Imagine how things would be today in the computing world if Apple had licensed NT... I'm very thankful they chose NeXT, especially seeing as how much their decision has influenced home computing technology and especially Apple themselves. We wouldn't have Mac OS X today if it wasn't for that decision. Who knows if Mac OS would even exist still?
Sweet, I haven't used a Mac for gaming for at least a few years, I'm glad to see Spiderweb Software is still around.
Exile was one of my favorite games, seeing as I had a very slow 120mhz 603e (Performa 5260/120)... My gaming selection primarily consisted of Clan Lord (when it was in beta), Exile, Escape Velocity (and other AmbrosiaSW games of course) and eventually Quake.
It was all the shareware Mac games that inspired me to be involved in game development one day. That dream hasn't yet come true but there's still plenty of time left for that to happen...:)
What I'd be interested to see is a history "story" like that written by Andrew Welch of Ambrosia Software, whose games I played ever since Maelstrom (In fact, Maelstrom was one of the first games I played on my parents' IIci back in 1994).
When Escape Velocity came along, Ambrosia SW became one of my favorite game developing companies. That game was so fun... I spent many nights staying up way too late playing it. What was also great was my Windows-using friend was very jealous he couldn't get the game on his machine (until far later, anyway). Ahh it was so nice to have the tables turned, for once.;)
Anyway, they totally need to write up a cool history like the Panic one! Ambrosia surely has some very interesting stories to tell...
This is what tons and tons of Ultima Online players (especially former players) say. Go on any UO-related forums and look for the complaints about the game... for instance not long ago they made it so you can no longer skip the intro logo movies of the EA logo with the stupid kid saying "challenge everything", and the Origin logo (umm why the hell are they showing me the intro logo animation of a company that doesn't even exist anymore?)....
Like, hey assholes, I already bought your game. You don't need to tell me every fucking time I open it who made the game. I already know. Your logo is all over the package, and the game, and the installer, and the manuals, and the website...
Also their in-game support is absolutely useless, and the tech support guys give you the complete "runaround" every time. *No matter what*, I've always gotten a canned, copy&paste response, or at least the same basic phrases over and over. "Game masters can not return lost items, please refer to [whatever Help URL] for more information." Hey, I didn't ask to get my item back, I'm just saying my stuff keeps disappearing, so fix the bug, retard. Address the fucking problems and maybe you won't have people quitting on a daily basis.
Instead they just spend all their time making new retarded addons for the game, which are 100% money grabs. No one gives a shit about your "Samurai Empire", what we really want is for BUGS TO BE FIXED. How many nifty little places there are is irrelevant. The UO world is already HUGE. People are perfectly happy with the existing one.
But I guess fixing bugs just doesn't get them enough immediate profit. In the long run they'd get far more users because the game would always work properly, and friends of players would be a little more impressed. I guess the EA fools are just too short-sighted to realize this...
Oh, and now they just started this "Return to UO for free" thing for people who have closed accounts (as in, stopped playing indefinitely). http://www.uo.com/return.html
Obviously a huge money grab, since they want the old players to come back and start playing again.
Anyway I'm ditching my account once the current paid-for period runs out. I'm sick of the way EA just screws around and only cares about their profits. I guess driving anything other than a late-model Jaguar or BMW is out of the question for their corporate exec's.
One of the biggest recent controversies that pissed off a huge huge number of UO players: EA offered a 7th Anniversary gift item (very valuable in game) because it was the 7th year anniversary of UO's existence. The 6 years before these items have been given in-game for free, automatically. The item would just be there in your inventory when you logged in. This time they conveniently decided you had to click a box in your player settings that says "It is OK for EA and its worldwide affiliates to contact me about EA products, news and events, special offers, and other information."... Then you'd receive the game code for the gift item in your email, eventually, when they sent the codes out.
Needless to say many many people were pissed off. It was simply a way for EA to advertise to you even more, and it was very immoral because they were basically bribing users. In fact, that's exactly what it was. If you want the item, you have to receive their spam. There was NO REASON they couldn't just give the item to you in-game as they have f
depends where you get it; I don't think the guy's talking about going into a gun store and buying one legally... on the street guns are sold for $50 or less easily, especially if they were recently used in a crime...
"NOTE: I am looking for a David Hasselhoff inflatable doll complete with synthetic chest hair. If anyone has any information on this, please contact me."
Um, you managed to not mention probably the most groundbreaking (and probably the first) MMORPG on the net, Ultima Online, which always has plenty of fun in-game stuff around each holiday! Then again their site doesn't say a thing about Halloween, so I can see why it wasn't mentioned. I guess they're too busy promoting their totally off-topic new expansion...
I've only played for about a year but for example, the first Christmas when I started they gave out some house decorations like snowflakes, snowmen, poinsettia and some holiday wreaths. They also had a contest for the best Christmas-decorated house and stuff.
Put your e-brake on while you're driving around a sharp corner sometime... then you'll know what this guy is talking about..:D
Actually if you really wanna have some fun, go into a parking lot, stick those food trays (like from McDonald's for instance) under your rear wheels, put the e-brake on, and drive... result:
I bought Postal (the original) from Future Shop when I was 13, completely alone. This was in 1997 when the game first came out. My parents *were* elsewhere in the store and I had just gone and asked them if I could buy it (it had a pretty plain box, well okay its box was like a cardboard-ish box with bullet holes in it, with a bloody red "POSTAL" written on the front, but still), but this store is huge and there's no way the cashier saw me with them, since I walked to the opposite end of the store where my parents were and such, to ask my parents.
I mean, there are warnings right on the box that say you're supposed to be 17 or older (in the US) to buy the game.
All the games still had all those stupid warnings and parents were still complaining about how video games were corrupting their children and raping them in the night, etc...
Actually, I could have even been 12 at the time, I don't remember what month of the year it was.
Either way, I really wanted the game! I had played the beta of the game anyways, and thought it was soo awesome, and I felt no risk playing it - it was damn fun. Thus when I saw it in the store I was very glad:D
So now, today, to buy that same game I would have needed photo ID? Well, I better not hear any complaints about:
-lessened sales -increased piracy -pissed off kids -video games causing violence (cuz now kids apparently "won't have violent games")
BTW my friend preordered Doom 3 from Amazon.com a year or two ago. The release date they had written on the site was "March [something] 2003"... so yeah...
Actually it had earlier dates written on the site before that, but of course as time went on and it got closer to the dates Amazon would have to make up a new, more "realistic" date.. which was still like half a year off...
All those ads that say "on sale on XXXX-XX-XX" probably ARE wrong anyways, seeing as they're just made-up dates written by GameSpot, IGN, etc. etc... as in, very very rarely actually stated by the game developers/publishers themselves!
Pings are sent when any connection attempt is made.. trying to load a web page, connecting to an FTP server, joining a Quake server, logging onto an instant messaging service, etc. etc. etc...
The first thing the program will do is send out a ping to see if the machine it's trying to contact is up and running..
Point is, no one is "scanning your LAN"... if you're running a server of any kind, ignoring ICMP packets will very often make it impossible for people to connect to the server. Alternatively, they'll be able to get connected but later get dropped due to receiving no response to "keepalive" pings (depending on how well the software is written)....
Doesn't this sound like the kind of solution that would be primarily software-based?
Despite that, the only largely software-based companies involved are two VERY proprietary-obsessed companies??
Meanwhile, what can AMD and Intel offer to such a solution? Since when are they involved in building new networking-related systems?
Also, someone else on here brought up the issue of patent-encumbered technology. This will *definitely* be an issue with these vendors/manufacturers, seeing as they'll all be interested merely in their capital gain as opposed to simply contributing to the general technological advancement of the internet/networks in general...
"WS-Management can also be used to manage things like set-top boxes and TiVo-like digital video recorders"
Yup, all containing AMD or Intel CPUs, running an embedded MS/Sun OS... now we see why the CPU manufacturers are involved...
Am I the only one getting sick of hearing about these new "great" proposals made by huge companies when their true intent is blatantly obvious? SNMP *works*, yet for some reason, as usual, some big company has to come along and try and run it over with their new crippleware, claiming it's the New & Improved (tm) version of whatever it was that worked just fine before...
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine how things would be today in the computing world if Apple had licensed NT... I'm very thankful they chose NeXT, especially seeing as how much their decision has influenced home computing technology and especially Apple themselves. We wouldn't have Mac OS X today if it wasn't for that decision. Who knows if Mac OS would even exist still?
Sweet, I haven't used a Mac for gaming for at least a few years, I'm glad to see Spiderweb Software is still around.
:)
Exile was one of my favorite games, seeing as I had a very slow 120mhz 603e (Performa 5260/120)... My gaming selection primarily consisted of Clan Lord (when it was in beta), Exile, Escape Velocity (and other AmbrosiaSW games of course) and eventually Quake.
It was all the shareware Mac games that inspired me to be involved in game development one day. That dream hasn't yet come true but there's still plenty of time left for that to happen...
What I'd be interested to see is a history "story" like that written by Andrew Welch of Ambrosia Software, whose games I played ever since Maelstrom (In fact, Maelstrom was one of the first games I played on my parents' IIci back in 1994).
;)
When Escape Velocity came along, Ambrosia SW became one of my favorite game developing companies. That game was so fun... I spent many nights staying up way too late playing it. What was also great was my Windows-using friend was very jealous he couldn't get the game on his machine (until far later, anyway). Ahh it was so nice to have the tables turned, for once.
Anyway, they totally need to write up a cool history like the Panic one! Ambrosia surely has some very interesting stories to tell...
This is what tons and tons of Ultima Online players (especially former players) say. Go on any UO-related forums and look for the complaints about the game... for instance not long ago they made it so you can no longer skip the intro logo movies of the EA logo with the stupid kid saying "challenge everything", and the Origin logo (umm why the hell are they showing me the intro logo animation of a company that doesn't even exist anymore?)....
... Then you'd receive the game code for the gift item in your email, eventually, when they sent the codes out.
.php?Cat=&Board=uouhall&Number=5237256&page=4&view =collapsed&sb=5&o=&vc=1&what2=postlistdev&selv=&vw hich=
Like, hey assholes, I already bought your game. You don't need to tell me every fucking time I open it who made the game. I already know. Your logo is all over the package, and the game, and the installer, and the manuals, and the website...
Also their in-game support is absolutely useless, and the tech support guys give you the complete "runaround" every time. *No matter what*, I've always gotten a canned, copy&paste response, or at least the same basic phrases over and over. "Game masters can not return lost items, please refer to [whatever Help URL] for more information." Hey, I didn't ask to get my item back, I'm just saying my stuff keeps disappearing, so fix the bug, retard. Address the fucking problems and maybe you won't have people quitting on a daily basis.
Instead they just spend all their time making new retarded addons for the game, which are 100% money grabs. No one gives a shit about your "Samurai Empire", what we really want is for BUGS TO BE FIXED. How many nifty little places there are is irrelevant. The UO world is already HUGE. People are perfectly happy with the existing one.
But I guess fixing bugs just doesn't get them enough immediate profit. In the long run they'd get far more users because the game would always work properly, and friends of players would be a little more impressed. I guess the EA fools are just too short-sighted to realize this...
Oh, and now they just started this "Return to UO for free" thing for people who have closed accounts (as in, stopped playing indefinitely). http://www.uo.com/return.html
Obviously a huge money grab, since they want the old players to come back and start playing again.
Anyway I'm ditching my account once the current paid-for period runs out. I'm sick of the way EA just screws around and only cares about their profits. I guess driving anything other than a late-model Jaguar or BMW is out of the question for their corporate exec's.
One of the biggest recent controversies that pissed off a huge huge number of UO players: EA offered a 7th Anniversary gift item (very valuable in game) because it was the 7th year anniversary of UO's existence. The 6 years before these items have been given in-game for free, automatically. The item would just be there in your inventory when you logged in. This time they conveniently decided you had to click a box in your player settings that says "It is OK for EA and its worldwide affiliates to contact me about EA products, news and events, special offers, and other information."
Forum thread where this was announced: http://boards.stratics.com/php-bin/uo/showthreaded
Needless to say many many people were pissed off. It was simply a way for EA to advertise to you even more, and it was very immoral because they were basically bribing users. In fact, that's exactly what it was. If you want the item, you have to receive their spam. There was NO REASON they couldn't just give the item to you in-game as they have f
Yahoo!
haha, hell yeah dude. Damn right...
I wish more people expressed this kind of anger towards the record industry (and other large corporate "powers")...
... "incoming!! you've got one on your tail!!"
We already know, and we all determined this years ago when the record industry started blaming Napster for their declining sales...
Of course, because now gun-wielding criminals know the innocent person they're going after won't have a gun!
The kind of laws our "civilized" countries pass these days never cease to disgust and frustrate me... heh
depends where you get it; I don't think the guy's talking about going into a gun store and buying one legally... on the street guns are sold for $50 or less easily, especially if they were recently used in a crime...
Probably the guys dressed like freaks and shooting at people.
It gets better:
"NOTE: I am looking for a David Hasselhoff inflatable doll complete with synthetic chest hair. If anyone has any information on this, please contact me."
Um, you managed to not mention probably the most groundbreaking (and probably the first) MMORPG on the net, Ultima Online, which always has plenty of fun in-game stuff around each holiday! Then again their site doesn't say a thing about Halloween, so I can see why it wasn't mentioned. I guess they're too busy promoting their totally off-topic new expansion...
I've only played for about a year but for example, the first Christmas when I started they gave out some house decorations like snowflakes, snowmen, poinsettia and some holiday wreaths. They also had a contest for the best Christmas-decorated house and stuff.
Duct tape?
Yeah exactly...
:D
r aydrifiting/trays1a.mpeg r aydrifiting/trays2s.mpeg
Put your e-brake on while you're driving around a sharp corner sometime... then you'll know what this guy is talking about..
Actually if you really wanna have some fun, go into a parking lot, stick those food trays (like from McDonald's for instance) under your rear wheels, put the e-brake on, and drive... result:
http://nikita.hro.nl/slhsitev2/downloads/movies/t
http://nikita.hro.nl/slhsitev2/downloads/movies/t
That's an extremely good point.. I'd mod it up if i had the mod points!@!!
I bought Postal (the original) from Future Shop when I was 13, completely alone. This was in 1997 when the game first came out. My parents *were* elsewhere in the store and I had just gone and asked them if I could buy it (it had a pretty plain box, well okay its box was like a cardboard-ish box with bullet holes in it, with a bloody red "POSTAL" written on the front, but still), but this store is huge and there's no way the cashier saw me with them, since I walked to the opposite end of the store where my parents were and such, to ask my parents.
..
:D
I mean, there are warnings right on the box that say you're supposed to be 17 or older (in the US) to buy the game.
All the games still had all those stupid warnings and parents were still complaining about how video games were corrupting their children and raping them in the night, etc.
Actually, I could have even been 12 at the time, I don't remember what month of the year it was.
Either way, I really wanted the game! I had played the beta of the game anyways, and thought it was soo awesome, and I felt no risk playing it - it was damn fun. Thus when I saw it in the store I was very glad
So now, today, to buy that same game I would have needed photo ID? Well, I better not hear any complaints about:
-lessened sales
-increased piracy
-pissed off kids
-video games causing violence (cuz now kids apparently "won't have violent games")
BTW my friend preordered Doom 3 from Amazon.com a year or two ago. The release date they had written on the site was "March [something] 2003"... so yeah...
Actually it had earlier dates written on the site before that, but of course as time went on and it got closer to the dates Amazon would have to make up a new, more "realistic" date.. which was still like half a year off...
All those ads that say "on sale on XXXX-XX-XX" probably ARE wrong anyways, seeing as they're just made-up dates written by GameSpot, IGN, etc. etc... as in, very very rarely actually stated by the game developers/publishers themselves!
in reponse to point #5 of yours:
Pings are sent when any connection attempt is made.. trying to load a web page, connecting to an FTP server, joining a Quake server, logging onto an instant messaging service, etc. etc. etc...
The first thing the program will do is send out a ping to see if the machine it's trying to contact is up and running..
Point is, no one is "scanning your LAN"... if you're running a server of any kind, ignoring ICMP packets will very often make it impossible for people to connect to the server. Alternatively, they'll be able to get connected but later get dropped due to receiving no response to "keepalive" pings (depending on how well the software is written)....
Doesn't this sound like the kind of solution that would be primarily software-based?
Despite that, the only largely software-based companies involved are two VERY proprietary-obsessed companies??
Meanwhile, what can AMD and Intel offer to such a solution? Since when are they involved in building new networking-related systems?
Also, someone else on here brought up the issue of patent-encumbered technology. This will *definitely* be an issue with these vendors/manufacturers, seeing as they'll all be interested merely in their capital gain as opposed to simply contributing to the general technological advancement of the internet/networks in general...
"WS-Management can also be used to manage things like set-top boxes and TiVo-like digital video recorders"
Yup, all containing AMD or Intel CPUs, running an embedded MS/Sun OS... now we see why the CPU manufacturers are involved...
Am I the only one getting sick of hearing about these new "great" proposals made by huge companies when their true intent is blatantly obvious? SNMP *works*, yet for some reason, as usual, some big company has to come along and try and run it over with their new crippleware, claiming it's the New & Improved (tm) version of whatever it was that worked just fine before...
actually, it should be "set up us the patent"...
the phrase "somebody set up us the bomb" gets misquoted so badly it's not even funny...
This has been discussed here on /. in the past.
It's easier for corporations to do something questionable or illegal and apologize later, rather than ask permission and act legitimately...
http://rsx.clubrsx.com/videos/RSX-S_misshift.mpeg
:)
I'm sure everyone's seen this, but for those who haven't... enjoy seeing some kid misshift his sports car and go like 3000rpm over redline
Hello, off-topic? It relates directly to what the parent poster said...