Let's just hope that Midway allows Epic to develop the games on their own, without screwing with them. The main problem developers seem to run into is "meddling" publishers, but I don't think Midway is bad for this, and Epic is big enough that they can probably resist any "executive decisions" pretty well. This is probably better than Atari in the long run, anyway, judging from the... interesting decisions Atari made regarding The Temple of Elemental Evil. (That game had several "objectionable" portions taken out... like the children.) The rise of the "publisher" phenomenon in video games is worrisome, though; the effect was hardly positive on the literary front (where everything is now expected to fit into a neat little genre).
"Upgradability" is pretty much irrelevant in terms of quality of games. I've bought a half dozen excellent games for my PS2 in the last six months. I doubt I've bought that many excellent games for my PC in six years.
...can be bought cheap, too. Go to Cheap Ass Gamer; it relies on different users posting the deals they have found, but it seems to be a very effective system. The availability of some deals depends on your area (and the brick & mortar stores you have access to).
Re:at the rate PC games are pushing the market
on
Cinematic Game Graphics
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· Score: 3, Insightful
The graphics on the XBox "suck?" Did you think that three years ago? What's changed? Creating graphics that look like an XBox game still takes just as much effort as it did then, after all. Did Half-Life's graphics suck when it came out? No? Then why do they suck now? Granted, technology has advanced, but that doesn't affect the "quality" of graphics; it's really just the quantity of Purdy Effectz they can put on them.
Granted, the PlayStation2's graphics aren't as good as even the XBox, but I can very easily put in Dark Cloud 2, Rygar, Gran Turismo 3, or any of the other dozens of games that are designed for it and still have fun. Of course, I also play my SNES and NES games to this day...
Eh, I don't even follow things that closely. This was the first upgrade I'd had in four years, so I went next-to-top-tier (I would never pay $400 or $500 for a video card. that's insane). I do recommend Far Cry while you're waiting for Half-Life 2, though. It's an excellent game.
Have you played Far Cry yet? I have a feeling it will bring your card to its knees, at anything above minimum settings. It makes mine slouch a little at medium-high, and it's a Radeon 9800...
I'll be happy when graphical achievement tops out, at least somewhat. I think it's already begun, actually, but we're not quite there yet. When that happens, we may actually be able to get some sort of basic standards going, with games becoming more like books or movies instead of constantly requiring upgrades and more processor power. PC gaming, especially, falls victim to this. I have a PlayStation2, along with a gaming-class computer. The other day, I realized that I paid more for my video card than I did for my PlayStation2--and I spend many more hours playing games on my PS2 than I do on my computer. If we start seeing diminishing returns in terms of graphics, maybe we'll be able to stabilize at one level for a while... it's ridiculous that a $250 card is "outdated" within a year and a half (if it lasts even that long).
I hate to slashdot them, but a really useful site is Cheap Ass Gamer. It relies on people posting deals, but so far I've had no problems with them (I got Rygar for the PS2 for $10+cheap shipping). It can save you a ton of money.
Actually, they're pretty even with the XBox. In Europe, it's no contest--Nintendo lost there. In the United States, sales have been pretty even with a slight edge to Nintendo (I believe). In Japan, the XBox has yet to break a million units sold. In short, with the GameCube doing fairly well, and the GBA having near-100% market share (Ignoring minor blips on the radar like the Tapwave Zodiac and the ill-fated N-Gage), I don't think Nintendo is "struggling."
At the same time, you can't really fault them for attempting to prevent people from making and playing ROMs of games that have yet to come out. It's not like this is a piece of utility software, it's a luxury item (and an art). Why should they stand by and watch their time and effort go down the drain?
Origin has been a shell of itself since 1992. Ultima VIII was rushed by EA, Ultima IX was at least negatively influenced by them, and Ultima Online honestly bears little resemblance to the cardinal Ultimas. Sad, yes, but not really a disaster. Maybe Garriott's new company will accomplish something eventually:)
The problem with this is that it seems to assume that chess is a difficult
problem. It isn't. Modern chess algorithms are really simple search-and-
prune systems, relying on the computer's immense number-crunching ability
to overcome the more heuristic human mind. Unfortunately, this isn't very
interesting. What's the point? We know that computers can search faster
than a human. See: Google. All these projects (DeepBlue, Fritz, this)
accomplish is trivializing the game of chess, which is rather sad. Now,
I'll be really annoyed when Go programs start improving to a 'decent amateur'
level...
You may be barking up the wrong tree. Level design, particularly for modern 3D engines, is more of an art than a science. There are many mappers who have been working at it for years, for various games. In particular, you might look at some of the maps released for Quake III and even the original Quake, along with more recent games like Unreal Tournament 2003. The problem with assuming that you can just "jump in" and become immediately skilled is that it completely ignores the skillset which is unique to that position. Quite honestly, almost no programming experience will transfer to the field.
If you are still interested--and it is truly a hobby/profession which requires interest--Half-Life is actually a good place to start. Try not to get overwhelmed with concern about newer features at first--learn about brush layout, visibility occlusion, et cetera. These will help you with any engine. Also, I think that these skills are more transferable than something like Neverwinter Nights or other, simpler level editors. Making a level in a 3D game like the FPSes I listed above is very similar to 3D modelling, so you can transfer skills between the two.
Func_Msgboard is somewhat dead these days, but you might find things of interest there--and there are some truly great mappers who hang out there.:) Good luck.
The problem seems to be that a lot of authors create a world first, and then, at some point after that, begin to almost think about maybe putting in a plot. Some authors in particular--I don't want to name any names, but his world is square and the main character has the name of a C function--seem to have set out to write something entirely different from what they actually ended up doing. This is inexcusable. Somewhere along the line, authors and publishers have forgotten that editing is one of the great challenges for the writer; that's what makes (good) short stories harder to write than novels, and (good) poems harder still. Why aren't there any modern, good science fiction and fantasy novels that weigh in around 200 pages?
That said, I really like George R. R. Martin--though this may be a bit hypocritical. Unlike the aforementioned author, his series actually seems to be going somewhere (though his writing pace is glacial). On the other hand, the number of books seems to be slowly swelling...
Slashdot Mirror
Let's just hope that Midway allows Epic to develop the games on their own, without screwing with them. The main problem developers seem to run into is "meddling" publishers, but I don't think Midway is bad for this, and Epic is big enough that they can probably resist any "executive decisions" pretty well. This is probably better than Atari in the long run, anyway, judging from the... interesting decisions Atari made regarding The Temple of Elemental Evil. (That game had several "objectionable" portions taken out... like the children.) The rise of the "publisher" phenomenon in video games is worrisome, though; the effect was hardly positive on the literary front (where everything is now expected to fit into a neat little genre).
"Upgradability" is pretty much irrelevant in terms of quality of games. I've bought a half dozen excellent games for my PS2 in the last six months. I doubt I've bought that many excellent games for my PC in six years.
...can be bought cheap, too. Go to Cheap Ass Gamer; it relies on different users posting the deals they have found, but it seems to be a very effective system. The availability of some deals depends on your area (and the brick & mortar stores you have access to).
The graphics on the XBox "suck?" Did you think that three years ago? What's changed? Creating graphics that look like an XBox game still takes just as much effort as it did then, after all. Did Half-Life's graphics suck when it came out? No? Then why do they suck now? Granted, technology has advanced, but that doesn't affect the "quality" of graphics; it's really just the quantity of Purdy Effectz they can put on them. Granted, the PlayStation2's graphics aren't as good as even the XBox, but I can very easily put in Dark Cloud 2, Rygar, Gran Turismo 3, or any of the other dozens of games that are designed for it and still have fun. Of course, I also play my SNES and NES games to this day...
Eh, I don't even follow things that closely. This was the first upgrade I'd had in four years, so I went next-to-top-tier (I would never pay $400 or $500 for a video card. that's insane). I do recommend Far Cry while you're waiting for Half-Life 2, though. It's an excellent game.
Have you played Far Cry yet? I have a feeling it will bring your card to its knees, at anything above minimum settings. It makes mine slouch a little at medium-high, and it's a Radeon 9800...
I'll be happy when graphical achievement tops out, at least somewhat. I think it's already begun, actually, but we're not quite there yet. When that happens, we may actually be able to get some sort of basic standards going, with games becoming more like books or movies instead of constantly requiring upgrades and more processor power. PC gaming, especially, falls victim to this. I have a PlayStation2, along with a gaming-class computer. The other day, I realized that I paid more for my video card than I did for my PlayStation2--and I spend many more hours playing games on my PS2 than I do on my computer. If we start seeing diminishing returns in terms of graphics, maybe we'll be able to stabilize at one level for a while... it's ridiculous that a $250 card is "outdated" within a year and a half (if it lasts even that long).
I hate to slashdot them, but a really useful site is Cheap Ass Gamer. It relies on people posting deals, but so far I've had no problems with them (I got Rygar for the PS2 for $10+cheap shipping). It can save you a ton of money.
At the same time, you can't really fault them for attempting to prevent people from making and playing ROMs of games that have yet to come out. It's not like this is a piece of utility software, it's a luxury item (and an art). Why should they stand by and watch their time and effort go down the drain?
Origin has been a shell of itself since 1992. Ultima VIII was rushed by EA, Ultima IX was at least negatively influenced by them, and Ultima Online honestly bears little resemblance to the cardinal Ultimas. Sad, yes, but not really a disaster. Maybe Garriott's new company will accomplish something eventually :)
The problem with this is that it seems to assume that chess is a difficult problem. It isn't. Modern chess algorithms are really simple search-and- prune systems, relying on the computer's immense number-crunching ability to overcome the more heuristic human mind. Unfortunately, this isn't very interesting. What's the point? We know that computers can search faster than a human. See: Google. All these projects (DeepBlue, Fritz, this) accomplish is trivializing the game of chess, which is rather sad. Now, I'll be really annoyed when Go programs start improving to a 'decent amateur' level...
You may be barking up the wrong tree. Level design, particularly for modern 3D engines, is more of an art than a science. There are many mappers who have been working at it for years, for various games. In particular, you might look at some of the maps released for Quake III and even the original Quake, along with more recent games like Unreal Tournament 2003. The problem with assuming that you can just "jump in" and become immediately skilled is that it completely ignores the skillset which is unique to that position. Quite honestly, almost no programming experience will transfer to the field. If you are still interested--and it is truly a hobby/profession which requires interest--Half-Life is actually a good place to start. Try not to get overwhelmed with concern about newer features at first--learn about brush layout, visibility occlusion, et cetera. These will help you with any engine. Also, I think that these skills are more transferable than something like Neverwinter Nights or other, simpler level editors. Making a level in a 3D game like the FPSes I listed above is very similar to 3D modelling, so you can transfer skills between the two. Func_Msgboard is somewhat dead these days, but you might find things of interest there--and there are some truly great mappers who hang out there. :) Good luck.
That said, I really like George R. R. Martin--though this may be a bit hypocritical. Unlike the aforementioned author, his series actually seems to be going somewhere (though his writing pace is glacial). On the other hand, the number of books seems to be slowly swelling...