Messages

Gosh, you guys are so awesome.  I've been looking forward to this for a long time.  Outstanding work!

I am currently working on a website for a small local department store and they want me to put an online store on it where customers can order items from their catalogue. Is this possible? How hard is it to do? I don't want to use paypal, i want something like the next website which is simple and take sthe money directly of your credit card. I googled it but didn't really find any help. Just though ll of your combined intellectual might could help.

It can certainly be done, but it really depends on how complicated you want it to be.Ã,  Are you going to want to include a shopping cart, automatic tax and delivery calculations based on geographical location, automatic special offer and coupon calculations, a currency exchange system, an order tracker, advanced administrator options for updating the catalogue, security, credit card validation, and other features typically associated with an online store?Ã,  You may want to include a membership system, too, to allow the ordering process to be tracked more meaningfully in the session.Ã,  No matter what you do, it will probably take you awhile to finish.Ã,  There are some commercial e-commerce scripts listed at http://www.hotscripts.com, and convincing your client to purchase an e-commerce system might turn out to be the best move, although you usually won't have much control over how the system looks.Ã,  You can also try OsCommerce, which is open source but has a few bugs (docs available at http://oscdox.com).Ã,  You need to sit down with your client and go over all the e-commerce features he/she wants, so you can give them a quote on how much this will cost.

You'll need to read up on credit card validation.Ã,  I don't know if you're using ASP, CGI, PHP, or Perl, but here's a PHP tutorial on how to do it.Ã,  For credit card processing, Authorize.net has fairly low rates per transaction.Ã,  Saferpay and MyPaySystems are quite good.Ã,  Verisign is good at processing secure payments and they've established a good reputation (pricing info).Ã,  Propay lets credit cards be processed without a merchant account, which is usually necessary for credit card processing.Ã,  You can skip some of the steps in developing the system with 2checkout, but you won't have as much control over what the design looks like, and it charges about 5% per transaction (I think) without a monthly fee.Ã,  Cart32 might be a better choice, anyway, if you want some more control over how your layout will appear.Ã,  Consider this site, too, for SSL providers.Ã,  There's a larger list of some of the processors, as well as some things you'll need to know when validating here.

KOL is fun, but this would be quite an ambitious project.

There was a Futurama episode which combined the two genres.

Oh migs. With your cunning de-construction of my comments, you've made me seem so stupid. I apologise completly, and take back everything I said, 100%
American McGee's take on the story is not derivative, OR based on a lack of understnading of the books which I now realise (after you helped me see the truth) I've never read, especially not studied the history of, and CERTAINLY not lived in a house named after an aspect of one of the poems contained within.
ALSO: I now see that "opium fuled" doesn't imply any idea that it was written under the influence of drugs, and I've never heard of ANYONE trying to make out it's a gothic pair of books before in my whole life.
You are a wonderful and brilliant person and I'd just LOVE to be as perceptive and clever as you are. It must be simply brilliant to have everything so clear to you, not to mention to always be right all the time!

Sarcasm noted.  I also note you entirely ignored my point.

I'm divided about this issue.

Sometimes reinterpretations of certain media types enhance the overall story by adding a new perspective. For example, look at Kubrick's reinterpretation of the ending of A Clockwork Orange in comaparison to Anthony's Burgess' novel.

Hoever, sometimes a reinterpretation can contain little substance when compared to the original. I remember reading an article by Dan Knauf about his meeting with a producer who wanted to turn Twelve Angry Men into an action film starring Bruce Willis (I shit you not).

I tend to think American McGee's Alice belongs in the later category. Sure, it's fun. But will it be remembered as much as the novel? I doubt it.

If you don't think a reinterpretation is good, just reject it, but I think most attempts at reinterpreting classics are worthwhile endeavors.  I'm not sure I would really consider American McGee's Alice a reinterpretation, though.  It's more of a dark parody.  It's a unique story, and bears little semblance to the original except in theme.

Dear sir, I doth reply in such a manner to ease mine inquiring mind. I do beseech thee, art thoue so graceous to perchance provide remedy to mine question? I say, dost thou approve of the suggested truth, which I must admit appeases my concious, that this tounge hath lost much grace in its prose? Aye, it doth appear much changed, but hath it truely grown? A rose mayest grow and blossom at its purest peek of health, but methinks instead, the tounge of which thou speak has decomposed like a rose in death. All bright hue faded away to leave the mere matter of its essance behind. Truely, it cannot be admired as an improvment, no? Praythee, speak thy mind?Ã,  [=P]

LLOLORZL!  J00 R 4 N00B0RZ!!!1111

Yeah, that team competition consumes one's time in ways unimaginable.  I hear the participants are currently getting only 2 hours of sleep a night and scarcely have any time to eat.

By the way, unless the title's spelling has some special meaning, you may want to consider spelling it correctly: "Assassins."

It's an impressive game from a visual perspective. But I was constantly irritated by a deep lack of understanding of the books that was displayed.

Mind you, it's fasionable to mis-understnad the books these days. The idea of it being "opium fuled" and nightmarish is enormously over-interpreting. They're amazingly weird books, but they weren't written under the influence of any drugs, and they're not particularly dark really.

Who, praytell, claimed this?

People are always trying to make Alice in Wonderland somehow dark and gothic when it's not.

I know.Ã,  I run into at least two people a day doing precisely this.Ã,  "I'm making a gothic version of Alice in Wonderland!" they blurt out, as they thrust character sketches of a deformed Cheshire Cat in my face.

Mind you, the game doesn't take away the books, and it's not like anyone will re-write the novels to match the game or anything. So I guess it doesn't matter that an American (who must be pretty damn amazing to have his name put in the game's title! even the Mario chap hasn't done that yet!) didn't "get" it. And it's not a bad game by any streatch of the imagination...

I guess I'm just a little precious about the books (which are quite brilliant in their simple charm) and get cross when people want to capitalise on a general mis-understanding of them...

Apparently you are incapable of recognizing and appreciating artistic creativity, and your nonsensical rambling makes absolutely no sense to me.Ã,  American McGee's Alice is an intentionally dark twist to a popular story, not an attempt at faithfully replicating it in game form.Ã,  I think you entirely missed the point of the game, and I seriously doubt you've even read Lewis Carroll's books at all if you think American McGee's Alice was an attempt at a 1:1 version of it.

Here's a little challenge for the religious:

Place yourself in the position of an objective agnostic - a person with no biases for or against any particular religion or religious organisation. Then, try to build up a case for why your personal favourite religion is a more credible proposition then any other. Make sure every piece of evidence stands up in comparison to corresponding evidence from other religions (e.g. citing subjective religious experiences as evidence will not necessarily count, as such experiences have been shown to occur almost equally throughout members of all religions â€" and even regularly among the non-religious - only the interpretation tends to change).

Until religious people can do this, they should lose all privileges for suggesting people of other beliefs are wrong or irrational, in my view.

I think temporarily placing yourself in another's position is an excellent way to approach other religious perspectives.Ã,  There's a similar example, related by Krister Stendahl, the Lutheran Bishop of Stockholm and former dean of Harvard Divinity School.Ã,  He once outlined three rules on how to approach another's religion.Ã,  They may seem fairly obvious, but are often ignored nonetheless:

(1) If you want to learn about a religion, ask the adherents of the religion, not its enemies.Ã,  It only makes sense.Ã,  After all, adherents are the authorities on what they themselves believe.Ã,  if you want to learn about plumbing, you ask your plumber, not your auto mechanic.

(2) Don't compare your best with their worst.Ã,  For example, Christians believe in loving everyone, but those awful Muslim terrorists in Afghanistan hate everyone.Ã,  That's not a correct comparison.Ã,  Instead, compare Christian terrorists to Muslim terrorists.Ã,  You should compare the ideal in one faith to the ideal in another.Ã,  Compare the Christian who lives the life of love to the Muslim who lives the life of love.

(3) Leave room for "holy envy."Ã,  Holy envy is looking at another faith and saying, "Gosh, that's such an awesome doctrine they have.Ã,  I wish my religion had it."Ã,  That's not saying you have to believe what the religion teaches, just that you admire it.Ã,  For example, one can admire the ritualistic aspect of Catholic mass without being Catholic, and even wish their church had more ritual to it.

umm...Migs my man...I'm afraid the Wizard of Oz game from McGee aint comin anymore...Atari's called off the deal...its cancelled.
Ã,  http://www.gamershell.com/news_bOZbCancelled.shtml
Ã,  Ã, go here^^^

Thanks for letting me know.  How disappointing.

Thanks for doing that, AlexisVale.Ã,  Here's another link for you, on Isometic Pixel Art: http://www.zoggles.co.uk/asp/tutorials.asp?show=index

There's a bunch of other links on there, too, under "Other Tutorial Links."Ã,  You might want to add those, too, if they haven't already been added.

Nothing to do with the imfamous hentai La Blue Girl, I hope?

No.

It was pretty neat-o looking ...

I couldn't understand what it was supposed to be about.

But then again I never was very smart.

It's just one of those short movies that doesn't have a point other than aesthetic appeal, like the demo scene.  They did quite a beautiful job on this.

Congratulations!  What an honor!

A new CGI short film.  Quite good, in my opinion.

http://www.le-prince-bleu.com/

No, he's not right. I'm 22 and was raised on the old adventure games without voices. I can appreciate a good non-voiced game. I LOVED Space Quest 3. I'm just sayng that if done right, voice acting can be good.

I wasn't making any absolute statement, and I agree that voice acting can enhance a game if done right.Ã,  I've just noticed that the common trend is that people who think voice acting is tremendously important in a game tend to be younger than those who don't.

If you can find talented enough voice actors and you feel your game will be enhanced by voices, and you think it's worth the extra effort, by all means do it.

#AGS makes me pee.

I wonder what the percentage of discussion in there is actually AGS related...

Not that I'm innocent of being off topic or anything, but still, in theory what goes on in the channel reflects onto the community.

I agree, although if needed, I think most people are still intelligent enough to evaluate a community by the individuals rather than stereotype them based on the actions of a few immature chat room- and forum-dwellers.Ã,  I haven't bothered dropping by #ags lately, for the simple reason that all the talk about genitalia gets tiresome.Ã,  I find it entirely unnecessary.

I do think it's partially the European culture, which generally tends to be a little more open-minded toward genitalia- and sex-related jokes than other places in the world.Ã,  Things that make some people cringe make other people laugh.

I've noticed the opinions here often differ according with age.  Older players bought the disk versions of the games.  Younger players started playing adventure games during the dawn of the CD-ROM era, when games were being released with voices.  I imagine for younger players, it's harder for them to conceptualize games without voices, and since they grew up with it, it seems like more of a natural thing to put voices in games, whereas older players tend to be somewhat indifferent.

I personally think QFG4 is the best of the series.Ã,  The atmosphere of the game just draws you right in, and the music by Aubrey Hodges is outstanding, even better than the music to QFG2, in my opinion.Ã,  One thing about the Quest for Glory series, is that the storyline in each game is quite powerful, and I think this is what makes QFG4 the best in my mind.Ã,  The story is gripping, and the characters are deep and memorable.

This game is definitely one of my favorites, and I normally don't like FPSs.Ã,  The level design in this game is some of the most creative I've ever seen.Ã,  And the Cheshire Cat is so awesome.

American McGee is working on a Wizard of Oz game right now.

LucasFan, can you just turn in Deluxe? Or by some chance do you think they could be one of the 200,000+ people to download the game and know you have already finished it?Ã, 

Maybe turn in an updated version with some fixes that you were thinking of doing?

Maniac Mansion Deluxe is already up on the Retro Remakes web site.  It wouldn't make much sense to enter it again.