Just find a way to mount the keyboard and a trackball to the exercise machine (stationary bike, treadmill, etc) and set it up in front of a large screen, and you're good to go.
Alternatively, they should find a way to link the game to the equipment. Imagine - the rate at which you can move around is dictated by how fast you pedal or run. Or maybe your health/mana/rage/etc regen rate is affected by how long your heart rate has been elevated above resting. Or, even more motivating: your need vs greed roll is weighted by your activity level.
The real question is, how many subscribers would they lose if they enforced this...
And to say Civ II was better than Civ is ridiculous. Civ II was a horrid game.
You'd better be prepared to back that statement up... I have always held Civ II to be my personal favorite of all time. I play it with all the animation and "eye candy" turned off. Turns take forever, sure, but that's because I generally have about 200 units and 40 or so cities (at least). I find it to be a vast improvement over Civ I. The graphics are slightly better, but its the additional units, additional city improvements, etc that spice up the gameplay and appeal most to me.
If you're talking about Civilization: Call to Power, then I agree with you.
That being said, I've never played Civ III or IV, so maybe I don't know what I'm missing. What I've seen of Civ III, though, I didn't like - again, this is screenshots, not play.
I'm only going to respond to one of the responses to my post, and I choose this one because it has more to say than the other (even though this one is so much harder to read and does not include specific references - good job to the other post).
Both of you are absolutely correct that no DNS server in use today supports QDCount > 1. I had a comment to this effect in my original post, but editing somehow removed it.
It returns additional packets that are needed to get the job done
It's been a while since I worked on this portion of my implementation, but I don't recall any mechanism by which a server will return more that one packet in response to a query. The addition records are placed in the additional section of the message, which is of course subject to size restrictions. If the size limit is exceeded, well, that's too bad - additional section records may be truncated as needed.
What you get in the additional section is there for a reason, for example required glue if a domain's name server resides in that domain itself - then you get it's A and AAAA delivered because otherwise, name resolution wouldn't work at all.
Name resolution would still work, it would just require more queries from the resolver - i.e. the resolver would have to form a seperate query for the delegation name server's address. Additional section is there to reduce the number of queries and save the resolver some effort.
I agree that no sane server would respond with AAAA when only A is requested. However, this raises the idea of a new query type... maybe ALLA - return any and all addressing information (A, AAAA, A6, future scheme, etc) for the given hostname?
First of all, you can request more than one record at a time - the specification explicitly allows for more than one Question in the message. Second, the server will frequently return other records that it thinks will be helpful or will be requested shortly. For example, if the original request maps to a CNAME, the mapping could be followed and the correct A record returned (this is called additional section processing). In fact, the AAAA spec requires that queries that trigger additional section processing (e.g. query for NS or MX records) must look for AAAA as well as A records.
The response packets may be larger, but I don't think there will be more of them.
This is why I'm not too worried about reaching 60. I'm a casual player, so I won't have the time for the raids anyway, but why would you keep playing your character if it gets so repetitive and stressful and boring? There is a lot of other content to be experienced, even if it does mean suffering through low levels again. Play Alliance instead of Horde. Roll an Orc Warlock instead of Undead. Find zones you haven't been to and explore. For my main charater, I know there are quite a few zones I should have been through by now but have never seen, and I'm continuing to play hoping that one day I'll get to check them out.
Sure, I may never get even my tier 0 set, but who cares, really. Almost every night I have a fun experience with my mid-level character, even if I am running the same instance over and over and over again - it's never boring because at that level you can still have variation, and it can still be a challenge.
If you reach the point where the game is no longer fun and entertaining - THEN STOP PLAYING!
I stopped playing for about 4 months. Didn't pay a dime (I use the 2-month time cards, so no credit card being billed). When I came back, all my characters were still there with all their items and equipment. I did lose some items (or the money from them) that had been in the auction house or in the mail, but i'd say that's my own fault.
I do agree with you, however, that I would be much more willing to give Blizzard my money if they offered usage-based pricing. I would feel less driven to play every night (and get my money's worth), and i'm sure my wife and kids would be less annoyed by me playing the game every night.
I wish I had mod points to give you. This is a fantastic answer to the people who whine about not liking WoW, and who wonder why we like playing it so much.
Personally, I don't do many quests these days. If I do any, they are usually related to the instance that I'm at the appropriate level to run. I spend my time running that instance, usually with people I've played with before but sometimes in PUGs. We try out different tactics, mix up the group makeup (e.g. try it without a main healer, try it with 3 mages, etc) to challenge ourselves. I also enjoy trying out the different combinations of race and class, exploring the different abilities and play styles.
Sure the hunting/gathering quests can be boring, but there's so much more to do - the game is so much more than the quests.
The criticism they deserve is for not waving the red flag and telling the FBI that they were asking the impossible. They just kept nodding their heads and cashing the checks, knowing full well the whole time that it was never going to get done.
The FBI abandoned the VCF program in 2005. The replacement program, called Sentinel, is being led by Lockheed Martin. It is budgeted at $425 million, and won't be ready until 2009.
Rereading the summary, the submitter has it wrong - "FBI's attempt to modernize their department has once again failed" implies that Sentinel has failed - which is definitely not the content of the article. Even the snippet quoted is about VCF having problems, not Sentinel.
Two words, motherfucker... Pearl Harbor. I'm sure our politicians had a lot to do with that... Maybe they went over and bribed to Japanese to kill thousands of American soldiers and destroy hundreds of American ships. There was also a simultaneous attack at Wake Island, in case you didn't know - again, Japan the aggressor. The US policy prior to WWII was actually quite isolationist - so much so that Germany declared was on us, not us on them. Check your facts next time before making such a stupid statement.
I do agree with you, however, that our current politicians are, as you said, "itching to play the great game busy beating the war drums".
I've dealt with both the chat support, the phone support, and the in-home techs. Chat support has been ok, I usually get someone who's at least fairly competent. Then again, I reserve chat support for extremely minor issues.
As far as the in-home tech support, it's been a mixed bag. One lady broke the monitor hinge on my laptop, while another guy forgot to put the heat sink back on when replacing the mobo, but all visits have been quick and efficient.
My worst phone experience:
Problem: Battery Failure - won't hold a charge
I've done my reasearch, Googled for all the troubleshooting tips I could find. I have located the Dell guide for troubleshooting batteries, and have determined that the battery has 0% capacity remaining (5 lights flashing, I think was the code).
I pick up the phone to call at about 7:45. After 30 minutes on hold, I hear a sound on the other end like someone picking up, then the line goes dead.
I call back. After another 20 minutes on hold, I get an Indian (guessing by the accent) lady who speaks poor English and who is obviously just following the steps in the Dell Offical Guide to Troubleshooting Every Possible Problem (tm). I tell her the problem, and what I've done to troubleshoot, what I've identified the problem as, and what I need her to do about it. She ignores everything I've said and proceeds to guide me through 2 hours of Dell Official Troubleshooting steps, including running the Dell diagnostics off the CD among other things - but NEVER asks me to perform the battery self-diagnostic test. Our call ends with another disconnection.
At this point I'm ready to give up, but I can't afford another battery, and I need to be using this laptop completely wirelessly.
So I call back again.
After another 15 minutes on hold, I get an Indian (guessing by the accent) lady who speaks passable English. She listens to my description of the problem, and what I've done to troubleshoot, what I've identified the problem as, and immediately says "Your battery needs to be replaced. I see that you are still covered by warranty, so I will arrange a replacement."
It makes me happy to hear that not all of the techs are completely incompetent. I just wish I could have been connected to this last lady in the first place, it would have saved me about 3 hours of trouble.
Used to play at GA Tech... found out my target used the same bank I did, so I mocked up a bank statement in one of their envelopes and put "poison" in it...
Very fun game, if everyone takes it "seriously" (i.e. serious about playing the game, not serious about trying to kill people).
Yeah, Mercedes-Benz is going with an Ad Blue solution, if I recall the article correctly. Since they bought the rights to the patent (again, recall might be wrong), they're the only company that's going to be using it. The other solution is too troublesome for other manufacturers to put up with, so they're not selling diesels.
I am aware of the use of this system in trains and ships, and also in busses. It's the application of this system to personal vehicles that I believe needs to happen.
I suppose you're right, driving a generator doesn't make it hybrid. Modern hybrids use a single electric motor to provide power through the same drivetrain as the gasoline motor, whereas I'm proposing separate motors at each wheel and the diesel never actually provides motive power.
A diesel hybrid could be done, though... use the electric for most of the power and use the diesel for an added boost when necessary, maybe.
P.S. I thought timothy was assigned to Backslash articles! Why is he posting new news (twice today and we've had no backslashes!)? Hopefully he'll be able to summarize the interesting commentary that will no doubt ensue in an upcoming Backslash.
38 minutes later - the Backslash of Citizen Photographers v. The Police is up!
Too bad I've already posted on this topic, or I'd mod you myself.
As a kid I went with my dad to his job in facilities for a large company. This company had a bank of diesel-powered generators in their basement - huge 24-cylinder beasts. On this trip there happened to be a 20 gallon bottle (think old water-cooler bottle) sitting on the floor with about 6 inches of diesel fuel in the bottom. I inquired as to whether this was a safety hazard - and then watched as a co-worker deliberately struck a match and dropped it in the bottle.
The match fell to the liquid and was extinguished.
As a slightly older youth I attempted to repeat this experiment - only this time with a) a plastic container, b) gasoline, and c) outside on the driveway.
I think my eyebrows grew back within a week or two.
While I disagree with some of the items above, I agree that biodiesel is a good candidate solution and it disturbs me to see it being ignored.
My personal preference would be to see a biodiesel-electric hybrid. Have the diesel drive a generator, and put a motor at each wheel. A well-tuned diesel would run at max efficiency and with lower emissions. Regenerative braking increases the overall efficiency. New exhaust filtering technologies will eventually take care of the remaining emissions problems.
There are many ways to produce biodiesel in sufficient quantity, and it's at least as safe as gasoline, and certainly safer than ethanol or hydrogen. It's energy density is higher than ethanol and hydrogen. It's liquid, so the transportation and distribution infrastructure would need minor modifications if any at all.
For you high-performance afficionados (of which I am one), electric motors can produce massive amounts of horsepower and torque (Toyota had a 480hp hybrid concept), and can you image 4-wheel independent drive and what it'd do for handling?
The biggest problem with diesel is the emissions. 2007 EPA emissions requirements for passenger vehicles (I'm summarizing from memory an article I read in Car & Driver, if I get this wrong please don't kill me over this) are so restrictive that current generation diesels don't come anywhere close to making the cut. In fact, only one manufacturer - Mercedes-Benz - will be offering a diesel vehicle, and that only because they have licensed a new filtering technology to reduce the emissions.
I personally think we should be moving towards hybrid biodiesel vehicles - the diesel drives a generator, the electrical power is used immediately or stored, the braking energy is captured and stored... With this set-up the diesel can be tuned to be the most efficient and least polluting, and the overall system would waste the least energy.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm thinking of a system more like this...
Alternatively, they should find a way to link the game to the equipment. Imagine - the rate at which you can move around is dictated by how fast you pedal or run. Or maybe your health/mana/rage/etc regen rate is affected by how long your heart rate has been elevated above resting. Or, even more motivating: your need vs greed roll is weighted by your activity level.
The real question is, how many subscribers would they lose if they enforced this...
You'd better be prepared to back that statement up... I have always held Civ II to be my personal favorite of all time. I play it with all the animation and "eye candy" turned off. Turns take forever, sure, but that's because I generally have about 200 units and 40 or so cities (at least). I find it to be a vast improvement over Civ I. The graphics are slightly better, but its the additional units, additional city improvements, etc that spice up the gameplay and appeal most to me.
If you're talking about Civilization: Call to Power, then I agree with you.
That being said, I've never played Civ III or IV, so maybe I don't know what I'm missing. What I've seen of Civ III, though, I didn't like - again, this is screenshots, not play.
Other "Tarantino films":
Both of you are absolutely correct that no DNS server in use today supports QDCount > 1. I had a comment to this effect in my original post, but editing somehow removed it.
It's been a while since I worked on this portion of my implementation, but I don't recall any mechanism by which a server will return more that one packet in response to a query. The addition records are placed in the additional section of the message, which is of course subject to size restrictions. If the size limit is exceeded, well, that's too bad - additional section records may be truncated as needed.
Name resolution would still work, it would just require more queries from the resolver - i.e. the resolver would have to form a seperate query for the delegation name server's address. Additional section is there to reduce the number of queries and save the resolver some effort.
I agree that no sane server would respond with AAAA when only A is requested. However, this raises the idea of a new query type... maybe ALLA - return any and all addressing information (A, AAAA, A6, future scheme, etc) for the given hostname?
The response packets may be larger, but I don't think there will be more of them.
Sure, I may never get even my tier 0 set, but who cares, really. Almost every night I have a fun experience with my mid-level character, even if I am running the same instance over and over and over again - it's never boring because at that level you can still have variation, and it can still be a challenge.
If you reach the point where the game is no longer fun and entertaining - THEN STOP PLAYING!
I do agree with you, however, that I would be much more willing to give Blizzard my money if they offered usage-based pricing. I would feel less driven to play every night (and get my money's worth), and i'm sure my wife and kids would be less annoyed by me playing the game every night.
Personally, I don't do many quests these days. If I do any, they are usually related to the instance that I'm at the appropriate level to run. I spend my time running that instance, usually with people I've played with before but sometimes in PUGs. We try out different tactics, mix up the group makeup (e.g. try it without a main healer, try it with 3 mages, etc) to challenge ourselves. I also enjoy trying out the different combinations of race and class, exploring the different abilities and play styles.
Sure the hunting/gathering quests can be boring, but there's so much more to do - the game is so much more than the quests.
The criticism they deserve is for not waving the red flag and telling the FBI that they were asking the impossible. They just kept nodding their heads and cashing the checks, knowing full well the whole time that it was never going to get done.
Rereading the summary, the submitter has it wrong - "FBI's attempt to modernize their department has once again failed" implies that Sentinel has failed - which is definitely not the content of the article. Even the snippet quoted is about VCF having problems, not Sentinel.
I never said differently. It's still a fact that Germany declared war on the US, not the other way around.
Two words, motherfucker... Pearl Harbor. I'm sure our politicians had a lot to do with that... Maybe they went over and bribed to Japanese to kill thousands of American soldiers and destroy hundreds of American ships. There was also a simultaneous attack at Wake Island, in case you didn't know - again, Japan the aggressor. The US policy prior to WWII was actually quite isolationist - so much so that Germany declared was on us, not us on them. Check your facts next time before making such a stupid statement. I do agree with you, however, that our current politicians are, as you said, "itching to play the great game busy beating the war drums".
As far as the in-home tech support, it's been a mixed bag. One lady broke the monitor hinge on my laptop, while another guy forgot to put the heat sink back on when replacing the mobo, but all visits have been quick and efficient.
My worst phone experience:
Problem: Battery Failure - won't hold a charge
I've done my reasearch, Googled for all the troubleshooting tips I could find. I have located the Dell guide for troubleshooting batteries, and have determined that the battery has 0% capacity remaining (5 lights flashing, I think was the code).
I pick up the phone to call at about 7:45. After 30 minutes on hold, I hear a sound on the other end like someone picking up, then the line goes dead.
I call back. After another 20 minutes on hold, I get an Indian (guessing by the accent) lady who speaks poor English and who is obviously just following the steps in the Dell Offical Guide to Troubleshooting Every Possible Problem (tm). I tell her the problem, and what I've done to troubleshoot, what I've identified the problem as, and what I need her to do about it. She ignores everything I've said and proceeds to guide me through 2 hours of Dell Official Troubleshooting steps, including running the Dell diagnostics off the CD among other things - but NEVER asks me to perform the battery self-diagnostic test. Our call ends with another disconnection.
At this point I'm ready to give up, but I can't afford another battery, and I need to be using this laptop completely wirelessly.
So I call back again.
After another 15 minutes on hold, I get an Indian (guessing by the accent) lady who speaks passable English. She listens to my description of the problem, and what I've done to troubleshoot, what I've identified the problem as, and immediately says "Your battery needs to be replaced. I see that you are still covered by warranty, so I will arrange a replacement."
It makes me happy to hear that not all of the techs are completely incompetent. I just wish I could have been connected to this last lady in the first place, it would have saved me about 3 hours of trouble.
Very fun game, if everyone takes it "seriously" (i.e. serious about playing the game, not serious about trying to kill people).
Uh, thanks, I guess...
Yeah, Mercedes-Benz is going with an Ad Blue solution, if I recall the article correctly. Since they bought the rights to the patent (again, recall might be wrong), they're the only company that's going to be using it. The other solution is too troublesome for other manufacturers to put up with, so they're not selling diesels.
Soybeans and corn are hardly the only way to make biodiesel. Read more in this discussion about algae farms, for instance.
I suppose you're right, driving a generator doesn't make it hybrid. Modern hybrids use a single electric motor to provide power through the same drivetrain as the gasoline motor, whereas I'm proposing separate motors at each wheel and the diesel never actually provides motive power.
A diesel hybrid could be done, though... use the electric for most of the power and use the diesel for an added boost when necessary, maybe.
38 minutes later - the Backslash of Citizen Photographers v. The Police is up!
As a kid I went with my dad to his job in facilities for a large company. This company had a bank of diesel-powered generators in their basement - huge 24-cylinder beasts. On this trip there happened to be a 20 gallon bottle (think old water-cooler bottle) sitting on the floor with about 6 inches of diesel fuel in the bottom. I inquired as to whether this was a safety hazard - and then watched as a co-worker deliberately struck a match and dropped it in the bottle.
The match fell to the liquid and was extinguished.
As a slightly older youth I attempted to repeat this experiment - only this time with a) a plastic container, b) gasoline, and c) outside on the driveway.
I think my eyebrows grew back within a week or two.
But seriously - solar power could be used for electricity generation in this case.
My personal preference would be to see a biodiesel-electric hybrid. Have the diesel drive a generator, and put a motor at each wheel. A well-tuned diesel would run at max efficiency and with lower emissions. Regenerative braking increases the overall efficiency. New exhaust filtering technologies will eventually take care of the remaining emissions problems.
There are many ways to produce biodiesel in sufficient quantity, and it's at least as safe as gasoline, and certainly safer than ethanol or hydrogen. It's energy density is higher than ethanol and hydrogen. It's liquid, so the transportation and distribution infrastructure would need minor modifications if any at all.
For you high-performance afficionados (of which I am one), electric motors can produce massive amounts of horsepower and torque (Toyota had a 480hp hybrid concept), and can you image 4-wheel independent drive and what it'd do for handling?
Tell me again, why is biodiesel being ignored?
I personally think we should be moving towards hybrid biodiesel vehicles - the diesel drives a generator, the electrical power is used immediately or stored, the braking energy is captured and stored... With this set-up the diesel can be tuned to be the most efficient and least polluting, and the overall system would waste the least energy.
/me shakes head.... still wrong... try again.