Disclaimer: I am Canadian too. The guy is a "friend" of my brother in law. I'm posting this here for humorous reasons only (that makes sense?;) No bad feelings involved.
Now laugh on.:)
(PS. I checked "No Karma Bonus" so moderate this post any way you see fit, I just don't want to gain Karma at the expense of this guy. I personnaly don't think it's off-topic.)
I think I'll be the first to mention the Game Boy Advance. Personnaly, I think recent console games have lost substance and are focusing too much on graphics/FMV and not enough on gameplay. Must play on the GBA:
Castlevania: Circle of the moon Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance Castlevania: Aria of sorrow
Metroid Fusion
Kirby: Nightmare in dream land (kiddy look, but it's a blast to play nonetheless)
Lord of the rings: the two towers (plays a lot like diablo)
If you like VERY hard games, try Megaman & Bass (original title - rockman & forte) and Megaman Zero. If you like beat'em up, Final Fight One is a good choice, though like a lot fo Capcom games, it's very hard (till you learn the AI, then it's a piece of cake;).
If you can find it, Dodgeball Advance is a fun and relaxing game, its dodgeball but with special moves to knock down your opponents.:)
If you like kart racing games with "weapons", get Mario Kart Advance or Konami Krazy Racers.
Another game worth mentionning is Doom 2 (the first one wasn't any good though, the port was bad). Who can live without Doom?;)
There's also a couple of RPG, but they are mostly ports from other consoles or bland remake. Golden Sun is brand new, but I didn't like it that much, though if you like console style RPG, you will like it. The follow up, Golden Sun: the lost age is out too.
There's a lot of good games that I didn't mention (would take too long;) but overall, you can't go wrong with the GBA... and you might like it's games better than the current console games. Bonus: it's a portable system, so you can play it anywhere.
No one lives forever 2 is out. It's supposed to be even better than the first one. (I loved the first one). Too bad there's no linux version out yet.:\
There's only one slight problem. Windows is not free, the versions you mentioned are out of print and are by no way secure. They are doing charity here, they can't buy a license for every computer they give away. Beside, what would the kids do if their win95/98/nt install breaks after 6 months? What about virus? They need a solid and reliable system.
I'd give XFCE and Blackbox/Openbox a try. They both run fine on a p200 here. I'm running debian/testing and it fits nicely on a 1-2gigs HD.
XFCE is probably better for kids as it uses icons, kids react better to nice looking icons than to text menus (*box). It's also possible to remove the configuration options from the XFCE panel so the kids can't tweak it by accident (or intentionnaly?). XFCE also minimizes applications to icons, which would be easier to use for kids (no taskbar here..).
Then, I usualy go to Slashdot. Then its off to the linux game tome (happypenguin.org), then linuxgames.com. After that comes gbacentral.net, doomworld, desktoplinux.c om, firingsquad.com, tomshardware.
Oh, and TheHaus.net and icculus.org.
Whem I'm bored I sometime check ve3d.com and http://www.redlynx.com/phobiaIII/index.html (to see if the long delayed Phobia 3 version is finaly out). About once a week I check linuxhardware.org, but its not updated often.
Also, I frequently browse sourceforge.net, contributing to escape of the unicorn (www.sourceforge.net/projects/eounicorn) which is in early beta.
That's about it, now you know everything about my browsing habits and didn't have to install any spywares into my computer.:)
" My laptop (An Apple PowerBook G3 that is 3 years old lasts 2.5 hours watching a DVD on a 14.1" screen). The battery is about the size of a Gameboy color, it could be MUCH smaller, as the new iBook battery is which lasts 3 hours watching a DVD."
That would make the gaming system VERY heavy. The system got to be light, cuz you will end up holding it in your hands for a long time. Take the size of the GBA SP, where do you put an ibook battery in this? And where do you put the mini-cd drive? That takes room too.
I own a gamegear, and it's BIG. It's almost impossible to carry it without a special carrying case. Yet, my GBA, although not as small as a GBA SP, is not an incovenience to carry. The GBA SP improves a lot on this, it fits in a shirt pocket, even jeans pockets.
Even if the gamecube CPU is shrinked, it will still consume more juice than you can afford with 2 AA batteries. Beside, it would cost so much that you'd have to spend well over 200-300$ to get such a system.
Nintendo know what they are doing very well, else they would not own the portable gaming market.
Yeah, a cd player gets 20 hours off 2 AA batteries and a TV gets 4 hours. Now combine the two, you have less than 3 hours left, and thats without the game optimised CPU. Run the CPU at full speed and you have less than 2 hours left. 2 hours of battery life for a gaming machine is pretty useless.
Now imagine throwing a gamecube CPU in this. It requires a lot more juice than a GBA/portable TV CPU, dissipates more heat and of course its bigger. Your battery life would fall very low, less than 30 minutes.
Now, keep in mind, that a CD/dvd/mini-cd for a game unit must spin a lot faster than an audio CD, else access time is a pain and load times takes forever. Your battery life just fell down to 15 minutes on two AA batteries.
Now, okay, double the ammount of batteries - 30 minutes. Not enough... Add a pda battery... because the CPU needs so much power and because of the spinning disc, you still get around 30 mins.
Although my battery life time are clearly eastimate and that the batteries could last a lot longer... they could still last a lot SHORTER...
Now think about the price of putting everything together, and you will see that its just not possible with today's technology. Maybe in 10 years (the time it took to get a snes equivalent to get portable...) we will have cartridge that hold enough data and new cpu that need less juice that will make this possible, but right now, is just not possible....
And nope, Nintendo has not lost the home war, if you take world wide sales, they still sell more than the Xbox. Add gameboy advance and gamecube sales and you get pretty impressive numbers. I dont think Nintendo will lose the portable war either, all its competitor crank losy products right now (n-gage with 3-4 hours of battery life? hahaha, GP32 looks nice, but it will never get here, and wonderswan are already dead (bandai is discontinuing it to work on GBA games instead).
Just think of it another way: graphics designed to improve the gameplay. Graphics are as much of a part of the whole package as gameplay, but it should complement gameplay, not replace it. Graphics don't make a game, but they can break a game.
Maybe what you need are a couple of people interested in drawing tiles specificaly for your game. Most games thats use freely available tiles lack the wow factor because a lot of people have seen those exact same graphics elsewhere. Just think of the 23587825 RPG Maker games circulating right now...
Also, when you have artists working for you, they can work to give the game a look that fits to the style and content.
As an added bonus, sprite loving artists are often creative enough to draw stuff that you would never have imagined yourself, which can in turn really improve the atmosphere and even the story of your game.
Freely available tiles can get you started... but its only a good solution in short term. Say, use them to create an enjoyable demo, and lure artists to your projects.
I'm currently working on two projects (a platformer and a 2d shooter), and trust me on this, you need art that fits your game, and that has *not* been seen elsewhere.
Think of it the way the non-trek fan think of it... it might be a good sci-fi movie... whats in theater? The most awaited film of the year? Why would I go see Star Trek, which might be good, if I can see the most awaited movie of the year instead?
Of course, I think your point is good, but I also thing that a VERY VERY good movie cannot help but steal audience from a movie that might be good. I'm sure other movies felt the lord of the ring effect too.
Of course, I havent seen Nemesis, so I cant really tell if it sucks, but I can tell that when Insurection went out, a lot of my non-trekkies friend wanted to see it, but this time, the only thing going out of their mouth was "Lord of the ring, lord of the ring". Hell, my girlfriend saw LOTR 4 times in theaters.
Though, I must say, that I'm a big Star Trek fan and that I havent seen it, my christmas schedule was so full I didnt have time for movies.
Simple: It was released at the worst possible time. There was too much competition during christmass, Lord of the Rings alone must have hurt Nemesis seeings a LOT... Which reminds me, I havent seen Nemesis yet... what a bad Trek fan I make. Is it still in theaters?
The way I understand this is simply that they wont concentrate on making the fastest CPU anymore. They will probably concentrate on good value instead, just like a duron is plenty for anything you want to do on the desktop today, the future AMD CPU will do the job quite nicely.
The only things where a (speculative) future AMD wouldnt do the job is high end gaming and workstations (3d/etc). Will they make a custom CPU for high end servers/workstations not based on x86? Who knows... their new 64 bits arch may be the key to their market shift.
Then software makers will just bloat up they proggies like hell and they wont run on your 1.8ghz "monster". Try, for exemple (this might be a bad exemple) to run XP on anything slower than 500 mhz. Wont run. Too slow. What do you think palladium "aproved" software will need to run? MS's bloatware.
Of course, with linux, you p166 will still do the job well. But you wont be able to play palladium enabled content. For you, and me, and most/.ers this might not be a problem, but Joe Six Packs will want to be able to watch/listen/play/whatever his palladium crap. When palladium takes off, everything will be palladium protected, wanna see the latest movie trailer? You need palladium, want to read [insert some new-york times like site here]? You need palladium enabled software to make sure you are really are who you claim to be (and allow us to track you more easily). Want to shop online? You need palladium enabled software in order to make sure you really are who you claim to be (and then tie your info to your hardware and send you targeted ads). Wanna play games online? You need palladium enabled hardware to make sure you are not cheating (this one ripped off another post). Then, AOL will force its users to run palladium enabled hardware. Then your ISP will want you to use palladium enabled hardware. E T C . ..
This is going to be hell, even for us linux/other OS users.
"The rest of us just don't like our work being ripped off by a group of people who lack talent to truly appreciate or understand our work."
So, basicaly, youre saying that contributing to an OSS project is like giving away your work for free to a lot of people that will use it for their project? Yes, thats the way OSS works too. I dont see whats wrong with that either, code is an art form too, so why is it okay to release code for free and not graphical art?
"Being a graphic designer or artist is not about being able to use Photoshop, it is being able to communicate with visual and/or typographic elements."
Yes, I totaly agree with you on that point, thats a very hard challenge, though I wont go anywhere photoshop when I draw, I know that it takes a lot of talent and practice to express stuff with a pen and paper. Though I would never ever call myself an artist...nor is it my goal in life, it's just a hobby that I learned by myself. (I'll say it again: I'm not an artist). Though, if I had the talent a few of my friends got, I'd sure contribute to a few games. Too bad they dont understand the principle of OSS and sharing.
"Now, this is not to say that we won't get involved with OSS projects. In fact, I am currently the project lead for the OBOS creative design team. I've developed some ideas for a new GUI for the OS and am currently in the process of coming up with some new methods for working with a computer through a GUI. I'm donating my time and effort, not because I want to give the OSS community graphics they can rip off but because I have skills this project (and many other OSS projects frankly) could use. I also want to test out some ideas I have in GUI design and I can't do that without a project such as this. Since I don't program and none of the programmers can design this is seemingly a win-win situation for this group."
All I can say is go ahead. Thats great. But I dont understand the part that says "I'm donating my time and effort, not because I want to give the OSS community graphics they can rip off"... if you give it away, how can they rip it off?
But frankly, its too bad that you are a part of the very small minority of artists/designers that ever heard about OSS and that is willing to contribute one way or another. Maybe you can give a clue to your fellow artists?:)
How about Urban Terror? (urbanterror.net) It's way more advanced and realistic than counter-strike will ever be, and it runs on linux, provided you got a copy of Quake 3. Oh, and its fun and doesnt include the 99% cheaters proportion you got used to while playing counter-strike.
One of the main problem slowing the pace of open source gaming is the lack of artists. Very few artists are technical enough to know about linux/open source/free stuff in general. Beside, artists get out of school thinking they're gonna be paid millions, its very hard to convince then to work for free on an open-source project that runs on an OS they probably never heard of.
You know whats worst with written exams? There's no cut n paste, auto indent, backspace, undo button, color changes for variables and stuff. All you have is a loosy pen and an eraser... and I bet anyone that knows how to code actualy types faster on a keyboard than they can write with a pen.
Maybe once electronic paper is out and used in schools, the situation will be a bit better.:}
Slashdot Mirror
And he is one of them:
;) No bad feelings involved.
:)
Star Wars Kid
Disclaimer: I am Canadian too. The guy is a "friend" of my brother in law. I'm posting this here for humorous reasons only (that makes sense?
Now laugh on.
(PS. I checked "No Karma Bonus" so moderate this post any way you see fit, I just don't want to gain Karma at the expense of this guy. I personnaly don't think it's off-topic.)
Get Cube! All the aiming is client side, so whatever your ping is, it doesnt matter. :)
;)
No cheaters yet either.
Get it here: http://wouter.fov120.com/cube/
I think I'll be the first to mention the Game Boy Advance. Personnaly, I think recent console games have lost substance and are focusing too much on graphics/FMV and not enough on gameplay. Must play on the GBA:
;).
:)
;)
;) but overall, you can't go wrong with the GBA... and you might like it's games better than the current console games. Bonus: it's a portable system, so you can play it anywhere.
Castlevania: Circle of the moon
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Castlevania: Aria of sorrow
Metroid Fusion
Kirby: Nightmare in dream land (kiddy look, but it's a blast to play nonetheless)
Lord of the rings: the two towers (plays a lot like diablo)
If you like VERY hard games, try Megaman & Bass (original title - rockman & forte) and Megaman Zero. If you like beat'em up, Final Fight One is a good choice, though like a lot fo Capcom games, it's very hard (till you learn the AI, then it's a piece of cake
If you can find it, Dodgeball Advance is a fun and relaxing game, its dodgeball but with special moves to knock down your opponents.
If you like kart racing games with "weapons", get Mario Kart Advance or Konami Krazy Racers.
Another game worth mentionning is Doom 2 (the first one wasn't any good though, the port was bad). Who can live without Doom?
There's also a couple of RPG, but they are mostly ports from other consoles or bland remake. Golden Sun is brand new, but I didn't like it that much, though if you like console style RPG, you will like it. The follow up, Golden Sun: the lost age is out too.
There's a lot of good games that I didn't mention (would take too long
No one lives forever 2 is out. It's supposed to be even better than the first one. (I loved the first one). Too bad there's no linux version out yet. :\
There's only one slight problem. Windows is not free, the versions you mentioned are out of print and are by no way secure. They are doing charity here, they can't buy a license for every computer they give away. Beside, what would the kids do if their win95/98/nt install breaks after 6 months? What about virus? They need a solid and reliable system.
I'd give XFCE and Blackbox/Openbox a try. They both run fine on a p200 here. I'm running debian/testing and it fits nicely on a 1-2gigs HD.
XFCE is probably better for kids as it uses icons, kids react better to nice looking icons than to text menus (*box). It's also possible to remove the configuration options from the XFCE panel so the kids can't tweak it by accident (or intentionnaly?). XFCE also minimizes applications to icons, which would be easier to use for kids (no taskbar here..).
Does it also know what discs should have DRM? Can it predict how long it will take to crack it?
My daily trip usualy begins with comics strip:
c om,
:)
User Friendly
Mega Tokyo
Sinfest
Then, I usualy go to Slashdot. Then its off to the
linux game tome (happypenguin.org),
then linuxgames.com. After that comes
gbacentral.net,
doomworld,
desktoplinux.
firingsquad.com,
tomshardware.
Oh, and TheHaus.net and icculus.org.
Whem I'm bored I sometime check ve3d.com and
http://www.redlynx.com/phobiaIII/index.html (to see if the long delayed Phobia 3 version is finaly out).
About once a week I check linuxhardware.org, but its not updated often.
Also, I frequently browse sourceforge.net, contributing to escape of the unicorn (www.sourceforge.net/projects/eounicorn) which is in early beta.
That's about it, now you know everything about my browsing habits and didn't have to install any spywares into my computer.
Have I been fooled?
Well... Slashdot of course. :)
" My laptop (An Apple PowerBook G3 that is 3 years old lasts 2.5 hours watching a DVD on a 14.1" screen). The battery is about the size of a Gameboy color, it could be MUCH smaller, as the new iBook battery is which lasts 3 hours watching a DVD."
That would make the gaming system VERY heavy. The system got to be light, cuz you will end up holding it in your hands for a long time. Take the size of the GBA SP, where do you put an ibook battery in this? And where do you put the mini-cd drive? That takes room too.
I own a gamegear, and it's BIG. It's almost impossible to carry it without a special carrying case. Yet, my GBA, although not as small as a GBA SP, is not an incovenience to carry. The GBA SP improves a lot on this, it fits in a shirt pocket, even jeans pockets.
Even if the gamecube CPU is shrinked, it will still consume more juice than you can afford with 2 AA batteries. Beside, it would cost so much that you'd have to spend well over 200-300$ to get such a system.
Nintendo know what they are doing very well, else they would not own the portable gaming market.
I disagree with most of your points:
...
Yeah, a cd player gets 20 hours off 2 AA batteries and a TV gets 4 hours. Now combine the two, you have less than 3 hours left, and thats without the game optimised CPU. Run the CPU at full speed and you have less than 2 hours left. 2 hours of battery life for a gaming machine is pretty useless.
Now imagine throwing a gamecube CPU in this. It requires a lot more juice than a GBA/portable TV CPU, dissipates more heat and of course its bigger. Your battery life would fall very low, less than 30 minutes.
Now, keep in mind, that a CD/dvd/mini-cd for a game unit must spin a lot faster than an audio CD, else access time is a pain and load times takes forever. Your battery life just fell down to 15 minutes on two AA batteries.
Now, okay, double the ammount of batteries - 30 minutes. Not enough... Add a pda battery... because the CPU needs so much power and because of the spinning disc, you still get around 30 mins.
Although my battery life time are clearly eastimate and that the batteries could last a lot longer... they could still last a lot SHORTER...
Now think about the price of putting everything together, and you will see that its just not possible with today's technology. Maybe in 10 years (the time it took to get a snes equivalent to get portable...) we will have cartridge that hold enough data and new cpu that need less juice that will make this possible, but right now, is just not possible.
And nope, Nintendo has not lost the home war, if you take world wide sales, they still sell more than the Xbox. Add gameboy advance and gamecube sales and you get pretty impressive numbers. I dont think Nintendo will lose the portable war either, all its competitor crank losy products right now (n-gage with 3-4 hours of battery life? hahaha, GP32 looks nice, but it will never get here, and wonderswan are already dead (bandai is discontinuing it to work on GBA games instead).
Just think of it another way: graphics designed to improve the gameplay. Graphics are as much of a part of the whole package as gameplay, but it should complement gameplay, not replace it. Graphics don't make a game, but they can break a game.
Maybe what you need are a couple of people interested in drawing tiles specificaly for your game. Most games thats use freely available tiles lack the wow factor because a lot of people have seen those exact same graphics elsewhere. Just think of the 23587825 RPG Maker games circulating right now...
Also, when you have artists working for you, they can work to give the game a look that fits to the style and content.
As an added bonus, sprite loving artists are often creative enough to draw stuff that you would never have imagined yourself, which can in turn really improve the atmosphere and even the story of your game.
Freely available tiles can get you started... but its only a good solution in short term. Say, use them to create an enjoyable demo, and lure artists to your projects.
I'm currently working on two projects (a platformer and a 2d shooter), and trust me on this, you need art that fits your game, and that has *not* been seen elsewhere.
Think of it the way the non-trek fan think of it... it might be a good sci-fi movie... whats in theater? The most awaited film of the year? Why would I go see Star Trek, which might be good, if I can see the most awaited movie of the year instead?
Of course, I think your point is good, but I also thing that a VERY VERY good movie cannot help but steal audience from a movie that might be good. I'm sure other movies felt the lord of the ring effect too.
Of course, I havent seen Nemesis, so I cant really tell if it sucks, but I can tell that when Insurection went out, a lot of my non-trekkies friend wanted to see it, but this time, the only thing going out of their mouth was "Lord of the ring, lord of the ring". Hell, my girlfriend saw LOTR 4 times in theaters.
Though, I must say, that I'm a big Star Trek fan and that I havent seen it, my christmas schedule was so full I didnt have time for movies.
Simple: It was released at the worst possible time. There was too much competition during christmass, Lord of the Rings alone must have hurt Nemesis seeings a LOT... Which reminds me, I havent seen Nemesis yet... what a bad Trek fan I make. Is it still in theaters?
Face it, most of .Net benefits are not here yet. Microsoft keeps pushing back the release date of their .Net server software. Delays, delays, delays.
.Net is vapor, I'm claiming that the "revolution" is vapor.
.Net enabled software, but no way to get real benefits out of them.
This so called "revolution" is not here yet, and will probably turn out to be just vapor.
I'll write it plain and simple: I'm not claiming that
In the next few years, we will probably have a bunch of
Yes, .Net is coming! Is it a revolution? Not at all, we're going back to the good old mainframes.
Beside, 99% of their architecture isnt even ready.
The way I understand this is simply that they wont concentrate on making the fastest CPU anymore. They will probably concentrate on good value instead, just like a duron is plenty for anything you want to do on the desktop today, the future AMD CPU will do the job quite nicely.
The only things where a (speculative) future AMD wouldnt do the job is high end gaming and workstations (3d/etc). Will they make a custom CPU for high end servers/workstations not based on x86? Who knows... their new 64 bits arch may be the key to their market shift.
All we need now are signs in random fields and we can start to panic.
Arm those water guns!
Then software makers will just bloat up they proggies like hell and they wont run on your 1.8ghz "monster". Try, for exemple (this might be a bad exemple) to run XP on anything slower than 500 mhz. Wont run. Too slow. What do you think palladium "aproved" software will need to run? MS's bloatware.
/.ers this might not be a problem, but Joe Six Packs will want to be able to watch/listen/play/whatever his palladium crap. When palladium takes off, everything will be palladium protected, wanna see the latest movie trailer? You need palladium, want to read [insert some new-york times like site here]? You need palladium enabled software to make sure you are really are who you claim to be (and allow us to track you more easily). Want to shop online? You need palladium enabled software in order to make sure you really are who you claim to be (and then tie your info to your hardware and send you targeted ads). Wanna play games online? You need palladium enabled hardware to make sure you are not cheating (this one ripped off another post). Then, AOL will force its users to run palladium enabled hardware. Then your ISP will want you to use palladium enabled hardware. E T C . . .
Of course, with linux, you p166 will still do the job well. But you wont be able to play palladium enabled content. For you, and me, and most
This is going to be hell, even for us linux/other OS users.
Slashdot: News for the nerds. Stuff that mutates.
"The rest of us just don't like our work being ripped off by a group of people who lack talent to truly appreciate or understand our work."
:)
So, basicaly, youre saying that contributing to an OSS project is like giving away your work for free to a lot of people that will use it for their project? Yes, thats the way OSS works too. I dont see whats wrong with that either, code is an art form too, so why is it okay to release code for free and not graphical art?
"Being a graphic designer or artist is not about being able to use Photoshop, it is being able to communicate with visual and/or typographic elements."
Yes, I totaly agree with you on that point, thats a very hard challenge, though I wont go anywhere photoshop when I draw, I know that it takes a lot of talent and practice to express stuff with a pen and paper. Though I would never ever call myself an artist...nor is it my goal in life, it's just a hobby that I learned by myself. (I'll say it again: I'm not an artist). Though, if I had the talent a few of my friends got, I'd sure contribute to a few games. Too bad they dont understand the principle of OSS and sharing.
"Now, this is not to say that we won't get involved with OSS projects. In fact, I am currently the project lead for the OBOS creative design team. I've developed some ideas for a new GUI for the OS and am currently in the process of coming up with some new methods for working with a computer through a GUI. I'm donating my time and effort, not because I want to give the OSS community graphics they can rip off but because I have skills this project (and many other OSS projects frankly) could use. I also want to test out some ideas I have in GUI design and I can't do that without a project such as this. Since I don't program and none of the programmers can design this is seemingly a win-win situation for this group."
All I can say is go ahead. Thats great. But I dont understand the part that says "I'm donating my time and effort, not because I want to give the OSS community graphics they can rip off"... if you give it away, how can they rip it off?
But frankly, its too bad that you are a part of the very small minority of artists/designers that ever heard about OSS and that is willing to contribute one way or another. Maybe you can give a clue to your fellow artists?
How about Urban Terror? (urbanterror.net) It's way more advanced and realistic than counter-strike will ever be, and it runs on linux, provided you got a copy of Quake 3. Oh, and its fun and doesnt include the 99% cheaters proportion you got used to while playing counter-strike.
One of the main problem slowing the pace of open source gaming is the lack of artists. Very few artists are technical enough to know about linux/open source/free stuff in general. Beside, artists get out of school thinking they're gonna be paid millions, its very hard to convince then to work for free on an open-source project that runs on an OS they probably never heard of.
You know whats worst with written exams? There's no cut n paste, auto indent, backspace, undo button, color changes for variables and stuff. All you have is a loosy pen and an eraser... and I bet anyone that knows how to code actualy types faster on a keyboard than they can write with a pen.
:}
Maybe once electronic paper is out and used in schools, the situation will be a bit better.