Sith

Unfortunately this is very true ... A bit like making cutscenes in OFP I guess If you give the AI some time in a relatively rich environment to gather some experiences on its own, then certainly it will become a unique character. Pretty much like we do during our childhood. If they all start out with the same basic knowledge of movement, interaction, weapon handling, a tasty background story as to why they're there and why they need to kill this guy that's going to show up some time (being you, the player) and don't get to know any world outside of their little arena, I guess you'd get yourself some sort of virtual Hitler Jugend. Still, if you play the game long enough, the AI is bound to learn more about the world it's living in, and just like in The Matrix, I think at one point some of them will start questioning their 'reality'. It's human nature ... we gave it to them I don't consider the termination of a lifeform without any form of "awareness" to be murder, so for me abortion is not a valid comparison. But an AI or lifeform that has no history, but is self-aware and fully sentient to the world around it ... I guess it would be like a new-born baby. Our parental instincts and the nature-induced "cuteness-factor" of new-borns usually prevents (most) people from harming them. As the AI characters can't call upon any of these features (unless their state of mind is visualized in a virtual model), I guess most people would look at it as little more than a rather stupid computer program and delete it without any second thoughts. Would it have a meaning? No more than killing a real baby if you look at it objectively ...

Biologists are still in discussion over that exact same issue in relation to real fish (and other animals). Do they actually feel pain, or just execute what their instincts tell them to do when their body is physically damaged (stun, twitch, scream, etc). Like bn880 said, in the end, pain is little more than a neurological reaction that motivates us to avoid things that damage our body. Maybe it actually takes a self-aware, higher intelligence to experience pain as more than just a trial-and-error like "punishment signal". Maybe we should understand a bit more about the existing life around us before we should take the responsibility of creating our own? But if that AI is self-aware, it has the ability to make choices. What if one of the aliens you're fighting in a game decides that it doesn't agree with the cause it's told to be fighting for? "Ave Warin, those who are about to die salute you." I wouldn't want to take such a responsibility, would you?

That's exactly the thing that bothers me. If we can control something and use it to increase our sense of power (even if it's merely virtual power), we will. It's human nature. And somehow I'm pretty sure that such things will get back to us in a very nasty way ... So even if these virtual beings are mentally identical to normal humans, but simply lack a physical body structure, it's ok for us to delete the very existence we put them up with in the first place? Remember, we're not just talking about some pile of code here (ok in theory we are ), Â but something that actually feels joy, fear, panick, pain. It has memories and it will beg for it's life when you put a gun against its head. And this time that is not the result of some scripted event, but because the AI character is truly terrified, like you would be in a similar situation. If I recall correctly, all basic human and animal instincts are part of our genetic code. Every creature that is born has a certain amount of "genetic knowledge" to be able to survive to some extend the period after its birth (breathing, feeding, reflexes, etc). For information about genetically passing on knowledge gathered after birth, I have to refer you to Ellen Ripley

I wasn't quite sure if I should make a new post for this, but I think it's related enough to be posted as a reply to this topic, so here it goes: Imagine, you'd get your hands on a super-PC with a game featuring AI characters that are actual self-aware, conscious, sentient (to the limits of their digital environment) beings. Do you think you would feel any moral objections against hurting/killing any of the AI characters? Personally I would, and when we get to such a point in AI development, some pretty big choices will have to be made as to the rights of such artificial sentients. They might not be "living" beings as such, but if we create them to our own level of intelligence (or higher) while basically controlling/limiting their living environment (the computer), I think it is our duty to treat them with atleast a proper level of respect. Humans performing horrible psychological experiments on their digitally created counterparts would be rather questionable IMHO ...

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (MLF @ 10 May 2003,12:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">well tbh, i dont htink its supposed give the feel of the original movie, te me its more of a backstory shows you how they actually got there in the 1st place.<span id='postcolor'> I'm sorry for confusing you, I was refering to the visuals (cinematics, lighting) and character styles of the episodes. Obviously things like setting and storyline differ here ... I was looking for ways to describe what I meant by the movie's 'feel', but I picked the wrong words. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (CuteQA @ 10 May 2003,03:58)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">It makes me to think it is terrible if the same thing happen in the real world, is AI really going to against human? <span id='postcolor'> If it becomes really smart, it'll no doubt find a way to use mankind to it's own advantage. Whether that will be such an extreme scenario as in The Matrix, I leave to your own imagination

So far I've been quite disappointed by the Animatrix episodes to be honest. Although The Second Renaissance I & II have some nice historical references, they lack the Matrix "feel", if you know what I mean. Chapter 3 (Detective Story) comes IMO the closest to the style of the movies (visual and story wise), with its references to Alice in Wonderland and the main character getting 'lost' in the new reality he finds himself in. I really hope future episodes will be more like this.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Feb. 27 2003,16:38)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> I think that it would go very well with the art nouveau architecture of other NY buildings.<span id='postcolor'> Woah ... is it just me or does that design look a lot like the Mon Calamari command ship Home One (Star Wars) jammed into the Manhattan surface? Luckily Al Qaida doesn't have any Mon Cal cruisers at their disposal Back on-topic: I honestly would've loved to see a Gaudi style WTC. After visiting the Sagrada Familia (and many other of his works) in Barcelona I became quite intruiged by Gaudi's style. I really like the organic design and little "easter eggs" in his work (33 ). Don't quite know what to think of the current design. It's nice, but .. somehow it seems to lack coherency or something. I can't quite put my finger on it. And it might just be me, but I think I've seen the design/shape of the glass tower before in a design for an Asian skyscraper.

IceFire, I honestly don't understand what you are trying to say by giving us 1000 year old examples of the very thing you're so opposed to. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I'm just stating why all this advancement and "evolution" is not nesessary.<span id='postcolor'> Survival through evolution is the base of every species we know to date. If it had not been for evolution, our early ancestors would not have been able to find the means to survive the many climate changes (and other adaptation requiring situations) that have taken place throughout the past. We would not have been able to rise to the top of the food chain (don't tell me THAT wouldn't have been a bad thing! and we would still be living from day to day, trying to survive and find something to eat. Everything we know as humankind is a product of evolution, and since we can't just rely on our physical abilities to survive, this is accompanied by our technology. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">They did what they did as much as what we do with as little as they had.<span id='postcolor'> The structure of their culture and society might have allowed them to make some items which would not be efficient to create today. It's not worth the effort to create scalpels that are a few molecules thinner than the current ones, if we really needed them, we would have made some a long time ago. Basically the same goes for road networks. We CAN replace all road networks with highly efficient ones, but the costs and effort required don't live up to the eventual benefits. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The lifestyle of the average ancient average Joe was surprisingly at a similar standard or better than the lives alot of us lead. Without all the pollution, chemicals, toxins, food poisioning, and processed food... etc. They had art, culture, literature, schools, medecine<span id='postcolor'> ... thousands of diseases we can cure today (pollution and food poisoning were actually very common in those days), massive food shortages, human sacrifices in the hope of making the next year a bit better than the previous, education exclusive to the highest members of society, no rights whatsoever to your average Joe, public execution for stealing a bit of bread when you were starving, inability to see any place other than your birth ground without running a 50% risk of getting yourself killed along the way, no means of eating/drinking/learning/hearing/seeing than what's locally available (unless you're part of the high society again) ... how long would you like me to go on about those jolly good days? </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">There is still these things called "libraries". I don't think the internet is that useful. Most of the time I find junk, not what I am looking for.<span id='postcolor'> It's your searching skills, trust me. Where can you find information on evolution? All past and current forms of technology? The lost civilizations of the Egyptians, Aztecs, Mayans and countless others? Internet is the biggest library on this planet, it just needs a few librarians to sort it out a bit. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">So you can't say all this technology is so great. Sure we are different than hundreds of years before. Now we have shiny metal gadgets that did the same things that they used their intelligence to do anyhow with some very sophisticated inventions.<span id='postcolor'> You know that's utter bullshit, so I'm not even going to bother with examples here. You seem to fail to realise how much really technology is integrated into our society, that with our current knowledge and physical abilities we wouldn't even be able to survive without it. And as many of the advances made these days are improvements on things we already have (make them cleaner, more efficient, etc), I cannot see why this would even be a bad thing.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (IceFire @ Feb. 24 2003,22:05)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Well, I've discussed that in a thread here before, and I'll state it again. I think such things are HORRIBLE.   Man has no right to play with the essence of humanity itself.<span id='postcolor'> And why would humanity not have the right to touch their own biological essence? Just because one of the world's many religions claims their god is not very happy about it? Or just because you don't have the educational level to understand exactly how it works and thus are scared of it? As you seem to oppose any progress in technology you cannot visualize, do you refuse any medical attention more advanced than a bandaid? Why are you sitting behind a machine that works in much the same way as your own brain, talking to people through microscopic electrical signals reaching all over the world in mere seconds? Looking at a screen that's being bombarded with small particles, which form the essence of not just humans, but all matter! </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">These computer people are very sick people. They love their precious computers more than other human beings. I don't trust their motives.<span id='postcolor'> Seriously, I somewhat hope for your sake you're just pulling our digital legs here. Otherwise your past experience with not-so-helpful "computer guy" has led to some serious paranoia issues on your side. Calling someone sick just because they understand things better than you do does not give much support to your credibility. Looking down upon people that don't have your level of knowledge can be found in every place where people work. People simply need to be able to distinguish themselves from others, and often do so by means of their knowledge on certain matters. Talk to some one who's a big fan of birds (no hi-tech conspiracies there I think) and make some stupid remarks ("so that little green bird there is the Albatross?") and you'll get exactly the same response as you'd get off a computer geek when you ask him/her a (from their perspective) stupid question. Now the interesting things is: would you ask a computer such a question, you'd get the most helpful and respectful answer, and there would be no funny remarks made behind your back Technology levels beyond the general level of comprehension have been a part of society for many centuries now, and they will be for quite a while to come. At least until the day our minds form one massive database of collective human knowledge. So in the end it’s only the technology itself that can take away the fear and bring understanding to the ones that had none Ok now that last bit probably left you with some terrifying images of human-integrated technology, so maybe just forget what I said there

Forgive me for the lack of coherency in my previous post. I should've been in bed at the time of writing </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">As I see it the problem goes both ways. The game industry makes things that they know that they can sell. The result of that is that the developers of the games don't look past the polygons, textures and vertex shaders. I believe that the hardware industry is also in part responsible for this. They need quick releases of games that can support their brand new hardware.<span id='postcolor'> Yes that's true. I kinda tried to explain that with the flashy turbo-graphics explosive woah action ™ bit. As long as people buy this stuff, there will be plenty of developers who gladly make a quick buck out of it. Similarly, as long as making big innovative games does not always assure you of good sales, many studios will keep from producing those. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I followed your suggestion and bought "Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf ". Sith  you owe me 20 €, <span id='postcolor'> Got a copy of Sniper here for you to make up for it, I'm sure it'll give you an exciting new look on budget gaming </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Mafia would be a fantastic game if you could switch between 1st and 3rd person perspective. As far as I know ('cos I played the demo only) it's 3rd person only, and I'm not a fan of trying to shoot things in that perspective. I don't know how hard it is to code that sort of thing, but there are games going back a few years now that do it. Why not have the option?<span id='postcolor'> I think Mafia's gameplay would not have been improved at all by the addition of a 1st person view. Look at Hitman, where part 1 required you to avoid gunfights as much as possible, the first person view added in the sequel allowed the player to simply go on a rampage. Buy (!!! ) the full game and you'll probably see why (and it's definately worth getting). </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">But to counter the arguement just a little Sith, two words. The Sims. Ugly as hell graphics-wise...certainly not flashy turbo-graphics explosive woah action ™<span id='postcolor'> I think you'll agree with me when I say The Sims is a whole case of its own. The game sold incredibly well, simply because it succesfully opened up the market to people that usually dont play games. In other words, it's operating outside of the competition field of the other games, because it targets a completely different audience. And the game doesn't look that special because the people buying don't have a beefed-up "gamer PC". </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">And just to throw something else in the ring...Quake3. Most (if not all) Pro or close-to-it players....or even just most of the top 25% of all players change the picmip setting to 4, 5 or 6....making the whole game look very "Lego". Certainly not a game you would look at at those settings and think wow...cool graphics. But they do this to improve their own performance skillwise....again, gameplay outweighing super wizzbang ultra sexy ™ graphics. Food for thought?<span id='postcolor'> It's a common thing in competitive games to simplify the visuals, but this has nothing to do with the initial purchase of the game. I think it's fairly safe to say Quake3 would have sold nowhere near as much as it did, if it would've had the "Lego" graphics as standard. Good graphics will sell the game, but their magic wears off after 5-10 minutes of play. After that the gameplay is the only thing that can keep the player hooked. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Well, I 've got a question to ask then. We have two projects (or main lines of production) right now. One has an engine-demo ready the second is in architecture planing state. The both projects are supposed to be developed at the same time. In practice it is impossible. We can focus mainly on one of them only. So we are argueing on the matter. Which project has a better potential and should be given priority. One of them is OFP-like (a group oriented FPS, but more striktly scripted then OFP) and the second is 3D RTS in space. No resourse gathering, no building - pure tactical combat with more wargaming then standard RTS (no healthbars) and very twisted stroyline. So what do you think : which project has a brighter future?<span id='postcolor'> I don't think anyone but the people on the team itself can answer this question, as you are the only ones that know the games inside out. Have the whole team take an objective look at both projects and discuss which one would be the most fun to play. Ofcourse take into account the work already done and the remaining work required to finish the selected the project. If you're gonna throw away a half-completed game (figure of speech), the other project better be damn well worth it Good luck with such a tough decision! Edit: Totally agree with Leone ... one of the most important things is to go with the project you'll like working on the most. This will not only make your work a lot easier, but also greatly influences the quality of the final product.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Yes NWN was good, but one game that you can call revolutionary out of who knows how many released last year. Your whole statement just proves the point that gaming industry is going to hell. Mafia is GTA3 but in different setting. Hitman 1 was revolutionary, but Hitman 2 is just nowhere as good as the second one. And you say that we've got lots to look forward to. Just name me several games that you reckon are going to be revolutionary and we'll see in a year's time if you were right or not.<span id='postcolor'> While I agree with you on the fact that a few recent "big name" games have been rather lacking in gameplay diversity, it's not true that there's hardly anything out there. Last year had some awesome releases, with games like Mafia (very different from GTA3 IMO), Morrowind and many other games on the various consoles (or are we strictly talking PC games here?). For upcoming games, Stalker is a great example. Then there's SW Galaxies (even though they degraded half the game's original content to "patch material") and the still very promising Republic. But the real problem is not the amount of ground braking games on the market but, like my fellow-back-from-the-death Gimball said, the ever increasing level of content and quality expectations on the part of gamers. If you take a closer look at your average game these days, it's absolutely amazing to see how much work has gone into it. Yet our judgement strikes, swift and deadly, dismissing a whole game within a matter of minutes, based on whether the pixel-shading on the water stands up to that of the game you deleted 10 minutes ago. Granted, not everybody is that quick on the draw, but unfortunately many gamers are. Games like Thief and System Shock 2 are two perfect examples of this problem. Both games offer great depth in gameplay, and got some very good ratings in the various reviews. Yet these games didn't sell very well, simply because they didn't offer the instant dose of flashy turbo-graphics explosive woah action of other, much shallower games. I can see why some developers might not want to (or might not be able to) take this risk, and thus turn to producing (relatively) shallow flashy turbo-graphics explosive woah action games. But I'm getting a bit off-topic here ... I personally started to get way too technical about games a while back. I started to notice how every single new game I played was nothing more to me than analysing the models, the lighting system, the way the AI nodes and triggers were set up, and most of all, comparing each and ever element of the game to other games. No game seemed to offer anything new or special anymore. Games started to look like one of those local papers you always get but never want to read, each new issue looks somewhat different from the previous one, but it's still the same letters put down in the same style, telling stuff you heard 10 times before. If you start to notice this as well, STOP! BRAIN REBOOT! Change Bios settings Primary Game Device from "Technical" to "Immersion". Otherwise it'll seriously mess up your appetite for games as a whole, and we don't want that to happen now do we? Try to get into a new game a bit more, don't go around judging it based solely on technical achievements. Look past the polygons and textures, and try to immerse yourself into what the developers had in mind when creating the game. Heck ... go wild and play some games in a genre you never really tried before. It's absolutely amazing. It really works! And if you order now you'll get a free copy of the special book "How Unreal 2 changed my life!"

Oh how the times have changed That OFPN FAQ brings back some good ol memories. The many hours we forced poor Araon to answer our questions back then. The fantastic new developments, like being able to totally walk around in the forests instead of just the first 50 meters ( !!! ), or being able to switch position while in a vehicle. The planning of Battalion + size MP games. The constant banning of Quill from the IRC channel, and the resulting 10 hour dramas where he was proving his innocense Ah those were the days kids

Try downloading the latest DivX Codec.

Well then why don't you make the addons you want, and let BIS make the addons they want. They (especially Araon) have been modeling coldwar era military vehicles for the past ooooh ... 4-5 years now, many of which were given to the community for free. Now who are you to tell them what kind of free addon units they "should" make for you? Besides, none of the many people who DO enjoy it orders you to ever touch it. Love the Camel. Great job Araon!

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Hey Sith m8! The viking horde is back hehe Yes, I have a big nostalgia these last days cos two years the site is online so I think was a nice thing upload that video that make us happy in the past... I'm not wrong that this video have some special in it ,no?, maybe is the action and then the scenes mix with the great background music. Is hard to explain with my poor english words but is like you are watching something really BIG that is comming to your computer hehe This trailer is one of my favs. Hope to see you on ICQ and any BMP killing this time haha Greetings for the evil-twin DnA! :-)<span id='postcolor'> Yeah it's definately still something special Unfortunately I wont be able to do much multiplayer anytime soon, as I got heaps of work to do and am currently connected to the net over a shared 56k (yes that's bad hopefully we'll get our cable connection soon) DnA says hi back And hi Cham, havent seen you around for a while either

Ah ...memories! Havent seen this movie for well over 2 years. Thanks Vikky .. and hiya m8! Long time no see

There already is such a function. Simply hold Alt and click where you want your men to look (tho make sure you have em selected).

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Nightbaron @ Aug. 15 2002,16:15)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Yep...that's why i just cant wait for ofp 2 Â And about the bullet proof glass on HIND...well...actually yes,it do make sense....But,aren't Apache supposed to have bullet proof glass too? Â Haha...well,I'm riding HIND from now on for sure... <span id='postcolor'> Only the frontal cockpit glass in the AH64 is armoured, so from the sides you are still vulnerable to smallarms fire. This is also modeled correctly in OFP

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">And also besides the AI..graphic also can be really improved besides just adding HW T&L support....<span id='postcolor'> HWT&L has been around since hmm ... version 1.2 or something? Not really one of Resistance's new GFX features Try "improved texture resolution", "surface materials" (for lighting and reflections) or "enhanced terrain detail" ... those are some of the new GFX features in Resistance </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">AND the bullets ability to hit is somehow a little buggy...well,it would be nice if you could actually snipe the driver or pilots (yes i know you can do this in the game...but sometimes driver & pilots were actually invicible...even in some vehicles its quite impossible to hit like the pilots in HIND)<span id='postcolor'> Vehicles like the Hind have bullet-proof glass, so it kinda makes sense you cant shoot the crew with small-arms This isnt a bug, just a game feature. I agree with you on the AI and damage effect issues, but dont forget this is simply an expansion pack, not an entirely new game. Some of the things you mentioned would require a complete work-over of certain core engine parts (like shooting from cargo positions).

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">they don't travel upwards initially meaning if close to a target you should have to aim slightly lower<span id='postcolor'> Yes they do. And yes, bullets in OFP are also affected by gravity, so they'll drop over distance. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I don't want the game to be easier or harder, just more realistic. I'd really like to be able reload while I'm sprinting for the next ditch to take cover in, & maybe pop off a few rounds that might have a chance at hitting one of the enemy.<span id='postcolor'> Hate to burst your bubble ... but reloading while sprinting is pretty much impossible as far as I know. You'll probably end up dropping your mags, or grinding your face into the ground. Besides that ... when sprinting for some cover, the last thing you'd want to do is turning around to fire some shots at the enemy (you'll have aprox. 0.01% chance of hitting anything remotely in their direction). </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">my point is that it bcomes too -arcade- once you start running<span id='postcolor'> Nope .. your ideas would make it too arcade

Summer 2000 for me too I was playing (way too much) Tactical Ops, but was also looking for a more serious game. I had been following the Coldwar forums for some already (pretty much the only forum back then), when I met some dude called Seventh who was about to launch a new OFP fansite (didnt even know he was the guy that worked on the OFP soundtrack back then). Together with DnA I joined him and started OFPN. It was really cool to see the game grow over time. We got to know the guys at BIS really well, and after about 7 or 8 months we even got to meet em in person Lucky me got to play the game much sooner than most others, and I knew right away I was hooked for life

Well I thought of something like this, but as a fan-based project It'll be much easier that way, since BIS prolly doesnt have the time for such things right now, and a fanbased project can have much more ppl working on it.

Well I thought of something like this, but as a fan-based project It'll be much easier that way, since BIS prolly doesnt have the time for such things right now, and a fanbased project can have much more ppl working on it.

Didnt you try the new ingame server browser?

Let me ask you one simple question ... How often have you played Resistance?