Credit where credit is due
on
D&D Is 30
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· Score: 0
I was rumaging through stuff from my recent move last week and I came across eight D&D manuals, a couple of modules, some old character sheets and even a box full of miniatures from the early 80's. I haven't played pen and paper D&D for about seven years now but I still pursue role-playing games in the form of MMORPG's and CRPG's, it's not quite as good but it's hard to find time to get a half dozen of my friends together all at once now that we are all married with children. Anyways to give credit where credit is due, if not for D&D there would be no RPG's these days... what would I do with the little spare time I have if that was the case?;)
About twelve
weeks ago I purchased a new graphics card for my computer system. My system is almost exclusively built for
gaming and includes a superb 5.1 surround system. I purchased a Radeon
9200 AGP video card which is the low end of the new cards. I was running a 32 meg
Viper V770D which is a great card but didn't support the TNL (Texture and
Lighting) one of the "newer" effects that hardware gives you. I had a couple of games that required this
and I couldn't run so I purchased the new card with 128meg of ram expecting
some pretty good performance increases.
To tell the truth
other than getting the TNL support the Radeon 9200
was completely unimpressive. The Viper
ran just as good with 32 meg of ram and was three
years old. Anyways I downloaded the demo
of "Far Cry" which, low and behold,
happens to be the "first game of a series of new ones being released to take
advantage of the new hardware" these games include the upcoming releases Half Life-2 and Doom-3 (yes they are
coming out and very soon). Anyways this
unknown german developer releases this Far Cry game
so I download the demo and "I CAN'T RUN IT"..... ok fine
something is wrong with the demo (lots of demos are trash and can't be ran by
many systems).
I don't think
much of it till about two weeks ago when I decide I want an even better video
card and I put out some "serious cash" for a Radeon
9800 PRO 128meg 8xAGP card. Well I got
the performance boost I suspected from a new video card and then some. This card has it's
own fan on it and also requires not only power from the AGP slot but has to be
connected directly to the power supply (preferably a 300watt one which
fortunately is what I have).
Well after the
new upgrade I decide to try Far Cry again and boy did it run! This game is the most impressive FPS
graphically that I have ever seen! I can't
even begin to describe how incredible this new technology is but suffice to say
it's worth every bit of the 250 bucks it'll cost you for a good video card.
I have heard a
lot of people on/. State that they can get into platform gaming a lot cheaper
than PC gaming. Let me fill you in on
something peeps, go check out game reviews like the one at www.gamespot.com for Star Wars Knights of
the Old Republic and others that are available on PC and platform systems
both. You will notice that not only do
the PC versions normally have extra content but also that they typically always
get the "HIGHEST MARKS" of any of the versions available.
You may pay a
little more but if a truly great game comes out and the PC version has a little
extra content and also the best graphics, sound and controls of all the
versions then to me "it's worth every penny".
You know another thing that gets me is the length of the sentences they are giving some of these "pirates"?????
Ok I can easily see that downloading copies of software, movies, songs etc.. that you don't already own is piracy and that it is illegal.
I have no problem understading that it is illegal or why it is illegal. However giving some poor computer geek 3 years in "prison" for it is insane!
Punishment should be along the lines of: Temporary banishment from the internet, confiscation and sale of PC equipment to cover costs. The fine should be a set amount, say 5k, you should then have to pay "the full retail" amount for each piece of illegally copyrighted material that you have. There should be "no jail time" for cyber-piracy. I mean come on, is throwing a computer geek in with a bunch of sex crazed blood thirsty murderers and rapists really justice?
You know, that's the first thing that came to mind to me also. The only thing that really threw me for a loop on that theory was the fact that they didn't state "media" they stated "movies" specifically. That's what shook me up a bit. If they'd said copyrighted materials in general I'd have never thought twice about it.
*cackles*
ok, ok! Damn didn't think people were that defensive of Microsoft regardless of what the product was!
A few things to make my argument make a little more sense maybe.
I custom build my computers, my current system has an 8xAGP Radeon 9800pro/128meg video card and a very nice high end 5.1 surround sound system on it. So anyone that says that the X-box has better graphics and/or sound than a PC hasn't seen "a good PC set-up"
I based my game view on things I had recently seen on the shelves such as Max Payne, Red Faction, RTCW, MOHAA, Syberia and the fact that my nephew got one for x-mas and was bragging about what a great new RPG he got for it... he was speaking of Morrowind (which I had bought for the pc close to two years earlier, beaten and sold the x-mas before he got it)
I did base my opinion on the fact that PC's prices have dropped dramatically and if you consider the price drop and the amount of titles available for the PC it is the obvious gamers choice.
Now before you start calling me Troll again I want to state that "For playing sports games such as football, basketball etc... a "platform system" is unbeatable because of the simultaneous multi-player function. This only counts for games that don't split the screen as I think this is annoying and would be much better played on a computer network.
I wouldn't buy an x-box for 2 reasons, one I own a PC and two I hate Microsofts business ethics (if you can even call them that).
As for anyone that has one that doesn't have a computer nor could afford one I understand, even though I would have purchased a game cube or PS/2 myself if put in that place.
If you have a computer, go buy some upgrades, it might cost you more but you'll have a much better gaming experience.
This is a message board and as such I state "my opinion" if you don't agree with it you are more than welcome to state your disagreement, but don't threaten me, that's just ignorant.
I've been dating a girl for about three months now. On Saturday night she made a fatal
error! She drives about an hour one way
to see me, she usually comes down 2 to 4 times per
week. Last Saturday she actually had the
nerve to complain to me that I never paid any attention to her because I was
always on the computer playing games!
Here's the breakdown of how the day went.
6am I got up and went to work.
I returned home at noon and proceeded to cook her
lunch.
I then took a two hour nap.
I got up at 2pm and fired up Knight-Online (MMORPG in open
beta).
I continued to play till 6pm at which time I went to the
store and got stuff to make my famous cheese coated baked raviolli, breadsticks and a super deluxe salad. At 8pm after stuffing myself to the max I
spent two hours watching a chic flick with her. (Ok to be honest with you I hated the movie
and spent most of the time making references to the main female character and
her best friend performing some 69 lesbian tongue action, hey I'm A GUY!). During the movie I made her popcorn and got
up at lest 3 times to get her something to drink.
NOTE* At this point in time I think I've been damned good to
this woman, something I always attempt to do.
At about 10:30 I went back downstairs and fired my game back
up. I got into a party
hunting Death Knights and was working on piling up some XPs
when she comes down and starts ranting about how I spend all my time on the
computer playing games and never pay her any attention, she then proceeds to
quote how much she spends on gas every week coming to see me and how
rude I am to ignore her like I do......*I snapped*
At this point I turned at least 3 shades of purple before
finally exploding and telling her the following
Shut the f**k up, get your s**t and get the hell out
of my house!
at this point she began to apologize, cry and
beg (pathetic), I told her to not let the door hit her in the ass on the way
out and locked the door behind her.
She called me Tuesday to tell me she was coming down on
Friday but only if I'd be nice to her WTF? I told her she wasn't coming down Friday or
ever and to bugger off.
I have since changed my online dating profile to state
do not bother applying if you are a video game nazi.
Would I take a PS2 over a date with some hot chic? Hell yeah!
I can get a cheap hooker for 75 bucks and don't have to put in any time
to get lucky, a PS2 is 179.00. That's a
104.00 profit! Also a PS2 doesn't tell
you no when try to turn it on.
You don't have to warm it up before jamming a cartridge into it and you
can play with it all day without it bitching about needing a break.
I have been on
the internet since 1994 and Warez was one of the
first things I found out about. I
thought this was the coolest thing in the world. Being an avid gamer I began to search for
hours for cracked games to download. At
this time I learned two things, that the internet was
really freakin' slow! And that it cost more to
download a game than to buy it! I was on
AOL because at this time there wasn't such a thing as a local ISP in my area at
least. I also was in a rural area so it
was a long distant phone call. I can't
remember exact specifics but I think it costs me about 300USD to get two games...
only one of which was functional.
This was the
beginning of my entry into the world of online piracy. I eventually got high speed internet and
found out about abandonware which contained a lot of
classic games that I missed so I concentrated on these files. Abandonware is
legal to download... for the most part at least from my understanding.
Then came the P2P
file sharing and.mp3 boom. I downloaded
literally hundreds of songs through Napster like thousands of others till it
finally got shut down. At this point in
time my thought was that I was just "an individual" and not worthy of the time
of any law enforcement but just in case I hid my Metallica
and Dr. Dre tracks when I heard they were suing
individual users for downloading their materials.
About a year ago
I found out that you could download entire movies from Kazaa
that hadn't been released on DVD yet and in some cases hadn't even been
released at the theatres! Well this was
the coolest thing I'd found since the first Warez
site I'd ever seen! So being "an
individual" user that wasn't going to profit from the materials,I started downloading and sharing tons of
movies.
About six months
into my new movie pirating past time my internet connection suddenly went
dead???? I figured just a hiccup in the
system. Two days later it was still down
so I called my ISP.
Come to find out
my account "had been suspended for 3-days" for the illegal download and sharing
of movies via the P2P. "Well how did you
know I was doing that"? I asked the technical support guy at my ISP.
"We received a
letter from the motion picture association stating that you have been illegally
infringing on copyrighted materials by downloading them via Kazaa"
Well I couldn't
believe my ears... it was impossible that a small time player like myself (I had
maybe thirty movies on my hard drive) could be worthy of their time? So I waited till my suspension period was up
and started right back in! I got away
with it for about two more months till I got permanately
suspended by my ISP after they received another complaint from the MPA.
Well I guess I
was wrong, I was worthy of their attention and also I was lucky! They could have sent the police to my house
and took my computer. They could have
filed lawsuits against me and put me in prison.
All of these things took time to sink in though.
I can tell you
that at this point in time I am on a cable connection and I haven't even
installed Kazaa or any other P2P apps on my
computer. I haven't even downloaded any abandonware just in case.
It simply isn't worth the risk. I
did an FDISK on my computer and everything on it is legitimate. It's still tempting to download movies,
especially when I see a new one advertised.
But I now wait till it comes out and I get a chance to go see it at the
theatre or rent it on DVD.
Everyone has to
make their own choices about what to do.
File sharing has made it so easy to download copyrighted materials, Hell
I know 12 year olds that are doing it on a daily basis. Their parents have no idea of what they do on
the computer. How they will stop it
entirely is anyones guess considering it looks like an impossibly monumental
task. I hate to see these people go to
jail though, getting busted and having their systems and their "hobby" taken
away from them is sad to se
McBride has been setting himself up for the big fall since he started making his incredibly outlandish claims.
Furthermore he has dug a hole to china to bury himself in with the public in general by citing that open source software is unconstitutional.
This is the first step in his losing ground, I think you'll see him and the company go into a full downhill roll within the next three months. I believe it will end when they hit bottom and SCO is either bankrupt or bought out and Daryl will easily be "The Biggest corporate outcast of the Century*. This guy isn't going to be able to get a job scrubbing toilets by the time he's finished.
The Following is what
I found to be the most interesting item within the study.
"When we
take a step back, it seems odd that the very people who find so much value in
one game deny any value to other kind of games considering that all games at an
abstract level are goals defined in the context of arbitrary rules".
Over the years I have been hounded by friends and family
about the amount of time I spend playing video games. I'm sure the things I hear are the same as
what other game players hear... "You need to get outside more"
, "Why do you always have your nose stuck in your computer, those things
are bad for you" etc...
A good example would be my brother. He is an avid fisherman as am I, however
there are a lot of times when he'll go everyday for months on end. I work and can't do that, and even if I could
I wouldn't. I have set at home before
and played computer fishing games when it was too hot out,
or I simply didn't feel like going and doing the real thing. I really enjoy the competition in some of
these games. My brother doesn't get it
at all, his normal response is to roll his eyes and state "I get high on the
real thing"!
There really isn't much difference between the feeling a
sportsman gets bagging a trophy fish or animal and the joy I get finding a new
+7 iron crossbow with 60 poison damage.
Both of these things can be shown off, he shows off his trophy to people
that come to his house and I show off my new crossbow to all of my online
friends that I play MMORPG's with.
I guess my point is "don't let
people put you down or get you down because you spend hours a week playing
electronic games". A lot of these same
people spend several hours a week playing softball and/or
bowling/golf/billiards/darts and they are in "leagues" just as we are in "Clans"
or "Guilds". MMORPGs
are a great social output with tons of possibilities, just give it a shot and
ignore all those that consider it a "waste of time".
I have a collection of over a thousand PC games, about a third of them are 1995 and prior. I have tackled getting them to run in a different fashion. I plug them into my new machine and if they don't run then I put them on an old P-133 that I built. I added surround sound and a few other options to the system. More ram and got windows 98se running on it. It runs all but maybe five percent of the games I have, those titles are mainly on 5 1/4 inch disk. I do have an old 486-sx/33 I will eventually throw together to make a game to play the other five percent as well.
It might not be the most convenient way but hey it has pretty much a hundred percent chance of working;)
You can pick up old 386/486 machines about anywhere for 10bucks. Grab a 17" monitor, a decent ISA video card, a cd-rom with average speed, a sound card and speakers plus a monitor and a "serial-mouse" and you'll be in retro gaming heaven for easily less than a hundred dollars (of course you can spend more, like putting two hundred bucks worth of surround sound equipment in it... which is really pointless considering the quality of the sound on these games)
I love the classic games, especially the adventure and interactive fiction titles. After reading this article I think I need to go home and fire up some good old "Defender of the Crown" or "Shadowgate"... maybe "Ballyhoo" or "kings quest1"..... ahh well I'll wait and see;)
Good journeys all
The Scott Adam's games were great! There the IF games that I cut my teeth on. I played them on cartidge and/or cassette on my C-Vic-20. God the games were time consuming and frustrating but still a blast!
Stupid time limits on em' always killed me, specially the one where you have to kill Dracula afore the sun rises! *grumbles*
Wow!
It is absolutely wonderful to see that IF still has such a loyal following. I grew up on IF games and still have several IF titles for the PC. I even still have some "choose your own adventure" books on my shelves.
Regardless of what they can do with graphics today, nothing compares with what you can do within your own mind.
The realism you can get with text based games such as IF and MUDS allows you to truly step into the "role" of your favorite characters and live that alternate life most people only dream of.
I always enjoy a good book more than a good movie just as I enjoy a good IF game as much if not more than a good graphic adventure.
If you have never gave IF a chance, or are too young to remember it then check out the articles above and give it a shot, you won't regret it;)
Phantom is right, as in a "phantom item, aka one that does not exist". I would say if the guy pumped 15million into something of that name then he deserves to lose his money.
The web site broadband side was a nice flash page of the machine... course it's phantom also since no buttons or anything else was active on the page.
Really expected this one to say something about an April 1st release;)
I think that Greg should seriously consider making an appointment with his mommy (the Neurologist). It seems that Greg as executive editor has obviously played way too many games and read too many articles about games. This has resulted in him scraping the walls of the inside of his skull for any idea that might be slightly original. Unfortunately this has resulted in him basically writing an article that most editors would never have let pass... of course since he's the executive editor he needn't worry about that. I don't believe for a second that "men" that write games are intentionally writing in female characters just to put them down. Some characters are simply poorly written as some games are. If it happens to be a female character instead of a male character it's coincidence. Once again I don't believe that anyone in the game industry is intentionally out to make women look bad. The idea is ludicrous and Greg needs to take a vacation and sort out his personal problems with his sexuality before attempting to write another column.
Just my opinion, once again don't troll me too quickly;)
I'm the CIO for two mid sized manufacturers in North Central Indiana. I wrote an "internet useage policy" and by signing this the PC users within the companies agree to having their actions while using the computers monitored. Without this being in place it would be easy for an employee which we terminate for "improper" internet useage to conutersue under invasion of privacy laws.
First off "The Temple of Elemental Evil" is not a very good example of a CRPG. It's bug ridden and to put it simply it's "NO FUN". Their whole selling point was the use of the D&D rule set. If this is what a CRPG is like using the D&D rule set then I do not want to play.
The author mentioned "standardization" of character classes which is a horrible idea. A game where every class of character levels up at exactly the same time with exactly the same benefits gained (same number of experience etc..) would become extremely boring quickly. A magician should be harder to level up because of the fact that at high levels they are far superior to other types of characters (ie. a rogue or ranger). Working hard to grow your character in a CRPG is one ot the things that makes it like PPRPGs. You learn to love your character from his traits to his personality.
As far as getting the true "story telling" and "openness" of a PPRPG in a CRPG is impossible. The lack of being able to grow the world "around the characters" within that world make it impossible. However it is very possible within an MMORPG. For example I play The Eternal City (www.skotos.net). In this MUD as I'll call it, the GM's are constantly adding to the game world. They add new skills and new areas. They have added things such as "hunters that can fish and trap" to "Tailors that can create all kinds of custom clothing". These are things that your character can learn to do , or they can simply buy required furs or clothing from another character that is a hunter or tailor. They have added things such as the coliseum where they hold GM led events such as trials to determine the fate of criminals to the "Auction House" where you can take your rare and/or common goods and hold public auctions. You can even buy parchment, quill and ink and if you are "literate" you can write up and post your auction or other event in public places such as INNS. My point is that these things have "been built around" the players. The things that can be built within TEC are infinate and the same is true for other MMORPGs. However in a CRPG about the best you can hope for is an expansion that adds some more skill sets, character classes, mosters, dungeons etc...
Bottom line is that to try to reproduce PPRPG options in a "boxed for the shelf" CRPG is like trying to squeeze an elephant into a sardine can. It's not going to happen.
Between the stomach turning concept of playing an MMORPG based on "The Matrix" and the thought of installing anything from America Online on my computer, It will probably take three months of therapy to stop the night terrors caused simply from the title of this article.
*Screams and runs for the hills*
The VIC-20..... a Cassette Drive..... thirty minutes to load a "Scott Adams" ALL TEXT Adventure game!!!!! Every time I get impatient waiting on a new game to load a new area or level I flick my memory back to the VIC-20 and praise the gaming gods for how lucky I am!
I think that an excellent idea to port to the game genre would be an action/adventure title based on the adventure of Dirk Pitt, Clive Cussler's NUMA hero. Not only would this translate into good adventure but it's also along the lines of something different than the same old Dungeons and Dragons and/or sci-fi theme.
Another concept that seems to escape the gaming genre is the old west. It's only been attempted a few times and poorly at that. I think the Old West scenario would work well for a MUD or MMORPG.
OK first question, Why would anyone buy an X-box when virtually every title for it is out for the PC? And half of the "new" titles coming out for the X-Box are three year old PC titles?
Ok to the subject at hand, am I excited about this titles coming out for X-box? Actually... no. I will however be excited when it's released for PC and I am however quite excited about "Fable" because even though it says "X-box exclusive" I can't see them not releasing this extremely over-hyped RPG on the much more common PC.
Gaming is one of the few things that I have a great amount of knowledge in. I've been playing since I was ten (started on a vic-20 with cassette drive on Scott Adam's Adventure games). I have amassed a great collection of over 1000 titles on a wide variety of platform systems and of course the majority of my titles are for the PC.
In the main MMORPG I play "The Eternal City" www.skotos.net , PKing and other "unacceptable" behaviors are usually handled with a public trial in the coliseum. This normally ends up finishing with the guilty party having a "fair" shot at freedom by fighting for the crowds against a raging bull, a couple of giant brown bears and a swordcat. This normally ends up with the guilty party being removed in pieces from the coliseum floor. This might sound like it's not much of an answer but if you consider that I have five years invested in my current character on the game you'd understand that having your character die isn't a "small thing".
As I was reading the article one of the first games that came to mind other than the MMORPG's (massive multiplayer online role playing games) was Freelancer, which was mentioned later in the article. This game allows you the freedom after the main quest is finished to become a freelancing pirate or to buy a freightor and become a smuggler of illegal goods or a legit trading company. This is one of the few non multi-player games I've ever played that allows you that much freedom. Also in Morrowind when I first started I ignored the main plot and built my character up , in the process I not only joined the warriors guild but ended up killing the guildmaster (at the rest of the guilds prompting) and beomcing the new guildmaster for the entire gameworld.
Games like Freelancer and Morrowind can bring some semblance of "freedom" to do what you choose, but the level of character interaction, political freedoms and carreer choices in an online game like "The Eternal City" is impossible to achieve in a stand alone single player game. The reason it's impossible is that games like TEC "evolve" over time, forming themselves about the "players" that support the production of such games. "however I suppose if they could make an incredible AI to change the gameworld around choices and actions made by your character it could happen".
I'm new to/. and hope I can make a worthy contribution in the future to some of the great discussions that take place here.
From what I know of how the Music Industry works the 80/20 rule applies. That is to say that 80percent of the revenue for any given "album" come from live shows and merchandising, with the remaining 20 percent coming from CD sales and other sources.
The music industry is trying to say that not being able to sell CD's is going to collapse the industry and I simply do not see that happening.
I'm new to/. so please don't lynch me for stating my views... not yeat at least;)
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I was rumaging through stuff from my recent move last week and I came across eight D&D manuals, a couple of modules, some old character sheets and even a box full of miniatures from the early 80's. I haven't played pen and paper D&D for about seven years now but I still pursue role-playing games in the form of MMORPG's and CRPG's, it's not quite as good but it's hard to find time to get a half dozen of my friends together all at once now that we are all married with children. Anyways to give credit where credit is due, if not for D&D there would be no RPG's these days... what would I do with the little spare time I have if that was the case? ;)
About twelve weeks ago I purchased a new graphics card for my computer system. My system is almost exclusively built for gaming and includes a superb 5.1 surround system. I purchased a Radeon 9200 AGP video card which is the low end of the new cards. I was running a 32 meg Viper V770D which is a great card but didn't support the TNL (Texture and Lighting) one of the "newer" effects that hardware gives you. I had a couple of games that required this and I couldn't run so I purchased the new card with 128meg of ram expecting some pretty good performance increases.
To tell the truth other than getting the TNL support the Radeon 9200 was completely unimpressive. The Viper ran just as good with 32 meg of ram and was three years old. Anyways I downloaded the demo of "Far Cry" which, low and behold, happens to be the "first game of a series of new ones being released to take advantage of the new hardware" these games include the upcoming releases Half Life-2 and Doom-3 (yes they are coming out and very soon). Anyways this unknown german developer releases this Far Cry game so I download the demo and "I CAN'T RUN IT"..... ok fine something is wrong with the demo (lots of demos are trash and can't be ran by many systems).
I don't think much of it till about two weeks ago when I decide I want an even better video card and I put out some "serious cash" for a Radeon 9800 PRO 128meg 8xAGP card. Well I got the performance boost I suspected from a new video card and then some. This card has it's own fan on it and also requires not only power from the AGP slot but has to be connected directly to the power supply (preferably a 300watt one which fortunately is what I have).
Well after the new upgrade I decide to try Far Cry again and boy did it run! This game is the most impressive FPS graphically that I have ever seen! I can't even begin to describe how incredible this new technology is but suffice to say it's worth every bit of the 250 bucks it'll cost you for a good video card.
I have heard a lot of people on /. State that they can get into platform gaming a lot cheaper
than PC gaming. Let me fill you in on
something peeps, go check out game reviews like the one at www.gamespot.com for Star Wars Knights of
the Old Republic and others that are available on PC and platform systems
both. You will notice that not only do
the PC versions normally have extra content but also that they typically always
get the "HIGHEST MARKS" of any of the versions available.
You may pay a little more but if a truly great game comes out and the PC version has a little extra content and also the best graphics, sound and controls of all the versions then to me "it's worth every penny".
You know another thing that gets me is the length of the sentences they are giving some of these "pirates"????? Ok I can easily see that downloading copies of software, movies, songs etc.. that you don't already own is piracy and that it is illegal. I have no problem understading that it is illegal or why it is illegal. However giving some poor computer geek 3 years in "prison" for it is insane! Punishment should be along the lines of: Temporary banishment from the internet, confiscation and sale of PC equipment to cover costs. The fine should be a set amount, say 5k, you should then have to pay "the full retail" amount for each piece of illegally copyrighted material that you have. There should be "no jail time" for cyber-piracy. I mean come on, is throwing a computer geek in with a bunch of sex crazed blood thirsty murderers and rapists really justice?
You know, that's the first thing that came to mind to me also. The only thing that really threw me for a loop on that theory was the fact that they didn't state "media" they stated "movies" specifically. That's what shook me up a bit. If they'd said copyrighted materials in general I'd have never thought twice about it.
*cackles* ok, ok! Damn didn't think people were that defensive of Microsoft regardless of what the product was! A few things to make my argument make a little more sense maybe. I custom build my computers, my current system has an 8xAGP Radeon 9800pro/128meg video card and a very nice high end 5.1 surround sound system on it. So anyone that says that the X-box has better graphics and/or sound than a PC hasn't seen "a good PC set-up" I based my game view on things I had recently seen on the shelves such as Max Payne, Red Faction, RTCW, MOHAA, Syberia and the fact that my nephew got one for x-mas and was bragging about what a great new RPG he got for it... he was speaking of Morrowind (which I had bought for the pc close to two years earlier, beaten and sold the x-mas before he got it) I did base my opinion on the fact that PC's prices have dropped dramatically and if you consider the price drop and the amount of titles available for the PC it is the obvious gamers choice. Now before you start calling me Troll again I want to state that "For playing sports games such as football, basketball etc... a "platform system" is unbeatable because of the simultaneous multi-player function. This only counts for games that don't split the screen as I think this is annoying and would be much better played on a computer network. I wouldn't buy an x-box for 2 reasons, one I own a PC and two I hate Microsofts business ethics (if you can even call them that). As for anyone that has one that doesn't have a computer nor could afford one I understand, even though I would have purchased a game cube or PS/2 myself if put in that place. If you have a computer, go buy some upgrades, it might cost you more but you'll have a much better gaming experience. This is a message board and as such I state "my opinion" if you don't agree with it you are more than welcome to state your disagreement, but don't threaten me, that's just ignorant.
I've been dating a girl for about three months now. On Saturday night she made a fatal error! She drives about an hour one way to see me, she usually comes down 2 to 4 times per week. Last Saturday she actually had the nerve to complain to me that I never paid any attention to her because I was always on the computer playing games!
Here's the breakdown of how the day went.
6am I got up and went to work.
I returned home at noon and proceeded to cook her lunch.
I then took a two hour nap.
I got up at 2pm and fired up Knight-Online (MMORPG in open beta).
I continued to play till 6pm at which time I went to the store and got stuff to make my famous cheese coated baked raviolli, breadsticks and a super deluxe salad. At 8pm after stuffing myself to the max I spent two hours watching a chic flick with her. (Ok to be honest with you I hated the movie and spent most of the time making references to the main female character and her best friend performing some 69 lesbian tongue action, hey I'm A GUY!). During the movie I made her popcorn and got up at lest 3 times to get her something to drink.
NOTE* At this point in time I think I've been damned good to this woman, something I always attempt to do.
At about 10:30 I went back downstairs and fired my game back up. I got into a party hunting Death Knights and was working on piling up some XPs when she comes down and starts ranting about how I spend all my time on the computer playing games and never pay her any attention, she then proceeds to quote how much she spends on gas every week coming to see me and how rude I am to ignore her like I do......*I snapped*
At this point I turned at least 3 shades of purple before finally exploding and telling her the following
Shut the f**k up, get your s**t and get the hell out of my house! at this point she began to apologize, cry and beg (pathetic), I told her to not let the door hit her in the ass on the way out and locked the door behind her.
She called me Tuesday to tell me she was coming down on Friday but only if I'd be nice to her WTF? I told her she wasn't coming down Friday or ever and to bugger off.
I have since changed my online dating profile to state do not bother applying if you are a video game nazi.
Would I take a PS2 over a date with some hot chic? Hell yeah! I can get a cheap hooker for 75 bucks and don't have to put in any time to get lucky, a PS2 is 179.00. That's a 104.00 profit! Also a PS2 doesn't tell you no when try to turn it on. You don't have to warm it up before jamming a cartridge into it and you can play with it all day without it bitching about needing a break.
I have been on the internet since 1994 and Warez was one of the first things I found out about. I thought this was the coolest thing in the world. Being an avid gamer I began to search for hours for cracked games to download. At this time I learned two things, that the internet was really freakin' slow! And that it cost more to download a game than to buy it! I was on AOL because at this time there wasn't such a thing as a local ISP in my area at least. I also was in a rural area so it was a long distant phone call. I can't remember exact specifics but I think it costs me about 300USD to get two games... only one of which was functional.
This was the beginning of my entry into the world of online piracy. I eventually got high speed internet and found out about abandonware which contained a lot of classic games that I missed so I concentrated on these files. Abandonware is legal to download... for the most part at least from my understanding.
Then came the P2P file sharing and .mp3 boom. I downloaded
literally hundreds of songs through Napster like thousands of others till it
finally got shut down. At this point in
time my thought was that I was just "an individual" and not worthy of the time
of any law enforcement but just in case I hid my Metallica
and Dr. Dre tracks when I heard they were suing
individual users for downloading their materials.
About a year ago I found out that you could download entire movies from Kazaa that hadn't been released on DVD yet and in some cases hadn't even been released at the theatres! Well this was the coolest thing I'd found since the first Warez site I'd ever seen! So being "an individual" user that wasn't going to profit from the materials,I started downloading and sharing tons of movies.
About six months into my new movie pirating past time my internet connection suddenly went dead???? I figured just a hiccup in the system. Two days later it was still down so I called my ISP.
Come to find out my account "had been suspended for 3-days" for the illegal download and sharing of movies via the P2P. "Well how did you know I was doing that"? I asked the technical support guy at my ISP.
"We received a letter from the motion picture association stating that you have been illegally infringing on copyrighted materials by downloading them via Kazaa"
Well I couldn't believe my ears... it was impossible that a small time player like myself (I had maybe thirty movies on my hard drive) could be worthy of their time? So I waited till my suspension period was up and started right back in! I got away with it for about two more months till I got permanately suspended by my ISP after they received another complaint from the MPA.
Well I guess I was wrong, I was worthy of their attention and also I was lucky! They could have sent the police to my house and took my computer. They could have filed lawsuits against me and put me in prison. All of these things took time to sink in though.
I can tell you that at this point in time I am on a cable connection and I haven't even installed Kazaa or any other P2P apps on my computer. I haven't even downloaded any abandonware just in case. It simply isn't worth the risk. I did an FDISK on my computer and everything on it is legitimate. It's still tempting to download movies, especially when I see a new one advertised. But I now wait till it comes out and I get a chance to go see it at the theatre or rent it on DVD.
Everyone has to make their own choices about what to do. File sharing has made it so easy to download copyrighted materials, Hell I know 12 year olds that are doing it on a daily basis. Their parents have no idea of what they do on the computer. How they will stop it entirely is anyones guess considering it looks like an impossibly monumental task. I hate to see these people go to jail though, getting busted and having their systems and their "hobby" taken away from them is sad to se
McBride has been setting himself up for the big fall since he started making his incredibly outlandish claims. Furthermore he has dug a hole to china to bury himself in with the public in general by citing that open source software is unconstitutional. This is the first step in his losing ground, I think you'll see him and the company go into a full downhill roll within the next three months. I believe it will end when they hit bottom and SCO is either bankrupt or bought out and Daryl will easily be "The Biggest corporate outcast of the Century*. This guy isn't going to be able to get a job scrubbing toilets by the time he's finished.
The Following is what I found to be the most interesting item within the study.
"When we take a step back, it seems odd that the very people who find so much value in one game deny any value to other kind of games considering that all games at an abstract level are goals defined in the context of arbitrary rules".
Over the years I have been hounded by friends and family about the amount of time I spend playing video games. I'm sure the things I hear are the same as what other game players hear... "You need to get outside more" , "Why do you always have your nose stuck in your computer, those things are bad for you" etc...
A good example would be my brother. He is an avid fisherman as am I, however there are a lot of times when he'll go everyday for months on end. I work and can't do that, and even if I could I wouldn't. I have set at home before and played computer fishing games when it was too hot out, or I simply didn't feel like going and doing the real thing. I really enjoy the competition in some of these games. My brother doesn't get it at all, his normal response is to roll his eyes and state "I get high on the real thing"!
There really isn't much difference between the feeling a sportsman gets bagging a trophy fish or animal and the joy I get finding a new +7 iron crossbow with 60 poison damage. Both of these things can be shown off, he shows off his trophy to people that come to his house and I show off my new crossbow to all of my online friends that I play MMORPG's with.
I guess my point is "don't let people put you down or get you down because you spend hours a week playing electronic games". A lot of these same people spend several hours a week playing softball and/or bowling/golf/billiards/darts and they are in "leagues" just as we are in "Clans" or "Guilds". MMORPGs are a great social output with tons of possibilities, just give it a shot and ignore all those that consider it a "waste of time".
I have a collection of over a thousand PC games, about a third of them are 1995 and prior. I have tackled getting them to run in a different fashion. I plug them into my new machine and if they don't run then I put them on an old P-133 that I built. I added surround sound and a few other options to the system. More ram and got windows 98se running on it. It runs all but maybe five percent of the games I have, those titles are mainly on 5 1/4 inch disk. I do have an old 486-sx/33 I will eventually throw together to make a game to play the other five percent as well. It might not be the most convenient way but hey it has pretty much a hundred percent chance of working ;)
You can pick up old 386/486 machines about anywhere for 10bucks. Grab a 17" monitor, a decent ISA video card, a cd-rom with average speed, a sound card and speakers plus a monitor and a "serial-mouse" and you'll be in retro gaming heaven for easily less than a hundred dollars (of course you can spend more, like putting two hundred bucks worth of surround sound equipment in it... which is really pointless considering the quality of the sound on these games)
I love the classic games, especially the adventure and interactive fiction titles. After reading this article I think I need to go home and fire up some good old "Defender of the Crown" or "Shadowgate"... maybe "Ballyhoo" or "kings quest1"..... ahh well I'll wait and see ;)
Good journeys all
The Scott Adam's games were great! There the IF games that I cut my teeth on. I played them on cartidge and/or cassette on my C-Vic-20. God the games were time consuming and frustrating but still a blast! Stupid time limits on em' always killed me, specially the one where you have to kill Dracula afore the sun rises! *grumbles*
Wow! It is absolutely wonderful to see that IF still has such a loyal following. I grew up on IF games and still have several IF titles for the PC. I even still have some "choose your own adventure" books on my shelves. Regardless of what they can do with graphics today, nothing compares with what you can do within your own mind. The realism you can get with text based games such as IF and MUDS allows you to truly step into the "role" of your favorite characters and live that alternate life most people only dream of. I always enjoy a good book more than a good movie just as I enjoy a good IF game as much if not more than a good graphic adventure. If you have never gave IF a chance, or are too young to remember it then check out the articles above and give it a shot, you won't regret it ;)
Phantom is right, as in a "phantom item, aka one that does not exist". I would say if the guy pumped 15million into something of that name then he deserves to lose his money. The web site broadband side was a nice flash page of the machine... course it's phantom also since no buttons or anything else was active on the page. Really expected this one to say something about an April 1st release ;)
I think that Greg should seriously consider making an appointment with his mommy (the Neurologist). It seems that Greg as executive editor has obviously played way too many games and read too many articles about games. This has resulted in him scraping the walls of the inside of his skull for any idea that might be slightly original. Unfortunately this has resulted in him basically writing an article that most editors would never have let pass... of course since he's the executive editor he needn't worry about that. I don't believe for a second that "men" that write games are intentionally writing in female characters just to put them down. Some characters are simply poorly written as some games are. If it happens to be a female character instead of a male character it's coincidence. Once again I don't believe that anyone in the game industry is intentionally out to make women look bad. The idea is ludicrous and Greg needs to take a vacation and sort out his personal problems with his sexuality before attempting to write another column. Just my opinion, once again don't troll me too quickly ;)
I'm the CIO for two mid sized manufacturers in North Central Indiana. I wrote an "internet useage policy" and by signing this the PC users within the companies agree to having their actions while using the computers monitored. Without this being in place it would be easy for an employee which we terminate for "improper" internet useage to conutersue under invasion of privacy laws.
First off "The Temple of Elemental Evil" is not a very good example of a CRPG. It's bug ridden and to put it simply it's "NO FUN". Their whole selling point was the use of the D&D rule set. If this is what a CRPG is like using the D&D rule set then I do not want to play. The author mentioned "standardization" of character classes which is a horrible idea. A game where every class of character levels up at exactly the same time with exactly the same benefits gained (same number of experience etc..) would become extremely boring quickly. A magician should be harder to level up because of the fact that at high levels they are far superior to other types of characters (ie. a rogue or ranger). Working hard to grow your character in a CRPG is one ot the things that makes it like PPRPGs. You learn to love your character from his traits to his personality. As far as getting the true "story telling" and "openness" of a PPRPG in a CRPG is impossible. The lack of being able to grow the world "around the characters" within that world make it impossible. However it is very possible within an MMORPG. For example I play The Eternal City (www.skotos.net). In this MUD as I'll call it, the GM's are constantly adding to the game world. They add new skills and new areas. They have added things such as "hunters that can fish and trap" to "Tailors that can create all kinds of custom clothing". These are things that your character can learn to do , or they can simply buy required furs or clothing from another character that is a hunter or tailor. They have added things such as the coliseum where they hold GM led events such as trials to determine the fate of criminals to the "Auction House" where you can take your rare and/or common goods and hold public auctions. You can even buy parchment, quill and ink and if you are "literate" you can write up and post your auction or other event in public places such as INNS. My point is that these things have "been built around" the players. The things that can be built within TEC are infinate and the same is true for other MMORPGs. However in a CRPG about the best you can hope for is an expansion that adds some more skill sets, character classes, mosters, dungeons etc... Bottom line is that to try to reproduce PPRPG options in a "boxed for the shelf" CRPG is like trying to squeeze an elephant into a sardine can. It's not going to happen.
Between the stomach turning concept of playing an MMORPG based on "The Matrix" and the thought of installing anything from America Online on my computer, It will probably take three months of therapy to stop the night terrors caused simply from the title of this article. *Screams and runs for the hills*
The VIC-20..... a Cassette Drive..... thirty minutes to load a "Scott Adams" ALL TEXT Adventure game!!!!! Every time I get impatient waiting on a new game to load a new area or level I flick my memory back to the VIC-20 and praise the gaming gods for how lucky I am!
I think that an excellent idea to port to the game genre would be an action/adventure title based on the adventure of Dirk Pitt, Clive Cussler's NUMA hero. Not only would this translate into good adventure but it's also along the lines of something different than the same old Dungeons and Dragons and/or sci-fi theme. Another concept that seems to escape the gaming genre is the old west. It's only been attempted a few times and poorly at that. I think the Old West scenario would work well for a MUD or MMORPG.
OK first question, Why would anyone buy an X-box when virtually every title for it is out for the PC? And half of the "new" titles coming out for the X-Box are three year old PC titles? Ok to the subject at hand, am I excited about this titles coming out for X-box? Actually... no. I will however be excited when it's released for PC and I am however quite excited about "Fable" because even though it says "X-box exclusive" I can't see them not releasing this extremely over-hyped RPG on the much more common PC.
Gaming is one of the few things that I have a great amount of knowledge in. I've been playing since I was ten (started on a vic-20 with cassette drive on Scott Adam's Adventure games). I have amassed a great collection of over 1000 titles on a wide variety of platform systems and of course the majority of my titles are for the PC. In the main MMORPG I play "The Eternal City" www.skotos.net , PKing and other "unacceptable" behaviors are usually handled with a public trial in the coliseum. This normally ends up finishing with the guilty party having a "fair" shot at freedom by fighting for the crowds against a raging bull, a couple of giant brown bears and a swordcat. This normally ends up with the guilty party being removed in pieces from the coliseum floor. This might sound like it's not much of an answer but if you consider that I have five years invested in my current character on the game you'd understand that having your character die isn't a "small thing". As I was reading the article one of the first games that came to mind other than the MMORPG's (massive multiplayer online role playing games) was Freelancer, which was mentioned later in the article. This game allows you the freedom after the main quest is finished to become a freelancing pirate or to buy a freightor and become a smuggler of illegal goods or a legit trading company. This is one of the few non multi-player games I've ever played that allows you that much freedom. Also in Morrowind when I first started I ignored the main plot and built my character up , in the process I not only joined the warriors guild but ended up killing the guildmaster (at the rest of the guilds prompting) and beomcing the new guildmaster for the entire gameworld. Games like Freelancer and Morrowind can bring some semblance of "freedom" to do what you choose, but the level of character interaction, political freedoms and carreer choices in an online game like "The Eternal City" is impossible to achieve in a stand alone single player game. The reason it's impossible is that games like TEC "evolve" over time, forming themselves about the "players" that support the production of such games. "however I suppose if they could make an incredible AI to change the gameworld around choices and actions made by your character it could happen". I'm new to /. and hope I can make a worthy contribution in the future to some of the great discussions that take place here.
From what I know of how the Music Industry works the 80/20 rule applies. That is to say that 80percent of the revenue for any given "album" come from live shows and merchandising, with the remaining 20 percent coming from CD sales and other sources. The music industry is trying to say that not being able to sell CD's is going to collapse the industry and I simply do not see that happening. I'm new to /. so please don't lynch me for stating my views... not yeat at least ;)