I thought about it, and every game I've bought for a console has been a proprietary media format.
Also my DVD's just sit on the shelf (I have a Tivo). I bought a couple of UMD movies because I am likely to actually watch them. They will be available at times when no other way to watch a movie of my choice. E.g. on a flight, train, stuck in town waiting for inconsiderate tardy people.
I'm the same way with getting off the plane. I've noticed all those people who get up right away, save themselves a minute tops. And then have to wait when they get to the baggage belt anyway.
I wait on the plane till I can just get up and go, and then when I turn up to the baggage belt my luggage usually still hasn't shown up. A minute or two amusing myself over the antics of my fellow human beings, then pick my bags up. Or I just pack carry on if I can get away with it and beat them all out the door anyway.
Its like this whole false economy thing. People only think they need to rush because everyone else seems to be rushing.
I've used the e-tax for 2 years in a row. then I got a mac and dumped my windows box. I'm not complaining, the software is just a virtual form that does some very easy math for you.
As for protesting windows only, are you going to protest it isn't available for the Acorn? How about PalmPC? They wrote software to make sending tax in easier. They wrote it for the biggest group of users. How is that anything but intelligent government spending.
Yes, it would be nice if they used Qt and made it multi-platform (Qt GPL or non-GPL on mac, linux and windows now), but even if the code doesn't have to be written more than once, there is still additional effort in packaging and support. I mean they let you get the software for free as in beer. Next you will want them to buy you a PC too otherwise they disadvantag those who do not own a computer.
Either do in on the forms and mail them in, get a tax person to do it for you, or run WINE/VirtualPC. Save your indignation for real issues like <insert real issue here>.
The hard part, IMO, is the extra stuff like graphics and sounds. Unless you're talented in such things, making a game look and sound good is a real problem. It is especially troublesome if you don't know anyone who can do the artwork and is willing to just toy around with you for free.
From the post:I'd like to start just by writing simple board games and card games that my family liked to play
Graphics for simple board games and cardgames are free. most of what is in the Gnome Games are LGPL and as for playing cards, try typing 'playing cards' + whatever image format your looking for into google. I'd suggest svg for high res cards.
Now as for graphics for more advanced games, well yes,
Good artists are expensive and games need to look good or most people will pass right over them.
Amen. Very, very true. I can code up a generator of generic tiles (and have done so, v.old code at gasnippets.sf.net) but after a certain res, or adding things like buildings still requires a degree of artistry. Its not long before you find that its not from the IT department that good games are made, but from the English and Art Departments. Thats why I think Open Source coders might achieve better games by focusing more on making it easy for artists and writers to make Open Source games rather than make the entire leap themselves. Pygaming for instance. Afterall, good coders are expensive too and yet there is code.
I know its a bit late in the discussion for this to be seen, so I might post it again as an ask slashdot.
One of the best ways to improve the usability and functionality of software is with good use cases. These are just the 'I want to achieve X' that people already post in slashdot articles like this.
Rather than loosing this info, why not have a website that tracks and ranks use cases (100,000 people want to be able to share their calendars, for instance). This would be a very useful resource for both open source and commercial software. Admittedly probably more useful to commercial software though as open source is more written to scratch the itch of the developer.
Personally I think it applies more to the people who use it as a websurfing, email checking tool, rather than as part of their job.
Their data is email's and photos. Hardly stuff targeted by black hats. However by making the software readonly they are now protected from spyware just by rebooting their machine, protected from being a spam zombie just by rebooting their machine, and if they get lost, they know rebooting their machine will take them to a known state.
Basically this isn't good for anyone who wants to do real work on a PC, but for those who want it as simple as their microwave then this is a potential solution. Their PC becomes a safe, although much more limited appliance, rather than a powerful workstation.
Of course you can also do this by signing applications and making decisions about how to trust in Redmond rather than the home office. A bit hard to push through the PC, but I reckon they have a shot with the X-Box 360. Afterall, console 'software' already has to be ok'd by the manufacturer.
Not needed if you have a swap partition (or huge memory). You can tell Knoppix to load itself into memory; and 700MB of swap space is really really cheap these days (hard drives are under a dollar/gig).
Strangely enough this reminds me of my first computer experience. You load in a floppy to get the os running, take the floppy out and put in the program floppy. The days before Harddrives.
Seriously, this isn't such a bad idea. cd drives are extremely cheap now, so having an extra cd or even dvd read-only drive isn't really that big a deal compared to the cost of the rest of the machine.
For instance, if I have a portable games machine, I want it to be portable. Frankly the DS is too big to fulfill this requirement. So was the first GBA.
This though, this would take up less room than a wallet or a set of keys. This you could pick up and take with you without feeling like you should be packing a backpack or something.
Hence, they are really going after the people who look at the other systems and say 'they are too big'. Its much the same as when Apple released the iPod mini. Didn't do anything the existing iPods didn't do, but was smaller.
... the button to open a door isn't the same button as to hit someone.
That bit of 'difficulty' I could live without. Fight down to one enemy left. Accidently go through the door back a room and all the enemies respawn! grr.
I got a fair way through it, but decided that I didn't want to put up with the controls + camera anymore.
Here at least, if a car pollutes to much or is a safety hazard it can't be driven. from the article a 20,000 helped cause an attack that cost around the one mil. mark. or to be more specific, each of those zombies caused $50 worth of damage.
How much does a decent firewall cost?
Make getting online a right, but a right that has responsibilities (just as getting on the road does). You want to send traffic, fine. But if you are detected as a zombie you now have to 'for $50 about' prove that you have fixed the problem before you can get back online.
Reading this article only proves to me that just letting any old hunk off junk on the internet super highway is not a good idea.
My solution is to just try to be prepared for whatever direction the characters do go.
Some of this is trickery.
For instance, if they are stuck in a trap and there is a secret passage at the back that leads further into the the campaign, but they work their way out of the trap, I let them. I don't give them a NPC telling them 'hey, go back to that trap'. I just take that material and find another appropriate place where it might get used. Ok, so that means there is some degree of fate (eventually, you will find this).
That said, it is much more work, and some players do seem to prefer to be puppets. e.g. they want to role-play their character, not their situation. This has happened to the point where some players tried to puppet master other players because they thought they were being lead off the campaign. So for a potentially mixed group (or all, tell me a story, players) the NPC dialog is the best way, especially at the start of the campaign and you are waiting to see if the players want to be lead, or want to explore.
How do you know? Just because I still disagree doesn't mean I'm not listening or thinking about it. I mean you see how I could listen to you and think about it without agreeing with you don't you? The truth is I have listened to you and thought about it. And I decided that if history could create Linux without a unified direction, it can certainly keep it going. And I do contribute to Open Source and I would rather not have someone else dictate how I do it. (You can give to charity, but only the redcross!).
Still, if you won't argue the point and just insult me I guess were done:)
All well and good, but all other things being equal, if 30,000 open source developers code in an evolutionary manner with no direction or purpose, and 100,000 commercial programmers from a handful of well directed companies, who do you think will fall behind the times first?
This is what is known as a strawman argument... or phrasing your question to give yourself the answer you want.
with no direction or purpose should be with no unified direction or purpose because as sure as hell each of those disparate projects you hate each have their own purpose. They are different and sometimes at odds, but they are there. They each have their own direction, just not everyone is along for the ride.
who do you think will fall behind the times first? Some of the commercial programmers will fall behind the times and some of the open source developers will keep up. But its irrelevant because each isn't one group that moves as a whole, each is a bunch of small groups, and some of these groups are also in both of your categories.
An earlier post asked Is your world binary? If the answer is yes then the two of us will never agree. I don't even think there is a competition, let alone the concepts that Linux might somehow win or lose. To me its an means, not an end in itself. When someone tries to do something with Linux, then it becomes a chance of winning or losing, but for that person, not for Linux. Perhaps thats what you are doing, you have decided to make it your goal to get everyone on Linux because of your beliefs, and feel you might lose because not everyone else thinks the same way as you?
And right there you lost me. I didn't realize this was a collective rather than a community.
There is no 'lets decide'. There is no 'single direction'. Theres just a bunch of people happening to be doing similar stuff.
What you are saying only differs in scale from saying "Lets have only one video card standard" or "Why have both OS X and WinXP". Heck, I have 1 distro, 1 firewall, 1 desktop manager 1 office suite. How? because when I think 'choice against WinXP' I think 'SuSE' or 'Redhat', not 'Linux'. There is more than one office suite for OSX too... do you believe MS should stop shipping word for mac or Apple scrap AppleWorks?
I started something like this (coding artwork) at gasnippets.sf.net
Basically one of my projects was a way of generating tiles for a RTS game. But no one really wants pixmap tiles anymore so I tried opengl mesh based tiles. The idea is that the way to make the tile is broken up into bits. So someone can get grass right, someone else trees.
Unfortunately I gave it up before anyone took it up. But I agree,there is a lot out there that is collaborative art. Photoshop tennis, meshes, povray bits etc. Basically just need a good framework where people can do a bit of the work, and get advantage from the whole. Easy to add, nice incremental advantage at each stage of artwork.
I think if you want better graphics for your game, step one is to make it really, really easy to create new graphics. And I don't just mean 'load some png's. I mean have tools to help with relative scale, promote sharing of meshes or source images (e.g. 5 different guys on horses can share the horse bit) etc. Its more work, but its the work coders can do. If its fun and easy, the artists will come. Well, so long as they like your game and not your graphics.
For permadeath to be meaningful, you have to loose something hard to get back. If all you loose is easily regainable equipment then where is the fear of death?
from playing nethack (and Diablo in hardcore mode) I suggest:
1) A goal of some kind. In nethack its getting that damn amulet. In Diablo hardcore mode, its titles (e.g. Slayer bill). It felt damn good to say, ok, this character died. But see, he got through 5 acts first. For an MMO, I'd say a permanent list of accomplishments would be appropriate. Possibly just based of enemy kills and such.
2) Have an excessive number of team kills completely wipe your characters record and send the guards after you. The reason I say only excessive is pissing of your faction is a good way to get killed and should be. Do griefing behavior and the other players have a real action they can take against you.
3) Still have factions. Just make it so they both have safe areas, but have bigger reputation if they survive a real battle. It is important to also include something worth risking death for.
2) and frankly, still have progression. Just make it more 'pick and choose' style then is currently done. In nethack starting again isn't boring because you are never milling. The items you get each time is different, the way you can use them opens up completely different options.
you should really take the time to get away from the "kill everyone and blow stuff up" mentality and give the games a fair go.
You didn't actually read the post you replied to did you? Disturb them a couple of times and after a while they'll always go back to what they were doing. That doesn't sound to me like he killed anyone, let alone everyone.
I also had many of the same complaints about SP as the grandparent. How can you have a decent sneaker when the AI sucks? I loved the Thief series.. and thought 'Splinter cell, another sneaker, I'll give it a try'. SP (or at least edition 2 which I tried) is not a sneaker. Its a linear piece of crap that involves no real stealth, Everything was just way to obvious, in part because the AI was way too dumb.
It has many of the mechanics required for a sneaker... but it needs to be less linear (e.g. more open exploration, less 'two options, and the stealth option is blindingly obvious'. and it needs much better AI. When I hear fans raving about how much the AI has improved, then I'll try it again.
The thing is, most people who buy games don't know the "movies->Games" thing makes the game suck. I bet the matrix game was one of the highest selling console games of it's time.
I'd also be willing to bet it was the highest reselling game of all time. As in, most people who bought it would trade it in or in some other way attempt to get some of their money back.
I bought it (then sold it), because I am sure sometimes the move->game thing works. I think Riddick, return to butcher bay is supposed to be an example, but I haven't had a chance to play it yet.
Really? I'm using the GPL Qt to program with (missed Spider Solitaire too much). Since I find that the easiest GUI to program with when using Linux I guess (for me at least) programming on the Mac Mini is equivalent.
Its a *nix core. It has a X11 client bundled in. Linux works on PowerPC. So really anything you miss from Linux is available (although possibly with a bit of effort) for the Mac.
Define smoothly. Right now I'v got half a gig, and it plays at about 5-10 fps in the plains and 2-5 fps when things get crowded. Are you saying if I had I had dished out for the full gig it would play at 15+ fps?
I went from Windows 2.4Ghz Radeon 9600 XT with 768MB ram to Mac Mini 1.45Ghz Radeon 9200 with 512MB ram. I was surprised WoW played at all. Even then, it has none of the special effects found on a higher end video card. This is especially noticeable if you were playing a night elf.
Oh, and for those wondering why I took such a downgrade.. The Windows box died in spectacular fashion and would have required 60% replacement anyway. I figured now was the time to see if switching worked for me. And you know what, it did, although I'm not playing WoW anymore.
I don't know... He could have meant it seemed to be the purpose their soul existed to bash people on slashdot, rather than the only purpose on slashdot was to bash people.
I'm not a griefer, but when someone has the name 'Iwillslayou' or 'youallsuck' I don't feel very sympathetic to that person. And getting to keep a provocative name isn't winning, its loosing.
Not having a provocative name is good idea all round, not just because its a attraction for griefers, but because it degrades the game for everyone else anyway. That, and most people I have seen with theses names on WoW have turned out to be rather self-centered, and pathetic.
Telling your child not to use provocative names is the same as telling them not to go up to bullies and say 'your just a bully cause you suck and I'm better than you.'
I was all the things classically bullied in school, short, academic etc. But I wasn't bullied. I put this down to the fact that in my first few years of schooling I was a bully (Sorry). Here is what really worked for me (on both sides):
Bullies really are (in their mind) trying to even the score. Just ignoring them altogether is seen as snobbish. Whereas an 'I'm bored' approach to their attempts at bulling but otherwise talking to them as if they were normal works extremely well. It takes away both the carrot and the stick. No reaction, no reward of feeling powerful, no snobbishness, no stick that makes them feel they need to dominate you.
If making GNU/Linux Popular means taking away what I like about GNU/Linux, then to hell with popular.
Linux isn't a company. Linux isn't a religion. Linux is a public space where a bunch of people have come and started helping out each other. It doesn't need to change to succeed, It just is.
If you said for a panda to really succeed it should be made like a grizzly bear, would the panda have succeeded? or would we now just be without pandas.
Slashdot Mirror
Gee, and I already said yes.
I thought about it, and every game I've bought for a console has been a proprietary media format.
Also my DVD's just sit on the shelf (I have a Tivo). I bought a couple of UMD movies because I am likely to actually watch them. They will be available at times when no other way to watch a movie of my choice. E.g. on a flight, train, stuck in town waiting for inconsiderate tardy people.
I'm the same way with getting off the plane. I've noticed all those people who get up right away, save themselves a minute tops. And then have to wait when they get to the baggage belt anyway.
I wait on the plane till I can just get up and go, and then when I turn up to the baggage belt my luggage usually still hasn't shown up. A minute or two amusing myself over the antics of my fellow human beings, then pick my bags up. Or I just pack carry on if I can get away with it and beat them all out the door anyway.
Its like this whole false economy thing. People only think they need to rush because everyone else seems to be rushing.
Don't feel bad, it was a pretty lame attempt at humour. And hey, you got yourself some karma :)
I've used the e-tax for 2 years in a row. then I got a mac and dumped my windows box. I'm not complaining, the software is just a virtual form that does some very easy math for you.
As for protesting windows only, are you going to protest it isn't available for the Acorn? How about PalmPC? They wrote software to make sending tax in easier. They wrote it for the biggest group of users. How is that anything but intelligent government spending.
Yes, it would be nice if they used Qt and made it multi-platform (Qt GPL or non-GPL on mac, linux and windows now), but even if the code doesn't have to be written more than once, there is still additional effort in packaging and support. I mean they let you get the software for free as in beer. Next you will want them to buy you a PC too otherwise they disadvantag those who do not own a computer.
Either do in on the forms and mail them in, get a tax person to do it for you, or run WINE/VirtualPC. Save your indignation for real issues like <insert real issue here>.
The hard part, IMO, is the extra stuff like graphics and sounds. Unless you're talented in such things, making a game look and sound good is a real problem. It is especially troublesome if you don't know anyone who can do the artwork and is willing to just toy around with you for free.
From the post:I'd like to start just by writing simple board games and card games that my family liked to play
Graphics for simple board games and cardgames are free. most of what is in the Gnome Games are LGPL and as for playing cards, try typing 'playing cards' + whatever image format your looking for into google. I'd suggest svg for high res cards.
Now as for graphics for more advanced games, well yes,
Good artists are expensive and games need to look good or most people will pass right over them.
Amen. Very, very true. I can code up a generator of generic tiles (and have done so, v.old code at gasnippets.sf.net) but after a certain res, or adding things like buildings still requires a degree of artistry. Its not long before you find that its not from the IT department that good games are made, but from the English and Art Departments. Thats why I think Open Source coders might achieve better games by focusing more on making it easy for artists and writers to make Open Source games rather than make the entire leap themselves. Pygaming for instance. Afterall, good coders are expensive too and yet there is code.
I know its a bit late in the discussion for this to be seen, so I might post it again as an ask slashdot.
One of the best ways to improve the usability and functionality of software is with good use cases. These are just the 'I want to achieve X' that people already post in slashdot articles like this.
Rather than loosing this info, why not have a website that tracks and ranks use cases (100,000 people want to be able to share their calendars, for instance). This would be a very useful resource for both open source and commercial software. Admittedly probably more useful to commercial software though as open source is more written to scratch the itch of the developer.
Personally I think it applies more to the people who use it as a websurfing, email checking tool, rather than as part of their job.
Their data is email's and photos. Hardly stuff targeted by black hats. However by making the software readonly they are now protected from spyware just by rebooting their machine, protected from being a spam zombie just by rebooting their machine, and if they get lost, they know rebooting their machine will take them to a known state.
Basically this isn't good for anyone who wants to do real work on a PC, but for those who want it as simple as their microwave then this is a potential solution. Their PC becomes a safe, although much more limited appliance, rather than a powerful workstation.
Of course you can also do this by signing applications and making decisions about how to trust in Redmond rather than the home office. A bit hard to push through the PC, but I reckon they have a shot with the X-Box 360. Afterall, console 'software' already has to be ok'd by the manufacturer.
Not needed if you have a swap partition (or huge memory). You can tell Knoppix to load itself into memory; and 700MB of swap space is really really cheap these days (hard drives are under a dollar/gig).
Strangely enough this reminds me of my first computer experience. You load in a floppy to get the os running, take the floppy out and put in the program floppy. The days before Harddrives.
Seriously, this isn't such a bad idea. cd drives are extremely cheap now, so having an extra cd or even dvd read-only drive isn't really that big a deal compared to the cost of the rest of the machine.
Its called accessing new parts of the market.
For instance, if I have a portable games machine, I want it to be portable. Frankly the DS is too big to fulfill this requirement. So was the first GBA.
This though, this would take up less room than a wallet or a set of keys. This you could pick up and take with you without feeling like you should be packing a backpack or something.
Hence, they are really going after the people who look at the other systems and say 'they are too big'. Its much the same as when Apple released the iPod mini. Didn't do anything the existing iPods didn't do, but was smaller.
... the button to open a door isn't the same button as to hit someone.
That bit of 'difficulty' I could live without. Fight down to one enemy left. Accidently go through the door back a room and all the enemies respawn! grr.
I got a fair way through it, but decided that I didn't want to put up with the controls + camera anymore.
Here at least, if a car pollutes to much or is a safety hazard it can't be driven. from the article a 20,000 helped cause an attack that cost around the one mil. mark. or to be more specific, each of those zombies caused $50 worth of damage.
How much does a decent firewall cost?
Make getting online a right, but a right that has responsibilities (just as getting on the road does). You want to send traffic, fine. But if you are detected as a zombie you now have to 'for $50 about' prove that you have fixed the problem before you can get back online.
Reading this article only proves to me that just letting any old hunk off junk on the internet super highway is not a good idea.
My solution is to just try to be prepared for whatever direction the characters do go.
Some of this is trickery.
For instance, if they are stuck in a trap and there is a secret passage at the back that leads further into the the campaign, but they work their way out of the trap, I let them. I don't give them a NPC telling them 'hey, go back to that trap'. I just take that material and find another appropriate place where it might get used. Ok, so that means there is some degree of fate (eventually, you will find this).
That said, it is much more work, and some players do seem to prefer to be puppets. e.g. they want to role-play their character, not their situation. This has happened to the point where some players tried to puppet master other players because they thought they were being lead off the campaign. So for a potentially mixed group (or all, tell me a story, players) the NPC dialog is the best way, especially at the start of the campaign and you are waiting to see if the players want to be lead, or want to explore.
How do you know? Just because I still disagree doesn't mean I'm not listening or thinking about it. I mean you see how I could listen to you and think about it without agreeing with you don't you? The truth is I have listened to you and thought about it. And I decided that if history could create Linux without a unified direction, it can certainly keep it going. And I do contribute to Open Source and I would rather not have someone else dictate how I do it. (You can give to charity, but only the redcross!).
:)
Still, if you won't argue the point and just insult me I guess were done
Its been fun.
All well and good, but all other things being equal, if 30,000 open source developers code in an evolutionary manner with no direction or purpose, and 100,000 commercial programmers from a handful of well directed companies, who do you think will fall behind the times first?
This is what is known as a strawman argument... or phrasing your question to give yourself the answer you want.
with no direction or purpose should be with no unified direction or purpose because as sure as hell each of those disparate projects you hate each have their own purpose. They are different and sometimes at odds, but they are there. They each have their own direction, just not everyone is along for the ride.
who do you think will fall behind the times first? Some of the commercial programmers will fall behind the times and some of the open source developers will keep up. But its irrelevant because each isn't one group that moves as a whole, each is a bunch of small groups, and some of these groups are also in both of your categories.
An earlier post asked Is your world binary? If the answer is yes then the two of us will never agree. I don't even think there is a competition, let alone the concepts that Linux might somehow win or lose. To me its an means, not an end in itself. When someone tries to do something with Linux, then it becomes a chance of winning or losing, but for that person, not for Linux. Perhaps thats what you are doing, you have decided to make it your goal to get everyone on Linux because of your beliefs, and feel you might lose because not everyone else thinks the same way as you?
Lets decide whether we're doing..
And right there you lost me. I didn't realize this was a collective rather than a community.
There is no 'lets decide'. There is no 'single direction'. Theres just a bunch of people happening to be doing similar stuff.
What you are saying only differs in scale from saying "Lets have only one video card standard" or "Why have both OS X and WinXP". Heck, I have 1 distro, 1 firewall, 1 desktop manager 1 office suite. How? because when I think 'choice against WinXP' I think 'SuSE' or 'Redhat', not 'Linux'. There is more than one office suite for OSX too... do you believe MS should stop shipping word for mac or Apple scrap AppleWorks?
I started something like this (coding artwork) at gasnippets.sf.net
Basically one of my projects was a way of generating tiles for a RTS game. But no one really wants pixmap tiles anymore so I tried opengl mesh based tiles. The idea is that the way to make the tile is broken up into bits. So someone can get grass right, someone else trees.
Unfortunately I gave it up before anyone took it up. But I agree,there is a lot out there that is collaborative art. Photoshop tennis, meshes, povray bits etc. Basically just need a good framework where people can do a bit of the work, and get advantage from the whole. Easy to add, nice incremental advantage at each stage of artwork.
I think if you want better graphics for your game, step one is to make it really, really easy to create new graphics. And I don't just mean 'load some png's. I mean have tools to help with relative scale, promote sharing of meshes or source images (e.g. 5 different guys on horses can share the horse bit) etc. Its more work, but its the work coders can do. If its fun and easy, the artists will come. Well, so long as they like your game and not your graphics.
For permadeath to be meaningful, you have to loose something hard to get back. If all you loose is easily regainable equipment then where is the fear of death?
from playing nethack (and Diablo in hardcore mode) I suggest:
1) A goal of some kind. In nethack its getting that damn amulet. In Diablo hardcore mode, its titles (e.g. Slayer bill). It felt damn good to say, ok, this character died. But see, he got through 5 acts first. For an MMO, I'd say a permanent list of accomplishments would be appropriate. Possibly just based of enemy kills and such.
2) Have an excessive number of team kills completely wipe your characters record and send the guards after you. The reason I say only excessive is pissing of your faction is a good way to get killed and should be. Do griefing behavior and the other players have a real action they can take against you.
3) Still have factions. Just make it so they both have safe areas, but have bigger reputation if they survive a real battle. It is important to also include something worth risking death for.
2) and frankly, still have progression. Just make it more 'pick and choose' style then is currently done. In nethack starting again isn't boring because you are never milling. The items you get each time is different, the way you can use them opens up completely different options.
you should really take the time to get away from the "kill everyone and blow stuff up" mentality and give the games a fair go.
You didn't actually read the post you replied to did you? Disturb them a couple of times and after a while they'll always go back to what they were doing. That doesn't sound to me like he killed anyone, let alone everyone.
I also had many of the same complaints about SP as the grandparent. How can you have a decent sneaker when the AI sucks? I loved the Thief series.. and thought 'Splinter cell, another sneaker, I'll give it a try'. SP (or at least edition 2 which I tried) is not a sneaker. Its a linear piece of crap that involves no real stealth, Everything was just way to obvious, in part because the AI was way too dumb.
It has many of the mechanics required for a sneaker... but it needs to be less linear (e.g. more open exploration, less 'two options, and the stealth option is blindingly obvious'. and it needs much better AI. When I hear fans raving about how much the AI has improved, then I'll try it again.
The thing is, most people who buy games don't know the "movies->Games" thing makes the game suck. I bet the matrix game was one of the highest selling console games of it's time.
I'd also be willing to bet it was the highest reselling game of all time. As in, most people who bought it would trade it in or in some other way attempt to get some of their money back.
I bought it (then sold it), because I am sure sometimes the move->game thing works. I think Riddick, return to butcher bay is supposed to be an example, but I haven't had a chance to play it yet.
I can tell you I'm going to be an author that makes sure my projects don't have 'or any later version' from now on.
I like the GPL and the FSF, but I don't like that the FSF could decide to change how my software is licensed in a way I don't have a say in.
The GUI is limiting and a pain to program
Really? I'm using the GPL Qt to program with (missed Spider Solitaire too much). Since I find that the easiest GUI to program with when using Linux I guess (for me at least) programming on the Mac Mini is equivalent.
Its a *nix core. It has a X11 client bundled in. Linux works on PowerPC. So really anything you miss from Linux is available (although possibly with a bit of effort) for the Mac.
Define smoothly. Right now I'v got half a gig, and it plays at about 5-10 fps in the plains and 2-5 fps when things get crowded. Are you saying if I had I had dished out for the full gig it would play at 15+ fps?
I went from Windows 2.4Ghz Radeon 9600 XT with 768MB ram to Mac Mini 1.45Ghz Radeon 9200 with 512MB ram. I was surprised WoW played at all. Even then, it has none of the special effects found on a higher end video card. This is especially noticeable if you were playing a night elf.
Oh, and for those wondering why I took such a downgrade.. The Windows box died in spectacular fashion and would have required 60% replacement anyway. I figured now was the time to see if switching worked for me. And you know what, it did, although I'm not playing WoW anymore.
I don't know... He could have meant it seemed to be the purpose their soul existed to bash people on slashdot, rather than the only purpose on slashdot was to bash people.
I'm not a griefer, but when someone has the name 'Iwillslayou' or 'youallsuck' I don't feel very sympathetic to that person. And getting to keep a provocative name isn't winning, its loosing.
Not having a provocative name is good idea all round, not just because its a attraction for griefers, but because it degrades the game for everyone else anyway. That, and most people I have seen with theses names on WoW have turned out to be rather self-centered, and pathetic.
Telling your child not to use provocative names is the same as telling them not to go up to bullies and say 'your just a bully cause you suck and I'm better than you.'
I was all the things classically bullied in school, short, academic etc. But I wasn't bullied. I put this down to the fact that in my first few years of schooling I was a bully (Sorry). Here is what really worked for me (on both sides):
Bullies really are (in their mind) trying to even the score. Just ignoring them altogether is seen as snobbish. Whereas an 'I'm bored' approach to their attempts at bulling but otherwise talking to them as if they were normal works extremely well. It takes away both the carrot and the stick. No reaction, no reward of feeling powerful, no snobbishness, no stick that makes them feel they need to dominate you.
If making GNU/Linux Popular means taking away what I like about GNU/Linux, then to hell with popular.
Linux isn't a company. Linux isn't a religion. Linux is a public space where a bunch of people have come and started helping out each other. It doesn't need to change to succeed, It just is.
If you said for a panda to really succeed it should be made like a grizzly bear, would the panda have succeeded? or would we now just be without pandas.