Just invest the oodles of money it has into helping developers create true cross-platform applications -- and supporting them. Games, productivity apps, graphic apps, video editing apps... it can all be done under Linux. In the meanwhile, Google writes APIs to get Linux to work better than ever, liscenses that out to the multiple distros for a nominal fee...
Microsoft won't have a chance against that. You are combining the brilliance of Google's marketing position and cash position, by helping Google force the hand of "windows only" developers to start writing applications that work in Linux, Windows, and MacOS. Granted the up front monetary gain is going to be minimal -- but when Google has an OS that is not as stifling as Windows is, they will find it a lot easier to distribute and develop applications like Google Earth or whatever... and make a profit off of everything.
I'm not against Google making money... I'm against a closed platform like Windows. Microsoft is a great software company (regardless of what naysayers state), but their vision is one aimed at monopoly. So long as Google can keep up with their "Do no evil" motto... I will support and root for them.
I've been banned for being good myself -- I rank very highly in Counterstrike, as well as games like Quake3 Arena and UT2004. However, the aimbots 'click' to the body... and if you watch the execution of the code you could probably catch it. If game devs make the game easy to hack with a proper monitoring of that area of code, then it could be easy to defeat the aimbotters, wall hackers, etc of modern games. I know it's possible to do, but it seems most logic follows the 'let me make my software hack proof' rather than allowing users to hack with ease and taking action afterwards.
Logically, it makes sense. The path of least resistance is going to be the one that followed. So when games like Half Life 2 or Counterstrike: Source have 'hacks' like aimbots etc made for them, if they are easy games to hack, the hack comes out, you simply ban that individual hack. Since you are still allowing the same method, people will create the hack using the same parameters and you ban each hack because you know exactly how and where to detect it -- and ban all the players with it.
I know it's totally irrelevant, but given the Sony 'initiative' and the fact they publish games... I'm waiting for this to happen too:)
If they open it up to every motherboard/x86 processor... that Blue Screen of Deaths may occur in the coveted OSX too?
*grin* It isn't easy to be compatible for every hardware configuration as Windows is. Granted, Windows sucks but it's still an impressive piece of engineering.
If I can't play my games, then I have no interest in a Mac. And I will not pay the premium they require because they won't let me build my own system.
That uses the keyboard almost religously. Tab-Tab-Tab-Space to submit for Slashdot articles too:)
An interesting point for those of you who participate in online bulletin boards that use Invision Power or vBulletin... alt-s "submits" for you on almost any page:) I had actually written to Google to have them update Gmail to have some damn keyboard shortcuts, but I'm still waiting on that...:(
I don't see why Apple doesn't just let the OpenSource community get in on the development of OS X. I mean, they accomplish two goals, first, making Linux a widely accepted form of OS as well as pushing Apple as a whole into a Windows market. It's easier for me as a Windows user to accept a Mac OS rather than Linux with KDE or Gnome.
Because of the fact that id Software creates *next* generation gaming engines. Doom3, in and of itself it like a tech demo -- the game pretty much sucked. But if you turn up the details and resolution, you will see (probably very choppilly) what to expect in games very smoothly in the future.
So yea, maybe you couldn't play it. But the games that use the Doom3 engine in the future well... you will see some wonderful things.
Ideally, open formats are best for the interoperability they bring between platforms. I am guessing that Microsoft's recent workings with Sun have a lot to do with this move. However, it can also put Microsoft in a position to say "Okay, our formats are open -- we will beat you on sheer usability" and as far as OpenOffice is concerned, Office 2003 does that now. It's simple to use, works well in a corporate environment, documents are easily manipulated and everything else you'd expect. Okay, I know the MS haters will tend to disagree with me here, but some products they make, like Office, are pretty damned good. Choosing open formats just allows for more utility over platforms and I cannot see this as a downside for MS at all. OpenOffice, unless it becomes as streamlined and nice as Office is now, will never replace Office, or even catch up. It remains appealing for people like me who do however, not want to pay the $700 it costs to run Office on their machines.
Set top boxes will be prevalent with the use of Intel CPUs because of the inherent technology -- the RIAA and MPAA would work endlessly to see that they push the 'Intel' product; because in most set top boxes, speed isn't really an issue... Oh well, whatever. I'm still buyin AMD.
Because it's hard, nobody should attempt it? I would do it myself, but I'm a poor judge on these things and I don't use them enough to give a proper review. That's why we have review sites out there.
At least on a site called "Open Source Versus" they could have TRIED to tell me why the OS counterparts of Outlook are any good.
That said... can we have a REAL review of speed, features, functionality? Screenshots just show me that I can get something that LOOKS like Outlook without paying for it -- but how good is it? I stopped using Outlook since I got gMail, but I'd still like to know.
Was the release of Peter Molyneux's "Black and White". It was a novel idea, using the mouse gestures to make things happen in a semi-RPG... but too bad the game sucked and I damn near got carpal tunnel from trying to play it:\
It could go either way though. While I agree with you that it *could* be the next step... it may still not be. We may get, for years, the type of games that are photorealistic and just have a different storyline. So think of Valve going for Half Life 5 with the same type of story, aliens are killing people and you are the single dude killing them all. It's just the same game with photorealitisic graphics. If they put this out maybe, once or twice, something similar but not the same, and the second time... they get unlucky and BOOM, go out of business....
All the wonderful developers that Valve had in the past will be starving and not able to contribute to the new era of gaming.
I guess time will tell, and I am thinking you are probably right -- but why do we have to wait until graphics are more realistic to get games that are different than what's offered?
Ah well... c'est la vie. Money first, for all publishers.
I almost forgot about that one... I think their main point covers the Developers vs Publishers though, but some points are definately covered in there.
But he's right, isn't he? I know we take for granted that games are sometimes to the ultimate end of evolution, but some people have brighter minds, and bigger ideas -- and they continually get shot down by the publishers because the 'big ideas' are the ones that cost mucho deniro, and have a good bit of risk to boot.
First person shooters are a slow and steady evolution. The leap from Quake3 to Half Life 2 isn't that great, in terms of immersive gameplay. You still have the same movements, the same basic weapons, the same basic objective, and the same strategies to win the game. The ante is sometimes upped because they throw in a vehicle to fight with, or turn the lights out to make it a 'dark' game (ala Doom3).
The end goal currently with games nowadays is that they are created with technology first at hand. More physics, more water affects, better bump mapping, increasing frames per second, better texture and lighting, better shadow effects, better human movement, etc... but the gameplay is largely the same.
I cannot suggest what type of game to make, or what's missing. I'm not a game designer, nor am I that creative in those areas. But for perspective... when Wolfenstein 3D was released, it was something ENTIRELY different. When the first real time strategy was released, it was ENTIRELY different. And I think that's the point Dvorak is TRYING to hit home, even if he's missing at every swing.
The thing is that, I don't think the lack of new types of gaming is going to put off consumers. We are a culture that buys and buys, and buys because others buy. If Halo3 is hyped as much as Halo2, it could be the same damn game except the main character is a chick. Wow! What a revolutionary idea! A chick, who'da thought it!?!? And it would be bought like mad because of the hype that ensued. Bungie could pay off a few magazines that are rags (I won't name names) and they come back with an A+ rating, or BEST GAME EVARRRR!!! review.
The lack of gaming evolution isn't the fault of developers -- I think they are full of good ideas, and it's why most of the concentrated efforts are made to improve technology -- better physics, fps -- as I mentioned before. I think the game publishers, and these are the EA Games, the -- oh wait, there are no more independant publishing companies. EA bought them all or ran them out of business. The only decent independant gaming company is id software, and they have to focus on their technological feats to stay in business -- their engines run almost every game out there, and that's their cash cow.
So in the end, we have to demand, as gamers, new types of games. I just bought Guild Wars, because it's something slightly out of the norm. I played World of Warcraft for a month, and was put off because it's essentially an EQ/SWG/AC clone. Guild Wars at least lets me get instant gratification, and the bulk of the game is pitting player versus player. Granted it's not a first person shooter, but it's a game that requires skill over your opponent to beat. And while FPSes do the same thing, it's always from that first person point of view.. and that gets tiring and boring after a while.
Slashdot Mirror
Just invest the oodles of money it has into helping developers create true cross-platform applications -- and supporting them. Games, productivity apps, graphic apps, video editing apps... it can all be done under Linux. In the meanwhile, Google writes APIs to get Linux to work better than ever, liscenses that out to the multiple distros for a nominal fee...
Microsoft won't have a chance against that. You are combining the brilliance of Google's marketing position and cash position, by helping Google force the hand of "windows only" developers to start writing applications that work in Linux, Windows, and MacOS. Granted the up front monetary gain is going to be minimal -- but when Google has an OS that is not as stifling as Windows is, they will find it a lot easier to distribute and develop applications like Google Earth or whatever... and make a profit off of everything.
I'm not against Google making money... I'm against a closed platform like Windows. Microsoft is a great software company (regardless of what naysayers state), but their vision is one aimed at monopoly. So long as Google can keep up with their "Do no evil" motto... I will support and root for them.
As if Java isn't slow enough, they open source it just in time as .NET is 100x better and faster.
Java would have been great if it ever worked with swiftness. Oh well... that time has come and gone. We'll see what happens.
I've been banned for being good myself -- I rank very highly in Counterstrike, as well as games like Quake3 Arena and UT2004. However, the aimbots 'click' to the body... and if you watch the execution of the code you could probably catch it. If game devs make the game easy to hack with a proper monitoring of that area of code, then it could be easy to defeat the aimbotters, wall hackers, etc of modern games. I know it's possible to do, but it seems most logic follows the 'let me make my software hack proof' rather than allowing users to hack with ease and taking action afterwards.
Logically, it makes sense. The path of least resistance is going to be the one that followed. So when games like Half Life 2 or Counterstrike: Source have 'hacks' like aimbots etc made for them, if they are easy games to hack, the hack comes out, you simply ban that individual hack. Since you are still allowing the same method, people will create the hack using the same parameters and you ban each hack because you know exactly how and where to detect it -- and ban all the players with it.
:)
I know it's totally irrelevant, but given the Sony 'initiative' and the fact they publish games... I'm waiting for this to happen too
If they open it up to every motherboard/x86 processor... that Blue Screen of Deaths may occur in the coveted OSX too?
*grin* It isn't easy to be compatible for every hardware configuration as Windows is. Granted, Windows sucks but it's still an impressive piece of engineering.
If I can't play my games, then I have no interest in a Mac. And I will not pay the premium they require because they won't let me build my own system.
The fact I use the keyboard also implies that I'm lazy. I saw the mistype but I didn't want to Shift(Tab-Tab-Tab) back to fix it :)
That uses the keyboard almost religously. Tab-Tab-Tab-Space to submit for Slashdot articles too :)
:) I had actually written to Google to have them update Gmail to have some damn keyboard shortcuts, but I'm still waiting on that... :(
An interesting point for those of you who participate in online bulletin boards that use Invision Power or vBulletin... alt-s "submits" for you on almost any page
I don't see why Apple doesn't just let the OpenSource community get in on the development of OS X. I mean, they accomplish two goals, first, making Linux a widely accepted form of OS as well as pushing Apple as a whole into a Windows market. It's easier for me as a Windows user to accept a Mac OS rather than Linux with KDE or Gnome.
But that's just me.
Because of the fact that id Software creates *next* generation gaming engines. Doom3, in and of itself it like a tech demo -- the game pretty much sucked. But if you turn up the details and resolution, you will see (probably very choppilly) what to expect in games very smoothly in the future.
So yea, maybe you couldn't play it. But the games that use the Doom3 engine in the future well... you will see some wonderful things.
Ideally, open formats are best for the interoperability they bring between platforms. I am guessing that Microsoft's recent workings with Sun have a lot to do with this move. However, it can also put Microsoft in a position to say "Okay, our formats are open -- we will beat you on sheer usability" and as far as OpenOffice is concerned, Office 2003 does that now. It's simple to use, works well in a corporate environment, documents are easily manipulated and everything else you'd expect. Okay, I know the MS haters will tend to disagree with me here, but some products they make, like Office, are pretty damned good. Choosing open formats just allows for more utility over platforms and I cannot see this as a downside for MS at all. OpenOffice, unless it becomes as streamlined and nice as Office is now, will never replace Office, or even catch up. It remains appealing for people like me who do however, not want to pay the $700 it costs to run Office on their machines.
is a .MOV for movies so "SuperHeroTheMovie.com" isn't taken and my effort to type long URLs is lessened.
Point for lazyiness!
With the money given to you by Google, you will buy Microsoft products with it.
:D
That's entertaining
Set top boxes will be prevalent with the use of Intel CPUs because of the inherent technology -- the RIAA and MPAA would work endlessly to see that they push the 'Intel' product; because in most set top boxes, speed isn't really an issue... Oh well, whatever. I'm still buyin AMD.
Buy AMD.
Because it's hard, nobody should attempt it? I would do it myself, but I'm a poor judge on these things and I don't use them enough to give a proper review. That's why we have review sites out there.
At least on a site called "Open Source Versus" they could have TRIED to tell me why the OS counterparts of Outlook are any good.
Screenshots make not a review young padawan.
That said... can we have a REAL review of speed, features, functionality? Screenshots just show me that I can get something that LOOKS like Outlook without paying for it -- but how good is it? I stopped using Outlook since I got gMail, but I'd still like to know.
nt
Take nail polish remover and just erase what you have on there.
:)
Repeated use will reveal the keys over time, but if you remove them entirely... you can't cheat
to smacking the shit out of your kids when they pick up a candy bar?
Hey Tommy, you fat little shit, put that fucking Snickers down before I whack your ass blue!
Worked for me and my 6 foot, 187lbs of glory today, at 24 years of age.
I want to index at 3am... why can't they just let me set a @#%@#$@#ing time?!?!?!?!?!??!
Morons. All those brilliant engineers and they can't figure out simplicity.
That Opera did something memorable too recently...?
:)
Oh well, can't matter much. Way to overshadow !!!
Was the release of Peter Molyneux's "Black and White". It was a novel idea, using the mouse gestures to make things happen in a semi-RPG... but too bad the game sucked and I damn near got carpal tunnel from trying to play it :\
It could go either way though. While I agree with you that it *could* be the next step... it may still not be. We may get, for years, the type of games that are photorealistic and just have a different storyline. So think of Valve going for Half Life 5 with the same type of story, aliens are killing people and you are the single dude killing them all. It's just the same game with photorealitisic graphics. If they put this out maybe, once or twice, something similar but not the same, and the second time... they get unlucky and BOOM, go out of business....
All the wonderful developers that Valve had in the past will be starving and not able to contribute to the new era of gaming.
I guess time will tell, and I am thinking you are probably right -- but why do we have to wait until graphics are more realistic to get games that are different than what's offered?
Ah well... c'est la vie. Money first, for all publishers.
I almost forgot about that one... I think their main point covers the Developers vs Publishers though, but some points are definately covered in there.
But he's right, isn't he? I know we take for granted that games are sometimes to the ultimate end of evolution, but some people have brighter minds, and bigger ideas -- and they continually get shot down by the publishers because the 'big ideas' are the ones that cost mucho deniro, and have a good bit of risk to boot.
:)
First person shooters are a slow and steady evolution. The leap from Quake3 to Half Life 2 isn't that great, in terms of immersive gameplay. You still have the same movements, the same basic weapons, the same basic objective, and the same strategies to win the game. The ante is sometimes upped because they throw in a vehicle to fight with, or turn the lights out to make it a 'dark' game (ala Doom3).
The end goal currently with games nowadays is that they are created with technology first at hand. More physics, more water affects, better bump mapping, increasing frames per second, better texture and lighting, better shadow effects, better human movement, etc... but the gameplay is largely the same.
I cannot suggest what type of game to make, or what's missing. I'm not a game designer, nor am I that creative in those areas. But for perspective... when Wolfenstein 3D was released, it was something ENTIRELY different. When the first real time strategy was released, it was ENTIRELY different. And I think that's the point Dvorak is TRYING to hit home, even if he's missing at every swing.
The thing is that, I don't think the lack of new types of gaming is going to put off consumers. We are a culture that buys and buys, and buys because others buy. If Halo3 is hyped as much as Halo2, it could be the same damn game except the main character is a chick. Wow! What a revolutionary idea! A chick, who'da thought it!?!? And it would be bought like mad because of the hype that ensued. Bungie could pay off a few magazines that are rags (I won't name names) and they come back with an A+ rating, or BEST GAME EVARRRR!!! review.
The lack of gaming evolution isn't the fault of developers -- I think they are full of good ideas, and it's why most of the concentrated efforts are made to improve technology -- better physics, fps -- as I mentioned before. I think the game publishers, and these are the EA Games, the -- oh wait, there are no more independant publishing companies. EA bought them all or ran them out of business. The only decent independant gaming company is id software, and they have to focus on their technological feats to stay in business -- their engines run almost every game out there, and that's their cash cow.
So in the end, we have to demand, as gamers, new types of games. I just bought Guild Wars, because it's something slightly out of the norm. I played World of Warcraft for a month, and was put off because it's essentially an EQ/SWG/AC clone. Guild Wars at least lets me get instant gratification, and the bulk of the game is pitting player versus player. Granted it's not a first person shooter, but it's a game that requires skill over your opponent to beat. And while FPSes do the same thing, it's always from that first person point of view.. and that gets tiring and boring after a while.
Especially since I kick so much ass