I'm not a big fan of class/level (it seems backwards; you class ditctates your profession/skills, instead of skills dictating your profession.)
However, for some games, it works. D&D & Diablo are good examples, and I enjoy the level advancement.
Levels are quantized changes in skill. That is all.
A skill-based system, makes the changes more granular.
WAY too many people fall for the red-herring of realism in games.
Games are NOT about realism -- they are about immersion. (Go play some tradional card & board games, if you don't believe me.) The illusion comes, because the computer can simulate reality, better then tradional methods. Too many people complain that a game is unrealistic, when they really mean, "I find the immersion breaks." (Do these same people complain about movies being unrealistic. Hello, it's a M-O-V-I-E.)
The offline skill advancement is not new. It doe at first seem counter-productive - provide incentive to not play your game, so they want to play it in the future? What?! It does make a lot of sense. I'm surprised more MMRPGS haven't pursued this, as the more people you can OFF the system, the better (bandwidth) it is.
The offline system has to be capped. If I start a new character, and go offline for a year, how "powerfull" is he? The same as someone who plays 24x for 3 months? 6 months? 9 months? etc.
By the sounds of it, you didn't play much CS ? I can appreciate and understand that not everyone is into CS. I wasn't either. Did you ever play Team Fortress? I got burnt out on playing the orginal (and Mega-TF) for Quake. WAY too much time on the CanalZone map:)
Why am I not suprised that Valve is bringing out the multiplayer before the single-player?:)
I agree, Doom3 is nothing really new (except for tech), and that Red Faction was good shooter. Do really that many people want destroyable worlds?
> If you said "transmuting lead into gold? That sounds kind of retarded!" The alchemist would say "oh you silly little man you don't have the same mathematical talents I do, now just go away!"
If you think Alchemy is about turning Lead into Gold, then you seriouly lack a real understanding of what true Alchemy is really about.
-- Why don't any hardware rewiew sites post screenshots of what people + lighting look like in Doom 3 on a DX8 card?
> Am I the only person who thinks finding patterns in the financial markets is useless?
Yes.
Just because most people aren't able to see the pattern (and deny that they even exist), doesn't mean the pattern is useless.
> Not because I don't believe they exist but that with their discovery would come a change in the patterns themselves, > thus making each 'discovery' relatively useless.
That's not how the patterns (cycles) works. They exist independently.
> If you knew what the path to losing your livelihood was.. wouldn't you try to do everything possible to _not_ go down that path?
This is the old Free Will vs Fate argument.
Your error is thinking that they are mutually exclusive.
> Thus opening new paths and forming new patterns which would destroy the old ones.
Nope. Here's an analogy. Think of surfing. No matter what you do, you're not going to stop the waves. (Fate.) You have a choice on how to use the wave to your advantage (Free-Will.)
Peace
-- ALL civilizations eventually collapse. Or are you that ignorant and arrogant to assume that yours won't?
"The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws" -- Tacitus, A.D. 55
> so you've never tested this theory of yours that its ok to drive around with out a license?
Not sure why you're jumping to that conclusion.
It's not a theory -- I've been doing it for 5+ years. (I've been stopped twice for speeding, but no ticket due to a) lack of Jurisdiction, and b) lack of Contract.) Obviously just because you have the freedom to do something, doesn't imply that you should do it.
I didn't believe it either, but others have been doing it for 20+ years. If you believe something is impossible, but see others doing it, it becomes much easier to figure out how to do it.
Peace
-- The fallacy of government is that it assumes everyone needs to be told how to live, but the fact remains it is unconstitutional to homogenize community by its own standards (due to seperation of Church & "State") When it passes more laws until it makes everyone a criminal it has made the mistake of placing the intent on the "Letter of the Law" over the "Spirit of the Law" but this is nothing new... "The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws" -- Tacitus, A.D. 55
> We license driving, marriage, fishing, hunting, etc...
Just because everyone else thinks they need to get one, doesn't mean you need to as well.
There are numerous people who excercise their right to travel without state permits. (Myself included, I've never been given a ticket for driving without a license. It *is* possible, if you know how.)
You don't need a marriage license to be married. What do you think a Common-Law Marriage is?!
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." (Bill of Rights - Amendment X)
> Myst... and all it ever got were bashings in the (gamers') press by the critics.
That's because
a) Most (hard-core) gamers didn't want a "slide-show" type of game. They wanted an interactive world - one that "felt" 3D. The whole time while playing, I missed mouselook. It was a beautiful world, and I wanted to explore it, dam'it!
b) It was too easy. The "puzzles" were a joke. At least 7th Guest, and the 11th hour kept the brain entertained.
Hmm, the former (Myst) had a better story at the expense of puzzles, while the latter (7th Guest) was the reverse. Never noticed that before.
I've lived in both places. Canada is just as fucked up as the States. (Probably get modded flamebait, but take a look at the facts, because the Truth hurts...)
- It's illegal to buy, get this, MILK (?!?!) from a dairy farmer. (Right now, you can own part of the cow, to get around this stupid law.)
- It's illegal for the farmer to sell his grain to anyone other than the Wheat board. A number of years back, there was a farmer who owned land on both sides of the East-West dviding line. He was fined $10,000+ when he tried to sell his WHOLE crop at the higher price that the Eastern Wheat board was paying.
- Hemp protein contains ALL 20 known amino acids including the 9 essential amino acids (EAAs) our bodies cannot produce, yet this *natural* plant is illegal to posess or grow?!?! (I'm NOT talking about the hallucinogen type. The US constitution was written on Hemp paper for Christ's sake.)
What's that old adage?
The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the republic. Tactus.
> The reason why people give up is quite simple.. it's fairly easy to get a 80% complete game, and see what it's like. The last 20% however takes 50x longer to do
Yeap, the standard joke in the industury is that the first 80% takes a linear 80% of your times, and the last 20% takes an exponential 80% of your time. i.e. ~160% total time.
Why do you think id, Blizzard, etc. keeps polishing their games before they declare them good enough to ship?
> My point regarding herbivoires is that if we observe cattle are built for eating vegetation and we call them herbivoires, it doesn't mean they can't get the same sustinence from meat.
Yes it does mean exactly that. Take a look at Dr T. Campbell's studies. He is a bio-researcher for 40+ years, at Cornell.
> Words like "natural" don't fit into it... Ugh, what do you think Cows have been eating for the past say, few million years?? They weren't cooking meat on the BBQ, mate.
How do you think Mad Cow Disease spreads? When the dead cows are ground up, and fed to other cows. It's a little hard to get, when they don't eat other animals.
> do you have a better idea as to how to dispose of the animal remains? We never had a lot of dead animals, since they were for the most part healthy. If you have a lot of dying cows, you got bigger problems to worry about.
We usually buried them, so they could be natually broken down (bio-degradable), and replenish the soil.
> Is that why the PS2 is an absolute horror to program for (as seen by the poor-looking games that come out on it)?
Partially.
It's a multi-processor machine - It has (only) 7 "cpus".
You think multi-threading is hard with 2 cpus?! Try keeping the EE (main cpu), VU0, VU1 (the 2 vector units, with 4K and 16K of RAM respectively, used for physics, and transorms, respectively), the GPU, and shuttingling data from the IOP to main ram, and IOP to the SPU, ALL in sync, *without* data stalls. Gee, you think this is trivial?;-)
> Having Linux (which the PS2 does) doesn't seem to have made development any easier. I'm not aware of any professional game developer using linux on the PS2. It already has it's own propiertary OS - you don't need a more bloated one. Every K counts, when you only got 40 megs total RAM.
You only have 4 megs of VRAM (video). After reserving memory for the screen (640x480), double-buffered, and a z-buffer, you only have ~ 2 megs left. Guess we'll have upload textures every bloody frame. Shit, how come we're out of main memory?! Fortunately none of the sound data has to even touch main memory.
> The developers that don't have a huge budget can't afford to make PS2 games, they flock to Xbox. Dev kits are expensive whatever route you go.
One of the factors is that the XBox is way easier to develop fore. Most PC developers can easily get a handle on the 733 Mhz + GeForce 3.
> I suppose you own dolby 5.1 components. Separate pre-amps, power amps, tuners etc.
Taking this to it's logical end, let me know when I can get a Plasma+DVD+Reciever+Satellite+Speakers as one unit.
In the mean-time, components lets us upgrade when & as we decide. Piece-wise systems makes a lot MORE sense in a home theatre. When something breaks, you aren't up the creek having to replace the whole system. I wouldn't trade my seperate components any day of the week.
> Eventually the integrated systems will be much more than adequate for 99.99% of the population.
Audio systems are different - Hi-end recievers are ALREADY better then seperates, by far for the average audiophile, and even approaching the high-end seperates. It's decreasing returns, and increasing prices.
Check out the reviews of Denon 4802 and 5803 Receivers for example on hometheaterhifi
-- Them: "If you don't like it you can leave!" Me: "Is that how you deal with all your problems? By running away from them? Name one government that is not corrupt so we can move there?"
Slashdot Mirror
> You know it's a sad day when you start missing those Monkey Island code wheels!
Ah, the good old days of the XOR data file, which was byte-code interpreted.
Kids these days with those new-fangled CD emulation tools. Back in my day we had un-photocopable paper and we liked it!
--
The evolution & "supposed" pre-ancient history of man is a crock.
One of the many proofs that intelligent pre-historic civilizations existed long BEFORE man's ancient civilizations...
1. Progression of "apparent" history of "man" - Hominidae is 3 millions years old
2. Geological Time Frames perspective
3. A machined 3D relief map 120-million years old in a 1-ton stone, with inscriptions. WTF?!
> You can do either of the serious sam games in a weekend
I'll second that. Get a buddy or two over, and play it co-op!
> Bloody good games too,
Yeap. Can't wait to see the features in their 2nd engine.
I'm not a big fan of class/level (it seems backwards; you class ditctates your profession/skills, instead of skills dictating your profession.)
........... $0.02 ..... $zero .. $Priceless
However, for some games, it works. D&D & Diablo are good examples, and I enjoy the level advancement.
Levels are quantized changes in skill. That is all.
A skill-based system, makes the changes more granular.
WAY too many people fall for the red-herring of realism in games.
Games are NOT about realism -- they are about immersion. (Go play some tradional card & board games, if you don't believe me.) The illusion comes, because the computer can simulate reality, better then tradional methods. Too many people complain that a game is unrealistic, when they really mean, "I find the immersion breaks." (Do these same people complain about movies being unrealistic. Hello, it's a M-O-V-I-E.)
The offline skill advancement is not new. It doe at first seem counter-productive - provide incentive to not play your game, so they want to play it in the future? What?! It does make a lot of sense. I'm surprised more MMRPGS haven't pursued this, as the more people you can OFF the system, the better (bandwidth) it is.
The offline system has to be capped. If I start a new character, and go offline for a year, how "powerfull" is he? The same as someone who plays 24x for 3 months? 6 months? 9 months? etc.
Peace
--
1. Complain
2. Friend listens
3. & offers solution
Guess the Mod's sense of humor is broken. ;-)
;-(
Are they not aware of the fact that the C$ is trading at US $0.76 ? I wish it was higher, but it just isn't so
If you can't laught at your own dollar, what CAN you laugh at? Other people's??
> No-one would bother to invent anything if they were not properly compensated for it, they suggest.
So BEFORE copyright, absolutely NO-ONE invented anything, ever?!
Digressing slightly...
Why do people climb mountains? Because the are their, and they think it's fun.
And regressing...
People sometimes invent things to help them do what they enjoy doing. i.e. better rope, stronger clips, etc...
Not every invention was for money. Heaven forbid fun had anything to do with!
Peace
> 1.6 billion for what?
;-)
........... $0.02 ..... $zero .. $Priceless
Obviously it's 1.6 Bill in Canadian money, which means 0.8 Billion US$
--
1. Complain
2. Friend listens
3. & offers solution
_Michaelangelo_
Not sure why you got modded off-topic...
:)
:)
By the sounds of it, you didn't play much CS ? I can appreciate and understand that not everyone is into CS. I wasn't either. Did you ever play Team Fortress? I got burnt out on playing the orginal (and Mega-TF) for Quake. WAY too much time on the CanalZone map
Why am I not suprised that Valve is bringing out the multiplayer before the single-player?
I agree, Doom3 is nothing really new (except for tech), and that Red Faction was good shooter. Do really that many people want destroyable worlds?
Cheers
> If you said "transmuting lead into gold? That sounds kind of retarded!" The alchemist would say "oh you silly little man you don't have the same mathematical talents I do, now just go away!"
If you think Alchemy is about turning Lead into Gold, then you seriouly lack a real understanding of what true Alchemy is really about.
--
Why don't any hardware rewiew sites post screenshots of what people + lighting look like in Doom 3 on a DX8 card?
> Am I the only person who thinks finding patterns in the financial markets is useless?
Yes.
Just because most people aren't able to see the pattern (and deny that they even exist), doesn't mean the pattern is useless.
> Not because I don't believe they exist but that with their discovery would come a change in the patterns themselves,
> thus making each 'discovery' relatively useless.
That's not how the patterns (cycles) works. They exist independently.
> If you knew what the path to losing your livelihood was.. wouldn't you try to do everything possible to _not_ go down that path?
This is the old Free Will vs Fate argument.
Your error is thinking that they are mutually exclusive.
> Thus opening new paths and forming new patterns which would destroy the old ones.
Nope. Here's an analogy. Think of surfing. No matter what you do, you're not going to stop the waves. (Fate.) You have a choice on how to use the wave to your advantage (Free-Will.)
Peace
--
ALL civilizations eventually collapse.
Or are you that ignorant and arrogant to assume that yours won't?
"The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws" -- Tacitus, A.D. 55
> so you've never tested this theory of yours that its ok to drive around with out a license?
Not sure why you're jumping to that conclusion.
It's not a theory -- I've been doing it for 5+ years. (I've been stopped twice for speeding, but no ticket due to a) lack of Jurisdiction, and b) lack of Contract.) Obviously just because you have the freedom to do something, doesn't imply that you should do it.
I didn't believe it either, but others have been doing it for 20+ years. If you believe something is impossible, but see others doing it, it becomes much easier to figure out how to do it.
Peace
--
The fallacy of government is that it assumes everyone needs to be told how to live,
but the fact remains it is unconstitutional to homogenize community by its own standards (due to seperation of Church & "State")
When it passes more laws until it makes everyone a criminal it has made the mistake of placing the intent on the "Letter of the Law" over the "Spirit of the Law" but this is nothing new...
"The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws" -- Tacitus, A.D. 55
> youve never gotten a ticket
:)
nope.
With freedom, comes responsibility - that means paying MORE attention to the other drivers and your surroundings.
> We license driving, marriage, fishing, hunting, etc...
...
Just because everyone else thinks they need to get one, doesn't mean you need to as well.
There are numerous people who excercise their right to travel without state permits. (Myself included, I've never been given a ticket for driving without a license. It *is* possible, if you know how.)
You don't need a marriage license to be married. What do you think a Common-Law Marriage is?!
You'll want to see Things that are NOT in the Constituion.
Which means, that
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." (Bill of Rights - Amendment X)
Peace
--
"Geometry is frozen music"
- Pythagoras
> Myst... and all it ever got were bashings in the (gamers') press by the critics.
That's because
a) Most (hard-core) gamers didn't want a "slide-show" type of game. They wanted an interactive world - one that "felt" 3D. The whole time while playing, I missed mouselook. It was a beautiful world, and I wanted to explore it, dam'it!
b) It was too easy. The "puzzles" were a joke. At least 7th Guest, and the 11th hour kept the brain entertained.
Hmm, the former (Myst) had a better story at the expense of puzzles, while the latter (7th Guest) was the reverse. Never noticed that before.
--
Original, Fun Palm games by the Lead Designer of Majesty!
http://www.arcanejourneys.com/
I've lived in both places. Canada is just as fucked up as the States. (Probably get modded flamebait, but take a look at the facts, because the Truth hurts...)
- It's illegal to buy, get this, MILK (?!?!) from a dairy farmer. (Right now, you can own part of the cow, to get around this stupid law.)
- It's illegal for the farmer to sell his grain to anyone other than the Wheat board. A number of years back, there was a farmer who owned land on both sides of the East-West dviding line. He was fined $10,000+ when he tried to sell his WHOLE crop at the higher price that the Eastern Wheat board was paying.
- Hemp protein contains ALL 20 known amino acids including the 9 essential amino acids (EAAs) our bodies cannot produce, yet this *natural* plant is illegal to posess or grow?!?! (I'm NOT talking about the hallucinogen type. The US constitution was written on Hemp paper for Christ's sake.)
What's that old adage?
The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the republic.
Tactus.
--
The evolution & "supposed" pre-ancient history of man is a crock.
One of the many proofs that intelligent pre-historic civilizations existed long BEFORE man's ancient civilizations...
1. Progression of "apparent" history of "man" - Hominidae is 3 millions years old
2. Geological Time Frames perspective
3. A machined 3D relief map 120-million years old in a 1-ton stone, with inscriptions. WTF?!
> The reason why people give up is quite simple.. it's fairly easy to get a 80% complete game, and see what it's like. The last 20% however takes 50x longer to do
Yeap, the standard joke in the industury is that the first 80% takes a linear 80% of your times, and the last 20% takes an exponential 80% of your time. i.e. ~160% total time.
Why do you think id, Blizzard, etc. keeps polishing their games before they declare them good enough to ship?
--
Original, Fun Palm games by the Lead Designer of Majesty!
http://www.arcanejourneys.com/
I prefer the apple look of this article.
Hmm, only took Microsoft 9 years to figure out that cap bits cause more problems then they solve.
--
Original, Fun Palm games by the Lead Designer of Majesty!
http://www.arcanejourneys.com/
> Illegal does not mean "wrong" (some things that are wrong are not illegal, some things that are illegal are not wrong).
Exactly, and things can go from being legal to illegal and back again, so is it wrong when it is legal or illegal?!
A is legal.
A becomes illegal.
A is then legal again.
i.e. Prohibition
--
Original, Fun Palm games by the Lead Designer of Majesty!
http://www.arcanejourneys.com/
> My point regarding herbivoires is that if we observe cattle are built for eating vegetation and we call them herbivoires, it doesn't mean they can't get the same sustinence from meat.
Yes it does mean exactly that. Take a look at Dr T. Campbell's studies. He is a bio-researcher for 40+ years, at Cornell.
> Words like "natural" don't fit into it...
Ugh, what do you think Cows have been eating for the past say, few million years?? They weren't cooking meat on the BBQ, mate.
How do you think Mad Cow Disease spreads? When the dead cows are ground up, and fed to other cows. It's a little hard to get, when they don't eat other animals.
> do you have a better idea as to how to dispose of the animal remains?
We never had a lot of dead animals, since they were for the most part healthy. If you have a lot of dying cows, you got bigger problems to worry about.
We usually buried them, so they could be natually broken down (bio-degradable), and replenish the soil.
Peace
--
The evolution & "supposed" pre-ancient history of man is a crock.
One of the many proofs that intelligent pre-historic civilizations existed long BEFORE man's civilizations...
1. Progression of "apparent" history of "man" - Hominidae is 3 millions years old
2. Geological Time Frames perspective
3. A machined 3D relief map 120-million years old in a 1-ton stone, with inscriptions. WTF?!
LOL - I love your .sig
i.e.
"It compiles! Ship it!"
> Also, from what I have heard, the programming for PS2 is difficult because it uses assembly with multiple processors/gpu's.
Yeah, technically 7.
The VU0 has only 4K of RAM. (usually used for Physics calcs)
The VU1 has 16K of RAM. (Usually used for T&L)
It only has 1 GPU.
You need a good mesh stripper to get maximum performance out of the beast.
--
Original, Fun Palm games by the Lead Designer of Majesty!
http://www.arcanejourneys.com/
> Is that why the PS2 is an absolute horror to program for (as seen by the poor-looking games that come out on it)?
;-)
Partially.
It's a multi-processor machine - It has (only) 7 "cpus".
You think multi-threading is hard with 2 cpus?! Try keeping the EE (main cpu), VU0, VU1 (the 2 vector units, with 4K and 16K of RAM respectively, used for physics, and transorms, respectively), the GPU, and shuttingling data from the IOP to main ram, and IOP to the SPU, ALL in sync, *without* data stalls. Gee, you think this is trivial?
> Having Linux (which the PS2 does) doesn't seem to have made development any easier.
I'm not aware of any professional game developer using linux on the PS2. It already has it's own propiertary OS - you don't need a more bloated one. Every K counts, when you only got 40 megs total RAM.
You only have 4 megs of VRAM (video). After reserving memory for the screen (640x480), double-buffered, and a z-buffer, you only have ~ 2 megs left. Guess we'll have upload textures every bloody frame. Shit, how come we're out of main memory?! Fortunately none of the sound data has to even touch main memory.
> The developers that don't have a huge budget can't afford to make PS2 games, they flock to Xbox.
Dev kits are expensive whatever route you go.
One of the factors is that the XBox is way easier to develop fore. Most PC developers can easily get a handle on the 733 Mhz + GeForce 3.
--
The evolution & supposed pre-ancient history of man is a crock...
One of the many proofs that something intelligent existed long BEFORE man supposed came into being:
Progression of "apparent" history of "man" - Hominidae is 3 millions years old
Geological Time Frames perspective
A machined 3D relief map 120-million years old in a 1-ton stone, with inscriptions. WTF?!
> Careful about implying that causing a herbivoire to eat meat is "unnatural".
Have you even *lived* on a farm, and raised cattle?!?!
--
You can sell your values,
But you can't buy morals
- _Michaelangelo_
> I suppose you own dolby 5.1 components. Separate pre-amps, power amps, tuners etc.
Taking this to it's logical end, let me know when I can get a Plasma+DVD+Reciever+Satellite+Speakers as one unit.
In the mean-time, components lets us upgrade when & as we decide. Piece-wise systems makes a lot MORE sense in a home theatre. When something breaks, you aren't up the creek having to replace the whole system. I wouldn't trade my seperate components any day of the week.
> Eventually the integrated systems will be much more than adequate for 99.99% of the population.
Audio systems are different - Hi-end recievers are ALREADY better then seperates, by far for the average audiophile, and even approaching the high-end seperates. It's decreasing returns, and increasing prices.
Check out the reviews of Denon 4802 and 5803 Receivers for example on hometheaterhifi
--
Them: "If you don't like it you can leave!"
Me: "Is that how you deal with all your problems? By running away from them? Name one government that is not corrupt so we can move there?"
> On the one hand, the fact that it's taking so long looks bad for AMD64.
Can you explain what you mean by this?
--
I wasn't smart enough to be a Mathematician,
and I was too lazy to be an Engineer,
so I became a programmer!