I actually have to agree with the controller thing. I've played the demo on all three consoles (fanboy? Me? Naaaah...) and I've found I like the Gamecube controller best, despite my rather oversized hands. The PS2's 4-button layout is similar to the DC's, which makes the transition easy, but I was having serious problems with the 8-way run on the PS2 - the analog stick seemed to always be "walk", despite double-tapping, and the plus pad seemed to be "run". Perhaps it's just that I'm not used to it, but that departure made it fairly difficult to adjust to. The XBox controller was just a little unwieldy for a fighter - it didn't seem quite right. The GC controller, while layed out differently than the DC, was actually easy to get used to. The A, Y and Y buttons function as horizontal and vertical attack, respectively, with the X as kick, and B and R as block. The addition of R as block was very welcome, as it makes it possible to do both types of throws relatively easy, as opposed to the block/vertical awkwardness of the DC version.
I do expect, though, that if you are comfortable with a given controller, you won't have a problem with the controls. The Soul Calibur games are hardly known for their clunky controls.:)
To become a Jedi, you have to unlock a Jedi character slot, through a process that no one knows about, and is supposed to take months. There will only be 1-5 Jedi per server, apparently, which is intended to keep them rare, which I certainly understand.
To my knowledge, no players have unlocked Jedi slots yet, although there are a few Dark Jedi NPCs running around, as well as whole clans of force-sensitive witches on Dathomir.
Ever try preventing that kind of thing? Here's a hint:
The client is 100% untrusted. Not only that, but any changes made solely and completely to the client (that do not affect the server or other players) are completely undetectable.
There is no way to reliably detect a maphack. Expecting a fix without a trusted client is rather ludicrous. Something like Palladium might provide a trusted client, but at what cost?
Yeah, and I remember the old days when a large game was 2MB. The Dark Forces demo was an utterly MASSIVE 5MB. The fact of the matter is that the scale has really shifted. Fileplanet might be seen as a scam of sorts, but hey, they have lots of bandwidth and the files I want. It's a decent enough business model.
How can you form an opinion of a game thats not finished ?
By the same token, how can you start selling a game that's not finished?
By the end of the beta, the game should pretty much be complete. The biggest common complaint I've heard is that while it's a good start, the game is nowhere near ready for release. It's an old joke, but for the first six months, people who are playing are just participating in the paid beta.
With regarsds to Playstations, Sony makes money on its games, not the consoles...doesn't mean they give them away.
The difference there being that a Playstation is a physical good that takes money to produce, while letting people download the game from Fileplanet costs you exactly $0.
I've got a large number of friends who were in the beta (I hang out on a highly active gaming board) - a few of them reported seeing a character named TK-421 who had a) killed enough Stormtroopers to get some stormtrooper armor, b) run enough Imperial missions to make up for the negative faction points gained by killing stormies, and c) then joined the Imperials in his armor. He was apparently walking around harassing Rebels. I found the concept quite amusing.
Anyone else see a new business model here? Go to some country not in bed with the RIAA/MPAA and setup Kazaa/P2P servers and allow subscribers to ftp files for share...
Actually, IIRC, that's how Sharman Networks (Kazaa's owner) has avoided the RIAA for so long. They are based in Vanuatu, an island in the South Pacific (as evidenced here and many other places on the web), primarily to avoid the US court system. Now, if they were to start hosting files, your idea is fully realized.
me, i've been deliberately avoiding OL gaming specifically b/c i fear the addictiveness. good thing for me i can claim slow dial-up (no broadband).
No kidding. I've avoided the whole MMO scene because I know I would be desperately addicted. Heck, I was in the Planetside beta, and despite the shallowness of the game I was playing for 6-10 hours straight at a time on the weekends. The funny thing is, I really don't play games that often anymore, but there was something about playing with all my friends in a persistant world that was totally and utterly addictive.
Lord, give me the strength to resist Star Wars Galaxies. It ain't gonna be easy.;)
The RIAA has been actively scanning the Internet for.mp3 [audio] files, and mass mailing "cease-and-desist" letters. But, in many cases -- for instance, recently at Penn State -- the files are not RIAA-produced or copyright-protected recordings at all. Doesn't the "cease-and-desist" notice represent an unauthorized access to property, and a violation of my personal rights?
We own the property (including the copyrights) that we are offering on our sites, so how can the RIAA presume that they are the only content producers and guardians of copyrights?
In sending unjustified "cease-and-desist" notices, the RIAA makes it almost impossible for us to distribute our content without being labeled as 'pirates.'
Lawrence Lessig from Stanford Law School responds:
This is an interesting question.
If a site posted a notice that no one was allowed to come onto the site for purposes of scanning the character of the files kept on that site, then the RIAA technologies would be "trespassing" and would violate the law in at least some states. But more generally, this practice is a form of harassment, and its effect is to harass those who would develop the public domain.
Now, if this is the case, what if I set up a honeypot that ran an FTP server/HTTP server/IRC daemon, with a notice explicitly forbidding scanning, populated the server with a ton of dummy files with the appropriate names ("Eminem - Lose Yourself.mp3"), and dropped it out there on the net? I could sift through the logs on occassion, check for hits from RIAA IPs (or the companies doing the scanning for them), and serve C&Ds, or perhaps even attempt to collect some kind of fine. Once, twice, no biggie.
Now, imagine that 100 people set these servers up.
1000.
10,000.
Not only would the RIAA's noise:signal ratio in searching rise, but if even one claim is successful, it opens the RIAA up to a world of hurt.
A thousand bee stings can kill a full-grown man, after all.
Slashdot Mirror
No argument there! Deus Ex remains my favorite FPS ever. I was just saying Goldeneye was up there. :)
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030516 Mozilla Firebird/0.6
;)
Popup? What popup?
I actually have to agree with the controller thing. I've played the demo on all three consoles (fanboy? Me? Naaaah...) and I've found I like the Gamecube controller best, despite my rather oversized hands. The PS2's 4-button layout is similar to the DC's, which makes the transition easy, but I was having serious problems with the 8-way run on the PS2 - the analog stick seemed to always be "walk", despite double-tapping, and the plus pad seemed to be "run". Perhaps it's just that I'm not used to it, but that departure made it fairly difficult to adjust to. The XBox controller was just a little unwieldy for a fighter - it didn't seem quite right. The GC controller, while layed out differently than the DC, was actually easy to get used to. The A, Y and Y buttons function as horizontal and vertical attack, respectively, with the X as kick, and B and R as block. The addition of R as block was very welcome, as it makes it possible to do both types of throws relatively easy, as opposed to the block/vertical awkwardness of the DC version.
:)
I do expect, though, that if you are comfortable with a given controller, you won't have a problem with the controls. The Soul Calibur games are hardly known for their clunky controls.
I'm picking my order up today.
Oh, come on. Goldeneye was possibly one of the best games of its time!
:D
Of course, most every bond game since has sucked.
Huh? A 600-pound man will fall at just the same rate as a 1-ounce marble. Perhaps the acceleration was just turned up too much. :)
To become a Jedi, you have to unlock a Jedi character slot, through a process that no one knows about, and is supposed to take months. There will only be 1-5 Jedi per server, apparently, which is intended to keep them rare, which I certainly understand.
To my knowledge, no players have unlocked Jedi slots yet, although there are a few Dark Jedi NPCs running around, as well as whole clans of force-sensitive witches on Dathomir.
But what's the point of playing an engine tech demo if you're not going to turn it all the way up? ;)
Kidding...kinda...
WTH? Only 15x15?
Hell, and I thought my target of 500x500 for my project was too small...
(: seineew rea sreenigne epacsteN
Nope, that's the Win32 binary (zip) archive. Just decompress and go. Uncompressed, it runs about 18MB.
ZIP compressed, the archive runs about 7.4MB. BZ2 compressed, the archive runs about 6.5MB.
Please note that these figures are for the 20030101 nightly binary, not a milestone.
Ever try preventing that kind of thing? Here's a hint:
The client is 100% untrusted. Not only that, but any changes made solely and completely to the client (that do not affect the server or other players) are completely undetectable.
There is no way to reliably detect a maphack. Expecting a fix without a trusted client is rather ludicrous. Something like Palladium might provide a trusted client, but at what cost?
Blizzard isn't soing Starcraft: Ghost. I believe Nihilistic is.
Yeah, and I remember the old days when a large game was 2MB. The Dark Forces demo was an utterly MASSIVE 5MB. The fact of the matter is that the scale has really shifted. Fileplanet might be seen as a scam of sorts, but hey, they have lots of bandwidth and the files I want. It's a decent enough business model.
Let he who is without sin cast the first Magic Missile.
I was speaking more from a developer's standpoint. Handing out free 2GB downloads off of your website is gonna murder you in bandwidth costs.
Continuing offtopic, I got a 1-month Fileplanet subscription so I could play the Planetside beta. A well-spent $6 or so, actually.
By the same token, how can you start selling a game that's not finished?
By the end of the beta, the game should pretty much be complete. The biggest common complaint I've heard is that while it's a good start, the game is nowhere near ready for release. It's an old joke, but for the first six months, people who are playing are just participating in the paid beta.
The difference there being that a Playstation is a physical good that takes money to produce, while letting people download the game from Fileplanet costs you exactly $0.
Actually, I'm 99% certain it takes place between ANH and ESB. I had friends posting screenshots of the burnt-out Lars farm, among other things.
I've got a large number of friends who were in the beta (I hang out on a highly active gaming board) - a few of them reported seeing a character named TK-421 who had a) killed enough Stormtroopers to get some stormtrooper armor, b) run enough Imperial missions to make up for the negative faction points gained by killing stormies, and c) then joined the Imperials in his armor. He was apparently walking around harassing Rebels. I found the concept quite amusing.
Actually, IIRC, that's how Sharman Networks (Kazaa's owner) has avoided the RIAA for so long. They are based in Vanuatu, an island in the South Pacific (as evidenced here and many other places on the web), primarily to avoid the US court system. Now, if they were to start hosting files, your idea is fully realized.
That's like saying that it's second nature for Flash artists to create croww-browser flash movies.
No kidding. I've avoided the whole MMO scene because I know I would be desperately addicted. Heck, I was in the Planetside beta, and despite the shallowness of the game I was playing for 6-10 hours straight at a time on the weekends. The funny thing is, I really don't play games that often anymore, but there was something about playing with all my friends in a persistant world that was totally and utterly addictive.
Lord, give me the strength to resist Star Wars Galaxies. It ain't gonna be easy. ;)
For the past two years I've been using an NYC account that someone else posted here.
;)
userid: slashdot2001
passwd: slashdot2001
Enjoy. I have.
Now, imagine that 100 people set these servers up.
1000.
10,000.
Not only would the RIAA's noise:signal ratio in searching rise, but if even one claim is successful, it opens the RIAA up to a world of hurt.
A thousand bee stings can kill a full-grown man, after all.
If there's one thing I've learned about Square, it's that when they say "Final" they mean "Not Final". ;)
The Final Fantasy series is up to what, 11 or 12 now?