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Messages - wertigon

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The Hydlaa Plaza /

« on: August 28, 2005, 12:58:42 am »

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
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It\'s a moot point, and I said so since the beginning.

What are you saying is a moot point? The 6 months or microsoft switching to openGL? Make yourself a bit clearer.
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However, for the record the Wine guys have the documented APIs for DX, they know how they *should* render, and they\'re a bunch of brilliant software developers, especially with Novell/TransGaming/Whatever pumps in resources into developing Wine even further. And today the situation is merely okay, and much remains to be done. That says something.

Says what? That for all their brilliance and innovation they still couldnt get it working perfectly? What is the point you\'re trying to make here? All im claiming is that if someone had to make a DirectX emulation, then the people who wrote the DirectX library would probablly be in the box seat, agreed?

1. Microsoft switching to OpenGL, duh.

2. Says something of how hard it is to make perfect emulation. I\'m disputing it\'ll take a mere six months to emulate D3D through OpenGL. However, I do agree that the D3D-guys will have an advantage.

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
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Yes, Microsoft is the only company in a position to push their own, proprietary *lock-in* technologies to this extent. That doesn\'t make it right. We have an Open Standard. It\'s called OpenGL.

No, openGL is not the standard. Do you have any proof of it being the industry standard, apart from the fact you would like it to be? Lets see how many seconds the industry \"standard\" lasts when microsoft doesnt support it with vista? Microsoft has an equivalent, similar API to OpenGL. Saying OpenGL is the standard because it works on a wider variety of o/s is a void point when the one it doesnt work on (soon to be) has 95% of the market share. Now that I read your statement again, you said \"Open\" standard. What is that meant to mean? Open source standard? Well since Windows is a *closed* source program, they dont really need to adhere to open Standards? Clarify what you mean by that.

Uhm... Dude. Everything 3D-accellerated except games more or less use OpenGL, or have a plugin/option for it. Maya, 3DSM, Medical softwares etc... Practicly the ENTIRE WORLD use OpenGL nowadays. Anything that runs on Linux and MacOSX and anything NON-Microsoft use it. So it\'s MS vs the rest of the world.

As for open standards:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard

In other words, Open Standards are there to increase interoperability. If you don\'t use Open Standards it\'s akin to saying \"No, I won\'t play soccer with you, we\'re not using my ball!\" Seen?

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
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No matter how great DirectX is, as long as it isn\'t open, it won\'t be used by anything non-MS.

So? \"anything non-MS\" comprises of approximatly 5% of the market. I dont exactly think microsoft are really that concerned about that, you know. In fact, microsoft wouldnt even want Linux etc to be using DirectX, because then it increases the portability of the tons of windows app using directX. DirectX is a technology designed for windows.

Well, DUH. But if cross-platform is something you want... Then DirectX and/or Direct3D is not an option. Simple as that. You know it, Microsoft knows it. Crippling OpenGL won\'t change that fact. The only thing that can change that fact is to make DX an Open Standard. And then Microsoft have lost the advantages they had in the first place.

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
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In conclusion, I think you\'re making a bit of a jump from those articles to 40% of the world using linux in 5 years time. Time will tell, eh?

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(And yes, I\'m aware it\'s \"only\" the governments that switch at the moment, but the people will follow their lead, and probably sooner rather than later.)

Yes, because we all follow what our governments do. Well, at least those simple minded fools in China, Korea, Japan, Brazil and India will. [/sarcasm]

If Microsoft continues to use their policy of ignoring and/or poorly support everything not coming from Redmond, then yes. Simply because it\'ll mean that interoperability issues will be so huge it\'ll be ridiculous.

The argument goes something like this:

My work runs this new shiny OS. Then I\'ll also run it. Why? Because it\'s a helluva lot easier to get (free) support on this OS than on that other OS. You run what your more computer-savy friends run. And in countries like mine where the gov is boss for like, 25-30% of the market (in other words, the biggest employer by far) it\'s not hard to see that their workforce might switch as well. Especially when it comes to first-time computer owners.

Meanwhile, Linux has a much cheaper price tag than Windows and while it has some rough edges still, it\'s becoming a really interesting alternative to Windows. So... Yea. It\'ll be a huge market, but I think most of it will happen in 3rd-world countries or NICs.

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
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So then I ask ye - Why destroy OpenGL and make your OS suck even more? No, better to start playing nice, while there\'s still time, and start building trust instead of trying to bully your own APIs through.

Well, if you dont understand why they\'re doing it now, as I\'ve explained to you earlier, then you never will. Since they have created the most successful computing business ever, and created some of the richest people in the world along with it, one would think they have some idea of how to run a business.

I know exactly *why* they\'re doing it. I just don\'t agree with their reasoning. Microsoft isn\'t stupid, but, to quote a certain professor Dumbledore, \"Just because I\'m smart doesn\'t mean I make mistakes. It just means my mistakes are that much greater when I make them.\" Even smart companies do utterly stupid things from time to time.

Now, Microsofts monopoly *will* end. Probably sometime within this decade, but at the very latest next decade. Linux is a viable alternative nowadays, and not a day goes by without me reading about Linux and Open Source making inroads. Linux is here to stay, for better or worse. And Microsoft can stop it as much as they can stop an avalanche.

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
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Exactly. I can live without the eye-candy, but I\'m in a minority. And what if there\'s some killer functionality that requires composite desktop to work? All this will do is set back the industry by a couple of years. They can\'t stop the use of OpenGL, but they sure as hell can try.

What if? What if? The point is there isnt some killer OpenGL app, and, with microsoft making these moves, it will ensure that any killer apps in the future will at least have DirectX support, if they want it to be a commerical success. And if its an open source killer app, then someone could just take the source code and port it to DirectX to get it to work on windows.

... Note I said \"Killer *functionality*\", as in the desktop has something that\'s so useful you\'d rather write an OpenGL-game in COBOL than use Windows without it. And don\'t confuse OpenGL-apps with Open Source. OpenGL is a standard, Open Source is a licensing model. Anyone can write a closed-source OpenGL-powered application or game (Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Maya to mention a few of the existing ones).

And need D3D to be a commercial success? It all depends on your market. Like already stated, this means nothing for most GL games since users won\'t notice anything out of the ordinary (except if they alt-tab out of the game). So game devs are pretty much safe there. It\'s the CAD/3D-modelling/Medical software apps that will suffer. And those usually make more money on Macs and *NIX than on Windows.

All this will mean is a bunch of pissed-off devs. And all Microsoft need to do is to give Nvidia/3D-Labs/ATi some information and this issue will cease to exist... What worries me though is that Microsoft hasn\'t said anything about it yet. Not even a vague promise that they will give it sometime when the APIs have stabilized.

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
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Of course, much can happen yet. Vista is just in public beta so far. It\'s highly possible the API will change, and that\'s why they won\'t give card vendors the specs to write drivers that play nice with OpenGL and Aeroglass at the same time. I\'m hoping that is just what it is. But if Vista ships the way it is right now... Then they deserve every harsh word they\'ll get.

Let\'s wait and see, shall we?

Yes, and they deserve every harsh word they got for Netscape, and every other technology they killed... but somehow I dont think they\'re too worried about harsh words. I still dont think It will be this way when Vista Ships, but either way it wont affect me, since im not buying vista, and even if I did, I\'ll just turn the eye candy off anyway.

Like I said: Let\'s wait and see.

The Hydlaa Plaza /

« on: August 16, 2005, 05:26:06 pm »

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
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The problem isn\'t to get AeroGlass to run under OpenGL however. If you port AeroGlass to OpenGL it means you have to emulate D3D through OpenGL, and THAT will be the biggest hurdle to overcome.

Ask the guys working on Wine why they, despite having had YEARS to work on it, still haven\'t come anywhere near a perfect D3D emulation. Or DirectX for that matter. It\'s because emulation is everything but easy. Even *if* Microsoft were to use the Wine codebase (which they won\'t since it\'d basicly mean they\'d have to give Linux and Wine all their enhancements) they\'d still have lots of work to do, and that\'s where most of the bugtesting will end up.

Yes, well thats not an issue really because we all know microsoft would never run areo glass on openGL instead of directX. I was just questioning the \"6 months\" figure as being inaccurate for converting areo.

As for the guys working with Wine, maybe the fact they havent got a perfect emulation working is because, well, they arent the ones who wrote the DirectX graphics library. When you think about it, If there is a group that could write a decent emulator for DirectX, if would be the people who created it. But thats a null point, since microsoft having to emulate directX isnt going to happen.

It\'s a moot point, and I said so since the beginning.

However, for the record the Wine guys have the documented APIs for DX, they know how they *should* render, and they\'re a bunch of brilliant software developers, especially with Novell/TransGaming/Whatever pumps in resources into developing Wine even further. And today the situation is merely okay, and much remains to be done. That says something.

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Well, ever heard of Apple? When they first released their GUI for MacOSX, they pulled this exact same stunt, minus the piping OGL through whatever their proprietary 3D-library is called. It didn\'t take long before people complained about their OGL apps lagging to death, and Apple had to switch to OGL or face everyone switching to Linux/Windows. Fortunately, they didn\'t have the problem of having tonnes of legacy apps using a legacy proprietary API.

Yes, this is exactly my point- Apple were not in a position to dictate terms here. How many people use whatever the hell Macs graphics library is / was? I dont even know if it still exists, or what its called. On the other hand hundreds, if not thousands of apps rely on DirectX, and with their market share, they are in a good position. While Apple couldn\'t reasonablly justify developers having to switch their programs to their graphics libraries to cater for that extra 5% of the market, Microsoft have a graphics library which will run better for 95% of users.

Yes, Microsoft is the only company in a position to push their own, proprietary *lock-in* technologies to this extent. That doesn\'t make it right. We have an Open Standard. It\'s called OpenGL. No matter how great DirectX is, as long as it isn\'t open, it won\'t be used by anything non-MS. And it\'s not too hard to imagine that in five years, Microsoft will have around 60% of all desktop computers in the world, if not less. China, Taiwan, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, South Africa... All countries that in the very near future won\'t be running Windows as their primary OS. See the links below for more info. (And yes, I\'m aware it\'s \"only\" the governments that switch at the moment, but the people will follow their lead, and probably sooner rather than later.)

http://english.people.com.cn/200404/05/eng20040405_139504.shtml
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/features/index.cfm?featureid=1661
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9000119646.html
http://www.itworldcanada.com/a/CIO-Gov.-Review/3f0b617f-682d-49c1-a7fe-3d91c00112d1.html

So then I ask ye - Why destroy OpenGL and make your OS suck even more? No, better to start playing nice, while there\'s still time, and start building trust instead of trying to bully your own APIs through.

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What Microsoft does is only slightly better. I can\'t say I don\'t understand their reasoning, I just don\'t agree with it. It\'s by far too shortsighted IMO, and they\'re relying far too much on Microsoft keeping their monopoly - 95% today, but how much market share will they have in a month? A year? Two years? A decade? That, however, is a different topic alltogether, so I\'m just gonna STFU now.

How much market share will they have in a month? 95%. In two years? At a very minimum, i\'d say 80%. In a decade? Well, in a decade we\'ll be up to Windows Blackcomb and beyond, im not going to speculate about that. Keep in mind that microsoft have been around for 30? years. If theres any company that has a long term view, its them. I mean, they can always fix the OpenGL compatibility issue later, cant they? No real hurry, for them, and in the meantime they get an oppurtunity to kill it off by making it run poorly. IMO they\'re just hedging their bets- Refusing to play ball in the meantime, doing some damage to it, and then they\'ll just make everything right again if openGL wins out. Contrary to how it first looks, it would seem a pretty smart move.

The biggest issue i\'d be worrying about here, is not that my precious openGL apps wont run on windows, because you can always fix that but just running full screen, or turning off the stupid useless eye candy GUI, which I personally wont run anyway. The real issue here is that by Forcing people into DirectX, it reduces the portability of programs to other operating systems, thus reducing their attractivness.

Exactly. I can live without the eye-candy, but I\'m in a minority. And what if there\'s some killer functionality that requires composite desktop to work? All this will do is set back the industry by a couple of years. They can\'t stop the use of OpenGL, but they sure as hell can try.

Of course, much can happen yet. Vista is just in public beta so far. It\'s highly possible the API will change, and that\'s why they won\'t give card vendors the specs to write drivers that play nice with OpenGL and Aeroglass at the same time. I\'m hoping that is just what it is. But if Vista ships the way it is right now... Then they deserve every harsh word they\'ll get.

Let\'s wait and see, shall we?

The Hydlaa Plaza /

« on: August 14, 2005, 07:35:23 pm »

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Originally posted by leji
If that\'s really true, they could probably be sued for abusing their trust... hopefully they\'d lost, the good point is that it would probably unite all M$-alternatives communities

Don\'t count on it, though... The only lawsuit they ever lost against antitrust issues was the one with EU about Windows Media Player... And even on that one, they still got away with barely a scratch.

The Hydlaa Plaza /

« on: August 09, 2005, 06:21:51 pm »

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
Beta testing a GUI doesnt take anywhere near as long as beta testing the rest of an entire operating system would. Theres alot less scope for bugs, especially when they\'ve already probablly figured out pretty much how a 3D GUI is going to work (considering they already have areoglass). The only bugs would be in the actual implementation.

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Oh, and yea, the 6-month figure is just my guess at this, but I\'d personally be very surprised if it didn\'t take even longer. 6 months assuming they don\'t come across a show-stopper bug, probably longer.

Well, you can be suprised then. Rewriting a few API calls from DirectX to openGL does not take 6 months, and thats from personal experience. Given the fact that Microsoft have teams of programmers far more skilled then me, I dont think they\'d have many \"show-stopping\" problems.

The problem isn\'t to get AeroGlass to run under OpenGL however. If you port AeroGlass to OpenGL it means you have to emulate D3D through OpenGL, and THAT will be the biggest hurdle to overcome.

Ask the guys working on Wine why they, despite having had YEARS to work on it, still haven\'t come anywhere near a perfect D3D emulation. Or DirectX for that matter. It\'s because emulation is everything but easy. Even *if* Microsoft were to use the Wine codebase (which they won\'t since it\'d basicly mean they\'d have to give Linux and Wine all their enhancements) they\'d still have lots of work to do, and that\'s where most of the bugtesting will end up.

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Of course, we wouldn\'t have this problem at all if Microsoft would just do as the rest of the world, but that\'s another discussion alltogether.

God, thats a mature approach- We have different technologies, so they should scrap theirs and use ours. You\'re just as bad as microsoft themselves. And, considering they own, what? 95%? of the o/s market, I think in fact they are the rest of the word and openGL are the ones that arent conforming. Just a thought.

Well, ever heard of Apple? When they first released their GUI for MacOSX, they pulled this exact same stunt, minus the piping OGL through whatever their proprietary 3D-library is called. It didn\'t take long before people complained about their OGL apps lagging to death, and Apple had to switch to OGL or face everyone switching to Linux/Windows. Fortunately, they didn\'t have the problem of having tonnes of legacy apps using a legacy proprietary API.

What Microsoft does is only slightly better. I can\'t say I don\'t understand their reasoning, I just don\'t agree with it. It\'s by far too shortsighted IMO, and they\'re relying far too much on Microsoft keeping their monopoly - 95% today, but how much market share will they have in a month? A year? Two years? A decade? That, however, is a different topic alltogether, so I\'m just gonna STFU now.

The Hydlaa Plaza /

« on: August 09, 2005, 03:30:25 pm »

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
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Let me remind you that this is Microsoft. They\'ll stick to D3D no matter what, but for the sake of argument, let\'s say that they actually re-implements Aeroglass in OpenGL. Then they\'d need about 6 months extra to betatest this new branch of Windows Vista, at the very least. So as it looks right now it won\'t ever happen.

You just explained a whole lot of stuff I already knew and then repeated the \"6 months\" figure. Where did the 6 months come from? Your own estimates? Plus, what I was questioning was the notion of it adding 6 months to make them work side by side, note that changing the entire setup to openGL is one way of working this, and probablly the least likely way for microsoft to do it, since they\'d never support openGL over DirectX. I do not think that finding a solution to this problem would take 6 months.

Way to go. You completely missed the point I was making. :rolleyes:

The solution is rather simple. Rewrite Aeroglass to use OpenGL instead of D3D. That\'s not gonna take too long with Microsoft\'s resources. However, let me remind you that the betatesting phase at Microsoft is an immensely huge and complicated affair in order to ween out all the bugs. It\'s not the development that takes time, it\'s the beta testing.

[edit]Oh, and yea, the 6-month figure is just my guess at this, but I\'d personally be very surprised if it didn\'t take even longer. 6 months assuming they don\'t come across a show-stopper bug, probably longer.[/edit]

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and the only way to ensure OpenGL *and* Aeroglass eyecandy works at the *same* time is to rewrite the engine to OpenGL, which unfortunately would make D3D the second-class API instead.

What? Make the D3D a second class library? Rewriting the openGL library wouldnt affect the standard of DirectX at all, and microsoft would still use DirectX as its primary engine for areoglass.

The way Aeroglass is written, either you have to pipe D3D through OpenGL or pipe OpenGL through D3D, or else things will break. Whichever API you pipe is going to end up as the \"second-class\" API (since it\'ll be emulated), even if all features are supported.

Of course, we wouldn\'t have this problem at all if Microsoft would just do as the rest of the world, but that\'s another discussion alltogether.

The Hydlaa Plaza /

« on: August 09, 2005, 04:04:36 am »

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Originally posted by ramlambmoo
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As for this being the beta and thus not final yet: Yes. Yes that\'s very true. However, to change it it\'d require a complete rewrite of the way Aeroglass renders, meaning that Microsoft will have to push the release date of Vista back another 6 months. For some reason, I can\'t see them do that, especially since they\'re hurting from not having anything new out there right now. So, this is probably more or less permanent.

God, thats some nice assumptions... can you give any links or proof that it will take another 6 months of development to change it? That sounds awfully speculative to me, you know.

[LONG post]
Actually, yes. Yes I can. If you\'ve done any kind of work in D3D, you\'ll KNOW that D3D requires 100% access to the GPU/Graphics Card, all the time. If you don\'t believe me, try and run two separate D3D games/apps in windowed mode right next to each others and you\'ll see how they come to lag your computer to death.

Now, add in OpenGL and it\'ll not be pretty, especially on older systems. It might get better once GFX cards have Dual-Core CPUs, but I don\'t see that happen anytime soon.

To solve that problem of not being able to have two D3D apps next to each others, Vista makes it so that EVERY app use D3D. You can turn that feature off, but in this case it\'s actually a good thing, since it means a much less CPU-intense desktop (much more load on GPU since it\'s hardware-accelerated). So, in essence Aeroglass itself is a D3D app. EVERYTHING you see in Vista is hardware accellerated through D3D.

In comes OpenGL apps. D3D doesn\'t play well with OpenGL. In fact, it lags pretty bad. So this means you have to pipe OpenGL through D3D in order to make things render as they\'re supposed to. However, this automaticly also makes OpenGL a second-class API, since it\'s basicly emulated through D3D. Worse, since D3D is a closed API Microsoft itself decides what features OpenGL-apps can and cannot use, instead of the card manufacturer writing the drivers. And right now, they say that only OpenGL 1.4 apps will be supported. But I digress.

Now, there isn\'t anything inherently evil here except Microsofts policies. Everything is designed just like OSX does it with one major exception: It uses D3D instead of OpenGL as it\'s primary rendering mechanism. No surprise here, D3D is Microsoft\'s baby and I\'d be surprised if they *didn\'t* use it. But as a consequence, you can\'t have the AeroGlass features and OpenGL-drivers running at the same time, and the only way to ensure OpenGL *and* Aeroglass eyecandy works at the *same* time is to rewrite the engine to OpenGL, which unfortunately would make D3D the second-class API instead.

Let me remind you that this is Microsoft. They\'ll stick to D3D no matter what, but for the sake of argument, let\'s say that they actually re-implements Aeroglass in OpenGL. Then they\'d need about 6 months extra to betatest this new branch of Windows Vista, at the very least. So as it looks right now it won\'t ever happen.

And that is why it\'ll be a cold day in hell before Vista supports OGL natively.

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Originally posted by garlando
OpenGL has been designed from scratch to provide an alternative for DirectX. The creaters of OpenGL have worked to ensure that it works well under windows as it currently does. Now why assume that the creaters of openGL will call it a day and stop trying? Someone there will almost certainly be on the beta list of Vista and so can then start trying to come up with OpenGL2 or other evoloution. Just because Windows changes doesnt mean that everything else will fall in a heap, just that it will have to adapt and improve.

Wrong. OpenGL existed since even before Windows95 and DirectX, and it was only because of GLQuake that it started to get interesting for gaming. What do you think all those fancy IRIX-powered SGI workstations used as 3D-renderers for the special effects in, say, Jurrassic Park? =P

See above as for why it\'s impossible to get Vista running Aeroglass and OpenGL Native at the same time.

The Hydlaa Plaza /

« on: August 08, 2005, 12:19:38 pm »

No, this is bad in general. PS is OpenGL. I don\'t know about you, but I like having my MMO Games run in windowed mode, and/or run in a different monitor. Of course, I\'m spoiled with a 21\" screen when at home, and most my friends have either that or Dual monitors, so YMMV.

However, this move will force PS to do one of two things on Vista:

a) PS cannot run in OGL2.0 only OGL1.4, or
b) PS use the nVIDIA/ATi driver, making Aeroglass break.

This isn\'t nearly as bad for full-screen apps as it is for tools using OpenGL (Maya, Blender, AutoCAD...), but it\'s still *bad*. Treating OpenGL as a second-class API is bad for everyone involved.

As for this being the beta and thus not final yet: Yes. Yes that\'s very true. However, to change it it\'d require a complete rewrite of the way Aeroglass renders, meaning that Microsoft will have to push the release date of Vista back another 6 months. For some reason, I can\'t see them do that, especially since they\'re hurting from not having anything new out there right now. So, this is probably more or less permanent.

The Hydlaa Plaza /

« on: August 08, 2005, 03:09:25 am »

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Originally posted by Entamis
Are you surprised? They\'ve been doing it for ages. M$\'s policy is to make their products incompatible with anything else, because it makes it hard to switch to competing products. And the harder it is, the better for M$. Why do you think they want software patents so badly?

Not surprised, no. However, I am dissapointed. To me, Microsoft is like a well-known family member that has been doing drugs and heavy crime and all kinds of negative stuff and is now on parole, given a second chance, and showing signs of and a willingness to get out of their current state.

With IE7, Microsoft finally showed signs of actually listening to what everyone outside the redmond-based company thougt. There were signs of redemption. Heck, they even released a couple of Open Source applications. And then they pull this. It\'s like watching said family member get caught for robbing yet another bank.

You knew it\'d come to this, but deep down you\'ve started to hope that maybe this time it\'ll be different. Maybe this time, they\'ll actually listen. And then they show you that no, they won\'t. They won\'t ever change.

The Hydlaa Plaza / Hate to be the bearer of bad news...

« on: August 07, 2005, 03:24:47 pm »

But it looks like Windows Vista will make your PlaneShift experience just that much worse. :/

No, this isn\'t a bad joke, though I wish it was. All games that currently use OpenGL (Doom3, UT2k4, America\'s Army to mention a few) will run worse, much worse in some cases, on Vista than they do on XP. Microsoft are making a big mistake here, but before the rest of the world realises it, the damage will already be done.

This is exactly the same kind of crap they pulled with Internet Explorer (those who has tried to design standard-compliant CSS-powered webpages know what I\'m talking about). Thank you Microsoft for making it nearly impossible to develop cross-platform games. Really. And to think, only yesterday I actually thought there might be a day where I\'ll respect Microsoft as a company.

[Edit]Sorry about that, links now work. Note to self: Only quote values when not using BBCodes.[/edit]

Wish list /

« on: February 21, 2005, 05:02:21 am »

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Originally posted by Slagle
But if nothing ever came back, and we could kill NPC...I know for sure some one is bound to start killing off the npcs for no reason...

Yes, that\'s true, and then sooner or later we\'ll run out of NPCs... =/ So there has to be a damn good reason why there\'s an unlimited supply of NPCs. Still, I think it\'d kick ass if you could eradicate an entire village with enough force, and the village will *stay* dead. Of course, if there were any survivors you\'d get a huge bounty on your head for doing such an evil act.

It\'d also be cool if when you have a bounty on your head you can be killed by players, coz\' let\'s face it: If there\'s a reward on 5000 Tria for that guy, wouldn\'t *you* want to be able get it?

Also, murdering innocent bystanders is just asking for trouble IMO...

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Originally posted by Slagle
I like the being a criminal idea though... if you do a crime, the npcs know... and either will send a gaurd or not provide you with there services (morrowind?)

I also like the reputation idea...you could have it so if you did a quest you got rep points or something, then the npcs lower prices or give you special info that you couldnt have been told by them when you not famous

There\'s just one thing wrong the way Baldur\'s Gate et all does it: If I randomly encounter someone out in the woods and kill him, people know I did it. They just *KNOW*. Nevermind if I never met the guy before, as soon as I kill him people know I did it... It\'d be great if you could get away with stuff, too.

Then you\'ll be able to play a murdering hero or something, fool them villagers by tricking them into you being a good guy while you\'re actually evil, you just don\'t let anyone know that...

Wish list / Changing the world, reputation, and NPC relations

« on: February 20, 2005, 12:43:12 am »

I\'m sorry if this has been suggested before, I tried the search function but it didn\'t yield anything useful.

Anyhow, one of the things that strikes me the most whenever I play MMORPGs is that the game never allows you to change anything. As an example, what\'s the fun in playing an evil warlock that slaughters everything in a town if the town then is resurrected an hour later? What\'s the fun in that? Something that evil should not be forgotten - Rather, the rumors should spread, and the town should be left abandoned until some people come there to ressurrect it.

So, what I\'m essentially saying is that it\'d be really cool if the actions you did, good as evil, have consequences. To demonstrate:

Say that you\'re playing the role of a thief. You\'ve recently been discovered by the authorities, and they\'ve put a bounty on your head. You come to a village and when a few people see you and start to chase after you, you decide that these pesky villagers have bothered you enough already and proceed to bury your daggers deep in their bodies.

The next thing you know, not only are you wanted for thieving, you\'re wanted for murder, too. If you come back to the village you\'ll find basicly the entire village cold and hostile towards you.

Another example: You come as a wandering healer to the village. There\'s a man sick in his bed, and his children walks up and pleads for you to help them. You agree, and manage to help him survive. The town lightens up a little, some people open up to you a bit more. You decide that it\'s a friendly bunch and decide to settle down in this town. Now, a massive epidemic breaks out, and most come to you, since you did save that old guy and rumors has spread.

For this to be possible, some way to get a reputation among the NPCs would be desired. Also, some sort of relational status between NPCs/NPCs and NPCs/Players would be desired, doesn\'t have to be something big, could just be a stat where highest == Spouse/Mate and lowest == Arch nemesis. Most players would end up on the middle at first sight and then depending on their way of looking at things and how you act towards them it\'ll decrease/increase.

I know it\'s easier said than done, but it\'d truly mark PlaneShift from everything else out there, and it\'d definitely increase realism and RP:ing.

Comments?

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« on: January 17, 2005, 04:10:47 pm »

Well, I\'ve already expressed my support for this idea, since I don\'t see it to be \"unfair\". Or rather, it\'s an unfairness that doesn\'t stick, since you can still be a great swordsman, and in the end maybe even a *better* one than one with a natural talent for it. Natural talents tend to have a habit of becoming lazy you know...

Then again, I\'m pretty much an \"Okay, my character is kinda like this\" type of RP:er, and I often if not always let the dice give me a couple of advantages/disadvantages, and shape my character in a way my mind might not have intended or thought of in the first place. I don\'t want perfect control of my character; I know I\'ll never have it anyhow. I want an interesting character to play, and in my experience what makes a character interesting is by and large it\'s disadvantages.

Numbers are just numbers. Stats are just stats. No offence, but it\'s so goddamn *boring* to play a Paladin that hacks through everything he meets, but if that Paladin have a disadvantage of some sort, then it\'s all of a sudden a much more interesting character. Maybe it\'s a loud and obnoxious character. Maybe he lost his right arm while fighting a dragon. Maybe he\'s having doubts about his faith. Maybe he did something terrible in his past that still haunts him to this day. And I prefer to let the dice decide these kind of things for me, since I\'m an improvisator. Heck, my best character so far has been an alcoholized doctor that failed to save his wife.

That is why I, as a GM, always let all the characters in my group get one or two disadvantages, randomly chosen; it really increases the role-playing. The only question is, would you let it stay a disadvantage, or would you turn it to an advantage? And this idea would mean that yes, at some points you\'d be at a disadvantage, but it\'d by no means be a permanent one, and with practice you might even be better off in the end. It\'d enrichen your character by giving you some stuff you might never have thought of to give it otherwise. In my experience, not giving a person *total* control about their character has increased the role playing for everyone involved.

Not that I\'m hoping to convince anyone; just want you to know where I\'m coming from. That\'s all. Wertigon out!

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« on: January 15, 2005, 01:54:01 am »

Quote

Originally posted by Darakus
Do not block leet speech just translate it in common english and let\'s see how much longer they\'ll type that way when the output is not present

This would be a good idea, if not for the fact that 1337-speak can be any one of the following:

133t 5p34k
1ee7 5|?ea|<
|_337 S|?34|<
|_33-|- 5|?34|<

etc... Thanks to the (almost) endless variations of the language it\'s extremely hard to identify it properly unfortunately, and since there are next to endless variations of doing the same letter in 1337-speak, most kids will just come up with more elaborate schemes of the same thing. It\'s just to look at how the spam emails have evolved for that.

If you can device a method to recognize that random gibberish of text strings, though, I\'d like to see it implemented. =)

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« on: December 15, 2004, 07:18:16 pm »

Quote

Originally posted by Draklar
Plus we usually get to know what we are good in from quite early years, not after many years of training.

Being gifted usually shows in stats. Sure you don\'t pick what you are gifted in, but do you normally choose what race you are?

Ok, that was for myth of realism.

Well, yes, but no.

How do you know you\'re gifted in cooking if you\'ve never cooked before? How do you know you\'re an ace pilot if you\'ve never flown before? Similarly, how do you know you\'re good at swords if all you\'ve ever done is to practice with a bow?

Quote

Originally posted by Draklar
Here\'s for the rp part:

ex char history: I quickly noticed that I\'m very good at using bows, thus I spent many years of training to enhance my skills in it.

But the char was gifted in cooking, not archery...

You know what? Scratch that... People only told me I\'m good at it, it turns out I\'m not gifted in archery at all...

Or, you could put it like this: I tried archery one day, and found that I loved it. It felt like I had an in-born knack for it, even though I didn\'t hit my target very often in the beginning. Hence, I spent many many hours to hone my skills to perfection. Then, one day, I tried cooking this deer I hunted down, and found to my surprise that it tasted delicious.

In other words, there is no way the character won\'t be good at archery if (s)he put some practice hours into it. But in the beginning, some people will pick it up faster than (s)he will.

And like previously said; these are just bonus points to give a little extra edge in the skills XYZ, for those first few hours of training. If you put lots of regular skill points in Archery... Well, you\'ll be good at archery.

So, say that you distribute the skills like this in character setup:

(150 SPs total)

Cooking: 10
Smithing: 30
Archery: 60
Swordsmanship: 10
Alchemy: 20
Magic: 20

And the bonus skills (30 in total) get distributed to something like this:

Cooking: 10 + 15
Smithing: 30 + 5
Archery: 60
Swordsmanship: 10 + 5
Alchemy: 20 + 5
Magic: 20

You won\'t be less good at Archery, but you will have an easier chance at Cooking. Now, let\'s say the maximum value of all these skills are 255 - As you can see, the numbers doesn\'t really matter all that much.

So, in closing, I think this is a good idea and definitely should be implemented, but only if kept at a level where it doesn\'t really interefere with the player\'s choices.

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« on: December 05, 2004, 05:28:45 pm »

I also think it\'d be great if there\'d be a Debian repository (doesn\'t have to be specificly Ubuntu since Ubuntu is Debian plus a few extra packages) for PlaneShift. It wouldn\'t be that hard to maintain and certainly would make the install process much easier.

While we\'re on the subject, why not make .rpms as well? Those poor misguided souls running Fedora should also have the same options...

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