I wouldn't say it's completely useless to receive an OBE, there are certain privileges - as an exmaple, Peter and his immediate family are now entitled to get married in the OBE chapel of the crypt in St Pauls Cathedral (if they so desire it).
As far as I am aware the IPR for HL currently sits with Valve and the distribution rights are wityh Vivendi, that can be further evidenced with this quote from Doug Lombardi (Valve Marketing Director) in September 2004.
"Valve sued Vivendi for copyright infringement back in 2002 over their unauthorized distribution of our products to cyber cafés," Lombardi told GameSpot last Friday. "We later had to add breach of contract claims for, among other things, refusing to pay us royalties owed and delaying Condition Zero out of the holiday season."
That lawsuit became more complex when Sierra fought back with a counterclaim. "Almost a year and a half into the lawsuit," Lombardi continued, "Vivendi responded by making a number of claims in an attempt to invalidate our agreement and be awarded the ownership of the Half-Life intellectual property. We expect to prevail in this lawsuit."
- Source Gamespot.com
The court date set isn't till sometime in 2005 so as far as I'm concerned the IPR for HL and the source engine is with Valve.
exactly, and the retailer is not allowed to back off the obligation to the manufacturer.
A qprime example is a problem I had with a pay-as-you-go (non-contract) mobile phone:
The phone was a few months old and started cutting out, I attempted to return the phone to the retailer who quoted a standard £8 repair charge unless I took out a maintenance contract, alternatively they said they could provide me for free with the manufactuturer details.
I queried this with the local branch of trading standards, they confirmed the following:
Under the Sale of Goods Act, a retailer has a legally binding contract with the customer that cannot be superceded by any warranty supplied by the manufacturer, nor by policy of the retailer.
This contract entitles the customer to expect their goods to function for a 'reasonable period of time' after they are purchased, with no fixed definition of the term reasonable.
For a reasonable period of time (could be years for TVs etc and maybe just a year for stuff like walkmans/phones), the retailer has an obligation to fully repair the item, as the item becomes older a shared obligation is expected, a reasonable period under the act can be up to 6 years after the item has been purchased.
If the retailer refuses to play ball then under the terms of the act the customer is entitled to have the item repaired elsewhere and charge the retailer for the repair cost.
Many UK firms deliberately device store poicy to brief against this as the act leaves so much up to interpretation, thats why you have store managers claiming things like "manufacturers warranty comes into force after 28 days".
As for my phone - After a visit from my local Trading Standards officer the retailer (Orange) capitulated and waived the repair cost.
If you are in the UK then this can be a very powerful act to have on your side, awareness can also save you spending money needlessly on extended warranties for items that should 'reasonably be expected to last more than 12 months'.
the mod has an agreement with Lucasarts, there are certain restrictions but in return they have the approval of the company, you can even download the mod from the lucasfiles web site.
Galactic Conquest (GC) - star wars, due for 0.4 release before end July (adds 3-4 new maps, tanks and artillery), 9 basic maps, around 100-150 concurrent players, strong community, community AT-AT development project nearing completion.
Galactic Conquest Xtended (GCX) - minimod for GC, main function is to provide bot support (some maps customised by this mod to better suit bots), authored by DNAMRO, currently working on increased release frequency to provide working support for community At-AT project.
Stargate BFM - Based upon the Stargate tv series, v.small playerbase (10 concurrent) but worth playing with the bot support extension by DNAMRO.
Interstate '82 - cars with big guns mod, just made 1.8 release, currently peaking around 250 concurrent players, likely to drop soon to around 100 player level
Desert Combat - gulf war based, last release (0.7) was 6 months ago, 0.8 still in development although there appears to be lots of questions about the future development of this mod (most of Dev team seems to be working on subcontract basis as part of Trauma Studios on BF:2), still 3-4,000 concurrent players at any time.
Desert Combat Xtended (DCX) - mini-mod of DC with extra vehicles, variants and maps. small playerbase (around 20-50 concurrent at times), although this is seen as the new home for DC based innovation, release rumoured to be imminent, including British units, needs DC in order to run.
Desert Combat Realism (DCR) - initially developed by the DC Dev Tanelorn, now has dedicated dev team, provides realism based modifications to vehicles and weapons to enhance gameplay.
Eve of Destruction (EOD)- Vientam mod, progress was slowed initially when lead developer defected to DC team(Gotterfunke), team picked up the pace and subsequently made 0.3 release, still attract around 100 concurrent users even though BF:V now available. Mod team currently porting to BF:V
Homefront - Halo based mod, no current active playerbase for BF1942, mod team are planning to release BF:V version soon after BF:V 1.1 patch release (expected in next few weeks).
G-Pack - Gundam mod, hardly anyone plays it but its worth a look just for the models.
Sengoku - Samurai mod, has a small but committed playerbase, developing cult following.
Pirates - just released 0.31 with improved graphics, some very good maps and heavy publicity due to initial excluse distribution deal to fileplanet subscriberbase, now available for public download, around 250 concurrent players, may stabilise or dip after post-release hype subsides.
Forgotten Hope (FH) - World War 2 mod, many maps, many new vehicles, semi-realistic. have just completed new content for 0.7 release and entered testing cycle, current version (0.6) has around 500 concurrent players (2nd largest BF1942 mod).
1.43 collection (Recruit Snyder) - mod collection with co-op/bot support on nearly very map, loads of custom vehicles/maps, a great one for singleplayer/co-op fans, no real online playerbase.
I'm sure there are some I've missed but these are some of my favourites, of those listed above I probably prefer GC (outstanding mod, communicative devs and a great community) and DCX (similar reasons).
There are a couple of maps where there is a requirement for optimisation but generally the game remains playable and lag free for me over DSL, certainly up to the 32 player limit.
Can I suggest you make a post in the GC tech support forum detailing your problems, the community is generally quite responsive when it comes to problem solving.
Its free (if you have a copy of BF1942) and Vader isn't in it.
And its got nothing to do with SOE
And Lucasarts know about it (and even offer it for download from their website).
Its not an MMORPG but then neither is SWG by all accounts.
I'm sorry to sounds like an advert but GC is fun and I really don't think that MMORPGs are anywhere near mature enough to successfully recreate something like the star wars universe.
IMHO if they don't move away from a business model that seems reliant upon elements of perpetual licensed product, headlines and technology for competitive advantage then the MMORPG providers are doomed to fail.
The existence of JTL as a licensed product (albeit one with a continuing subscription) just servces to confirm that SOE are not confident themselves in the long term viability of an MMORPG like galaxies, if they were then they're be looking to push it out at low/no cost in order to increase their potentially far more lucrative incremental (subscription) revenue stream.
I'm convinced that the only durable business model for the MMORPG is one based around a reliance on increamental revenue, requiring a mature and comprehensive level of content creation so storytelling, immersive gameplay and an enduring high quality gaming experience will be the differentiator that keeps the subscribers coming back each month.
Otherwise, these products will never truly reach out to the 'mass market' and the only viable customer base will a combination of:
a) Powergamers (those willing to play/subscribe for ever just so they can be game 'gods')
b) New players (I bet there is a terrible conversion rate at the moment from free trial players to paying subscribers, that won't get better unless the user experience becomes the development focus)
c) The traditional RPG community (for many avid ex-D&D players a well made MMORPG is the holy grail of development, they will persevere through imbalance and unreliable connections, they will contribute innovative and often workable ideas for game development and they will remain optimistic through all but the most adverse of circumstances).
But it is possible to upset even these types of players if they endure enough frustration, delay or lack of communication, Its at this point of core player degradation that the end of a game could probably be fairly reliably predicted.
(formula anyone ?)
I'd suggest that what we're witnessing is a key moment in the continuing development of the SWG gameworld and I'd hazard a guess that if SOE fail to respect the community over this issue and lose enough of the core playerbase then SWG will most likely fail within the next 12-24 months.
Unfortunately in the real world we often have to do jobs that we're not particularly interested in, what separates the successes from the failures is not how bright you are but how good your self discipline is and whether or not you can be relied upon to competently complete the task at hand (however personally uninteresting it may be).
I'd hire an experienced competent safe pair of hands over a flighty whizz kid any day of the week.
With the former I can have confidence that my project will get delivered on time and to spec, with the latter I will have to watch them like a hawk and probably end up picking up the pieces myself.
Some people are lucky enough to be able to spend their life being creative and working to the full extent of their ability, for the rest of us the best we can hope for is reasonable job satisfaction (knowing that we made a difference) and a decent pay packet.
I've had no problems with VLC on Win2k in the.7x incarnations (some of the.5x variants were a bit ropey).
From a support perspective - I've found VLC useful in a number of situations when users have had problems viewing video files in MS Media Player - a recommendation of a visit to videolan.org to download the VLC player has consistently led to success (viewing problems are usually related to missing codecs), its a small download, quick to install, unobtrusive and easy to use.
I've also found VLC works well under OS X, useful tecnology in this respect as I beleive that Apple QT cannot be made AC3 compatible.
What's even sadder is that it lasted so long after RHW left before being put out of its misery.
Andromeda was going in the right direction until Wolfe departed, the Magog world-ship had introduced a long term direction and the opportunity for a strong arc along the lines of the DS9 dominion wars (best multi-series arc ever in sci-fi IMHO).
Then Sorbo flexed his muscles and it all became a giant ego trip...
Lexx was cancelled a few years ago, the first two seasons were the best but the others were also worth watching (even the worst of Lexx was far better than Andromeda or Mutant X at their best).
Stargate has some dodgy moments these days (especially those involving a heavy 'Sam Carter' or 'Jonas Quinn' presence) but generally holds together due to the strength of the other characters - I'm hoping that the Stargate Atlantis spin-off will pick up the baton and start with an early sprint.
ST - Enterprise has some good times and bad times, some good characters and plotlines let down by a lousy captain and a 'soft porn' happy scriptwriter or two, and what is the 'god squad' theme song all about then ?
There are a couple of things I'm really looking forward to:
The Firefly Movie - the series was by far the best sci-fi in recent years, if there is any justice then the movie should result in the commissioning of a new series.
Battlestar Galactica Series - Sci-Fi comissioned a full series of this after the pilot was successful, theres a lot of scope boh in the case and with the writers to do some great stuff with this, certainly theres an opportunity for something that grows on the 'dark' elements of the original without re-creating the 'ham & cheese' that accompanied it first time around.
Farscape mini-series - Announced earlier this month by sci-fi channel, a four hour mini-series that I believe is to be titled 'Peacekeeper War'
but so much good sci-fi has been canned in recent years, the aforementioned Firefly, Lexx and Farscape chief amongst the unjust victims, also gone but not forgotten are Now and Again, Dark Skies, G Vs E, Brimstone and a whole host of other shows that were far more deserving of funding than Andromedaft and Mutant Wrecks!
Slashdot Mirror
fitting maybe, but damned annoying for the rest of us !
I wouldn't say it's completely useless to receive an OBE, there are certain privileges - as an exmaple, Peter and his immediate family are now entitled to get married in the OBE chapel of the crypt in St Pauls Cathedral (if they so desire it).
I've got an old TI4600 and an XP1700+ CPU with only 768mb RAM and it runs really smoothly (certainly better than Doom 3)
is that fact or speculation ?
As far as I am aware the IPR for HL currently sits with Valve and the distribution rights are wityh Vivendi, that can be further evidenced with this quote from Doug Lombardi (Valve Marketing Director) in September 2004.
"Valve sued Vivendi for copyright infringement back in 2002 over their unauthorized distribution of our products to cyber cafés," Lombardi told GameSpot last Friday. "We later had to add breach of contract claims for, among other things, refusing to pay us royalties owed and delaying Condition Zero out of the holiday season."
That lawsuit became more complex when Sierra fought back with a counterclaim. "Almost a year and a half into the lawsuit," Lombardi continued, "Vivendi responded by making a number of claims in an attempt to invalidate our agreement and be awarded the ownership of the Half-Life intellectual property. We expect to prevail in this lawsuit."
- Source Gamespot.com
The court date set isn't till sometime in 2005 so as far as I'm concerned the IPR for HL and the source engine is with Valve.
I'm sure there are elements of the contract with Vivendi that prohibit Valve undercutting the retail price when distributing via steam.
The same type of restrictions stopped valve from activating clients purchased via Steam before the in-store release date
However, that doesn't stop me disagreeing with the previous poster about the price of the game.
I personally think that $49.99 is a pretty good price for a game like this irrespective of the distribution medium.
exactly, and the retailer is not allowed to back off the obligation to the manufacturer.
:
:
a ct.htm/
A qprime example is a problem I had with a pay-as-you-go (non-contract) mobile phone
The phone was a few months old and started cutting out, I attempted to return the phone to the retailer who quoted a standard £8 repair charge unless I took out a maintenance contract, alternatively they said they could provide me for free with the manufactuturer details.
I queried this with the local branch of trading standards, they confirmed the following
Under the Sale of Goods Act, a retailer has a legally binding contract with the customer that cannot be superceded by any warranty supplied by the manufacturer, nor by policy of the retailer.
This contract entitles the customer to expect their goods to function for a 'reasonable period of time' after they are purchased, with no fixed definition of the term reasonable.
For a reasonable period of time (could be years for TVs etc and maybe just a year for stuff like walkmans/phones), the retailer has an obligation to fully repair the item, as the item becomes older a shared obligation is expected, a reasonable period under the act can be up to 6 years after the item has been purchased.
If the retailer refuses to play ball then under the terms of the act the customer is entitled to have the item repaired elsewhere and charge the retailer for the repair cost.
Many UK firms deliberately device store poicy to brief against this as the act leaves so much up to interpretation, thats why you have store managers claiming things like "manufacturers warranty comes into force after 28 days".
As for my phone - After a visit from my local Trading Standards officer the retailer (Orange) capitulated and waived the repair cost.
If you are in the UK then this can be a very powerful act to have on your side, awareness can also save you spending money needlessly on extended warranties for items that should 'reasonably be expected to last more than 12 months'.
a DTI fact sheet can be found here http://www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics1/facts/salegoods
IANAL
the mod has an agreement with Lucasarts, there are certain restrictions but in return they have the approval of the company, you can even download the mod from the lucasfiles web site.
http://www.lucasfiles.com/
Here's a few of my favourite mods for BF 1942
Galactic Conquest (GC) - star wars, due for 0.4 release before end July (adds 3-4 new maps, tanks and artillery), 9 basic maps, around 100-150 concurrent players, strong community, community AT-AT development project nearing completion.
Galactic Conquest Xtended (GCX) - minimod for GC, main function is to provide bot support (some maps customised by this mod to better suit bots), authored by DNAMRO, currently working on increased release frequency to provide working support for community At-AT project.
Stargate BFM - Based upon the Stargate tv series, v.small playerbase (10 concurrent) but worth playing with the bot support extension by DNAMRO.
Interstate '82 - cars with big guns mod, just made 1.8 release, currently peaking around 250 concurrent players, likely to drop soon to around 100 player level
Desert Combat - gulf war based, last release (0.7) was 6 months ago, 0.8 still in development although there appears to be lots of questions about the future development of this mod (most of Dev team seems to be working on subcontract basis as part of Trauma Studios on BF:2), still 3-4,000 concurrent players at any time.
Desert Combat Xtended (DCX) - mini-mod of DC with extra vehicles, variants and maps. small playerbase (around 20-50 concurrent at times), although this is seen as the new home for DC based innovation, release rumoured to be imminent, including British units, needs DC in order to run.
Desert Combat Realism (DCR) - initially developed by the DC Dev Tanelorn, now has dedicated dev team, provides realism based modifications to vehicles and weapons to enhance gameplay.
Eve of Destruction (EOD)- Vientam mod, progress was slowed initially when lead developer defected to DC team(Gotterfunke), team picked up the pace and subsequently made 0.3 release, still attract around 100 concurrent users even though BF:V now available. Mod team currently porting to BF:V
Homefront - Halo based mod, no current active playerbase for BF1942, mod team are planning to release BF:V version soon after BF:V 1.1 patch release (expected in next few weeks).
G-Pack - Gundam mod, hardly anyone plays it but its worth a look just for the models.
Sengoku - Samurai mod, has a small but committed playerbase, developing cult following.
Pirates - just released 0.31 with improved graphics, some very good maps and heavy publicity due to initial excluse distribution deal to fileplanet subscriberbase, now available for public download, around 250 concurrent players, may stabilise or dip after post-release hype subsides.
Forgotten Hope (FH) - World War 2 mod, many maps, many new vehicles, semi-realistic. have just completed new content for 0.7 release and entered testing cycle, current version (0.6) has around 500 concurrent players (2nd largest BF1942 mod).
1.43 collection (Recruit Snyder) - mod collection with co-op/bot support on nearly very map, loads of custom vehicles/maps, a great one for singleplayer/co-op fans, no real online playerbase.
I'm sure there are some I've missed but these are some of my favourites, of those listed above I probably prefer GC (outstanding mod, communicative devs and a great community) and DCX (similar reasons).
There are a couple of maps where there is a requirement for optimisation but generally the game remains playable and lag free for me over DSL, certainly up to the 32 player limit.
Can I suggest you make a post in the GC tech support forum detailing your problems, the community is generally quite responsive when it comes to problem solving.
For a different deal, then go play Galactic Conquest http://www.galactic-conquest.net/
:
Its free (if you have a copy of BF1942) and Vader isn't in it.
And its got nothing to do with SOE
And Lucasarts know about it (and even offer it for download from their website).
Its not an MMORPG but then neither is SWG by all accounts.
I'm sorry to sounds like an advert but GC is fun and I really don't think that MMORPGs are anywhere near mature enough to successfully recreate something like the star wars universe.
IMHO if they don't move away from a business model that seems reliant upon elements of perpetual licensed product, headlines and technology for competitive advantage then the MMORPG providers are doomed to fail.
The existence of JTL as a licensed product (albeit one with a continuing subscription) just servces to confirm that SOE are not confident themselves in the long term viability of an MMORPG like galaxies, if they were then they're be looking to push it out at low/no cost in order to increase their potentially far more lucrative incremental (subscription) revenue stream.
I'm convinced that the only durable business model for the MMORPG is one based around a reliance on increamental revenue, requiring a mature and comprehensive level of content creation so storytelling, immersive gameplay and an enduring high quality gaming experience will be the differentiator that keeps the subscribers coming back each month.
Otherwise, these products will never truly reach out to the 'mass market' and the only viable customer base will a combination of
a) Powergamers (those willing to play/subscribe for ever just so they can be game 'gods')
b) New players (I bet there is a terrible conversion rate at the moment from free trial players to paying subscribers, that won't get better unless the user experience becomes the development focus)
c) The traditional RPG community (for many avid ex-D&D players a well made MMORPG is the holy grail of development, they will persevere through imbalance and unreliable connections, they will contribute innovative and often workable ideas for game development and they will remain optimistic through all but the most adverse of circumstances).
But it is possible to upset even these types of players if they endure enough frustration, delay or lack of communication, Its at this point of core player degradation that the end of a game could probably be fairly reliably predicted.
(formula anyone ?)
I'd suggest that what we're witnessing is a key moment in the continuing development of the SWG gameworld and I'd hazard a guess that if SOE fail to respect the community over this issue and lose enough of the core playerbase then SWG will most likely fail within the next 12-24 months.
Unfortunately in the real world we often have to do jobs that we're not particularly interested in, what separates the successes from the failures is not how bright you are but how good your self discipline is and whether or not you can be relied upon to competently complete the task at hand (however personally uninteresting it may be).
I'd hire an experienced competent safe pair of hands over a flighty whizz kid any day of the week.
With the former I can have confidence that my project will get delivered on time and to spec, with the latter I will have to watch them like a hawk and probably end up picking up the pieces myself.
Some people are lucky enough to be able to spend their life being creative and working to the full extent of their ability, for the rest of us the best we can hope for is reasonable job satisfaction (knowing that we made a difference) and a decent pay packet.
I've had no problems with VLC on Win2k in the .7x incarnations (some of the .5x variants were a bit ropey).
From a support perspective - I've found VLC useful in a number of situations when users have had problems viewing video files in MS Media Player - a recommendation of a visit to videolan.org to download the VLC player has consistently led to success (viewing problems are usually related to missing codecs), its a small download, quick to install, unobtrusive and easy to use.
I've also found VLC works well under OS X, useful tecnology in this respect as I beleive that Apple QT cannot be made AC3 compatible.
What's even sadder is that it lasted so long after RHW left before being put out of its misery.
Andromeda was going in the right direction until Wolfe departed, the Magog world-ship had introduced a long term direction and the opportunity for a strong arc along the lines of the DS9 dominion wars (best multi-series arc ever in sci-fi IMHO).
Then Sorbo flexed his muscles and it all became a giant ego trip...
Lexx was cancelled a few years ago, the first two seasons were the best but the others were also worth watching (even the worst of Lexx was far better than Andromeda or Mutant X at their best).
:
Stargate has some dodgy moments these days (especially those involving a heavy 'Sam Carter' or 'Jonas Quinn' presence) but generally holds together due to the strength of the other characters - I'm hoping that the Stargate Atlantis spin-off will pick up the baton and start with an early sprint.
ST - Enterprise has some good times and bad times, some good characters and plotlines let down by a lousy captain and a 'soft porn' happy scriptwriter or two, and what is the 'god squad' theme song all about then ?
There are a couple of things I'm really looking forward to
The Firefly Movie - the series was by far the best sci-fi in recent years, if there is any justice then the movie should result in the commissioning of a new series.
Battlestar Galactica Series - Sci-Fi comissioned a full series of this after the pilot was successful, theres a lot of scope boh in the case and with the writers to do some great stuff with this, certainly theres an opportunity for something that grows on the 'dark' elements of the original without re-creating the 'ham & cheese' that accompanied it first time around.
Farscape mini-series - Announced earlier this month by sci-fi channel, a four hour mini-series that I believe is to be titled 'Peacekeeper War'
but so much good sci-fi has been canned in recent years, the aforementioned Firefly, Lexx and Farscape chief amongst the unjust victims, also gone but not forgotten are Now and Again, Dark Skies, G Vs E, Brimstone and a whole host of other shows that were far more deserving of funding than Andromedaft and Mutant Wrecks!
Perhaps M$ were a little premature in saying "lets ditch the harddrive, Ram is dirt cheap so we'll use that instead"
Never mind, 640kb should be enough for anyone.