Looking forwared to part 2.

 I don't like it. Especially that crappy logo.

Though the forums is much better.

I mostly agree with the article, but one thing really naggs me.

... I am not a FPS fan; I am an MMORPG fan, so why do we tell people who want things fair again to go play Counterstrike?...

I am an FPS fan as well as a MMORPG fan and I can tell you that Counterstrike is rife with cheats. So much so that I have given up on all steam products. There is no fair play on CS, DOD,HL2,ECt. Do some research first.

Depending on the supject matter, there are lots of aps to use. I like Poser for human forms (or DAZ Studio which is free), Bryce for enviroments and you can never go wrong with Photoshop for post work. Sometimes I'll make objects in 3DSMAX, but that is a very expensive program to get.

Check Computer Graphics World or 3D World for info on programs. 3D world comes with a CD with shareware and is a much better buy for the $, IMHO.

Hardware is really up to your prefferance. I actually use the mouse because I never learned pen and paper.

For 2d sprite games, I know people that just use Photeshop to make the sprites.

An excellent book that I like that really covers the multiplayer aspect of game programming is Programming A Multiplayer FPS in DirectX by Vaughan Young (copyright 2005). Not a beginners book, but not too advanced.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5333996.stm

All SL users need to change their passwords.

I'd have to see a review for High-end machines before I'd even consider it.

No. I was hoping for a new version.

How's Multi-player coming along?

Vagelisp, TY.

Excellent and more graceful then the clunk of code we've been useing. If its yours, we'd like to give credit were due when possible.

Again, thanks.

I hope not!!

Last thing I want to do is be playing with a bunch of snot-nosed console n00bs (as opposed to newbs).

Keep the PCs and the console seperate, plz.

Guys, I know your trying to be helpful, but the dial-up decision has already been made. I'm not the one that has to be convinced. I am but one of a team of several people. Besides, even with broad band only, there will be bandwidth issues to consider.

This is not your run of the mill FPS with 32 players. It's not even like Nova Logic's Joint Operations with 150 person servers. This is planned to be similar to PS with hundreds of players on a single server. Dial-up will not cut it. Period.

The question is still "how can a server check to see if the client is using a broad band connection." I think we'll just have to experiment with a kps check set for a min threshold.

Thanks for the suggestions, one and all.

OMR

Checking the ping time isn't really reliable enough. Lots of places in route were the packets can be delayed, causing high ping.

We're looking at broadband-only because the game is spec-ed for real-time physics and actual ballistics for combat. Every projectile, while assigned to the 'launching' player is independent though out its flight path until intersection with another object. With the potential for thousands of projectiles in flight at the same time (and even if just one in five is drawn on screen) any one on DUN will be at a sever disadvantage. Thus the decision to go broad band only.

Besides with development planned at 20+ months to open beta, more of our target customers should have access to broad band by then.

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Originally posted by hercules

Personally i strongly feel the changes were made not as a reaction to WoW or casuals or anyone on a PC.

I think that SoE/LA felt they could not push the pc market any further.They decided to make it console like and something to appeal to the potentially huge market of consoles on PS3.

I think they gambled with the loyality of the pc subs thinking they will stay out of loyality to the game and then tap the console market.

Depending on how the market the game and fix the bugs they could still be a major smash on console even with a 3 year old game.Mind you console users are much less tolerant to bugs then pc users and they really need to fix the bugs if they plan on a ps3 launch.

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True, but why are they even looking at the console market? Last thing I want to do is be playing with immature kids. Bad enough wiht all the annoying 12 y/o's. Sometimes I wish there were adult (as in over 18, but not porn) servers just so that I and my gaming freinds  don't waste our time dealing with the snotnosed twits.

Either way, I have already left SWG. Loved the concept that it originally had, but I think it has suffered too much feature creep.

I left when SOE started to allow everyn00b to become a Jedi and was thinking about signing up again. Then I watched a buddy at my local LAN center playing the NGE upgrade. No thanks!