TASVideos

Posted: 9/12/2008 12:06 PM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

moozooh wrote:

The existence of a man-made book as a medium for a god's message sounds like a fundamental flaw by itself.

Since we are talking about time travel, religion and science in the same thread on the TASvideos forums, let's contemplate on the following hypothesis: If you were an omniscient God, who has created the universe, including all the nature laws in it, and you have the capability of seeing all the extent of time from the beginning to the end at a glance, and you wanted to give the people living in the universe a message, but you wanted the people to write it, how would you do it, considering that the people are an unreliable medium? Remember, you are now thinking as a God, and you can tool-assisted manipulate the universe. Could God possibly re-record the universe, luck-manipulating different things until the desired outcome is accomplished? In other words, guide the man's hand writing the book, without really affecting the man's ability to decide? He could produce a book that looks precisely like he wanted it to look, even though the man wrote every letter of it. (And since he's omniscient, he doesn't need to re-rerecord; he gets everything right on the first try, so there really aren't any timelines (and lifes) erased from ever existing.)

Posted: 9/12/2008 11:32 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Silent_Slayers wrote:

Dear Bisqwit

Thank you for your questions. Arf, I already wrote 75% of the answer once, then I accidentally closed the tab before posting it. I'll write it again. > Say, someone, it doesn't matter who; travelled back in time and altered something that majorly changed the future. How would you experience the change because of his actions? We have no way of knowing, as time travel has not been witnessed yet. There are multiple theories. It stands to reason that we would not experience any change, though. We would simply see that things are as they have always been. However, if we have a soul/spirit separate from the material world and its timeline, we could possibly become disoriented for a while without any scientific explanation. > Why did god make sinful actions pleasureful if he doesn't want you to do them? This reminds me of a concept called "local maximum" in mathematics. God has created many things in the world which cause pleasure, but they are to be used in moderation. True joy, the global maximum, comes from following God's will. I know this because just recently, I had a kind of revival experience, and the last week has been quite a ride for me. Overdoing some particular method of pleasure gets you stuck in a local maximum, which is far from the true joy. Even though anywhere you look, may look like it's more bleh, the true joy is out there, in following God's will. > What if an athiest, a few days away from death decided to be a Christian and seriously believed in God and went to church and begged forgiveness for his sins etc. Would he go to heaven or hell? This question is so simple that it sounds like a trap; as though you a hidden agenda in asking it. But I'll go ahead and interpret it naïvely. Obviously, he would go to heaven. > Do you believe there are flaws in believing in Christianity even though you yourself are Christian? What you think as Christianity is a collection of traditions, beliefs and behavior exercised and followed by a number of people. It is similar to a language: each speaker has their own interpretation of it. What connects them is the Bible, but that's approximately the largest common denominator. Yes, I think there are flaws in "believing in Christianity". We have God's message, the Bible, but like any message that is 600 pages long and created by an intelligence and wisdom infinitely superior to ours, we rarely quite grasp the full meaning of it. But we can start from basics: get to the source, and have him guide through the rest of it. It requires commitment. > Since the universe is ever expanding, what if you were going faster then the expanding of the universe, where would you be if you passed the "boarder" of the universe? I presume you mean "border". However, the important question is, whether there is any border. In a similar manner as ancient people thought that there's a border on Earth, if you sail too far, you may fall off, it may be a flaw to think that there's an edge in the universe. There are a number of extradimensional shapes in which the universe could be contorted without having edges; the simplest being the hypersphere. I love physics solutions that unask the question. :)

Posted: 9/12/2008 7:56 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

＞alden Thanks for your suggestions. I'll comment on them for a bit. ＞ This would include a nice text index like FractalFusion has added recently (though hopefully automated), lists like Movies for First Time Viewers, Greatest Hits, Glitched Out... Movies for First Time Viewers was a great idea in my opinion too, but it was ultimately removed because there was too much argument on which movies should be recommended ("starred") and by which policies. More can be read at http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/160751#160751. ＞ It is about having runs that traditionally would be rejected, but still fall within the scope of the site and increase the number (if not the percentage) of movies that each user finds entertaining. It's one of those things I wish to have some day as well. To extend it to a purpose of an archive, while still catering those who want to find the best entertainment. I think it needs a redesign of the site, and redesign plans are not progressing here really fast. ＞ Remove author's information from the actual publication -- retain it in the submission I don't wish to do that. I understand your point, but we cannot treat the movies as if the author relinquished all copyright over it to the site. I think the current way makes authors happier, and I don't think that making the authorship information less accessible would help the audience enjoy the content better.

Posted: 9/9/2008 10:15 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Feel free to obsolete this :) I'll probably redo it some day but I'm quite busy for a week now etc.

Posted: 9/8/2008 10:15 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Ah, the colour smearing. This is an annoying bug that appeared once without any clear reason. To fix it, change the module that calls NESVideoLoggingVideo and switch the state of the #if that decides whether to send I420 data to the codec directly instead of sending whatever the emulator produces. Sorry about it!

Posted: 9/6/2008 8:55 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Warp wrote:

klmz wrote:
According to the recently published N64 Super Smash Bros. movie, movies of fighting games should aim for entertainment more than pure speed.
I don't think that was intended to be a strict rule, just a generic rule of thumb with perfectly possible exceptions.

Not strict, but it should seriously be considered though.

Posted: 9/6/2008 6:32 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

klmz wrote:

EDIT: I watched it again just now. You missed some punches/kicks, and upper kicks were used too much while lower kicks were very rare. I think should have voted Meh.

Yes... some were missed as part of luck manipulation. To the best of my knowledge, none of it made the movie slower, though I admit it may look bad. I acknowledge the lack of lower kicks: it's due to the input simplifier which removes unneeded buttons, and often the only difference between the upper and lower kicks is whether you hold the down button; their power is the same.

Posted: 9/5/2008 5:52 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Baxter wrote:

<quality> and <improvements>

Aww. I expected improvements to be found (because even movies like Lolo have been found improveable from time to time), but not that soon. Obvious delays in this movie are usually because of enemies being in awkward positions for the pink's blob's immobilizing landing.

Posted: 9/4/2008 10:14 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

My thoughts: Use different styles in different places. Give the players as many dimensions as possible for identifying where exactly they are in game that they can use in their thoughts and in their speech; name tags are not enough. These dimensions include: – type of scenery: caves, water, sky, etc. – graphics: is the scene constructed of wood, question marks, tiles; what kind of backgrounds you use – music – certain shapes of platforms/enemy groups Mix things that go well together. Create beautiful style. – Avoid creating stark contrasts in colours without a corresponding change in the terrain / pace. – Don't mix randomly: Use the same components together. Cave stages use cave music, etc. Certain enemies only live in certain inhabitats, so don't put a flowerhead worm in a pipe puzzle, for example. Use a pace that goes together with the expected progress speed. Don't cram screens full of things. Let the player get an impression of progressing. Variations in pace are acceptable, of course. Don't repeat the same thing many times. Players get bored quickly if they need to do the same thing again and again. Don't create fake difficulty. Fake difficulty includes: – invisible platforms which you must find in order to progress – invisible platforms that you hit accidentally and die – long spans of deadly floor / wide pits that you must cross by utilizing very unreliable platforms, often relying on luck such as the specific characteristics of enemy AI (so you can jump from enemy to the next) – giving the player too little time to reasonably complete the level – making the level impossible to complete unless the player chose earlier an action that seemed completely irrelevant – splitting the route to two separate sections where you must have some kind of premonition in order to know which route leads to progress and which one is a dead end

Posted: 9/4/2008 7:11 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

I do not want to support those annoying download sites (from now on called Download Sites) that are full of obnoxious advertisements and make you jump through tons of hoops (type captchas, wait million seconds, etc., unless you paid them to enter their elite club) before you can download what you wanted to download, in any form. The cost sharing model of using something like Download Sites just isn't fair. We want to provide great service, and yes, although it sounds reasonable that to provide good download speeds, some money would need to be spent*, what you're not realizing is that when you use Download Sites, each downloader must pay them separately to get "premium access". With tens of thousands of visitors, that amounts to a huge amount of money (of course, not everyone pays, but then it's back to the service being annoying in the extreme, for those users). That cost model simply isn't fair. A lot of money is wasted, when that could be done more efficiently by centralizing it. *) Even though, in theory, BitTorrent should be able to provide just as good speeds if people weren't just so eager to shut down their clients and/or ISPs so eager to collect money on running services :I

Posted: 9/4/2008 6:39 AM

Post subject: waste of time

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

As of now, I am removing the Google advertisements from the site because they produce a ridiculously low amount of revenue (takes more than two weeks to get a money worth a lunch) despite the high number of visitors, compared to the annoyance of having advertisements on the site in the first place. Everybody rejoice. :I Yes, they could have been more profitable if I made them more prominent ― and two orders of magnitude more annoying ― but I don't want to go that way. I may still look into some other advertising campaigns, but my hopes are not high. In any case, this is not a threshold question*; the site is in no danger of going down given the status quo, even if no money is received. *) Finnism. I don't know the applicable term in English. "Kynnyskysymys" (pronounced IPA:/kynːysˈkysymys/), here translated literally as "threshold question" means an issue that must be solved before something else can happen.

Posted: 9/3/2008 2:26 PM

Post subject: Re: Google Chrome

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Warp wrote:

Is it just me, or does the Google Chrome logo look a lot like a pokeball?

I think it looks like the logo of Windows Media Player.

Posted: 9/3/2008 11:23 AM

Post subject: Re: Movie description neutrality?

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Hello, ElectroSpecter, and thank you for the feedback. On this site, we do not follow strictly a Neutral Point Of View policy like Wikipedia does, though we try to come close to that. We provide entertainment, and for entertainment, there are no absolute truths. In order for the site to survive, our publications – the movies – must be considered entertaining and interesting by audience, and to do that, emphasis helps when used in moderation. We must be able to market our movies. I apologize if the movie descriptions seem to be unbalanced, unfairly favoring some authors / movies over others. My concern is mostly about movies that have a rather anticlimactic description, such as this*. Want to become an editor? *) Which currently reads: > TODO: describe this movie better > This movie is another one that's in the series of "hard games played to > look like they're easy." > > This is a 262 frame improvement over its predecessor.

Posted: 9/3/2008 5:58 AM
(Edited: 9/3/2008 6:10 AM)

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

mz wrote:

Now I understand why most emulators don't have configurable hotkeys.)

You could just check out how snes9x-1.51 does it.

        keymaps.push_back(strpair_t("K00:9", "ToggleTransparency"));
        keymaps.push_back(strpair_t("K00:minus", "DecFrameRate"));
        keymaps.push_back(strpair_t("K00:S+minus", "DecFrameTime"));
        keymaps.push_back(strpair_t("K00:C+minus", "DecTurboSpeed"));
        keymaps.push_back(strpair_t("K00:A+minus", "DecEmuTurbo"));

        switch (event.type)
        {
        case KeyPress:
        case KeyRelease:
          S9xReportButton(((event.xkey.state&(ShiftMask|Mod1Mask|ControlMask|Mod4Mask))<<8)|event.xkey.keycode, event.type==KeyPress);
          {
              KeyCode kc=XKeysymToKeycode(GUI.display, XKeycodeToKeysym(GUI.display, event.xkey.keycode, 0));

              if(event.xkey.keycode!=kc)
                  S9xReportButton(((event.xkey.state&(ShiftMask|Mod1Mask|ControlMask|Mod4Mask))<<8)|kc, event.type==KeyPress);
          }
          break;

void S9xReportButton(uint32 id, bool pressed){
    if(keymap.count(id)==0) return;
    if(keymap[id].type==S9xNoMapping) return;
    if(maptype(keymap[id].type)!=MAP_BUTTON){
        fprintf(stderr, "ERROR: S9xReportButton called on %s ID 0x%08x\n", maptypename(maptype(keymap[id].type)), id);
        return;
    }

    if(keymap[id].type==S9xButtonCommand)        // skips the "already-pressed check" unless it's a command, as a hack to work around the following problem:
    if(keymap[id].button_norpt==pressed) return; // FIXME: this makes the controls "stick" after loading a savestate while recording a movie and holding any button
    keymap[id].button_norpt=pressed;
    S9xApplyCommand(keymap[id], pressed, 0);
}

void S9xApplyCommand(s9xcommand_t cmd, int16 data1, int16 data2){
<...>
    switch(cmd.type){
<...>
      case S9xButtonJoypad:
        if(cmd.button.joypad.toggle){
            if(!data1) return;
            uint16 r=cmd.button.joypad.buttons;
            if(cmd.button.joypad.turbo) joypad[cmd.button.joypad.idx].toggleturbo^=r;
            if(cmd.button.joypad.sticky) joypad[cmd.button.joypad.idx].togglestick^=r;
<...>
      case S9xButtonCommand:
<...>
            switch((enum command_numbers)(i=cmd.button.command)){
              case ExitEmu:
                S9xExit();
                break;
              case Reset:
                S9xReset();
                break;
<...>

And as for saving those mappings and making them customizable, snes9x saves them into $HOME/.snes9x/snes9x.conf, which can be edited with any text editor (think notepad). This kind of things I love. I agree creating an input configuration dialog might be difficult, and I would anyway much prefer a configuration file I can edit with my tools of choice (this excludes Windows Registry btw) over any average dialog.

Posted: 9/3/2008 5:48 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

mz wrote:

Well, I only started working on this so Bisqwit could start accepting movies made with this emulator. So, I'd like to know if there's still more things that need to be done for that to happen; and if those things are within my abilities I'll code them.

I'll try to remind myself to do another review on this at my free time some day soon. Hopefully we can accept it soon!

Posted: 9/2/2008 7:21 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

mr_roberts_z wrote:

So, any plans for the future?

Well, there are a number of things I want to accomplish, and a number of things I don't care much about. I'm rather passively heading forth, only grabbing obvious opportunities; I'm mostly satisfied at status quo. EDIT: Wow, it has been a long time: http://tasvideos.org/forum/p/9247#9247 In other news, TASVideos will be five years old this December!

Posted: 9/2/2008 7:07 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

For me, it desynced before the activation of self-destruct after killing the mother brain ― i.e. less than two minutes before the end of the movie.

Posted: 9/1/2008 12:21 PM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Warp wrote:

Bisqwit wrote:
Sounds like the Osborne effect.
Except that the Osborne effect refers to a company unintentionally killing its own product with a careless announcement of an upgrade, while in this case it was Sony killing the Sega product (which was most probably their intention).

Ah, true. I carelessly read your post.

Posted: 9/1/2008 9:51 AM

Post subject: Web programmer wanted (recruiting for W-Create Oy, Finland)

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

(Sorry about advertising on this board, but…) The company where I work at, W-Create Oy, is looking for web programmers. =========================================== =========================================== Web programmer position open at W-Create Oy, Kerava (Savio district), Finland. W-Create Oy is a valued web application development company. The long term goal of W-Create is to be a worldwide known web development company, where top professionals are working. We are looking for a web programmer to our team. As a web programmer you are proficient with these techniques: PHP, SQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript Requirements: ― 1―2 years of experience of web programming ― At least 1 year of experience in PHP projects ― SQL experience ― Ability to communicate in Finnish and English ― Ability to manage projects independently ― Ability to learn and adapt quickly We also value: ― Expertise of database optimization ― C++, Perl and Python programming skills ― Experience of using XML ― Experience of using Macromedia Flash ― Experience of using source control systems such as SVN, CVS W-CREATE Oy is a small web development company specialized in intelligent Internet solutions and digital media. Formed in 1996, W-Create is prudential and grows organically. The company has an AAA credit rating by D&B, which indicates a financially robust employer. W-Create Oy is a member of The Finnish Software Entrepreneurs Association. We offer: ― Regular working schedule (37.5 hours in week, overtime is paid for) ― Environment where you can improve your professional ability ― Programming challenges ― A safe, stable working environment ― Possibility to influence projects – in due time, also the contents thereof Working in our team you'll be part of something big. We choose our projects such that we can influence the contents of the project and be involved with our customers. You'll develop the information society with various projects. We work with many popular web sites with various challenges and continuous chances to learn new. Such sites include Ilmainen Sanakirja, Kaannos.com and Elonet. We're also working on developing a metainformation archiving system for the national radio and television archive. Here you will learn and use modern practices on the web programming business; tools, methods and agile processes. If this all sounds fascinating to you, please send your CV and a free form application with the salary request to us at address info at w-create.com. More information can be requested and questions asked from our CEO by e-mail at ilkka.o.lavas at w-create.com. (The communication language should be Finnish.) =========================================== =========================================== If you know someone who might be interested of this offer, please pass the message.

Posted: 9/1/2008 7:02 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Twelvepack wrote:

Pre-emptive no vote for finalfantasy 7-8-9. No tas should be longer the the Lotr trilogy.

Duly noted. A pre-emptive yes vote for the same! :P

Posted: 8/31/2008 2:58 PM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

I tried this PCSX today. I'm glad things are improving and all, but I had a less than pleasant experience trying it. Note: This is a Windows XP machine I tried it on. I don't even dare to try it on Linux yet. List of my comments and problems in the order of occurance: Reading the documentation: "Configure your Plugins & Bios as follows: Sound: "No Sound 0.4". Then you can change this one when you're replaying your movie, but select this one when you're recording to prevent desyncs later. ― uh-oh. That sounds like trouble. Because when I'm making movies, I use the sound as an indicator of actions and a timing guide. It is very important to me. Not to mention that the way suggested doesn't sound quite desync-proof... (Trying to select the paths for plugins etc.) Argh, I hate the windows folder selection dialog. It takes by average about 15 seconds to select a location that is deep within the folder hierarchy. As opposed to the 3 seconds it would take to simply type it in. And apparently, it does not recognize symlinks. I have a symlink pointing to a network location where my memory card images are, but the dialog promptly ignores the symlink, making it impossible to point to that location. If it even used the current working directory as the base, it would be great. But apparently, since Windows 95, the concept of current working directory was promptly thrown out the window. So it always assumes that you want to save to My Documents or to your desktop. If your preference is at c:\cygwin\home\bisqwit\nes\psx\pcsx\plugin, tough luck. (Trying to load up a game.) Um, can PCSX not use disc images? Hmm, according to Dacicus's post on page 1, you need a plugin called "Mooby2 cd disk image driver 2.8". Time to go hunting for plugins. /me fires up Google. Uh-oh, all pages having "Mooby2 cd disk image driver 2.8" on them only refer to the fact that you need that plugin, or are comments by people unable to find that plugin anywhere. Where do I download it?? So finally I found it somewhere. Uh-oh, Mooby2 is also unable to follow symlinks. Do I really need to copy 1.4 gigabytes of stuff over WLAN to my laptop just so that I can play the game? Stupid Windows. I would so much like to just the symlink that points to the network path where the game is. Okay, well, how about the network path? Uh-oh, Mooby2 does not allow inputting network paths. Try to enter \\, and it will change it to something else. Okay, someone suggested that I map the network path into a disk drive letter. That could work, but if I do that, it will slow down the boot times of this laptop drastically when that network path is not accessible. Because this is a roaming computer; I use it at home and at work. Network paths for my home network are inaccessible at work, and it would be reflected in the boot times. Okay, against my better judgement, I tried mounting them as P:\. Uh-oh, Mooby2 does not allow me to input P:\ in the path. If I try, it will change it to something else. However, when I copypasted P:\ from notepad into the empty path entry, it worked. Yay ._. (Trying to play game.) Uh-oh. When I point it to Chrono Cross ISO, it says that it does not support ISO images. It only supports BINs. However, it loads the game just fine. Eh? Uh, how do you return to the menu in PCSX without ending the game? I tried esc, but I could not resume the game after that. I would like to customize my hotkeys, and also to change the no-sound plugin into yes-sound plugin, as instructed by the RR instructions. Configuration->Controllers->Shortcuts->Configuration dialog. I set that as ESC. After I did that, the emulator stopped responding to ESC. Quite the opposite of what I wanted. Uh-oh, in the controllers setup, I entered "P" as the key for Start button. I try to use the P key in the game, but instead of pressing the Start button, it seems to pause the emulator. WTF? (Trying to figure out where the emulator settings are stored so I could edit them easier, i.e. by loading up a text file and editing it, rather than by shuffling through dozens of dialog boxes filled with shoot-your-leg design.) Tried plugins\ directory. Not there. Tried home directory. Not there. Tried pcsx directory. Not there. Tried registry. 40 seconds of searching for "pcsx". Okay, some settings there, but not all. Where are all the rest of the settings? I have no idea. Not to mention that in the passage of these misexperiences, the emulator crashed a number of times ― before it had even loaded a single game. Reminds me of an old saying in Bisqwit's world: I hate plugins. I'm also reminded of this (ignore the speech in the first panel):

Posted: 8/31/2008 11:57 AM
(Edited: 8/31/2008 12:15 PM)

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Warp wrote:

The death of the Dreamcast was a real shame. Basically people simply stopped buying it for the simple reason that Sony had announced that their Playstation 2 is on the way, and will be "much better". Everyone started waiting for the PS2, and the Dreamcast got killed. In the end, the PS2 was *not* much better than the Dreamcast, but people bought it anyways.

Sounds like the Osborne effect.

Posted: 8/30/2008 9:00 PM

Post subject: Re: Gaming Survey for my dad's new marketing project

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Satyrium wrote:

My dad is working for a new video game retailer and coming up with a marketing angle to help promote them efficiently.

Good luck with that. I'm from Finland and my answers are probably those less than desired by marketers. Gender? Nominally male Age? 30 Play on PC or Console? By average*, neither If Console, which one? NES Do you play: [ ] Alone? Yes [ ] Online? By average, never [ ] In-home groups? By average, no Do you take your gaming “seriously?” (want to beat friends, win tourneys etc.) Never. I like to know enough that I can help them surpass me, but for that, personal achievement is not necessary. Where do you get your information about games? Today, the Internet. Favorite games? Star Control II (PC), Final Fantasy VII (PC), Chrono Trigger (SNES) Where do you buy your games? By average, nowhere. Where do you buy your consoles? By average, nowhere. (But if I wanted to buy one, I would likely buy it online, or get someone's used one for nominal price.) Have you ever traded in or purchased a second hand game/console? By average, no. Your parents: []Support your gaming []Dislike it []Don’t care []Not living with parents Not living with parents. *) By average = excluding the opposite happening so rarely or so long time ago that it's not worth mentioning.

Posted: 8/29/2008 7:28 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

LagDotCom wrote:

Um, I am quite sure it is possible to write key listeners that respond to the key's value instead of its scancode on Windows

Yeah, and that would make the problem on Linux a problem on Windows as well! Great. I suppose there's merit to both approaches, but the fact stands that on different keyboard layouts, different modifiers are required to produce the different keysymbols. ― On English keyboard, ] can be produced without any modifiers, whereas on the Swedish keyboard, it requires holding the rightside Alt key. ― On Swedish keyboard, + can be produced without any modifiers, whereas on the English keyboard, it requires holding the shift key. And so on. A program making assumptions on these keys, – either for usability (selects hotkeys that don't require modifiers: convenient for English keyboard users, PITA for everyone else) – or for functionality (accepts a ] symbol only if no modifiers were used, or accepts + only if shift was held: impossible to use for anyone not using English keyboard), is going to be annoying in a way or another for some of its users. It would be best 1) to use only hotkeys are consistent across different layouts -- 0..9, F1..F12, backspace, tab, shift, ctrl, alt, insert, delete, etc. are quite safe bets, others can change (note that not everyone is even using qwerty; the French have azerty for example). 2) to provide means to configure every hotkey, including the fact whether it's with modifiers or not.

Posted: 8/29/2008 6:38 AM

Quote

Bisqwit

Editor, Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Neophos wrote:

Although I believe it still works by relative button. For example, frame advance in Snes9x is \ (altgr + + on my keyboard), however, by pressing the §/½ button (the button where \ is on american keyboards) it still works.

On Windows, I think it indeed does -- it is bound to the physical key, location on the keyboard. So when the emulator says that some hotkey is ], you will have to imagine what that key would be if your keyboard was actually English. However, on Linux, those hotkeys are bound to the symbols produced by the keys by the X server. If your hotkey is ] and none of the keys when pressed without modifiers produce a ] symbol, that hotkey is completely unaccessible.

Posts for Bisqwit