Stardock, developer of Galactic Civilizations and The Political Machine, is now working on an unnamed massively multiplayer real time strategy title that will be free to play.
Free? Wait a minute, I'm confused here. Why would they make this game free? Not that I'm complaining or anything, I just haven't ever heard of a for-profit company working to develop a game more complex than Frogger and giving it out for free. What's the catch here?
I concur, it's sickening to see how many lives get destroyed by a stupid game. I'm sure this problem is only going to get worse, and unfortunately I'm predicting that the relatives of victims are going to start pointing their fingers to the game producers as the ones responsible. This is, of course, not the right course of action to take, because if a company makes a game "less addicting" then how are they to generate sales? Like you said, it's just like alcoholism and do relatives of alcoholics blame the beer companies for their suffering? Of course not. The only person responsible for their actions (with either alcoholism or game addiction) is the very person who let the substance take control of their life.
Why not just call it a gamma release? Or do they not know that the greek alphabet has more than two letters? Hell, they might as well make a release of Longhorn for all 24 greek letters, seeing as it doesn't seem like they plan on finishing the O/S anytime soon.
I shudder at the thought of some computer-tard (like my mother) using English to write programs. Just imagine the havoc that will result!
(15 yr old male during peak of puberty)
"Computer, write me a program that downloads all the pr0n on the internet to the my PC!!!!111one"
(80 yr old male, retired and bored out of his mind)
"Noisy hunk of crap on the floor, send every naked picture of every woman ever to my printer! Oh wait, make sure they are 19 or younger too!!! Keh keh keh!"
I studied Japanese language and culture at University for 3 years, I didn't just "pick this up" while watching anime. "nan" is the Japanese word meaning what and "da" is the informal form of the copula verb "desu". Maybe in the future you shouldn't make these half-assed assumptions.
It looks like from the url that one of the "inventors" (and I use that word lightly) has the name/alias "nanda", which in Japanese means something along the lines of 'What the hell?' ^_^
We are quite similar. I am a recent computer engineering graduate with 5.5 semesters of Japanese (I dropped half-way into my 6th one because it was redundant and annoying). I guess I'm weird, because I never found Japanese difficult *at all*. Especially when compared to some of the CmpE courses I had to take during those 4 years. >_> But yeah, if they expect you to localize software and you don't have an inkling about Japanese language or culture, I would tell your bosses boss that your boss should be fired for either being a moron or a jerk.:)
Hmm, now I'm curious if Slashdot supports non-romanized input for comments. Let's see...
Anyone ever see at the bottom of your spam messages something like "Click here to unregister your e-mail address"? I checked out the URL it pointed to once and I can't find it now (it was something like nomorespam.org) where it asks you to enter your e-mail address so you can be taken off spam lists.
Did anyone ever actually try that to see if their spam got reduced? I didn't, because (1) Why would spammers voluntarly reduce the size of the audience they reach out to when not legally enforced? and (2) The site is likely a dupe and serves the opposite purpose: to let spammers know about your e-mail and, more importantly, that it's being actively used. I'm just curious if anyone found this "service" to actually be legit/effective.
The only games I've spent money on in the last 12 months have been indie games. Why? Because I got bored with sequels and pretty gaming engines. Games are meant to be fun and IMHO they are becoming products to be churned out. With the indie stuff I tend to find that more thought has gone into the level design and tuning the gameplay
I could not agree more. I really miss the old games (SNES-era) where companies didn't put the majority of their focus on games looking jaw-droppingly realistic, but rather they put their effort into making the game fun. It seems that this old-spirit has been pretty much extinguished in large dev houses and replaced with the mantra "Make games faster! Make more money!". Which is one reason why I decided to take things into my own hands and start developing a RPG game with the old-spirit.
Sorry I didn't mean BSOD, my brain was all over the place earlier today. What I meant was a virus or mutation in the registery that would generally cause Windows to barf and refuse to boot anymore. *That* would cause a user to be unable to access their data.
I have also used GraphViz and I find it very useful. I've used GraphViz in research to create a DAG of simulated computer intrusion paths in this paper: PDF. I think it's a fun piece of software to play around with, and I've also used it in some visualizations for my senior design project (though I forgot what for) and to produce an image detailing the source tree for my game project. If I ever have extra time (which probably won't happen for the rest of my life) I'd be interested in hacking GraphViz to add a couple features I'd like to see.
...to the "common" user? Imagine how many clueless casual comptuer users lose all their precious data to a Windows BSOD everyday. Now imagine if IBM advertised that with and ipod/flashdrive, their software, and Linux, you can recover a bad WindowsPC and save all your data. Wouldn't this "wow" the common user into thinking Linux must be the greatest thing since the internet? Maybe this research will generate more interest in Linux use from the common Joe instead of all of us hackers. =D
Is this really an important and pressing matter for the governor to concern himself with? Shouldn't he be more focused on.....I don't know, making more cheese? >_>
For the past two years I've done my taxes through a couple different free (as in beer) online services. I don't know what exactly to call them, but all I know is I put in some numbers, hit send, and the IRS electronically recieved my tax forms and was kind enough to send me a hefty tax return check a few weeks later.:)
But I only worked part-time jobs those years and didn't make a whole lot, so I got to use the 1040EZ form. I don't know if people who actually make real money have the same priveldges of using those free services as I did.
~ 23 or 24 appears to be the net mean age of all survey groups, and in my experience, and as someone from that generation, we spend a lot of time online for many different reasons.
You mean porn? >_> j/k
I have never touched an MMORPG either (for fear of addiction and my life being destroyed). However I do think I'm addicted to the net, because I use it for almost everything I can. I much more prefer to communicate with others via e-mail, IM, or IRC than in person or by phone. Why? Because I'm usually busy doing something and when you are on the phone with someone or up-close and personal you have to give that person 100% of your attention so you don't seem rude. When I'm online, it's a given that I'm not going to be 100% devoted to responding to your chat window ASAP or reply to your e-mails within 5 seconds. I'll respond at my leisure (as long as I don't take hours or days), which is why I love internet communications.
Well if you notice most of the Games articles have very little commenting relative to the others. My theory is that the majority of slashdotters are too busy with programming/hacking/IT/other_tech_field to play games, much less find the time to discuss them.
Unfortunately I'm one of those deprived individuals. =/
Reminds me I saw/heard something on Dr. Phil the other day about a guy who's relationship with his wife was failing because he turned to pr0n for pleasure instead of her. Is this the beginning of the end? Will all boobies get digitized and become virtual entities for our pleasure? Only time will tell...
Agreed. I'm also at risk for developing diabetes. Hopefully we'll see the method mature and grow more effective.
On a side note, if they can extract the pancreas cells from dead donors, then why do they claim to have a major shortage of them? I imagine that they only need to borrow a small sliver of the dead donor's pancreas and not the whole whopper, so one dead donor can help cure tens, maybe hundreds of afflicted patients? But then again I have no idea how many people in the UK don't mind donating their organs after they're dead. Personally I see no reason not to. Spread the love, share the life! =D
What, do they plan on re-releasing FFI-VI for a THIRD time for mobile phones now? Seriously. Square-Enix used to be about making good games. Now they are about making the most profit.
Hopefully I'm wrong about this though (the FF mobile deal, I don't think I'm wrong about my more general statement). I don't have a Gamasutra account to read the article and didn't feel like bothering to sign up for one.
Well if programming is what you love and what you want to do for the rest of your life, why not focus on getting a degree in artwork? Sure we can all write hard-core programs and scripts that run from a command line, but what about our less-enlightened users who require a GUI and colorful buttons to do anything with their computer? To those users, appearance is VERY important, maybe even moreso than performance to some people. I wish I had time to focus on developing my art skills right now for personal reasons/projects, but I'm too busy writing esoteric Perl scripts...>_>
Slashdot Mirror
Really, I found it! This is awesome, I can't wait to waste more time with this!
Stardock, developer of Galactic Civilizations and The Political Machine, is now working on an unnamed massively multiplayer real time strategy title that will be free to play.
Free? Wait a minute, I'm confused here. Why would they make this game free? Not that I'm complaining or anything, I just haven't ever heard of a for-profit company working to develop a game more complex than Frogger and giving it out for free. What's the catch here?
I concur, it's sickening to see how many lives get destroyed by a stupid game. I'm sure this problem is only going to get worse, and unfortunately I'm predicting that the relatives of victims are going to start pointing their fingers to the game producers as the ones responsible. This is, of course, not the right course of action to take, because if a company makes a game "less addicting" then how are they to generate sales? Like you said, it's just like alcoholism and do relatives of alcoholics blame the beer companies for their suffering? Of course not. The only person responsible for their actions (with either alcoholism or game addiction) is the very person who let the substance take control of their life.
So did I, about a year ago! Dammit, they better take responsibility (in the form of giving me a free graduate degree as compensation)! *shakes fist*
Why not just call it a gamma release? Or do they not know that the greek alphabet has more than two letters? Hell, they might as well make a release of Longhorn for all 24 greek letters, seeing as it doesn't seem like they plan on finishing the O/S anytime soon.
I shudder at the thought of some computer-tard (like my mother) using English to write programs. Just imagine the havoc that will result!
...>_>
(15 yr old male during peak of puberty)
"Computer, write me a program that downloads all the pr0n on the internet to the my PC!!!!111one"
(80 yr old male, retired and bored out of his mind)
"Noisy hunk of crap on the floor, send every naked picture of every woman ever to my printer! Oh wait, make sure they are 19 or younger too!!! Keh keh keh!"
I studied Japanese language and culture at University for 3 years, I didn't just "pick this up" while watching anime. "nan" is the Japanese word meaning what and "da" is the informal form of the copula verb "desu". Maybe in the future you shouldn't make these half-assed assumptions.
It looks like from the url that one of the "inventors" (and I use that word lightly) has the name/alias "nanda", which in Japanese means something along the lines of 'What the hell?' ^_^
It doesn't. It just took the Japanese I typed and threw it away like it was garbage. Damn prejudiced comment board!
We are quite similar. I am a recent computer engineering graduate with 5.5 semesters of Japanese (I dropped half-way into my 6th one because it was redundant and annoying). I guess I'm weird, because I never found Japanese difficult *at all*. Especially when compared to some of the CmpE courses I had to take during those 4 years. >_> But yeah, if they expect you to localize software and you don't have an inkling about Japanese language or culture, I would tell your bosses boss that your boss should be fired for either being a moron or a jerk. :)
Hmm, now I'm curious if Slashdot supports non-romanized input for comments. Let's see...
Anyone ever see at the bottom of your spam messages something like "Click here to unregister your e-mail address"? I checked out the URL it pointed to once and I can't find it now (it was something like nomorespam.org) where it asks you to enter your e-mail address so you can be taken off spam lists.
Did anyone ever actually try that to see if their spam got reduced? I didn't, because (1) Why would spammers voluntarly reduce the size of the audience they reach out to when not legally enforced? and (2) The site is likely a dupe and serves the opposite purpose: to let spammers know about your e-mail and, more importantly, that it's being actively used. I'm just curious if anyone found this "service" to actually be legit/effective.
The only games I've spent money on in the last 12 months have been indie games. Why? Because I got bored with sequels and pretty gaming engines. Games are meant to be fun and IMHO they are becoming products to be churned out. With the indie stuff I tend to find that more thought has gone into the level design and tuning the gameplay
I could not agree more. I really miss the old games (SNES-era) where companies didn't put the majority of their focus on games looking jaw-droppingly realistic, but rather they put their effort into making the game fun. It seems that this old-spirit has been pretty much extinguished in large dev houses and replaced with the mantra "Make games faster! Make more money!". Which is one reason why I decided to take things into my own hands and start developing a RPG game with the old-spirit.
Sprung: The Dating Game
What, there's a dating game? Something like Tokimeki Memorial, but less Japanesy? Hmmm, maybe I should look into getting a DS after all.....
roots@harima:~$ whatis love
love: nothing appropriate.
>_>
Sorry I didn't mean BSOD, my brain was all over the place earlier today. What I meant was a virus or mutation in the registery that would generally cause Windows to barf and refuse to boot anymore. *That* would cause a user to be unable to access their data.
I have also used GraphViz and I find it very useful. I've used GraphViz in research to create a DAG of simulated computer intrusion paths in this paper: PDF. I think it's a fun piece of software to play around with, and I've also used it in some visualizations for my senior design project (though I forgot what for) and to produce an image detailing the source tree for my game project. If I ever have extra time (which probably won't happen for the rest of my life) I'd be interested in hacking GraphViz to add a couple features I'd like to see.
...to the "common" user? Imagine how many clueless casual comptuer users lose all their precious data to a Windows BSOD everyday. Now imagine if IBM advertised that with and ipod/flashdrive, their software, and Linux, you can recover a bad WindowsPC and save all your data. Wouldn't this "wow" the common user into thinking Linux must be the greatest thing since the internet? Maybe this research will generate more interest in Linux use from the common Joe instead of all of us hackers. =D
Is this really an important and pressing matter for the governor to concern himself with? Shouldn't he be more focused on.....I don't know, making more cheese? >_>
For the past two years I've done my taxes through a couple different free (as in beer) online services. I don't know what exactly to call them, but all I know is I put in some numbers, hit send, and the IRS electronically recieved my tax forms and was kind enough to send me a hefty tax return check a few weeks later. :)
But I only worked part-time jobs those years and didn't make a whole lot, so I got to use the 1040EZ form. I don't know if people who actually make real money have the same priveldges of using those free services as I did.
~ 23 or 24 appears to be the net mean age of all survey groups, and in my experience, and as someone from that generation, we spend a lot of time online for many different reasons.
You mean porn? >_> j/k
I have never touched an MMORPG either (for fear of addiction and my life being destroyed). However I do think I'm addicted to the net, because I use it for almost everything I can. I much more prefer to communicate with others via e-mail, IM, or IRC than in person or by phone. Why? Because I'm usually busy doing something and when you are on the phone with someone or up-close and personal you have to give that person 100% of your attention so you don't seem rude. When I'm online, it's a given that I'm not going to be 100% devoted to responding to your chat window ASAP or reply to your e-mails within 5 seconds. I'll respond at my leisure (as long as I don't take hours or days), which is why I love internet communications.
Well if you notice most of the Games articles have very little commenting relative to the others. My theory is that the majority of slashdotters are too busy with programming/hacking/IT/other_tech_field to play games, much less find the time to discuss them.
Unfortunately I'm one of those deprived individuals. =/
Reminds me I saw/heard something on Dr. Phil the other day about a guy who's relationship with his wife was failing because he turned to pr0n for pleasure instead of her. Is this the beginning of the end? Will all boobies get digitized and become virtual entities for our pleasure? Only time will tell...
Agreed. I'm also at risk for developing diabetes. Hopefully we'll see the method mature and grow more effective.
On a side note, if they can extract the pancreas cells from dead donors, then why do they claim to have a major shortage of them? I imagine that they only need to borrow a small sliver of the dead donor's pancreas and not the whole whopper, so one dead donor can help cure tens, maybe hundreds of afflicted patients? But then again I have no idea how many people in the UK don't mind donating their organs after they're dead. Personally I see no reason not to. Spread the love, share the life! =D
What, do they plan on re-releasing FFI-VI for a THIRD time for mobile phones now? Seriously. Square-Enix used to be about making good games. Now they are about making the most profit.
Hopefully I'm wrong about this though (the FF mobile deal, I don't think I'm wrong about my more general statement). I don't have a Gamasutra account to read the article and didn't feel like bothering to sign up for one.
Was it Freescale (formerly Motorola)? IBM? Or someone else?
Well if programming is what you love and what you want to do for the rest of your life, why not focus on getting a degree in artwork? Sure we can all write hard-core programs and scripts that run from a command line, but what about our less-enlightened users who require a GUI and colorful buttons to do anything with their computer? To those users, appearance is VERY important, maybe even moreso than performance to some people. I wish I had time to focus on developing my art skills right now for personal reasons/projects, but I'm too busy writing esoteric Perl scripts...>_>