I don't think they're as common as some people like to think. I play a fair amount, but I'm no CS junkie. In my experience the people who have the highest scores are the ones that have every tiny little detail of the map committed to memory. They know where all the hiding spots are and they know what paths you are likely to take. They know how to move and aim to maximize their accuracy while reducing their chances of taking a hit. They also tend to use the voice comms and work as a team.
The result is that less experienced players get thrashed constantly. I've been on both sides of the thrashing, and I'm not convinced I've ever seen anyone cheating.
If you haven't already, you might want to consider picking up the DVD set of Firefly. An excellent and innovative sci-fi series that was killed off by Fox before they could finish an entire season. Supposedly, they're working on a feature film that will be in theaters this summer.
It's been a research project for going on 2 decades now, but is still technically a prototype. It demoes well, but I wonder how reliable it is. My understanding is that they intend for it to be a "helper" robot for the elderly, so they won't consider it ready for sale until it is rock-solidly reliable and useful.
Is that video linked in the article supposed to make me want to play?
No, it isn't. It's supposed to make people who get the concept want to play.
1) Total lack of artistry in the game's artwork (the artwork looks like something a CAD student made, technical precision with no heart)
The artwork is intentionally toned down (low poly, relatively low-res textures) to improve frame rates. This is an action game. When you have 200+ people all fighting in realtime over the same facility, and your video card is screaming for mercy, you'll be glad the artwork isn't more detailed. And for the record, the quality of a highly compressed video isn't the best representation of how detailed the graphics actually are. But that's fine because it isn't meant to be a technology demo. It is meant to give you a sense of what the gameplay is like.
2) 100% PvP (sorry, no interest, I want the option of not doing PvP)
That's the entire point of the game. This is not an RPG. It is all about pitting your skill, tactics, and strategy against that of other players. Players level up, but everyone has the same stats, and even the lowest level player can use the same equipment as someone who's been playing since release. If that doesn't appeal to you, fine, but you can't argue that it is a flaw in the game, since it is the concept the entire game was built around.
3) Oooh "shiny" disease seen everywhere
4) Everything looks so sterilised, yet another reason I despise futuristic games
That's... well, I don't even know what that means.
Yes, flame me all you want. But, I think the above are glaring reasons why World of Warcraft has succeeded where others have failed.
I played Planetside for over a year, and I play WoW now. Frankly, the two games aren't even in the same genre, but both are outstanding at what they set out to accomplish.
The point of Planetside is not to "make progress." The war never ends, it will always go back and forth. The fun to be found in the game is the massive scale on which you can organize groups of soldiers. I played for over a year as part of a large outfit (over 300 active members). We used a hosted Teamspeak server to communicate and coordinate large-scale operations. Scenes like those you see in the movie were rare, but not unheard of. It's a beautiful thing when 10 assault tanks clear the roof of an installation just before 50 infantry do a simultaneous Galaxy-drop.
I'll admit that I got tired of the game, but it wasn't because it wasn't fun. I just couldn't keep up with all the changes they kept throwing at us. After they shipped the Core Combat expansion, they started to lose focus. Every patch seemed to completely change the core gameplay, and keeping track of all the changes while adapting our tactics was exhausting. I haven't played in about 8 months, and I understand that it has continued to change quite a bit, so I can't say what the game is like anymore.
Excellent point. I was lucky enough to have a couple jobs in high school that convinced me I needed to get a degree. Nothing like chatting with a man who's made a lifelong career out of managing fast food restaurants to motivate you.
Granted, 10 years ago, it was possible to get a foot in the door of the software industry without a degree if you could show a proficiency in at least one programming language. But those with degrees were still able to get better jobs and salaries. Nowadays, you'd be hard pressed to get so much as an interview without a degree of some sort.
I can't think of a direct analog of tag offhand, but I'm sure it's out there.
Traditional tag is kind of hard to write as a game because there really isn't a way to win. But I wrote a gametype mod for the original Unreal Tournament, called Rabbit Hunt. It was very similar to a game we played in elementary school, and was sort of like tag in reverse. The guy with the ball was "it" and everyone tried to get the ball away from him by any means necessary.
In my mod, the first person to make a kill became the rabbit and started scoring points on a timed basis. If you killed the rabbit you became the next rabbit. You won by hitting a score threshold. I tested it by throwing a couple small LAN parties with friends, and we had a blast. I released it on the web and it was actually pretty popular for a while. Guess that was my 15 minutes:o)
Must every game look like it takes place inside the "Nostromo" from "Alien" (1)?
Id certainly seems to think so. But if you check out other recent releases, such as Far Cry or Half Life 2, you'll see that other palettes are not only possible, but absolutely delightful. Personally, I'm yawning in anticipation for yet another Quake.
Windows XP SP2 has a firewall to protect its services now, but currently all OEMS ship with XP SP1
A common mis-understanding. XP already had a built-in soft firewall when it shipped. The problem was that it was not enabled by default, and most users have no idea what a firewall is, much less how to use it. SP2 turns it on and adds the security center which warns you if it is disabled. Of course, this still doesn't address the problem of people who don't know how to use it properly.
H. You may not exploit World of Warcraft for any commercial purpose, including, but not limited to, performing "power leveling" services to other users of World of Warcraft for "real" money.
Every MMO game I've played (and I've played several) has offerend at least one free month of play after initial signup. Anarchy Online later offered an aditional month because the game was in such a poor state when they launched. Games that have been around for a while and need to bring in more players will frequently offer a free trial period wherein you can download the client for free and play free for a limited period of time. But the new games will always need to cover their development and distribution costs. Hence the up-front fee for a new MMO game.
Guild Wars is still in beta, but they intend to have no monthly fees. As I understand it, they intend to support the game through frequent release of expansion packs. Whether or not they will be successful with this model remains to be seen, but I'm sure many developers are watching closely.
You're not alone. I haven't been playing quite as long, but I can't see how anyone can finish this game without using a trainer. Unless it's all they ever do.
No, but it's illegal to sell a PC loaded with an NES emulator and a bunch of ROM images of copyrighted games. Actually, it's illegal to even own one, but it's a lot harder to track down all the people that download the things than it is to track down the moron who's trying to make a profit by advertising and selling them.
I've always hated the idea of "scoring" games in reviews. A review is subjective and should be treated as such. A score promotes the idea that the review is a sort of scientific process, wherein the reviewer distills the game down to its very essence and then measures it against some standard.
What I'd like to see more of is review sites where a review is written by multiple reviewers, each getting their own say. This way, the readers can decide for themselves which reviewer's preferences most closely match their own.
I used to get all my game reviews from GamesDomain back when they were a non-commercial site, and most of the reviews were submitted by site visitors instead of staff. Heck, I even submitted a few of my own. Nowadays, I don't know of any really good review sites like that, so I generally ignore them and just exchange recommendations with friends that play games.
People on dial-up lines have to wait forever to get patches -- and they have no choice. People who might want to play portable (gaming laptop) have to follow some convoluted process which seems more complicated than brain surgery -- just to get their game to play without a net connection.
Have you actually used Steam? Many of the detractors seem to be operating on incorrect assumptions about how it works. Nobody is forced to download patches. You can play HL2 in offline mode as much as you want after you've activated it. Same goes for mobile users.
I think if you did a survey of people who bought legitimate copies of the game, you'd find there are really very few dissatisfied customers. As always, however, they are a very vocal minority.
So what does valve do? They keep prices exactly the same (*more* expensive for me in canada).
They can't lower the price because they are still under a publishing contract with Vivendi Universal (who bought out Sierra). If they lowered the price over Steam, it would hurt retail sales.
shitcanning 20000 accounts, a good number of which have already given them money.
Interesting. Exactly what was the number of paying customers that had their accounts cancelled? I didn't see that mentioned anywhere. I've seen a few posts on the Steam boards, but it's hard to filter through all the posts saying "I only tried the pirated version to decide if I wanted to buy it! Now I can't play Counter-Strike! Waaaaaaaa!"
I know that valve is doing pretty well for themselves, and they likely would be if there was no copy protection on the game at all, let alone some overzelous "phone home" system.
If 20,000 people trying to use a pirated copy of the game isn't an indication that anti-piracy measures are needed, I don't know what is. The fact that Steam is actually pretty effective seems to be the main reason people are up in arms about it.
And for all those "they're not forcing you to buy it" people out there, of course they aren't, but if they'd remove the mandatory Stean registration I probably would have given them my $50 by now.
And if they felt there were a really significant number of people so upset about Steam that they won't buy the game, they would probably remove it as a requirement. As it is, the game seems to be selling just fine.
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The result is that less experienced players get thrashed constantly. I've been on both sides of the thrashing, and I'm not convinced I've ever seen anyone cheating.
If you haven't already, you might want to consider picking up the DVD set of Firefly. An excellent and innovative sci-fi series that was killed off by Fox before they could finish an entire season. Supposedly, they're working on a feature film that will be in theaters this summer.
Read. Illegal to purchase. Not illegal to own. You can keep your old dumb-weapons, you just won't be able to (legally) purchase new ones.
It's been a research project for going on 2 decades now, but is still technically a prototype. It demoes well, but I wonder how reliable it is. My understanding is that they intend for it to be a "helper" robot for the elderly, so they won't consider it ready for sale until it is rock-solidly reliable and useful.
No, it isn't. It's supposed to make people who get the concept want to play.
1) Total lack of artistry in the game's artwork (the artwork looks like something a CAD student made, technical precision with no heart)
The artwork is intentionally toned down (low poly, relatively low-res textures) to improve frame rates. This is an action game. When you have 200+ people all fighting in realtime over the same facility, and your video card is screaming for mercy, you'll be glad the artwork isn't more detailed. And for the record, the quality of a highly compressed video isn't the best representation of how detailed the graphics actually are. But that's fine because it isn't meant to be a technology demo. It is meant to give you a sense of what the gameplay is like.
2) 100% PvP (sorry, no interest, I want the option of not doing PvP)
That's the entire point of the game. This is not an RPG. It is all about pitting your skill, tactics, and strategy against that of other players. Players level up, but everyone has the same stats, and even the lowest level player can use the same equipment as someone who's been playing since release. If that doesn't appeal to you, fine, but you can't argue that it is a flaw in the game, since it is the concept the entire game was built around.
3) Oooh "shiny" disease seen everywhere 4) Everything looks so sterilised, yet another reason I despise futuristic games
That's... well, I don't even know what that means.
Yes, flame me all you want. But, I think the above are glaring reasons why World of Warcraft has succeeded where others have failed.
I played Planetside for over a year, and I play WoW now. Frankly, the two games aren't even in the same genre, but both are outstanding at what they set out to accomplish.
I'll admit that I got tired of the game, but it wasn't because it wasn't fun. I just couldn't keep up with all the changes they kept throwing at us. After they shipped the Core Combat expansion, they started to lose focus. Every patch seemed to completely change the core gameplay, and keeping track of all the changes while adapting our tactics was exhausting. I haven't played in about 8 months, and I understand that it has continued to change quite a bit, so I can't say what the game is like anymore.
Granted, 10 years ago, it was possible to get a foot in the door of the software industry without a degree if you could show a proficiency in at least one programming language. But those with degrees were still able to get better jobs and salaries. Nowadays, you'd be hard pressed to get so much as an interview without a degree of some sort.
Increasing costs for running the game? Or dwindling player base? I expect a large number of their players have recently migrated to World of Warcraft.
Traditional tag is kind of hard to write as a game because there really isn't a way to win. But I wrote a gametype mod for the original Unreal Tournament, called Rabbit Hunt. It was very similar to a game we played in elementary school, and was sort of like tag in reverse. The guy with the ball was "it" and everyone tried to get the ball away from him by any means necessary.
In my mod, the first person to make a kill became the rabbit and started scoring points on a timed basis. If you killed the rabbit you became the next rabbit. You won by hitting a score threshold. I tested it by throwing a couple small LAN parties with friends, and we had a blast. I released it on the web and it was actually pretty popular for a while. Guess that was my 15 minutes :o)
Id certainly seems to think so. But if you check out other recent releases, such as Far Cry or Half Life 2, you'll see that other palettes are not only possible, but absolutely delightful. Personally, I'm yawning in anticipation for yet another Quake.
Have you tried running it? I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't run on Win2K, as long as you have .NET framework 1.1 installed.
A common mis-understanding. XP already had a built-in soft firewall when it shipped. The problem was that it was not enabled by default, and most users have no idea what a firewall is, much less how to use it. SP2 turns it on and adds the security center which warns you if it is disabled. Of course, this still doesn't address the problem of people who don't know how to use it properly.
To be filmed entirely in night-vision.
H. You may not exploit World of Warcraft for any commercial purpose, including, but not limited to, performing "power leveling" services to other users of World of Warcraft for "real" money.
Every MMO game I've played (and I've played several) has offerend at least one free month of play after initial signup. Anarchy Online later offered an aditional month because the game was in such a poor state when they launched. Games that have been around for a while and need to bring in more players will frequently offer a free trial period wherein you can download the client for free and play free for a limited period of time. But the new games will always need to cover their development and distribution costs. Hence the up-front fee for a new MMO game.
Guild Wars is still in beta, but they intend to have no monthly fees. As I understand it, they intend to support the game through frequent release of expansion packs. Whether or not they will be successful with this model remains to be seen, but I'm sure many developers are watching closely.
You're not alone. I haven't been playing quite as long, but I can't see how anyone can finish this game without using a trainer. Unless it's all they ever do.
I didn't see anything in the article that specifies whether the card is PCI-E only. I suspect it is, but thought I'd ask if anyone has more details.
No, but it's illegal to sell a PC loaded with an NES emulator and a bunch of ROM images of copyrighted games. Actually, it's illegal to even own one, but it's a lot harder to track down all the people that download the things than it is to track down the moron who's trying to make a profit by advertising and selling them.
What I'd like to see more of is review sites where a review is written by multiple reviewers, each getting their own say. This way, the readers can decide for themselves which reviewer's preferences most closely match their own.
I used to get all my game reviews from GamesDomain back when they were a non-commercial site, and most of the reviews were submitted by site visitors instead of staff. Heck, I even submitted a few of my own. Nowadays, I don't know of any really good review sites like that, so I generally ignore them and just exchange recommendations with friends that play games.
Have you actually used Steam? Many of the detractors seem to be operating on incorrect assumptions about how it works. Nobody is forced to download patches. You can play HL2 in offline mode as much as you want after you've activated it. Same goes for mobile users.
I think if you did a survey of people who bought legitimate copies of the game, you'd find there are really very few dissatisfied customers. As always, however, they are a very vocal minority.
They can't lower the price because they are still under a publishing contract with Vivendi Universal (who bought out Sierra). If they lowered the price over Steam, it would hurt retail sales.
shitcanning 20000 accounts, a good number of which have already given them money.
Interesting. Exactly what was the number of paying customers that had their accounts cancelled? I didn't see that mentioned anywhere. I've seen a few posts on the Steam boards, but it's hard to filter through all the posts saying "I only tried the pirated version to decide if I wanted to buy it! Now I can't play Counter-Strike! Waaaaaaaa!"
I know that valve is doing pretty well for themselves, and they likely would be if there was no copy protection on the game at all, let alone some overzelous "phone home" system.
If 20,000 people trying to use a pirated copy of the game isn't an indication that anti-piracy measures are needed, I don't know what is. The fact that Steam is actually pretty effective seems to be the main reason people are up in arms about it.
And if they felt there were a really significant number of people so upset about Steam that they won't buy the game, they would probably remove it as a requirement. As it is, the game seems to be selling just fine.
Do you ever have nightmares about leeches?