Damn straight. I just bought a used Xbox the other day, along with 16 *good* games and an extra controller for less than $350 CDN. Hell, the Xbox and PS2 is where it's at right now. You can get plenty of fine games for under $10 each.
Stay one step behind the current gen, and you'll save a ton of money. You just have to ignore all the hype about the latest games.
The worst thing about those types of drivers is that they are deliberately made to be very difficult to reverse engineer. So if you start seeing bugs and crashes in them, you can't even take a look to see what's going on (unless you have a LOT of patience).
So what will probably happen is this: StarFor... oops, I mean "Generic copy-protection driver #3" crashes for some unknown reason. Copy-protection vendor's response? Oh, it was probably due to bad hardware or due to another copy-protection companies buggy driver interfering with our perfectly coded one. But you won't be able to verify their claim since the driver resists debugging and is encrypted!
The point is that it's FUN. That's the reason I play games: to have fun. Having to play with a bunch of shitty, boring weapons for 10 hours just so I can get the rocket launcher (or whatever) is not fun, it's work.
If they can give you enough different stuff to blow up, and interesting ways to do it, then it doesn't immediately end the fun of the game just because you got the end-game weapon.
Guild Wars almost fits the bill for you. In PvP mode, anyways. All PvP characters are started at max level with maxxed out weapons and armor. There is a skill system though that you have to work your way up through.
"You'll need to identify each application that is being used, where its data is being stored and what type of "backup" is needed for it."
I second this. Nothing's worse than someone telling you "back up this system, full once a week, incrementals every other day, all local drives, blah blah" and then not telling you they've got some database on it (you can't back up a live database by just copying the files.) Of course, when failure hits, guess what needs to be restored and isn't usable?
Best AI I've seen in a strategy game was Galactic Civilizations 2. It adheres to all the same game rules the player does. It doesn't cheat unless you put it at one of the higher difficulty levels where the game tells you exactly what advantages the AI will get that you won't.
The computer opponents won't sniff out that you're the human and immediately gang up on you, you're treated as an equal. It's a very refreshing change from the usual "AI was an afterthought" you find in most games.
That's my idea of a good AI: Opponents that all play by the same rules I do, can put up a decent fight, and as a bonus, have some variety in the opponent play styles.
My take on the whole "botting" think on online games is this: If your game is bottable, then it's a problem with the game being simplistically repetitive, not a problem with players. Forcing ridiculous amounts of grind on people causes this to happen.
Just make the game fun to play, and people won't want to bot. When's the last time you saw someone bot an adventure game like Monkey Island? It would defeat the purpose.
Reminds me of Cinemaware. They offer up free downloads of their old games from their site for various platforms (C64, Amiga, Atari ST, etc).
At the time these images were released, there was no disk image format for C64 or Amiga that would describe protected tracks/sectors, so I was curious how they could release something that would work on emulators.
Turns out they're the cracked versions, with the intro-loader and everything!
Oh yeah, forgot to mention: These guys don't use standard windows calls to access the CD/DVD drive either. They hit the hardware directly. Try this with a game protected with a starforce v3.5+:
Disable optical drives in the BIOS, boot into windows, put the original CD in the drive and run the game.
It'll spin up the drive and manage to authenticate the disc.
What exactly is it with the inflexible attitude of some employers and prospective employees?
You people really need to loosen up a bit. It's a diverse world out there and you're seriously going to miss out on some great opportunites if you keep playing the "my rules or else" game.
If anything, it just shows that you're a stubborn prick or a control freak.
Well, we have an open hobbyist's toy (GP2X) compared to a proprietary kid's toy (PSP/DS)..
I'll take the hobbyist's toy, thanks. It's about time a company gave us open standards rather than crippling and obscuring the technology in order to retain a stranglehold on it.
How can you say he's wrong about the amount of space games will need?
When games first came out on CD, in what? 1993 for 7th Guest? They were 2 CDs. What are they now? 2-3 CDs.
Compression technology keeps getting better. If in a few years from now all textures are calculated mathematically instead of being stored as bitmaps, there's a HUGE savings and you could see amazing next-generation games that fit in the space on one CD, and only because the audio takes up so much room.
I find that exe compressors are generally used more for their ability to be exe encrypters.
So long as you don't use some known and easily decompressable packer (like UPX), it adds a layer of protection to the program that prevents people from just hex editing the contents and patching out protection routines. They have to go through the trouble of decompressing the file first. That or write a loader that performs the patch in memory after the program has unpacked.
Here's another reason I dislike online-only games. You're forced to endure the updates they provide, good or bad. If you don't update, you can't play. At least with a single-player game, you can decide if you want to apply the next patch/update/enhancement or not.
"Content" publishers want control over everything. Well, guess what? *I* want some control as well.
Yeah, but it's too bad they go and ruin all that technical superiority with DRM garbage.
I'll wait till both formats are out first, then make my decision. From the looks of things, I won't be buying either of them. Not for movies anyways. They just don't offer me anything that DVD doesn't already (I don't have an HDTV, nor do I find the picture quality difference that significant for my tastes).
Only by the same type of people that believe you MUST use a tube amp and vinyl to actually appreciate music.
Older LCDs had problems with refresh rates and movement, but anything made in the last 2 years or so is just fine. Most displays have 8 or 12ms "refresh" rates. That translates to 125 and 83 FPS maximum display rate.
I agree with you. Backwards compatibility isn't that important, but when you stick the word "XBOX" in the system's title, you're going to mislead people.
AIX sucks? And how's that? I find that it's quite well polished and my only gripes are the whole "ODM" thing and that you're forced to use logical volume management on everything.
I like LVM, but it really introduces an unnecessary layer of complexity when you're dealing with the boot disks.
Huh? There's nothing bad about the information he gave at all.
"Distorted is better":
Look up "distortion pedal" when it comes to guitars. If that's the sound you're going for, it's definitely better than not using one.
"Accuracy is bad":
If you don't like the way the original sounds, then you don't want it to be accurate to that do you? Change it to suit your liking.
And he never said that vacuum tubes weren't low distortion. Just that if you like the sound they give, use 'em. Accuracy to the original signal isn't the be-all-end-all of enjoying music.
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Damn straight. I just bought a used Xbox the other day, along with 16 *good* games and an extra controller for less than $350 CDN. Hell, the Xbox and PS2 is where it's at right now. You can get plenty of fine games for under $10 each.
Stay one step behind the current gen, and you'll save a ton of money. You just have to ignore all the hype about the latest games.
The worst thing about those types of drivers is that they are deliberately made to be very difficult to reverse engineer. So if you start seeing bugs and crashes in them, you can't even take a look to see what's going on (unless you have a LOT of patience).
So what will probably happen is this: StarFor... oops, I mean "Generic copy-protection driver #3" crashes for some unknown reason. Copy-protection vendor's response? Oh, it was probably due to bad hardware or due to another copy-protection companies buggy driver interfering with our perfectly coded one. But you won't be able to verify their claim since the driver resists debugging and is encrypted!
So it's par for the course in this situation.
Which is why NOBODY had fun playing Pac-Man.. There's no hidden content, or locked powerups, or secret maps that you had to work your ass off to see!
The point is that it's FUN. That's the reason I play games: to have fun. Having to play with a bunch of shitty, boring weapons for 10 hours just so I can get the rocket launcher (or whatever) is not fun, it's work.
If they can give you enough different stuff to blow up, and interesting ways to do it, then it doesn't immediately end the fun of the game just because you got the end-game weapon.
Guild Wars almost fits the bill for you. In PvP mode, anyways. All PvP characters are started at max level with maxxed out weapons and armor. There is a skill system though that you have to work your way up through.
"You'll need to identify each application that is being used, where its data is being stored and what type of "backup" is needed for it."
I second this. Nothing's worse than someone telling you "back up this system, full once a week, incrementals every other day, all local drives, blah blah" and then not telling you they've got some database on it (you can't back up a live database by just copying the files.) Of course, when failure hits, guess what needs to be restored and isn't usable?
Best AI I've seen in a strategy game was Galactic Civilizations 2. It adheres to all the same game rules the player does. It doesn't cheat unless you put it at one of the higher difficulty levels where the game tells you exactly what advantages the AI will get that you won't.
The computer opponents won't sniff out that you're the human and immediately gang up on you, you're treated as an equal. It's a very refreshing change from the usual "AI was an afterthought" you find in most games.
That's my idea of a good AI: Opponents that all play by the same rules I do, can put up a decent fight, and as a bonus, have some variety in the opponent play styles.
My take on the whole "botting" think on online games is this: If your game is bottable, then it's a problem with the game being simplistically repetitive, not a problem with players. Forcing ridiculous amounts of grind on people causes this to happen.
Just make the game fun to play, and people won't want to bot. When's the last time you saw someone bot an adventure game like Monkey Island? It would defeat the purpose.
Reminds me of Cinemaware. They offer up free downloads of their old games from their site for various platforms (C64, Amiga, Atari ST, etc).
At the time these images were released, there was no disk image format for C64 or Amiga that would describe protected tracks/sectors, so I was curious how they could release something that would work on emulators.
Turns out they're the cracked versions, with the intro-loader and everything!
C-Dilla? It hasn't been called that in over 7 years... Most people know it now as SafeDisc.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention: These guys don't use standard windows calls to access the CD/DVD drive either. They hit the hardware directly. Try this with a game protected with a starforce v3.5+:
Disable optical drives in the BIOS, boot into windows, put the original CD in the drive and run the game.
It'll spin up the drive and manage to authenticate the disc.
If you use a commercial defragger, this isn't a problem. The one they provide with the OS is absolutely terrible.
Check out Raxco PerfectDisk, or O&O Defrag. They're both pretty good.
What exactly is it with the inflexible attitude of some employers and prospective employees?
You people really need to loosen up a bit. It's a diverse world out there and you're seriously going to miss out on some great opportunites if you keep playing the "my rules or else" game.
If anything, it just shows that you're a stubborn prick or a control freak.
Here's my prediction: about 1/3 of Blu-Ray releases will be sourced from the DVD transfer.
Double click brencode.exe, open robocop.vob, click Go. Wait 2 hours and then burn.
Well, we have an open hobbyist's toy (GP2X) compared to a proprietary kid's toy (PSP/DS)..
I'll take the hobbyist's toy, thanks. It's about time a company gave us open standards rather than crippling and obscuring the technology in order to retain a stranglehold on it.
How can you say he's wrong about the amount of space games will need?
When games first came out on CD, in what? 1993 for 7th Guest? They were 2 CDs. What are they now? 2-3 CDs.
Compression technology keeps getting better. If in a few years from now all textures are calculated mathematically instead of being stored as bitmaps, there's a HUGE savings and you could see amazing next-generation games that fit in the space on one CD, and only because the audio takes up so much room.
I find that exe compressors are generally used more for their ability to be exe encrypters.
So long as you don't use some known and easily decompressable packer (like UPX), it adds a layer of protection to the program that prevents people from just hex editing the contents and patching out protection routines. They have to go through the trouble of decompressing the file first. That or write a loader that performs the patch in memory after the program has unpacked.
Here's another reason I dislike online-only games. You're forced to endure the updates they provide, good or bad. If you don't update, you can't play. At least with a single-player game, you can decide if you want to apply the next patch/update/enhancement or not.
"Content" publishers want control over everything. Well, guess what? *I* want some control as well.
Yeah, but it's too bad they go and ruin all that technical superiority with DRM garbage.
I'll wait till both formats are out first, then make my decision. From the looks of things, I won't be buying either of them. Not for movies anyways. They just don't offer me anything that DVD doesn't already (I don't have an HDTV, nor do I find the picture quality difference that significant for my tastes).
Only by the same type of people that believe you MUST use a tube amp and vinyl to actually appreciate music.
Older LCDs had problems with refresh rates and movement, but anything made in the last 2 years or so is just fine. Most displays have 8 or 12ms "refresh" rates. That translates to 125 and 83 FPS maximum display rate.
I agree with you. Backwards compatibility isn't that important, but when you stick the word "XBOX" in the system's title, you're going to mislead people.
They should have just called it something else.
AIX sucks? And how's that? I find that it's quite well polished and my only gripes are the whole "ODM" thing and that you're forced to use logical volume management on everything.
I like LVM, but it really introduces an unnecessary layer of complexity when you're dealing with the boot disks.
But that discounts your increasing experience and (hopefully) better performance at your job that occurs each year.
If there's no raise, there's no incentive to work harder. Unless of course you're easy to replace and your experience doesn't matter to the company...
"In related news, the average man engages in twice as many one-night-stands as the average woman."
Heh, that's only incorrect if you assume all men and women are heterosexual.
Huh? There's nothing bad about the information he gave at all.
"Distorted is better":
Look up "distortion pedal" when it comes to guitars. If that's the sound you're going for, it's definitely better than not using one.
"Accuracy is bad":
If you don't like the way the original sounds, then you don't want it to be accurate to that do you? Change it to suit your liking.
And he never said that vacuum tubes weren't low distortion. Just that if you like the sound they give, use 'em. Accuracy to the original signal isn't the be-all-end-all of enjoying music.