Quake wars
Whenever I played Quake wars I used to observe this weird slow down. Then if I start QW without rebooting the computer, it was impossible to play the game. So I finally joined #quakewars on IRC and posted the question. The slowdown is related to NV drivers try to accelerate both the displays. You can fix it by following these instructions : http://community.enemyterritory.com/forums/showpost.php?p=128460&postcount=5
Even though I use UE3 on a regular basis I’ve never observed any of these problems. Makes me wonder if this could OGL + NV specific problem
EA’s inexistent but pathetic support
So they made Battlefield 2. No single player only multiplayer. Also if you do not have an internet connection, too bad you’ve just been fked. Just to launch the menu screen one has to login to EA servers. I’ve always been irritated by this “feature” of theirs.
Today it got worse. I cannot even play the game that I BOUGHT because THEIR fking servers are down. What kind of nonsense is this? If they made this “feature” to ward off the so called pirates, how come they are negligent with their maintanence? It’s a MULTIPLAYER ONLY GAME! How difficult is it to understand the responsibility that they have when they assumed the authority? The login server always took ages to authenticate, now it’s dead. Did it not tell EA that something was broken? Oh let me think… EA by definition has bad support eh.
9Dragons – nice game
So… even I joined the bandwagon of MMORPGs. http://9dragons.acclaim.com/
I shunned Secondlife – too crowded and not my style. I thought about WoW, but then I heard of Blizzard musceling some guy trying to sell his “guide to WoW”. That was not the primary reason I did not like WoW though. When I looked @ the game I observed that it was yet another LOTR based game. I got bored of it. Though I love WC3 TFT from Blizzard (and the DotA custom game) I somehow could not imagine myself going through those long hours of boring travel. I see my colleagues spend their lunch time travelling on these birds/beasts. I am not saying WoW is bad game, I am just saying its not to my liking.
Enter Acclaim:
Then I read an article on www.gamasutra.com about Acclaim and their experiments. I came across three of their MMORPGs – Bots, 2Moons, 9Dragons. I loved the concept of 9Dragons. RPG with martial arts (rather than LOTR inspired characters). I cannot say that the game is without bugs. I cannot even say its easy to start off. It definitely needs to be refined but it has a lot of potential. The best thing is that you can get help from the forums.
You can try it out for free (its open beta right now). http://9dragons.acclaim.com/
Wii
I think PS3 and Xbox 360 to a lesser extent, have more things to worry about than just pricing of their console. The very fact that Wii will come out @ a price much lower than theirs is enough danger. However since these consoles are too "powerful" and have quite a sizeable disc capacity, developers might get into the mood to fill up the disc to brim with content. That could mean gamedev costs could go up. Which would translate to costlier games. That is sure a turn-off for some of us. However with Wii being a less powerful machine and games costing less it could mean that gamers might turn towards the Wii.
Blizzard is going too far
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146692.html
This is the most outrageous things that Blizzard did till date. Its simple they want more money.
In short, they have taken down a guy's eBay account because he was selling World of Warcraft user guides on eBay citing DMCA of all the things. Their reason – copyright infringement. That is stupid. Is this guy causing any monetary losses to Blizzard? Using screenshots – what's wrong with that? Why dont they go after those IGN and other game sites that use their screenshots?
So if I have to write a book on say improving nVIDIA's graphics architecture, should I get explicit permission from them? If I have to compare nVIDIA's graphics to ATI's graphics, should I get explicit permission from the two of these companies? I bet one of them is going to say no for simple reasons. One of them would win when I write an article/book. I would like one and hate the other. So does that mean I can NEVER write a book/article?
Its so lame… Blizzard better get your act right. I am one of the biggest fans of your games. I would have to consider buying any game by you again if this is how you treat gamers and game lovers. Better back off. I just bought a WC3 battlechest and I can easily do a Tauren stomp on the CD.
NDS @last
Ok so I bought Nintendo DS (second hand) + 6 NDS games + 2 GBA games + extra battery pack for uber cheap 100 USD. Well that is not so fascinating for me now.
What is? Its the person who sold me the NDS. His name is Angeles a Mexican -American. He is a sanyasi who can speak/read sanskrit. He is not a Hindu mind you. He has given up most of the earthly pleasures, calls himself a cyber sanyasi. He could not give up one earthly pleasure… gaming. I felt very nice once I met him. He does meditation&& yoga. He lives around 2hrs away from Seoul. He is known as Dada Vijay or Acharya Vijay. Anyone in Seoul just meet him. He is a good person. I could feel it.
So he sold me the NDS because he got himself a PSP. I am happy to have got the NDS, but am more happy that I met him in the first place.
Does experience count?
I have one example. This happend here just a few minutes back.
So here I am staring @ some texture that is being rendered onto the screen. The problem though is that there are these thin lines (black) being drawn on the extreme edges of the screen. I tried a little here and there and then finally though that the UVs are being wrapped/tiled. The texture is half transparent and half opaque black.
Then walks in Jack Porter. Looks @ it, stares a little and then says something to me and he goes off to try his theory. Theory I said eh… it was the solution. Apparently he came across this problem once earlier. He changes the texture draw type to clamped and lo behold it works.
Guess what… experience matters. A lot more than we can imagine. What I can do in 1 hr he does in 1 minute.
Excellent game
Ok this one is from Monolith (makers of AvP2, NOFL). Could you guess or are you …
afraid to guess – F.E.A.R
I love the horror that the game has. I just played the demo and I am already impressed. First salary, I am getting this game.
New Video Game Genre
I think they should shift their focus to … spammers.
Hitman – Silent Spammer Assasin :
This summer, Hitman gets spammed too much. He garners all of his resources in the Agency and goes after these spammers. With over 47 levels, spanning over all the continents (excluding Australia) our man, the Hitman goes after the one menace that has been tormenting everyone in the world, thus he will be the ultimate protector and the saviour of the world.
Warning: Sexual content (including viagra ads, penis elongation), violence (when the spammers die, they kill all the zombie PCs). Not suitable for people below 25 yrs of age.
