General Chat

bob's option is pretty much to get something decent finished by himself, and use that the seed interest in other project with people (either to invest time or money)

and anyway, you can get vc7 standard for $180....

wow, that was really insightful. I alwaysa sked the question "why don't you start your own studio" and now i know. On ya Barry.

quote:Originally posted by davidcoen

and anyway, you can get vc7 standard for $180....

Oh, I guess I'm a a little misinformed there huh? Anyway the post helped me think through all those issues in my head and sort them out, was an interesting exercise.

Bob's sounds awfully familiar to alot of people i talk to Bazza,

And its not something id like to repeat here but i will, to be blunt and honest, a brilliant coder whose name shall remain (*&@$&%*&^ for the time being, has worked in the australian dev scene for 12 years now, been an active hand in starting one of australia's biggest dev teams.

He spoke to me the other day and told me that NO dev team without former "INDUSTRY" knowledge, has ever succeeded in all of his 12 years he has never seen not even a single startup take a project, land a deal, and spit the game out the other end.

He doesnt put this down to lack of dedication, lack of talent, even lack of resources, but simply a lack of experience. THe experience of how to deal with the torrential rush of problems that occur when trying to get payment for your milestone deadline which is fast approaching.

Sure money is going to come into mostly - try telling your team members they are going to have to work 18-20 hour days for the next 4 weeks withuot paying them. and see how long their enthusiasm lasts.

In one way speaking to (*&^(*&)(& made me go " shit, is it really that bad " , in another way it made me go " Bah! ill be the FIRST!!!, i can do anything!! "

At the end of the conversation however he did say to me the reason why he has seen no Inexperienced startup company suceed, is simply because when times get tough - people give up.

Thats where experience and industry knowledge helps out alot. ( or so ive been told )

To conclude, 5 out of 5 bigwigs ive spoken to regarding our industry have all told me - to get a job inside one of the bigger dev teams - gets some exeprience so you can see what its really like to work and finish a project, and then come back in a couple of years and try start something of your own. - whether this was because they fear your awesome competetion or not, eludes me at this point, but i highly doubt thats the reason [;)]

I think the another big problem with the lots of work no pay teams, is management. When working for free you want to work on something you like, its all well and good to work on things you don?t like when someone is paying you to do so but when there is no money you need to be interested in what you are doing.

This makes for a problem, every person in the team will want to work on what they are interested in game wise, they are all contributing their time so they will all want a say. The problem is that this kind of equal work equal voice democratic process never seems to work. There is too much chaos, nothing gets done so a benevolent dictator is needed, someone who has the final say on things. Problem is once creative control has been taken away from you and you decide you don?t like the direction the project is going it is very easy to give up on it, after all its not ?your? project anymore.

Another big issue is skill level. Unless you are making a startup because it is your dream to do so you will encounter this problem. If you decided to get a team together because you could not get work elsewhere and members of your team have joined for the same reason, you risk loosing them to offers of paid work. The more skilled they are the greater the chance of them getting work. This kind of thing means you are forever loosing your most skilled people, and in the end your product will be created by those who are left, this does not bode well.

What it comes down to is like most other businesses, you have to want to start the business, its not something you do while waiting for something else to come along. To start a business you need capital, its just the way it is. If these things are in place you can offer people positions knowing full well what they can expect in return.

Pantmonger

Oh yeah there are definately alot of issues facing Bob, haha, I purposely avoided management and personel type issues in that discussion but they are not something to be forgotten.

It is possible to get something off the ground with a group of, say, 3 key people and no money. But lets face it, its damn near impossible.

The problem is you have to know how hard development is, and how you are going to pick your battles so that you will come out the other side with a good demo, or better yet, something you can sell.

These decisions are almost impossible to make without decent experience (either within the industry, or through failed mods or other projects).

The other problem is commited people. If team is not committed (to quality work, to the project, to its long term goals, to its short term goals), you are doomed. It is that simple.

It is bleak. But there are options open to small development teams. You may want to work on XBOX2 and PS3, but if you (AND YOUR TEAM) can choke down some humble pie, there are opportunities out there.

Good luck.

I don't want to sound too negative here but I don't see a bright future at all for small start-ups considering the way the industry appears to be headed.
Even outstanding demos rarely cut it anymore and how many start-ups can afford to finish a game before proposing it to a publisher?
Give me one reason why a publisher would take a huge financial gamble on an unknown over a studio with a proven track record... you can't say because of originality and a fresh approach because that doesn't count for anything anymore. No licence or franchise generally means no game.

It's not just about publishers. In fact, as time goes on, its becoming les and less about publishers (unless of course they change their approach).

i highly recommend everyone read article. It is by no means definitive, but it certainly is a good place to start.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/passfieldgames/1773.html

cheers

Hey there :) I dont think we have ever meet, so.err...hi :)
Had a look at your website, very impressive :D

Hey Wes, good to see you on. It's good to see sumea attracting more and more of the professional and higher profile audiences.

Dug around and found the movies which I enjoyed a lot - quite inspirational, both technically and artistically [:)]

I've seen the gravity boots one on TV, very nice :)

Hey there Wes - Nice portfolioi man, really nice presentation / interface [:D]
I havent spoken to you before either but good to have you aboard !! [:)]

Hey everybody :) I forgot when I last posted here. Maybe earlier in 2003 when my game got cancelled and souri posted something about it. For any of those that don't want to browse through my site(which hasn't been updated with art for a while), go here for the Ratchet and Clank movies:

http://www.weslouie.com/news.html

Thanks for the warm re-welcome and I will talk to you all soon!

-Wes

hahhahahahahahah. My word that was funny, but who'd come up with that, how could you be so bored you would write pacman sex stories.

that is just scary...

Dude...

how do you stumble across things like that on the net ? you sure you werent on the hunt for some PAC-Goodness fluffy catfood ?? [:P]

LOL I didnt actually stumble across it,someone posted the link at badmovies.org bulletin board, I just couldnt let it go without sharing it with you guys :)

Isnt it funny that they have to come up with a new word for it.. I wonder why social engineering isnt used.. Probably because its not so "Buzzworthy"..

If you want some good info on the techniques in general - try searches for social engineering. Specifically I would look at old Phrack issues. [url]http://www.phrack.org/[/url]

Or you could lookup all the spam ppls.. they use lots of the same techniques to harvest email addresses.

A.

Well if you send me your credit card details... ;->

Umm.

There should be a fair bit of news on how ANZ, Commonwealth etc bank scams were done around on the web.

Google is your friend here! :)

ive actually got all the info i need, just wanted some general thoughts from people...extra stuff to impress tutorial teachers...[:D]

baha...i dont even have a credit card!...[;)]

This was on Slashdot yesterday:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/10/0156200

Maybe you could rig up a demo using one of the techniques described?

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-Phishing!!

haha

*chuckle* Looks like someone I know is going for a bit of FUD while he can! :P) - hope it works! OTPs rule.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39148259,00.htm

Actually found the bit torrent downloader kinda annoying myself :/

Very beautiful material though [:)]

J.I.Styles: Try using TorrentStorm to download torrents instead of the default Bittorrent client, I've found it much better.
www.torrentstorm.com I think...

"This is meant as a test of the Bittorrent distribution method."

Bittorrent means less stress on their server, which means more content! And it also means you can possibly get speeds greater than the server itself is capable of! Yay bittorrent!

And they are using a specialised client, you can't use your own.

When you see servers with Anime Fansubs that use BT, you realise why it is gaining popularity. You can have a 200mb file stored on 2xT1 servers, but with everyone sharing, everyone can download with a few terabytes of bandwidth left over. That is as long as people do it fairly and don't throttle their uploading limits.

would any of those happen to be the silver box with the "how to make your own stuff" DVDs? (ive heard that package is like a special edition package or something, not the standard)

Yeh, it's the Special Edition. It has hundreds and hundreds of hours worth of video tutorials. On my list, the reccomended retail price for the special edition is $99.95, but gameswarehouse are selling it for $79.

I've read some forum posts elsewhere where people in the UK are paying ?50 for a copy, which makes it around $121 AUS. They're getting rorted. [:)]

I've got the standard edition on pre-order at EB for $69.95.

I find one of the cheapest US based sites for games is GoGamer [URL]http://www.GoGamer.com[/URL].

They have UT2004 standard edition for $34.90 US [URL]http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGamer.storefront/4049629e0281135c2741d…] and the special DVD version for $37.90 US (Gee which one would you get?) [URL]http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGamer.storefront/4049629e0281135c2741d…]

They are pretty reliable from what i have heard and their 48 hour madness sales (On the side) are insane! Sometimes some new games are $10-$20 US... i think at one stage they had Call Of Duty for $20 US [:)].

The only problem is im not sure if they ship international.

Because im lazy heres a online currency converter [URL]http://www.xe.com/ucc/[/URL]

man the special edition comes with a logitech headset aswell, i mean ive got a little mic and whatever but its good value for that and the DVDs and all for 79.95 (@ warehouse)

Thats pretty cool, free headsets [:)]. The only problem is i 'badly' need a new computer... hell even Counter-Strike lags on this thing when it shouldnt... (700mhz Celeron, 256 meg of ram and a terrible TNT2)

Maybe you have too much crap taking up ram/cpu cycles in the background. CS runs fine on my pc athlon 600, 128 ram, GF4MX (gfx card shouldn't really matter for CS). I usually shut down pretty much everything when i play games these days though, including virus scanners etc.
CYer, Blitz

quote:Originally posted by Blitz

Maybe you have too much crap taking up ram/cpu cycles in the background. CS runs fine on my pc athlon 600, 128 ram, GF4MX (gfx card shouldn't really matter for CS). I usually shut down pretty much everything when i play games these days though, including virus scanners etc.
CYer, Blitz

As crazy as it sounds even with Virus scan off and every other program that is not needed by Windows shut down, it still lags. If you look at the CPU and Ram usage during games though it seems to be eating up only 150 meg of ram (Out of 256) and about 60% of the CPU. It has to be the motherboard as there is nothing else running but the kernel etc...

But dont worry, within a few months i should have a good system [:)]. For one $1000 of my brothers friend (He owns a PC business) i can get the following:

AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (Overclock it [:p])
Good Gigabyte motherboard
512 DDR
nVidia Geforce FX 5200 128 meg (Personally i would chuck in an extra $200 or so to get a FX 5700 or FX 5900)
17" or 19" (I cant remember) Philips LCD Flatscreen

and a good Asus case, speakers etc...

Mind due that was a month or two ago so the bundle may have better stuff in it now [:p]

swap that nVidia trash for a good card and you might have something worthwile ;)

woohoo just freed self of debt... now i just need to gather the moolah to pre-order it at warehouse fast! :O

I'd think it'd have to be a 17" screen, 19" LCD's go for around $900 or so themselves...so you would be getting very very cheap gfx/mobo/cpu :P
CYer, Blitz

Anyone know if (Australian) Electronic Boutique has an online presence with a pricelist? Or if you know how much they're charging for Unreal 2k4 (SE), post here. [:)]

Neverimind.. I've just made my pre-order with gameswarehouse.com.au

I honestly dont trust EB much anymore... because of that christmas gift that my parents bought from the store... They bought me a game (Forgot which one) and it had a million scratches on it, it wasnt pre-owned or anything and then they refused to give us a refund, luckily we complained until they did [:)]. And ever since then i have never really trusted them, it was the last purchase my family and I ever made from them and still is, even though the incident was like 3 years ago.

I tend to buy from small independent stores like Gamez Wizards and besides they have rewards for the more you buy [:p] unlike EB (I think they are Australian owned too).

nah EBs American, they just branched to our shores some time ago now

EDIT: well nuts, gameswarehouse has stopped pre-orders for the UT2k4 special pack, shoulda got in sooner

I've paid for my copy, so I'll be exptecting the game on the 24th of March, over a week after the rest of the world gets it [:P]. I've seen a picture of the headset, and it looks pretty cool. I was actually planning to buy new wrap-behind-the-head headphone for around $60 after my Sony one broke, so I'm happy to get a similar looking headset for free.
There's a bit of a furor about the Special Edition. I've read that there are only 20,000 copies available for Europe, and 40,000 for North America, so apparently it's going to be pretty darn hard to get if you haven't ordered it already. Most of the online stores (Amazon etc) have sold out all of their copies. I was actually surprised that a little store like gameswarehouse had some copies, so that's why I reserved a copy straight away. All you had to do was give them an email [:)]

oh god, now i cant find it anywhere!! well no australian places. If anyone knows any stores (be it online or normal) where its availible please tell me!!

EDIT: *sigh* i think i might just be getting it from a american site and having it sent here... with the exchange rate as it is if i buy from amazon.com (or something) + shipping and all the rest of it itll still equate to about the same price, just take longer.

EDIT EDIT: scary notice from gamesmarket.com :
"This item is not available. Description only. There is NO local Special DVD Edition of UT2004 in Australia, there may be imports at a later time. We are NOT taking orders for any as there is currently no source of DVD edition."
http://www.gamesmarket.com.au/details.cfm?ProdID=5791&

EDIT EDIT EDIT: well thats it people, if you wanted a copy of the special edition it would seem that your now stuffed. I have been on the interent all evening trying to find a american store that has the product and will ship out here. Amazon isnt shipping it out of america for some reason and it seems about 80% of online stores are just another name for amazon (theyve been bought out by amazon or something). The rest are hopeless. If anyone has any solution to getting a copy please please please let me know.

Amazon may not be able to ship electrical hardware outside of the US which may include the headset :/
Otherwise i'm not sure why it would be unable to ship :(
I wonder if all the people who buy the special edition are actually planning to mod. 60,000 is a fairly large number of people!
CYer, Blitz

There actually is a Special DVD Edition of UT2004 in Australia. They're all heading to Harvey Norman, and there are only *150* copies.

Anyway, you can read all about it here. http://unrealtournament2004.com.au/comments.php?&nId=452&type=archive

I think word that gameswarehouse.com.au were importing SE's caught on pretty quick around Friday.

ive ordered with harvery norman so fingers crossed.

btw this is the headset
[img]http://www.unrealgamers.co.uk/modules/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/…]

I thought that was the headset as well, but it's not, unfortunately. The headset [url="http://www.beyondunreal.com/image.php?src=content/potd_images/ut2004_pa…"]can be seen in this picture here[/url].

o.O No it can't. (link didn't work for me) :)
CYer, Blitz

Works for me... here's a [url="http://www.beyondunreal.com/content/potd_images/ut2004_package.jpg"]direct link to the picture[/url], rather than the page. You'll have to copy and paste the link, as their servers don't allow direct links to images.

Seems my isp's dns servers went whacko jacko last night. Some domains (like sumea) worked fine, but it couldn't resolve others.
(wonder what my chances are of getting a hold of the SE at harvey norman)
Also, i wonder if the DVD's are region encoded or not, or are the DVD's for the vtm's proper DVD's or just data storage for mpg's or whatever?
CYer, Blitz

I imagine the second DVD will be a bunch of divx files.

Woo only a few days to go :)

BTW a nice lot of piccies of the other ONS and AS maps can be found at:

http://gamespy.com/articles/march04/ut2004maps/

All I can say is "Sweet!" [:D]

It's occasions like this that only an animated graphic can sum up things so much better..

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simagesmisc/nana.gif[/img]

yeh ive seen that screenshot page, i was browsing through it while i was on sumea chat a few nights ago. I have to wait untill the release of the damn game before i can even find out if i got SE when HN will call.

In fact, [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/banana.htm"]this sums it up even better[/url].

Just to make a correction on myself, both headsets are actually the same model. They just have different plates, and appeared to look structually different due to the positions they are in the photos.

oh dear god souri, so thats what the idea was we gave you on chat. there taking ooooover :P

now all thats left in keeping with theme is to make a dacing bannana character for UT itself :P

__EDIT_______
ive been ringing around HN today, those 150 copies might be easier to get then you think. Unfortunatly it depends on your store. When calling greensborough the guy there was totally understanding and was very familiar with what i was enquiring about. The guy in southland i could barely understand and had never heard of unreal tournament nor did he even know his workplace had an exclusive deal on that game. But you can still reserve a copy if you walk into a HN store real quick

__EDIT_______
i previously posted about the no CD ver in aus, its not true
http://www.unrealtournament2004.com.au/comments.php?&nId=475&type=archi…

My pre-order from Gameswarehouse is being delayed >.<

Something about faulty headsets being recalled... ARGH!!

Im proud to say I have only 7% nerd blood in me. Alright! [8D]

Man I got like 45% and I guessed most of the answers.

26% for me, i guess reading all of hitchikers guide to the galaxy paid off...

19 %, but that test was very hard and lots were guesses.

9 % i done this one back in school :D but i did a re-run just incase ive become more nerd-like in the past 6 months ,OR perhaps i might have grown cooler ? - looks like inglis is the least nerd saturated so far... [8D]

I think of myself as a bit of a nerd tho....

the only things in the test that made sense were the movie questions.

e.g. the matrix quote, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (i watch the movie last week) and the terminator questions.

question 41. If 42 is the Answer, then the Question is...

i put "What do you get when you multiply six by seven?" - 6x7=42

they say the answer is "What do you get when you multiply six by nine?" - but that is 54...

whats the go there...

gawd... 47% -- then again, not like I didn't expect it [:)]

what scared me is how apparently obscure some of my knowledge is... like pheonix purchase prices, and half rate scifi/fantasy knowledge - guess it kinda freaked me I wasn't guessing [:)]

edit: thinking of it, half of that knowledge came from Jacana! Like knowing which characters weren't a part of the weatherlight.

39% meh

Pantmonger

quote:Originally posted by inglis

i put "What do you get when you multiply six by seven?" - 6x7=42

they say the answer is "What do you get when you multiply six by nine?" - but that is 54...

whats the go there...

i beleive it has to do with the book series "hitchikers guide to the galaxy" some how (its been a while since i read it)

From what I can remember of the story, an ancient race (Our ancestors, I believe) built a supercomputer to calculate the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything. After seven and a half million years it spat out the answer "42". The computer told them they didn't understand the question, rather than the answer (or something like that). Confused, the descendants built a new machine to calculate the question for which 42 is the answer. It spat out the answer (or rather the question) "What do you get when you multiply six by nine?".

6 multiplied by nine is 54 in base 10.
6 multiplied by nine is 42 in base 13.

I'm not actually sure whether Douglas Adams (Author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) did this on purpose. Another theory suggests that 42 represents "BIG BANG", or at least the addition of the numerical indices of those letters in the alphabet (2 + 9 + 7 + 2 + 1 + 14 + 7 = 42).

I got up to question 5 and my brain started to hurt, so I stopped.

quote:I got up to question 5 and my brain started to hurt

haha yeah i got that as well. kept checking the scroll bar to see how far to go.

That was way hard. I ended up getting 31%, but I guessed about half.
Where were the Buffy questions, hey???
I?m a big fan of LOTR, Star Trek, and Buffy (not that I would admit that to anyone in person?), but because I don?t know about D&D and some of that other stuff, I guess I?m not a nerd after all?
Not very accurate really. -But it was a bit of fun.

26.19047619047619%...not too bad!

Well, I havent even heard of most of these games. But I scored an Embarassing 40.5%

"Glavin"

30.952380952380952% Thought I'd do better actually. May have gotten my qa'pla mixed up...

26% yippee I'm sooo happy. lol

Got me a 40.476190476190474% result, which makes me "a well balanced nerd" according to the results panel. What a classy test - it has a Fight Club reference and Trogdor on the same page, so it must be good! :P

Man, I lord over the lot of you, I got a whopping 62%! I now pronounce myself KING GEEK!

I'm not ashamed of my geekiness, and neither should any of you be, embrace it and love it... ;)

Wow, I'm impressed.

ok, I got 21.428571428571427% not so bad, I was guessing alot but it seemed to work!

21.428571428571427% nerd blood flows through your veins.

eeep...that can't be right..can it?

st.kilda road :)

Hey Barry :)

Hope all goes well in Melbourne for ya - and you may wanna put your application into BlueTongue as they are hiring.

Also, there are quite a few guys lurking around from Melbourne area on forums (a few active ones, too). May be worth seeing if you can organise an "official" meet-up.

Hi Barry, how can you arrive in Melbourne a few days before the race and say you're not going? You have to do whatever it takes to get yourself in there... you won't regret it :)

Good luck getting a reply from blue tongue...
And don't forget about the next gamedev meetup in melbourne in a couple weeks, on the 17th i think, but don't quote me on that.
http://gamedev.meetup.com
CYer, Blitz

welcome to the most livable city in the world ;) enjoy your stay

quote:Originally posted by MoonUnit

welcome to the most livable city in the world ;)

People keep saying that, I've yet to figure out what it actually means... Though I must say the public transport is awesome, I must pick up a weekly pass some time.

well it kinda speaks for itself but it was some world judged competition thing a while ago, and melbrounites wont get over it unless were beaten in the next one (is there a next one? ive got no idea...) :P

Funny thing is, you travel over to Europe and some cities their also claim to be the most livable in the world.
BTW, where did the judging take place... Melbourne by any chance? ;-) If you love unpredictable weather patterns then sure, Melbourne is very livable :o)

There is going to be a Quake 2 LAN party tinggy in the city, you should come if your into games, its not only Quake 2, but also games like Call of Duty. It is just to meet up, see the faces you play agaisnt, should be fun. I might go if i can get there. So if you are intrested, ill get you the details ok. Also, good luck in Melbourne, and with your life.

Technically a report said that Adelaide was the best city to start a small business in Australia... It probably also said that it was the most liveable ....

Tho that depends on your definition of "liveable"..

Well I've been here two days and only just managed to avoid melting in the insane heat... lucky I didn't go further north. Thanks for your good wishes!

:)

Melbourne won most liveable in a worldwide competition, i can't remember who held it though. It got near top marks in every section, except weather, where it scored a medium score for being crazy :P
Other sections included environmental aspects such as air quality, water quality (you lose adelaide :) ), cost of living, leisure activities etc.
I think melbourne has won twice in a row btw. dunno how often itwas held.
CYer, Blitz

it was a news reporter that put it best was that "melbounrne only really cares that we beat sydney" :P

Bleh. A little advice for would be travellers, try not to get the flu the day after you arrive in a new country, it really takes all the excitement out of it.

/me crawls back into bed

GoldFingers, The Mens Gellery, Bar 20, Kittens, Theres a list of places to got to for some wholesome family fun :D

Or Hard Kandy, if your really keen [;)]

I upgraded to a 9600XT :) mine came with HL2 and the new tomb raider game. Good card for the $! *so I am not against it*

I am very happy with it - I haven't pushed it too hard yet. Only been playing NWN but it runs just fine with everything turned on high!

You can get a 9600 XT and your asking questions. I have a 16mb nvidia vanta. Go for it Souri, with your life. It's one of the best cards on the market. I think it's definately worth the 300. If i had that money i would buy it.

It is one of the best value for money cards available. Although there are higher level cards available, they do cost a lot more. My friend did manage to to find a 256mb Radeon 9800xt for $600 out at the computer fairs in Canberra. It also came with the voucher. The 9600xt is a very good bet.

I also read your problems with 2k4. 2k3 had similar problems with older and lower class nVidia cards. When we used to play it at the AIE, all the grass was missing (and they were running Quadros!). There are some options that were only available in the .ini file that had to changed. I am not sure if that will help your problem, or if it is actually a nVidia problem.

Yeah try swap meets, you can get good hardware cheap. A mate got a 256 mb 5600 ultra for $180.

I was under the impression that the HL voucher offer expired on the 31st of December. That may only apply to ATI Branded cards, though. Have a look at the GeXCube range also.

i was considering buying the same card and someone told me not to buy it if its made by powercolour, apparently their cheap and nasty, Saphire are your best bet (well so im told).

I've noticed that 31st of December date as well - what I've read elsewhere is that some distributors have stopped giving out the coupons for Half Life 2 at that time.. The Half LIfe 2 voucher expires on that date? Ouch... anyone know the details?

I can understand if the graphic glitches are Nvidia related, but the stuff where the vehicles can't even aim properly.. [V]

My card doesnt have a date of Dec 31st on it.

Went to the website and signed up for mine and this is all I saw:
Offer only available to customers who have:

Purchased a qualifying RADEON? technology graphics card after October 1, 2003
-or-
Purchased a qualifying RADEON? graphics cards as part of limited time promotional offers from North American Retailers after October 1, 2003

Okay, I've had a look around and from what I can tell, previously to December 31st all Radeon cards (ATI and licensed) shipped with the HL2 voucher. It seems now that certain vendors (ATI, Sapphire, GeXCube, ASUS) are packaging only certain cards with the voucher, like the newest in their range. 9800XTs seem to carry the voucher more commonly than the 9600XT. The current ASUS 9600XT DOES come with the HL2 voucher.

Have a look at the manufacturer's site for specific cards to see if they're bundling the voucher or not.

My 9600 XT is a sapphire.

The 9800xt that my friend bought is an official ATI boxed version. It was $130 less than the next cheapest 9800 there, but didn't say that it came with the HL2 coupon. Even if he had to buy HL2 when it came out, he would still save about $30. Turns out that when he opened the box, there was a coupon in there anyway. I will have to ask him if it has an expirery date on it.

I've got my friend to have a look into the coupon situation for me (I really do want Half Life 2 [:)], even though apparently it's been delayed to Summer (Winter for us))..

Actually, I just remembered the many versions of Half Life 2 that is planned for release. The offline version (single player only, and the cheapest version if you buy it retail), the online version, and a special edition.

I would be kinda annoyed if I got the offline version.
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/69_theman.jpg[/img]

Well I would image that you'd get the "standard" version, which you could play online, but that you'd have to subscribe to steam to get all the other mods like counter strike 2 etc. Otherwise there would be a lot of angry people like that pic there in the world!

ATI are planning to bundle Counterstrike instead of Half Life 2 due to the HL2 delays. Better get your HL2 bundles while they're still around! btw, Nvidia are planning to [url="http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/Article.asp?datePublish=2004/03/04&pa…"]bundle Doom 3 with their cards[/url].

Haha iD/Activision(?) hates ATI now :P
CYer, Blitz

Yeah. I heard that someone at ATI was the one who leaked the Doom3 leak.

Spoke to my friend, and he said that he does have the HL2 coupon without an expiery date, but he had to register it online. They have also sent him the HL1 pack while they wait for HL2 (could be a while :p). The HL1 pack has HL1, CS and something else that I have forgotten...

I've been doing a little bit of reading in Doom3 and Halflife 2 forums. It looks like Doom 3 might not even be out till September (although there was news about a release in a few weeks!), and no one still knows when HL2 is going to appear. Might just hold off the purchase and wait.

System Requirements for DOOM 3: A video card with at least 128MB RAM and Pixel Shader 1.1 support and a 2.5GHz CPU. Also DOOM 3 is expected to be on 4 cds and Multiplayer will include Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Tournament and Last Man Standing. Gah!

As much as i want these games in a way i dont...

Ok the current games need about 1ghz, 256 meg of ram and Geforce 3 or 4 to run at full speed with good graphics but now that HL2 and D3 are coming everything is going to change. To get really awesome performance you need around 3.0ghz, in a way the latest parts avaliable but then come the games built upon the engines with extra features eating even more power! In a way these games take a massive leap and look great but unfortuneately make a massive debt too :P. In order to keep up with these we will need like an upgrade every month [:p].

But none the less damn will they be killer games [:)].

actually neither doom3 or HL2 interest me (as fun games to play) at all... pleasedontkillme

As much as id were pioneers of the multiplayer FPS experience, it's sad that they have basically "given up" trying to create new multiplayed gameplay (and even charged extra for it with Q3 team etc.)
Doom3 will only be worth it for the single player game, and mods (maybe)...
On the other hand Epic(or DE) are at least trying new things!
I haven't seen much about HL2 multi, but i hope they won't simply rely on their mods to provide interesting multi.
CYer, Blitz

I'm looking forward more to doom3 because they always seem to set a new benchmark in gaming with each major release and i don't think they will fail to please this time. I was never into HL i hated it, i only got it to play CS but now i hate that as well, so go ID and doom 3.

id have a great track record in setting new benchmarks but I'm not so sure about this one. Doom3 will be a great piece of tech (and hopefully a good game), but with the Source Engine (HL2) and the latest iteration of the Unreal Engine to compete with, its going to take a hell of a lot to do so.

Remember when Quake 2 had to compete with Unreal? Everyone ripped into Quake 2 and said how crap it was compared to Unreal and it's engine. The Unreal engine was awesome and Mods were going to pop up everywhere for it. A few months down the track, the Unreal engine was barely used and the Quake 2 engine was going strong. Why? The unreal engine had heaps better graphics, so why wasn't it more used? Ever try playing Unreal across a network? More than three people and it would cry. Ever tried running Unreal on a 2.53 GHz system? It still runs like crap. Although Quake 2 didn't have the most impressive graphics (I liked them though), it was a really solid engine. I'm hoping that Doom 3 will keep up that tradition.

Most people have stopped buying id game as a game, and more so as a $100 tech demo. This competition between all the big shooters and their engines wont be decided straight off though. I think that it will take a few months before we start to see what each game really has to offer.

Very true. The Unreal engine has, however, undergone several iterations since its original release. Its netcode was vastly improved upon for UT and again for UT2k3. 2k3 pulled off awesome graphics on relatively low-end hardware. When 2k3 came out I was playing quite comfortably at low settings on a PIII 800/GeForce 2 MX. A later upgrade to a Radeon 8500 allowed for mid settings and full hardware pixel shader support.

Unreal was scratchy to begin with but now its a really solid engine now. Doom3 will be too, I'm sure.

My money is still on Source for the moment though. We'll wait and see.

Edit: Typo.

Doom 3 would have been top-of-the-line setting new benchmarks IF it had been released on it's original date, which was about 1 and a bit years ago (christmas 2003). However, i think they've left it so long the many other companies have similar technology now, and they won't seem quite so flash. Of course i haven't seen it in action yet so who knows!
CYer, Blitz

I have a Radeon 9600 XT ! [:D]
I'm running the unreal tournament 2004 demo at 1024x768 and it's so smooth (I'm sure I can run it at a higher resolution, but I don't really need to). I'm still getting those missing turrets/messed up aiming problems that I had with the Geforce 4 MX though!..
Still haven't received my copy of UT2k4 Special Edition, and I'm gonna register this Half Life 2 voucher that came with the card. Good times ahead [:)]

My pre-order for UT2k4 with Gameswarehouse just got canned.. They can't get it.

Dear Pre-Order customer,

Our supplier in the USA has informed us today that they have been told by Atari US that no further stock of UT 2004 Special Edition will be made available.

We are extremely disappointed that we are unable to supply the DVD ROM special edition to you. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Due to the disappointment and delay, we have negotiated a special price with them which will allow us to offer UT 2004 (CD ROM version) at a price of $59.95 each (excluding shipping) for all our Special Edition pre-order customers still patiently waiting. The stock at this special price is due to arrive early next week.

If you would like to take advantage of this special price, please reply to this email and tell us to change your order over.

We will change your order to the special priced CD ROM version, and ship it as soon as the stock arrives with us (early next week).

If you would prefer to cancel your order all together, please reply to this email and tell us to cancel the order, and we will do so.

If you have already paid for your order (by money order or direct deposit) please let us know if you would like a refund or credit against another order.

Again, we apologise for the inconvenience, and regret that we cannot supply this title.

Sorry to hear souri, in contradiction to your post i got a call from harvey norman today saying they have my copy of Special Edition in store and i just need to get down there and pick it up (which i probably wont get a chance to do untill the weekend)

I am a very sad panda. [:(]

Don't buy 3D World. Well that's my opinion. It was never that great to begin with, and it seems to be getting worse :/

Computer Graphics World was a really good read, but I haven't seen that around for a year or so. Does anyone know if it still exsists?

What are you after specifically in the mag? A bit of everything? News? Reviews? Tutes? Artist Profiles? Unfortunately those things are pretty difficult to find in mags. The net is your best option. Pity you can't carry it around with you and read it on the can :)

I am after a bit of everything.

3D World? isn't that a clubbers newspaper? [:D]

Can't offer too much help here, but I can add to what others are saying - 3d world seems to be way past its hey-day -- but, that's not to say it's not a worthwhile flip through still, especially for the hobbyist/beginner. Unfortunately the only real thing I get out of it personally nowadays is the industry news.

Other than that, I can also give a little bit of off-topic advice, if you're interested in game development professionaly, I'd recommend a subscription to EDGE (or another large reviews/previews/industry fluff mag) and the GDmag.

sorry for not being much of a help, but honestly I've yet to find any good mags for the garden variety 3d artist, and I've been looking for quite a while. Online resources (like insidecg.com, 3dtotal.com, cgchat.com etc) really do seem like the best places to get all this material and information.

I find that Mags are about 3 months behind the net as far as this stuff goes, if you are like me and hate reading stuff on the computer print it out, it is just like a mag and it is petty much free.

I find Edge petty good, a good mix of stuff about the industry, as far as an 3D art mag goes it is a little to general.

Edge and Game Developer are my fav's and every now and then I'll pick up a copy of PC Gamer.

Digital Media World is always an option, local mag, but nothing spectacular.

ive never bought a 3d magazine so i cant comment..but whats wrong with the net? its all there for free :)

Malus: would you like a copy of pc gamer, we were sent 960 copy because FF VS TTT is on the cover.

brendan... is that nine hundred and sixty copies?!

lol, I'm alright, but thanks for the offer. [:)]

Thats alot of magazines, have you guys thought of making wacky office furniture out of them?
I'm sure you could make a sofa with that many. [:P]

I could not find any of the mentioned mags at my newsagent. where do you guys get edge and GDmag from

and doord recycle them image all the trees it would save :)

EDGE is a great mag, and is generally available form most Canberran Newsagencies (yeah we can still get a few good mags down here). Otherwise EB stocks the latest versions, but they will cost you more.

GDmag I haven't seen for ages. There was only one Newsagency in Canberra that did stock it (at Manuka), but they stopped.

I recieved free copies of DMW for ages as I got a free subscription when I went to the AEAF. It was not the greatest mag and was fairly poorly written.

Iglis - The net is the best place for it, but once again, do you have a comp in your can? I dont have a laptop either, so it is difficult to read on the bus. Mags are great for that :)

Well I actually like 3d World, except for the price, but Its had some rather good tutorials in it and articles and profiles. It has hardly any stuff on game development though

if you want GameDeveloper, sign up with IGDA (www.igda.org), otherwise expect to pay ~$20

Years best game - Call of Duty! wow.. [:)]. Well deserved, I thought. And hey, not bad for an aging game engine, and goes to show that games don't have to be technically bleeding edge to be entertaining. Not sure why it was listed in the strategy section though. [:)]

Some really big titles in there, Vice City, Eye Toy etc.. I really wanna check out Project Gotham Racing 2 one day somewhere (especially the Sydney track), and I'm glad that Enemy Territory got listed in the multiplayer section.

I'm surprised to see F1 Career Challenge and Formula One 2003 in the sports list - I thought Melbourne House's Grand Priz Challenge looked miles better than those! I compared some similar locations (namely the Monaco track), and MH did a much better job with the aesthetics on the track and vehicles.. oh well..

I think Atari's Grand Prix Challenge certainly looked the goods, played very well, solid framerate etc, but unfortunately had a feeling of being unfinished or rushed... it lacked essential features that could have given the game a lot more atmosphere.

Did any Ozzy developers get any awards?

No. [:)]

I think they should strap these to the army's chest then they can entertain themselves and be protected :)

thus revealing Microsoft's plans of creating an army of Xbox plated battle droids...

Thanks for giving me a great start to the day. That cracked me up big time :D

Heh heh.. I remember reading about this a few months ago. Good Laugh.

Yeah, that's soooooo 2003 ;)

hahaha :)

My friend told me a story once about someone's Amiga 500 computer that had been run over by a car and still worked afterwards. [:)]

We have on Sumea from Tasmania:

[url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofile.asp?member=68"]Tasman - modeller/2d artist[/url]
[url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofile.asp?member=132"]Ryohki - 2d artist[/url]
[url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofile.asp?member=137"]_tofu - modeller[/url]
[url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofile.asp?member=251"]Toonerfish - 2d artist[/url]
[url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofile.asp?member=280"]Hobonation - 2d artist[/url]

You're the only programmer representing Tasmania here [:)]

Souri go to sleep

yeh...and hobonation doesnt count cos hes my brother!

Dont bag it man

hey, that last post was me :P KANE you should log out before getting off!!!

ahhhhh, brotherly love

indeed...[}:)]

*chuckle*

How about ex-tasmanians? [:D]

A.

that sort of counts!

The comic is quite humorous but i cna't find where he says he can't draw.

http://www.bigkid.com.au/index.php?itemid=252

He does a nice job of it for someone who claims he can't draw? [:)]. I think the quality of the art plays second fiddle to the message/social commentary when it comes to comic strips like these though, so if he REALLY couldn't draw, putting in stick figures could even work IF you have something decent to say. [:)]

I wish I could comment on platform games (I can blab about some made in the mid 80's to mid 90's), but as for recent platform games, the latest one I've played is Mario 64. I did buy my nephew Rachet & Clank for Christmas, and he absolutely loves it. I thought it would be too difficult for the little guy, but he seems to be roaring through the game.

*can't wait to get my hands on Sonic Heroes..damn money*

I dunno, kids finding games too hard is a weird thing. When they're young they're so quick to learn, i think any game with reasonably simple mechanics they'll pick up as long as they stick with it for more than 15 minutes. Platform games and other action games usually fit this quite well, because they mostly only require you to think about whats happening in the here and now, they don't really require much planning ahead.
CYer, Blitz

I played C&C when i was in like grade 3, i thouhgt it required a lot of thinking but i found it easy. and i still love platform games. Not my favourtite genre but they're still tons of fun i played Jak and Daxter at a mates quite a lot of fun when just mucking around with friends. The crash bandicoots where good as well. It got better with each version

Astro Boy toys are so wasted on kids ! Its a pity that the full Astro-culture isn't brought to Australia. Apparently there was a travelling Astroboy exhibition in Japan last year. Sounded very cool (not surprisingly.)

quote:Astro Boy toys are so wasted on kids !

Not True, it came out when i was like 4 or 5 years old and i absolutely loved it, i have my a collection of astroboy merchandise. I used to get up really early in the morning to watch it, i think it was on agro's cartoon connection. It is still one of my fav. manga cartoons along with DBZ of course.
[8] <-- look it's picolo

Astro Boy is coming back on Austar/Foxtell :)

DAMNIT!!! *curses for not having cable TV*.. My friend has seen some of the new episodes but he says it just doesn't have the same feel as the 80's Astro Boy.
Those toys look cool [:)] I don't know about the new Atlas though. I thought the old one was much cooler!
Does anyone remember those tv ads that Siren did to promote the Astro Boy series coming out on VHS? There was a middle aged guy who wore gumboots, shiny undies, and a black cap with spikes. In one of the ads, he was just checking himself out in the mirror, and in another, he was pretending to jump in the air. It was damn funny [:)]

Foxtel isn't always cable. We have satellite, and soon it is going to phone line based (for the digital service).

I haven't seen anything about the new Astro Boy yet. I will make sure I keep an eye open so i can see what it is like. The new TMNT was rather... bland. The new He-Man is actually quite well done, and is one of my favourites of the re-makes.

I remember those ads Souri. They were pretty funny. The Astro Boy vids were the second thing I ever bought with my first job :) I wonder if they will be released on DVD...

quote:Originally posted by Aven

Foxtel isn't always cable. We have satellite, and soon it is going to phone line based (for the digital service).

I haven't seen anything about the new Astro Boy yet. I will make sure I keep an eye open so i can see what it is like. The new TMNT was rather... bland. The new He-Man is actually quite well done, and is one of my favourites of the re-makes.

I remember those ads Souri. They were pretty funny. The Astro Boy vids were the second thing I ever bought with my first job :) I wonder if they will be released on DVD...

Well... the astroboy movie rebirth was out in Japan this year or last year and it should be coming out here on DVD. Generally when a old movie/show comes back, the old stuff is pumped right back on the shelves [:D]. But im pretty sure MadMan.com.au or some other Aussie company announced they were going to launch the original astroboy series back on DVD.

Good old astroboy :D.

when will Super Ted be coming back??? haha

When he was made, They found something wrong with him, And threw him away like a piece of rubbish
into an old dark storeroom, Then, from out of space, A spotty man brought him to life with his cosmic dust,
He took him to a magic cloud, Where mother nature gave him special powers. That bear became SUPER TED!

[img]http://www.vivaciousweb.com/cartoons/superted8.jpg[/img]

[8D]

Heh. I remember SuperTed, when i was in like Year 5 it was shown on ABC as a quick 'fill-in' show.

But none the less there are several websites where you can download episodes of them :p if i mentioned the links im sure i would get flamed for it (But im sure some of these 20 year old shows wouldnt have copyright laws anymore or the studios would be dead).

Anyhow, the old shows were good.

On that often comes to my mind is GI Joe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Now being milked a second time).

Copyright is active until the creator/copyright holder has been dead for 50 or 70 years I believe. (I think they are changing/changed to 70.)
I was only joking - I dont think Ill try and track down old Super Ted episodes.

Little Copyright story I was told about when learning the fundamentals of copyright-

Peter Pan- the rights were held by a Children hospital in England. The 50 years was almost up and the rights would have become public domain. The hospital approached their government saying if it happends they will have to kick back in with the funding. So they altered the law saying that the rights for Peter Pan would never be public domain. Something like that, never checked it out. But I guess thats true.
Sort of fitting for the boy that never grows up.

OMG i remember super ted, man i used to love that show :P

flies throught the aiiir like a string on a beaaaaar suuuuper teeeeeed! suuuuuper teeeeed! SUPER TED!

Do you remember BananaMan?!?

[edit]sorry...have sort of hijacked this thread.

hahaha Yes, i remember banana man, another ABC fill in show, and his sworn enemy apple man.
What about Roger Ramjet?

haha yeah. i remember it but wasnt much of a fan, the intro music pissed me off to much.

[img]http://www.toontracker.com/ramjet/ramjet1.gif[/img]

Hahaha, Inglis where you gettin all dis from. It takes me back to year 9 when we used to have remembarance sesions in class about old tv shows. Hers another one Victor and Hugo

google image search.

On the subject of old cartoons that need to be put on DVD...

Samurai Pizza Cats
http://www.two4u.com/pizzacats/
http://www.tvtome.com/SamuraiPizzaCats/
I have heard word, that it will be released on DVD :D

Freakazoid
http://www.tvtome.com/Freakazoid/
Still one of the best American animated series of all time.

Animaniacs
http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/ShowMainServlet/showid-2077/
Nothing beat the countries of the world anthem, sung to the Mexican Hat Dance.

On the copyright thing- i think Disney did something similar with MickyMouse. They managed to change the copyright laws to avoid Micky becoming Public domain.

Superted!! I was a huge Super Ted fan, had some of hte books too. :D

Super Ted!
Banana Man!
Roger Ramjet!
Samurai Pizza Cats!

So many memories...

What about Sumea.com.au? So many old memories of that site... but the owner of it, Souri i think his name was seemed to hate everyone who visited the site [:p].

Freakaziod was rather funny, i'll give it that.

"haha yeah. i remember it but wasnt much of a fan, the intro music pissed me off to much."

lol right on the money there, it was the same for me :P

Astro Boy, Tansformers, Ulysses 31, Voltron... Now THEY were real cartoons worth watching [:)].. They were epics, told some great stories, and really got your imagination going! Cartoons like Banana Man were fun, but they were just filler for something on next. [:)] I've got happy memories of watching G-Force and Starblazer as well. What is it with Japanese anime? They were just miles better than what their Western counterparts were doing (He-man, Mask etc). They didn't dumb down their stories or expect their audience to be complete morons...

I kinda regret never catching all of Robotech on tv. That seemed like a seriously kick ass series, but the darn commercial TV stations would mess around with its time slots, end the season prematurely and what not. I've seen the movie adaptation though (Macross: Clash of the Bionoids) which was really cool. Most Macross fans seem to hate it though. The Macross Plus series was nice too.

I must be the only person who really never got into Neon Genesis Evangelion. I tried. I really did. Saw the first few episodes on T.V and thought it was so boring. I gave it another shot when they re-aired it. Just never caught the buzz. My niece and nephew love it though.

Well what about Pokemon [:p]. I used to love that about 5 or 6 years ago and the crappy merchandise and episodes are still coming [:p]. I dont like it anymore of course, but i bet theres several of us here who own atleast one version of the game [;)].

I wish they made a cartoon out of Chrono Trigger. That game was beautiful especially the music. The game was extremely well polished and i still play it on ZSNES to this day [:)] (Mainly to just hear that beautiful music).

I loved pokemon and i had the blue and red versions. I also had collected all the cards. I was obsessed with it, for me the crazez usually revolved around animes. first pokemon then Digimon and then DBZ. Animes are great and far better than western cartoon i think.

Tbag - They did make a Chrono Trigger cratoon. I have the first episode. It only goes for 15mins, and is a bad rip, but at least it has the singing robot :D

Pokemon Red/Blue were very fun. My friend first showed me Pokemon before anything to do with it hit Western shores. His little Pikachu keyring that a Japanese pen pal sent him.

Tekkaman Blade (Technoman) was really cool to watch back then, but it is really weak now (I feel the same way about Astroboy as well :(). Still love Batman: TAS. I really like Evangelion, but for different reasons to most people. I don't care that much about the massive mecha, I more like the character developement that starts to happen further into it. Plus, everyone ends up really messed up towards the end. Have to love those mind fuck anime :D

They made a Chrono Trigger cratoon? I said cartoon not cratoon [;)].

Is it that singing robot you beat up to get silver coins at the town square?

I got too see DBZ before it hit Western shores etc... my friend had a pirated copy of the first episode from Thailand [:p]. Overall Anime is my favourite type of animation [;)].

i never really got the japanese craze thing, as far as cartoons went they really were just something to amuze me after school :P

Hey anyone remember Robotech? They've been out on DVD for a while now, have been tempted to buy them but theres like 21 DVDs and thats a lotta moolah.

tbag - Nah. I mean cratoon. They are similar to cartoons, but they only exsist in my mind. Hence why you didn't know of them :p

Robotech is the Western cut of Macross. It is basically an edited version of the Macross series, and then mixes in the Invid Saga and some other smaller sagas. As Souri mentioned, a lot of Macross purists hate Robotech. It is entirely up to you which version you wouls choose to buy. Me personally, I would go for the original Macross version. Macross II was pretty good (a lot of people hate it), and I love Macross Zero. My advice for Macross Zero though, is to watch the 4 part OAV, and then watch the movie edition. The movie edition kicks some serious arse (heaps better ending). I still have to get some episodes of Macross 7. Female Valkyries :D

Here is a link to news on a 3D version of Inspector Gadget.
http://news.awn.com/index.php?ltype=top&newsitem_no=10368

Heh, sorta skimmed through some of the posts there.

I've heard of Macross before but I don't believe I've seen any. Might have a look around.. As far as Robotech goes though I remember loving it as a kid. Watched the whole thing addictively when it first came out, then a few years later when they showed it again (I think thats when the commercial stations were messing with it, Channel 7 I think).

Disable the preview pane would do most of it...

then you can click on them and delete easily, although make sure that you have a visus scanner running in the background while you do it.

Thanx Daemin works like a charm.

i havent got any of those from kazaa...but my Dad's PC keeps getting emails with attachments the same as that...either filename.doc.exe or filename.pdf.exe etc.

im not too sure its from kazaa now. its just thats where i first found it.
i guess it came attached on an email that someone opened on my computer.

i updated my virus software and found out its this new virus:

"W32.Netsky.B@mm"

if anyone else finds they have it- you can get the removal tool from the symantec website.

http://www.symantec.com/

heh, I tried to open that link and: "Web Site Blocked by NETGEAR Firewall"

That's how much I hate kazaa ;)

Why don't you use mIRC or Overnet to download stuff or Kazaa Lite

I use e-mule, I havent had any problems with it. Kazaa is a peice of shit, my friend used to use it then one day he found most of the .exe's on his computer were infected and no longer worked so it was format time.

a friend of mine who uses Kazaa got some virus that instantly filled his HD with crap until the system slowed down, and froze. When he rebooted, windows wouldn't boot up because it needs a few hundred megabytes free to work..
My nephew uses kazaa as well and he had some nasty virus that stuffed up his motherboard's flashrom.. He had to get a new motherboard.

So I'd be cautious of downloading *any* programs from Kazaa, and make sure you got your virus checking program running if you do. Do a check on the file that you downloaded just in case.

That's what i do souri and i have not had a virus in like 6 months
It's a good idea to invest some money in anti virus software and scan every file you download.

It will save you heart ache later [8D]

When I used Kazaa oh so long ago, I did pick some worms (the ones it installs :/), but nothing overly bad.

The main problem I have with p2p apps is that you constantly have to rotate which ones you use, as pretty soon morons will flood which ever one is popular and turn it into crap. It starts with people just leaching (I can understand dial-up users doing this, but not cable), and then people sharing 128kb mp3s that are ripped really badly. It started with Napster, went to Kazaa. WinMX started filling up with them. E-mule wasn't too bad. I quite like Shareaza as it is a mix between Kazaa, WinMX and BitTorrent. BitTorrent is still my favourite as long as people do it well.

My most hated thing is adware from websites. 'Gamble Here', 'Get Your Viagra From Here'. Pisses me off. Then I heard of this little app that saved my life.
http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=home
It searches your computer (files, registry) for any adware that may be installed. It has a database of roughly 6000 companies. A while ago before I formatted, I had about 1500 of them :/ It seems to have worked really well, and it hasn't done anything wrong yet.

i use kazaa lite (like 2 or something) and ive never had a problem with it, not once. The nastiest thing ive ever had on my computer is hijackers (re-directing you to different pages on the net, changing ur home page etc) and they were taken care of with hijackthis.

Trust me on this, dont use Kazza, any version of it, it puts some much shit on your PC, you dont even know about it, also, Moonunit, where can i get this hijackthis thinggy from?

im not sure where to get hijackthis (i forget where i got it), but ask the people here:

http://forum.tweakxp.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=29&PN=0

and then post ur log and theyll help u out, sorry to post a link to another forum sumea but its like tech help forum so im sure u wont mind :)

How do i get my log file?

read the topic at the top of that forum

last year was basicly my year of no money, so i didnt get to play that many games :P

Soul Caliber 2 and GTA VC deserve a mention though, both good games :)

I played through the single player game of Vietcong last year. I thought it was brilliant. I really enjoyed it.

I also played through Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds on PS2, and while simple and certainly nothing new, I found it to be good fun - but then I'm a Buffy fan. But I liked it more then that older Buffy game on xbox anyway.

Enter the Matrix (on ps2) was the only other new game I played extensively, and while it was fairly well done, I didn't really get right into it for some reason. Same with the Matrix movies. For me, there was just something missing.

Ooh, definitely Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, the best designed game EVER in my opinion. Then there's Deus Ex: Invisible Wars, not quite as good as the original, but a worthy successor none the less.

Not much else to be honest, personally I played Medieval: Total War to death, but that's an old release, there wasn't much else of note for me.

Enemy Territory was a big hit.
Need for speed udnerground also held my attention for a long night at a friends house.
I thought savage was also quite a good game, but like many other good games, seemed to be ignored by most people.
Other than that, didn't get a chance to play that many games. Not enough money to buy xbox games, and my PC too crap to play most new PC games :P
CYer, Blitz

Enemy Territory, without a doubt. I would've seriously paid for this game if they didn't release it for free. Great class based FPS with strong emphasis on teamwork, great maps and mission objectives, and enjoyable even with a 56k modem. I was sick of Counterstrike, but I didn't really like Day of Defeat to convert over, so didn't think much of the whole class idea, but it really adds so much more variety and depth to the FPS genre.

Call of Duty was quite good as well. Great single player experience.

Wolfenstein ET is great :)

As is Call of duty.. I know the ww2 genre is a big cliche, but they are done oh so well.

I enjoyed Kotor too, it was kinda buggy though.

Manhunt - for some reason i just love it, maybe it's the violance
ROTK - Really hard but awesome fun especially co-op
Max Payne 2 - Better than the first

Knights of the Old Republic would be a close tie with Metroid Prime in my list...both are great games, but Metroid I think takes the cake with graphics and levels etc.

Knight of the old.

ET was funny, and crap I didn't like it, as with a lot of poeple I know.

quote:Originally posted by Wizenedoldman

Not much else to be honest, personally I played Medieval: Total War to death, but that's an old release, there wasn't much else of note for me.

Yeah, yeah... Rome:TW coming soon enough ok? promise [:)]

quote:Originally posted by Sorceror Bob

As is Call of duty.. I know the ww2 genre is a big cliche, but they are done oh so well.

WW2 is out, and it seems covering the Vietnam war is in fashion now! Battlefield: Vietnam, Shellshock: Nam '67, Men of Valor: Vietnam etc

What about Splinter Cell for PC..thats last year isnt it? Its awesome, I love it...And Call of Duty rocks as well, although ive only got the demo, but ive played through it a few times because its so fun..
And Max Payne 2 & PoP & Hitman 2...

I didn't have any problems with KOTOR once it was patched, although there were probably one or two blatant 'bugs' that caused the game to go spastic.

I just remembered - I really need to play PoP : Sands of Time!!!

quote:Originally posted by J.I. Styles

quote:Originally posted by Wizenedoldman

Not much else to be honest, personally I played Medieval: Total War to death, but that's an old release, there wasn't much else of note for me.

Yeah, yeah... Rome:TW coming soon enough ok? promise [:)]

I'm another Medieval: TW nut.. That game was too addictive. Pity about the campaign ai though..

Joel.. Hurry up, damn you.

You work at Creative Assembly do you JI? Cool and a half...

In no particular order:

SoulCalibur II
Max Payne 2
Knights of the Old Republic

I would expect Price of Persia: Sands of Time to top the list but I haven't played it yet.. (On my to-do list).

BTW, JI: Looking forward to Rome: TW.

Yeah i loved all the total war series, but i can't find viking invasion anywhere.

I loved Shogun TW Mongol invasion. I determined that Mongols are cool.

and hitman 2 was released like 2002 i think.

Knights easy.

GTA: Vice City :D

Bullet - seriously? I've seen a copy of VI in every EB/Games Wizard store I've been into.
The dark age campaign is alot different to the middle age ones.. For starters, trading is pretty much ineffective, and farms take about 16 turns to build the first step.

So, getting a strong economy is bloody hard :)

For me, Knights of the Old Republic kicked all sorts of arse.

Other than that: GTA:Vice City, TRON 2.0, Max Payne 2 and Broken Sword 3 all deserve honourable mentions.

SB, the EB i live closest to has shit all. :)
They have joysticks but no TW Viking invasion :P.

Hehe then goto one thats further away :)

I notice a couple of people have listed TRON 2.0 as one of their favourite games. I was originally excited about it before it came out but I haven't bothered playing it due to some particularly poor reviews I read. Perhaps I'll rethink.

I'd have to give The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker my nod (I did prefer Metroid Prime, but I had the import in late 2002).

Really enjoyed Soul Calibur 2, Knights of the Old Republic, Shenmue II, Viewtiful Joe and Max Payne 2.

Ratchet and Clank 2 (PS2)
GTA Vice City (PC)
PGR2 (Xbox) (I'm biased)

Did they give you free copies of PGR2? [:)]

Yes a couple, one signed by the whole team which was nice :)

Tis an oldy but a goody and a game most probably overlook, but Disciples II + expansions.

Its definately the ony RTS thats managed to keep me entertained for more than a few hours, i think its because of the style of art, which is pretty gothic, and cos well,... the demon race have massive demonic beasts - and the whole game is EVVIILL!!!!!!

I like how your units can level up, you get 2 choose the the path in which they take, basically like a tree structure. The whole model changes into a more epic version, once it reaches enough experience and bam! your Anti-Paladin sprouts wings and becomes an INFERNAL KNIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

..... ....

Hordes of the underdark, the expansion for NeverWinter Nights is also pretty cool,.. only because of the Red Dragon Disciple mind you - it has wings you see ;)

I catched a bit of it as well. You didn't mention that the game was E.T, and it was the first time I've actually seen it in action. That was incredibly poor!! I couldn't see any actual game mechanics in play, apart from the one where you were in a screen and had to avoid the other guy from touching you. No walls or objects around, and you both moved pretty slowly. Fun facter = -5 [:)]

It was interesting how they showed clips of movies which looked like platform games. What was that recent movie they mentioned that was pretty based like a game? Where the character had to complete one challenge after the other, each challenge being more grander as the movie progressed? 28 days later wasn't it?

E.T. was rated as one of the worlds worst games by EGM :)

yeah everyones heard the story of taking all the copies out and burying them in the desert :P

i saw a bit of mondo thingo but not the game movie bit, i was on MSN and a friend told me to switch it on but by the time i got it on that segment was over

Just to reiterate what Daemin said... They were banking on the success of the E.T game since the movie was so hugely popular, spent a lot of money on manufacturing all those cartridges + marketing etc, yet they only got *ONE* programmer to do ALL of the game design, programming, play testing, debugging, everything in only 10 weeks.. It truly baffles me.

Burying the E.T cartridges in the desert was the cheapest way to get rid of them, since storing them in warehouses was sapping up money.

I think i seen something like that before, had a show, Micro Forte, i think, making a game called Citezen Zero, but that is scraped, aslo had about Counter Strike clans, world titles, get paid like $50.000 + grand a year. Also check out this link http://test.gamedesign.net/node/view/127

I'm not eaxactly shore what u are saying cody, but i'm quite certain that MF is still working on Citizen Zero

Well i was talking to Ionized, and he said something is wrong, but im not really shore.

Can you PLEASE spell "sure" correctly? It's one less key to press and everything!
CYer, Blitz

oh please lets not resurrect that debate again....

[^]

quote:Can you PLEASE spell "sure" correctly? It's one less key to press and everything!

ohh yeah, I thought Shore looked wrong thanks Blitz i'll be sure to spell it right next time :P

Man I thought it was sooo bad, fun to revisit some old school FPS for about 2 minutes but then its just bad. [:P]
Nailing zombies to walls was cool but it didn't hold my attention long enough for me to say I really enjoyed it.

yeah i agree with malus.
i didnt have any problems running it at its default settings though.

ive seen the video for this, im in no hurry to download, because i mean it looks very atmospheric and the ragdoll and destructible enviroments and stuff looks great but it does look a bit sort of "look its a room full of demons, let me kill them with my assortment of weapons.... again!!!!!!" sort of repedative shoot the hordes of enemys stuff

yeah i agree with that.

kill all the zombies and that door opens. kill all the next ones and the door opens. it lost my interest pretty quickly so i changed to the first weapon (the highspeed spinning melee weapon) and just ran into everyone....didnt last long.

Yeah. The gameplay is absolutely nothing new. After playing the first level, the second level lost a lot. Not through the repetitive gameplay (as Malus said, brainless shooting can be fun :D), but it lost all the dark atmosphere of the first level. That was a great pity as well, as the atmosphere is what made it :(

I love the "shoot at everything that isn't you" type of games i find them incredibly stress releaving. As long as they have some kind of story line to them. Some of the best selling games have been of this type.
Eg: Quake 3, Doom 1&2, Resident Evil and so on.

resident evil is so much more then that, i think the closest comparison i would put this to is something like serious sam or ubi softs will rock

well i loved serious sam as well so :P

I never really minded simplistic gameplay either. I guess it depends whether you like to pretend to yourself that FPSs can be 'sophisticated' or not. I see them as stress relief mainly :)

than you Maitrek, finally someone who agrees with me.

I found the weapons to be pretty fun, especially the default spinning blade, its alternate fire is basically all I use, I think its pretty clever, using it to either create a beam to burn the enemies with or using it to hook them and send their corpses flying through the air, it makes me feel like I'm playing as scorpion from MK

ROTK in co op :)
or HALO

What type of two player game re you interested in, Fighting, FPS ect.

Pantmonger

Bullet, it's a PS2, not an X-box, so no Halo. I found ROTK co-op very average, some real game mechanics issues that needed addressing. Personally I'd go grab Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2, that's if it's out yet, if not grab the first one. Virtua Tennis is great, Marvel vs Capcom 2, there's heaps really, depends what you're into.

It seems like there are fewer and fewer multitap type games being made. Publishers are pushing online play so much that they don't seem to care about get four friends to croud around a console and sweat all over each other. Nothing beat four player Chu Chu Rocket on the DC :D

I haven't played on PS2s too much, but Space Channel 5: Part 2 was really good fun. As long as you don't take it too seriously :)

Yeah, have Virtua Tennis on my Dreamcast already. Unsure specifically what I'm looking for... something co-op would be good. I was hoping Tenchu would be goodly, but after a hire and a bituva tonk, it didn't turn out as good as expected. I'll no doubt get a fighting game down the line, but I'd like something which two people can romp through. Baldur's Gate is an option... is there a Gauntlet game on PS2, and if so, any good? Guess owning a Tony Hawk will be mandatory, though TH2 on DC is still my love. @:-D

But yeah... make your suggestions, be it sports, racing, beat 'em up, whatever.

*Looks at XBox...looks at GameCube...looks at PS2....steps on PS2... "You shouldn't need a multitap to play 4 player games in this day and age!!!"
If you like mindless action fighting games with lots and lots of enemies i'd recommend the dynasty warriors series...
Is the new NBA Jam game coming out on PS2 as well? That should be a bit of fun.
CYer, Blitz

Soul Caliber 2 (http://www.soulcalibur.com/) is cool (XBox version is best though ;), Wipeout Fusion (http://wipeoutfusion.com/) is ok, and you will have to get Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (http://www.princeofpersiagame.com/) - even though it's single player, it's a must have.

Im looking for the ugly sister.........Ahhh.

Yeah that was in the first Shrek 2 trailer.
This is a new one.

I never saw what others saw in Shrek, I thought it was kind of crap. The animation and 3D of course was impressive like Ice Age and Finding Nemo but i just didnt get what was so fantastic about Shrek!

[Others insert massive list of why it was 'fantastic' here.]

Ok yeah erm "IT DAMN ROCKED WHATS WRONG WITH YOU MWAAAAAAAARG!!!" but that aside im personally looking forward to the new one :D apperently theyve (the like little studio people in DW making the movie) allready been signed to make a no. 3

will watch trailer now (allready seen the first one)

For gamearena i think you need to be running their little app that lets you connect to GA servers. CLOG or soemthing.
ausgamers.com might list servers or have a link to somehwere that does?
Otherwise you could try just going to whirlpool.net.au and going through all the broadband providers and checking their game server lists :)
CYer, Blitz

Download the patch.

I suffered the same problem when I first started playing that game.. Only one or two servers with a decent ping..

I downloaded the patch, refreshed, and bammo.. At least a dozen good servers.

ok, thanks!

It's COGS

Have you got a link for us?

I've got it here at work somewhere. I played it briefly.. Graphics were impressive. Shader effects were cool; Haven't seen much in the way of gameplay but I haven't really had a chance to play it properly. I'll probably take it home for the weekend, along with the UT2004 Demo.

quote:Originally posted by jwalduck

Have you got a link for us?

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/blammo.pl?mode=archive&oneday=true&dis… For those who can't run searches on the net, here is the Bluesnews page. Just scroll down to the news article on it, and there is a whole list of mirrors for you.

I didn't like it, Some of the environment look cool but the design/concept of the rest of the demo (and shots I have seen of the game) was/is lacking. The gameplay wasn't anything new.

I read some user comments that it was pretty cpu intensive... true?

I think it runs perfectly. The frames may not be as high as UT2k3, but it is still silky smooth. It hasn't jerked on me yet, even having a gun fight in the middle of a jungle :D I run it at 1280x1024 w/ full graphic options. P4 2.53, 1gb ram, 128mb 9700pro. I don't have FSAA turned on though.

I have to say I wasn't all that impressed with the jungle.. The LOD system produces some pretty drastic popping effects. Looks very ugly. I didn't play with the video settings though, there might be a user-defined LOD bias.

Long live the Mighty N forever!!!!

You know, it would be great to see Nintendo keep going strong into the future. It's a shame that Sega didn't stand the test of time with their consoles.

I wonder what N's strategy will be in the next gen console wars? I think that maybe if they keep it simple, they might have a good chance of success. Something that?s less powerful then their competitors systems, without any of the extras, but with well-designed games, could be the key for them. If they could make a cheaper machine with a wide appeal to a younger demographic, they could clean up? maybe.

quote:

I wonder what N's strategy will be in the next gen console wars? I think that maybe if they keep it simple, they might have a good chance of success. Something that?s less powerful then their competitors systems, without any of the extras, but with well-designed games, could be the key for them. If they could make a cheaper machine with a wide appeal to a younger demographic, they could clean up? maybe.

You just described the Gamecube (aside from the less powerful part - it does have some weaknesses tho'). The lack of convergence is what's killing them this time around, I think. Still going strong in Japan, however.

Their image needs work too. Sony are cool - Nintendo are not. Having Resident Evil does not suddenly make your console more 'adult' - and next time, design a less offensive controller. It's comfy, sure, but a control pad should be like steering wheel -- it should be able to accomodate all types of genres.

Personally, I hate Nintendo's vague-ness. It's always 'we cant show you, because everyone will copy us' or 'wait till E3.' Even at last years E3, they were like 'wait till next E3.' Get f*cked, Ninty. I bought your console for the exclusives and niche games but start treating PAL territories right, and you'll get somewhere.

I hope they do pull something great out -- Sony have won for the 2nd time around and if they do it a third time, we'll end up with a Monopoly.

The first time Nintendo went wrong was when they couldn't come to an agreement with Sony about the disc player for the SNES, thus sony created the Playstation. I also agree that their controller needs improvement, for once microsoft actually thought about japanes people having small hands so they created a smaller controller for the japanese. I think Nintendo should have looked at what works, not just what looks the best or weirdest.

i have a gamecube and an xbox, and i think the gamecube controller is much better than the xbox one...i reckon its better than sony's as well...

quote:Originally posted by palantir

I wonder what N's strategy will be in the next gen console wars? I think that maybe if they keep it simple, they might have a good chance of success. Something that?s less powerful then their competitors systems, without any of the extras, but with well-designed games, could be the key for them. If they could make a cheaper machine with a wide appeal to a younger demographic, they could clean up? maybe.

Sounds like the handheld market to me. And yes, nintendo is cleaning up there. The iQue also fits into this category, except Nintendo only released that in china...

I'd love to see Nintendo lower the bar a little. Stick with the gamecube hardware for the next 2 to 3 years, and maybe focus on some online capability. Nothing like XBOX live, more like a cheap distribution system for small cheap games, expansions etc. This would also allow them to distribute Gameboy content (with the gameboy player). Damn, the could even sell downloadable SNES games for $5 a piece (and a GC SNES emulator), and plenty of people would fork out the cash for games they could (and do) already emulate on their PCs...

You may have noticed that I'm not looking forward to the next round of consoles. I think its all getting a little ridiculous to be perfectly honest. :D

cheers

yeh, i think its a bit ridiculous too...the consoles aren't around long enough to have a successor in my opinion...a bigger gap between console is what i reckon

What fascinates me is that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo lose so much money trying to get their hardware into peoples houses (undercutting hardware costs etc) and then they race to provide the next generation of painfully expensive, over-spec'd machines.

Are they all racing to bring out their consoles because the first to be released will be the most successful?

Its been proven time and time again that games drive sales. Why not just focus on the games? Sure you've gotta have an install base, but if you have 5 exceptional titles released in one year, and your hardware is 3 years old (ie. cheap) you'll do well. Or am i missing the point?

Something to think about - the PSOne market is still very active. Do you think Sony is losing money on their PSOnes? No. Do you think Sony is making money from PSOne sales? Hell yes.

cheers

This blog entry by [url="http://www.costik.com/"]Greg Costikyan[/url] has an interesting view on the whole idea that Nintendo aims for the younger market - it may be just a difference in Japanese to the Western cultures..

quote:"I question whether they're intended for kids. Japanese popular culture is different from American popular culture. In Japan, the main audience for manga (comic books) and anime (animation) consists of--adults. In other words, the Japanese do not relegate whole artforms to the status of "kid stuff" they way we do--even though they often use an art style for highly adult material (the whole genre of tentacle sex comes to mind) that would immediately set the "this is for kids" neurons firing in a Westerner. (Well, until the first genital penetration, anyway.)"

I agree with that, but it does bring Sony's Playstation titles into the question, since it comes from the same culture that brought us the Nintendo... Greg's blog [url="http://www.costik.com/weblog/"]entry can be read here[/url].

I don't know about you guys but to me graphics are very important. Sure gameplay is the most important but it still needs to look good right?

I find that when i look for a game to purchase for $90 + (which is the average on console nowdays) i want more than just gameplay, ie Graphics.

Let's face it if all we wanted was gameplay then we would still be playing Metal Slug and Commander Keen and there would be no need to have such powerful hardware like ATI gfx cards, let alone state of the art consoles.

By the sounds of it Bullet, you have 'good graphics' and 'high end graphics' slightly confused. I still think that old 2D games have better graphics than a lot of 3D crap that is churned out now. Games like Heart Of Darkness, Metal Slug, Guilty Gear X all have fantastic graphics. They are all 2D as well. A lot of my favourtie 3D games of all time hardly have the most advanced graphics, yet they hide it so well with their style. Rez jumps to mind imediately. Sure it is nice to see the latest and greatest 3D engine appear with top of the line per-pixel shaders and shadow triangle culling, but without a decent style to back it up, what does it matter?

Nintendo and Sony seem to do two different things to get the same result. Nintendo make what they know and are used to. Western audience fall in love with the simplicity of it. Sony try to appeal to Western audiences by making games that are more for the older players. Neither is right or wrong. They have their ways of doing it, and they both seem to be surviving well enough from it.

Commander keen, gameplay? HAHAHAAH... sorry.

I'm sucked in by sweet graphics as much as the next guy. But if there isn't excellent gameplay there behind it, there isn't much point (for me).

The legend of Zelda (wind waker) is an interesting case study. That game has excellent (tried and tested maybe) gameplay, but a simplistic cartoony style. Almost every review i read for the game started with something like this; "at first i was worried by the cutesy art style, but" ... the reviewers then go on to say what a fantastic game it is.

Now i'm not bashing the style, i love it, but it is a damn simplistic style (which probably made the art departments life a whole lot easier). Despite this however, it averaged a score of 95% (gamerankings.com). This is one of the few examples where gameplay seems to have won over graphical splendur.

cheers