You can't use the left and right buttons independently, eg. hold the right and click the left. But the squeeze and scroller push do count as buttons, so technically it's not a 1 button mouse.
Apple still doesn't officially support more than 1 mouse button. The Mighty Mouse is not a true 2 button mouse, it's a 1 button mouse that can be clicked in 2 different ways. Humans have 5 fingers, so a mouse should have 5 buttons, and that is how many my mouse has (plus a scroll wheel).
Bust into his house and take the cure by force, reverse engineer it. Property isn't a natural right, it's something sustained by government on the principle that it is an overall benefit to society by optimizing distribution of limited resources. Information is not a limited resource, as it can be duplicated for near zero cost. There is already very widespread support for taking property by force to benefit the greater good: taxes.
As Chrono Trigger completely disregarded causality, there is no significance to the events. This doesn't mean it's a bad game, and you can still appreciate it for the characters/music/graphics. Chrono Cross did the best job possible with such illogical source material, it only failed as a game because of the weak characters IMO.
Adding randomness, even if it's the same randomness for each side, makes the game less like chess and more like poker. Poker is a good game, and certainly takes skill to play well, but it's not something you can judge superiority on from a single match. Even in no-limit format, where the psychological aspect is maximized, a lessor player can often beat the greater player because of better luck. Here some players will find that their reconnaissance strategy works very well for a particular map configuration, or very poorly, depending on luck. Like poker, it will even out in the long run, but why add the randomness in the first place when the game worked perfectly well with pure skill?
The memorization is the prerequisite for playing the *real* game, which is the player-vs-player mindgames. It's exactly like in 2d beat-'em-ups, where the ability for all players to pull off all the special moves at will is required before there is any interesting gameplay. You need the limitations and known elements to provide a framework to work within - thinking "what is my opponent thinking now", and "what does my opponent think I am thinking", and the psychology behind it. If you are no good at this then you can lose the game before you have even started.
Complaining about the maps being the same all the time is like complaining about the lack of powerups and special moves in tennis (another game with great tactical depth within a limited rule structure).
This is part of the ongoing trend to reduce the advantage of skill and make outcomes more random.
The elements of skill at FPSs: 1. Twitch 2. Map control 3. Enemy prediction 4. Self unpredictability
Twitch is pretty much dead now that FPSs are designed for consoles, and usually running at 30fps. Success at twitch requires good genetics (fast reaction time is critical), and obsessive training (so it can become subconscious, if you have to think you'll be to slow), so understandably it is not popular with all gamers. Therefore the game designers add autoaim and weapon spread to make it less important.
Map control requires great memorization and 3d visualization skills. You need to know where every chokepoint, every item spawn, every enemy spawn is, and be able to instantly visualize every route between any two arbitrary points on the map. This isn't so limited by genetics, but if still requires a lot of effort, and again repels the "casual" gamers. Randomizing the maps makes this skill less important.
At the tactical level, enemy prediction and self unpredictability are closely related to map control. There's a constant tension between needing to control the map and avoiding predictable behavior. Things like knowing high traffic areas to fire a rocket into without looking, and knowing where an enemy is most likely to appear after seeing them briefly all depend on map knowledge. These last two skills are not completely eliminated by random maps, only reduced to skill at highly local movement.
Map randomization helps reduce multiplayer FPS from a legitimate competitive sport to just another amusement.
It's not realistic motion blur, it's just fading out frames slowly instead of immediately replacing them, and it doesn't provide any additional motion information. Compare with true motion blur as demonstrated in the site Floritard linked in post 19035607.
The human eye does experience motion blur. Simple test: hold your hand out away from your computer screen (otherwise you'll get strobing), and wave it about as fast as possible. We don't experience as much motion blur as we see in 24fps movies, but that is because 24fps is the *minimum* needed to produce smooth motion. See the research of Douglas Trumbull (Showscan) for details.
LCDs are worthless for any game that's dependent on fast reaction, such as first person shooters. Modern first person shooter design is moving towards deemphasizing twitch, for example by adding autoaim and weapon spread and slowing the game down, but play an oldschool fast FPS like Quake 3 on a CRT at 120Hz vs. an LCD at 60Hz, and you'll see it makes an enormous difference.
Not only is the perception of smoother movement important, but latency too. With an LCD, a frame is buffered in the graphics card for 17ms, buffered in the LCD for at least 17ms, and then displayed over at least 5ms. With a CRT running twice as fast, the frame is buffered in the graphics card for only 8ms, not buffered in the CRT at all, and displayed over an average of 4ms (the top of the screen almost immediately, and the bottom after just under a whole frametime). That's 38ms added latency for a top of the range LCD, and 12ms added with a moderately good CRT (truly fast CRTs will do 200fps or more). A slow LCD can add 100ms or more (see "LCD input lag" discussion).
Human visual reaction time is about 200ms to 250ms, with the highly gifted going slightly faster, and those tired or under the influence of depressants a lot slower. To be competitive at a twitch-heavy FPS you'll need to be reacting around 200ms (one reason why twitch is deemphasized now, so player genetics is not so important). The additional 26ms latency from choosing a fast LCD over an average CRT is a significant chunk or your reaction time, and enough to affect your average success rate in twitch-vs-twitch situation.
Obviously spoken as somebody who's never watched a movie at a higher framerate. Go watch some 60fps Showscan or something, and the deficiencies of 24fps movies become very obvious.
The human eye is an analogue device, and does not see in frames. Because computer games generally do not feature realistic motion blur, we can see a benefit from increased frame rates well above the 72fps which would be sufficient with perfect motion blur. Accurate motion blur can be thought of as "temporal antialiasing", analogous to the spacial antialiasing supported by modern graphics cards.
The scenes are generally *not* far away, because then you'll have very little stereoscopic depth information, and the 3d effect will be wasted. Almost all 3d movies feature objects flying very close to the viewers, because it gives a much more impressive 3d effect.
Writing your own music is legally risky, as there are not enough musically valid melodies to guarantee writing an original one. See http://slashdot.org/~yerricde/journal/36125. Much safer to perform a cover version of some public domain music.
No, they use the same old MPEG2, only at far too low a bitrate, which is why it looks like shit regardless of what display you use.
Re:Why should I care about FF?
on
Ten Years of FFXIII?
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· Score: 2, Informative
The "ineffective" feature is actually the best part of FF1. Adds a bit of tactical depth, rather than the "hit A until you win" battle system of all the other FF games.
No, that's accurate. The difference in speed isn't as dramatic as the difference in clock speeds would suggest, because of the C64's 6502's zero page addressing and the Spectrum's contended ram, but the Spectrum's Z80 is definitely a faster CPU. The Basic interpreter is also obviously better, at least in the 128K versions.
However, the C64 has hardware sprites and scrolling, which means it doesn't need such a fast CPU for most games, and of course the sound chip is far superior.
Well, of course you will lose if you have slow reflexes. FPSs aren't for everyone. But "twitch", as in snap aiming skill, is developed by training. Once you've trained this skill enough that you're into severely diminishing returns and can hit a fast moving target from across the map, then things become interesting.
For high level play, FPS is purely about the mindgames. It's assumed that everyone has near perfect twitch ability, so the only distinguishing factor is your ability to predict your opponent's moves while remaining as unpredictable as possible yourself. In this respect the FPS is very similar to the Street Fighter style fighting game.
For the PC gamers, the motivation is the same as for griefing in any game. Being able to repeatedly kill the X360 players with very little effort is amusing to some people, and given past experience of PC vs console FPS gaming this is exactly what will happen (Dreamcast Quake 3).
Slashdot Mirror
You can't use the left and right buttons independently, eg. hold the right and click the left. But the squeeze and scroller push do count as buttons, so technically it's not a 1 button mouse.
Apple still doesn't officially support more than 1 mouse button. The Mighty Mouse is not a true 2 button mouse, it's a 1 button mouse that can be clicked in 2 different ways. Humans have 5 fingers, so a mouse should have 5 buttons, and that is how many my mouse has (plus a scroll wheel).
Nonsense, distilled water is perfectly safe to drink:
http://yarchive.net/med/osmotic_damage.html
Millions dying a slow and painful death because of the greed of those lucky enough to be born rich is pretty damn evil IMO.
Bust into his house and take the cure by force, reverse engineer it. Property isn't a natural right, it's something sustained by government on the principle that it is an overall benefit to society by optimizing distribution of limited resources. Information is not a limited resource, as it can be duplicated for near zero cost. There is already very widespread support for taking property by force to benefit the greater good: taxes.
Freely sharing information is as old as language. Copyright is the breach of tradition here.
As Chrono Trigger completely disregarded causality, there is no significance to the events. This doesn't mean it's a bad game, and you can still appreciate it for the characters/music/graphics. Chrono Cross did the best job possible with such illogical source material, it only failed as a game because of the weak characters IMO.
CS is much slower paced than Quake 3 or similar.
Adding randomness, even if it's the same randomness for each side, makes the game less like chess and more like poker. Poker is a good game, and certainly takes skill to play well, but it's not something you can judge superiority on from a single match. Even in no-limit format, where the psychological aspect is maximized, a lessor player can often beat the greater player because of better luck. Here some players will find that their reconnaissance strategy works very well for a particular map configuration, or very poorly, depending on luck. Like poker, it will even out in the long run, but why add the randomness in the first place when the game worked perfectly well with pure skill?
The memorization is the prerequisite for playing the *real* game, which is the player-vs-player mindgames. It's exactly like in 2d beat-'em-ups, where the ability for all players to pull off all the special moves at will is required before there is any interesting gameplay. You need the limitations and known elements to provide a framework to work within - thinking "what is my opponent thinking now", and "what does my opponent think I am thinking", and the psychology behind it. If you are no good at this then you can lose the game before you have even started.
Complaining about the maps being the same all the time is like complaining about the lack of powerups and special moves in tennis (another game with great tactical depth within a limited rule structure).
This is part of the ongoing trend to reduce the advantage of skill and make outcomes more random.
The elements of skill at FPSs:
1. Twitch
2. Map control
3. Enemy prediction
4. Self unpredictability
Twitch is pretty much dead now that FPSs are designed for consoles, and usually running at 30fps. Success at twitch requires good genetics (fast reaction time is critical), and obsessive training (so it can become subconscious, if you have to think you'll be to slow), so understandably it is not popular with all gamers. Therefore the game designers add autoaim and weapon spread to make it less important.
Map control requires great memorization and 3d visualization skills. You need to know where every chokepoint, every item spawn, every enemy spawn is, and be able to instantly visualize every route between any two arbitrary points on the map. This isn't so limited by genetics, but if still requires a lot of effort, and again repels the "casual" gamers. Randomizing the maps makes this skill less important.
At the tactical level, enemy prediction and self unpredictability are closely related to map control. There's a constant tension between needing to control the map and avoiding predictable behavior. Things like knowing high traffic areas to fire a rocket into without looking, and knowing where an enemy is most likely to appear after seeing them briefly all depend on map knowledge. These last two skills are not completely eliminated by random maps, only reduced to skill at highly local movement.
Map randomization helps reduce multiplayer FPS from a legitimate competitive sport to just another amusement.
It's not realistic motion blur, it's just fading out frames slowly instead of immediately replacing them, and it doesn't provide any additional motion information. Compare with true motion blur as demonstrated in the site Floritard linked in post 19035607.
The human eye does experience motion blur. Simple test: hold your hand out away from your computer screen (otherwise you'll get strobing), and wave it about as fast as possible. We don't experience as much motion blur as we see in 24fps movies, but that is because 24fps is the *minimum* needed to produce smooth motion. See the research of Douglas Trumbull (Showscan) for details.
LCDs are worthless for any game that's dependent on fast reaction, such as first person shooters. Modern first person shooter design is moving towards deemphasizing twitch, for example by adding autoaim and weapon spread and slowing the game down, but play an oldschool fast FPS like Quake 3 on a CRT at 120Hz vs. an LCD at 60Hz, and you'll see it makes an enormous difference. Not only is the perception of smoother movement important, but latency too. With an LCD, a frame is buffered in the graphics card for 17ms, buffered in the LCD for at least 17ms, and then displayed over at least 5ms. With a CRT running twice as fast, the frame is buffered in the graphics card for only 8ms, not buffered in the CRT at all, and displayed over an average of 4ms (the top of the screen almost immediately, and the bottom after just under a whole frametime). That's 38ms added latency for a top of the range LCD, and 12ms added with a moderately good CRT (truly fast CRTs will do 200fps or more). A slow LCD can add 100ms or more (see "LCD input lag" discussion). Human visual reaction time is about 200ms to 250ms, with the highly gifted going slightly faster, and those tired or under the influence of depressants a lot slower. To be competitive at a twitch-heavy FPS you'll need to be reacting around 200ms (one reason why twitch is deemphasized now, so player genetics is not so important). The additional 26ms latency from choosing a fast LCD over an average CRT is a significant chunk or your reaction time, and enough to affect your average success rate in twitch-vs-twitch situation.
Obviously spoken as somebody who's never watched a movie at a higher framerate. Go watch some 60fps Showscan or something, and the deficiencies of 24fps movies become very obvious.
The human eye is an analogue device, and does not see in frames. Because computer games generally do not feature realistic motion blur, we can see a benefit from increased frame rates well above the 72fps which would be sufficient with perfect motion blur. Accurate motion blur can be thought of as "temporal antialiasing", analogous to the spacial antialiasing supported by modern graphics cards.
The scenes are generally *not* far away, because then you'll have very little stereoscopic depth information, and the 3d effect will be wasted. Almost all 3d movies feature objects flying very close to the viewers, because it gives a much more impressive 3d effect.
Writing your own music is legally risky, as there are not enough musically valid melodies to guarantee writing an original one. See http://slashdot.org/~yerricde/journal/36125. Much safer to perform a cover version of some public domain music.
No, they use the same old MPEG2, only at far too low a bitrate, which is why it looks like shit regardless of what display you use.
The "ineffective" feature is actually the best part of FF1. Adds a bit of tactical depth, rather than the "hit A until you win" battle system of all the other FF games.
No, that's accurate. The difference in speed isn't as dramatic as the difference in clock speeds would suggest, because of the C64's 6502's zero page addressing and the Spectrum's contended ram, but the Spectrum's Z80 is definitely a faster CPU. The Basic interpreter is also obviously better, at least in the 128K versions. However, the C64 has hardware sprites and scrolling, which means it doesn't need such a fast CPU for most games, and of course the sound chip is far superior.
Well, of course you will lose if you have slow reflexes. FPSs aren't for everyone. But "twitch", as in snap aiming skill, is developed by training. Once you've trained this skill enough that you're into severely diminishing returns and can hit a fast moving target from across the map, then things become interesting.
For high level play, FPS is purely about the mindgames. It's assumed that everyone has near perfect twitch ability, so the only distinguishing factor is your ability to predict your opponent's moves while remaining as unpredictable as possible yourself. In this respect the FPS is very similar to the Street Fighter style fighting game.
For the PC gamers, the motivation is the same as for griefing in any game. Being able to repeatedly kill the X360 players with very little effort is amusing to some people, and given past experience of PC vs console FPS gaming this is exactly what will happen (Dreamcast Quake 3).
This was already demonstrated with Dreamcast Quake 3 vs PC Quake 3. Overwhelming victory for keyboard+mouse, as expected.