I gave up on EA when they acquired Origin Systems, forced them to release a buggy, incomplete Ultima 9, then disbanded them due to poor sales. Richard Garriott never deserved that.
On a related note, I gave up on Ubisoft when they pushed Dark Messiah multiplayer onto Kuju and proceeded to drop all support for it.
The very idea of making it illegal for adults to buy a videogame or to buy a movie is ludicrous. Why do Australians put up with this nonsense?
We put up with it because it's very difficult to get rid of it. Any changes to our rating system must be unanimously agreed to by the Attorney General of every state and territory. The only AG in opposition to the introduction of an R18 rating is the South Australian AG, Michael Atkinson.
That's right, one man has the power to veto a decision affecting the entire country.
He needs to be removed as AG. Because of the way our political system works, he needs to lose his seat in the electorate of Croydon. That means that effectively, only the residents of Croydon can really do anything about it. How many people in a single electorate do you think actually care about gaming enough to vote for another candidate? They would have to dislike him for his other policies.
Essentially what we have is a small part of a small part of the country with the power to do very little.
Quoting AC here so his/her comment doesn't get missed:
The game is available in Australia, both through Steam and in physical stores, in a much censored version that removed almost completely the blood and gore in the game. There is no decapitation, limb damage, blood splatter on the screen or even fire on burning zombies. That is the level of censorship required to allow the game to be given a rating, and thus allowing it to be sold, in Australia.
In addition to AC's comment, I'd like to point out that L4D2 can still be bought from one of the international Steam stores (even if you live in Australia), provided you do it through a browser. You can force it to another country's Steam store and purchase using a debit card with an address in that country. One of my friends bought the L4D2 4-pack from the UK store and gifted it to me, so I have the uncensored version and can still play on Aussie servers. It's not that I necessarily WANT the gore, it's the fact that I have the choice that counts.
I used this method to pre-order Bioshock 2 at less than half the price of the Australian version (even after currency conversion).
And for a minimalistic, yet powerful language, loot at (again not on the list) Lua.
You beat me to it. Lua is ridiculously easy to pick up and will give the students a chance to worry about actual algorithms and lateral thinking rather than jumping straight into OOP. For the uninitiated: Lua does not natively support a polymorphic OO environment but it is very easily implemented with metatables.
Publishing DRM free games is not an optimal business plan because even the most casual ThePirateBay'er will just download your game and you miss out on those sales.
Something you seem to be missing here (like most publishers) is that a downloaded/pirated game does not equate to a lost sale. What you're effectively saying here is that "if I can't pirate a game, I'll buy it instead." More often than not, I think what you'll find is "if I can't pirate a game, I just won't play it".
The problem here is that pirate groups just need to get their hands on the code to crack it. I think the way I would combat this is by trying to get together some of the larger publishers and maybe even ATI or Nvidia to go a different kind of hardware based software distribution (cartridges perhaps?). If enough of the big names in game publishing and graphic cards supported a standardized piece of hardware, something that would connect to your PC not as a dongle but as a means to read the new hardware game mediums, then it would be easy to spread the cost of research and development and to subsidize it at next to nothing to the gamer...
If by "code" you mean source code, then you are much mistaken. If you mean "binary", then the cracking groups would still have no problems getting to it through this "cartridge" system. EPROM readers are not hard to come by.
The whole idea would be to stop digital copies of the game from floating around for long enough to capitalize on your game release, instead of trying to make an uncrackable game.
With the current push for digital distribution (Steam, Impulse, etc.) this would be counter-intuitive to the entire game industry. Prices would climb even higher to cover the manufacturing costs of "cartridges". I would hate to see the costs of games in Australia. I bought BioShock 2 through the UK Steam store because it ended up being less than half the price than the Australian Steam store. If I had purchased a box from a brick and mortar store, it would have cost even more.
It would require as high encryption as would be possible to protect the code, and steady streamlined firmware updates to stay ahead of the pirates.
If the game is decrypted into memory, it can be extracted.
Hell, replace the actual drives every year with backwards compatible models that have new hard-coded security features, and at no cost to upgrade for any customer with an old one.
There is absolutely no way in hell publishers would provide an "upgrade" for free. At the very least, they would subsidise the costs by increasing the prices of games.
As much as I'd love to see this, I can see it completely killing both the client for rendering multiple sets of portals, and the server for the crazy physics involved. If you play Portal with director's commentary enabled, they explain how the physics is done between portals. Essentially they sandbox off a clone of all the objects and parameters, do the physics in regular space there, then feed the information back into the real objects (if I understand their description correctly).
Also I think the game mechanics would be too easy to abuse. You'd have to make all (or most) floors "unportalable" or it'd be way too easy to just throw one under an enemy's feet and bolt. I could see the portal mechanic being used as a way of getting around the map and to escape from your enemies. Something like binding blue and orange portals to Q and E, but you still have a basic set of weapons.
For instance, I would definitively love to play starcraft with several view point on multiple screens.
That would be awesome, though probably tricky to control. The main problem with that is that it would never be allowed in tournaments - too much of an unfair advantage. Even your friends would probably rage at you.:)
We have are own crazies here in America, see: Jack Thompson
Luckily for you, Jack Thompson has little to no influence anymore. Not a lot we (as in, anyone outside the electorate of Croydon) can do about Michael Atkinson.
Now, more than ever, we're seeing many Mature ratings (M+, 17+, 18) being distributed by various national media regulators.
In your lucky, sensible country perhaps. Here in Australia, this man thinks that any game other than Mario and Puzzle Bobble is evil, so we should PROTECT THE CHILDREN at all costs.
And just to swim in anecdotal waters, when I copied big piles of files to my GRiDPad 1910 via null modem cable using Microsoft's classic INTERLNK and INTERSVR for file sharing, SMARTDRV sped up the copy operations by about an order of magnitude. Life without disk caching isn't worth living.
SWAP is using the HDD as extra RAM when the system doesn't have any more memory left to use.
Assuming that the system's physical RAM is less than the addressable range for the system architecture. If you have 4GB of RAM on a 32-bit system, a pagefile becomes somewhat redundant. Once you move to 64-bit, your addressable range becomes much larger (16 exabytes), such that your motherboard wouldn't support that much physical RAM (not any time soon, at least).
If only there was an OS that you could install on whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, without asking permission or paying a fistful of money each time. Oh, and free too. Well, that could never happen...
...and could run every game you wanted to play without any problems, and had vendor-provided drivers for hardware, and didn't require editing a config file whenever you wanted to make the slightest change to your system. Well, that could never happen...
As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it.
I will move to Linux in a heartbeat as soon as every game I want to play works flawlessly such that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference which OS I'm using (this means supporting ALL of Direct3D's features, or OpenGL equivalents). As long as even one game exists that doesn't work perfectly, I'll stick with Windows.
Do not confuse Java with Swing. Swing is the default GUI toolkit that ships with the official JRE, and is the most widely used for that reason. Poorly coded Swing applications will look awful on most platforms, I agree. Even the so-called "native look and feel" is pretty poor.
Alternatively, you could use SWT. It requires distribution of extra libraries, but it hooks into your platform's widget toolkit and will look just like any other native application.
You know the old joke, "I read my border entry form and didn't realise I had to be a criminal to qualify for entry to Australia!" - the reality is that everybody in Australia is a criminal, take your pick which laws you're breaking at any one time.
And yet the ironic thing is that South Australia is the only state not founded by convicts.
Slashdot Mirror
I gave up on EA when they acquired Origin Systems, forced them to release a buggy, incomplete Ultima 9, then disbanded them due to poor sales. Richard Garriott never deserved that.
On a related note, I gave up on Ubisoft when they pushed Dark Messiah multiplayer onto Kuju and proceeded to drop all support for it.
...that we know of.
I can finally have Yuri Goggles?
Awesome!
The very idea of making it illegal for adults to buy a videogame or to buy a movie is ludicrous. Why do Australians put up with this nonsense?
We put up with it because it's very difficult to get rid of it. Any changes to our rating system must be unanimously agreed to by the Attorney General of every state and territory. The only AG in opposition to the introduction of an R18 rating is the South Australian AG, Michael Atkinson.
That's right, one man has the power to veto a decision affecting the entire country.
He needs to be removed as AG. Because of the way our political system works, he needs to lose his seat in the electorate of Croydon. That means that effectively, only the residents of Croydon can really do anything about it. How many people in a single electorate do you think actually care about gaming enough to vote for another candidate? They would have to dislike him for his other policies.
Essentially what we have is a small part of a small part of the country with the power to do very little.
The game is available in Australia, both through Steam and in physical stores, in a much censored version that removed almost completely the blood and gore in the game. There is no decapitation, limb damage, blood splatter on the screen or even fire on burning zombies. That is the level of censorship required to allow the game to be given a rating, and thus allowing it to be sold, in Australia.
In addition to AC's comment, I'd like to point out that L4D2 can still be bought from one of the international Steam stores (even if you live in Australia), provided you do it through a browser. You can force it to another country's Steam store and purchase using a debit card with an address in that country. One of my friends bought the L4D2 4-pack from the UK store and gifted it to me, so I have the uncensored version and can still play on Aussie servers. It's not that I necessarily WANT the gore, it's the fact that I have the choice that counts.
I used this method to pre-order Bioshock 2 at less than half the price of the Australian version (even after currency conversion).
And for a minimalistic, yet powerful language, loot at (again not on the list) Lua.
You beat me to it. Lua is ridiculously easy to pick up and will give the students a chance to worry about actual algorithms and lateral thinking rather than jumping straight into OOP. For the uninitiated: Lua does not natively support a polymorphic OO environment but it is very easily implemented with metatables.
Disclaimer: I'm a Lua fanboy. :)
Won't stop Palpatine err I mean Conroy...
Stephen Conroy: Something, something, something, DARK SIDE.
Michael Atkinson: Something, something, something, COMPLETE.
Publishing DRM free games is not an optimal business plan because even the most casual ThePirateBay'er will just download your game and you miss out on those sales.
Something you seem to be missing here (like most publishers) is that a downloaded/pirated game does not equate to a lost sale. What you're effectively saying here is that "if I can't pirate a game, I'll buy it instead." More often than not, I think what you'll find is "if I can't pirate a game, I just won't play it".
The problem here is that pirate groups just need to get their hands on the code to crack it. I think the way I would combat this is by trying to get together some of the larger publishers and maybe even ATI or Nvidia to go a different kind of hardware based software distribution (cartridges perhaps?). If enough of the big names in game publishing and graphic cards supported a standardized piece of hardware, something that would connect to your PC not as a dongle but as a means to read the new hardware game mediums, then it would be easy to spread the cost of research and development and to subsidize it at next to nothing to the gamer...
If by "code" you mean source code, then you are much mistaken. If you mean "binary", then the cracking groups would still have no problems getting to it through this "cartridge" system. EPROM readers are not hard to come by.
The whole idea would be to stop digital copies of the game from floating around for long enough to capitalize on your game release, instead of trying to make an uncrackable game.
With the current push for digital distribution (Steam, Impulse, etc.) this would be counter-intuitive to the entire game industry. Prices would climb even higher to cover the manufacturing costs of "cartridges". I would hate to see the costs of games in Australia. I bought BioShock 2 through the UK Steam store because it ended up being less than half the price than the Australian Steam store. If I had purchased a box from a brick and mortar store, it would have cost even more.
It would require as high encryption as would be possible to protect the code, and steady streamlined firmware updates to stay ahead of the pirates.
If the game is decrypted into memory, it can be extracted.
Hell, replace the actual drives every year with backwards compatible models that have new hard-coded security features, and at no cost to upgrade for any customer with an old one.
There is absolutely no way in hell publishers would provide an "upgrade" for free. At the very least, they would subsidise the costs by increasing the prices of games.
Do not rocket jump if you have low HP.
Unless you have the Gunboats.
So if the user has some jpeg on their machine called goodtimes.jpg that is...
I think hello.jpg would be more appropriate, as people would be less inclined to distribute it. :)
As much as I'd love to see this, I can see it completely killing both the client for rendering multiple sets of portals, and the server for the crazy physics involved. If you play Portal with director's commentary enabled, they explain how the physics is done between portals. Essentially they sandbox off a clone of all the objects and parameters, do the physics in regular space there, then feed the information back into the real objects (if I understand their description correctly).
Also I think the game mechanics would be too easy to abuse. You'd have to make all (or most) floors "unportalable" or it'd be way too easy to just throw one under an enemy's feet and bolt. I could see the portal mechanic being used as a way of getting around the map and to escape from your enemies. Something like binding blue and orange portals to Q and E, but you still have a basic set of weapons.
For instance, I would definitively love to play starcraft with several view point on multiple screens.
That would be awesome, though probably tricky to control. The main problem with that is that it would never be allowed in tournaments - too much of an unfair advantage. Even your friends would probably rage at you. :)
We have are own crazies here in America, see: Jack Thompson
Luckily for you, Jack Thompson has little to no influence anymore. Not a lot we (as in, anyone outside the electorate of Croydon) can do about Michael Atkinson.
Now, more than ever, we're seeing many Mature ratings (M+, 17+, 18) being distributed by various national media regulators.
In your lucky, sensible country perhaps. Here in Australia, this man thinks that any game other than Mario and Puzzle Bobble is evil, so we should PROTECT THE CHILDREN at all costs.
infinite loop. I think your algorithm is going to fill up the memory rather quickly.
Actually I think it'd be more like a stack overflow. :)
And just to swim in anecdotal waters, when I copied big piles of files to my GRiDPad 1910 via null modem cable using Microsoft's classic INTERLNK and INTERSVR for file sharing, SMARTDRV sped up the copy operations by about an order of magnitude. Life without disk caching isn't worth living.
Bah! All the cool kids used LAPLINK!
SWAP is using the HDD as extra RAM when the system doesn't have any more memory left to use.
Assuming that the system's physical RAM is less than the addressable range for the system architecture. If you have 4GB of RAM on a 32-bit system, a pagefile becomes somewhat redundant. Once you move to 64-bit, your addressable range becomes much larger (16 exabytes), such that your motherboard wouldn't support that much physical RAM (not any time soon, at least).
Where does Australia find these whack jobs? I mean, either the guy is a paranoid schizophrenic or a mental retard.
When it comes to Michael Atkinson, those two labels are not mutually exclusive.
...reinforce the stereotype that gamers are dangerous...
*snip*
Maybe you should beat him up, or something...
Whaaa...?
If only there was an OS that you could install on whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, without asking permission or paying a fistful of money each time. Oh, and free too. Well, that could never happen...
...and could run every game you wanted to play without any problems, and had vendor-provided drivers for hardware, and didn't require editing a config file whenever you wanted to make the slightest change to your system. Well, that could never happen...
As Microsoft keeps tightening up on people, I really have to wonder why anyone still puts up with it.
I will move to Linux in a heartbeat as soon as every game I want to play works flawlessly such that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference which OS I'm using (this means supporting ALL of Direct3D's features, or OpenGL equivalents). As long as even one game exists that doesn't work perfectly, I'll stick with Windows.
What's the worst the Australian government is going to do? Send a harshly worded letter?
It's the vibe!
Java, likewise, is crappy on everything.
Do not confuse Java with Swing. Swing is the default GUI toolkit that ships with the official JRE, and is the most widely used for that reason. Poorly coded Swing applications will look awful on most platforms, I agree. Even the so-called "native look and feel" is pretty poor.
Alternatively, you could use SWT. It requires distribution of extra libraries, but it hooks into your platform's widget toolkit and will look just like any other native application.
Sorry, your analogy doesn't work as it doesn't reference cars in any way.
This should be a rule of the Internet:
If it exists on Slashdot, there is a car analogy for it.
You know the old joke, "I read my border entry form and didn't realise I had to be a criminal to qualify for entry to Australia!" - the reality is that everybody in Australia is a criminal, take your pick which laws you're breaking at any one time.
And yet the ironic thing is that South Australia is the only state not founded by convicts.