You missed one thing though -- The lack of items wearing out, is part of the problem, but it's not the cause -- an INFINITE supply of items, is. This is the *REAL* reason we have deflation in MMPRPGS. Once the market "saturates" -- enough people acquire enough extra items to trade, and the item becomes common -- the price will start dropping.
UO, and D2 have the exact same problem of deflation. (D2 has a completely USELESS gold economy, but that's another rant.)
Now resource gathering in UO has sort of "stablized" because
a) it still takes a relatively lot of time to gather a huge amount of them
b) not too many people find mining, Lumberjacking, gather of hides, etc, fun.
Ironically in UO, you pay more for a bigger order, because it takes the supplier longer to get the raw goods.
Last year in UO, ignot prices doubled because the miners realized they could get away with it.
A working virtual economy on a large scale is very difficult to do -- I haven't seen anyone do it right (yet).
And this story describes EQ. We just need a paper discribing the history of D2's economy (i.e. the ramifications of the massive dupes this last weekend will have, the SOJ gamble trick in the early versions, etc.)
I did something similiar a while back (ACK! 6 years alread!) in CMPT 401 (Operating Systems II) at SFU (Simon Fraser University) one of the assignments was to
a) decrypt a RSA encoded message
b) Answer the questions, since the message was an assignment:)
The twist was that there the message didn't use ASCII, but a smaller subset. A table was provided of character set. E and D were small, so that you could brute-force it if you wanted to.
It's not funny, when you decode the message over a weekend, and realize the instructor didn't properly encode the message:)
> Can anybody GUARANTEE a cheat free server? If so i'd like to play. This goes for Action Half Life too.
Yes.
I can, but then it only has 1 player:)
Seriously, playing on a public server involves trust -- and unfortunately there is no way to 100% guarantee that (anonymous) people are trust worthy.
D2 has the same problem. My "solution" is to only play with people I trust -- setup a password protected game, and I don't have to deal with outside my guild / clan.
> In all reality, why would most apps need 64 bit integers and whatnot?
If you're arguing "apps don't need more then 64 bit registers", then I guess you're not a 3D (graphics or geometry) programmer to see the uses;-(
3D apps can make use of 128-bit (16 bytes) integer registers. You can pack 4 floating point numbers (4 bytes) into one register (one of the things, the PS2 does right.)
e.g. Reading (or storing) quad words in one shot, doing a dot product, or cross product, parallel add, etc, are nice and neat with large 128 bit integers / registers.
> can it be used for real time process control?
You can use a non-preemptible kernal for Real Time Processes. You just need to keep the running software to a bare minimum. I did this Win NT 4.
> Like all true geeks, Love doesn't forget to include in his comments that, despite being a computer nerd, he does, in fact, have a girlfriend.
WhoTF cares if he has one or not? Are (other) geeks jealous because he has one, and they don't?
I care about the quality of his code, not about his love life.
YES ! Now just a few more shows ...
on
Star Trek TNG DVDs
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
It's about time bloody time Paramoun! Who would pay $20 for 2 episodes on a VHS/DVD ?? X-Files on DVD did it right from the beginning. Each season for ~ $120.
Now we just need Babylon 5, Futurama, Deep Space 9, and Red Drawf on DVD and I'd be a happy sci-fi geek! Oh yeah, and the complete Lord of the Rings.;-)
"... For while a Citizen has the Right to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, that Right does not extend to the use of the highways, either in whole or in part, as a place for private gain.
> Game consoles like to call themselves 64bit because they can move 64bits at a time.
Unfortunately ture, the early consoles would play marketing games like this.
> By that standard even the Pentiums were 64bit.
The (classic) Pentium is classified as 32-bit because the *general purpose* CPU registers are only 32 bits. (There are a few 64-bit registers, i.e. TimeStampCounter, etc)
With MMX/SSE, the PentiumIII is actually a 32-bit / 128-bit hybrid. It has *native* instructions and registers for *both* 32 and 128-bit processing.
> However both the PS2 and PentiumIII are really 32bit.
Incorrect.
Pentium) I explained this above.
PS2) Do you even program on a PS2??
I think you need to re-read your "EE User's Manual", "EE Overview Manual", and "EE Core User's Manual" (Section 1.4) The core internal bus is 128 bits, and *ALL* the General Purpose Registers (total of 32) are 128 bits. What do you think LQ and SQ do? They load/store 128-bits to/from a register!
Now, it is true, that most PS2 instructions only deal with 32-bit (word) and 64-bits (doublewords), but there are native 128-bit multimedia instructions.
Don't let the fact that the PS2 treats the 128-bit registers as 2 * 64-bits, or 4 * 32-bits confuse you.
Technically the PS2 is a 64-bit/128-bit hybrid, much the same way the PentiumIII is.
> 5) There's more than just applying a function to a structure.
> Here it is: applying a function to two structure of diferent type.
> Where do you put this function?
> In OOP, it's a source of many arbitrary decisions on early stage. Projects evolve, but it's difficult to change such a decision once it's done.
> Example: LinkPictureToAlbum( Picture, Album )
> Is it Album object method or Picture object method?
YES, you *can* do OOP in C. What do you think 'cfront' did back when C++ was still in development, and there was no native compilers?! It translated C++ code into C. Sure it was ugly** C code, but it was C code doing the same job as "native" C++.
(** ugly is not a redundant adjective describing C:) I've seen some beautifull C code)
A native C++ compiler provides
a) cleaner syntax
b) better type safety
Now templates are a whole different ball of wax. C has no paradigm for expressing generic programming. And this is the *real* reason C++ is so popular -- Multiparadigm support: Procedural, OO, and Generic. C++ is VERY powerfull once you start combining OO and Generic Programming. See Moden C++ Design - Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied by Andrei Alexandrescu
> Many languages reason for being is that that their inherent features make design cleaner.
You are correct -- the underlying language that the app is implemented in will constrain the design, but a good language will let you pick the "best" design for you app.
I think the point of a 64-bit cpu is a bit short sighted. Hardware vendors should be jumping to 128-bit cpus, ala the "Emotion Engine" in the PS2.
Why 128-bit? Because a 4-tupple (x,y,z,w) for vector and matrix operations can then be natively done. (Yes, I'm spoiled with the VU's on the PS2)
I do wonder when 64-bit cpu's will actually become a commodity item though. A 32-bit cpu provides 99% functionality for most of the general public using them. It's only gaming, scientific computing, & multimedia that really need the 128-bit registers, correct? Or am I missing something?
Secondly, for 64-bit cpus, is there a standard instruction set? Or do I need to compile our game code specifically for IA64, and Hammer?
I do agree, that a 64-bit address would be a welcome change. I can imagine the Database guys jumping up and down with joy once cheap PC hardware supports 64-bit.
Serisously, I agree that a good chair and monitor are a godsend.
I just picked up this AOC LM-700 LCD. It's bright, clear, easy on the eyes, lightweight, and takes up little deskspace. It's a perfect monitor for coding & LAN parties!
Before ION Storm crashed and burned (20 million down the drain which caused Looking Glass to close, the bastages) I thought John (Romero) was kind of arrogrant. His "Design is Law" quote did it for me.
No, Design is NOT law -- Design *along with* Technology should dictate the game. Too much of either one, and you get a bad game.
It's interesting to see it told "from the inside." I guess John is a nice guy after all, but it's hard to know that, when the media loved to put him on a pedestal, and then tear him down again.
Unfortunately the damage has been done, and John has lost credability in the public. It will be interesting to see what he does next.
>> Jesus never said to celebrate his birthday.
> But why wouldn't we? He never said that we should not, and Jesus is the basis of Christianity, which would makes his birth vital.
He clearly said to celebrate his death (and resurrection), not his birth. If he wanted us to do *both* don't you think he would of said so?!
> I'd like to see the number of Linux users browsing Slashdot. Just to see what a "utopian" Linux future looked like...
They already took a poll a while back. Most people were using IE, IIRC.
The survey would only show Linux on the Desktop, which is probably a minority compared to Linux on the server. Heck I use Win2K at work and home, and have a Linux firewall.
A more accurate survey would be:
1. How many computers do you use?
2. How many of those are running Linux on the a) Desktop, b) server?
Cheers
Re:What is "preemtive" for ?
on
Kernel 2.4.17 Out
·
· Score: 3, Informative
> I don't understand the difference between preemtive and the normal way (btw: which?).
The normal (old) way is "cooperative" -- meaning you don't yield a task until you're ready.
Pre-emptive means you can be forced to give up your task.
.. that the physics-based formulas are just *one* part of a physics engine.
Collision Detection (CD), and more importantly Collision Response (CR) determine the "feel" for your game. You can have the most accurate physics in the world, but if your CD/CR sucks, chances are, you're bringing the game down too.
Slashdot Mirror
Great analysis.
You missed one thing though -- The lack of items wearing out, is part of the problem, but it's not the cause -- an INFINITE supply of items, is. This is the *REAL* reason we have deflation in MMPRPGS. Once the market "saturates" -- enough people acquire enough extra items to trade, and the item becomes common -- the price will start dropping.
UO, and D2 have the exact same problem of deflation. (D2 has a completely USELESS gold economy, but that's another rant.)
Now resource gathering in UO has sort of "stablized" because
a) it still takes a relatively lot of time to gather a huge amount of them
b) not too many people find mining, Lumberjacking, gather of hides, etc, fun.
Ironically in UO, you pay more for a bigger order, because it takes the supplier longer to get the raw goods.
Last year in UO, ignot prices doubled because the miners realized they could get away with it.
A working virtual economy on a large scale is very difficult to do -- I haven't seen anyone do it right (yet).
Excellent!
We have an analysis of the (broken) economy in Ultima Online @ The In-game Economics of Ultima Online
And this story describes EQ. We just need a paper discribing the history of D2's economy (i.e. the ramifications of the massive dupes this last weekend will have, the SOJ gamble trick in the early versions, etc.)
I did something similiar a while back (ACK! 6 years alread!) in CMPT 401 (Operating Systems II) at SFU (Simon Fraser University) one of the assignments was to :)
:)
m l
a) decrypt a RSA encoded message
b) Answer the questions, since the message was an assignment
The twist was that there the message didn't use ASCII, but a smaller subset. A table was provided of character set. E and D were small, so that you could brute-force it if you wanted to.
It's not funny, when you decode the message over a weekend, and realize the instructor didn't properly encode the message
Definately was a cool assignment, though
Example of RSA
http://world.std.com/~franl/crypto/rsa-example.ht
> Can anybody GUARANTEE a cheat free server? If so i'd like to play. This goes for Action Half Life too.
:)
Yes.
I can, but then it only has 1 player
Seriously, playing on a public server involves trust -- and unfortunately there is no way to 100% guarantee that (anonymous) people are trust worthy.
D2 has the same problem. My "solution" is to only play with people I trust -- setup a password protected game, and I don't have to deal with outside my guild / clan.
> In all reality, why would most apps need 64 bit integers and whatnot?
;-(
If you're arguing "apps don't need more then 64 bit registers", then I guess you're not a 3D (graphics or geometry) programmer to see the uses
3D apps can make use of 128-bit (16 bytes) integer registers. You can pack 4 floating point numbers (4 bytes) into one register (one of the things, the PS2 does right.)
e.g. Reading (or storing) quad words in one shot, doing a dot product, or cross product, parallel add, etc, are nice and neat with large 128 bit integers / registers.
Cheers
> Is the MS windows kernel preemptible?
No.
> can it be used for real time process control?
You can use a non-preemptible kernal for Real Time Processes. You just need to keep the running software to a bare minimum. I did this Win NT 4.
> Like all true geeks, Love doesn't forget to include in his comments that, despite being a computer nerd, he does, in fact, have a girlfriend.
WhoTF cares if he has one or not? Are (other) geeks jealous because he has one, and they don't?
I care about the quality of his code, not about his love life.
It's about time bloody time Paramoun! Who would pay $20 for 2 episodes on a VHS/DVD ?? X-Files on DVD did it right from the beginning. Each season for ~ $120.
;-)
Now we just need Babylon 5, Futurama, Deep Space 9, and Red Drawf on DVD and I'd be a happy sci-fi geek! Oh yeah, and the complete Lord of the Rings.
I beg to differ, and so do the courts:
Quoted from: http://www.ptialaska.net/~swampy/interest/travel_
You *don't* need a Driver's License (permision) to travel upon the highway, ONLY IF you are are engaged in commerce.
> I am reminded of the Greek philosopher who `proved' that one can never get from Point A to Point B.
Zeno's Paradox ignores the fact that Space & Time are quantized.
> Game consoles like to call themselves 64bit because they can move 64bits at a time.
Unfortunately ture, the early consoles would play marketing games like this.
> By that standard even the Pentiums were 64bit.
The (classic) Pentium is classified as 32-bit because the *general purpose* CPU registers are only 32 bits. (There are a few 64-bit registers, i.e. TimeStampCounter, etc)
With MMX/SSE, the PentiumIII is actually a 32-bit / 128-bit hybrid. It has *native* instructions and registers for *both* 32 and 128-bit processing.
http://x86.ddj.com/articles/sse_pt2/simd2.htm
> However both the PS2 and PentiumIII are really 32bit.
Incorrect.
Pentium) I explained this above.
PS2) Do you even program on a PS2??
I think you need to re-read your "EE User's Manual", "EE Overview Manual", and "EE Core User's Manual" (Section 1.4) The core internal bus is 128 bits, and *ALL* the General Purpose Registers (total of 32) are 128 bits. What do you think LQ and SQ do? They load/store 128-bits to/from a register!
Now, it is true, that most PS2 instructions only deal with 32-bit (word) and 64-bits (doublewords), but there are native 128-bit multimedia instructions.
Don't let the fact that the PS2 treats the 128-bit registers as 2 * 64-bits, or 4 * 32-bits confuse you.
Technically the PS2 is a 64-bit/128-bit hybrid, much the same way the PentiumIII is.
Cheers
> 5) There's more than just applying a function to a structure.
> Here it is: applying a function to two structure of diferent type.
> Where do you put this function?
> In OOP, it's a source of many arbitrary decisions on early stage. Projects evolve, but it's difficult to change such a decision once it's done.
> Example: LinkPictureToAlbum( Picture, Album )
> Is it Album object method or Picture object method?
Neither. Use composition, and make a new object.
> Most modern compilers are written in their own language, e.g. the c compiler is written in c, the c++ compiler is written in c++.
;-)
The author's point is that C++ was first written in C, ala "cfront"
(One of the Modula-3 compilers I used also produced native C code as well.)
Using another language as your IL (Intermediate Language) is not new. Heck even gcc does this
Cheers
2F> You can do OO design with any language you like
:) I've seen some beautifull C code)
MJ> Um, okay...
MJ>If this were true, then why did we _need_ all these other languages? Caprice?
Mostly because of cleaner syntax.
You do have a point -- sometimes the language(s) make it impossible to express a given paradigm (i.e. Generic Programming in C)
Methinks you haven't read Bjarne Stroustrups (dated but interesting) paper called What is Object-Orientated Programming
YES, you *can* do OOP in C. What do you think 'cfront' did back when C++ was still in development, and there was no native compilers?! It translated C++ code into C. Sure it was ugly** C code, but it was C code doing the same job as "native" C++.
(** ugly is not a redundant adjective describing C
A native C++ compiler provides
a) cleaner syntax
b) better type safety
Now templates are a whole different ball of wax. C has no paradigm for expressing generic programming. And this is the *real* reason C++ is so popular -- Multiparadigm support: Procedural, OO, and Generic. C++ is VERY powerfull once you start combining OO and Generic Programming. See Moden C++ Design - Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied by Andrei Alexandrescu
> Many languages reason for being is that that their inherent features make design cleaner.
You are correct -- the underlying language that the app is implemented in will constrain the design, but a good language will let you pick the "best" design for you app.
Cheers
I think the point of a 64-bit cpu is a bit short sighted. Hardware vendors should be jumping to 128-bit cpus, ala the "Emotion Engine" in the PS2.
Why 128-bit? Because a 4-tupple (x,y,z,w) for vector and matrix operations can then be natively done. (Yes, I'm spoiled with the VU's on the PS2)
I do wonder when 64-bit cpu's will actually become a commodity item though. A 32-bit cpu provides 99% functionality for most of the general public using them. It's only gaming, scientific computing, & multimedia that really need the 128-bit registers, correct? Or am I missing something?
Secondly, for 64-bit cpus, is there a standard instruction set? Or do I need to compile our game code specifically for IA64, and Hammer?
I do agree, that a 64-bit address would be a welcome change. I can imagine the Database guys jumping up and down with joy once cheap PC hardware supports 64-bit.
> Northwood P4 comes out January 6th, 10% faster per clock.
And I bet it will cost more then 10%. AMD will still have the better ratio of performance/price.
Stop looking at p0rn. ;-) (Just kidding.)
Serisously, I agree that a good chair and monitor are a godsend.
I just picked up this AOC LM-700 LCD. It's bright, clear, easy on the eyes, lightweight, and takes up little deskspace. It's a perfect monitor for coding & LAN parties!
> Funding ION Storm was a sound business decision at the time
What ignorance!
Let's see, Eidos could support a company with a PROVEN track record (System Shock, Ultima Underworld, Thief) or a bunch of upstarts.
Sound business decision my @$$.
Before ION Storm crashed and burned (20 million down the drain which caused Looking Glass to close, the bastages) I thought John (Romero) was kind of arrogrant. His "Design is Law" quote did it for me.
No, Design is NOT law -- Design *along with* Technology should dictate the game. Too much of either one, and you get a bad game.
It's interesting to see it told "from the inside." I guess John is a nice guy after all, but it's hard to know that, when the media loved to put him on a pedestal, and then tear him down again.
Unfortunately the damage has been done, and John has lost credability in the public. It will be interesting to see what he does next.
>> Jesus never said to celebrate his birthday.
> But why wouldn't we? He never said that we should not, and Jesus is the basis of Christianity, which would makes his birth vital.
He clearly said to celebrate his death (and resurrection), not his birth. If he wanted us to do *both* don't you think he would of said so?!
> so many people just recognize it for the commercial side, but not the birth of Jesus Christ. What it originally was for.
What nonsense.
First, from what book did you get Dec 25 for Christ's Birthday?? Quote me the scripture/verse if you got this from the Bible.
Secondarily, if Christ wanted us to celebrate his birthday, *why* isn't it mentioned at ALL in the New Testament?
If you can't even do proper exegesis, don't even bother posting.
> I'd like to see the number of Linux users browsing Slashdot. Just to see what a "utopian" Linux future looked like...
They already took a poll a while back. Most people were using IE, IIRC.
The survey would only show Linux on the Desktop, which is probably a minority compared to Linux on the server. Heck I use Win2K at work and home, and have a Linux firewall.
A more accurate survey would be:
1. How many computers do you use?
2. How many of those are running Linux on the a) Desktop, b) server?
Cheers
> I don't understand the difference between preemtive and the normal way (btw: which?).
The normal (old) way is "cooperative" -- meaning you don't yield a task until you're ready.
Pre-emptive means you can be forced to give up your task.
Letters chiseled in stone at the top of the pillars:
MASSACHVSETTS INSTITVTE OF TECHNOLOGY ?
Why the V instead of U ?
.. that the physics-based formulas are just *one* part of a physics engine.
Collision Detection (CD), and more importantly Collision Response (CR) determine the "feel" for your game. You can have the most accurate physics in the world, but if your CD/CR sucks, chances are, you're bringing the game down too.
Check the archives of Game Dev Algorithms if you want more info.