LOL, of course you don't have to do the crime to do the time!
Haven't you seen the email evidence procured from Yahoo themselves of the Al-Qaeda 3 that helped convict them of intending to bomb airlines using liquid explosives?
"Coded" emails were sent about CDs and DVDs as well as Projectors....
Damning stuff that!
I think the Martyrdom videos they made were much more incriminating. Unless they were *really* gloomy rap videos.
I agree in that I have been a life long gamer and was "surprised" at how sobering I found the actual footage from a gunner position on a C130 Spectre gunship. A lot of gamers today will recognise it because that scenario was part of the popular game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The gunner positions have enhanced visual aids and you could see little man shaped IR silhouettes running about and bright unfolding blossoms on the screen when the explosions from the howitzer or grenade launcher went off. Some figures would just lie down and not move and then you realised that they were probably dead. Others ran in different directions and the audio would calmly id targets and call in the targeting. As I said, very sobering when you know it's real. However, I was still able to play that scenario in COD4:-) Also having held some real pistols in the UK (a rare event for us on this side of the pond!) that too was a "sobering" experience as soon as the ammo was loaded (a gun toting buddy has nsp'd them first). Quite different from the "murder simulator"/desensitiser of Airsoft guns which I have played with quite a bit previously. Essentially, I think it's all about the reality. Games are not real, they are pretend. As soon as it becomes real or related to life, the context has changed and we're in new mental territory. What would be interesting in the context thing, would be to take something completely unrelated to video games and make it real. If you told people in a soccer match that the goals they scored meant people were executed, how would they feel? What about Chess? It could just be a button on a wall that random people on the street press. Probably quite sick once the "player" was informed of the reality!
Hmmm... I thought China was concentrating on Pebble Bed Reactors. Had big plans to roll out modular 1MW units to stack to need.
According to Wikipedia and my own pet South African Nuclear Engineer, Pebble Bed Reactors do indeed not go into runaway chain reaction processes! There's some physical effect that stops the chain reaction leading to meltdown process. Kinda similar to the way you can't hold your breath until you die (without specific and additional actions that is). Doesn't mean you can't get radioactive material release, but at least you can't get a Chernobyl.
So to say the 275 takes the cake is rather a strange view.
Nvidia and AMD are both very savvy and big organisations. They have products aimed at all market sectors now. From budget gamers to bleeding edge competition sponsored gamers.
TBO, to choose a graphics card today, you have to know which games you play. Cos both Nvidia and AMD have roughly equivilant cards for the performance and the budget. Yup, it's that close a race!
The other factors you have to consider are Chosen output? (pretty much determined by your optimal flat panel resolution these days!). No point looking at 24" panel resolution results (1900x1200) when all you have is a 19" (1280x1024)
How pretty you like it? Note the two values above. The second value is lower as it uses AA at varying levels. Think of it like putting the roof down on a convertible car. Car looks and feels great, but the performance hit is quite noticable. Similarly to cars, some ppl can't live without that AA feature turned on (along with AF too!). So when comparing the numbers, find out if those features are essential to you.
NB: DO NOT USE THE ONBOARD GRAPHICS RAM AMOUNT AS AN INDICATOR! The graphics card manufacturers these days have cottoned onto that one. It's a bit like having 16 valves on a ford fiesta 1.1L. it'll improve it but in the end it's still a tiny 1.1 litre engine. Similarly with graphics cards.
Now I'm not espousing Tomshardware, but this page is the only one with a complete hierarchy that i've found that shows a rough relative performance with older cards too, so you can really see whether it's worth an upgrade. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-gtx-radeon,review-31515-6.html Also has some mobile graphics cards listed too, so you can see what portability is costing you performance and price wise!
the issue really is what is the point of making a game MM ie Massively Multiplayer. There was a game called UltraCorps that was MMOspace strategy. But because you only interacted with those immediately around you, it meant only 3-4 ppl in reality. Of course, being successful bought it's own issues. If you thought having a war on 2 fronts was bad, try playing against 30 when you've conquered a few players/territories.
Planetside being a FPS MMO really had something extra for the scale that came with a MMO. You had all the various parts of a military campaign, from artillery to heavy armour, to gunships and bombers. The other thing was that because of the network of bases providing functionality (like radar, or extra vehicles/equipment) for the entire network, this encouraged commando raids behind enemy lines to cripple said benefits. So on a good night we had armoured columns (troop carriers and tanks) with air cover from reaver gunships and mosquito air scouts, along with artillery and liberator bombers softening the target and galaxy dropships to do hot drops (2 Max suits, 6+ infantry and 1 vehicle). Plus the stealth/commando raids on network benefits. And that's not even considering the defender's options and having counter artillery or counter air screens etc.
I don't see where the MMO part of an RPG has a similar effect. There is no strategic level that is added with the scaling up to an MMO. It's just the same tactical situation that you could easily play in Diablo. Raids for instance just appear to be more in each tactical slot be it Tank, DPS, Healer etc.
However, I can see Super Teams in the DC Online having a better draw/reasoning behind it. But it's scarcely much above tactical...
Yes and like saying that turning off the standby mode on consumer electronics is going to save electriticy. On it's own, no significant effect. But what about the usual analogy to that butterfly in the amazon that creates hurricanes.
www.fantasticfiction.co.uk is a great site listing authors and their works (with links to buy from abeworld books).
But the best feature of the site is the Author Recommendations! Not every author does this unfortunately (Dan Simmons being one of them-probably because he has his own website for that). But what with the people looking at "Dan Simmons" also looked at section, you shouldn't find it hard to get similar material.
LOL, I wondered if anyone was thinking the same thing!
Your vantage point when you first enter the mission has you looking out over the battle-scarred ruins of a city. The terrorists are everywhere...
Heh, in my mind if the "terrorists" are everywhere, you might call them "resistance" or even "freedom fighters"!
Also makes you ask if you are "liberating" or "invading".
Funny thing is that there are plenty of games that has you start on the "wrong" side fighting the "good" fight, only to realise and throw you lot in with the "good" side to turn the tables and bring justice to all.
LOL I have an image of the game sending you back into the White House to kill the perpetrator of this atrocious war...:) But that probably wouldn't sell very well in the US and would be deemed anti-troop;)
Heh, well if you've been playing games since Doom, it's nice to get some variation.
One variation I have seen recently (amidst the "realistic" shooter or WWII fad) is ordering your team around.
Its funny that your rank is Sergeant but you don't seem to be giving anyone any orders. I've only played the demo on the PC, but no-one else has mentioned this in the reviews so I presume that this is not a focus of the COD series.
The entire Ghost Recon series (Advanced Warfighter 2 is the latest)lets you place your colleagues and really take charge of your squad if you want. As does the Rainbow Six series albeit in a much more urbanised environment. Brother's in Arms is another but WWII based. Heck, even Star Wars: Republic Commando does it!
Nolan Bushnell is correct in that most FPS are just dressed up prettier Dooms. The above though, have added a new dimension when playing the single player campaign.
I think COD4's "new" dimension (aka Unique Selling Point) is in the multiplayer in the "perks" you get with rank in playing online. Rather than focusing on equipment like the Battlefield series, they've given some abilities like the shooting thru walls or the last stand.
I wish however, that they'd done what Enemy Territory:Quake Wars did and lose the game bonuses once you quit a game. Makes the online games much more skill based. If I decide to play this game in 3 months after I've finished (Bioshock/Assassin's Creed/Crysis/Stalker/Episode2/Stranglehold - why, I believe COD4 is looking distinctly uncomfortable in the looks front, standing with that crowd!), I don't believe it's fair to have someone with much better weapons solely because they've played longer... Heh the issue with mixing it up with MMO games is you get the issues too! The good players in ET:QW will always/usually end up with the "rewards" in that game, but at least everyone starts out even...
LOL, I love it when the US protests against illegal trade barriers. Surely the foreign steel tariffs and more recently the Brazilian Ethanol/Biofuel tariffs do just the same...!
And someone else posted about China running over it's own ppl in APCs. Need I mention WACO or Rodney King or how about the recent Blue on Blue incident where the US Air Force with 2 A10s blows the crap out of a British Convoy that had the correct orange markers denoting friendlies?
All this proves though is that we can both relate completely unrelated but similar instances of injustice. We should stick to the topic in question which is trading rights between countries and the effect of piracy efforts.
Splinter Cell:Pandora's Tomorrow had a pretty unique Multiplayer that emphasised stealth. Well for one side anyway! 4 players maximum comprising 2 security and 2 infiltrators (Sam wannabes). The infiltrators need to do a Sam like mission and are similarly armed and equipped. This gives them the edge in observation and stealth and movement. The security have the edge in combat thru weapons and armour and a few items like alarms.
Cue constant battle of wits as each team attempts to capitalise on it's strengths (be they shotguns with torches, limpet mines to booby trap the targets/Night vision goggles, external walkways, Choke holds) or the opposing team's weaknesses ("he went out of the window/aircon?"/"woah, shotgun almost took my head off!") whilst attaining their goals.
Heh, it still gives me chills as I remember when another security guard and I ran up to one of the Important Document Rooms and looked about for what set off the alarm. Out of the shadows next to the brightly lit open door something reached out and took me in it's grip. Before I had time to counter I was going under and everything became a blur for a few seconds. By the time I recovered, the other security guard was out and the Important Documents were gone!
So very much in keeping with the game story line and giving you the chance to pit your sam skills against real intelligence (as opposed to scripted AI.
Spore is also going to be very interesting from that aspect too and last I heard, no-one said it was going to be a flop!
Hmmm, I wonder where Age of Conan will sit on this? I mean the big heroes and heroines are gonna want good portraits right? Nothing better than a big pile of corpses with you standing at the top looking regal.
As the man said, the best thing in life (and games?) is "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women"
Is there anything in WoW that the player next day can show his friends on a map the next day and say "See that? I was responsible for that!"
This is why I liked Planetside (which to be fair is not a MMORPG but a MMOFPS).
The scale and size of it meant you could get into the bigger picture (other than just killing) and do something and make a difference. It didn't last long (usually overnight) but you could point to an enemy front, indicate the base that suddenly went neutral and then changed allegiance and then became the focus point of a offensive action that reclaims the continent (essentially a commando raid behind enemy lines achieving a strategic strike that denied the Enemy resources).
I guess all the different ways of killing (using artillery with spotters, or flying troop carriers to air drop onto hostile bases, or flying fighter cover for your bombers that are pounding the vehicle production facilities of an enemy base) are no different from the character specialities/roles in WoW raid but somehow the co-ordination feels better.
This kind of thing was in the Battlefield 1942 Mod Desert Storm. Playing the Non-US side, the Spec Ops kit had a satchel charge that detonated immediately. Unfortunately this went the way of the Dodo by being deemed Non PC.
This sounds like the classic American fix for a pen that can be used in low gravity/free fall. $1M researching the Space Pen when the USSR used a pencil.
The answer to this problem might be in 2001: A Space Odyssey in which a very Russian approach was used.
Velcro. To turn it off - slip on covers.
Ok so it'll make for noisy steps. No ninjas in space. But like the pencil that effectively "leaks" graphite dust, the flaw hardly rules it out when the costly research hardly produces anything much improved.
Just like in Hollywood, a lot of protagonists revolved around the "perceived" threat of the times.
Soldier of Fortune for instance has gone thru the "Middle Eastern" country and South American Drug Barons.
China is now perceived as a viable threat as evinced in Command & Conquer: Generals
Picking the enemy is making a statement. You couldn't just pick the Vatican, or Albania (as happened in the movies Hudson Hawk, or Wag the Dog) without some kind of premise.
Is it preparing the hearts and minds of the public for a future conflict or just reflecting what's already there. With today's media war coverage, keeping public support is important and I don't think a game with the Palestinians being oppressed by the Israeli Army would market in the US of A at all.
Funnily enough, such a game does exist! IIRC Slashdot quickly "labeled" it as propaganda.
Battlefield 1942 had a mod where the Middle Eastern country had special forces troop type could suicide bomb and they were great for taking out tanks. That "feature" didn't survive long. And if it was non PC, how come we can still use flamethrowers?
So the next time you decimate the opposing forces, think about the real world equivilant. Is it just a reflection or is it projecting it's image into your head.
This is the second popular game I know of that features China as protagonist to the USA. The first being Command and Conquer Generals (ok, so Harpoon had scenarios with China too, but I did say popular and that was more wargaming).
Whilst I can laud the reality based imagination of the writers in finding the largest army in the current world, I don't like the way the lines in the sand are being drawn up.
We have already had Bush's Axis of Evil (not dictatorship or human right abuses but downright Evil), but it seems as though games are going to prep us for the next conflict.
In the Blue Corner, the US of A! "Truth, Justice and the American Way" Aircraft Carrier fleets in every major ocean just to make sure American Interests are "protected"
And in the Red Corner, we have China. "Red China" 0 Aircraft Carriers. Last Communist bastion so they gotta be "evil". Huge Market though, think of all those consumers!
And into this we have a game prepping the minds of gamers into accepting that China will be next in line for World Domination, entering a real game of risk if you ask EA.
As a contrast to a 16 player game where you are pretty stuck with the players you have, how do you organise almost 10,000 players? Yes, thats the number of active players on the European server for Planetside. Check the bottom of this stats page if you don't believe me! Essentially though, the system allows the setup of 10 man squads that share experience. The leader (the first to invite anyone else) also gets commmand points for base captures. The draw is that you should get more experience in a squad and the more exp, the more certifications for weapons/vehicles allowed...pretty good draw! Squads can also communicate easier and can see each other on maps as well as squad waypoints, but a recent update allowed three squads to be formed into a platoon and also see the other squads locations and their waypoints(objectives) too. There's a draw for squad leaders as they get additional command powers like setting waypoints, to battleplans on the map or at higher levels, usage of the orbital strike...heheheheh! Squads/platoons are purely "whilst playing" structures. If everyone logs off, the squad needs to be formed again. This brings up the Outfit which is almost a clan. Outfits are there so players can find ppl that want to play the way they like to. Outfits are persistent and you have to be invited into an outfit. You can communicate on an outfit level so that you can get invited into a squad that fits you eg: a tank squad or an airborned squad.
The leader feedback part though is pretty much "U don't like, U leave". After all, if you think you can do better, there is nothing to stop you setting up your own squad!
Slashdot Mirror
LOL, of course you don't have to do the crime to do the time!
Haven't you seen the email evidence procured from Yahoo themselves of the Al-Qaeda 3 that helped convict them of intending to bomb airlines using liquid explosives?
"Coded" emails were sent about CDs and DVDs as well as Projectors....
Damning stuff that!
I think the Martyrdom videos they made were much more incriminating. Unless they were *really* gloomy rap videos.
Ironicaly , the only convicted anthrax through the mail person was American...
Heh, Joel in the article says a similar line for "Duct Tape Programmers"
"Duct tape programmers have to have a lot of talent to pull off this shtick"
Anyone got a more succinct way of putting this like the above for architects?
I agree in that I have been a life long gamer and was "surprised" at how sobering I found the actual footage from a gunner position on a C130 Spectre gunship. A lot of gamers today will recognise it because that scenario was part of the popular game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. :-)
The gunner positions have enhanced visual aids and you could see little man shaped IR silhouettes running about and bright unfolding blossoms on the screen when the explosions from the howitzer or grenade launcher went off. Some figures would just lie down and not move and then you realised that they were probably dead. Others ran in different directions and the audio would calmly id targets and call in the targeting. As I said, very sobering when you know it's real. However, I was still able to play that scenario in COD4
Also having held some real pistols in the UK (a rare event for us on this side of the pond!) that too was a "sobering" experience as soon as the ammo was loaded (a gun toting buddy has nsp'd them first). Quite different from the "murder simulator"/desensitiser of Airsoft guns which I have played with quite a bit previously.
Essentially, I think it's all about the reality. Games are not real, they are pretend. As soon as it becomes real or related to life, the context has changed and we're in new mental territory.
What would be interesting in the context thing, would be to take something completely unrelated to video games and make it real. If you told people in a soccer match that the goals they scored meant people were executed, how would they feel? What about Chess? It could just be a button on a wall that random people on the street press. Probably quite sick once the "player" was informed of the reality!
Actually, if you play Postal, you can get the crying and the dying!
"Help... me... I can't move my legs....!"
"My eyes! My eyes! I can't see!"
But you get points for executions, so they didn't have long heheheh.
Hmmm... I thought China was concentrating on Pebble Bed Reactors. Had big plans to roll out modular 1MW units to stack to need.
According to Wikipedia and my own pet South African Nuclear Engineer, Pebble Bed Reactors do indeed not go into runaway chain reaction processes! There's some physical effect that stops the chain reaction leading to meltdown process. Kinda similar to the way you can't hold your breath until you die (without specific and additional actions that is).
Doesn't mean you can't get radioactive material release, but at least you can't get a Chernobyl.
...in January we landed on it in a helicoptor and stuck a GPS unit into it.
I guess the GPS unit was hammered into the ice :)
Hmmm, I read the article and paid great attention to the benchmarks. 4890 tends to score better.
Here, read the FPS results for yourself all run by Extreme Tech at 1900x1200 (from about 22" to 27" monitors).
card noAA/4xAA
crysis
275 24/19
4890 24/21
far cry 2
275 68/56
4890 79/56
l4d
275 125/105
4890 126/95
COD5 World in Conflict
275 61/40
4890 56/38
Company of Heroes
275 99/84
4890 69/60
Supreme Commander
275 66/64
4890 68/63
Hawx
275 71/43
4890 61/54
Stormrise
275 29/28
4890 47/42
Stalker Clear Sky
275 50/23
4890 48/23
OCUK Price of 275 229.99 GBP inc VAT
4890 209.99 GBP inc VAT
So to say the 275 takes the cake is rather a strange view.
Nvidia and AMD are both very savvy and big organisations. They have products aimed at all market sectors now. From budget gamers to bleeding edge competition sponsored gamers.
TBO, to choose a graphics card today, you have to know which games you play. Cos both Nvidia and AMD have roughly equivilant cards for the performance and the budget. Yup, it's that close a race!
The other factors you have to consider are
Chosen output? (pretty much determined by your optimal flat panel resolution these days!). No point looking at 24" panel resolution results (1900x1200) when all you have is a 19" (1280x1024)
How pretty you like it? Note the two values above. The second value is lower as it uses AA at varying levels. Think of it like putting the roof down on a convertible car. Car looks and feels great, but the performance hit is quite noticable.
Similarly to cars, some ppl can't live without that AA feature turned on (along with AF too!). So when comparing the numbers, find out if those features are essential to you.
NB: DO NOT USE THE ONBOARD GRAPHICS RAM AMOUNT AS AN INDICATOR! The graphics card manufacturers these days have cottoned onto that one. It's a bit like having 16 valves on a ford fiesta 1.1L. it'll improve it but in the end it's still a tiny 1.1 litre engine. Similarly with graphics cards.
Now I'm not espousing Tomshardware, but this page is the only one with a complete hierarchy that i've found that shows a rough relative performance with older cards too, so you can really see whether it's worth an upgrade.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-gtx-radeon,review-31515-6.html
Also has some mobile graphics cards listed too, so you can see what portability is costing you performance and price wise!
lol, I'd play Planetside 2 in a heartbeat!
the issue really is what is the point of making a game MM ie Massively Multiplayer.
There was a game called UltraCorps that was MMOspace strategy. But because you only interacted with those immediately around you, it meant only 3-4 ppl in reality. Of course, being successful bought it's own issues. If you thought having a war on 2 fronts was bad, try playing against 30 when you've conquered a few players/territories.
Planetside being a FPS MMO really had something extra for the scale that came with a MMO. You had all the various parts of a military campaign, from artillery to heavy armour, to gunships and bombers. The other thing was that because of the network of bases providing functionality (like radar, or extra vehicles/equipment) for the entire network, this encouraged commando raids behind enemy lines to cripple said benefits. So on a good night we had armoured columns (troop carriers and tanks) with air cover from reaver gunships and mosquito air scouts, along with artillery and liberator bombers softening the target and galaxy dropships to do hot drops (2 Max suits, 6+ infantry and 1 vehicle). Plus the stealth/commando raids on network benefits. And that's not even considering the defender's options and having counter artillery or counter air screens etc.
I don't see where the MMO part of an RPG has a similar effect. There is no strategic level that is added with the scaling up to an MMO. It's just the same tactical situation that you could easily play in Diablo. Raids for instance just appear to be more in each tactical slot be it Tank, DPS, Healer etc.
However, I can see Super Teams in the DC Online having a better draw/reasoning behind it. But it's scarcely much above tactical...
lol, just trading and negotiations!
Sounds like the beginning of the Phantom Menace and we all know how much violence that resulted in!
Yes and like saying that turning off the standby mode on consumer electronics is going to save electriticy.
On it's own, no significant effect.
But what about the usual analogy to that butterfly in the amazon that creates hurricanes.
www.fantasticfiction.co.uk
is a great site listing authors and their works (with links to buy from abeworld books).
But the best feature of the site is the Author Recommendations! Not every author does this unfortunately (Dan Simmons being one of them-probably because he has his own website for that). But what with the people looking at "Dan Simmons" also looked at section, you shouldn't find it hard to get similar material.
Also makes you ask if you are "liberating" or "invading".
Funny thing is that there are plenty of games that has you start on the "wrong" side fighting the "good" fight, only to realise and throw you lot in with the "good" side to turn the tables and bring justice to all.
LOL I have an image of the game sending you back into the White House to kill the perpetrator of this atrocious war...
Heh, well if you've been playing games since Doom, it's nice to get some variation.
One variation I have seen recently (amidst the "realistic" shooter or WWII fad) is ordering your team around.
Its funny that your rank is Sergeant but you don't seem to be giving anyone any orders. I've only played the demo on the PC, but no-one else has mentioned this in the reviews so I presume that this is not a focus of the COD series.
The entire Ghost Recon series (Advanced Warfighter 2 is the latest)lets you place your colleagues and really take charge of your squad if you want.
As does the Rainbow Six series albeit in a much more urbanised environment.
Brother's in Arms is another but WWII based.
Heck, even Star Wars: Republic Commando does it!
Nolan Bushnell is correct in that most FPS are just dressed up prettier Dooms.
The above though, have added a new dimension when playing the single player campaign.
I think COD4's "new" dimension (aka Unique Selling Point) is in the multiplayer in the "perks" you get with rank in playing online. Rather than focusing on equipment like the Battlefield series, they've given some abilities like the shooting thru walls or the last stand.
I wish however, that they'd done what Enemy Territory:Quake Wars did and lose the game bonuses once you quit a game. Makes the online games much more skill based. If I decide to play this game in 3 months after I've finished (Bioshock/Assassin's Creed/Crysis/Stalker/Episode2/Stranglehold - why, I believe COD4 is looking distinctly uncomfortable in the looks front, standing with that crowd!), I don't believe it's fair to have someone with much better weapons solely because they've played longer... Heh the issue with mixing it up with MMO games is you get the issues too! The good players in ET:QW will always/usually end up with the "rewards" in that game, but at least everyone starts out even...
LOL, I love it when the US protests against illegal trade barriers. Surely the foreign steel tariffs and more recently the Brazilian Ethanol/Biofuel tariffs do just the same...!
And someone else posted about China running over it's own ppl in APCs. Need I mention WACO or Rodney King or how about the recent Blue on Blue incident where the US Air Force with 2 A10s blows the crap out of a British Convoy that had the correct orange markers denoting friendlies?
All this proves though is that we can both relate completely unrelated but similar instances of injustice. We should stick to the topic in question which is trading rights between countries and the effect of piracy efforts.
Splinter Cell :Pandora's Tomorrow had a pretty unique Multiplayer that emphasised stealth. Well for one side anyway!
4 players maximum comprising 2 security and 2 infiltrators (Sam wannabes).
The infiltrators need to do a Sam like mission and are similarly armed and equipped. This gives them the edge in observation and stealth and movement.
The security have the edge in combat thru weapons and armour and a few items like alarms.
Cue constant battle of wits as each team attempts to capitalise on it's strengths (be they shotguns with torches, limpet mines to booby trap the targets/Night vision goggles, external walkways, Choke holds) or the opposing team's weaknesses ("he went out of the window/aircon?"/"woah, shotgun almost took my head off!") whilst attaining their goals.
Heh, it still gives me chills as I remember when another security guard and I ran up to one of the Important Document Rooms and looked about for what set off the alarm.
Out of the shadows next to the brightly lit open door something reached out and took me in it's grip. Before I had time to counter I was going under and everything became a blur for a few seconds. By the time I recovered, the other security guard was out and the Important Documents were gone!
So very much in keeping with the game story line and giving you the chance to pit your sam skills against real intelligence (as opposed to scripted AI.
Spore is also going to be very interesting from that aspect too and last I heard, no-one said it was going to be a flop!
Oriental Hero
Hmmm, I wonder where Age of Conan will sit on this?
I mean the big heroes and heroines are gonna want good portraits right?
Nothing better than a big pile of corpses with you standing at the top looking regal.
As the man said, the best thing in life (and games?) is
"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women"
I guess we need lots of women lamenting now too!
Oriental Hero
Is there anything in WoW that the player next day can show his friends on a map the next day and say "See that? I was responsible for that!"
This is why I liked Planetside (which to be fair is not a MMORPG but a MMOFPS).
The scale and size of it meant you could get into the bigger picture (other than just killing) and do something and make a difference. It didn't last long (usually overnight) but you could point to an enemy front, indicate the base that suddenly went neutral and then changed allegiance and then became the focus point of a offensive action that reclaims the continent (essentially a commando raid behind enemy lines achieving a strategic strike that denied the Enemy resources).
I guess all the different ways of killing (using artillery with spotters, or flying troop carriers to air drop onto hostile bases, or flying fighter cover for your bombers that are pounding the vehicle production facilities of an enemy base) are no different from the character specialities/roles in WoW raid but somehow the co-ordination feels better.
This kind of thing was in the Battlefield 1942 Mod Desert Storm. Playing the Non-US side, the Spec Ops kit had a satchel charge that detonated immediately.
Unfortunately this went the way of the Dodo by being deemed Non PC.
This sounds like the classic American fix for a pen that can be used in low gravity/free fall. $1M researching the Space Pen when the USSR used a pencil.
The answer to this problem might be in 2001: A Space Odyssey in which a very Russian approach was used.
Velcro. To turn it off - slip on covers.
Ok so it'll make for noisy steps. No ninjas in space. But like the pencil that effectively "leaks" graphite dust, the flaw hardly rules it out when the costly research hardly produces anything much improved.
I think to be even approaching perfectly expensive, you'd have to re-mortgage the house and sell at least one family member to the salt mines.
Just like in Hollywood, a lot of protagonists revolved around the "perceived" threat of the times.
Soldier of Fortune for instance has gone thru the "Middle Eastern" country and South American Drug Barons.
China is now perceived as a viable threat as evinced in Command & Conquer: Generals
Picking the enemy is making a statement.
You couldn't just pick the Vatican, or Albania (as happened in the movies Hudson Hawk, or Wag the Dog) without some kind of premise.
Is it preparing the hearts and minds of the public for a future conflict or just reflecting what's already there. With today's media war coverage, keeping public support is important and I don't think a game with the Palestinians being oppressed by the Israeli Army would market in the US of A at all.
Funnily enough, such a game does exist! IIRC Slashdot quickly "labeled" it as propaganda.
Battlefield 1942 had a mod where the Middle Eastern country had special forces troop type could suicide bomb and they were great for taking out tanks. That "feature" didn't survive long. And if it was non PC, how come we can still use flamethrowers?
So the next time you decimate the opposing forces, think about the real world equivilant. Is it just a reflection or is it projecting it's image into your head.
This is the second popular game I know of that features China as protagonist to the USA. The first being Command and Conquer Generals (ok, so Harpoon had scenarios with China too, but I did say popular and that was more wargaming).
Whilst I can laud the reality based imagination of the writers in finding the largest army in the current world, I don't like the way the lines in the sand are being drawn up.
We have already had Bush's Axis of Evil (not dictatorship or human right abuses but downright Evil), but it seems as though games are going to prep us for the next conflict.
In the Blue Corner, the US of A!
"Truth, Justice and the American Way"
Aircraft Carrier fleets in every major ocean just to make sure American Interests are "protected"
And in the Red Corner, we have China.
"Red China"
0 Aircraft Carriers.
Last Communist bastion so they gotta be "evil".
Huge Market though, think of all those consumers!
And into this we have a game prepping the minds of gamers into accepting that China will be next in line for World Domination, entering a real game of risk if you ask EA.
And this is politically neutral??
As a contrast to a 16 player game where you are pretty stuck with the players you have, how do you organise almost 10,000 players? Yes, thats the number of active players on the European server for Planetside. Check the bottom of this stats page if you don't believe me! ...pretty good draw! ...heheheheh!
Essentially though, the system allows the setup of 10 man squads that share experience. The leader (the first to invite anyone else) also gets commmand points for base captures. The draw is that you should get more experience in a squad and the more exp, the more certifications for weapons/vehicles allowed
Squads can also communicate easier and can see each other on maps as well as squad waypoints, but a recent update allowed three squads to be formed into a platoon and also see the other squads locations and their waypoints(objectives) too.
There's a draw for squad leaders as they get additional command powers like setting waypoints, to battleplans on the map or at higher levels, usage of the orbital strike
Squads/platoons are purely "whilst playing" structures. If everyone logs off, the squad needs to be formed again. This brings up the Outfit which is almost a clan.
Outfits are there so players can find ppl that want to play the way they like to. Outfits are persistent and you have to be invited into an outfit. You can communicate on an outfit level so that you can get invited into a squad that fits you eg: a tank squad or an airborned squad.
The leader feedback part though is pretty much "U don't like, U leave". After all, if you think you can do better, there is nothing to stop you setting up your own squad!
Heheheh, surely this is just some economic means whereby the largest consumer can say to the smallest, that they too have a scarce resource.