They're training an army of ultra-key-turning commandos! Rest of the world, cower in fear of our wrist-twisting ability! Writhe under the power of our button-pressing skills, and crumble before the might of out handle-pulling strength!
That last category was just terrible. By which I mean that it was awesome. But only having one vote to spread among that selection of classics was mind-wrenching.
I voted for Chrono Trigger. And that hurt. Because it was right under XCom. And...argh...too painful.
I think it pretty much is impossible in RTS, in a client-client model, at least.
One client's machine can not ever be trusted to watch it's own action and make sure it's within the rules, ever. The only alternative is to let the OTHER client(s) check, and then they have too much information.
There's no middle ground, see. It's not a complicated issue. What more research can you do?
It's a multimedia item, and it looks to be pretty low bandwidth. Now the server is actually on fire somewhere and only about ten Slashdotters got to hear the hamsters play.
Gah, your ideas make me feel light and giddy...too far they're so far from fruition.
I'm thinking of games of totally different genres that not only just exist in the same world but have a profound effect on each other. MMO's are all about persistent worlds, and ideally worlds that are largely shaped by the actions of the users, right? Now I've got my picture in my mind of one world, that has maybe three or four types of games to play in it, all of which effect the world of the other games.
Example: Say you have a huge-scale RTS game of some kind, where territory is gained and lost, cities created and destroyed. Then, in the same world, you have an RPG where the creation and destruction of cities in the RTS, the movement of territory, etc., is accurately reflected.
Granted, such things would be incredibly hard to design properly, and maybe the possibilities are really very limited, or nonexistent, while keeping all the games fun. Maybe it's impossible to work out a lot of the pacing and scale issues between genres. But I'd sure as hell like to see what IS possible.
Plus I never needed to look down at the controller the first time I played a GameCube game. Er...square? What's the intuitive location for a square, and how does that differ from circle?
GameCube has A. First. Primary. Big. Then B. Like A, but less important. Then X, to the right, and Y, up. Or, for the letter-impaired, big circle, small circle, bean one, bean two. All of them EEL different, you know where your fingers are. And you always know that no matter what game you play, A means confirm, B means cancel.
Beats the hell out of faintly printed symbols on small, identical buttons.
Of course, that's in addition to what you said about the fantastic comfort level of the thing. Nine out of ten people who say that beautiful thing is awkward to use haven't given it a chance. Though I loved it right out of the box.
Don't take mine though. Take my little sister's MicroCon(?) version. Now THAT controller is too small.
I take offense to the terrible treatment that giant robot games recieve.
In all seriousness, Zone of Enders II: The Second Runner is my favorite PS2 game. And that's all about the robots.
Also, I found it interesting that they could talk about games that looked cool but aren't really as fun as they look, and yet mention Devil May Cry as one of the console's great titles.
But come on. More love for the giant robots, please.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work at all in practice, even in a server-based model.
The major method of cheating in a WarCraft III game is via a map hack.
The server-side solution to this is to only send what the player can see to the player.
Problems arise with lag, when the player can't see units as soon as he should. It also means for a significant number of extra fun computations on the server, which is probably pretty busy as it is, and that will likely just add to the first problem.
This is all irrelevant, though. War3 doesn't use a server-based model. A game over bNet runs just like a game over a LAN. For the player to only recieve data on units he can see, then the opposing machine must know where he has units! It can't work.
That's pretty standard, really. Cease and desist letters are always scary and irrationally worded, if never outright lies. "Methods of operation" is such a vague term, it can mean practically anything. Hell, forget RTS, maybe it's talking about the use of mouse and keyboard. Or a machine that computes things. Or a device that has metal parts.
Or maybe it means building a Command Center which can then build SCVs and allows a Barracks which allows an Armory which allows you to build Firebats...okay, I haven't even played that game for about two years.
That's the point, though. Say terrifying things. Make them think you could sue the pants off of God so you don't have to try to sue the pants off them.
The War3 EULA forbids the hosting or providing of any alternative matchmaking services. (See 3.C.iv, it was the same in the beta, just like it was for StarCraft.) So there's another legal basis for you. Unless the coders divised the network protocols via divine inspiration and without the use of the War3 software, that can be applied.
I feel for anybody whose circumstances prevent them from playing on bNet. But as long as a project like this gives the ability for anybody to effortlessly negate Blizzard's main layer of piracy control, as well as providing a tool to use in developing cheats that will work on bNet (by providing a nice reference on the network protocol), I fully agree with Blizzard's decision to shut it down. It's indisputable that bnetd provided both of those things, and I'm pretty sure that some form of copy protection wasn't on their list of future features, either. Neither did they plan on closing the source to deny bad cheaters easy reference.
I'm not saying that piracy and cheating don't happen on bNet, of course. But the way I see it taking things like this out of the picture is like locking your door in a bad neighborhood. It sucks for a guy walking by who needs some shelter, but is that really going to change your mind about it?
Your statement relies on the presumption that the targetted user is completely innocent of violating the RIAA copyrights (or those of the copyright holders that they represent).
So you're saying his statement follows the most basic premise of the United States judicial system? Imagine that!
Pffft. Why bother when Double Dash is just so much better anyway?:)
Really, a realistic racing game (or a realistic anything) doesn't seem like something Nintendo would put high on its agenda, and so really shouldn't be something a GameCube owner is looking for.
To me, saying a Nintendo system is lacking a good realistic racing game is like...like saying my BMW lacks guided missile launchers. It would be nice to have, but come on, was anybody really expecting otherwise?
I only have about ten games, myself, and am also poor...;) When I look around, I see people owning way more games for the other two players than for their GameCubes.
That means something. It's actually pretty interesting, as I see it. Now, most of those relatively few games everybody has are the same--I know about thirty GameCube owners and every single one has SSB:M. Anyway, it means that the games are so damn good you only need a few.
If this were the case for Sony or Microsoft, it would really suck for them. If overall better games means overall less sales, it also means less profit. Which is an interesting paradox, isn't it? But Nintendo's first-party focus makes this work! The games that they make, and ultimately take ALL the profit for, are the ones that sell like mad. I'm sure they get much more money from five first-party sales than ten third-party.
Ultimately they can let their customers spend less, yet get to keep more themselves.
Is there something wrong with this analysis? It really looks almost too good to be true.
Slashdot Mirror
At my school a lot of the coaches had everybody pair off with whoever they were closest to in speed, and then made those two race.
It actually helps. You've never going to be entertained if you don't want to be, and all it takes is some kind of goal if you do.
After all, winning a race is exactly as good as getting a good score in a game, really.
There aren't any governors whimpering in California!
I hope you left enough room for my governorship, because I'm going to ram it into your stomach!
They're training an army of ultra-key-turning commandos! Rest of the world, cower in fear of our wrist-twisting ability! Writhe under the power of our button-pressing skills, and crumble before the might of out handle-pulling strength!
Ooh, I'm like a poet.
The problem with that is that an EMP does a hell of a lot more that keep you from opening your car.
I mean, didn't you see The Italian Job? Heh, yeah...no, really. It wasn't an EMP.
That last category was just terrible. By which I mean that it was awesome. But only having one vote to spread among that selection of classics was mind-wrenching.
I voted for Chrono Trigger. And that hurt. Because it was right under XCom. And...argh...too painful.
I am a betrayer.
That would be StarCraft. I spent more than half my gaming time ( which averages at about 7 hours a day) on it up until about a year ago...ahhh.
And yet, I've already completely stopped playing WarCraft III. What's up with that?
That's why the GameFAQs character battles are far, far better than this.
Oh, and the whole contest aspect...with the prizes!
And so, Sienar Fleet Systems is born to handle future production.
Just wait until Russia counters with Incom Corporation!
I think it pretty much is impossible in RTS, in a client-client model, at least.
One client's machine can not ever be trusted to watch it's own action and make sure it's within the rules, ever. The only alternative is to let the OTHER client(s) check, and then they have too much information.
There's no middle ground, see. It's not a complicated issue. What more research can you do?
*Points to empty Bawls bottle.*
Look! It's my Phantom! I added a Bawls bottle!
It's a multimedia item, and it looks to be pretty low bandwidth. Now the server is actually on fire somewhere and only about ten Slashdotters got to hear the hamsters play.
Gah, your ideas make me feel light and giddy...too far they're so far from fruition.
I'm thinking of games of totally different genres that not only just exist in the same world but have a profound effect on each other. MMO's are all about persistent worlds, and ideally worlds that are largely shaped by the actions of the users, right? Now I've got my picture in my mind of one world, that has maybe three or four types of games to play in it, all of which effect the world of the other games.
Example: Say you have a huge-scale RTS game of some kind, where territory is gained and lost, cities created and destroyed. Then, in the same world, you have an RPG where the creation and destruction of cities in the RTS, the movement of territory, etc., is accurately reflected.
Granted, such things would be incredibly hard to design properly, and maybe the possibilities are really very limited, or nonexistent, while keeping all the games fun. Maybe it's impossible to work out a lot of the pacing and scale issues between genres. But I'd sure as hell like to see what IS possible.
Plus I never needed to look down at the controller the first time I played a GameCube game. Er...square? What's the intuitive location for a square, and how does that differ from circle?
GameCube has A. First. Primary. Big. Then B. Like A, but less important. Then X, to the right, and Y, up. Or, for the letter-impaired, big circle, small circle, bean one, bean two. All of them EEL different, you know where your fingers are. And you always know that no matter what game you play, A means confirm, B means cancel.
Beats the hell out of faintly printed symbols on small, identical buttons.
Of course, that's in addition to what you said about the fantastic comfort level of the thing. Nine out of ten people who say that beautiful thing is awkward to use haven't given it a chance. Though I loved it right out of the box.
Don't take mine though. Take my little sister's MicroCon(?) version. Now THAT controller is too small.
I take offense to the terrible treatment that giant robot games recieve.
In all seriousness, Zone of Enders II: The Second Runner is my favorite PS2 game. And that's all about the robots.
Also, I found it interesting that they could talk about games that looked cool but aren't really as fun as they look, and yet mention Devil May Cry as one of the console's great titles.
But come on. More love for the giant robots, please.
I don't think they were shut down...They just died.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work at all in practice, even in a server-based model.
The major method of cheating in a WarCraft III game is via a map hack.
The server-side solution to this is to only send what the player can see to the player.
Problems arise with lag, when the player can't see units as soon as he should. It also means for a significant number of extra fun computations on the server, which is probably pretty busy as it is, and that will likely just add to the first problem.
This is all irrelevant, though. War3 doesn't use a server-based model. A game over bNet runs just like a game over a LAN. For the player to only recieve data on units he can see, then the opposing machine must know where he has units! It can't work.
That's pretty standard, really. Cease and desist letters are always scary and irrationally worded, if never outright lies. "Methods of operation" is such a vague term, it can mean practically anything. Hell, forget RTS, maybe it's talking about the use of mouse and keyboard. Or a machine that computes things. Or a device that has metal parts.
Or maybe it means building a Command Center which can then build SCVs and allows a Barracks which allows an Armory which allows you to build Firebats...okay, I haven't even played that game for about two years.
That's the point, though. Say terrifying things. Make them think you could sue the pants off of God so you don't have to try to sue the pants off them.
Shady, yeah, but what isn't these days?
The War3 EULA forbids the hosting or providing of any alternative matchmaking services. (See 3.C.iv, it was the same in the beta, just like it was for StarCraft.) So there's another legal basis for you. Unless the coders divised the network protocols via divine inspiration and without the use of the War3 software, that can be applied.
Well, they are the only game developer I know of that has an enforcement policy...
And they do ban cheaters' CD-keys. The more cheats there are, the more complicated the enforcement work gets.
I will certainly agree that it wasn't the main motive, however.
I feel for anybody whose circumstances prevent them from playing on bNet. But as long as a project like this gives the ability for anybody to effortlessly negate Blizzard's main layer of piracy control, as well as providing a tool to use in developing cheats that will work on bNet (by providing a nice reference on the network protocol), I fully agree with Blizzard's decision to shut it down. It's indisputable that bnetd provided both of those things, and I'm pretty sure that some form of copy protection wasn't on their list of future features, either. Neither did they plan on closing the source to deny bad cheaters easy reference.
I'm not saying that piracy and cheating don't happen on bNet, of course. But the way I see it taking things like this out of the picture is like locking your door in a bad neighborhood. It sucks for a guy walking by who needs some shelter, but is that really going to change your mind about it?
Your statement relies on the presumption that the targetted user is completely innocent of violating the RIAA copyrights (or those of the copyright holders that they represent).
So you're saying his statement follows the most basic premise of the United States judicial system? Imagine that!
Microsoft and the RIAA are NOT comparable in size, assets or influence.
In fact, I think one of those Microsoft shits-on-the-lawn could contain the RIAA in its entirety.
Hence the controversy, and hence the need for evidence.
Pffft. Why bother when Double Dash is just so much better anyway? :)
Really, a realistic racing game (or a realistic anything) doesn't seem like something Nintendo would put high on its agenda, and so really shouldn't be something a GameCube owner is looking for.
To me, saying a Nintendo system is lacking a good realistic racing game is like...like saying my BMW lacks guided missile launchers. It would be nice to have, but come on, was anybody really expecting otherwise?
I only have about ten games, myself, and am also poor... ;) When I look around, I see people owning way more games for the other two players than for their GameCubes.
That means something. It's actually pretty interesting, as I see it. Now, most of those relatively few games everybody has are the same--I know about thirty GameCube owners and every single one has SSB:M. Anyway, it means that the games are so damn good you only need a few.
If this were the case for Sony or Microsoft, it would really suck for them. If overall better games means overall less sales, it also means less profit. Which is an interesting paradox, isn't it? But Nintendo's first-party focus makes this work! The games that they make, and ultimately take ALL the profit for, are the ones that sell like mad. I'm sure they get much more money from five first-party sales than ten third-party.
Ultimately they can let their customers spend less, yet get to keep more themselves.
Is there something wrong with this analysis? It really looks almost too good to be true.