Procedural stuff rarely improves a game - since a designer or artists carefully executed vision will always win out over a computer-generated level/texture/sound/whatever. (Imagine if levels in Mario64 were procedural - ugh).
The one game I know of where procedural=A Good Thing, is Elite. All those planets in 32Kb:-)
A conventional combustion engine has zero torque at 0RPM. It's called stalling y'see. How do we get around this seemingly insurmountable problem? Pssst, don't tell anyone, else they'll patent it, but maybe a clutch could do the trick?
A lesson the Linux folk could learn from too. A graphics package called GIMP? Most of my non-tech freinds would think I'm using some sort of pr0n if I told them I was using the GIMP.
The odd thing also is that Sony can do cool names - I think 'PlayStation' is one of the all-time great branding coups.
Right on brother! Too many whingers on/. I have a picture in my mind, that all the people who write negative posts, are in fact Comic-Book-Guy.
Ceefax is great
on
Ceefax Turns 30
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I currently have a digital STB here in the UK. If I want to look at the sports or news, I hit the 'Interactive' button, and then have to wait about a minute, whilst my Pace box downloads lots of adverts, and graphics, and all sorts of rubbish. Plus you have to navigate through lots of menus. (I would say about 6 steps, just to get to the football scores - each page taking anywhere between 10 seconds, and 60 seconds to download).
In other words - It sucks! There's no 'direct access' to information.
Ceefax is great for the footy scores - if you know the page number, you just type it in, and voila - you're on the current scores for the Premiership or whatever. Took about 10 seconds.
Kind of like the latest version of Windows really - it's much newer, but it takes 10 times as long to do anything as it did 10 years ago on your 486:-)
It doensn't look photo-realistic by any means, but perhaps that isn't the artists intention!
There was an article on/. not long ago, bemoaning the fact that as we approach photo-realism we become less forgiving of flaws in the image.
Maybe renders should come with a little tooltip:
...only billion-dollar product segments matter to such a big company. Even the Xbox game platform and MSN can't bring in that kind of money.
I would strongly disagree that Xbox won't bring in billion $ revenues. Whilst it may not be doing that now, MS are looking at the large amount of money made by Sony, Nintendo, and big hitter publishers like EA, who do have billions in revenue from games products.
MS seem pretty committed to the games market, so don't write this off just yet. Look at Sony, whose primary revenue is now derived from the SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment) groups, powered by the PlayStation phenomenon.
Yep, you're right Toby. I didn't want to use the 'L' word, given the audience:-)
We use Linux at our place, for a variety of server needs. Running for 12 months, and we've hardly ever had to touch the crusty old box, yet she runs like a dream!
Unfortunately, we _need_ to run windows for many tasks, but as more apps migrate to Linux, we'll continue to evaluate it's relevance on the desktop.
Muglia, a 16-year veteran of Microsoft, is tasked with building Longhorn Server, likely the most complex operating system ever designed
A server shouldn't need to be the most complicated thing ever. Fundamentally, it does a fairly simple job. Making it 'more complex than ever' makes me want to use something else! (I'm a Tech. Director).
Wouldn't it be cool if MS said "Hey this new OS will use half the resources, be 99% secure, and run on a reasonable spec PC, and be simple to use and understand". Don't think we'll be getting that somehow though...
Still, I suppose from a business point of view they have to keep swimming, like sharks.
Fair point - but in the UK, you can buy Free To Air digiboxes for about 50. (~$90 last time I looked at the exchange rate). (Perhaps they are subsidised by the BBC? Bueller?).
The UK governments push for all digital TV is A Good Thing (IMHO) - what's the deal in the US?
Xbox 2 is based on PPC architecture. Windows will always be Intel. So having something like XNA becomes all the more important. The mad thing is that (as someone else has already posted), it will probably end up running some crazy-ass.NET style byte-code interpretors to hold it all together.
Everyone else would just write nice portable C, but MS will be determined to do it in the most arse-about-face way possible:-)
This sounds very noble - and I wish them the very best of luck. Because they're going to need it.
Whilst right thinking intelligent people (everyone reading this of course), realise the benefits of such an approach to voting, the people who choose voting systems (i.e. Politicians) will ask one question:
"Who is accountable?"
Because it's not a company developing this system, (who after all, always act in an appropriate, legal, and fully accountable manner:-|), politicians will believe that such 'communist' philosophies are not to be trusted. "Surely if it's an open system, it can be exploited by ne'er do wells?".
I'd liken it to companies who always buy MS - "because, hey, MS is a reputable company. They're accountable for their software". It's a mentality which goes along the lines of "Companies are better than a gang of hippies, doing it because they want to make the world a better place man."
Same old same old - whilst this will undoubtedly be technically better than anything Diebold can come up with, politcal motives will bury this initiative I fear.
. Art should be created for the love of the art, not for monetary gain.
Oh please!!! Fuck right off you hippy asshat.
So people who want to make music should resign themselves to a life of poverty?
cf. I love programming - In fact I program video games for a living, I get paid reasonable $$$, and I am very happy with my job. But I couldn't do it for free, nor would I want to.
Sometimes, I do wonder if guys like you live in the real world, where mom & pop can't bankroll you, and where things like houses and food actually cost money.
I was an Amiga fan many moons ago, but Commode et. al. always seemed to have been to the business school for the hard of learning.
There doesn't seem to be a business plan or strategy in place here - just knee jerk reactions to what is perceived as currently profitable, or upswinging markets.
It's sad, but Amiga has been kicked to death by a bunch of inept owners...
Slashdot Mirror
Procedural stuff rarely improves a game - since a designer or artists carefully executed vision will always win out over a computer-generated level/texture/sound/whatever. (Imagine if levels in Mario64 were procedural - ugh). The one game I know of where procedural=A Good Thing, is Elite. All those planets in 32Kb :-)
A conventional combustion engine has zero torque at 0RPM. It's called stalling y'see. How do we get around this seemingly insurmountable problem? Pssst, don't tell anyone, else they'll patent it, but maybe a clutch could do the trick?
A lesson the Linux folk could learn from too. A graphics package called GIMP? Most of my non-tech freinds would think I'm using some sort of pr0n if I told them I was using the GIMP.
The odd thing also is that Sony can do cool names - I think 'PlayStation' is one of the all-time great branding coups.
Right on brother! Too many whingers on /. I have a picture in my mind, that all the people who write negative posts, are in fact Comic-Book-Guy.
In other words - It sucks! There's no 'direct access' to information.
Ceefax is great for the footy scores - if you know the page number, you just type it in, and voila - you're on the current scores for the Premiership or whatever. Took about 10 seconds.
Kind of like the latest version of Windows really - it's much newer, but it takes 10 times as long to do anything as it did 10 years ago on your 486 :-)
Will these end up in Sony's PSP? Would be nice...
I go to nightclubs to to dance and get rejected by women, but I guess this is the Slashdot way.
No results?!??!!
w00t! The internet is clean and unsullied once more.
(I'd patent this idea, but you can have it /.)
Hehe :-)
I would strongly disagree that Xbox won't bring in billion $ revenues. Whilst it may not be doing that now, MS are looking at the large amount of money made by Sony, Nintendo, and big hitter publishers like EA, who do have billions in revenue from games products.
MS seem pretty committed to the games market, so don't write this off just yet. Look at Sony, whose primary revenue is now derived from the SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment) groups, powered by the PlayStation phenomenon.
Yep, you're right Toby. I didn't want to use the 'L' word, given the audience :-)
We use Linux at our place, for a variety of server needs. Running for 12 months, and we've hardly ever had to touch the crusty old box, yet she runs like a dream!
Unfortunately, we _need_ to run windows for many tasks, but as more apps migrate to Linux, we'll continue to evaluate it's relevance on the desktop.
A server shouldn't need to be the most complicated thing ever. Fundamentally, it does a fairly simple job. Making it 'more complex than ever' makes me want to use something else! (I'm a Tech. Director).
Wouldn't it be cool if MS said "Hey this new OS will use half the resources, be 99% secure, and run on a reasonable spec PC, and be simple to use and understand". Don't think we'll be getting that somehow though...
Still, I suppose from a business point of view they have to keep swimming, like sharks.
er... no. Let's try:
Welcome to Slashdot, would Sir like a knee-jerk reaction?
But we were 'appy!
The UK governments push for all digital TV is A Good Thing (IMHO) - what's the deal in the US?
Everyone else would just write nice portable C, but MS will be determined to do it in the most arse-about-face way possible :-)
Whilst right thinking intelligent people (everyone reading this of course), realise the benefits of such an approach to voting, the people who choose voting systems (i.e. Politicians) will ask one question:
"Who is accountable?"
Because it's not a company developing this system, (who after all, always act in an appropriate, legal, and fully accountable manner :-|), politicians will believe that such 'communist' philosophies are not to be trusted. "Surely if it's an open system, it can be exploited by ne'er do wells?".
I'd liken it to companies who always buy MS - "because, hey, MS is a reputable company. They're accountable for their software". It's a mentality which goes along the lines of "Companies are better than a gang of hippies, doing it because they want to make the world a better place man."
Same old same old - whilst this will undoubtedly be technically better than anything Diebold can come up with, politcal motives will bury this initiative I fear.
money != happiness
when they post articles to /.
Here's the debugged code for real:
if( currentState == readingSlashdot ) {
girlFriend = NULL;
pr0nCollection++; }
In other news, new codecs were announced by the Ogg team today:
Crob Pimbly
Stratfunk Mungler
and the instantly memborable
Sibrov Ggo
Oh please!!! Fuck right off you hippy asshat.
So people who want to make music should resign themselves to a life of poverty?
cf. I love programming - In fact I program video games for a living, I get paid reasonable $$$, and I am very happy with my job. But I couldn't do it for free, nor would I want to.
Sometimes, I do wonder if guys like you live in the real world, where mom & pop can't bankroll you, and where things like houses and food actually cost money.
Here's some news for ya...
KLINGONS AREN'T REAL!!!
Sheesh, some people... :-)
There doesn't seem to be a business plan or strategy in place here - just knee jerk reactions to what is perceived as currently profitable, or upswinging markets.
It's sad, but Amiga has been kicked to death by a bunch of inept owners...