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Games

Why Are There No Popular Ultima Online-Like MMOs? 480

Posted by Soulskill from the risk-is-not-our-business dept.
eldavojohn writes "I have a slightly older friend who played through the glory days of Ultima Online. Yes, their servers are still up and running, but he often waxes nostalgic about certain gameplay functions of UO that he misses. I must say that these aspects make me smile and wonder what it would be like to play in such a world — things like housing, thieving and looting that you don't see in the most popular massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft. So, I've followed him through a few games, including Darkfall and now Mortal Online. And these (seemingly European developed) games are constantly fading into obscurity and never catching hold. We constantly move from one to the next. Does anyone know of a popular three-dimensional game that has UO-like rules and gameplay? Perhaps one that UO players gravitated to after leaving UO? If you think that the very things that have been removed (housing and thieving would be two good topics) caused WoW to become the most popular MMO, why is that? Do UO rules not translate well to a true 3D environment? Are people incapable of planning for corpse looting? Are players really that inept that developers don't want to leave us in control of risk analysis? I'm familiar with the Bartle Test but if anyone could point me to more resources as to why Killer-oriented games have faded out of popularity, I'd be interested."

Comment Re:Part of a general pattern (Score 2, Informative) 276

by CisJokey (#31197908) Attached to: Switzerland Pursues Violent Games Ban
I agree at your base argumentation. But the same problem is containing in any indirect democracy (there will be few guys, telling al other guys what they should do, not do). So regardles what you could argue, its at least not that big problem in a direct democracy because millions of peeps have to vote yes or no (not a small elite). Or do you think all poeple in america did like to bomb Iraq down, this was an idea of few's... I think the real problem you describe (which describes your fears) is facism. And this can be a true problem, this was discussed in our country since the minaret thing happend (should all the peeps in switzerland really have that power). A lot of propaganda in tv, "the evil terrorists" combined with Islam and so forth. Generally swiss guys can only vote for things that are not violating basic human rights defined in the geneva convention or provided by organizations like the UN. So the minaret thing is still in discussion, if it gets treaded as violating basic human rights, the vote gets discarded and will be removed. (We can not vote for eating babies, killing black peeps). This was the one reason they voted against the minarets (which is useless and stupid), because voting against islam in general would not be allowed or is illegal. For two reasons; - It violates basic human rights - It violats the freenes of religion in basic. (At this point there was a huge discussion if voting against minarett is vioalting) I'm swiss and in my personal opinion, even as swiss voter, you are not allowed to ban that, because it harms the freenes of religion and a minarett does not itself brake any laws. They also can not put speakers on it (because they are to loud, as the christ. churches bells). But if your religion forces you to do something considered as illegal in here, you are not allowed to do so. There is another discussion at the moment about the jews and kosher meat.

Comment Re:A bug in a beta? (Score 1) 126

by CisJokey (#31181746) Attached to: Outlook 2010 Bug Creates Monster Email Files
I like this (replying on top); "by placing replies at the top of the message" But I think you moron know that I am a 'b00n'. And you are so super fantastic geeky because you already did mailing lists in the 90's. (Where the other way can make sense). If I call you a moron, I don't expect a reply like "you told me moron, I tell you childish". Its ok if you just tell me beeing childish.
Games

Ubisoft's Constant Net Connection DRM Confirmed 631

Posted by Soulskill from the enjoy-getting-flamed-by-the-entire-internet dept.
A few weeks ago we discussed news of Ubisoft's DRM plans for future games, which reportedly went so far as to require a constant net connection, terminating your game if you get disconnected for any reason. Well, it's here; upon playing review copies of the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers VII, PCGamer found the DRM just as annoying as you might expect. Quoting: "If you get disconnected while playing, you're booted out of the game. All your progress since the last checkpoint or savegame is lost, and your only options are to quit to Windows or wait until you're reconnected. The game first starts the Ubisoft Game Launcher, which checks for updates. If you try to launch the game when you're not online, you hit an error message right away. So I tried a different test: start the game while online, play a little, then unplug my net cable. This is the same as what happens if your net connection drops momentarily, your router is rebooted, or the game loses its connection to Ubisoft's 'Master servers.' The game stopped, and I was dumped back to a menu screen — all my progress since it last autosaved was lost."
Bug

Outlook 2010 Bug Creates Monster Email Files 126

Posted by timothy from the rodents-of-unusual-size dept.
Julie188 writes with this snippet from Network World "Office 2010 is still in beta and a patch is already out. Microsoft is trying to fix a bug in the email program Outlook 2010 Beta that creates unusually large e-mail files that take up too much space. The Outlook product team has offered a bug fix for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems that fixes the problem going forward, although previous emails will remain super-sized. This could be a problem for email programs that limit message sizes, such as Gmail or BlackBerry."
Idle

Steampunk Con Mixes In More Maker Fun 50

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the rebuttal-of-disposable-culture dept.
California has once again been blessed with another steampunk convention, this time to be held in Emeryville, CA on March 12-14 as the "Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition." This year's event promises to mix in much more of the DIY/maker flavor for a greater hands-on feel. Steampunk has been gaining much broader appeal in recent months with the continued growth of maker communities, and the many delightful varieties of music and literature. The con will feature, among other things, a 2 day track of 2-hour how-to, hands-on, and interactive workshops gear towards makers, DIY-ers, mad scientists, and evil geniuses. Of course, if you are an evil genius you probably don't need a workshop except as a gathering for potential test subjects.
Earth

Breaking the Squid Barrier 126

Posted by timothy from the calimari-for-the-5000 dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Steve O'Shea of Auckland, New Zealand is attempting to break the record for keeping deep sea squid alive in captivity, with the goal of being able to raise a giant squid one day. Right now, he's raising the broad squid, sepioteuthis australis, from egg masses found in seaweed. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because the squid he's studying grow rapidly and eat only live prey, making it hard for them to keep the squid from becoming prey themselves. If his research works out, you might one day be able to visit an aquarium and see giant squid."
Medicine

Brain Surgery Linked To Sensation of Spirituality 380

Posted by timothy from the applied-psychology dept.
the3stars writes "'Removing part of the brain can induce inner peace, according to researchers from Italy. Their study provides the strongest evidence to date that spiritual thinking arises in, or is limited by, specific brain areas. This raises a number of interesting issues about spirituality, among them whether or not people can be born with a strong propensity towards spirituality and also whether it can be acquired through head trauma." One critic's quoted response: "It's important to recognize that the whole study is based on changes in one self-report measure, which is a coarse measure that includes some strange items."
Java

Sun's Project Darkstar Game Server Platform No More 82

Posted by timothy from the dropped-off-the-moving-truck dept.
sproketboy writes "Project Darkstar, an open source software platform from Sun labs that simplifies the development of horizontally scalable servers for online games, is being discontinued as of the Oracle acquisition. This project, mentioned a couple of years back on Slashdot, was a unique concept for building an application server specific to on-line gaming. Sadly they were so close at version 0.9.11 (which is still very stable). Hopefully the open source community can get involved and help continue work on this project."
Image

Seinfeld's Good Samaritan Law Now Reality? 735

Posted by samzenpus from the not-that-there-is-anything-wrong-with-that dept.
e3m4n writes "The fictitious 'good samaritan' law from the final episode of Seinfeld (the one that landed them in jail for a year) appears to be headed toward reality for California residents after the house passed this bill. There are some differences, such as direct action is not required, but the concept of guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."

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