1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users. 2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests. 3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations. 4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread. 5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month! 6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis. 7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days. 8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts. 9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person. 10. Newborn babies can choke on bread. 11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute. 12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.
In light of these frightening statistics, it has been proposed that the following bread restrictions be made:
1. No sale of bread to minors. 2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers. 3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread. 4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage. 5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.
I could translate that, but it would take a long while. So I'm just going to (loosely) translate (some of) the relevant paragraphs... even by Romanian standards, that article is pretty shabby in legalese and IT-term-wise anyway. If it sounds strange to you, don't worry, that's what they actually wrote.
They are targetting LAN DC++ users (and LAN hubs) right now. It is unknown wether they will extend this to torrent users of well-known ISPs or not. ___
The following is the translation of the bolded text in the article:
A hysteria broke all across the country following operations directed towards those who illegally use the "share" option in the so-called neighbourhood networks (translator note: LANs spanning users from a few buildings up to a few city blocks). Sources from the MAI (translator note: Ministry of Internal Affairs ? well, the police anyway) have declared the operation is code-named "The Gramophone".
Because in the IP-rights category Romania got a "yellow flag" warning from the EU, Romanian Police has enacted measures regarding weekly raids organisation in order to control this phenomenon, in all counties.
Within the scope of this endeavour, policemen and prosecutors will work together with ISPs and hub operators. Another method used by the cops to penetrate the hubs is by assuming innocuous user identities.
In Iasi (translator note: rather large city, "capital" of the county with the same name in the NE of the country, region called Moldova), cops and prosecutors have made several household searches, seizing HDDs, computers and switches. In Tulcea (translator note: city by the Black Sea coast/ Danube Delta), over 20 Internet users have ended up with penal records, and cops have confiscated "dozens" of HDDs.
The chief of the IP department from the "Parchetul General" (translator note: the higher prosecuting autority), Monica Otava, has declared that prosecutors all across the country will start [such] actions, benefitting from both legal grounds and the necessary logistics for the "annihilation" of LANs.
The only other relevant (and worying) bit is the following:
"- Sa inteleg ca de-acum incolo orice utilizator dintr-o asa-zisa retea de cartier se poate trezi la usa cu un procuror cu un mandat de perchezitie in mana? - Da, oricand, se poate trezi la usa cu un mandat de perchezitie."
That loosely translates into something like this:
*Interviewer* : So, are we to understand that from now on anybody who is connected to a local LAN can end up with the police holding a search warrant at their door? *Monica Otava* : Yes, anytime, he can end up with a search warrant at his door
Well, they WOULD have had the right to cancel the sale, but problem is, they DIDN'T. They made the sale, then froze his entire account, sim in question and all other owned stuff too.
The company could as easily have kept the account running, return the bid money, and undo ownership of the auctioned sim. Heck, they could have KEPT the real money and given him something else inside the virtual world. Or any other large number of things that wouldn't have lead to this.
The case is against the account freezing (assest apparently worth over 3200$), so he claims 8000$ in "damage" over the assets that he aquired prior to this... well... bug/oversight/hack.
Hopefully, Tokyo will not succumb to American pressure and will design a 100% all-Japanese interceptor.
...and I hope it will be able to shape-shift, and have 5 of them merge into a bigger, better fighter, were it for alien space monsters to invade Japan's airspace... eumh, "again":P
The basic problem is that IF what you see on your screen feels realistic enough for your brain, it will cause a "reverse" physical motion sickness (i.e. not "too much of a stimulus" but instead a "too less or not at all stimulus"). That is, if you're sensitive enough, both for physical AND visual motion sickness.
So you can cure the visual motion sickness in two ways: 1. Make the game feel LESS realistic. Increasing FOV or backing away from the monitor makes you feel more like looking at pictures/movies than like "being there". or 2. MOVE YOUR HEAD as much as possible, basically "feel" the game. You need to create the exact "G-Forces" your inner ear + brain EXPECTS to receive from what you see happening on the screen.
Either of the two works great. Maybe not a 100% cure, but it will help a lot.
Personally I blame all of Blizzard for using ULTRA-ANCIENT technology in most of their games. Ok, it looks all nice and spiffy and polished and runs excellent on most machines, blah blah blah, but still... the most clear-cut case ? Isometric sprites (Starcraft) when 3D rendered RTSs started popping up... eh.
EVE-ONLINE. They got the right idea. DEATH TO SHARDING. Split the world in regions, hold different regions on different physical servers, or just have a freakin' supercomputer running the realm... but have a huge network of PROXIES all around the world that lets people access the SINGLE existant world.
I never understood the whole "DRM" idea. In the day of the tape/casette/VCR players, nobody would cry about people with tape/casette/VCR recorders because they copied some music/movies from a rental service, or TV, or the radio.
I wonder what would happend if EVERYTHING got DRM-enabled, and "piracy" would all but dissapear. Who the frag would even BUY some (?crappy?) music AT ALL if they never heard a single verse, nor seen a single scene, etc.
I'd have to argue internet piracy has BOOSTED sales of crappy stuff. Because they spread it around to stupid morons who actually enjoyed it. I say go ahead, DRM-ize everything. Talk about shooting your own foot...
And this one here was also priceless... "More broadly, the company suggested the Commission could look at the process used in the United States, where a court also found that Microsoft had violated antitrust law."
RIGHT. Excuse me for being an European and LAUGHING my ass off each and EVERY time I hear about ANOTHER idiotic legal experience from the USA. Next time I hear somebody start saying "US Legal system is better in/because/...", I'll just hit him over the head with a large brick and let him TRY to sue me.
If Application X (games mostly) was too much for your system, what did you do ? Try to improve on the application engine, request code rewrites and wait for patches ? Duuh, nope. YOU GOT UP AND BOUGHT A FASTER MACHINE.
If you knew NY traffic was going to be awfull, do buy a faster car ? NOPE. Actually, you could SELL the car. And you will use the subway, or in case you can't, get a cab. Or, if you're the mayor, put a huge "car usage price" and get the freaking streets empty (and the city rich) at the same time.
So... is your ISP (you being a big company) having problems with your traffic ? Well... get a better "pipe" plan, or switch ISPs.
AS LONG AS YOU ASK FOR MORE BANDWIDTH, and you do it for "long term", somebody, somewhere is going to be more than happy to provide it for you. So the answer is not "limit usage", but "build better roads".
Seti@home ? Folding@home ? Nothing else with distributed computing I can recall. But then again, my problem is I didn't *HAVE* a gmail address 1 year ago, and if *I* would have joined, I would have used my "default"/"disposable" password... which does not match.
I just saw the story now, never heard about this thing before. I download the software, I install it, I run it, I select "new user", enter my google mail as mail to be used... and surprise: "that email is already in use and you entered a wrong password". And no, I am 100% sure I didn't do it before, and there's nothing in my e-mail about it, and the passwords I use for "low security" and/or "disposable" things is completely different from my e-mail password, etc.
So, that tells me one of two things: - either they don't verify the email address AT ALL (why the heck do they require one then) *AND* somebody used MY email address to enroll (wtf) - or their software got bugged (or funnier, slashdotted ?)
Well, I have some Karma I don't mind burning, so I'll play devil's advocate here for a while... ASSUME for a minute you have no idea who this "Uwe Boll" guy is or what he did, and also ASSUME for a few more minutes you never played any of the videogames he made into movies.
Now the fun part starts.
First, look at the budgets of his movies. And what actors played (so how much money went into the actual movie as opposed to payroll). And who the heck wrote the scripts.
Take a peek at how (many) other movies with the same budgeting came out (quality-wise). You'd probably be surprised to see that quite many flopped badly, even without heavy negative publicity.
Now, suddendly remember you saw something with the same name. Uh, a video game. Hmm... you start remembering playing it. And you compare it to the movie, start cursing or something, "this wasn't even remotely close, I played something else". Well, newsflash, it's a script based on the video game, not a rehash of the game itself. And with almost nobody from the "original game team" aboard at any stage in the film's making, WHAT ELSE CAN YOU EXPECT ?
One word for you: DOOM, the movie. Uwe Boll ? Nah. Sucked ? Kinda' like the same as Uwe Boll's movies sucked compared to the video games they depicted.
Personally, I didn't find Alone in the Dark half as bad as I expected (except for the cheesy story and average acting)... probably because I had never seen any other Uwe Boll movies before, and because (shock) I never played a single Alone in the Dark.
BOTTOM LINE ?
I don't find anything *basically* wrong in the interview, as per initial "assumptions". Ask yourself, would you have done any better if you had zero knowledge of that game you bought the franchise for, were not a gamer yourself, and you had his limited budget ? I didn't think so either.
Thinking about it a bit more, I come to think you could actually pull it off quite nicely, and even get in some decent subscriber base. Heck, I would even give away all IP rights to this for a "lifetime account" on that game:)
Imagine this:
- keep ship design akin to MoO2 (ship sizes, stats, system and weapon fittings, firing arcs, etc) as it was the most rewarding (player-wise) design style ; OPTIONALLY, have each "design" require researching and/or prototyping before actual manufacture can begin ; EVE-Online's blueprint system comes to mind here, but with nearly limitless variations based on player-researched technology
- a world looking like the MoO3 world (or better still, like the EVE-Online world, for that matter)... or why the heck not, a small-scale model of an ACTUAL galaxy (our galaxy, for instance, that info can't be the IP of anybody, now can it)
- actual "system-to-system travel" from would be made via "FTL drives" (i.e. "hyperdrives"), no combat possible "in flight"... but one could see/detect incoming fleets... with "entry&exit points" at certain minimum (imposed) distances from any "mass / gravity well" depending on drive technology, fleet size, etc ; and you could add "extra speed" for travel between systems with some constructed structures (player-constructed, most of the time) on one side (hyperspace window acceleration gates or whatnot) or on both sides (same type of stargate, or at least a compatible one on the "other side"), with "max tech" being almost instant travel between matching max-tech stargates
- "in-system" (i.e. "normal") travel would be done using ACTUAL NEWTONIAN LAWS, so even if hyperspacing might take a few seconds or days, you still have to travel "normally" from the entry point to the point of interest... and for "interception", the enemy fleet will have to accelerate towards you, speed down, reverse thrust, and match your "negative" speed (heh)
- actual combat could easily use a Homeworld-like system (or heck, actually USE the homeworld engine), with ships belonging to an offline player acting exactly as a NPC would act ; remember, everybody would know WHEN to prepare for a combat, as FTL travel takes a while, then after that travel it takes even a longer while to get in position... well, it all depends a lot on what you use for FTL travel (just drives or also "speeding-up" structures), or where the "stargate-like" structures are located at the destination
- the diplomacy and spying part of the game could even consist of other actual mini-games, even with role-playing elements and individual player characters
____
Basically, some kind of game with the "basics" of EVE-Online (galaxy and travel), but with a "MoO2 mindset" (in research and empire growth) and a "Homeworld look and feel" (for fleet combat).
Hmm, I appear to be stuck on the "controls" perspective, but what the heck...
What I found quite annoying in Dune 2 was the inability to control more than ONE unit at a time. Then came Warcraft 1 (another fine RTS game, but a different style... and then Warcraft2), which "extended" this to 4-unit selection (and 9-units selection, respectively).
After that, the Command&Conquer (1) appeared, where each type of unit had its specific uses (i.e. 100 infantry vs 20 tanks could be a viable strat either way), and you could select as many units as you wanted in a group. That was the point where I decided I love just about EVERYTHING that had to do with that type of selection and "unit design dogma" (so to say). And then, I see StarCraft appearing, a HUGE success, played like mad by many (even today), and I still wonder "what the heck ?!?"... 12 units in a group, huge limitations on max number of units, and so on and so forth. How can THIS be the leading style in "interface" and "unit dogma", when the other is vastly superior ?
I am NOT talking about game story or individual unit abilities, I am talking about the fact you can either control 12 "marines" or 12 "battlecruisers" at the same time (and the battlecruisers even occupy less screen, as they can stack), but their firepower is several orders of magnitude apart...
Too bad Westwood funked up on the later installments of the C&C franchise, my heart still lies with the original one. Oh well... that's why I never enjoyed much of the RTSs that appeared "recently". OH, EXCEPT Total Annihilation. Another GREAT game, same style as C&C (but more advanced), another "dead" franchise (TA2 sucked badly).
And another example of an "involution" in interfaces... Homeworld, and Homeworld 2. Again, even story aside, I found Homeworld 1 much, MUCH more enjoyable than HW2. Actually, HW:Cataclysm could be one of my "top fav games of all times".
After playing Master of Orion (1) a lot in my "early" PC days, I think MoO2 was the most "craved for" game ever since I found out they were actually making it.
To THIS day, it remains a game I (would) still play at any given time, given the right (i.e. skilled) opponents... sadly, the only problem is "time"... for an engaging and "serious" game, you either have to hot-seat an entire weekend (that sucks badly, trust me), or get it on "on IPX" (bleah, disconnects and load from saves galore). Either way, it's a lot of wasted time.
MoO3 was a big, big,... , big dissapointment. I would buy a "Master of Orion 2 : Platinum Edition" at almost any price... of course, this "MoO2:PE" would have to have support for much larger galaxies, many more players, options for "live player addition" (heck, or even make it a persistent server with joins/parts), etc.
Hmm, come to think of it, the world just MIGHT be ready for a MMORTS based on the MoO2 setup.
For X-Wing, you just *HAD* to have a joystick. However, I spent most of my high-school afternoons playing TIE Fighter with a mouse. It actually plays quite fine, even if it's not a Wing-Commander-like mouse control, and you end up with muscle fever after a few hours;)
Speaking of which, mmmmm, the Wing Commander series.... those were also nice. And with the mouse "displacement from center" steering method, you just don't need a joystick at all. Heck, I find it more enjoyable than actually having a joystick.
Actually, BloodNet is one of the few games I never managed to complete "honestly" (i.e. no item dupes, no extra cash nor extra stats)... not because I was bored of it or anything, but each and every time I tried it from a different angle... or many other times, I got in trouble with the "wrong guys" because I forgot to finish some mission, and had to pretty much start over or face lots of nasty combats at every travel...
That being said, the game itself IS very involving, and you "feel" for the protagonist, but also for many other "smaller" chars, to a much deeper degree than for any other RPG.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, nothing better in the early "open" beta stages than a massive stress test, if you ask me ;)
I would assume its main use would be to display MORE pr0n ads for most people :D
Hey, the (tagging beta) says it best:
...there, just removed a few commas for your convenience ;)
"pointless stupid browser, useless internet"
Been there, done that... MI2 :P
Research on bread indicates that:
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!
6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.
7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.
8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.
In light of these frightening statistics, it has been proposed that the following bread restrictions be made:
1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.
Hint: Shift+4. Keep holding.
If it sounds strange to you, don't worry, that's what they actually wrote.
They are targetting LAN DC++ users (and LAN hubs) right now.
It is unknown wether they will extend this to torrent users of well-known ISPs or not.
___
The following is the translation of the bolded text in the article:
A hysteria broke all across the country following operations directed towards those who illegally use the "share" option in the so-called neighbourhood networks (translator note: LANs spanning users from a few buildings up to a few city blocks). Sources from the MAI (translator note: Ministry of Internal Affairs ? well, the police anyway) have declared the operation is code-named "The Gramophone".
Because in the IP-rights category Romania got a "yellow flag" warning from the EU, Romanian Police has enacted measures regarding weekly raids organisation in order to control this phenomenon, in all counties.
Within the scope of this endeavour, policemen and prosecutors will work together with ISPs and hub operators. Another method used by the cops to penetrate the hubs is by assuming innocuous user identities.
In Iasi (translator note: rather large city, "capital" of the county with the same name in the NE of the country, region called Moldova), cops and prosecutors have made several household searches, seizing HDDs, computers and switches. In Tulcea (translator note: city by the Black Sea coast/ Danube Delta), over 20 Internet users have ended up with penal records, and cops have confiscated "dozens" of HDDs.
The chief of the IP department from the "Parchetul General" (translator note: the higher prosecuting autority), Monica Otava, has declared that prosecutors all across the country will start [such] actions, benefitting from both legal grounds and the necessary logistics for the "annihilation" of LANs.
The only other relevant (and worying) bit is the following:
That loosely translates into something like this:
*Interviewer* : So, are we to understand that from now on anybody who is connected to a local LAN can end up with the police holding a search warrant at their door?
*Monica Otava* : Yes, anytime, he can end up with a search warrant at his door
Well... no comment.
Well, they WOULD have had the right to cancel the sale, but problem is, they DIDN'T.
They made the sale, then froze his entire account, sim in question and all other owned stuff too.
The company could as easily have kept the account running, return the bid money, and undo ownership of the auctioned sim. Heck, they could have KEPT the real money and given him something else inside the virtual world. Or any other large number of things that wouldn't have lead to this.
The case is against the account freezing (assest apparently worth over 3200$), so he claims 8000$ in "damage" over the assets that he aquired prior to this... well... bug/oversight/hack.
Hopefully, Tokyo will not succumb to American pressure and will design a 100% all-Japanese interceptor.
...and I hope it will be able to shape-shift, and have 5 of them merge into a bigger, better fighter, were it for alien space monsters to invade Japan's airspace... eumh, "again" :P
The basic problem is that IF what you see on your screen feels realistic enough for your brain, it will cause a "reverse" physical motion sickness (i.e. not "too much of a stimulus" but instead a "too less or not at all stimulus"). That is, if you're sensitive enough, both for physical AND visual motion sickness.
So you can cure the visual motion sickness in two ways:
1. Make the game feel LESS realistic. Increasing FOV or backing away from the monitor makes you feel more like looking at pictures/movies than like "being there".
or
2. MOVE YOUR HEAD as much as possible, basically "feel" the game. You need to create the exact "G-Forces" your inner ear + brain EXPECTS to receive from what you see happening on the screen.
Either of the two works great.
Maybe not a 100% cure, but it will help a lot.
Personally I blame all of Blizzard for using ULTRA-ANCIENT technology in most of their games.
Ok, it looks all nice and spiffy and polished and runs excellent on most machines, blah blah blah, but still... the most clear-cut case ? Isometric sprites (Starcraft) when 3D rendered RTSs started popping up... eh.
EVE-ONLINE. They got the right idea. DEATH TO SHARDING.
Split the world in regions, hold different regions on different physical servers, or just have a freakin' supercomputer running the realm... but have a huge network of PROXIES all around the world that lets people access the SINGLE existant world.
I never understood the whole "DRM" idea.
In the day of the tape/casette/VCR players, nobody would cry about people with tape/casette/VCR recorders because they copied some music/movies from a rental service, or TV, or the radio.
I wonder what would happend if EVERYTHING got DRM-enabled, and "piracy" would all but dissapear.
Who the frag would even BUY some (?crappy?) music AT ALL if they never heard a single verse, nor seen a single scene, etc.
I'd have to argue internet piracy has BOOSTED sales of crappy stuff.
Because they spread it around to stupid morons who actually enjoyed it.
I say go ahead, DRM-ize everything.
Talk about shooting your own foot...
And this one here was also priceless... "More broadly, the company suggested the Commission could look at the process used in the United States, where a court also found that Microsoft had violated antitrust law."
RIGHT. Excuse me for being an European and LAUGHING my ass off each and EVERY time I hear about ANOTHER idiotic legal experience from the USA. Next time I hear somebody start saying "US Legal system is better in/because/...", I'll just hit him over the head with a large brick and let him TRY to sue me.
But you can't beat THESE guys...
http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php
Well, let's see...
If Application X (games mostly) was too much for your system, what did you do ?
Try to improve on the application engine, request code rewrites and wait for patches ?
Duuh, nope. YOU GOT UP AND BOUGHT A FASTER MACHINE.
If you knew NY traffic was going to be awfull, do buy a faster car ?
NOPE. Actually, you could SELL the car.
And you will use the subway, or in case you can't, get a cab.
Or, if you're the mayor, put a huge "car usage price" and get the freaking streets empty (and the city rich) at the same time.
So... is your ISP (you being a big company) having problems with your traffic ?
Well... get a better "pipe" plan, or switch ISPs.
AS LONG AS YOU ASK FOR MORE BANDWIDTH, and you do it for "long term", somebody, somewhere is going to be more than happy to provide it for you.
So the answer is not "limit usage", but "build better roads".
Seti@home ? Folding@home ? Nothing else with distributed computing I can recall.
But then again, my problem is I didn't *HAVE* a gmail address 1 year ago, and if *I* would have joined, I would have used my "default"/"disposable" password... which does not match.
Hmmm, creepy.
I just saw the story now, never heard about this thing before.
I download the software, I install it, I run it, I select "new user", enter my google mail as mail to be used... and surprise: "that email is already in use and you entered a wrong password".
And no, I am 100% sure I didn't do it before, and there's nothing in my e-mail about it, and the passwords I use for "low security" and/or "disposable" things is completely different from my e-mail password, etc.
So, that tells me one of two things:
- either they don't verify the email address AT ALL (why the heck do they require one then) *AND* somebody used MY email address to enroll (wtf)
- or their software got bugged (or funnier, slashdotted ?)
Anybody else got this problem, or is it just me ?
Oh, and I never saw any other game-based movie he directed... or at least I don't think I did (besides D.o.t.Dead and Bloodrayne, were there others?)
Well, I have some Karma I don't mind burning, so I'll play devil's advocate here for a while...
ASSUME for a minute you have no idea who this "Uwe Boll" guy is or what he did, and also ASSUME for a few more minutes you never played any of the videogames he made into movies.
Now the fun part starts.
First, look at the budgets of his movies. And what actors played (so how much money went into the actual movie as opposed to payroll). And who the heck wrote the scripts.
Take a peek at how (many) other movies with the same budgeting came out (quality-wise). You'd probably be surprised to see that quite many flopped badly, even without heavy negative publicity.
Now, suddendly remember you saw something with the same name. Uh, a video game. Hmm... you start remembering playing it. And you compare it to the movie, start cursing or something, "this wasn't even remotely close, I played something else". Well, newsflash, it's a script based on the video game, not a rehash of the game itself. And with almost nobody from the "original game team" aboard at any stage in the film's making, WHAT ELSE CAN YOU EXPECT ?
One word for you: DOOM, the movie.
Uwe Boll ? Nah.
Sucked ? Kinda' like the same as Uwe Boll's movies sucked compared to the video games they depicted.
Personally, I didn't find Alone in the Dark half as bad as I expected (except for the cheesy story and average acting)... probably because I had never seen any other Uwe Boll movies before, and because (shock) I never played a single Alone in the Dark.
BOTTOM LINE ?
I don't find anything *basically* wrong in the interview, as per initial "assumptions".
Ask yourself, would you have done any better if you had zero knowledge of that game you bought the franchise for, were not a gamer yourself, and you had his limited budget ?
I didn't think so either.
Thinking about it a bit more, I come to think you could actually pull it off quite nicely, and even get in some decent subscriber base. Heck, I would even give away all IP rights to this for a "lifetime account" on that game :)
Imagine this:
- keep ship design akin to MoO2 (ship sizes, stats, system and weapon fittings, firing arcs, etc) as it was the most rewarding (player-wise) design style ; OPTIONALLY, have each "design" require researching and/or prototyping before actual manufacture can begin ; EVE-Online's blueprint system comes to mind here, but with nearly limitless variations based on player-researched technology
- a world looking like the MoO3 world (or better still, like the EVE-Online world, for that matter)... or why the heck not, a small-scale model of an ACTUAL galaxy (our galaxy, for instance, that info can't be the IP of anybody, now can it)
- actual "system-to-system travel" from would be made via "FTL drives" (i.e. "hyperdrives"), no combat possible "in flight"... but one could see/detect incoming fleets... with "entry&exit points" at certain minimum (imposed) distances from any "mass / gravity well" depending on drive technology, fleet size, etc ; and you could add "extra speed" for travel between systems with some constructed structures (player-constructed, most of the time) on one side (hyperspace window acceleration gates or whatnot) or on both sides (same type of stargate, or at least a compatible one on the "other side"), with "max tech" being almost instant travel between matching max-tech stargates
- "in-system" (i.e. "normal") travel would be done using ACTUAL NEWTONIAN LAWS, so even if hyperspacing might take a few seconds or days, you still have to travel "normally" from the entry point to the point of interest... and for "interception", the enemy fleet will have to accelerate towards you, speed down, reverse thrust, and match your "negative" speed (heh)
- actual combat could easily use a Homeworld-like system (or heck, actually USE the homeworld engine), with ships belonging to an offline player acting exactly as a NPC would act ; remember, everybody would know WHEN to prepare for a combat, as FTL travel takes a while, then after that travel it takes even a longer while to get in position... well, it all depends a lot on what you use for FTL travel (just drives or also "speeding-up" structures), or where the "stargate-like" structures are located at the destination
- the diplomacy and spying part of the game could even consist of other actual mini-games, even with role-playing elements and individual player characters
____
Basically, some kind of game with the "basics" of EVE-Online (galaxy and travel), but with a "MoO2 mindset" (in research and empire growth) and a "Homeworld look and feel" (for fleet combat).
Hmm, I appear to be stuck on the "controls" perspective, but what the heck...
What I found quite annoying in Dune 2 was the inability to control more than ONE unit at a time.
Then came Warcraft 1 (another fine RTS game, but a different style... and then Warcraft2), which "extended" this to 4-unit selection (and 9-units selection, respectively).
After that, the Command&Conquer (1) appeared, where each type of unit had its specific uses (i.e. 100 infantry vs 20 tanks could be a viable strat either way), and you could select as many units as you wanted in a group. That was the point where I decided I love just about EVERYTHING that had to do with that type of selection and "unit design dogma" (so to say).
And then, I see StarCraft appearing, a HUGE success, played like mad by many (even today), and I still wonder "what the heck ?!?"... 12 units in a group, huge limitations on max number of units, and so on and so forth. How can THIS be the leading style in "interface" and "unit dogma", when the other is vastly superior ?
I am NOT talking about game story or individual unit abilities, I am talking about the fact you can either control 12 "marines" or 12 "battlecruisers" at the same time (and the battlecruisers even occupy less screen, as they can stack), but their firepower is several orders of magnitude apart...
Too bad Westwood funked up on the later installments of the C&C franchise, my heart still lies with the original one.
Oh well... that's why I never enjoyed much of the RTSs that appeared "recently".
OH, EXCEPT Total Annihilation.
Another GREAT game, same style as C&C (but more advanced), another "dead" franchise (TA2 sucked badly).
And another example of an "involution" in interfaces... Homeworld, and Homeworld 2.
Again, even story aside, I found Homeworld 1 much, MUCH more enjoyable than HW2. Actually, HW:Cataclysm could be one of my "top fav games of all times".
After playing Master of Orion (1) a lot in my "early" PC days, I think MoO2 was the most "craved for" game ever since I found out they were actually making it.
... , big dissapointment.
To THIS day, it remains a game I (would) still play at any given time, given the right (i.e. skilled) opponents... sadly, the only problem is "time"... for an engaging and "serious" game, you either have to hot-seat an entire weekend (that sucks badly, trust me), or get it on "on IPX" (bleah, disconnects and load from saves galore). Either way, it's a lot of wasted time.
MoO3 was a big, big,
I would buy a "Master of Orion 2 : Platinum Edition" at almost any price... of course, this "MoO2:PE" would have to have support for much larger galaxies, many more players, options for "live player addition" (heck, or even make it a persistent server with joins/parts), etc.
Hmm, come to think of it, the world just MIGHT be ready for a MMORTS based on the MoO2 setup.
Do you consider that an "oldie" ? It almost even requires hardware acceleration :P :)
Half-Life, that's like... yesterday, not "good old times"
Damn, I thought you'd say "Wolfenstein" or, at least, maybe "Doom"...
For X-Wing, you just *HAD* to have a joystick. ;)
However, I spent most of my high-school afternoons playing TIE Fighter with a mouse. It actually plays quite fine, even if it's not a Wing-Commander-like mouse control, and you end up with muscle fever after a few hours
Speaking of which, mmmmm, the Wing Commander series.... those were also nice.
And with the mouse "displacement from center" steering method, you just don't need a joystick at all.
Heck, I find it more enjoyable than actually having a joystick.
Actually, BloodNet is one of the few games I never managed to complete "honestly" (i.e. no item dupes, no extra cash nor extra stats)... not because I was bored of it or anything, but each and every time I tried it from a different angle... or many other times, I got in trouble with the "wrong guys" because I forgot to finish some mission, and had to pretty much start over or face lots of nasty combats at every travel...
That being said, the game itself IS very involving, and you "feel" for the protagonist, but also for many other "smaller" chars, to a much deeper degree than for any other RPG.