No kidding, I've been griping about this for a long time now. I'd like to see game developers spend this huge CPU/graphics capacity for ultra-realistic physics, extremely high quality audio effects, advanced character AI (I'm talking ADVANCED, not the procedural pseudo-"AI" we have in games now), and most importantly, more details storyline and "universe/world" development.
Of course, all of these things are not really tied to technological limits, but rather the limitation of the people developing the game and their ability to push their creativity and imagination.
Huge effort is spent to create these great graphics (and I admit, recent games have damn nice graphics), but as I'm sure is being said a lot recently, they are not putting that same kind effort into interesting storylines and gameplay that triggers your imagination and allows you to really get into the game and the world/environment it has to offer.
Just to further a bit on the part of my post where I talked about the Quake source being stolen from Crackdotcom, I managed to find a web page which discusses a bit about that:
Yeah, even worse, Quake wasn't released for Mac until 1997 or 1998 or something.
Before its official release for Mac (after being ported by MacSoft), all we had was an illegal source port compiled by some guy[s] who supposedly stole the source code (from Crackdotcom if I recall correctly) for the game and tweaked & recompiled for Mac OS (I can't verify the accuracy of this story unfortunately, but I vividly remember discussing it with various people on Hotline, THE way to get warez for Mac OS in the late 90s)...
Anyway, it was unstable as hell, and the particle/light effects were REALLY laggy. I had to get modified rocket/grenade models that removed the particle effects so the game wouldn't slow to a crawl whenever someone fired a rocket.
For historical purposes, the illegal source port was generally referred to as "HackQuake" and was basically a direct port from the DOS/Win95 version, with no Mac OS specific user settings at all, other than any under-the-hood stuff that allowed the engine to run properly on Mac OS. There was no support for 3d acceleration either, of course. Either way, it was the only way for Mac users to get their Quake on. Fortunately it connected to all the Windows dedicated servers with no problem (other than some crashes of course), and I can tell you the Mac underground kicked some Windows-user ass well before we even had a commerical release of the game.
Man, I didn't mean to write such a long post but I thought some people might find it interesting.:)
Yeah, the game used sprites for monsters/items as opposed to 3d models, so they only drew one "dead" state graphic for each monster.. Which led to breaking the whole "suspension of disbelief" situation when the supposedly lifeless shotgun-blast-ridden corpses around you were magically rotating to face you at all times...:)
I wonder the same... screw happy-go-lucky games like SC and WoW, I want to see some darkness and mayhem in the form of the next Diablo game!! Woot for demons, dead bodies, swords and magic and all that good stuff!:D
Yeah it was a Windows machine, and no it wasn't pwned... I had just built the machine only weeks before, and it was within my LAN which has always been secure as hell - not to mention I keep pretty damn close tabs on what processes are running on my machine (As well as the network router being right next to me so I'd notice any unexpected traffic). Keeping machines secure and free of spyware/etc. has been a job of mine for tons and tons of computers for years now.:)
Perhaps, but the filename mentioned was an MPG around 700 megs, called "Mission Impossible 3.blah.releasegroup.Spanish.dvdrip.mpg" or such.. iduno
Reminds me of another time where I got a copyright violation notice sent in because i had a readme file in my download share (also on eMule). What the hell? heh...
No, the only files shared were ones I downloaded - a couple games but that's about it, as I'd usually move stuff out of the downloads folder pretty quickly. I still have no clue at all why that file would have shown up as being shared by me. It showed the correct "highID" and everything. Really messed up...
I recently received a message from my ISP that they had received notice alleging I was sharing copyrighted material from my connection, specifically "Mission Impossible 3" - a spanish version no less - over the eDonkey network. It showed the IP I have indeed had assigned to my home network for the past month or two, and was indeed using eMule. HOWEVER, I was only using it to download software, and in NO situation did I download ANY movies, especially anything in spanish! I know that it sounds totally typical, but I wouldn't be complaining if I got reported for something I actually did.
Getting reported for sharing something I've never even had is bullshit, though, regardless of what OTHER questionable things I had been doing. It's not a stretch to claim that their incorrect copyright infringement notice leans on illegal because of the possible harm that can come to me as a result. My internet connection could be disconnected at my ISP's will, forcing me to switch to a crappier ISP with higher prices (we have TWO broadband providers here), and my reputation could be harmed due to the false allegations made.
Hey, that's pretty cool.. downloadable content for the console (Wii) I still can't find anywhere, despite calling stores and still being told "we're getting a shipment on Tuesday, you might want to line up the night before", only to see 10 people already lined up at 9pm the night before.:(
It's actually not the fan that's so loud, it's the disc drive. Play any of the downloadable game demos and you'll notice the system is very quiet as it usually is. Pop in your Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged dvd and notice how even playing something as simple as Bejeweled, the machine is frustratingly loud. By the way, yes, it annoys the hell out of me as well. Why doesn't the drive slow down when the disc isn't in heavy use???! Serious design flaw, in my opinion.
Dude, not only does the 360 already have a remote control, it already has a very "media center"-like system, and can easily include a larger hard drive since they are detatchable. Basically, there's no need whatsoever for an alternate version because the existing system allows for all of this already.:)
Same deal here, picked up a 360 for $100 off, picked up a few games, extra controller, and have been playing regularly since. Nintendo lost my sale due to the fact that I haven't been able to get a Wii even though I've been trying to for a month now (including calling stores every day - sorry, I'm not willing to wait overnight weeks after launch, I have a full time job and a life to live). There's one sale Nintendo lost and Microsoft gained.
I would imagine the imagine is a long strip like that because the Cassini radar instrument simply flew along in a straight line, therefore only capturing a narrow strip of surveyed data along that straight line (as opposed to getting a large square or circular capture).
"No, the real folks that really 'left their mark' in 2006 are yet unidentified."
I was thinking something along the same lines.
When I first started reading this headline I was pretty excited to hear some juicy hacking stories about some kind of "unlit silhouette with voice-masking" interview type of situation, with people sworn to secrecy about who the person actually is, because they engaged in some extremely illegal undercover corporate hack to obtain proprietary secrets from a competitor of the hiring corporation, or whatever.
Too bad the actual article merely (mis-?)used the word "hacker" in a "security professional" sort of sense, as opposed to the interesting underground type of hacker the somewhat sensationalistic headline implied. Frankly I don't feel these people left much of a mark on 2006 - and like the parent post I'm replying to already said, the hackers who really left a mark will remain unknown...
"3) Say that we embrace diversity while actually embracing conformity (see above)"
There's a Starbucks at the lobby area of the building I work in (big surprise, right?)...
I wear a ring with a big blatant pentagram on it. To some people, this means I perform satanic rituals, cast harmful "spells" on people, or am just a "bad person", somehow doomed to a painful afterlife in Hell. I get weird/cautious looks pretty often because of it, since it pretty much singles me out as the ultimate enemy of Christianity (or so it feels, sometimes).
Amazingly, the only people who EVER mention a single conversational thing about this pentagram ring of mine happen to both be employees at the Starbucks in my office building. They are totally conservative people (as is everyone else in this damn area), yet they actually ARE accepting of diversity, perhaps even "embracing", to the point where they start discussing religion-related things with me while I'm buying a coffee or whatever.
Frankly, when I read that description of Starbucks' alleged values in the grandparent post, I thought to myself something along the lines that "yeah, that does seem about right", considering my 2 year experience of frequenting Starbucks stores at least a few times a week has given me the impression of those exact values among the employees.
Slashdot Mirror
What if you're color blind?!?
... they click on the pictures of the hot girls, only to get a "You must be logged in to do that!" message.
No kidding, I've been griping about this for a long time now. I'd like to see game developers spend this huge CPU/graphics capacity for ultra-realistic physics, extremely high quality audio effects, advanced character AI (I'm talking ADVANCED, not the procedural pseudo-"AI" we have in games now), and most importantly, more details storyline and "universe/world" development.
Of course, all of these things are not really tied to technological limits, but rather the limitation of the people developing the game and their ability to push their creativity and imagination.
Huge effort is spent to create these great graphics (and I admit, recent games have damn nice graphics), but as I'm sure is being said a lot recently, they are not putting that same kind effort into interesting storylines and gameplay that triggers your imagination and allows you to really get into the game and the world/environment it has to offer.
Just to further a bit on the part of my post where I talked about the Quake source being stolen from Crackdotcom, I managed to find a web page which discusses a bit about that:
Quake for OS/2 - article from 1997
As an added note, Crackdotcom is no longer in business.
Yeah, even worse, Quake wasn't released for Mac until 1997 or 1998 or something.
:)
Before its official release for Mac (after being ported by MacSoft), all we had was an illegal source port compiled by some guy[s] who supposedly stole the source code (from Crackdotcom if I recall correctly) for the game and tweaked & recompiled for Mac OS (I can't verify the accuracy of this story unfortunately, but I vividly remember discussing it with various people on Hotline, THE way to get warez for Mac OS in the late 90s)...
Anyway, it was unstable as hell, and the particle/light effects were REALLY laggy. I had to get modified rocket/grenade models that removed the particle effects so the game wouldn't slow to a crawl whenever someone fired a rocket.
For historical purposes, the illegal source port was generally referred to as "HackQuake" and was basically a direct port from the DOS/Win95 version, with no Mac OS specific user settings at all, other than any under-the-hood stuff that allowed the engine to run properly on Mac OS. There was no support for 3d acceleration either, of course. Either way, it was the only way for Mac users to get their Quake on. Fortunately it connected to all the Windows dedicated servers with no problem (other than some crashes of course), and I can tell you the Mac underground kicked some Windows-user ass well before we even had a commerical release of the game.
Man, I didn't mean to write such a long post but I thought some people might find it interesting.
Oh, no, see, the guy was asking about an EVE Online client for OS X... ;)
Hey, playing on my old 120mhz machine, performance died the moment I started a new game! ;)
Yeah, the game used sprites for monsters/items as opposed to 3d models, so they only drew one "dead" state graphic for each monster.. Which led to breaking the whole "suspension of disbelief" situation when the supposedly lifeless shotgun-blast-ridden corpses around you were magically rotating to face you at all times... :)
I wonder the same... screw happy-go-lucky games like SC and WoW, I want to see some darkness and mayhem in the form of the next Diablo game!! Woot for demons, dead bodies, swords and magic and all that good stuff! :D
heh! Windows on a MacBook != Mac OS X
Yeah it was a Windows machine, and no it wasn't pwned... I had just built the machine only weeks before, and it was within my LAN which has always been secure as hell - not to mention I keep pretty damn close tabs on what processes are running on my machine (As well as the network router being right next to me so I'd notice any unexpected traffic). Keeping machines secure and free of spyware/etc. has been a job of mine for tons and tons of computers for years now. :)
Perhaps, but the filename mentioned was an MPG around 700 megs, called "Mission Impossible 3.blah.releasegroup.Spanish.dvdrip.mpg" or such.. iduno
Reminds me of another time where I got a copyright violation notice sent in because i had a readme file in my download share (also on eMule). What the hell? heh...
No, the only files shared were ones I downloaded - a couple games but that's about it, as I'd usually move stuff out of the downloads folder pretty quickly. I still have no clue at all why that file would have shown up as being shared by me. It showed the correct "highID" and everything. Really messed up...
I recently received a message from my ISP that they had received notice alleging I was sharing copyrighted material from my connection, specifically "Mission Impossible 3" - a spanish version no less - over the eDonkey network. It showed the IP I have indeed had assigned to my home network for the past month or two, and was indeed using eMule. HOWEVER, I was only using it to download software, and in NO situation did I download ANY movies, especially anything in spanish! I know that it sounds totally typical, but I wouldn't be complaining if I got reported for something I actually did.
Getting reported for sharing something I've never even had is bullshit, though, regardless of what OTHER questionable things I had been doing. It's not a stretch to claim that their incorrect copyright infringement notice leans on illegal because of the possible harm that can come to me as a result. My internet connection could be disconnected at my ISP's will, forcing me to switch to a crappier ISP with higher prices (we have TWO broadband providers here), and my reputation could be harmed due to the false allegations made.
Yeah, I managed to pick up an extra nunchuck & wii remote through Amazon, but now they are sold out as well.
Hey, that's pretty cool.. downloadable content for the console (Wii) I still can't find anywhere, despite calling stores and still being told "we're getting a shipment on Tuesday, you might want to line up the night before", only to see 10 people already lined up at 9pm the night before. :(
Ohhh yeah I forgot about that, programmer skill is of course based on number of lines written per hour...
It's actually not the fan that's so loud, it's the disc drive. Play any of the downloadable game demos and you'll notice the system is very quiet as it usually is. Pop in your Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged dvd and notice how even playing something as simple as Bejeweled, the machine is frustratingly loud. By the way, yes, it annoys the hell out of me as well. Why doesn't the drive slow down when the disc isn't in heavy use???! Serious design flaw, in my opinion.
Dude, not only does the 360 already have a remote control, it already has a very "media center"-like system, and can easily include a larger hard drive since they are detatchable. Basically, there's no need whatsoever for an alternate version because the existing system allows for all of this already. :)
Same deal here, picked up a 360 for $100 off, picked up a few games, extra controller, and have been playing regularly since. Nintendo lost my sale due to the fact that I haven't been able to get a Wii even though I've been trying to for a month now (including calling stores every day - sorry, I'm not willing to wait overnight weeks after launch, I have a full time job and a life to live). There's one sale Nintendo lost and Microsoft gained.
hahaha oh man, that is awesome... I just had a bunch of coworkers look at me wondering why I'm laughing so hard... hehehe :)
I would imagine the imagine is a long strip like that because the Cassini radar instrument simply flew along in a straight line, therefore only capturing a narrow strip of surveyed data along that straight line (as opposed to getting a large square or circular capture).
Hey dude, kinda funny seeing you on here... wtf, come on MSN more, eh??!! ;)
"No, the real folks that really 'left their mark' in 2006 are yet unidentified."
I was thinking something along the same lines.
When I first started reading this headline I was pretty excited to hear some juicy hacking stories about some kind of "unlit silhouette with voice-masking" interview type of situation, with people sworn to secrecy about who the person actually is, because they engaged in some extremely illegal undercover corporate hack to obtain proprietary secrets from a competitor of the hiring corporation, or whatever.
Too bad the actual article merely (mis-?)used the word "hacker" in a "security professional" sort of sense, as opposed to the interesting underground type of hacker the somewhat sensationalistic headline implied. Frankly I don't feel these people left much of a mark on 2006 - and like the parent post I'm replying to already said, the hackers who really left a mark will remain unknown...
"3) Say that we embrace diversity while actually embracing conformity (see above)"
There's a Starbucks at the lobby area of the building I work in (big surprise, right?)...
I wear a ring with a big blatant pentagram on it. To some people, this means I perform satanic rituals, cast harmful "spells" on people, or am just a "bad person", somehow doomed to a painful afterlife in Hell. I get weird/cautious looks pretty often because of it, since it pretty much singles me out as the ultimate enemy of Christianity (or so it feels, sometimes).
Amazingly, the only people who EVER mention a single conversational thing about this pentagram ring of mine happen to both be employees at the Starbucks in my office building. They are totally conservative people (as is everyone else in this damn area), yet they actually ARE accepting of diversity, perhaps even "embracing", to the point where they start discussing religion-related things with me while I'm buying a coffee or whatever.
Frankly, when I read that description of Starbucks' alleged values in the grandparent post, I thought to myself something along the lines that "yeah, that does seem about right", considering my 2 year experience of frequenting Starbucks stores at least a few times a week has given me the impression of those exact values among the employees.