On Saturday, Lafayette, Louisiana voters gave BellSouth and Cox the collective finger and approved a municipal FTTH network by a 62% to 38% margin.
Good for them! That's a real breath of fresh air, especially coming from a state like Louisiana. Hopefully more states/municipalities will follow their lead!
Actually, the fact that they are linking this shows that they're in touch with what's happening in the world of gaming. That video was hilarious, and also a good way to showcase a common problem of trolls having their way with MMORPGs.
Nope and you can't have mine either. I'm in the same boat with the GP but my major beef was that I feel Blizzard really drop the ball by not putting enough attention on AAs and other means of allowing players to use xp after 60.
Rather than give my stuff away I'm waiting a few months to see if I read something groundbreaking that convinces me Blizzard has managed to make the game appealing again.
Until then my 60 Orc Hunter and all his gear with remain in the freezer waiting for the day if/when I decide to return.
He examines the reality that, for many people, games are becoming simply unfun. ... Katamari Damacy. That game requires so little instruction...
I agree with you, but even if every game released from today on increases in complexity there are still thousands of 'classic' PC/console/arcade titles from which to learn the 'grammar' of gaming.
Most of us learned to read like this: Dr. Seuss->Where the Wild Things Are->Nancy Drew/Choose your own adventure->Novella->Novels->etc.
In the same way, anyone can gradually learn how to play complex games and have a lot of fun along the way: Tetris->Super Mario Bros->Legend of Zelda(NES)->Ultima III->Quake/Wolfenstein->Half-Life2->etc
I kind of envy people who haven't played the classis titles because they have all of those rich gaming experiences waiting for them. The main problem however, which this article overlooks, is the gray area of legality/money-making/marketing making it difficult for new gamers to get their hands on emulators. This is another case where vasted over-bloated copyright terms hurt everyone. It's because of current copyright laws that we'll never see Asteroids, Pacman, or Zelda bundled with windows xp or linux. Even though doing so would have no cost impact on anyone, and negligible space impact on the installation media or user's harddrive.
Interstingly, in recent weeks I've seen a number of people who have ended up back in EQ after following this path: EQ -> EQ2 -> WoW -> EQ.
Yeah it's funny you mention that. A few weeks ago I was in an EB Games store talking with 2 or 3 of the guys who worked there. They had all played WoW, and had gone back to playing EQ. We agreed that SOE was the worst, but I think the ghost of Verant lives on. Those original EQ developers really knew fantasy gaming.
About 6 months before I started playing WoW I discovered Winter's Roar, a great EQ mod that's available to you if you can figure out how to configure eqemu. I really enjoyed it, but they are all volunteers there and the content/bug fixes are pretty slow going. So I got kinda bored and WoW was creating huge hype in December so I 'took the plunge'. After about 4 months of 'hardcore' WoW play I got very bored with it. The absolute first rule of MMORPGs is to never ever ever create a system where gamers can 'max out' their characters. Hitting 60 was a breeze in WoW, and I waited 2 months for them to implement some kind of AA(alternate advancement) system to no avail.
So I quit playing WoW a few weeks ago and have been playing CS1(not CS:S), DiabloII and Zangband(heh), I'm wondering about playing standard EQ again. Hmm...
He didn't support the war, but he supported the troops after they were sent there.
"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?"
# Voted YES on $86.5 billion for military operations in Iraq & Afghanistan. (Oct 2003) # Voted NO on authorizing use of military force against Iraq. (Oct 2002) # Voted YES on allowing all necessary forces and other means in Kosovo. (May 1999) # Voted NO on authorizing air strikes in Kosovo. (Mar 1999) # Voted YES on ending the Bosnian arms embargo. (Jul 1995) # Condemns anti-Muslim bigotry in name of anti-terrorism. (Oct 2001) # Move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. (Nov 1995)
I was under the impression it was ALL politicians are influenced by *
I share your disappointment with most of our elected officials, but there are exceptions. Russ Feingold was the only senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act in 2001. He's truly an admirable leader.
" What does a developer have to do to take advantage of this?" Easy use threads.
Multi-threaded code is very difficult to write correctly and debug. It's hardly 'easy'.
Multi threading is not all that hard. And yes I have written code that uses threads.
When, for a school project? There are very few cases where integrating a multi-threaded handler into a progrom doesn't introduce a formidable degree of complexity. What really needs to take root is a new programming paradigm. One that assumes all procedures, functions and system calls are designated as concurrent from the get-go. People smarter than most of us need to design a language/compiler that doesn't burden the programmer with the responsibility of 'keeping track' of when to use threads and when not to.
Actually I have a few lesbian friends who are heavily into gaming. So I think the empirical data excludes the 'nancy types' like gay men, and christian conservative women.
WoW for me is one of the biggest dissapointments. Not because it's bad, but because it's very well done if you're willing to play hardcore.
Actually I found the opposite to be true. I recently quit my account because Blizzard has been glacial *cough* about improving single-player advancement for 'hardcore' gamers. EQ used to expand the level range from 55-60, and 60-65 every few months to keep the hardcore folks satisfied.
If you're concerned about surviving pvp, it's much more important to have a good group of players working with you, using voicechat, and exercising pre-determined strategies etc.
A few more stamina points on your boots isn't going to mean a whole lot when a party of 5 orcs flanks you in a well executed pincer move.
Why this is a reason to switch LCD? You can do same with CRT as well.
I couldn't agree more. For the last 8 months I've been trying to find a double-LCD without a plastic divider between the two halves. I.e. a 2048X768 pixel LCD. Noone carries them.
It amazes me that manufacturers don't think they will sell. What can you do with a 2048X768 LCD?
1) Watch 16:9 DVD and HDTV content 2) Play games in widescreen mode 3) Have the option of two 1024X768 displays in one.
The cheap hack of gluing two 1024X768 LCDs together is not revolutionary, or even useful...unless maybe you're a system admin or a stock broker.
Not a troll. I was silently promoting AMD which has not voluntarily jumped onto the DRM bandwagon. DRM at the OS and software levels is one thing, at the hardware level it's something else entirely.
I read this a few days ago, but I gotta agree with a lot of what this guy is saying. Some of his points can be debated, like save spots, but most of them are just dead on, like bad AI.
Yeah I agree, very good article. He had a lot of praise for Half-Life 2, but imo CS:Source has many flaws as a multi-player game.
1) Basketball sized headshot boxes that turn what used to be a skill-based game into an AK/Para spray-and-pray festival, not fun.
2) The dead-view camera now has momentum, i.e. it takes time to accelerate and it bounces off walls etc. Very dumb idea, computers are supposed to make life easier...the camera should be fast, manueverable, and not subject to nuisances like physical laws. Oh, and why can't I see the remaining health of the guy who shot me anymore?
3) His remark about jumping over rocks was funny, reminded me of all the times I've bounced off a tin can or milk carton on the ground while playing CS:S. Stuff like this does nothing to improve fun, and everything to aggravate players.
4) Jump lagging. It was a hack in CS1 to stop people from 'bunny jumping'(taking advantage of the half-life1 code to move faster). This should have been fixed with half-life2 and we should have our normal run speed back after jumping. Even if this did happen in real-life, why include it in the game? Not fun at all.
5) Bumping into players. Implementing real physics including player body-momentum results in a practical bumper-car derby of players just trying to get past each other. It's distracting, irritating, and does nothing but suck the fun away from the game.
I could go on...Don't get me wrong Valve deserves a lot of credit for Half-Life 2, but it's frustrating to see them sacrificing fun and common sense for exact physics in all situations.
I do not understand the fixation with the Millenium Falcon and other trivial "Easter Eggs" in the "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith".
It's simply Lucas trying to add legitimacy to something that has none. Namely the 3 prequels. I'm refusing to call anything but the films made in 1977, 1980, and 1983 'starwars' movies. This includes the 're-edits'.
Only the original 3 films count in my book. George Lucas, RIP.
Slashdot Mirror
On Saturday, Lafayette, Louisiana voters gave BellSouth and Cox the collective finger and approved a municipal FTTH network by a 62% to 38% margin.
Good for them! That's a real breath of fresh air, especially coming from a state like Louisiana. Hopefully more states/municipalities will follow their lead!
It's a staged video
Says who? And do they have proof? The players bitching after they wiped sounded pretty genuine to me.
Actually, the fact that they are linking this shows that they're in touch with what's happening in the world of gaming. That video was hilarious, and also a good way to showcase a common problem of trolls having their way with MMORPGs.
Can I have your stuff? ;-P
Nope and you can't have mine either. I'm in the same boat with the GP but my major beef was that I feel Blizzard really drop the ball by not putting enough attention on AAs and other means of allowing players to use xp after 60.
Rather than give my stuff away I'm waiting a few months to see if I read something groundbreaking that convinces me Blizzard has managed to make the game appealing again.
Until then my 60 Orc Hunter and all his gear with remain in the freezer waiting for the day if/when I decide to return.
He examines the reality that, for many people, games are becoming simply unfun.
...
Katamari Damacy. That game requires so little instruction...
I agree with you, but even if every game released from today on increases in complexity there are still thousands of 'classic' PC/console/arcade titles from which to learn the 'grammar' of gaming.
Most of us learned to read like this:
Dr. Seuss->Where the Wild Things Are->Nancy Drew/Choose your own adventure->Novella->Novels->etc.
In the same way, anyone can gradually learn how to play complex games and have a lot of fun along the way:
Tetris->Super Mario Bros->Legend of Zelda(NES)->Ultima III->Quake/Wolfenstein->Half-Life2->etc
I kind of envy people who haven't played the classis titles because they have all of those rich gaming experiences waiting for them. The main problem however, which this article overlooks, is the gray area of legality/money-making/marketing making it difficult for new gamers to get their hands on emulators. This is another case where vasted over-bloated copyright terms hurt everyone. It's because of current copyright laws that we'll never see Asteroids, Pacman, or Zelda bundled with windows xp or linux. Even though doing so would have no cost impact on anyone, and negligible space impact on the installation media or user's harddrive.
Interstingly, in recent weeks I've seen a number of people who have ended up back in EQ after following this path: EQ -> EQ2 -> WoW -> EQ.
Yeah it's funny you mention that. A few weeks ago I was in an EB Games store talking with 2 or 3 of the guys who worked there. They had all played WoW, and had gone back to playing EQ. We agreed that SOE was the worst, but I think the ghost of Verant lives on. Those original EQ developers really knew fantasy gaming.
About 6 months before I started playing WoW I discovered Winter's Roar, a great EQ mod that's available to you if you can figure out how to configure eqemu. I really enjoyed it, but they are all volunteers there and the content/bug fixes are pretty slow going. So I got kinda bored and WoW was creating huge hype in December so I 'took the plunge'. After about 4 months of 'hardcore' WoW play I got very bored with it. The absolute first rule of MMORPGs is to never ever ever create a system where gamers can 'max out' their characters. Hitting 60 was a breeze in WoW, and I waited 2 months for them to implement some kind of AA(alternate advancement) system to no avail.
So I quit playing WoW a few weeks ago and have been playing CS1(not CS:S), DiabloII and Zangband(heh), I'm wondering about playing standard EQ again. Hmm...
Oh no wait. He supported the war in Iraq.
So close...
He didn't support the war, but he supported the troops after they were sent there.
"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?"
# Voted YES on $86.5 billion for military operations in Iraq & Afghanistan. (Oct 2003)
# Voted NO on authorizing use of military force against Iraq. (Oct 2002)
# Voted YES on allowing all necessary forces and other means in Kosovo. (May 1999)
# Voted NO on authorizing air strikes in Kosovo. (Mar 1999)
# Voted YES on ending the Bosnian arms embargo. (Jul 1995)
# Condemns anti-Muslim bigotry in name of anti-terrorism. (Oct 2001)
# Move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. (Nov 1995)
I was under the impression it was ALL politicians are influenced by *
I share your disappointment with most of our elected officials, but there are exceptions. Russ Feingold was the only senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act in 2001. He's truly an admirable leader.
The entire game requires GameSpy to run as anything but "defaultPlayer" -- even in Single Player mode.
Ok, but is this just for the demo or also for the retail version due out on the 22nd?
" What does a developer have to do to take advantage of this?"
Easy use threads.
Multi-threaded code is very difficult to write correctly and debug. It's hardly 'easy'.
Multi threading is not all that hard. And yes I have written code that uses threads.
When, for a school project? There are very few cases where integrating a multi-threaded handler into a progrom doesn't introduce a formidable degree of complexity. What really needs to take root is a new programming paradigm. One that assumes all procedures, functions and system calls are designated as concurrent from the get-go. People smarter than most of us need to design a language/compiler that doesn't burden the programmer with the responsibility of 'keeping track' of when to use threads and when not to.
Looks like you have to register with IGN and GameSpy to play online. Forget it.
Can anyone verify this? Does this affect the official version or just the demo?
Actually I have a few lesbian friends who are heavily into gaming. So I think the empirical data excludes the 'nancy types' like gay men, and christian conservative women.
*shrug* I could be wrong.
WoW for me is one of the biggest dissapointments. Not because it's bad, but because it's very well done if you're willing to play hardcore.
Actually I found the opposite to be true. I recently quit my account because Blizzard has been glacial *cough* about improving single-player advancement for 'hardcore' gamers. EQ used to expand the level range from 55-60, and 60-65 every few months to keep the hardcore folks satisfied.
If you're concerned about surviving pvp, it's much more important to have a good group of players working with you, using voicechat, and exercising pre-determined strategies etc.
A few more stamina points on your boots isn't going to mean a whole lot when a party of 5 orcs flanks you in a well executed pincer move.
Why this is a reason to switch LCD? You can do same with CRT as well.
I couldn't agree more. For the last 8 months I've been trying to find a double-LCD without a plastic divider between the two halves. I.e. a 2048X768 pixel LCD. Noone carries them.
It amazes me that manufacturers don't think they will sell. What can you do with a 2048X768 LCD?
1) Watch 16:9 DVD and HDTV content
2) Play games in widescreen mode
3) Have the option of two 1024X768 displays in one.
The cheap hack of gluing two 1024X768 LCDs together is not revolutionary, or even useful...unless maybe you're a system admin or a stock broker.
Hopefully this starts a global trend
... into this battlefield came Max"
"It was a white-line nightmare... man and machine locked in desperate pursuit of the "juice"... the precious juice
Not a troll. I was silently promoting AMD which has not voluntarily jumped onto the DRM bandwagon. DRM at the OS and software levels is one thing, at the hardware level it's something else entirely.
Maybe the DRM was the clincher for Apple.
One more reason not to buy an Apple.
Insted of modding this flamebait, maybe you should re-read it.
I read this a few days ago, but I gotta agree with a lot of what this guy is saying. Some of his points can be debated, like save spots, but most of them are just dead on, like bad AI.
Yeah I agree, very good article. He had a lot of praise for Half-Life 2, but imo CS:Source has many flaws as a multi-player game.
1) Basketball sized headshot boxes that turn what used to be a skill-based game into an AK/Para spray-and-pray festival, not fun.
2) The dead-view camera now has momentum, i.e. it takes time to accelerate and it bounces off walls etc. Very dumb idea, computers are supposed to make life easier...the camera should be fast, manueverable, and not subject to nuisances like physical laws. Oh, and why can't I see the remaining health of the guy who shot me anymore?
3) His remark about jumping over rocks was funny, reminded me of all the times I've bounced off a tin can or milk carton on the ground while playing CS:S. Stuff like this does nothing to improve fun, and everything to aggravate players.
4) Jump lagging. It was a hack in CS1 to stop people from 'bunny jumping'(taking advantage of the half-life1 code to move faster). This should have been fixed with half-life2 and we should have our normal run speed back after jumping. Even if this did happen in real-life, why include it in the game? Not fun at all.
5) Bumping into players. Implementing real physics including player body-momentum results in a practical bumper-car derby of players just trying to get past each other. It's distracting, irritating, and does nothing but suck the fun away from the game.
I could go on...Don't get me wrong Valve deserves a lot of credit for Half-Life 2, but it's frustrating to see them sacrificing fun and common sense for exact physics in all situations.
I just hope AMD doesn't do the same.
There's no need to 'hope', just boycott Intel. They start losing customers, they'll have no choice but to change. I'm never buying intel again.
I do not understand the fixation with the Millenium Falcon and other trivial "Easter Eggs" in the "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith".
It's simply Lucas trying to add legitimacy to something that has none. Namely the 3 prequels. I'm refusing to call anything but the films made in 1977, 1980, and 1983 'starwars' movies. This includes the 're-edits'.
Only the original 3 films count in my book. George Lucas, RIP.
he could write the Starwars adventure we all think we remember.
The only person who could do that is someone who's spent the last 20 years reading 50s and 60s sci-fi magazines.
It's nice to see posts like these surviving the lameness filter.
Mod this guy up.
Here's a list of their classic games. They even have Cheyenne!