i agree - the 'end of round' chat in CS really helps to build the community more than anything else. sounds strange, but it's like going for a beer after playing a game of rugby or something...having a bit of 'downtime' with the people you are playing with while waiting for the map to change helps alot.
i do definitely miss that from bf2...seems silly considering they have the whole multi-page 'stats' thing that no one really cares about...why not let us chat during it? sigh
it entirely depends on what server you play on - we started our own CS servers specifically for this reason and once you start enforcing a style of behavior, it will be contagious.
I found the same thing with battlefield 2 (which is my current addiction of choice) - if I find a server that has semi-polite players, I'll come back regularly and make it one of the few servers that I do play on.
Servers that are full of shit-talking idiots are usually also plagued by hackers and other issues, which destroys the game for everyone involved.
Just because it's CS, doesn't mean that everyone is a half-coherent idiot.
I have no idea what the author was meaning by this - but have you not been out of the house recently perhaps? The average 3 story billboard for 'insert company here' seems to be getting closer and closer to this description with every new ad campaign. Models keep getting younger and younger and the ads get sleezier and sleezier.
Most of the time it is almost impossible to tell what is being sold by 'x' ad in the first place - jean companies with ads that have no jeans in them at all (perhaps in a pile on the floor) among other things.
There was an interesting blog about this subject recently:
Good to see that you're the end-all-be-all to game reviewing.
If you don't like the game, don't click the link or play it. Simple enough. There are enough PC games out there to satisfy even the most jaded gamers, and yet there never seems to be any shortage of this kind of 'your game sucks' comments.
Ever tried to make a game? Lets see your game and then we'll decide whether or not to rip you a new one as a result.
I mean seriously - how is a link in a signature something that is SOOO offensive that you decide to slam someone's hard work, no matter what quality you feel that it is.
this is exactly my opinion - i bought the special forces 'expansion pack' and, while it's fun, the simple fact that it's a whole new 'game' is a bit thin. what would be cool instead is if they had the core 'bf2' game, and then had these new roles, weapons and vehicles integrated into the game so that it expands the core game without requiring that you have every single add-on to play with the same online community.
with expansion packs (at least done like spec forces), you end up fragmenting your existing player base into smaller and smaller chunks comprised of only people that bought the full game & whatever add-on.
providing a way for users to expand the core game gives alot more variation to the game, while keeping the entire community in 'one' game effectively.
much better idea.
only issue with this is preventing users that have NOT purchased the content from using and/or unlocking it once they have it downloaded, but this is a fairly minor detail compared to the benefits.
This is ridiculous. There are hundreds of commercial server rental places that have in-game ads splattered all over CS servers and have for years.
Just because it's a non-CS commercial company that's doing this is irrelevant.
When we hosted CS servers a few years ago (pre 1.5 / steam), we were trying to figure out how to do the same thing. Considering how much money running game servers costs, bandwidth-wise, I don't see how Valve really has any say in the matter.
They should be happy to have server-operators willing to host their games, and if the gamers themselves don't care about the in-game ads to help buffer server costs, then so be it.
It's not like there isn't thousands of servers out there for CS anyways - if players don't like it, then market forces will react appropriately - ie players will go to a different server.
obviously during the course of a game's development, there is a lot of essential documentation created, but my point was that alot of people seem to assume that a 'game designer' works for weeks in a closet writing the 500 page game bible and then comes in and dumps it on the team saying 'make this'
most people don't realize how much collaboration and team effort is required THROUGHOUT the development process in order for a game to be innovative and successful.
it's a fine line - having too little (or misleading, improperly updated, outdated) documentation is worse than having too much, but what I've found is that when there is hundreds and hundreds of pages of documentation, then it becomes a nightmare to maintain and update throughout the project.
then there's the eternal caveat about the design document:
- no one will read it.
you dump 500 pages of 'design' on a team and you can be guaranteed that most of them will not read it. sure they might skim through, but unless you are a master at organization and formatting (ie set it up as a well-organized intranet site or something similar) then there isn't a whole lot of chance that anyone on the team will truly read the document.
from what i can tell, this wasn't a serious game project to begin with - the people being interviewed were 'volunteers' - yet the slashdot posting seems to think that this game would be the same as one being developed by a sony or ncsoft.
Re:Has any devoloper ever released a full design d
on
How Not To Make An MMOG
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
look on gamedev.net's articles section - the full doom design doc is there, among many others.
the design doc is a highly overrated concept that is too often assumed to be a 5000 page bible written by a team of monkeys before the game's production.
the reality is that the design document is a living document that, while necessary, will inevitably change & morph as the project progresses.
what IS crucial to a project is a set of key design 'rules' tenets that must be used while assessing new features that are to be added to a project. the implementation details are often better left to the experts (ie the actual artists, scripters or programmers developing the game).
so many of my game design students think that they need to write 200 page design docs before they do any other work on a project. such a waste of time.
how is comparing a 'locked down' operating system even worth mentioning in comparison to a 'default' installation of another OS?
this is ridiculous - apples to oranges if i've ever heard of one.
how about comparing a default installation of one OS to another? or a security enhanced version of one to another?
this would be a realistic comparison - but if this is what the original poster implied, then it's such a non-statement that it's not even worth mentioning.
This comment has been sent a 'cease and desist' order. Please refrain from discussions regarding 'Intelligent Falling' as it is covered by our recently granted patent.
no kidding - how is this news-worthy simply because it's a 'second shipment' 360? is it different in any way, shape or form from the original shipment? no, then why write this?
it's not exactly hard to setup an 'online infrastructure' for a game - it's the whole convoluted 'you must signup and register and give your first born' type of system that most online games force you to go through (ie BF2, any Steam-based game) etc that makes developing (and playing) online games such a nightmare these days.
Whatever happened to 'run server' 'connect to server' for online games?
Games that FORCE you to signup with whatever convoluted service that they decided to integrate into their game are completely bs.
the 'not needing a credit card' is the part that will keep online distribution from becoming the true success that retail is. if i can't pay for it with cash, i won't likely buy it...
then again most kids these days have their own credit cards, however ridiculous this is, so they can buy whatever they want online...but the reality is that most people don't have credit cards, and/or don't trust the internet for purchases...
i think the key point is that you need something of quality first and foremost - something that game publishers & developers fail to notice time and time again.
developing yet another ww2 game or yet another 'space marine fighting aliens' game is not going to endear yourself to the gaming community.
oh, and in repsonse to the 'did bungie try to...' - yes they obviously did - microsoft's massive multi-million dollar marketing budget for the game very much did create this groundswell of following - the fact that the 'end result' of the ARG happened to be a halo-sales pitch just demans the whole experience altogether.
this recent 'rabbit' website promotion and all of the articles & followup reports that promoted it with drolling anticipation as a followup, slashdot included.
just proves that gamers are desperate for SOMETHING different, SOMETHING unique - isntead we get more and more of the same shoved down our throats - it's just that game publishers have alot larger budgets these days...
this is in direct opposition to jerry garcia & the dead's following - you can guarantee that he is likely turning in his grave as a result of being included in the same breath as halo's marketing campaign
is not this site considered to be a 'step above' the average windows user? seriously i couldn't believe it when i got to the bottom of the article - i expected it to be one of a number of pages that actually got into some detail.
finding out who owns the IP address of someone is near useless - it's the steps beyond that are the 'grey area' for most people. trying to get the attention of some random ISP in taiwan is going to be rather difficult at best, and completely useless for the most part.
Not sure what the point of the article is - if someone is smart enough to even know that they are being attacked and can figure out the attackers IP address, then the contents of this article are going to be useless to them.
I mean seriously - if you are able to run an FTP server AND check the logs to even figure out what a 'potential compromise' of said server is - what are the odds you don't know what a tracert or nslookup is?
hell i have firefox extensions installed that let me do nslookups & tracert's to any IP address I visit just for fun - this isn't exactly rocket science and it sure as hell isn't 'virtual reconnaisance'
We have been running it under about a dozen machines under WinXP and it has also been very stable. Not only thing but the new (ish?) recovery feature is worth upgrading just for that - the few times it has crashed, you simply run the recovery - it has worked every time flawlessly - even with a half-dozen files open at once.
not only thing but it opens a LOT faster as well. the 'presentation' side of the app has also gotten a major makeover, something that was sorely needed.
for the new set of school machines that i'm setting up right now (granted only a half-dozen other machines) i'm using the OO2 beta well (XP sp2) - MS Office begone:}
I've been very pleased with the stability, performance and featureset of the open office 2 beta - we've been using it internally for a month or so and it is miles better than the current 1.x codebase.
you might look into trying it out - it might be a 'beta' but it's been very stable on our range of machines - we don't open any massive sized files like what you are looking for, and for that matter i haven't tried out the db side of the new release, but overall it's worth looking into if you are simply trying to open & examine large files.
oh, and i seem to recall that the max rows limit was increased in the 2.x oo spreadsheet app as well, but can't remember how much...
Slashdot Mirror
i agree - the 'end of round' chat in CS really helps to build the community more than anything else. sounds strange, but it's like going for a beer after playing a game of rugby or something...having a bit of 'downtime' with the people you are playing with while waiting for the map to change helps alot.
i do definitely miss that from bf2...seems silly considering they have the whole multi-page 'stats' thing that no one really cares about...why not let us chat during it? sigh
it entirely depends on what server you play on - we started our own CS servers specifically for this reason and once you start enforcing a style of behavior, it will be contagious.
I found the same thing with battlefield 2 (which is my current addiction of choice) - if I find a server that has semi-polite players, I'll come back regularly and make it one of the few servers that I do play on.
Servers that are full of shit-talking idiots are usually also plagued by hackers and other issues, which destroys the game for everyone involved.
Just because it's CS, doesn't mean that everyone is a half-coherent idiot.
not only this, but napster uses Microsoft Windows Media technology for ALL of it's downloads - including the MS DRM solution.
Google buying them is as unlikely as...[insert favorite conspiracy theory here]
I have no idea what the author was meaning by this - but have you not been out of the house recently perhaps? The average 3 story billboard for 'insert company here' seems to be getting closer and closer to this description with every new ad campaign. Models keep getting younger and younger and the ads get sleezier and sleezier.
r .htm
Most of the time it is almost impossible to tell what is being sold by 'x' ad in the first place - jean companies with ads that have no jeans in them at all (perhaps in a pile on the floor) among other things.
There was an interesting blog about this subject recently:
http://www.skidmore.edu/salmagundi/148-149/Sleepe
Good to see that you're the end-all-be-all to game reviewing.
If you don't like the game, don't click the link or play it. Simple enough. There are enough PC games out there to satisfy even the most jaded gamers, and yet there never seems to be any shortage of this kind of 'your game sucks' comments.
Ever tried to make a game? Lets see your game and then we'll decide whether or not to rip you a new one as a result.
I mean seriously - how is a link in a signature something that is SOOO offensive that you decide to slam someone's hard work, no matter what quality you feel that it is.
this is exactly my opinion - i bought the special forces 'expansion pack' and, while it's fun, the simple fact that it's a whole new 'game' is a bit thin. what would be cool instead is if they had the core 'bf2' game, and then had these new roles, weapons and vehicles integrated into the game so that it expands the core game without requiring that you have every single add-on to play with the same online community.
with expansion packs (at least done like spec forces), you end up fragmenting your existing player base into smaller and smaller chunks comprised of only people that bought the full game & whatever add-on.
providing a way for users to expand the core game gives alot more variation to the game, while keeping the entire community in 'one' game effectively.
much better idea.
only issue with this is preventing users that have NOT purchased the content from using and/or unlocking it once they have it downloaded, but this is a fairly minor detail compared to the benefits.
This is ridiculous. There are hundreds of commercial server rental places that have in-game ads splattered all over CS servers and have for years.
Just because it's a non-CS commercial company that's doing this is irrelevant.
When we hosted CS servers a few years ago (pre 1.5 / steam), we were trying to figure out how to do the same thing. Considering how much money running game servers costs, bandwidth-wise, I don't see how Valve really has any say in the matter.
They should be happy to have server-operators willing to host their games, and if the gamers themselves don't care about the in-game ads to help buffer server costs, then so be it.
It's not like there isn't thousands of servers out there for CS anyways - if players don't like it, then market forces will react appropriately - ie players will go to a different server.
obviously during the course of a game's development, there is a lot of essential documentation created, but my point was that alot of people seem to assume that a 'game designer' works for weeks in a closet writing the 500 page game bible and then comes in and dumps it on the team saying 'make this'
most people don't realize how much collaboration and team effort is required THROUGHOUT the development process in order for a game to be innovative and successful.
it's a fine line - having too little (or misleading, improperly updated, outdated) documentation is worse than having too much, but what I've found is that when there is hundreds and hundreds of pages of documentation, then it becomes a nightmare to maintain and update throughout the project.
then there's the eternal caveat about the design document:
- no one will read it.
you dump 500 pages of 'design' on a team and you can be guaranteed that most of them will not read it. sure they might skim through, but unless you are a master at organization and formatting (ie set it up as a well-organized intranet site or something similar) then there isn't a whole lot of chance that anyone on the team will truly read the document.
http://www.krelslibrary.org/bant.html
from what i can tell, this wasn't a serious game project to begin with - the people being interviewed were 'volunteers' - yet the slashdot posting seems to think that this game would be the same as one being developed by a sony or ncsoft.
look on gamedev.net's articles section - the full doom design doc is there, among many others.
the design doc is a highly overrated concept that is too often assumed to be a 5000 page bible written by a team of monkeys before the game's production.
the reality is that the design document is a living document that, while necessary, will inevitably change & morph as the project progresses.
what IS crucial to a project is a set of key design 'rules' tenets that must be used while assessing new features that are to be added to a project. the implementation details are often better left to the experts (ie the actual artists, scripters or programmers developing the game).
so many of my game design students think that they need to write 200 page design docs before they do any other work on a project. such a waste of time.
how is comparing a 'locked down' operating system even worth mentioning in comparison to a 'default' installation of another OS?
this is ridiculous - apples to oranges if i've ever heard of one.
how about comparing a default installation of one OS to another? or a security enhanced version of one to another?
this would be a realistic comparison - but if this is what the original poster implied, then it's such a non-statement that it's not even worth mentioning.
This comment has been sent a 'cease and desist' order. Please refrain from discussions regarding 'Intelligent Falling' as it is covered by our recently granted patent.
no kidding - how is this news-worthy simply because it's a 'second shipment' 360? is it different in any way, shape or form from the original shipment? no, then why write this?
waste of text
lol i'm with you
i was like what? voip thongs? keeeripes this IS worse than the dotcom boom
damn minor chords...always knew they were evil
it's not exactly hard to setup an 'online infrastructure' for a game - it's the whole convoluted 'you must signup and register and give your first born' type of system that most online games force you to go through (ie BF2, any Steam-based game) etc that makes developing (and playing) online games such a nightmare these days.
Whatever happened to 'run server' 'connect to server' for online games?
Games that FORCE you to signup with whatever convoluted service that they decided to integrate into their game are completely bs.
the 'not needing a credit card' is the part that will keep online distribution from becoming the true success that retail is. if i can't pay for it with cash, i won't likely buy it...
then again most kids these days have their own credit cards, however ridiculous this is, so they can buy whatever they want online...but the reality is that most people don't have credit cards, and/or don't trust the internet for purchases...
i think the key point is that you need something of quality first and foremost - something that game publishers & developers fail to notice time and time again.
developing yet another ww2 game or yet another 'space marine fighting aliens' game is not going to endear yourself to the gaming community.
oh, and in repsonse to the 'did bungie try to...' - yes they obviously did - microsoft's massive multi-million dollar marketing budget for the game very much did create this groundswell of following - the fact that the 'end result' of the ARG happened to be a halo-sales pitch just demans the whole experience altogether.
this recent 'rabbit' website promotion and all of the articles & followup reports that promoted it with drolling anticipation as a followup, slashdot included.
just proves that gamers are desperate for SOMETHING different, SOMETHING unique - isntead we get more and more of the same shoved down our throats - it's just that game publishers have alot larger budgets these days...
this is in direct opposition to jerry garcia & the dead's following - you can guarantee that he is likely turning in his grave as a result of being included in the same breath as halo's marketing campaign
it's called 'showip', pretty useful
p ?application=firefox&category=Popular&numpg=10&id= 590
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.ph
is not this site considered to be a 'step above' the average windows user? seriously i couldn't believe it when i got to the bottom of the article - i expected it to be one of a number of pages that actually got into some detail.
finding out who owns the IP address of someone is near useless - it's the steps beyond that are the 'grey area' for most people. trying to get the attention of some random ISP in taiwan is going to be rather difficult at best, and completely useless for the most part.
Not sure what the point of the article is - if someone is smart enough to even know that they are being attacked and can figure out the attackers IP address, then the contents of this article are going to be useless to them.
I mean seriously - if you are able to run an FTP server AND check the logs to even figure out what a 'potential compromise' of said server is - what are the odds you don't know what a tracert or nslookup is?
hell i have firefox extensions installed that let me do nslookups & tracert's to any IP address I visit just for fun - this isn't exactly rocket science and it sure as hell isn't 'virtual reconnaisance'
since when are super hero's considered 'sci fi'?
looks like they had to pad the entries to try and come up with 50 that were worth describing...
We have been running it under about a dozen machines under WinXP and it has also been very stable. Not only thing but the new (ish?) recovery feature is worth upgrading just for that - the few times it has crashed, you simply run the recovery - it has worked every time flawlessly - even with a half-dozen files open at once.
:}
not only thing but it opens a LOT faster as well. the 'presentation' side of the app has also gotten a major makeover, something that was sorely needed.
for the new set of school machines that i'm setting up right now (granted only a half-dozen other machines) i'm using the OO2 beta well (XP sp2) - MS Office begone
I've been very pleased with the stability, performance and featureset of the open office 2 beta - we've been using it internally for a month or so and it is miles better than the current 1.x codebase.
you might look into trying it out - it might be a 'beta' but it's been very stable on our range of machines - we don't open any massive sized files like what you are looking for, and for that matter i haven't tried out the db side of the new release, but overall it's worth looking into if you are simply trying to open & examine large files.
oh, and i seem to recall that the max rows limit was increased in the 2.x oo spreadsheet app as well, but can't remember how much...
Rockstar is already working on it.
What's that? The sound of a million nerd voices screaming out in terror and then suddenly silenced...
i happen to like my mental health issues thank you very much ;}
keeps me company at night