The problem with your idea is that time is relative. Ths means that the magical "hyper-accelaration" you spoke of is either: a) Pointless or: b) Impossible
It is hard to visualise but human players both in AND outside the bubble would see slow motion avatars in the bubble and normal speed avatars outside. Just because your avatar is in slow mo does not mean the person behind the keyboard controlling it is!?
If you try to do it the other way, you will find it is impossible. The inside the bubble players think they are moving "normally" even though they are slowed, what are the outside ones doing? They must be "faster", but also think they are "normal". Impossible.
Now you may think that both players could play out in normal time and have the actions carried out in slow motion, but then the inside and outside characters could NEVER INTERACT or, more importantly, see what the other was doing. (see above for perceptual time differences) They may as well have warped into another zone. Hence pointless.
Since you can't have both time speeds interact (or effect the universe's time constant via software) you are screwed.
One of the problems with hiding lag is that players cannot tell when lag has effected a kill.Without actually being able to demo it, I think this technique will just increase this confusion.
Also, the article mentions that lag commonly varies from 10-60ms (i.e. optimistic estimates) and does not mention whether that effects how much bullet time you can have. I would say it is sensible to suggest that less bullet time is available for 10ms people than for 60ms people.
If this is so, then how well does the system perform when the lag is varying wildly as it is want to do?? Does the play get a fixed lowest estimate for bullet time, or does the player never know how much they will get??
Is this one of those system they test in a "lab" with a fake lag generator and so forth? Or did they do real world tests??
I really hate articles that don't mention the important bits....
"it's just because they AREN'T very representative of real life" And then again it may not. Without any studies backing this up, I would not "opt-in" for that reason. And this goes for much of parenting. You don't have all the facts and there are many opinions, but you have to make the decision at the time based on what YOU think is best. To just let you kid do whatever because there is no hard evidence against it is unwise. "involve witches and monsters," Scary fairy stories written for children are not even close to being the same as a violent video game.
"keeping an electronic pet alive," I would argue that the ease with which these pets die teaches precisely the wrong message. And this holds for violent games as well. A virtual pet/human is not real and our emotional bond to them is not strong. (I am sure there are special cases, but they are rare) Teaching kids that killing your pet due to neglect means you have to hit restart on the computer is not all that great. Again...studies anyone??
As for age restrictions. Parents have a RIGHT to bring their children up however they choose. Since I am "liberally minded", I agree that the state should minimize their interference with this parenting and "bible-belt nut cases" should not force their doctrine down other people's unwilling throats. However when a particular substance or activity is found to harm people or cause large cost to the country, the state should be allowed to step in and regulate it. In the case of alcohol, our country just lowered the drinking age from 20 to 18. They are now regretting that decision as a whole host of 16-20 years olds cause the police and others all sorts of headaches that were not there before. (assault/vandalism/burglary/etc) They are too young to deal with it - best not encourage the practice.
" implicitly present the moment the kid starts exploring and/or asking questions about it, and thus" I agree to a point. As I said in my post already, I do not believe in lying to children. I recently talked to a mother who had to deal with one of her sons children telling the class that he had sex with his mother. He was very upset and confused...and 7 years old. To explain incest at that point would not have been appropriate. She instead opted for "sex is for mummies and daddies" and the whole inappropriate touching thing.
Just because a child hears/sees something, does not mean they have the capacity to deal with it in all its ugly detail, nor should they have it inflicted upon them. As I said, nor should you brush them off or lie to them.
In the same vein, you do not have to allow your child to do whatever they like simply because you aren't afraid of any "reality" they pick up. While I don't believe violent games lead to violent children (until I see a study that is), I also don't think there is no CHANCE that it is not harmful.
At the very least, I am 99.9% sure there is almost zero educational value that can't obtained elsewhere. And THIS is the main reason I would not choose this medium for my child.
At any rate, great post. I am enjoying this debate.:)
Unfortunately the current ruling ideologies seem to define left/right conservative/liberal.
Over time, they change.
Unfortunately almost all "conservative" representatives are currently members of the business fraternity and stand for nothing less than money, money and more money. The preach a bunch of rubbish about being a christian (like me), but the last time I check they lift not a finger in that direction?? (e.g. poverty, health etc)
What dumbfounds me is that the fraud seems to be working??
Actually I didn't want anyone thnking I was just a conservative person. You can be all for free speech and lying to your kids and age restriction at the same time. They are not exclusive.
Besides, by liberal I mean:
Socialist and union minded. Conservation Minded. Anti poverty. (apparently this means anti capatalist also...)
I have a little one on the way and I had already made my decisions on this sort of thing before reading. I agree with you totally.
A child' mind is like a dry sponge, they absorb the information around them at an enourmous rate. (much more than an adult) Their world perception is developing at this point also.
I do not agree with lying to children and sheltering them from "real life". This just means they learn not to trust what you say. Also, unless you are some sort of a marketing/acting god, you will find it hard to perpetrate the lie in a plausable way.
However:
How the **** is GTA or any other video game or movie even slightly representative of "real life"?? What kind of "real life" message is it teaching exactly?
If I want my child to learn about death, I will buy them a goldfish. Not a video game. If I want them to learn about sex, I will tell them myself. Not rent them a porno. If I want them to learn about poverty in the 3rd (and 1st) world I will show them a documentary/book/explain it myself. I will not buy them Nike shoes.
All this will occur at an age where I think they are mature enough to understand these things.
PS: I am very liberally minded, not conservative - in case you were wondering.
I have often wondered (and commented on slashdot on occasion) at why 3D MMOGs had not taken a leaf from the books of those for whom gameplay is, quite literally everything. The articles list features (e.g. the roleplaying GM) that I remember seeing 5 years ago in a MUD. I am sure they were around longer than that though. While this example us a lot fo work to implement, most other neat features of MUDs are a trivial extension to make 3D. One has to wonder why EQ and Co. dropped the ball on this and opted for roll-playing instead of roleplaying?
I originally assumed the MUD features of today would be the gameplay of MMOG of tomorrow, and look forward to it. Sadly, the industry has decided to pretty much ignore this area while scrambling to "me too".
During the SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) fiasco, the implementers actually admitted (when asked) that almost no one on the team had any experience with MUDS. (only two had looked, but not much) I wonder if they had done a bit of research in this area, even just on the SW MUDS, things at SWG would have been different??
I truly hope these guys pull off the 3D side without the bugs of most MMOGS. As far as I can see, they have more than enough experience with the gameplay.
At the very least, the me too from the likes of Sony will be a lot better for it...
Re:If the memory is big enough
on
HD-Less PS3?
·
· Score: 1
If the situation is similar to the PS2, then the HD will store about 500mb and cost $300 - making it the most expensive per mb HD in the world.
The format and file system on the HD will be proprietary. Years after release the EXACT SAME HD will be avaialble for sale at about the same price as when it was first released - and it will still be the most expensive (and now slowest) HD on the market.
I find it amusing that some people on this site are anti-Xbox because of "M$" the big nasty corporate, and trumpet Sony as the great saving alternative...
Has the world really gone crazy or am I just off my meds again?? (i.e. 40oz of scotch)
What you say is true, however the RIAA are pretending to take the moral high ground here. Most of their arguments center on protecting artist's rights and being able to foster creativity.
While the theft is certainly illegal, and nobody I have read about says it is, the RIAA's position is exceptionally disingenuous for the reasons mentioned. They argue that law and government should protect them with MORE (very important point) legislation and they have got much of it already. (DMCA) They argue that they should be able to breech people's privacy, destroy whole internet technologies and dictate to the electronics industry what they can and cannot produce.
They argue this because they pretend to defend the artist rights and musical freedom as they have always done. This is obviously wrong.
The question is not nearly as simple as you have made it out to be. It is not a question of "enforcement of current law", but far more insidious.
Having said all that, a great comment on mp3 theft: "Stealing music is like taking candy from a...large, fat rich person."
Excellant post. I love when ignorance is taken for common sense....just gives me such hope that Bush will finally be voted out...
Bush runs the country, puts political pressure on other countries and screws with industry for political ends. If you want an example of how this works just read the previous slashdot article on not allowing Kerry supporters to attend conference...
PS: By "Bush" I mean "Bush Administration". It is perfectly acceptable to use the figure head when you mean the organisation.
Because that is all his is after all.
PSS: I totally agree. That post was not insightful, it is so obvious to everyone is should just be common sense...
What I find amusing is that you find rejecting a facist policy such as the DMCA a "fuck you".
What I find a bigger "fuck you" is feeling that he can push his internal policies on other countries, even if they stand to hurt that country and its own internal policies.
It is a bit like trying to turn countries from socialism/communism using mulitary coups and CIA involvement, even when it is against the will of the people. (sometime at home as well)
Thanks for the comprehensive post. I have several friends that are ex-SWG (as am I) and they were making noises about "trying out" SWG again.
Seems that absolutely nothing has changed since I signed up all that time ago. Exactly the same things happened then as well. (deleted posts, class balance issues, broken classes etc)
Just recently I bought a Sony net-MD mini disc. They had decided to retard the functionality on it so you cannot actually upload music recorded from the mic. (even though it is implied all through the advertising and manuals) What they meant by "upload" was delete file from player and reenable the file that was always on your computer, but hidden.
Their community response was the same as here.
Personally, I will never buy another Sony product ever again...congrats Sony.
Thanks for the insightful mods, I guess public moderation suffers from "patriotic duty" amoung other things!?
To the "flaming moderator": You can mod it down all you like, but it does not make it any less true!!
Except of course unions are not communist, they tend to be quite socialist - but not by design.
Of course anything in the US that trys to have people looking out for one another and takes power away from corporates is "communist", isn't it?
But your point still holds, Walmart has been known for its "union busting" activities, most recently in Canada where they actually closed a store because it unionised...
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with your idea is that time is relative. Ths means that the magical "hyper-accelaration" you spoke of is either:
:)
a) Pointless
or:
b) Impossible
It is hard to visualise but human players both in AND outside the bubble would see slow motion avatars in the bubble and normal speed avatars outside. Just because your avatar is in slow mo does not mean the person behind the keyboard controlling it is!?
If you try to do it the other way, you will find it is impossible. The inside the bubble players think they are moving "normally" even though they are slowed, what are the outside ones doing? They must be "faster", but also think they are "normal". Impossible.
Now you may think that both players could play out in normal time and have the actions carried out in slow motion, but then the inside and outside characters could NEVER INTERACT or, more importantly, see what the other was doing. (see above for perceptual time differences) They may as well have warped into another zone. Hence pointless.
Since you can't have both time speeds interact (or effect the universe's time constant via software) you are screwed.
QED.
One of the problems with hiding lag is that players cannot tell when lag has effected a kill.Without actually being able to demo it, I think this technique will just increase this confusion.
Also, the article mentions that lag commonly varies from 10-60ms (i.e. optimistic estimates) and does not mention whether that effects how much bullet time you can have. I would say it is sensible to suggest that less bullet time is available for 10ms people than for 60ms people.
If this is so, then how well does the system perform when the lag is varying wildly as it is want to do?? Does the play get a fixed lowest estimate for bullet time, or does the player never know how much they will get??
Is this one of those system they test in a "lab" with a fake lag generator and so forth? Or did they do real world tests??
I really hate articles that don't mention the important bits....
"it's just because they AREN'T very representative of real life"
:)
And then again it may not. Without any studies backing this up, I would not "opt-in" for that reason.
And this goes for much of parenting. You don't have all the facts and there are many opinions, but you have to make the decision at the time based on what YOU think is best. To just let you kid do whatever because there is no hard evidence against it is unwise.
"involve witches and monsters,"
Scary fairy stories written for children are not even close to being the same as a violent video game.
"keeping an electronic pet alive,"
I would argue that the ease with which these pets die teaches precisely the wrong message. And this holds for violent games as well.
A virtual pet/human is not real and our emotional bond to them is not strong. (I am sure there are special cases, but they are rare) Teaching kids that killing your pet due to neglect means you have to hit restart on the computer is not all that great. Again...studies anyone??
As for age restrictions. Parents have a RIGHT to bring their children up however they choose.
Since I am "liberally minded", I agree that the state should minimize their interference with this parenting and "bible-belt nut cases" should not force their doctrine down other people's unwilling throats.
However when a particular substance or activity is found to harm people or cause large cost to the country, the state should be allowed to step in and regulate it.
In the case of alcohol, our country just lowered the drinking age from 20 to 18. They are now regretting that decision as a whole host of 16-20 years olds cause the police and others all sorts of headaches that were not there before. (assault/vandalism/burglary/etc) They are too young to deal with it - best not encourage the practice.
" implicitly present the moment the kid starts exploring and/or asking questions about it, and thus"
I agree to a point. As I said in my post already, I do not believe in lying to children.
I recently talked to a mother who had to deal with one of her sons children telling the class that he had sex with his mother. He was very upset and confused...and 7 years old.
To explain incest at that point would not have been appropriate. She instead opted for "sex is for mummies and daddies" and the whole inappropriate touching thing.
Just because a child hears/sees something, does not mean they have the capacity to deal with it in all its ugly detail, nor should they have it inflicted upon them.
As I said, nor should you brush them off or lie to them.
In the same vein, you do not have to allow your child to do whatever they like simply because you aren't afraid of any "reality" they pick up.
While I don't believe violent games lead to violent children (until I see a study that is), I also don't think there is no CHANCE that it is not harmful.
At the very least, I am 99.9% sure there is almost zero educational value that can't obtained elsewhere. And THIS is the main reason I would not choose this medium for my child.
At any rate, great post. I am enjoying this debate.
Unfortunately the current ruling ideologies seem to define left/right conservative/liberal.
:)
Over time, they change.
Unfortunately almost all "conservative" representatives are currently members of the business fraternity and stand for nothing less than money, money and more money.
The preach a bunch of rubbish about being a christian (like me), but the last time I check they lift not a finger in that direction?? (e.g. poverty, health etc)
What dumbfounds me is that the fraud seems to be working??
PS: What IS a real conservative BTW??
Actually I didn't want anyone thnking I was just a conservative person. You can be all for free speech and lying to your kids and age restriction at the same time. They are not exclusive.
Besides, by liberal I mean:
Socialist and union minded.
Conservation Minded.
Anti poverty. (apparently this means anti capatalist also...)
etc.
Great post.
I have a little one on the way and I had already made my decisions on this sort of thing before reading. I agree with you totally.
A child' mind is like a dry sponge, they absorb the information around them at an enourmous rate. (much more than an adult) Their world perception is developing at this point also.
I do not agree with lying to children and sheltering them from "real life". This just means they learn not to trust what you say. Also, unless you are some sort of a marketing/acting god, you will find it hard to perpetrate the lie in a plausable way.
However:
How the **** is GTA or any other video game or movie even slightly representative of "real life"??
What kind of "real life" message is it teaching exactly?
If I want my child to learn about death, I will buy them a goldfish. Not a video game.
If I want them to learn about sex, I will tell them myself. Not rent them a porno.
If I want them to learn about poverty in the 3rd (and 1st) world I will show them a documentary/book/explain it myself. I will not buy them Nike shoes.
All this will occur at an age where I think they are mature enough to understand these things.
PS: I am very liberally minded, not conservative - in case you were wondering.
PS: Added the "me too"s before reading the interview.
AKA: it was me talking, not the parrot...
I am a programmer, but not a game programmer.
I have often wondered (and commented on slashdot on occasion) at why 3D MMOGs had not taken a leaf from the books of those for whom gameplay is, quite literally everything.
The articles list features (e.g. the roleplaying GM) that I remember seeing 5 years ago in a MUD. I am sure they were around longer than that though.
While this example us a lot fo work to implement, most other neat features of MUDs are a trivial extension to make 3D.
One has to wonder why EQ and Co. dropped the ball on this and opted for roll-playing instead of roleplaying?
I originally assumed the MUD features of today would be the gameplay of MMOG of tomorrow, and look forward to it. Sadly, the industry has decided to pretty much ignore this area while scrambling to "me too".
During the SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) fiasco, the implementers actually admitted (when asked) that almost no one on the team had any experience with MUDS. (only two had looked, but not much)
I wonder if they had done a bit of research in this area, even just on the SW MUDS, things at SWG would have been different??
I truly hope these guys pull off the 3D side without the bugs of most MMOGS. As far as I can see, they have more than enough experience with the gameplay.
At the very least, the me too from the likes of Sony will be a lot better for it...
If the situation is similar to the PS2, then the HD will store about 500mb and cost $300 - making it the most expensive per mb HD in the world.
The format and file system on the HD will be proprietary. Years after release the EXACT SAME HD will be avaialble for sale at about the same price as when it was first released - and it will still be the most expensive (and now slowest) HD on the market.
I find it amusing that some people on this site are anti-Xbox because of "M$" the big nasty corporate, and trumpet Sony as the great saving alternative...
Has the world really gone crazy or am I just off my meds again?? (i.e. 40oz of scotch)
I think the main problem here is that everyone is forgetting that both democrats and republicans are two factions of the business party.
Once that is realised, the rest sort of makes sense...
Not at all, I am in the same boat.
I had heard they were going to do one a long time ago, but I never heard about the release...
I guess after the last movie, no one cared.
So you are saying that the golfers are not allowed to look at the golf course before they play??
What you say is true, however the RIAA are pretending to take the moral high ground here. Most of their arguments center on protecting artist's rights and being able to foster creativity.
While the theft is certainly illegal, and nobody I have read about says it is, the RIAA's position is exceptionally disingenuous for the reasons mentioned.
They argue that law and government should protect them with MORE (very important point) legislation and they have got much of it already. (DMCA) They argue that they should be able to breech people's privacy, destroy whole internet technologies and dictate to the electronics industry what they can and cannot produce.
They argue this because they pretend to defend the artist rights and musical freedom as they have always done. This is obviously wrong.
The question is not nearly as simple as you have made it out to be. It is not a question of "enforcement of current law", but far more insidious.
Having said all that, a great comment on mp3 theft:
"Stealing music is like taking candy from a...large, fat rich person."
err...sometimes the "other" category is left out.
So you can safely assume that "other" makes up the rest...
Great post thought, well formatted. Just try getting it right next time...
Unfotunately for you, the insightful votes have it!
I guess slashdot isn't run by republicans, they would have been able to add a few troll votes for you "elektronikly".
Excellant post. I love when ignorance is taken for common sense....just gives me such hope that Bush will finally be voted out...
Bush runs the country, puts political pressure on other countries and screws with industry for political ends. If you want an example of how this works just read the previous slashdot article on not allowing Kerry supporters to attend conference...
PS: By "Bush" I mean "Bush Administration". It is perfectly acceptable to use the figure head when you mean the organisation.
Because that is all his is after all.
PSS: I totally agree. That post was not insightful, it is so obvious to everyone is should just be common sense...
What I find amusing is that you find rejecting a facist policy such as the DMCA a "fuck you".
What I find a bigger "fuck you" is feeling that he can push his internal policies on other countries, even if they stand to hurt that country and its own internal policies.
It is a bit like trying to turn countries from socialism/communism using mulitary coups and CIA involvement, even when it is against the will of the people. (sometime at home as well)
Oh wait...that already happened....many times...
Thanks for the comprehensive post. I have several friends that are ex-SWG (as am I) and they were making noises about "trying out" SWG again. Seems that absolutely nothing has changed since I signed up all that time ago. Exactly the same things happened then as well. (deleted posts, class balance issues, broken classes etc) Just recently I bought a Sony net-MD mini disc. They had decided to retard the functionality on it so you cannot actually upload music recorded from the mic. (even though it is implied all through the advertising and manuals) What they meant by "upload" was delete file from player and reenable the file that was always on your computer, but hidden. Their community response was the same as here. Personally, I will never buy another Sony product ever again...congrats Sony.
Do you think Bush could leave other countries alone for 10 bloody seconds??
Isn't screwing your own country up good enough?!
Thanks for the insightful mods, I guess public moderation suffers from "patriotic duty" amoung other things!? To the "flaming moderator": You can mod it down all you like, but it does not make it any less true!!
I see, you should watch "tongue in cheek" because it can be mistaken for "thumb in arse" if you are not careful. :)
:)
I am a union member and sat on our union committee for a while so yeah....
What do you mean "some of them already know english"??
Most indian graduates already know english, if not almost all of them!?
I guess it makes us feel safer if we come up with more reasons for another culture's inferiority?
PS: I am not indian..
I know this is a historic piece and this was a sign of the times, but I just love this dogma, used of course by the rich and wealthy even today.
Men of greater opportunity, tend to have more roperty. Money = oportunity.
Why else do you think an illiterate red neck can become pres??
Loved your post, very true.
Except of course unions are not communist, they tend to be quite socialist - but not by design.
Of course anything in the US that trys to have people looking out for one another and takes power away from corporates is "communist", isn't it?
But your point still holds, Walmart has been known for its "union busting" activities, most recently in Canada where they actually closed a store because it unionised...