metadigital

I don't know how, but just going to the http://www.blackmesasource.com/ webpage and listening to the Flash presentation, made me want to play Half-Life again. I think they really cracked one of the best soundtracks for a game, ever.

John Carmack on the future of the gaming industry, during his traditional extemporaneous speech, at the recent Quakecon 2005. Carmack, Quakecon 2005 ... Here Carmack heaped praise on the decisions that Microsoft has made with the Xbox 360. "It's the best development environment I've seen on a console," he says. Microsoft has taken a very developer-centric approach, creating a system that's both powerful but easy to code for. This is in contrast to Nintendo, Sony, and (formerly) Sega, who generally focused on the hardware. Carmack ruminated on how throughout history consoles have swung back and forth between providing high-end hardware or development tools. Until the PS1 came out, nearly everything was done at the register level, but Sony's first console shipped with tools to help speed the development process. This was in opposition to the Sega Saturn, which was very powerful but nearly impossible to efficiently code for. Then, with the release of the PS2, Sony flip-flopped: the PS2 had much more complicated hardware and you basically had to program it at the low level again. Then along came the Xbox, which didn't have low-level access but was way easier to program. Carmack looks forward to what's coming up. "It'll be real interesting to see how this next generation pans out," he said. This time around, the Xbox 360 is coming out sooner and is easier to program; will it be enough to supplant Sony's market lead? ... Sony's position seems to be similar to the company's stance with the PS2: Sure, it'll be hard, but the really good developers will suck it up and figure it out. But Carmack wonders aloud: wouldn't it have been better to use multi-threaded processors to begin with? ... Multiple Processors for AI or Physics Proponents of faster and faster processors sometimes argue that now that graphics are reaching their 'peak,' extra processing power can be dedicated to calculation-intensive physics or Artificial Intelligence. (Carmack relates how an Engineer at IBM told him that graphics were basically "done.") Carmack disagrees, seeing that graphics still have a long way to go. "We'd like to be doing Lord-of-the-Rings type rendering in real-time," he states. That's still an order of magnitude more than what's possible with current machines, and Carmack is looking forward to it. That aside, Carmack spent a few minutes talking about Artificial Intelligence as something that can be offloaded to another processor for a cutting-edge game. Carmack is skeptical. AI is a very bleeding-edge science, and it can often be processor intensive, but when applied to games AI is usually a matter of scripting. What game designers want is a way to act as the 'director,' telling enemy and friendly characters where to stand and what to do. This doesn't take a ton of processing power. Moreover, even if you did throw tons of resources toward the AI, it might not be the best thing for gameplay. For instance, writing tons and tons of code to enable monsters to hide in the shadows and sneak around behind the player would be interesting, but often these types of things could be scripted for a fraction of the effort and - for most players - the experience would be just as cool if not cooler. Carmack recounts how players of the original DOOM would think that the monsters were doing all sorts of scheming and plotting and ambushing when, in truth, they were just using the equivalent of one page of C code and running the most basic of scripts. ... Open vs. Closed Console Platforms Carmack's talk changed gears at this point, starting with an aside about Sony. Although he raves about the Xbox 360 development tools, Carmack noted that Sony is making noise about making the PS3 a more open platform. As a big proponent of open source and - well, open anything - the programmer is excited to see if this goes anywhere. His biggest pet peeve with the console market is how closed off it is: you have to apply to be a developer and get a special development kit and get product approval from the hardware manufacturer, etc. (As opposed to the PC market, where anyone can develop and game creators can release content updates, point releases, and so on.) That's just the nature of the market. If the PS3 opens up, it'll be more like the old Commodore Amiga, a platform anyone can use for a variety of applications. Certainly Microsoft will never do this with the Xbox product line, but Carmack is holding out hope that Sony could experiment. Following that train of thought, Carmack asked how many people in the room had HDTVs at home. (I was surprised at how few people raised their hands - from where I sat it looked like less than a quarter of the audience. And these guys are hardcore!) Carmack pointed out that any sort of plan for using a console or set-top box as a computing device really requires the high resolution of an HDTV or computer monitor to be effective. Bringing the topic around full circle, he pointed out that Microsoft may enact a policy of requiring all Xbox 360 games to be rendered at HDTV resolutions, regardless of whether or not that decision helps with the design of the game. He says that some marketing person probably made that decision, another thing that bothers him about the console industry. ... Open Source, Modding, and Innovation Carmack is aware of the difficulties for new programmers who want to get into the business: it's a long way from staring at a blank page in a compiler to having Doom 3. What can be done? Over the past several years Carmack has done his part by releasing the source codes to his previous game engines. Which led up to a big announcement: Sometime over the next week or so, the Quake 3 source engine will be released under the GPL license. Since Q3 is still a viable development platform, the community should learn a lot from tearing into it. Carmack notes that the Punkbuster code has been removed so he hopes that cheating won't be a huge problem. Carmack thinks that innovation in the game industry, since it won't often come from large professional development houses, will likely come from the modification or open source communities. There, people can try random ideas to see what works. Example? Counter-Strike, one of the most popular games played online today, which started out as a handful of mod-makers trying to make something fun. The GPL license will allow people to take the Quake 3 engine and even go so far as to release a commercial product with it - provided that the source code is published alongside. Nobody has done this with any of the Quake engine games yet, but he hopes to see it happen someday. As an aside, he noted that most companies are too secretive with their source code. "It's not about the magic in the source code," he says, it's about the tons of little decisions coders make along the way to producing a finished game. It's all in the execution. ... When asked about the differences in platforms, Carmack noted that there's less of a distinction between developing for the next-gen consoles as there is for this generation. The difference between the Xbox and the PS2 was massive, but going back and forth between the Xbox 360 and the PS3 looks to be less of a problem. (Although still difficult.) ... So, Sony's PS3 might end up being an open platform, much like the PC, or Apple ][. Microsoft will never loosen the reins on the 360, so it will continue to be a closed shop; that's only going to hurt the digidiversity of the universe.

John Carmack on the future of the gaming industry, during his traditional extemporaneous speech, at the recent Quakecon 2005. Carmack, Quakecon 2005 ... Here Carmack heaped praise on the decisions that Microsoft has made with the Xbox 360. "It's the best development environment I've seen on a console," he says. Microsoft has taken a very developer-centric approach, creating a system that's both powerful but easy to code for. This is in contrast to Nintendo, Sony, and (formerly) Sega, who generally focused on the hardware. Carmack ruminated on how throughout history consoles have swung back and forth between providing high-end hardware or development tools. Until the PS1 came out, nearly everything was done at the register level, but Sony's first console shipped with tools to help speed the development process. This was in opposition to the Sega Saturn, which was very powerful but nearly impossible to efficiently code for. Then, with the release of the PS2, Sony flip-flopped: the PS2 had much more complicated hardware and you basically had to program it at the low level again. Then along came the Xbox, which didn't have low-level access but was way easier to program. Carmack looks forward to what's coming up. "It'll be real interesting to see how this next generation pans out," he said. This time around, the Xbox 360 is coming out sooner and is easier to program; will it be enough to supplant Sony's market lead? ... Sony's position seems to be similar to the company's stance with the PS2: Sure, it'll be hard, but the really good developers will suck it up and figure it out. But Carmack wonders aloud: wouldn't it have been better to use multi-threaded processors to begin with? ... Multiple Processors for AI or Physics Proponents of faster and faster processors sometimes argue that now that graphics are reaching their 'peak,' extra processing power can be dedicated to calculation-intensive physics or Artificial Intelligence. (Carmack relates how an Engineer at IBM told him that graphics were basically "done.") Carmack disagrees, seeing that graphics still have a long way to go. "We'd like to be doing Lord-of-the-Rings type rendering in real-time," he states. That's still an order of magnitude more than what's possible with current machines, and Carmack is looking forward to it. That aside, Carmack spent a few minutes talking about Artificial Intelligence as something that can be offloaded to another processor for a cutting-edge game. Carmack is skeptical. AI is a very bleeding-edge science, and it can often be processor intensive, but when applied to games AI is usually a matter of scripting. What game designers want is a way to act as the 'director,' telling enemy and friendly characters where to stand and what to do. This doesn't take a ton of processing power. Moreover, even if you did throw tons of resources toward the AI, it might not be the best thing for gameplay. For instance, writing tons and tons of code to enable monsters to hide in the shadows and sneak around behind the player would be interesting, but often these types of things could be scripted for a fraction of the effort and - for most players - the experience would be just as cool if not cooler. Carmack recounts how players of the original DOOM would think that the monsters were doing all sorts of scheming and plotting and ambushing when, in truth, they were just using the equivalent of one page of C code and running the most basic of scripts. ... Open vs. Closed Console Platforms Carmack's talk changed gears at this point, starting with an aside about Sony. Although he raves about the Xbox 360 development tools, Carmack noted that Sony is making noise about making the PS3 a more open platform. As a big proponent of open source and - well, open anything - the programmer is excited to see if this goes anywhere. His biggest pet peeve with the console market is how closed off it is: you have to apply to be a developer and get a special development kit and get product approval from the hardware manufacturer, etc. (As opposed to the PC market, where anyone can develop and game creators can release content updates, point releases, and so on.) That's just the nature of the market. If the PS3 opens up, it'll be more like the old Commodore Amiga, a platform anyone can use for a variety of applications. Certainly Microsoft will never do this with the Xbox product line, but Carmack is holding out hope that Sony could experiment. Following that train of thought, Carmack asked how many people in the room had HDTVs at home. (I was surprised at how few people raised their hands - from where I sat it looked like less than a quarter of the audience. And these guys are hardcore!) Carmack pointed out that any sort of plan for using a console or set-top box as a computing device really requires the high resolution of an HDTV or computer monitor to be effective. Bringing the topic around full circle, he pointed out that Microsoft may enact a policy of requiring all Xbox 360 games to be rendered at HDTV resolutions, regardless of whether or not that decision helps with the design of the game. He says that some marketing person probably made that decision, another thing that bothers him about the console industry. ... Open Source, Modding, and Innovation Carmack is aware of the difficulties for new programmers who want to get into the business: it's a long way from staring at a blank page in a compiler to having Doom 3. What can be done? Over the past several years Carmack has done his part by releasing the source codes to his previous game engines. Which led up to a big announcement: Sometime over the next week or so, the Quake 3 source engine will be released under the GPL license. Since Q3 is still a viable development platform, the community should learn a lot from tearing into it. Carmack notes that the Punkbuster code has been removed so he hopes that cheating won't be a huge problem. Carmack thinks that innovation in the game industry, since it won't often come from large professional development houses, will likely come from the modification or open source communities. There, people can try random ideas to see what works. Example? Counter-Strike, one of the most popular games played online today, which started out as a handful of mod-makers trying to make something fun. The GPL license will allow people to take the Quake 3 engine and even go so far as to release a commercial product with it - provided that the source code is published alongside. Nobody has done this with any of the Quake engine games yet, but he hopes to see it happen someday. As an aside, he noted that most companies are too secretive with their source code. "It's not about the magic in the source code," he says, it's about the tons of little decisions coders make along the way to producing a finished game. It's all in the execution. ... When asked about the differences in platforms, Carmack noted that there's less of a distinction between developing for the next-gen consoles as there is for this generation. The difference between the Xbox and the PS2 was massive, but going back and forth between the Xbox 360 and the PS3 looks to be less of a problem. (Although still difficult.) ... I have highlighted the relelvant quote which helps explain why the PC platform, for gaming, isn't going anywhere.

I've got Zone Alarm. I've tried a whole bunch of things and for whatever reason that one server won't work. I could understand if I couldn't use mIRC at all, but other servers work, just not the irc.psionic.net one. If I can figure out what's wrong and fix it, I'll play next week. But as it stands it looks like I'm out. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I tossed ZoneAlarm out for reasons similar to what you are experiencing; I found it worked like a charm most of the time, but the config was quite arcane, and I found Norton to be much better. Try turning it off to access the channel. If you succeed, then you have identified the problem is with the firewall. Turn it back on (!!) and then try to configure it to allow unmolestered access.

Well, considering how far behind the eightball Valve got with the whole development cycle, I don't see it being such a crime; after all, there is a very healthy mod scene (that Valve have always actively encouraged) who would be more than pleased to re-tool and re-engineer everything, anyway. http://www.steampowered.com/Steam/Marketin...05/img/RDKF.jpg Don't press this button

Exactly. It would probably look like this ...

... the ultimate anti-hero, a tragic shadow from the netherworld that haunts these boards for long-forgoten crimes and inscrutable punishments ...

http://rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=6137 Indie RPGs: http://rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2848

Ws there much squealing ...? (Poor Baley ...)

Three of these things are just like the others, three of these are kinda the same ... One of these things is not like the others, one of these things isn't the same ... Now it's time to play our game ... Time to play our game!

Sounds like he had cursed chainmail of -5 Intelligence ...

D

Is it happenning with other games? Does Half-Life 2 work for a while, then implode? Sounds like your system might be overheating, too.

The savegame editor has them all listed, iirc.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I think it was Darth Frog that was role playing a hand-to-hand combat specialist PC ...

You just want lots of Force Sensitives! You're a Force-Sensitive sympathiser! You may laugh now, but you'll be amongst the first against the wall when Kreia's Anti-Force Force chimp ninjas attack ...

Bingo! There's your problem. Wow, all you needed was a little self-esteem, and Bob's your uncle ...

Anakin, If you are using Windows XP (Service Pack 2), are you using the built-in firewall? If so, check the config out like this: In the Control Panel, there will be Windows Firewall. Open it. Now, check that it is on. If it is not on, then you may have a third party software firewall (e.g. Norton Internet Security 2005, or ZoneAlarm, etc), or even a built-in hardware firewall in your broadband router. Third party software firewalls are configured similarly, but you'd have to refer to their own documentation for ballon help. If you are using the Windows Firewall, then check that Exceptions are selected to be allowed. (This allows some, named applications to cross your firewall. If you want to take a risk, you can just !TEMPORARILY! switch off the firewall and see if you can connect to the mIRC channel 6667. NB: Make sure you turn the firewall back on. Make sure you do not leave you PC unguarded; it is estimated that it takes less than four minutes (the total time for a clean install of WinXP to run the updater of the Microsoft website) to infect your Windows PC. A safer option is to check out the exceptions that are listed. Click on "Exceptions": If you don't see mIRC in the list, then add it: You may also just add the port (6667 is what mIRC uses):

Apparently my searching skills have diminished. Maybe my search skill is directly related to my poor charisma skill. <_< <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Maybe if your searching skills were better, you might be able to find your charisma ... "

I bet the robot was taking the resistors out of the recharger-intake, too. Suping-up the 240V (oh, was it US voltage? 110 volt, then) supply ... maybe even hooking directly into the three-phase grid system ...

Mark II ... These were people just as hardcore, in their way, as I was

Arithmatic isn't your strong suit, is it Calax?

That was the sign-off of the Ottoman Caliph, followed by yours truly OOC, promising to be a good competitor in the upcoming games ...