samaritans. Mother Theresa? Good? Eheh, she was a devout christian, was she doing good for goodness sake OR was she buying a ticket into heaven? Yeah I know. Suspicious bastard ain't I. Yet everyone accepts that kids behave "good" at the end of the year just to make sure they get a fat loot from "santa".
But now apply this to Bill Gates. He could simply pay taxes normally without shunting his and his companies income through so many loopholes that the state comes out owning him money. If he paid his full taxes the state could then grant the money to schools and other projects. Leaving those projects free to spend the money in the best way according to the voters wishes. OR he can limit the taxes he spends by exploiting every loophole, amass HUGE wealth and then donate money to those projects that do
What do I care who this "Berners-Lee" guy is anyway. Another useless nobody, why I bet that if I travel back in time and shoot him it will have absolutly no eff
What about black slaves? How significant were there deaths in allowing the US to become the power it is today? How many million were worked to death?
How many slaughtered in your foreign wars? When will the US attone for its purposefull bombing of civilians in Vietnam?
Yet you americans happily quote the founders of your "free" nation who were slave owners. They are heros who thought the owning of other human beings was okay.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. This means that the US cannot even LOOK at the stone.
The chinese revolution has caused many a death but so have many things wich eventually have led to so called better things. I dare say the american revolution, Oh I am sorry war of independance, caused more then a couple of deaths.
It is not that I am defending the chinese, more that I am questioning your right to question them. Of course I really have no right to question you but hey, that never stopped anyone before has it.
Although I think that in your case of "He's a communism!" and off you went to a prison.. hanging is to good for you.
Books are lethal. Books can make you dream and if you ever actually read the little red book, I inherited it from a real communist, it has some intresting ideas. Yeah sure our current western world is very comfy but it is also.... well rotten and boring. Young people of today seem more intrested in getting the latest cell phone BUT the powers that be are old enough to remember the 60's and 70's when young kids came close to destabalizing a country. Lets see, republicans in power, abusing their power, fighting an unpopular foreign war with no end in sight. Oh yeah all they need is a bunch of commies running around to make it complete.
There was a time cars claimed lives. This was in the day when it was thought that having a sharp metal pin aimed at the drivers chest and directly connected to the front of the car was a good design feature. Same with regular glass windows and nice sharp metal knobs. Saves you the worry of how to get out of your vehicle after a crash I suppose.
In that way cars killed their passengers although the more accurate claim would be that it was the designers of the car that killed the passengers.
You can say that smoke claims lives (smoke as from a fire) but this again is a fairly direct form. You would not say that love claims lives despite the fact that an awfull lot of people commit suicide over a broken heart.
It is not the gameplay that killed them. If say you were playing a DDR game that just kept getting more and more intense until the user falls dead THEN the game would claim lives. If you played fear and got so scared you suffered a heart attack THEN the game would have claimed a live.
Just taking bad care of yourselve is not the games fault. Sitting motionless in a chair eating bad food is not restricted to gaming. Just ask your average soccer widow.
All these guys seemed to have neglected their body for a prolonged time and were probably not the most healthy in the first place.
One article claimed the 38 year old male in question had existed on a 20 day diet of instant noodles. Eheh and before? Because I know from personal experience that the body can live a lot longer then that on instant noodles. I am willing to bet a few bucks that before he wasn't exactly a 2fruit+veg a day man either. So the real newsstory is, man who neglects his health totally does not live to a ripe old age (38 was once an advanced age for a human to reach)
The other has someone having a 9 hour gaming session? Well I doubt anyone would be able to do that without having to pee and even then so what? I done far longer sessions. Perhaps this person was not the most prime example of the human species? If 9 hours in chair kills you then all this proves that darwin was on to something. You know there are people out there who for fun do 12 hour marches? What about pole-sitting contests?
Nah I am afraid that as I read these stories it is just, not very healthy person dies doing something to extreme. I had an elderly neighbour who died going to the toilet (yeah how do you like to discover that eh?) Apperently the "pressure" caused a bloodvessel (internally) to burst and she bled to death. Going to the toilet is bad for you? No she just was old and that was her time. If it hadn't been then it would have been if she had bend down to lift something heavy. Sad but that is live. No need to make a headline off it.