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I don't think I'll use Vista, either, for the integrated "rights management" spyware. I don't see a lot of need to upgrade (from XP) anyway, unless someone uses applications with huge memory requirements (which incidentally I do, sometimes  :-/  . But my feelings against DRM are a lot stronger than such needs.)

AGS will create 32-bit executables when building your game. If you're using 64-bit Windows, your game will most probably work without any changes - W64 is backward compatible with W32. I'm not sure about Linux, since I don't use it.

Current computer languages in general differentiate between 32-bit and 64-bit integers (int vs. long or int64 or LONGLONG, etc.) AFAIK, the instruction set for 64-bit processors is the same as for 32-bit processors, only the memory address range is a lot bigger; so mostly pointers are affected, not normal arithmetic.

With all this said, AGS will produce a 32-bit exe so on Win64, it'll run in 32-bit mode; this shouldn't be an issue for you at all.

Next: Sir Elton John realizes he's really straight

Awesome game!

If  I were you, I'd promptly report them to eBay. If you really stated that you accept only paypal/check/mney order then you are fine by refusing to accept some unknown company. If they bought your laptop with the stated conditions, it's their responsibility to pay for it. The police threat makes it all the more likely that they want to coerce you into sending the laptop before receiving payment.

The worst new year party ever 



Next: Intel vs. AMD

A few minutes too late...



Next: whatever Mugs said...

Darth,

It IS a good reading, thanks for the link!   

- changed the planet's glow.  I think (may be wrong!) that the glow around a planet is determined by the color of the planet.  Earth is 90% water, thus is glows blue?  This planet seems "lava-y" so it would have an orange glow?  I'm no astronomer!

I believe that the glow should be blueish, as blue light is scattered more than other colors. Color closer to the surface can get a different hue, as there is more gas and it may contain more chemicals, which add their color to the athmosphere color.

I believe the blue effect of the sky is called Rayleigh scattering. Water is blue on Earth, because it reflects the sky, not the other way around. The upper athmoshpere would be blue/white for any planet with an athmosphere. The lower layers could be different color. (Note: someone, please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm no astronomer either, just meddling with physics a bit.) For reference: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/blusky.html

As general c&c: if the planet has an athmosphere, it should have winds and visible currents of gas, because the planet is rotating which causes the air to move. This one doesn't seem to have an athmoshere (even though we see the glow) because we see all surface features very clearly.

I agree, it was a suprisingly good movie - quite the opposite from what one would expect from the trailer.

I believe, that it should be possible legally in a country to execute particularly bad criminals. It should not be easy to make such a decision, but it should be an option. I agree with everyone that execution is not a good sentence, but I think it's necessary - not for deterring criminals, but for punishing them.

As I see it, most of the argument on this thread comes from everyone trying to find a general answer to the question of the death penalty while I believe there is no such answer (a good example is Helm's question whether it benefits society to execute criminals.)

I think it's necessary to make a decision on each such case individually. On a purely moral ground it's easy to say that the death penalty is wrong and many of the arguments for this stance have valid points. But if you look at individual cases, it may be quite easy to counter those pooints - not in every case, but definitely some cases. From what I know about S.W., it was a clear-cut decision. In other cases, it may be different.

I don't agree with those who say that there shouldn't be a death penalty, simply because there are criminals who I don't think can rejoin society after any amount of jailtime. As I said previously, a 4-times mass-murderer already makes the list in my book, so I don't really see any room for argument there (no matter how many times he says he's sorry - he had a chance each time to not to do it before pulling the trigger.)

When talking about a murderer who committed a single murder, I'd be willing to look at a bunch of factors to see if there is a way of saving that person. If so, I'd say, put him in a jail - I don't think anyone in non-criminal society will trust him anymore, but he may have a chance of redeeming himself. However, even in such a case, I'd keep the door open to death penalty, for cases where the murder appears particularly cold. If you ask me what's cold: everything that makes me (or the jury and the judge) feel like it. After all, law is (largely) a written framework of what society thinks is acceptable.

1.
As a side note: the government shouldn't be trusted on its word. I'm from a country where this was obvious. So just because the government says that someone is guilty, it's not necessarily true.

2.
I think that reciting the government's right to execute is actually a cheap way to win this particular argument. The government has "rights" to do whatever they vote for themselves. It's not always right, even in a strong democracy, like the US.

Murdering someone is not bad because it's aganst some written law, but because it's morally wrong. In the current western society where it happened, it's quite easy to define "good" and "bad" in this context. There are killings which are not morally wrong and as such, don't count as murder. (For example if someone defends himself against a potentially deadly attack and kills the attacker. Solders do not commit murder during battles, even though they kill people.)

I don't think that being brought up in a bad environment/family should be an excuse for killing people for fun or profits. The same for not having the "right data". As a taxpayer, I'm not willing to support people who kill/terrorize others (and potentially threaten my family members, too) for their own agenda or gains. As I said in one of my first posts in this thread, I'd be willing take a different position under different circumstances. But knowing the history of this killer, I don't see any reason and apparently judges didn't see any, either.

And let's not forget that some university professors actually nominated this moron for a Nobel peace prize. That's really a new low.   

and about the water, you didn't tell us what is our relationship with him. If we are in the same gang, hell yes I would give him the bottle of water. If I had spent 10 years in jail with him, or if I knew him well enough again yes I would give it to him.
If we were together in the dessert, would you give me the bottle of water? I think not. You just don't know me! I know that I wouldn't trust you...

I don't quite see how does it matter what would be your relationship, since we're talking about a mass murderer, after all. If I stick to your example, 10 years in prison wouldn't put you high on my trust-list.

I think you didn't really grasp my example (perhaps I wasn't clear about it.) If you get stuck in the desert even with a complete stranger, you *can* build some level of trust, simply because there is no previous ill acts by either of you.

I just don't see how one could build any (however fragile) trust with a known mass murderer. So would I trust you with the water? Not necessarily, but perhaps yes. (Then again, maybe not.) Would I trust a mass murderer with the water bottle? Absolutely, 100% no.

I'm sorry for double-posting this, but I feel this is important enough (to me, at least  ) to post it so that it stands out, instead of the almost-unnoticeable edit):

As a quick test for those who think the guy should've been given another chance, think about this: imagine that you're in the middle of the desert with this guy. You also have his anti-violence book. Would you trust him with the water-bottle?

MrColossal: I definitely didn't mean 1 murder is "good". All I said was that I would probably consider it "not as bad" under different circumstances. I don't think any murder is good, but there might be some factors that may give a bit of leniency towards the one who committed it.

(When I say not as bad, I mean that I would consider 25-to-life a proper punishment for it, instead of the death penalty. Don't get me wrong, I never meant promoting a murderer to local kindergarten-manager or something silly like that.)

DG: Sorry, but no. The way I see it, there is no place for any kind of message under the Sun from a mass-murderer. If there was, it would mean that we start relativizing murder.

Under different circumstances I'd take a different stance myself. For some crimes, I can imagine that someone actually turns a better person in jail. Not frequently, but I can imagine, even probably after a single murder. After four? No way.

As a quick test for those who think the guy should've been given another chance, think about this: imagine that you're in the middle of the desert with this guy. You also have his anti-violence book. Would you trust him with the water-bottle?

Wow. I tend to be liberal in most matters but here I fully agree with Squinky/Darth/ProgZMax/etc.: the guy got what he deserved and any more words on this is a waste of valuable network traffic. (I stand ashamed of my own actions in it.   )

The guy killed 4 people, for God's sake! Don't everyone find it a tad inappropriate that he starts writing children's books? He was an a**hole in his whole life and lo and behold: in jail he discovered the good in himself. WTF??? Where was that piece of good hiding when he shot a family of three in the head, execution-style?

I find calling mass murder a "mistake" a bit strong. A mistake is if I make a typo in my weekly meeting report, that's a mistake.

Death penalty may be a bad think (I actually don't think so, but that's another matter), but this guy was the posterboy for it. Every day he got after the initial verdict was a *gift* to him.

As for redemption: if there is a God out there, the guy now has a chance to discuss the matter with Him in person. If there isn't a God, that solves the question of redemption, too.

I think it was ProgZMax, who mentioned a good writer who never happened to commit mass-murder will be struggling to get published. Here we have a moron and mothers of three wet their panties from his "children's books". Forgive me for the foul language but I find this appalling.

PS: if someone thinks I'm worked up, I'm not.   I just have a strong opinion on people killing for fun and then saying "Oops, I'm sorry, that was an accident, really."

vict0r,

Your last edit is a lot better than previous ones, but I agree with Andail, you should heed to more c&c. (Mine! Pick mine! Pick mine!   )

I think these would help a lot:
1. Move the largest box upwards a bit, so that it overlaps the matress corner. It would give a sense of depth to the room, because there the character would walk behind some things.

2. Try to fix the water spot on the ceiling like Andail did in his edit: lighten up the middle of the stain a bit (just a few shades, not more!), so the edge looks a bit darker. That would give it true water stain appearance.

3. The book on the box seems out of perspective. I may be wrong but it looks quite disturbing, as everything else has the right perspective.

4. Everything is neatly organized, something I cannot imagine right after moving in. Everything seems to be laid out in a neat, rectangular grid; every line is parallel or perpendicular. It would be nice to see some boxes a bit rotated, so that they're not so neatly placed.

5. The blanket is a great idea, it immediately gives a bit of personality to the room - it has the feel that someone is actually using this place.

6. Add a bit of detail to the door. Normal living room doors rarely look so flat. Even cheap places have some very minimal ornaments on doors. The door looks more like a closet door.

7. Shadows are waaay too weak for a single lightbulb. You should use stronger shadows.

Here is a quick (and inaccurate) paintover:



Changes:
* Added shadows for boxes, soda can, door frame (forgot door detail), bulb cable, door handle
* Changed water stain in corner, similar how Andail did in his paintover.

You'll have to redo this as I'm pretty sure it's out of perspective, I just quickly made this up. In my opinion, it would help if you added more accented shadows to other items as well: the matress, the plate, etc. You have only a single, very well-defined light source, since it's night outside, there cannot be any substantial light coming from the window.

I think you should try Andail's lighting, with less blur. Even though InCreator's paintover is nice, I, too think that it's a bit overboard. Khrismuc's paintover looks as a big balloon around the bulb, not as light falling off. I feel that it makes the image flat - no offense intended, khrismuc. You'd also have a hard time tinting the character with a spot like that.

If you don't use a lot of blur (just very minimal), your character will still blend in nicely, and you'll have a great backgound with a good mood.

If you go with Esper's idea of having a crossframe in the window, InCreator's glass looks very nice, you could go with something like that.

How about leaving the current sound functions as they are (so they will keep working with older code.) Later on you can phase them out (over, say 2 versions down the road.) They would reset as they do new in game, so current behavior is intact.

For the new sound management method, introduce a global Sound object that has all the methods to deal with sound (like setting/retrieving master sound settings and sound settings for the current room, etc.) It should have methods to explicitly reset these properties from game script, too.

The Sound object should have a property to reset room-related properties when a room change happens or it should have a room event in which the room script code can reset it explicitly, when there is a need. If the room doesn't reset the room-related sound properties, everything stays as they were in the previous room.

I don't have a lot of experience with sound programming, so this idea may have some technical limits.

If it would work, at the introduction of the new Sound object, you could start telling people to not to use the old sound methods anymore, because they're going away in 2 versions. This would give time to everyone to prepare for it.