Pegasus3d.com

[Jeremy Reimer]

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/gaming-evolution.ars

I note that it took less than a minute for someone to comment about the gaps and things that were missing, despite the very obvious disclaimer that they were INTENTIONALLY missing in the INTRODUCTION. *sigh*

Oh well, I still had a blast writing it, and it's great to see it live!
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"Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries."
-- Carl Sagan

"Its not a rule. Its just something I noticed. Several of us have more than one sig." - Mord

"No, you are a troll, and I should have never let you back to Ars in after the first 16,000 bannings." - Caesar, to He Who Shall Not Be Named

[AllYorBaseRBelong2Us]

AYB will be certain to read it in it's entirety tomorrow.


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This and other statistics can be culled from Jeremy Reimer's Personal Computer Market Share: 1975-2002, a very impressive piece of information gathering. The numbers tell some very interesting stories.
- http://lowendmac.com/musings/03/0131.html

Man, I need to get out more. You know smam is getting to you when you go to a canadian restaurant and start wondering about moose cock. -OscarWilde

[Magus]

Nice work, Jeremy. I loved seeing a Fellowship of the Smam picture for NWN.
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<Paolo|Work> anything that has to do with Java is by definition stupid

1 The Network is my domain, I shall not want; 2 though it makes me wait upon collision, it leads me to the Internet; 3 it restores my connection. It leads me in paths of hypertext transfer for google's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of power failures, I fear no data corruption; for backups art with me; thy UPS and thy status light, they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a firewall before me in the presence of my enemies; thou anointest my CD-R with BurnProof, my buffer never underflows. 6 Surely good deals and pr0n shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Datacenter for ever.
-HitScan

Wilde is a 4' chinese man in a bright pink tutu, lime green pimp hat with peacock feathers, and a purple feather boa, wearing tissue stuffed snakeskin combat boots, holding a gun bigger than he is, smoking a cigarette in the parking garage, trying to look menacing while pouting and head banging to Godsmack I stand alone

[Jay]

It's a great article JR - however allow me to extend my sympathy. Seeing as the Gaming Forum on Ars is the only one I really keep up on - you'll probably get responses from a number of people that fall into different groups:

1) My fav game is better and YOU DIDNT INCLUDE IT! This one pretty much explains itself.

2) You were technically inaccurate on Page X, Paragraph Y. (I.E. You could die in Monkey Island by staying under water more than 10 minutes after the "Sheriff" tosses you over).

3) THE MIN SPECS YOU POSTED FOR THE GAME ARE WRONG!

4) Game X did this before Game Y.

5) I'm an asshole and just wanted to prove it to the world once again by giving you shit for no good reason.

All in all - considering the breadth of material you had to cover, it is quite impressive I hope you get lots of hits and make mucho dinero!

[Jay]

Just started reading some of the comments.... some of these people obviously haven't been gaming long enough to realize just how dumb their comments look:

"There were some rather huge gaps. No Final Fantasy, anywhere (which is particularly hilarious considering how well console RPGs, especially FF7, sold, and how not-well PC RPGs sold). No Zelda. No Diablo (like it or not, aspects of Diablo have been ripped off in a lot of other genres)."

Yeah because Diablo isn't just Rogue with much better graphics and sound, right? Don't even get me started on Final Fantasy games... (which I am happy to say that I finally sat down and beat three of them: 1, 2, and 7).

Ahhhh well - when reading the article I looked it at more as a sampling of what the "typical" game in that particular genre was like within a specific decade. These people seem to be treating it more as a listing of what games were truely influential and changed the face of the genre.... which I don't think it's supposed to represent at all.

[Jay]

In fact I'll take my last comment even a bit further... this article wasn't about innovative gaming. It was about sampling what kind of game you would typically be playing within each genre during major time periods. Highlighting individual games that went above and beyond the call of duty actually goes against what the article itself is supposed to accomplish in my book. The endless complaining that has begun is really symbolic of a bunch of whiny children who missed the point entirely.

[Jeremy Reimer]

Jay, you hit the nail precisely on the head. Precisely. But I don't mind whiners if they bring along more page hits.
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"Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries."
-- Carl Sagan

"Its not a rule. Its just something I noticed. Several of us have more than one sig." - Mord

"No, you are a troll, and I should have never let you back to Ars in after the first 16,000 bannings." - Caesar, to He Who Shall Not Be Named

[the twinkster]

I read and enjoyed the article. It was particularly interesting to see the 1990s, when I was watching PC and console gaming from the sidelines of Macland. I knew almost every game you mentioned by reputation, but got to play distressingly few of them (WarCraft II, Doom, and StarCraft being the most notable exceptions).
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As time stretches on here at OSY Extreme, everyone will eventually have quotes in their sig from the other members. – Mord

Damn, after this and some of my other relationship salvations, I really have a huuuuge stockpile of date karma. Like stumbling into a professional dominatrix at a bookstore at the science fiction section while reaching for the same book kind of karma. -- Happysin, on Ars

[Mord]

Hey! I made it into the NWN screenie! Brings a tear to my eye......
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Give a guy a gun, he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he's God. - Superintendant Pang, Lashou shentan (a.k.a. Hard-Boiled)
I note that you don't have any OSY member quotes in your sig. - the twinkster
Nonsense. "Bias" is people whom don't agree with me. - FondueDaredevil

Gabe: I wish you weren't a fucking liar.
Tycho: I'm not a liar.
Gabe: Well, I wish you didn't lie.

[Harbinger]

I also read the article and found in entertaining and informative.

I also read the disclaimer and didn't expect to see all my favorite/memorable games listed. Who'da thunkit?!



One thing I saw a few times, and thought it was a typo until I saw it several times... When listing system specs/requirements, there is a CPU listed is "Pentium II 200" -- my memory may be hazy, but ISTR that the PII started at 233. Just nitpicking for accuracy.
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Gaah. I don’t tend to bother about slashdot, because quite frankly, the whole _point_ of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session with people getting together and making their own “insightful” comment on any random topic, whether they know anything about it or not. -- Linus Torvalds, 20 Aug 2005

I heard that even small amounts of smam are highly unstable. Like anti-matter, only with polka dots. -- Mord

I don't make up rumors, I just falsify them. -- HitScan

Pentium-M eats G4 alive so quickly that the G4 is still breathing when the P-M shits it out. End of story. -- Hat Monster

[Thundar]

Nice article.
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In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they are not.

[the twinkster]

There's also a P4 1GHz, but IIRC the P4 debuted at 1.4GHz. There are a couple of other little typos or sentences that could maybe be massaged a little bit... clearly, JR, you should let me, um, preview your next article!


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As time stretches on here at OSY Extreme, everyone will eventually have quotes in their sig from the other members. – Mord

Damn, after this and some of my other relationship salvations, I really have a huuuuge stockpile of date karma. Like stumbling into a professional dominatrix at a bookstore at the science fiction section while reaching for the same book kind of karma. -- Happysin, on Ars

[xradionut]

Very good article. You knowledge of ancient computer games is better than mine. I have fond memories of playing Ultima II and Infocom adventures on the Apple II clone that my high school buddy and I built from a kit.
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What you're viewing is real. Okay, sort of real. Now that I think about it, what is real?