I say this is a very good thing, for the students at least. First and most obviously, a ~6 pound laptop beats a ~16 pound pile of textbooks. Also, you'll notice the inherent benefits of ebooks, such as quick searching, hyperlinks to related articles, etc. Laptops are also more, um, motivating than books in that a student can conduct research that much faster and easier.
id's problem has always been that they were a one-trick pony...i.e., graphics. John Carmack took what was at the time a largely theoretical specification, (BSP) first built two genre-defining games out of it, (Doom and Doom 2) and then went on to display an increasing level of technical mastery with it by adding full three-dimensionality. (Quake) As far as pure graphics are concerned, the man is without peer...he occupies a place fairly close to Einstein in my own head. (And he's a Texan, no less!;-))
However, problems eventually arose from the fact that graphics alone are not what make a truly engaging FPS. It might have been the first engine to utilise OpenGL, but from a *gameplay* perspective Quake 2 especially was complete crap in my book. The situation got markedly worse with Quake 3 as well, from the point of view that the base engine was the only part of it which id actually produced themselves. Everything else (the AI, the cutscenes) had to be outsourced. Q3's credits list is very long...and id's own staff do not occupy a very large part of it.
Q1 was id's finest hour in my mind...I still don't think I've ever had a more immersive or atmospheric multiplayer experience since then. (and I've played my share of Q3 and UT 2003 online) I realise however that such is a completely subjective statement...but I've long tended to believe that the development of any technology follows a bell pattern, where it hits a peak of development/refinement, and then actually starts to come back down somewhat. (I don't include visual photo-realism as a criteria here either; quite the opposite, actually) For me, (purely in terms of multiplayer) the original Quake was the proverbial summit of the mountain.
The release of Unreal and Unreal Tournament certainly didn't help matters for id though, either...because not only were they beautiful graphically, (the original UT is still a completely acceptable visual experience in my book) but they also included all sorts of innovations where AI and gameplay were concerned...not to mention an extremely discoverable and user-friendly editor, which made it easy for any net-dwelling 14 year old to create their own scenarios as well. Epic might have been ardent worshippers of id, but they were probably more responsible for their idols' demise than any other single factor from what I saw.
So, yeah...that to me is the main issue. Carmack is/was a graphical genius...but they were only able to get away with graphics alone for maybe three releases. (Doom/2, Quake) These days, graphics alone aren't what sell a game...You need good level design, decent AI, and people generally like a strong storyline with a high immersion factor as well.
id were the first, and they will always have that distinction...but they were not able to reinvent themselves...and the world has moved on.
Personally, I don't feel that the layout makes a significant difference in my accuracy. However, I do find that I can't type properly if I'm using another keyboard other than the one I have at home. It just feels different if I'm using a different keyboard - physically not layout wise - and it makes me have a lot of typos. Anyone else feel the same way?
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I say this is a very good thing, for the students at least. First and most obviously, a ~6 pound laptop beats a ~16 pound pile of textbooks. Also, you'll notice the inherent benefits of ebooks, such as quick searching, hyperlinks to related articles, etc. Laptops are also more, um, motivating than books in that a student can conduct research that much faster and easier.
id's problem has always been that they were a one-trick pony...i.e., graphics. John Carmack took what was at the time a largely theoretical specification, (BSP) first built two genre-defining games out of it, (Doom and Doom 2) and then went on to display an increasing level of technical mastery with it by adding full three-dimensionality. (Quake) As far as pure graphics are concerned, the man is without peer...he occupies a place fairly close to Einstein in my own head. (And he's a Texan, no less! ;-))
However, problems eventually arose from the fact that graphics alone are not what make a truly engaging FPS. It might have been the first engine to utilise OpenGL, but from a *gameplay* perspective Quake 2 especially was complete crap in my book. The situation got markedly worse with Quake 3 as well, from the point of view that the base engine was the only part of it which id actually produced themselves. Everything else (the AI, the cutscenes) had to be outsourced. Q3's credits list is very long...and id's own staff do not occupy a very large part of it.
Q1 was id's finest hour in my mind...I still don't think I've ever had a more immersive or atmospheric multiplayer experience since then. (and I've played my share of Q3 and UT 2003 online) I realise however that such is a completely subjective statement...but I've long tended to believe that the development of any technology follows a bell pattern, where it hits a peak of development/refinement, and then actually starts to come back down somewhat. (I don't include visual photo-realism as a criteria here either; quite the opposite, actually) For me, (purely in terms of multiplayer) the original Quake was the proverbial summit of the mountain.
The release of Unreal and Unreal Tournament certainly didn't help matters for id though, either...because not only were they beautiful graphically, (the original UT is still a completely acceptable visual experience in my book) but they also included all sorts of innovations where AI and gameplay were concerned...not to mention an extremely discoverable and user-friendly editor, which made it easy for any net-dwelling 14 year old to create their own scenarios as well. Epic might have been ardent worshippers of id, but they were probably more responsible for their idols' demise than any other single factor from what I saw.
So, yeah...that to me is the main issue. Carmack is/was a graphical genius...but they were only able to get away with graphics alone for maybe three releases. (Doom/2, Quake) These days, graphics alone aren't what sell a game...You need good level design, decent AI, and people generally like a strong storyline with a high immersion factor as well.
id were the first, and they will always have that distinction...but they were not able to reinvent themselves...and the world has moved on.
MS needed to be "hands on" because their "longhorn" was to "soft".
I agreee...even your comment is more informative than the article.
ill be wasting my life playing it
Half Life 2 = 1 whole life
Personally, I don't feel that the layout makes a significant difference in my accuracy. However, I do find that I can't type properly if I'm using another keyboard other than the one I have at home. It just feels different if I'm using a different keyboard - physically not layout wise - and it makes me have a lot of typos. Anyone else feel the same way?
Maybe he made the typo on purpose, to emphasize the question? Kinda hard to miss a key if you go in a straight line, eh?
You must be using a new keyboard layout lol...
First Post (-1 Offtopic) muahhahahah Mikeyyyyyyyyy lookeeyyyy worth waking up at like 8 AM to do this
I thought matter can't be created (nor destroyed) according to conservation of mass...so how can it be that they created matter...
Maybe this is why Microsoft is starting to get into the security buisness :P
All your oil are beong to US
you should only drink natural breast milk
Indians outsource curry to the US
Oranges switching to AMD What a lame joke -.-
right...
Be quiet you heterophobe.