I don't get your logic here... If MS really DID try to prevent game-devs from releasing on windows without the GfW logo, then yeah. They'd move to a platform that wasn't so restrictive.
But this is an optional thing that most devs won't even consider until they start writing the next game. It's pretty much too late for whatever they are currently working on. So 5-6 years for it to REALLY catch on, if it's going to.
But even then, it's still optional and nothing is forcing devs to linux.
So please, enlighten us... How does this promote Linux gaming?
I dunno where you shop, but most 'game stores' like EB and Gamestop DO have a set day that they release the games. And it just happens to coincide with the official release day of all but the most spectacular games. Ship day is Tuesday, sell day is Wednesday. Every week. Only very seldom does a game break this rule.
Amazingly, this is exactly like movie releases. Only the ones with the most hype release on anything but a Friday.
Yeah, and I realize that so far, Microsoft hasn't WHQL'd that driver, it doesn't control like it does on the Nintendo, and it's highly unlikely that MS will ever promote a competitor's controller.
Yeah, as I just said in the other reply, I didn't RTFA. This GfW campaign isn't what the summary says at all. This looks like something worthwhile after all.
Until I read your post, I had not considered that the summary might be completely stupid. I'm not sure what I was thinking.
Basically, when it said "Instead of relying on the good name of individual publishers to sell titles, Redmond is requiring that all titles use similar packaging and a distinctive logo." I think it meant it. There's nothing like that in the article. Nothing.
Instead, the article is about a 'branding' scheme by Microsoft where they will certify that the game meets certain standards and functionality, and can wear their logo in return.
I'm interested in that.
I was not at all interested in MS making every single game publisher wear their logo if they want it to work on Vista, with nothing in return for said Monopoly.
"It's the melding with the familiar that will drive new and lost consumers to the Games for Windows brand."
So they have given up on all the current gamers, eh?
Besides that amazingly stupid thing to say, which I'm sure was more of a slip-of-the-tongue-while-trying-imitate-Nintendo, PC games have always been wildly different. Trying to make them somehow the same by making them all use the same box design is crazy. (Same meaning moreso than they already are, considering they are all the same shape and size, etc etc.) Requiring the logos to be the same spot, and the requirements in the same spot, etc etc will only stifle the creativity of the box designers. It will not somehow create a community for pc gamers that didn't exist before and draw in people that have been resistant to PC gaming.
Those people DO NOT CARE.
If you can build a Wiimote for PC and not get sued, THEN you can probably get some non-gamers to care. (Or another suitably wonderful and fun controller.)
Unfortunately, the entire change is pretty complex, but I think I could probably rework the reworked skills to bring the fun back.
The basics is this: They made it so you have to grind for 6 months to reach level 250. Early in beta, they were aiming quite a bit short of that because of the wipe schedule, but they made a mistake in their skills and it was about 2 weeks.
There was a particular setup you could build on your skills that would allow you to heal the entire party for a decent amount of health, plus regain some magic. If your group was tight-knit and followed the plan, you could heal spam heals forever.
Obviously, that was quite overpowered and would also have made the game pointless. But instead of toning it down, they totally dismantled it and replaced it with a quite-boring skill system.
So in a nutshell, I'd rebalance the skill system to be fun again.
I haven't seen BadAnalogyGuy lately, so I'll have to do his job I guess:
Slapping mosquitos is not the most effective way of killing mosquitos, but I'm not going to ignore the ones sucking my blood simply because sprays, candles and electric noises work better.
The 'engine' is GPL, but the specific code for this game was not GPL. Of course the poor site is slashdotted now, but I believe it DID include all the assets for the game as well, as it would be nearly nothing without them. (And I believe there was a discussion about needing so much money because of the assets.)
Well that's a good point. What IS the point of a non-earth base.
Orbit: Good launch point for ships travelling from earth and avoiding its gravity well. The ships can be geared towards exploration rather than take-off. Research - zero g, artifical g (spin), massive solar radiation Shelter - all artificial Communications
Moon: Ships, again, but have to be able to deal with some gravity at beginning and end of each flight. Research - low g, solar radiation Shelter - some natural Mining
Seems like a pretty even match so far. The big difference is travel price. The moon will be quite a bit more expensive there.
As for significant breakthroughs... There are some (that I can't remember at the moment), but I think there are so few that NASA would be hurt by the information if they tried to list it all at once.
Breakthroughs are expensive, and pretty much everything we learn from space is a breakthrough, rather than a refinement of something we already do.
Compared to the cost of research here on earth, that's 'barely anything'. But don't go putting words in my mouth. I'm not saying that we shouldn't continue research. I'm saying that we don't know enough yet. You seem to be trying to argue against while taking the same side.
This game DOES have a small fanbase, and (from what I remember from beta) is fairly well-programmed. Unfortunately, near the end of beta, they made a greed-based design decision with the skill system and the game took a huge dive. They never realized why, and so that decision stands.
I pledged a donation because if this goes open source, the first thing I'll do it work on reversing that decision and making the game fun again. I'll have a rogue server, and probably only a few friends on it, but it'll be fun. Maybe my change will even make it back to the regular code-base and I won't even have to run a rogue server.
This differs substantially from FOSS MMOs that were free from the ground up in a few ways:
I can't figure a way to make them fun. They don't have artwork that was paid-for. (Like it or not, graphics can make or break a game.) It's got a fanbase of non-developers.
I think they have a good point here. We've been working on a 'space station' for quite some time and barely have anything to show for it yet. How much planning could they possibly put into a moon base yet? The basics are pretty much like earth bases, and the long-term effects of no/low-gravity are not really known. So it'd be like designing a regular earth base with airlocks, and huge gaping holes where they are going to put the unknown things they'll need once they understand non-earth living.
It was more joke than anything, but there's enough truth to argue the point.
First off, I'm sure there are plenty of scientists who are interested in researching their fields, not in the money. I'd even wager that most of them were true to their field.
But the fact remains that money IS necessary for them to carry on their projects, and they DO need to make sure it keeps coming in, even when they don't have any breakthroughs or even anything interesting to show for their last 3 years. Some of them get desperate and decides to make up discoveries or submit a theory as if it's a fact. And if they can get it on Slashdot, they are virtually assured of getting funding as 'the next big thing.'
No, I'm not bothering to cite examples, as it hasn't been that long since Slashdot had a few articles about faked data or theories that were stated as fact by the media.
"How do you know the product works perfectly on Win2000? Just cause it looks like it doesn't mean it does..."
I think this is the REAL issue here. Microsoft didn't know for sure it worked on win2k, and this guy doesn't either. He hasn't rigourously tested it in any fashion. He just installs it, runs it a few times and proclaims 'Hey, it works!'.
When an app IS supported, it can have major issues. Unsupported has got to be a lot more risky. If your whole point of running win2k is the stability, running unsupported apps seems... insane.
1: "Guys... We need a theory. Our funding is gonna get cut." 2: "What about the shape of the universe, that hasn't been done for a while?" 1: "What's Google say?" 2: "Hmmm..." http://www.google.com/search?q=shape+of+the+univer se+dodecahedron+-wmap&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr= (Because WMAP is the only other reference that says this, I removed it from the search. 2: "Dodecahedron. But there's no proof, and it's an ancient myth-thing." 1: "I think we could prove that, given enough money. Write up the funding request."
After a little research, it appears Theora is probably able to play on EVD players, but Theora is a superset of VP3 and will eventually contain information that will make it not play on EVD players.
Why? They share most of the same body parts, organs and systems. Everything works the same way as it does in us. We're only a few ticks away on the genetic map. I'd be more surprised if they didn't work like us.
The 'dinner interview' salt thing really WAS done a long time ago. It was one of the things the interviewer was told to look for and use to make a determination. Anyone who made the decision on 1 single piece of data didn't understand the process. Not that I'm saying the process was worth a flip, but it was a lot more involved than that interviewer was willing to be.
I still build all my PCs myself. Why? Because I -care-. I care about the parts chosen, I care about making sure every piece is put in properly and setup properly software-wise. When it comes to choosing specific parts, nobody can get them cheaper than anyone else, unless they already happen to buy that part in bulk.
As for tech support, have you called one of the major PC vendors in the last 10 years? It's only useful for people who have no clue. My mom, bless her heart, is in this category. I still don't let her buy a major brand computer. As much as I hate being her tech support, I won't let my family fall into that hellhole.
I applaud the 'he needs to have a reason' logic for the question, but the answers are all hogwash to anyone who truly cares about their PC. If you just want the PC to be a not-very-well-used tool, then go ahead and pick one of those 2 options. But if you care about your PC, and want to get the most from it, you need to research each part and assemble it yourself. This goes double if you use any non-Microsoft operating system.
If you are trying to prove they care about their PC, you are asking the wrong question.
Only if you are only considering ENTRY level techs... as in, no work experience whatsoever.
I went through all the 'this is a cool network' phases already and I'm back to 'it works, and it does what I need' and that's it. The wireless is only there for a couple devices that NEED it, and the rest is just ethernet. (And not even gigabit.)
Also, PC Techs don't necessarily know much about networking. Maybe if you said 'explain your home computer setup', I'd agree. Every PC Tech has a kick-butt setup. 'I have a 37" HDTV on my server', 'I have my xbox set up to play video wirelessly' etc etc.
Teaching books are meant as a first step for people with NO idea how a computer 'computes' and what a programming language is. If you were exposed to this information, even just gradually, reference books may indeed be the way to go.
I started to learn to program in 4th grade, had a summer class in 6th grade, and taught myself from there. That was enough intro for the 'teaching' books to be useless and the reference books to be boring. I learned the major portion of my skills online using search engines. (Google wasn't very popular yet.) Even now, I find reference books pointless as I can get all the information online, and get tips from other users at the same time, just by searching Google.
But you can't assume kids in highschool have been exposed to this and try to teach them from reference books. It'll be ugly.
And yes, there's a huge difference between teaching yourself and teach others. Especially if the teacher isn't very confident in their ability. (As in this case, where they admit they are a 'novice'.)
They can disagree all they want. Until it's been PROVEN to be effective, I won't believe it. Some of the hacks to 'train' xbox games were amazing. I even used the 'code cave' technique myself a couple times, and that's considered nearly child's-play compared to some of the hacks they did.
I meant memory speed, as in bandwidth. Not actual memory space. But even after boot, there's some processing needed to find the newly located code. If there wasn't, you could simply look up the location in the OTHER part of memory and BAM, hack time. To run tricks like that, they need to process.
It'll be disabled on all old systems because it either doesn't exist, or was shipped disabled. RTFA. It says so. No need to even argue it.
As for game errors... You have obviously never bothered to look into game programming. Some of the tricks they pull to gain speed are amazing. And absolutely reliant on the architecture. They use glitches to improve performance, and count on them. The oldest example of this was when games were programmed to use the system bus speed to time the game. Faster computers can't run these games without software that slows it down. Any other example is quite a bit more complex.
Still think I'm spouting crap randomly? I didn't have to look any of this information up because I've been dealing with it for so long. This new tech doesn't sound like it'll be worth researching. If it turns out to be a big thing, THEN I can be bothered. I'm still pretty sure it'll flop, and not going to waste my time.
It'd become an arms race. Malware sites would simply rework their site until Google no longer listed them as malware, then do it again when Google figures out their new tactic.
Nobody would be helped (especially not the 99% of users that would click anyhow) and Google would spend a lot of money for nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't get your logic here... If MS really DID try to prevent game-devs from releasing on windows without the GfW logo, then yeah. They'd move to a platform that wasn't so restrictive.
But this is an optional thing that most devs won't even consider until they start writing the next game. It's pretty much too late for whatever they are currently working on. So 5-6 years for it to REALLY catch on, if it's going to.
But even then, it's still optional and nothing is forcing devs to linux.
So please, enlighten us... How does this promote Linux gaming?
I dunno where you shop, but most 'game stores' like EB and Gamestop DO have a set day that they release the games. And it just happens to coincide with the official release day of all but the most spectacular games. Ship day is Tuesday, sell day is Wednesday. Every week. Only very seldom does a game break this rule.
Amazingly, this is exactly like movie releases. Only the ones with the most hype release on anything but a Friday.
Yeah, and I realize that so far, Microsoft hasn't WHQL'd that driver, it doesn't control like it does on the Nintendo, and it's highly unlikely that MS will ever promote a competitor's controller.
Yeah, as I just said in the other reply, I didn't RTFA. This GfW campaign isn't what the summary says at all. This looks like something worthwhile after all.
Until I read your post, I had not considered that the summary might be completely stupid. I'm not sure what I was thinking.
Basically, when it said "Instead of relying on the good name of individual publishers to sell titles, Redmond is requiring that all titles use similar packaging and a distinctive logo." I think it meant it. There's nothing like that in the article. Nothing.
Instead, the article is about a 'branding' scheme by Microsoft where they will certify that the game meets certain standards and functionality, and can wear their logo in return.
I'm interested in that.
I was not at all interested in MS making every single game publisher wear their logo if they want it to work on Vista, with nothing in return for said Monopoly.
I should have RTFA.
"It's the melding with the familiar that will drive new and lost consumers to the Games for Windows brand."
So they have given up on all the current gamers, eh?
Besides that amazingly stupid thing to say, which I'm sure was more of a slip-of-the-tongue-while-trying-imitate-Nintendo, PC games have always been wildly different. Trying to make them somehow the same by making them all use the same box design is crazy. (Same meaning moreso than they already are, considering they are all the same shape and size, etc etc.) Requiring the logos to be the same spot, and the requirements in the same spot, etc etc will only stifle the creativity of the box designers. It will not somehow create a community for pc gamers that didn't exist before and draw in people that have been resistant to PC gaming.
Those people DO NOT CARE.
If you can build a Wiimote for PC and not get sued, THEN you can probably get some non-gamers to care. (Or another suitably wonderful and fun controller.)
Unfortunately, the entire change is pretty complex, but I think I could probably rework the reworked skills to bring the fun back.
The basics is this: They made it so you have to grind for 6 months to reach level 250. Early in beta, they were aiming quite a bit short of that because of the wipe schedule, but they made a mistake in their skills and it was about 2 weeks.
There was a particular setup you could build on your skills that would allow you to heal the entire party for a decent amount of health, plus regain some magic. If your group was tight-knit and followed the plan, you could heal spam heals forever.
Obviously, that was quite overpowered and would also have made the game pointless. But instead of toning it down, they totally dismantled it and replaced it with a quite-boring skill system.
So in a nutshell, I'd rebalance the skill system to be fun again.
Yes, we get that. He doesn't WANT TO.
I haven't seen BadAnalogyGuy lately, so I'll have to do his job I guess:
Slapping mosquitos is not the most effective way of killing mosquitos, but I'm not going to ignore the ones sucking my blood simply because sprays, candles and electric noises work better.
'Not best' is not the same as 'not useful.'
The 'engine' is GPL, but the specific code for this game was not GPL. Of course the poor site is slashdotted now, but I believe it DID include all the assets for the game as well, as it would be nearly nothing without them. (And I believe there was a discussion about needing so much money because of the assets.)
Well that's a good point. What IS the point of a non-earth base.
Orbit:
Good launch point for ships travelling from earth and avoiding its gravity well. The ships can be geared towards exploration rather than take-off.
Research - zero g, artifical g (spin), massive solar radiation
Shelter - all artificial
Communications
Moon:
Ships, again, but have to be able to deal with some gravity at beginning and end of each flight.
Research - low g, solar radiation
Shelter - some natural
Mining
Seems like a pretty even match so far. The big difference is travel price. The moon will be quite a bit more expensive there.
As for significant breakthroughs... There are some (that I can't remember at the moment), but I think there are so few that NASA would be hurt by the information if they tried to list it all at once.
Breakthroughs are expensive, and pretty much everything we learn from space is a breakthrough, rather than a refinement of something we already do.
Compared to the cost of research here on earth, that's 'barely anything'. But don't go putting words in my mouth. I'm not saying that we shouldn't continue research. I'm saying that we don't know enough yet. You seem to be trying to argue against while taking the same side.
This game DOES have a small fanbase, and (from what I remember from beta) is fairly well-programmed. Unfortunately, near the end of beta, they made a greed-based design decision with the skill system and the game took a huge dive. They never realized why, and so that decision stands.
I pledged a donation because if this goes open source, the first thing I'll do it work on reversing that decision and making the game fun again. I'll have a rogue server, and probably only a few friends on it, but it'll be fun. Maybe my change will even make it back to the regular code-base and I won't even have to run a rogue server.
This differs substantially from FOSS MMOs that were free from the ground up in a few ways:
I can't figure a way to make them fun.
They don't have artwork that was paid-for. (Like it or not, graphics can make or break a game.)
It's got a fanbase of non-developers.
I think they have a good point here. We've been working on a 'space station' for quite some time and barely have anything to show for it yet. How much planning could they possibly put into a moon base yet? The basics are pretty much like earth bases, and the long-term effects of no/low-gravity are not really known. So it'd be like designing a regular earth base with airlocks, and huge gaping holes where they are going to put the unknown things they'll need once they understand non-earth living.
Just a bit premature.
It was more joke than anything, but there's enough truth to argue the point.
First off, I'm sure there are plenty of scientists who are interested in researching their fields, not in the money. I'd even wager that most of them were true to their field.
But the fact remains that money IS necessary for them to carry on their projects, and they DO need to make sure it keeps coming in, even when they don't have any breakthroughs or even anything interesting to show for their last 3 years. Some of them get desperate and decides to make up discoveries or submit a theory as if it's a fact. And if they can get it on Slashdot, they are virtually assured of getting funding as 'the next big thing.'
No, I'm not bothering to cite examples, as it hasn't been that long since Slashdot had a few articles about faked data or theories that were stated as fact by the media.
It happens.
Wait... Can you have 2 shoe-ins at the same time?
OMG. I knew I should have spelled it out so idiots could read it. 1 = scientist 1. 2 = scientist 2. It's SPEECH, not a 'point numbering system.'
"How do you know the product works perfectly on Win2000? Just cause it looks like it doesn't mean it does..."
I think this is the REAL issue here. Microsoft didn't know for sure it worked on win2k, and this guy doesn't either. He hasn't rigourously tested it in any fashion. He just installs it, runs it a few times and proclaims 'Hey, it works!'.
When an app IS supported, it can have major issues. Unsupported has got to be a lot more risky. If your whole point of running win2k is the stability, running unsupported apps seems... insane.
How do you think they got their theory?
r se+dodecahedron+-wmap&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr= (Because WMAP is the only other reference that says this, I removed it from the search.
1: "Guys... We need a theory. Our funding is gonna get cut."
2: "What about the shape of the universe, that hasn't been done for a while?"
1: "What's Google say?"
2: "Hmmm..." http://www.google.com/search?q=shape+of+the+unive
2: "Dodecahedron. But there's no proof, and it's an ancient myth-thing."
1: "I think we could prove that, given enough money. Write up the funding request."
After a little research, it appears Theora is probably able to play on EVD players, but Theora is a superset of VP3 and will eventually contain information that will make it not play on EVD players.
Why? They share most of the same body parts, organs and systems. Everything works the same way as it does in us. We're only a few ticks away on the genetic map. I'd be more surprised if they didn't work like us.
The 'dinner interview' salt thing really WAS done a long time ago. It was one of the things the interviewer was told to look for and use to make a determination. Anyone who made the decision on 1 single piece of data didn't understand the process. Not that I'm saying the process was worth a flip, but it was a lot more involved than that interviewer was willing to be.
I still build all my PCs myself. Why? Because I -care-. I care about the parts chosen, I care about making sure every piece is put in properly and setup properly software-wise. When it comes to choosing specific parts, nobody can get them cheaper than anyone else, unless they already happen to buy that part in bulk.
As for tech support, have you called one of the major PC vendors in the last 10 years? It's only useful for people who have no clue. My mom, bless her heart, is in this category. I still don't let her buy a major brand computer. As much as I hate being her tech support, I won't let my family fall into that hellhole.
I applaud the 'he needs to have a reason' logic for the question, but the answers are all hogwash to anyone who truly cares about their PC. If you just want the PC to be a not-very-well-used tool, then go ahead and pick one of those 2 options. But if you care about your PC, and want to get the most from it, you need to research each part and assemble it yourself. This goes double if you use any non-Microsoft operating system.
If you are trying to prove they care about their PC, you are asking the wrong question.
Only if you are only considering ENTRY level techs... as in, no work experience whatsoever.
I went through all the 'this is a cool network' phases already and I'm back to 'it works, and it does what I need' and that's it. The wireless is only there for a couple devices that NEED it, and the rest is just ethernet. (And not even gigabit.)
Also, PC Techs don't necessarily know much about networking. Maybe if you said 'explain your home computer setup', I'd agree. Every PC Tech has a kick-butt setup. 'I have a 37" HDTV on my server', 'I have my xbox set up to play video wirelessly' etc etc.
Teaching books are meant as a first step for people with NO idea how a computer 'computes' and what a programming language is. If you were exposed to this information, even just gradually, reference books may indeed be the way to go.
I started to learn to program in 4th grade, had a summer class in 6th grade, and taught myself from there. That was enough intro for the 'teaching' books to be useless and the reference books to be boring. I learned the major portion of my skills online using search engines. (Google wasn't very popular yet.) Even now, I find reference books pointless as I can get all the information online, and get tips from other users at the same time, just by searching Google.
But you can't assume kids in highschool have been exposed to this and try to teach them from reference books. It'll be ugly.
And yes, there's a huge difference between teaching yourself and teach others. Especially if the teacher isn't very confident in their ability. (As in this case, where they admit they are a 'novice'.)
They can disagree all they want. Until it's been PROVEN to be effective, I won't believe it. Some of the hacks to 'train' xbox games were amazing. I even used the 'code cave' technique myself a couple times, and that's considered nearly child's-play compared to some of the hacks they did.
I meant memory speed, as in bandwidth. Not actual memory space. But even after boot, there's some processing needed to find the newly located code. If there wasn't, you could simply look up the location in the OTHER part of memory and BAM, hack time. To run tricks like that, they need to process.
It'll be disabled on all old systems because it either doesn't exist, or was shipped disabled. RTFA. It says so. No need to even argue it.
As for game errors... You have obviously never bothered to look into game programming. Some of the tricks they pull to gain speed are amazing. And absolutely reliant on the architecture. They use glitches to improve performance, and count on them. The oldest example of this was when games were programmed to use the system bus speed to time the game. Faster computers can't run these games without software that slows it down. Any other example is quite a bit more complex.
Still think I'm spouting crap randomly? I didn't have to look any of this information up because I've been dealing with it for so long. This new tech doesn't sound like it'll be worth researching. If it turns out to be a big thing, THEN I can be bothered. I'm still pretty sure it'll flop, and not going to waste my time.
It'd become an arms race. Malware sites would simply rework their site until Google no longer listed them as malware, then do it again when Google figures out their new tactic.
Nobody would be helped (especially not the 99% of users that would click anyhow) and Google would spend a lot of money for nothing.