Blocking information in this century is really a grave mistake. We've finally reached a stage where the entire data is at our fingers - if Douglas Adams were alive, he'd say Earth has finally finished calculating the ultimate question. Why is a govt. afraid of it's online content? Sounds like those Nazi days of Germany when it was previleged to have uncensorsed information about the rest of the world. The Chinese need to do something.
Tchah... Sounds a lot like the current state of the US, too. Their corner of the Internet may not be actively censored, but have you ever paid close attention to what you see on TV? Most channels and corporations self-censor, or are censored by concerned parental organisations.
America will never have this problem thanks to the constant influx of amigos from south of the border.
Obviously, the influx of workforces from North Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East is nothing compared to the invaluable workforces supplied by the Middle Americas.
Whatever happened 60 years ago is of little relevance when discussing currentday economics. Most European countries appear to have realised the need for diversification and co-operation. The latest additions to the European Union bring its population to a relevant number in dealings with world powers. Of course, this'll still just be economic - it's silly to debate military power.
I'm much more concerned with what'll happen in (and with) China if they continue to grow and expand the way they have in recent years. They're likely to go through the same phases the western world has gone through, at an accelerated rate. The system's unlikely to be able to cope with the number of unemployed created by automation of work processes in order to reduce cost. It might not be much of a factor at the moment, because the need for autmation depends on demand (ironicaly from "us" westerners), and the cost of labor. Both are at managable levels at the moment.
It's in everyone's interest that the game be balanced. It seems strange to think that people would vote against their own interest.
It might be, but people want to win, to be first, to have the most power. Preciously -few- players would want a fair game, except when they're on the wrong side of the balance.
Competition itself negates any urge for a balanced game.
Yeah.. except that the concept has been around (and publicated online) since Underlight went beta at the end of 1997. It's not an unreasonable evolution:).
The closest thing we have to any change in the status quo is smaller developers creating niche games and selling the directly to the market, like my own company. But, really, it's not that glamorous. I have thick skin because I have to continuously hear how my game is "too old" or "too ugly" to play even though Meridian 59, all humility aside, is the best PvP experience you can get in any online RPG. Yet, a lot of people simply cannot get past production values and really appreciate the gameplay. And, hey, I'd love to have the prettyest graphics and the neatest animations, but that costs a lot of money, and the only way I'd be able to get that money is to sign a publisher contract in my own blood. And, I've just been ranting about how damaging that usually is to the game....
Indie developers have very little influence on what the big publishers do, unless, like id with DooM, they somehow manage to strike gold.
There's another game of the same generation as Meridian 59, which was seriously duped by the developer game. Publisher A promises to invest a sum, but withdraws these funds after deciding "MMOGs" are risky - this publisher no longer exists. Publisher B invests a minor sum with a promise of more later on; this publisher later on retracts the offer and drops the project. The developing studio is left floundering, but manages to sign a deal with a new partner (not much better than making a deal with the devil, at this point). The game is released in an unfinished state, but is still a modest success. In 2000, the contract expires, and the two parties part ways; the developer hosts the game in-house from then on.
In the meantime, the developer in question has started working on a self-funded sequel to the game. I guess it's a similar situation as Near Death Studios. They look for potential publishing partners, but have no pressing need to tie themselve to a publisher's demands by signing strangling contract. It's probably the best situation to be in, in the current climate, though also the riskiest.
In case you're wondering, plastic is generally made from crude oil. Crude oil, as you know, is a fossil fuel. Fossil fuels are also needed to produce glass, metal or other parts. All parts. It's not surprising this much goes into production. Of course, in another 20-40 years, we'll probably be using starch as a basis for plastics, as the world will have run out of oil.
Microsoft TCO figures were written by father christmas himself. And the tooth fairy will be here any day now with a check for all those hours I could not "Bill" because it wouldn't work as advertised...
This makes me wonder why I haven't had to spend more than 2 or 3 hours last year "fixing" my system running Windows 2000 - quite a low TCO, really. Which is about the same amount of time I spent that same year "fixing" my Debian box. Heck, even at work, where I manage about 40 XP boxes, 10 Linux boxes and a few Macs running OS-X, and users have full control over their own machines, the average attended maintenance time per Windows machine isn't much more than 8 hours a year. I may just be really lucky, but any half-decent sysadmin plans, audits and anticipates.
Windows is guaranteed to run on hardware listed on the hardware compatibility list. If you pick any other hardware, it's pretty much your own responsibility to get it to work (and rightfully so). You'll find the same goes for pretty much any flavour OS.
Heh next thing you know, Ultima Online is racking in money for pioneering graphical MMORPGs.
And they'd be wrong. In the US, Meridian 59 is the first graphical MMORPG. Depending on your definition of MMORPG, it's not unlikely there's even an earlier candidate.
Folks are way too focussed on the fact that it was a game. It's totally irrelevant what the data was. The guy was paying them to store his data, whether it's game data, financial documents, tax returns, or whatever. And most likely, they won't even allow you to store the data yourself, so it's not like he could have had a backup.
That's assuming it was his data to begin with. Realistically, all this person pays for is access to a server, with the ability to use database records which are owned by the company who also owns the game. There's no other way to describe this; this person has never owned the character, or the character's items.
Of course, I'm sick of these arguments. They -are- just games, and you pay for the service tu use their servers, their database, and their game mechanics. That's all.
This is just the problem with MMORPG's, no matter how hard you try, and unless you have absolutely no life, no job, and don't mind going a few days without a shower, there's absolutely no way you can expect to complete any MMORPG in any satisfying amount of time. In fact, they'll usually take years to complete even if you *do* spend obscene amounts of time working on it.
Actually, I believe this is the flaw with players, merely stimulated by the level treadmill and projection of play styles from other types of games. One shouldn't try to complete an MMORPG - they're about the journey, not about the destination. Try just playing the game, building a character, socializing with other players, exploring the environments. I bet it can be as much fun as a MUD; and just as mature.
Don't try to beat the game - it's not made for that. It's the most frustrating way to play a game with no defined end.
....the fact that these stories about obscure game design theories usually end up with less than a dozen posts ought to tell the editors something. Nobody cares but the editors. There are far better things to cover. Do so, please.
Actually, I'm a lot more interested in this type of story, than those dealing with 'fantastic news about New Game X, or Evil Company Y'. The number of responses may not be overly high, because it's not considered "sensational", but that really doesn't bother me. It's a useful bit of info to me, anyway, and that's why I read games./. Post numbers don't necessarily determine the quality of an entry.
Yes it will, if it's a.com or.net domain. The other registrars pay Verisign.
Granted. There's just a significant difference between the $1 or less they get from other registrars per domain, or the $15+ they get from their own registry service. Considering it saves me the hassle of having to get new business cards, new paper and envelopes and a truckload of other office supplies, I don't think it's a bad compromise at all.
Unlike some people, for-profit organizations cannot afford to change their domains on a whim, simply for the sake of idealism.
Um. This may come as a surprise, but why not move your.com or.net registrations to another registrar, like MelbourneIT.com.au or one of the others? It's probably cheaper, and they won't be the ones forcing wildcard records down your throat.
Sure, this won't change the root servers, but your money won't end up with Verisign anymore, and you'll have a lot less expenses with all those business cards.
When are these elections held? I'm on the electoral register and have been for years - I've voted in two general elections and a number of local elections, I may have moved a couple of times but I've never had any notice or ballot cards through for European elections, not once.
EU parliament positions are generally for a duration of 5 years, and are usually similar to national elections (I'm not sure if there's still a representative vote in some member states). For the UK, this means parliament members are elected as described here (note that it changed before the 1999 elections). Your not getting a ballot has to be blamed on local government; I've had to elect my representatives twice already.
All in all, this type of democracy isn't much different from the representative system that's used in the US (Except that we don't bother trying to elect a central president. We know that won't work in Europe.) Each member state has a proportional number of parliament members, and will supply members depending on a national vote. That puts countries like the UK, France, Italy and Germany in a serious advantage compared to Belgium, Luxemburg and The Netherlands. If your government doesn't attempt to represent your views, take it up with them. The distributions of seats sure shouldn't stop them.:)
Ah.. But Lord of the Rings isn't immediately a Hollywood flick. Further more, the LotR audience does have much higher standards than the Tomb Raider audience. Tomb Raider started out as a game. Lord of the Rings started out as a book. It's not fair to compain a seriously weak setting like Tomb Raider to an extremely rich and deep setting like Middle-Earth.
The 'big' expectations people have for Tomb Raider tend to have to do with boobage and original gameplay. Eidos messed up - the game's controls and gameplay are as bad as those in the Lord of the Rings game. Paramount messed up - the movie had an incoherent script, and quite a few action scenes seem to be added "because they could".
A lot of people have high expectations from anything to do with Middle-Earth - it's the result of 'knowing' the books. That's why the Middle-Earth trading card game never really got off the ground all that well. That's why most game titles based on original Middle-Earth licenses die a slow death. The primary fanbase has a much better idea of what things should look like than game developers could ever implement, raising the bar for these games to almost impossible heights. Of course, if a studio then decides to release a half-tested game, it'll just crash and burn.
Peter Jackson's interpretation of the story opens the setting to people who ordinarily wouldn't have considered reading the books. This secondary fanbase knows the story only from the movies, and while 10 hours of film has a lot of footage, it's still only an interpretation. They will have a much easier time to identify with game characters based on movie characters based on a single person's interpretation of story characters than the primary fanbase, who have to relate game characters to their individual interpretations of the story characters. I think any game based on the movie license will have a much easier time selling than those based on an original license.
They may be 'destroying' the WoD, but it helps if you read the press release.
For those wondering, here's the relevant snippet:
May 2004
Vampire: The Eternal Struggle -- Gehenna (ISBN 1-58846-626-4)
-- a new booster set for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle featuring cards based on the Time of Judgment.
An all-new World of Darkness launches in August of 2004.
In short, it's just a big event leading up to a re-invention of WoD.
Slashdot Mirror
-T
There are 10 types of people...
America will never have this problem thanks to the constant influx of amigos from south of the border.
Obviously, the influx of workforces from North Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East is nothing compared to the invaluable workforces supplied by the Middle Americas.
Whatever happened 60 years ago is of little relevance when discussing currentday economics. Most European countries appear to have realised the need for diversification and co-operation. The latest additions to the European Union bring its population to a relevant number in dealings with world powers. Of course, this'll still just be economic - it's silly to debate military power.
I'm much more concerned with what'll happen in (and with) China if they continue to grow and expand the way they have in recent years. They're likely to go through the same phases the western world has gone through, at an accelerated rate. The system's unlikely to be able to cope with the number of unemployed created by automation of work processes in order to reduce cost. It might not be much of a factor at the moment, because the need for autmation depends on demand (ironicaly from "us" westerners), and the cost of labor. Both are at managable levels at the moment.
It might be, but people want to win, to be first, to have the most power. Preciously -few- players would want a fair game, except when they're on the wrong side of the balance.
Competition itself negates any urge for a balanced game.
Yeah.. except that the concept has been around (and publicated online) since Underlight went beta at the end of 1997. It's not an unreasonable evolution :).
You'll be happy to know that MCI (UUNET/Worldcom) use a significant portion of Juniper equipment, nowadays.
Indie developers have very little influence on what the big publishers do, unless, like id with DooM, they somehow manage to strike gold.
There's another game of the same generation as Meridian 59, which was seriously duped by the developer game. Publisher A promises to invest a sum, but withdraws these funds after deciding "MMOGs" are risky - this publisher no longer exists. Publisher B invests a minor sum with a promise of more later on; this publisher later on retracts the offer and drops the project. The developing studio is left floundering, but manages to sign a deal with a new partner (not much better than making a deal with the devil, at this point). The game is released in an unfinished state, but is still a modest success. In 2000, the contract expires, and the two parties part ways; the developer hosts the game in-house from then on.
In the meantime, the developer in question has started working on a self-funded sequel to the game. I guess it's a similar situation as Near Death Studios. They look for potential publishing partners, but have no pressing need to tie themselve to a publisher's demands by signing strangling contract. It's probably the best situation to be in, in the current climate, though also the riskiest.
-T
In case you're wondering, plastic is generally made from crude oil. Crude oil, as you know, is a fossil fuel. Fossil fuels are also needed to produce glass, metal or other parts. All parts. It's not surprising this much goes into production. Of course, in another 20-40 years, we'll probably be using starch as a basis for plastics, as the world will have run out of oil.
-T
You're right. It was Philips' Video 2000 which had superior quality and up to 4 hours of play time.
This makes me wonder why I haven't had to spend more than 2 or 3 hours last year "fixing" my system running Windows 2000 - quite a low TCO, really. Which is about the same amount of time I spent that same year "fixing" my Debian box. Heck, even at work, where I manage about 40 XP boxes, 10 Linux boxes and a few Macs running OS-X, and users have full control over their own machines, the average attended maintenance time per Windows machine isn't much more than 8 hours a year. I may just be really lucky, but any half-decent sysadmin plans, audits and anticipates.
Windows is guaranteed to run on hardware listed on the hardware compatibility list. If you pick any other hardware, it's pretty much your own responsibility to get it to work (and rightfully so). You'll find the same goes for pretty much any flavour OS.
And they'd be wrong. In the US, Meridian 59 is the first graphical MMORPG. Depending on your definition of MMORPG, it's not unlikely there's even an earlier candidate.
That's assuming it was his data to begin with. Realistically, all this person pays for is access to a server, with the ability to use database records which are owned by the company who also owns the game. There's no other way to describe this; this person has never owned the character, or the character's items.
Of course, I'm sick of these arguments. They -are- just games, and you pay for the service tu use their servers, their database, and their game mechanics. That's all.
Or Video 2000 for that matter. Ultimately much better technology and quality than either betamax or VHS, but not adopted by consumers.
Actually, I believe this is the flaw with players, merely stimulated by the level treadmill and projection of play styles from other types of games. One shouldn't try to complete an MMORPG - they're about the journey, not about the destination. Try just playing the game, building a character, socializing with other players, exploring the environments. I bet it can be as much fun as a MUD; and just as mature.
Don't try to beat the game - it's not made for that. It's the most frustrating way to play a game with no defined end.
-T
Actually, I'm a lot more interested in this type of story, than those dealing with 'fantastic news about New Game X, or Evil Company Y'. The number of responses may not be overly high, because it's not considered "sensational", but that really doesn't bother me. It's a useful bit of info to me, anyway, and that's why I read games./. Post numbers don't necessarily determine the quality of an entry.
-T
Yes it will, if it's a .com or .net domain. The other registrars pay Verisign.
Granted. There's just a significant difference between the $1 or less they get from other registrars per domain, or the $15+ they get from their own registry service. Considering it saves me the hassle of having to get new business cards, new paper and envelopes and a truckload of other office supplies, I don't think it's a bad compromise at all.
Unlike some people, for-profit organizations cannot afford to change their domains on a whim, simply for the sake of idealism.
Um. This may come as a surprise, but why not move your .com or .net registrations to another registrar, like MelbourneIT.com.au or one of the others? It's probably cheaper, and they won't be the ones forcing wildcard records down your throat.
Sure, this won't change the root servers, but your money won't end up with Verisign anymore, and you'll have a lot less expenses with all those business cards.
When are these elections held? I'm on the electoral register and have been for years - I've voted in two general elections and a number of local elections, I may have moved a couple of times but I've never had any notice or ballot cards through for European elections, not once.
EU parliament positions are generally for a duration of 5 years, and are usually similar to national elections (I'm not sure if there's still a representative vote in some member states). For the UK, this means parliament members are elected as described here (note that it changed before the 1999 elections). Your not getting a ballot has to be blamed on local government; I've had to elect my representatives twice already.
All in all, this type of democracy isn't much different from the representative system that's used in the US (Except that we don't bother trying to elect a central president. We know that won't work in Europe.) Each member state has a proportional number of parliament members, and will supply members depending on a national vote. That puts countries like the UK, France, Italy and Germany in a serious advantage compared to Belgium, Luxemburg and The Netherlands. If your government doesn't attempt to represent your views, take it up with them. The distributions of seats sure shouldn't stop them. :)
Ah.. But Lord of the Rings isn't immediately a Hollywood flick. Further more, the LotR audience does have much higher standards than the Tomb Raider audience. Tomb Raider started out as a game. Lord of the Rings started out as a book. It's not fair to compain a seriously weak setting like Tomb Raider to an extremely rich and deep setting like Middle-Earth.
The 'big' expectations people have for Tomb Raider tend to have to do with boobage and original gameplay. Eidos messed up - the game's controls and gameplay are as bad as those in the Lord of the Rings game. Paramount messed up - the movie had an incoherent script, and quite a few action scenes seem to be added "because they could".
A lot of people have high expectations from anything to do with Middle-Earth - it's the result of 'knowing' the books. That's why the Middle-Earth trading card game never really got off the ground all that well. That's why most game titles based on original Middle-Earth licenses die a slow death. The primary fanbase has a much better idea of what things should look like than game developers could ever implement, raising the bar for these games to almost impossible heights. Of course, if a studio then decides to release a half-tested game, it'll just crash and burn.
Peter Jackson's interpretation of the story opens the setting to people who ordinarily wouldn't have considered reading the books. This secondary fanbase knows the story only from the movies, and while 10 hours of film has a lot of footage, it's still only an interpretation. They will have a much easier time to identify with game characters based on movie characters based on a single person's interpretation of story characters than the primary fanbase, who have to relate game characters to their individual interpretations of the story characters. I think any game based on the movie license will have a much easier time selling than those based on an original license.
For those wondering, here's the relevant snippet:
May 2004
Vampire: The Eternal Struggle -- Gehenna (ISBN 1-58846-626-4) -- a new booster set for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle featuring cards based on the Time of Judgment.
An all-new World of Darkness launches in August of 2004.
In short, it's just a big event leading up to a re-invention of WoD.