> Why do we get a post for seemingly every Firefox release, Because at one time FF was the poster boy for open source. It gave what users wanted - an open source, HTML standards compliant, extendable browser.
Old habits die hard around here.
Sadly FF has jumped the shark by a) never fixing the memory leaks, b) broke plugins, c) fucked the UI by removing resizable dialogs such as the bookmark menu, etc. Sure it is getting faster, and taking the initiative in supporting the latest HTML5 standards such as WebGL but Mozilla has lost focus on what users want(ed) in a browswer.
i.e. The "Tools > Task Manager" in Chrome is the perfect _one_ reason to abandon FF and switch to Chrome -- you can see how much memory EVERY tab is using, instead we are stuck with the shitty about:memory and no way to tell the CPU and MEM usage per tab.
I would love to see the EQ "equivalent" table & map.
Funneling everyone to the same zone has both pros/cons + it builds community as you start to see "familiar" faces - it increases server load - it promotes ninja-looting (Guild Wars 2 solved this problem 100% by sharing XP for kills, and every player gets their own "instanced" resources such as ore, trees, etc.)
Promoting zone diversion also has both pros/con + solo players don't have to "contest" for kills or resources + more variety when leveling alts, or subs - lack of community
Feel free to add your comments as I am most definitely interested in seeing a EQ pre-WoW perspective.
That is fantastic news that the DoJ is finally help people remember the ancient wisdom:
Authority NEEDS to be balanced with Accountability. Authority without accountability leads to Totalitarianism Accountability without authority leads to Bureaucracy.
"We have introduced a new con color, dark blue, which represents a range of blue con NPCs that give a bonus to their experience due to being very close to your level, generally within 5 levels. The concept of a dark blue con NPC has existed in EQ for a while now, but we've decided to change the con system to visually include this range so you can visually see when an NPC falls into this "sweet spot". To properly display a different shade of blue, we've had to reorder the cons a little bit. From trivial to highest con, the colors are now:
- Gray - This creature is trivial to you and will give you no experience for killing it. - Green - This creature is not much of a threat, but will still give you some experience. - Blue - This creature is below your level, but high enough level to give you experience. - Dark Blue - This creature is below your level, but close enough to provide a solid challenge and gives you more experience than normal blue cons. - White - This creature is the same level as you - Yellow - This creature is slightly above your level. - Red - This creature is well above your level." - - - 8< - - -
> And they used to say EQ was for casuals. UO was for hardcores.
You sure you didn't get that backwards?;-) You can "spar" with guildmates and level up your fighting skills to 100 within hours. And if you were doing magic / resist, the 8x8 method was popular. UO never required camping for "days" just to get the opportunity to fight a certain spawn.
I played UO at the time and had a few guildmates that picked up EQ when it came out. While everyone ragged on the graphics of EQ (low-poly 3D) vs the beautiful 2D of UO they noticed that EQ was quite the "serious investment" compared to UO -- hell a few people got divorced over it due to their spouses getting addicted to EQ -- I know of one personally. We almost never heard of that happening in UO.
UI in games *still* suck *badly*, but they *are* slowly getting better. WoW certainly raised the bar. Every year I find myself that there is less and less to complain about idiotic UI design.
I'm not sure the story aspect in WoW was all that essential to WoW's popularity. The people I play with couldn't give a rats ass about the backstory. Hell, one of the first popular mods was one called "Fast Quest Text" so that the quest description was instant instead of being "revealed" one letter at-a-time!
I would say WoW is like the McDonalds of MMO's.
1. Accessible, and 2. Blizzard didn't screw WoW up as badly as everybody else who tried a MMO. I agree the core gameplay was fun, the low-poly cartoon graphics were a breath of fresh air from the photorealism where _that_ quickly becomes outdated, the UI was a MAJOR step forward by allowing anyone to mod it, and the built-in "forced to keep playing" in order "unlock" content and level up skills , so naturally the critical mass was attracted to it.
Sometimes I think the only rule for success is not to fuck up as much as your competitors.:-/
2. Definition of a game: Unless you have a winning state then your game is really a toy, at best.. Interestingly enough, conversely a game doesn't need a losing state. A winning state is necessary, a loosing state sufficient.
i.e. MMOs are NOT games, they are toys. There is NO WAY to WIN at a MMO. You don't "win" at WoW or another MMO (although some people would joke that the only way to "win" is when you quit playing, but I digress.:-) )
Also, people want closure in movies, books, and games. That is not say an open-ended sandbox ala Minecraft, WoW, aren't fun. They are, but once you remove any sense of closure they have stopped becoming games and have become toys where you play. They are more about the journey then the destination. THAT is the key difference between a game and a toy.
> if FB had a dislike button to go along with the like button, then they would have an *actual* mechanism that could be used for voting.
Exactly. Pretending or ignoring a completely contrary perspective doesn't make it go away! Sometimes the "other guy" has something interesting / insightful to say. Don't shoot the messenger just because you don't like the message.
FaceBook is like a little immature child "Nah, Nah, Nah, I can't hear you!"
Guess what, I can't hear you FaceBook until you grow the fuck up and learn to treat people (and their data) with respect.
> There's really no alternative to Windows for most desktop and laptop usage,
Eh?
You have 2 choices: OSX and/or Linux, pick your poison.
Now depending on your apps you may be stuck in Windows land (such as SolidWorks, etc.), but both OSX and Linux are gaining traction at increasing rate which is fantastic to see.
I've been gaming on PCs for 30 years. I pleases me greatly to see OSX finally getting prioritized. And with nVidia working with Valve to increase driver performance ( http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/ ), Linux *may* still be a viable option for us game devs to target Linux and make a profit at some point in the future.
What apps & file formats are you stuck with that you can't migrate to another OS ?
> L4D itself is obsolete since the entire game has been ported to L4D2.
While I agree the majority of the player base has moved onto L4D2 the hard-core fans still prefer L4D1 because it is better designed. i.e. http://www.gametracker.com/search/l4d/
> will only run properly if the graphics depth is set to 16bit. Sounds like shitty Win16 or Win32 programming. Are they doing GDI or palette calls by chance?
> It's not "directly derived from"; it's "loosely inspired by"
Correct, but in some places it was "tightly inspired". While QDOS didn't copy CP/M it *definitely* copied some of the data structure fields verbatim. Back in the early '90's there was a "Ralph Brown's Interrupt List" that was essential for x86 assembly programmers. It documented the FCB (File Control Blocks) that started in MSDOS 1.x to open / read / write / close files (and existed in all Dos version until ~ Win95) before file handles were implemented in MS-DOS 2.x.
While the FCB wasn't identical to the CP/M it definitely had some of the *exact* same fields -- so QDOS was most definitely "inspired" by CP/M as any assembly language programmer could tell.
> Are MMO developers so insecure they feel they can't rely on the fun of their games rather then gated content and raid gear? Shhh! You're not supposed to let the MMO dirty design secrets out that MMOs are just "all about acquiring virtual power via fake items and let men* play virtual doll house! ";-)
Ask any player who has more then 1,000 hrs of L4D gameplay why they keep (kept) playing?;-)
* Yes a lot of women play MMOs.
> I have said it before but MMOs need to kill players. 1. That is one solution; the problem is most players won't go for it - because they don't understand the problem:
The root problem is that games need to keep challenging the player. When a player cheats on a game they quickly lose interest because there is no longer any challenge. WoW's expansion packs are trying to address that problem.
2. The second problem with MMOs is that they are not games they are toys masquerading as games. i.e. There is no way to win at WoW! That is HORRIBLE game design.
Traditional games have a "game over" -- what I call a "hard win." They don't expect the player to spend hours, days, months, grinding for gear. Modern MMOs have corrupted their game design for greed - because they want players playing (and paying) for as long as possible -- they don't want players to see the facade the game is. IMHO they have no soul because they have sold out to corporate America (i.e. Craptivision.)
"Old-school" games are like movies. You watch / play them. Have a great time. You move on. Portal 2 is a great example. Linear story, but a great experience. The co-op aspect introduces new maps, and it is optional if you want to do "speed runs". You keep playing it because you want new puzzles -- that is, new challenges. But you never feel remorse when you quit. Ask any MMO player who has been playing for a few years how they feel when they quit. They finally feel free! Why?! MMOs pretend they are games and make you feel guilty when you quit because you have all this time "invested" in that you don't want to "Let It Go" move on and enjoy life.
The problem with MMOs is that their fundamental nature is flawed. They stopped caring about being "good games" and sadly focused on "how long can we keep people playing our game?"
> The gear progression is what makes old content obsolete. Plus who wants to do the same thing beyond 4-6 months.
That is true, however, you're talking to someone who has ~2000 hours of L4D playtime in. We don't do it for the gear (there is none!) -- we do it because the core game play is _fun_ with friends. If the old content is obsolete you need to ask WHY? Why aren't the old dungeons dynamically scalable? I'm not saying this is a trivial problem, or that only Blizzard doesn't get it -- the flaw is with the design decision of MMOs in general. Why would I waste time "grinding" for gear, when every expansion pack all your gear is immediately obsolete?
The fact that you have to queue up for dungeons and pvp tells me the developers don't respect my time, and are not interested in learning how to.
... then the community could give a better tailored solution for your needs.:-)
i.e. Why do you need more then 4 GB? Does one app need more then 4 GB? Why not just run multiple VMs ? Are your apps closed source? Do you need DirectX / OpenGL support? etc.
Bill Gates killed the Courier because it had no email ?! "Gates' response by explaining that Microsoft makes billions from Exchange, and so a product with no e-mail is a problem - a machine that doesn't do e-mail isn't going to help shift Exchange licenses."
Microsoft has no vision - they are just another "me too" company and most people don't care. Apple is _perceived_ as being "first", "better", "easier". Mass market sex appeal is what Apple's marketing dept. has learned in spades; Microsoft still struggles to understand this simple concept.
Slashdot Mirror
> Why do we get a post for seemingly every Firefox release,
Because at one time FF was the poster boy for open source. It gave what users wanted - an open source, HTML standards compliant, extendable browser.
Old habits die hard around here.
Sadly FF has jumped the shark by a) never fixing the memory leaks, b) broke plugins, c) fucked the UI by removing resizable dialogs such as the bookmark menu, etc. Sure it is getting faster, and taking the initiative in supporting the latest HTML5 standards such as WebGL but Mozilla has lost focus on what users want(ed) in a browswer.
i.e. The "Tools > Task Manager" in Chrome is the perfect _one_ reason to abandon FF and switch to Chrome -- you can see how much memory EVERY tab is using, instead we are stuck with the shitty about:memory and no way to tell the CPU and MEM usage per tab.
Ah. Thanks for the clarification!
In WoW players do have _some_ choices where to level as this chart shows:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Zones_by_level
and
http://mapwow.com/northrend/
I would love to see the EQ "equivalent" table & map.
Funneling everyone to the same zone has both pros/cons
+ it builds community as you start to see "familiar" faces
- it increases server load
- it promotes ninja-looting (Guild Wars 2 solved this problem 100% by sharing XP for kills, and every player gets their own "instanced" resources such as ore, trees, etc.)
Promoting zone diversion also has both pros/con
+ solo players don't have to "contest" for kills or resources
+ more variety when leveling alts, or subs
- lack of community
Feel free to add your comments as I am most definitely interested in seeing a EQ pre-WoW perspective.
That is fantastic news that the DoJ is finally help people remember the ancient wisdom:
Authority NEEDS to be balanced with Accountability.
Authority without accountability leads to Totalitarianism
Accountability without authority leads to Bureaucracy.
> In EQ, I can level anywhere in the world I find blue cons.
Are you saying that you can navigate every EQ zone and find blue without aggroing yellow / reds?
- - - 8< - - -
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/game_updates.vm?date=9/19/2006
"We have introduced a new con color, dark blue, which represents a range of blue con NPCs that give a bonus to their experience due to being very close to your level, generally within 5 levels. The concept of a dark blue con NPC has existed in EQ for a while now, but we've decided to change the con system to visually include this range so you can visually see when an NPC falls into this "sweet spot". To properly display a different shade of blue, we've had to reorder the cons a little bit. From trivial to highest con, the colors are now:
- Gray - This creature is trivial to you and will give you no experience for killing it.
- Green - This creature is not much of a threat, but will still give you some experience.
- Blue - This creature is below your level, but high enough level to give you experience.
- Dark Blue - This creature is below your level, but close enough to provide a solid challenge and gives you more experience than normal blue cons.
- White - This creature is the same level as you
- Yellow - This creature is slightly above your level.
- Red - This creature is well above your level."
- - - 8< - - -
WoW pretty much copied the same system:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Mob_difficulty_colorsa
> And they used to say EQ was for casuals. UO was for hardcores.
You sure you didn't get that backwards? ;-) You can "spar" with guildmates and level up your fighting skills to 100 within hours. And if you were doing magic / resist, the 8x8 method was popular. UO never required camping for "days" just to get the opportunity to fight a certain spawn.
I played UO at the time and had a few guildmates that picked up EQ when it came out. While everyone ragged on the graphics of EQ (low-poly 3D) vs the beautiful 2D of UO they noticed that EQ was quite the "serious investment" compared to UO -- hell a few people got divorced over it due to their spouses getting addicted to EQ -- I know of one personally. We almost never heard of that happening in UO.
UI in games *still* suck *badly*, but they *are* slowly getting better. WoW certainly raised the bar. Every year I find myself that there is less and less to complain about idiotic UI design.
I'm not sure the story aspect in WoW was all that essential to WoW's popularity. The people I play with couldn't give a rats ass about the backstory. Hell, one of the first popular mods was one called "Fast Quest Text" so that the quest description was instant instead of being "revealed" one letter at-a-time!
I would say WoW is like the McDonalds of MMO's.
1. Accessible, and
2. Blizzard didn't screw WoW up as badly as everybody else who tried a MMO. I agree the core gameplay was fun, the low-poly cartoon graphics were a breath of fresh air from the photorealism where _that_ quickly becomes outdated, the UI was a MAJOR step forward by allowing anyone to mod it, and the built-in "forced to keep playing" in order "unlock" content and level up skills , so naturally the critical mass was attracted to it.
Sometimes I think the only rule for success is not to fuck up as much as your competitors. :-/
You're post is correct except you are missing two key definitions:
1. In MMO's grinding is just another form of gambling, aka, The Skinner Box. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber
2. Definition of a game: Unless you have a winning state then your game is really a toy, at best.. Interestingly enough, conversely a game doesn't need a losing state. A winning state is necessary, a loosing state sufficient.
i.e. MMOs are NOT games, they are toys. There is NO WAY to WIN at a MMO. You don't "win" at WoW or another MMO (although some people would joke that the only way to "win" is when you quit playing, but I digress. :-) )
Also, people want closure in movies, books, and games. That is not say an open-ended sandbox ala Minecraft, WoW, aren't fun. They are, but once you remove any sense of closure they have stopped becoming games and have become toys where you play. They are more about the journey then the destination. THAT is the key difference between a game and a toy.
Man of Cloth is the colloquial idiom for a priest.
Movies of interest: "Contact" (Jodie Foster), "The Mission" (Robert De Niro)
> if FB had a dislike button to go along with the like button, then they would have an *actual* mechanism that could be used for voting.
Exactly. Pretending or ignoring a completely contrary perspective doesn't make it go away! Sometimes the "other guy" has something interesting / insightful to say. Don't shoot the messenger just because you don't like the message.
FaceBook is like a little immature child "Nah, Nah, Nah, I can't hear you!"
Guess what, I can't hear you FaceBook until you grow the fuck up and learn to treat people (and their data) with respect.
> I think you're quite a sick human being if you refuse to give a DNA sample purely because it's the government asking you
Ah, to be young and naive of the 5th amendment in the US ...
You're really don't understand "due process" do you?
I know. Just replace the dam underscore (_) with spaces (' ') and vice versa.
Or the stupid WikiCamelCase
> there wasn't much going for the Dreamcast.
You missed Soul Caliber 1 & 2, Worms, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and Jet Set Radio.
Uh, write the OS yourself? :-)
Mod parent up +insightful
That is a *brilliant* speech on the idiocracy of Political Correctness!
> There's really no alternative to Windows for most desktop and laptop usage,
Eh?
You have 2 choices: OSX and/or Linux, pick your poison.
Now depending on your apps you may be stuck in Windows land (such as SolidWorks, etc.), but both OSX and Linux are gaining traction at increasing rate which is fantastic to see.
I've been gaming on PCs for 30 years. I pleases me greatly to see OSX finally getting prioritized. And with nVidia working with Valve to increase driver performance ( http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/ ), Linux *may* still be a viable option for us game devs to target Linux and make a profit at some point in the future.
What apps & file formats are you stuck with that you can't migrate to another OS ?
> L4D itself is obsolete since the entire game has been ported to L4D2.
While I agree the majority of the player base has moved onto L4D2 the hard-core fans still prefer L4D1 because it is better designed.
i.e.
http://www.gametracker.com/search/l4d/
> Owning ideas is impossible, outside of fiction and courtrooms.
The rest of the world gets that; it is the greedy lawyers who didn't get the memo.
> will only run properly if the graphics depth is set to 16bit.
Sounds like shitty Win16 or Win32 programming. Are they doing GDI or palette calls by chance?
Why don't you just trace the Windows API calls the app is using?
i.e.
http://jacquelin.potier.free.fr/winapioverride32/
or for even more tools:
http://billauer.co.il/blog/2010/07/strace-ltrace-win32-api-dll/
> It's not "directly derived from"; it's "loosely inspired by"
Correct, but in some places it was "tightly inspired". While QDOS didn't copy CP/M it *definitely* copied some of the data structure fields verbatim. Back in the early '90's there was a "Ralph Brown's Interrupt List" that was essential for x86 assembly programmers. It documented the FCB (File Control Blocks) that started in MSDOS 1.x to open / read / write / close files (and existed in all Dos version until ~ Win95) before file handles were implemented in MS-DOS 2.x.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_control_block
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS_API
While the FCB wasn't identical to the CP/M it definitely had some of the *exact* same fields -- so QDOS was most definitely "inspired" by CP/M as any assembly language programmer could tell.
For more details this is an interesting read:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/did-bill-gates-steal-the-heart-of-dos/0
Almost agree with everything 100%.
> Are MMO developers so insecure they feel they can't rely on the fun of their games rather then gated content and raid gear? ;-)
Shhh! You're not supposed to let the MMO dirty design secrets out that MMOs are just "all about acquiring virtual power via fake items and let men* play virtual doll house! "
Ask any player who has more then 1,000 hrs of L4D gameplay why they keep (kept) playing? ;-)
* Yes a lot of women play MMOs.
> I have said it before but MMOs need to kill players.
1. That is one solution; the problem is most players won't go for it - because they don't understand the problem:
The root problem is that games need to keep challenging the player. When a player cheats on a game they quickly lose interest because there is no longer any challenge. WoW's expansion packs are trying to address that problem.
2. The second problem with MMOs is that they are not games they are toys masquerading as games. i.e. There is no way to win at WoW! That is HORRIBLE game design.
Traditional games have a "game over" -- what I call a "hard win." They don't expect the player to spend hours, days, months, grinding for gear. Modern MMOs have corrupted their game design for greed - because they want players playing (and paying) for as long as possible -- they don't want players to see the facade the game is. IMHO they have no soul because they have sold out to corporate America (i.e. Craptivision.)
"Old-school" games are like movies. You watch / play them. Have a great time. You move on. Portal 2 is a great example. Linear story, but a great experience. The co-op aspect introduces new maps, and it is optional if you want to do "speed runs". You keep playing it because you want new puzzles -- that is, new challenges. But you never feel remorse when you quit. Ask any MMO player who has been playing for a few years how they feel when they quit. They finally feel free! Why?! MMOs pretend they are games and make you feel guilty when you quit because you have all this time "invested" in that you don't want to "Let It Go" move on and enjoy life.
The problem with MMOs is that their fundamental nature is flawed. They stopped caring about being "good games" and sadly focused on "how long can we keep people playing our game?"
That's a great movie. Even more amazing was the fact that it was based off a true story!
> The gear progression is what makes old content obsolete. Plus who wants to do the same thing beyond 4-6 months.
That is true, however, you're talking to someone who has ~2000 hours of L4D playtime in. We don't do it for the gear (there is none!) -- we do it because the core game play is _fun_ with friends. If the old content is obsolete you need to ask WHY? Why aren't the old dungeons dynamically scalable? I'm not saying this is a trivial problem, or that only Blizzard doesn't get it -- the flaw is with the design decision of MMOs in general. Why would I waste time "grinding" for gear, when every expansion pack all your gear is immediately obsolete?
The fact that you have to queue up for dungeons and pvp tells me the developers don't respect my time, and are not interested in learning how to.
... then the community could give a better tailored solution for your needs. :-)
i.e. Why do you need more then 4 GB? Does one app need more then 4 GB?
Why not just run multiple VMs ?
Are your apps closed source?
Do you need DirectX / OpenGL support?
etc.
Great link.
It's unfortunate English is so inconsistent. :-/
Oblg.: "She turned me into a newt!" ;-)
Bill Gates killed the Courier because it had no email ?! "Gates' response by explaining that Microsoft makes billions from Exchange, and so a product with no e-mail is a problem - a machine that doesn't do e-mail isn't going to help shift Exchange licenses."
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/11/killing-courier-the-right-decision-maybe-not-the-right-reasons/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20128013-75/the-inside-story-of-how-microsoft-killed-its-courier-tablet/
Microsoft has no vision - they are just another "me too" company and most people don't care. Apple is _perceived_ as being "first", "better", "easier". Mass market sex appeal is what Apple's marketing dept. has learned in spades; Microsoft still struggles to understand this simple concept.