I've played zombie mod (and still do) but its horribly flawed for a number of reasons. First of all, its not a traditional zombie kind of game. The zombies are fast, virtually unkillable and are played by smart humans. The result is somewhat interesting, but it doesn't really follow the concept of a zombie infestation game. I don't think you can make a game where being the zombie is all that fun. I mean, it sucks being a slow stupid zombie. But thats what AI is for.
I encourage you to check out Killing Floor, a mod for UT2004. The game isn't perfect and its a bit of a chore to find and join a server, but it can be a hell of a lot of fun. Its the closest thing to what I was looking for in a zombie game. The zombies are mostly slow and pretty tough, but there's different types. There's nothing quite like being backed up to an elevator door, loading one shell into your shotgun before firing it because they've gotten so close...praying that the elevator gets there soon and that its not full of more of them! I had some tense rounds in that game.
I actually wanted to play the NPC, mainly because I always played a dedicated defenseman in CTF style games and enjoy working with a teammate. You can't take away the things that make being the NPC enjoyable and then expect that giving the client away for free will get them to play it. Just because a game is free, doesn't mean people are going to want to spend their time playing it when its not any fun.
They just need to design the levels and balance properly. Make so that if all the characters huddle up in one room, they leave several other vital entrances open. The trouble with this is it tosses regular singleplayer aside. I remember thinking it would be fun if the game thief had a multiplayer mode that had humans playing the guards. (There's actually a UT mod that does just that) But the trouble is, a human representing the AI guards in that game would never completely work. Those humans would expect there to be a thief around. And they would know what he was after. You'd have to change the gameplay to work with this. (For the record, I don't know if that mod was any fun...I couldn't find any populated servers when I tried it)
I'm going to have to assume that the games levels will be designed so that there isn't only one entrance to a vital area...thats been a hallmark of good DM maps for years now, there's no reason to abandone it.
And why shouldn't the players work together? They want to win and they have a common goal. Its makes a lot more sense then the standard moron AI most games have where they wait to fight you in order so that you don't get overwhelmed.
I would hope Apple has learned to be wary of any 'partnerships' that Microsoft may offer them. And given how they left all their partners in PlayforSure holding the bag, it looks like nothings really changed.
Dude, that predator guy doesn't have any money, at least not millions anyway. And even if the lawsuit was successful, he's going to be in prison for a long time. You can't garnish a guys wages when he makes 2cents an hour stamping license plates! Newscorp however, they have lots of money...coupled with the fact that most judges barely understand technology and could be potentially confused into thinking that 'the internets' is responsible...you've got a recipe for a fat cash settlement!
I mean, why else would you have children if you couldn't ignore them until they got themselves into a harmful situation and then seek to profit from your own inability to parent them properly?
I haven't read the article...but I'm hoping that the pro microsoft camp has better individuals at its desposal then the one quoted in the topic summary. What was that? A little bit of fud mixed with an irrelevant point (is appletalk even used anymore? And doesn't vista now require you to click through a ton of permissions crap to do anything as well?) followed by the "Its good because its more popular" arguement? I mean, I don't like Microsoft much but there's plenty of valid advantages that windows have...but that guy just falls back on the old personal attacks and half truths.
To me, a lot of Microsofts recent moves signal a bit of an identity crisis that often happen when companies get large. Basically, the different parts of the company start to compete with eachother because their core businesses start to overlap.
Microsofts OS dominance is driven at least in part by windows being the defacto computer gaming standard. But as they continue to try and erase the line between their console and the PC (by limiting the PC in some respects and offering more of PC gamings features on their console) they are weakening their OS market. Its no secret that the PC gaming market is shrinking, and I'd argue a lot of Microsofts success in the console market has been because they've siphoned off customers from the PC gaming segment. This weakens their core OS dominance, which is really the driver for the whole company.
Microsoft's recent moves at least acknowledge they see some of this happening, but their efforts to rectify it don't actually seem to get the point. Their recent "Games for Windows" initiative is an attempt to make PC gaming more appealing and easier, but what they're really doing is stripping it down so the PC Game business functions more like the console game business. Look at its features: Simplified system requirements, uniform interface, common development kits, support for the xbox live stuff (they are event hinting at allowing PC gamers and xbox360 players play together...provided PC players are handicapped somehow) and requirements for developers to certify their games. They're trying to push the PC gaming businesses into the same niche the consoles occupy...only the consoles do all that better and for cheaper.
They want to have their cake and eat it to here, but all they're going to do there is create two identical markets within the same company that compete with eachother. Look at it from a customers point of view. If my console plays all the games that I can get on the PC, has the same features (or more! see the semi exclusives of stuff like Doom3 co-op) and is cheaper, plus plays by all the same rules...why exactly am I going to buy a new PC with vista on it? I'll just keep my old Dell P4 2ghz to check out cheat codes and type papers and buy an xbox360. I think this is the reason the xbox will never get official mouse support...virtually all PC gamers would say why bother? But that may even be a forgone conclusion, as third parties already are making a KBM adapter for the 360. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft changed the next 360 revision to break those, quietly of course.
Whether they realize it or not, they are diluting the PC to get their console going...I have to ask if thats the best course of action long term? Maybe it is for profitability. Maybe the games segment on windows is something they'd rather not grow. Most of the money is in business software anyway.
Has directx10 been released for Vista? I was under the impression it had not yet, and was going to come later...which makes dx10 a pretty abstract concept. If they're dragging their feet on it, that would probably give OpenGL time to catch up with any features its currently lacking.
Vista adoption is anticipated to be the slowest of any version of windows released yet. Game makers will not be releasing DX10 only games any time soon, unless they want to assure their game fails in the market due only being available to the small piece of the pie. There will be DX9 tandem versions at the very least. We may even see developers moving back towards OpenGL...afterall, it works on XP and Vista and if you're developing for one API thats the one thats going to work for the most people these days. In the past it was direct3d...but that was because existing users could just download the latest version. Now they need to buy a new operating system.
I tend to believe carmack on this one. As one of, if not the, best game graphic programmers in our time I think he's qualified to make the judgement here. In short, he knows what he's talking about.
And the only people who have said definiatively that DX10 requires vista to function has been Microsoft. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they might have a bit of a bias.
There were a ton of innovative developers that didn't make a ton of money even back in the late 90s. Unfortunately, most of them got sucked right into oblivion after the dot com boom. I was certainly sad to see the likes of looking glass and bullfrog vanish. I've been bargain hunting games from that era these days since I've really lost interest with most of whats coming out these days.
I think calling mods to a game, free games, is a bit of a stretch. They're only free if you already own the original game. Hell, the main reason I bought half life 2 was anticipation of mods for it. And the ONLY reason I bought UT2004 was for mods. (Killing Floor sold that game for me) I'll still check the list out when I get home though.
. As Steve Balough, the president of Digital Content Protection, the licensing company for HDCP explains, the two pieces of hardware must exchange a key, a sort of certificate of authenticity unique to each individual device, to verify a secure connection.' The problem isn't limited to the PS3 -- many HDTV cable boxes and have the same problem. The fix there? Unplugging the power cable..."
The summary was cut off short. The last line should have read: "Unplugging the power cable, and component cables, boxing it up and returning the half working piece of shit to the store."
At least they might actually get around to offering it, instead of just advertising the nonexistent product like Verizon was doing. I have cable where I live, but most of the state can't even get that. I think they'll be happy to have any sort of broadband option, even if it costs more. Like I said, Verizon DSL could be $0 for all I care...and I can't even get it so it doesn't matter!
Nothing. Verizon wasn't rolling out shit. They keep advertising DSL, even though its barely available. "Its cheaper then cable" Great. It could be zero dollars for all I care, I can't get it, my parents can't get it, my wife's parents can't get it, my sister can't get it, etc, etc. I lived in the most populated area of Vermont up until last year, and I couldn't get DSL. I don't know this new company is, but they couldn't possibly do any crappier a job of rolling out DSL then Verizon was.
And fiber? Yeah right, they never even talked about that crap. That wasn't ever even brought up as a bullshit proposition.
At least the customer service couldn't possibly end up being any more incompetent and filled with endless department transfers.
I actually just started using VLC and am overall pretty happy with it. The only thing I don't like is some videos tend to temporarily get distorted when fast seeking through a video.
Yes, it was one of the main dynamics of the game. If a guard that was awake discovered the body of his fallen comrade, he'd sound full alarm and the guards would stalk the whole compound looking for you. So you had to tuck the bodies away. In fact, if you killed them with a sword a suspicious blood pool would be left behind that also would cause an alarm.
If a knockout went bad and the guard managed to yell for help before you took him down you were in a tough spot. You moved slow with the body and you needed to get out of there fast before the crew showed up to check things out. I remember hiding in a closet with a body slung over my shoulder hoping the guards would give up looking for me.
Interestingly, you can kill KOed guards by tossing them down deep dropoffs or throwing their body in a pool of water where they drown.
I'd imagine the small amount of disk space used on the servers is well worth the extra temptation it places on former addicts. Diskspace is cheap, I bet a one month backslide would cover the costs and then some.
Hell, I'd settle for every other video I download not requiring a codec I don't have and won't automatically download. And I'm on windows! I think that auto download codec thing for WMP has worked all of one time(s) for me.
Clearly this water stuff is a dangerous substance that needs to be controlled. I think it should only be available from behind the pharmacy counter, that way kids don't get ahold of it and drink themselves to death.
They live in the modern United States...not a prehistoric cave. Not only do the probably have a father, but they also probably have a life insurance payout.
Stupid people are actively protected from themselves in our society, and incidentally reproduce at will since society will prevent their cheeto-stained offspring from starving to death. As amusing as the darwin awards are, they're really the exception, not the rule.
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I've played zombie mod (and still do) but its horribly flawed for a number of reasons. First of all, its not a traditional zombie kind of game. The zombies are fast, virtually unkillable and are played by smart humans. The result is somewhat interesting, but it doesn't really follow the concept of a zombie infestation game. I don't think you can make a game where being the zombie is all that fun. I mean, it sucks being a slow stupid zombie. But thats what AI is for.
I encourage you to check out Killing Floor, a mod for UT2004. The game isn't perfect and its a bit of a chore to find and join a server, but it can be a hell of a lot of fun. Its the closest thing to what I was looking for in a zombie game. The zombies are mostly slow and pretty tough, but there's different types. There's nothing quite like being backed up to an elevator door, loading one shell into your shotgun before firing it because they've gotten so close...praying that the elevator gets there soon and that its not full of more of them! I had some tense rounds in that game.
I actually wanted to play the NPC, mainly because I always played a dedicated defenseman in CTF style games and enjoy working with a teammate. You can't take away the things that make being the NPC enjoyable and then expect that giving the client away for free will get them to play it. Just because a game is free, doesn't mean people are going to want to spend their time playing it when its not any fun.
They just need to design the levels and balance properly. Make so that if all the characters huddle up in one room, they leave several other vital entrances open. The trouble with this is it tosses regular singleplayer aside. I remember thinking it would be fun if the game thief had a multiplayer mode that had humans playing the guards. (There's actually a UT mod that does just that) But the trouble is, a human representing the AI guards in that game would never completely work. Those humans would expect there to be a thief around. And they would know what he was after. You'd have to change the gameplay to work with this. (For the record, I don't know if that mod was any fun...I couldn't find any populated servers when I tried it)
I'm going to have to assume that the games levels will be designed so that there isn't only one entrance to a vital area...thats been a hallmark of good DM maps for years now, there's no reason to abandone it.
And why shouldn't the players work together? They want to win and they have a common goal. Its makes a lot more sense then the standard moron AI most games have where they wait to fight you in order so that you don't get overwhelmed.
I would hope Apple has learned to be wary of any 'partnerships' that Microsoft may offer them. And given how they left all their partners in PlayforSure holding the bag, it looks like nothings really changed.
Dude, that predator guy doesn't have any money, at least not millions anyway. And even if the lawsuit was successful, he's going to be in prison for a long time. You can't garnish a guys wages when he makes 2cents an hour stamping license plates! Newscorp however, they have lots of money...coupled with the fact that most judges barely understand technology and could be potentially confused into thinking that 'the internets' is responsible...you've got a recipe for a fat cash settlement!
I mean, why else would you have children if you couldn't ignore them until they got themselves into a harmful situation and then seek to profit from your own inability to parent them properly?
I haven't read the article...but I'm hoping that the pro microsoft camp has better individuals at its desposal then the one quoted in the topic summary. What was that? A little bit of fud mixed with an irrelevant point (is appletalk even used anymore? And doesn't vista now require you to click through a ton of permissions crap to do anything as well?) followed by the "Its good because its more popular" arguement? I mean, I don't like Microsoft much but there's plenty of valid advantages that windows have...but that guy just falls back on the old personal attacks and half truths.
To me, a lot of Microsofts recent moves signal a bit of an identity crisis that often happen when companies get large. Basically, the different parts of the company start to compete with eachother because their core businesses start to overlap.
Microsofts OS dominance is driven at least in part by windows being the defacto computer gaming standard. But as they continue to try and erase the line between their console and the PC (by limiting the PC in some respects and offering more of PC gamings features on their console) they are weakening their OS market. Its no secret that the PC gaming market is shrinking, and I'd argue a lot of Microsofts success in the console market has been because they've siphoned off customers from the PC gaming segment. This weakens their core OS dominance, which is really the driver for the whole company.
Microsoft's recent moves at least acknowledge they see some of this happening, but their efforts to rectify it don't actually seem to get the point. Their recent "Games for Windows" initiative is an attempt to make PC gaming more appealing and easier, but what they're really doing is stripping it down so the PC Game business functions more like the console game business. Look at its features: Simplified system requirements, uniform interface, common development kits, support for the xbox live stuff (they are event hinting at allowing PC gamers and xbox360 players play together...provided PC players are handicapped somehow) and requirements for developers to certify their games. They're trying to push the PC gaming businesses into the same niche the consoles occupy...only the consoles do all that better and for cheaper.
They want to have their cake and eat it to here, but all they're going to do there is create two identical markets within the same company that compete with eachother. Look at it from a customers point of view. If my console plays all the games that I can get on the PC, has the same features (or more! see the semi exclusives of stuff like Doom3 co-op) and is cheaper, plus plays by all the same rules...why exactly am I going to buy a new PC with vista on it? I'll just keep my old Dell P4 2ghz to check out cheat codes and type papers and buy an xbox360. I think this is the reason the xbox will never get official mouse support...virtually all PC gamers would say why bother? But that may even be a forgone conclusion, as third parties already are making a KBM adapter for the 360. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft changed the next 360 revision to break those, quietly of course.
Whether they realize it or not, they are diluting the PC to get their console going...I have to ask if thats the best course of action long term? Maybe it is for profitability. Maybe the games segment on windows is something they'd rather not grow. Most of the money is in business software anyway.
Has directx10 been released for Vista? I was under the impression it had not yet, and was going to come later...which makes dx10 a pretty abstract concept. If they're dragging their feet on it, that would probably give OpenGL time to catch up with any features its currently lacking.
Vista adoption is anticipated to be the slowest of any version of windows released yet. Game makers will not be releasing DX10 only games any time soon, unless they want to assure their game fails in the market due only being available to the small piece of the pie. There will be DX9 tandem versions at the very least. We may even see developers moving back towards OpenGL...afterall, it works on XP and Vista and if you're developing for one API thats the one thats going to work for the most people these days. In the past it was direct3d...but that was because existing users could just download the latest version. Now they need to buy a new operating system.
I tend to believe carmack on this one. As one of, if not the, best game graphic programmers in our time I think he's qualified to make the judgement here. In short, he knows what he's talking about.
And the only people who have said definiatively that DX10 requires vista to function has been Microsoft. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they might have a bit of a bias.
There were a ton of innovative developers that didn't make a ton of money even back in the late 90s. Unfortunately, most of them got sucked right into oblivion after the dot com boom. I was certainly sad to see the likes of looking glass and bullfrog vanish. I've been bargain hunting games from that era these days since I've really lost interest with most of whats coming out these days.
I enjoyed ET (Not as much as RtCW multiplayer itself) but its getting a bit long in the tooth these days.
I think calling mods to a game, free games, is a bit of a stretch. They're only free if you already own the original game. Hell, the main reason I bought half life 2 was anticipation of mods for it. And the ONLY reason I bought UT2004 was for mods. (Killing Floor sold that game for me) I'll still check the list out when I get home though.
. As Steve Balough, the president of Digital Content Protection, the licensing company for HDCP explains, the two pieces of hardware must exchange a key, a sort of certificate of authenticity unique to each individual device, to verify a secure connection.' The problem isn't limited to the PS3 -- many HDTV cable boxes and have the same problem. The fix there? Unplugging the power cable..." The summary was cut off short. The last line should have read: "Unplugging the power cable, and component cables, boxing it up and returning the half working piece of shit to the store."
At least they might actually get around to offering it, instead of just advertising the nonexistent product like Verizon was doing. I have cable where I live, but most of the state can't even get that. I think they'll be happy to have any sort of broadband option, even if it costs more. Like I said, Verizon DSL could be $0 for all I care...and I can't even get it so it doesn't matter!
Well, for the love of god...the first computer programmer was woman. What more do they want!
Nope. That was in the dark project.
Nothing. Verizon wasn't rolling out shit. They keep advertising DSL, even though its barely available. "Its cheaper then cable" Great. It could be zero dollars for all I care, I can't get it, my parents can't get it, my wife's parents can't get it, my sister can't get it, etc, etc. I lived in the most populated area of Vermont up until last year, and I couldn't get DSL. I don't know this new company is, but they couldn't possibly do any crappier a job of rolling out DSL then Verizon was.
And fiber? Yeah right, they never even talked about that crap. That wasn't ever even brought up as a bullshit proposition.
At least the customer service couldn't possibly end up being any more incompetent and filled with endless department transfers.
I actually just started using VLC and am overall pretty happy with it. The only thing I don't like is some videos tend to temporarily get distorted when fast seeking through a video.
Yes, it was one of the main dynamics of the game. If a guard that was awake discovered the body of his fallen comrade, he'd sound full alarm and the guards would stalk the whole compound looking for you. So you had to tuck the bodies away. In fact, if you killed them with a sword a suspicious blood pool would be left behind that also would cause an alarm.
If a knockout went bad and the guard managed to yell for help before you took him down you were in a tough spot. You moved slow with the body and you needed to get out of there fast before the crew showed up to check things out. I remember hiding in a closet with a body slung over my shoulder hoping the guards would give up looking for me.
Interestingly, you can kill KOed guards by tossing them down deep dropoffs or throwing their body in a pool of water where they drown.
I'd imagine the small amount of disk space used on the servers is well worth the extra temptation it places on former addicts. Diskspace is cheap, I bet a one month backslide would cover the costs and then some.
Wait, wait, wait...Are you trying to tell me the Woz built Steve Jobs out of used pinball machine parts and apple prototype circuit boards?
Hell, I'd settle for every other video I download not requiring a codec I don't have and won't automatically download. And I'm on windows! I think that auto download codec thing for WMP has worked all of one time(s) for me.
Clearly this water stuff is a dangerous substance that needs to be controlled. I think it should only be available from behind the pharmacy counter, that way kids don't get ahold of it and drink themselves to death.
They live in the modern United States...not a prehistoric cave. Not only do the probably have a father, but they also probably have a life insurance payout.
Stupid people are actively protected from themselves in our society, and incidentally reproduce at will since society will prevent their cheeto-stained offspring from starving to death. As amusing as the darwin awards are, they're really the exception, not the rule.