1C's stance on head-tracking devices for BoB?

[Wolf_Rider]

well, that would depend on how you're going about it... Hurr durrrr

maybe you could impress us and come up with an original way of going about it

[Flanker35M]

S!

Going to level of personal insult..huh!! IBTL..

[sigur_ros]

All Freetrack does is exercise the right to participate in a free market. NaturalPoint, like any good business, don't like competition that undermines their exclusive business model. But their response shows little confidence in the technological superiority and slick marketing of their product, treating a webcam with some free software as a serious threat. They have made piracy claims, censored forums, encrypted the interface and influenced developers, only trying to hurt the free market.

[Feuerfalke]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

well, so far Mikkowl... you seem to be heavily going into the "you didn't reply to that" mindset.

So to prevent any further hassling from you about it

Not allowing people who don't buy Adidas latest shoes to interface with (play) a basketball game - that they bought, because Adidas is a sponsor of that game.

nobody owns the rights to basketball

Not allowing people who are of asian ethnicity to play a game, because sponsors of that game don't think asians should be allowed to have fun with that game (that they bought) (yes maybe racist, but it's the concept that counts here, not the other details).

games are meant to be, to have fun with, though if you want to hack the game, then that just plain warrants every response they get. Hyperlobby barred a whole country - Brazil - because of hackers.. now that must have been fun for the guys there who just wanted to play through it, eh?

Not allowing someone to go to the bathroom because some 'license' involved in buying a game said so.

Actually, it's more like somebody wanting to start into racing with his 1960 VW beetle and demanding permission to take part in a F1 race with his old rusty car.

Nobody forces you to use TrackIR. It's an option offered to you, not something you can demand. You can very well just fly without it or come up with an alternative solution (e.g. using freetrack for mouse-control and simulate headtracking this way).

But of course, that requires MUCH more initiative and creativity than just demanding from others do the job or ranting and insulting other people.

[MikkOwl]

nobody owns the rights to basketball

I mean a game as in console or PC. What would you think if they made such demands?

games are meant to be, to have fun with, though if you want to hack the game, then that just plain warrants every response they get.

I mean literally just a publisher or sponsor that says that a certain group are not allowed to play it (Asians in this case). Not that they did anything special to warrant it. What would you think if they made such demands?

A game is need to go to the toot? you need to get out some more

You misread: It says that the license agreement of the game says that you may not go to the bathroom (when the game is running or whatever, imagine any details). Yes, I know it's silly and could never happen in a million years, but the concept still applies.

Hyperlobby barred a whole country - Brazil - because of hackers.. now that must have been fun for the guys there who just wanted to play through it, eh?

Hyperlobby is a stand alone program made by some private individual. It is unethical of whoever controls Hyperlobby to punish (potentially) millions of people due to the actions of perhaps a dozen, or a hundred. This is called collective punishment. Hyperlobby or Maddox Games should have come up with a better solution. Regarding the hacking itself, this case is cheating in a sport. Ruining the experience for others by doing so. And that is unethical.

As you can see, you misunderstood what the analogies were, so I'm sure you will change your opinion about them now (and try to justify them if you wish).

I'm sorry, but it is idiots like you Mikkowl (your mindset that thinks everyone should be able to do whatever they want with a game/ sim/ hardware, regardless of the developer's/ owner's hard work, that will have games/ hardware forced to an online connection just so people can play and have fun... too bad for those who (for whatever reason) don't have a connection.

No one is forcing them to do that, not hackers nor pirates, or users of TrackIR dynamic library files. I myself (and other customers) are discouraged rather from buying games that require annoying anti-measures. There's several companies that understand that user made content can be a gold mine for sales, and that anti-stuff is annoying to consumers, and they don't implement them. Bethesda (Morrowind, Fallout 3) and Paradox Games (Hearts of Iron & Europa Universalis), as well as Starbreeze Studios (Chronicles of Riddick) all don't use any anti-copy stuff, and I'm going to buy Hearts of Iron 3 soon largely in part to this.

Flanker35M wrote:
Going to level of personal insult..huh!! IBTL..

Shush, we don't need any of that and for the record, moderators who lock topics instead of cleaning them are not doing their job properly. I took the responsibility of moderating a forum (Richard Burns Rally, hardcore rally sim) some years ago and I think I did an excellent job. Never locked a topic once due to what some members wrote in it (assuming the topic was valid to begin with). It helped atmosphere and people getting a long a lot too, because people were singled out and held accountable for their misdeeds.

sigur_ros wrote:
All Freetrack does is exercise the right to participate in a free market. NaturalPoint, like any good business, don't like competition that undermines their exclusive business model. But their response shows little confidence in the technological superiority and slick marketing of their product, treating a webcam with some free software as a serious threat. They have made piracy claims, censored forums, encrypted the interface and influenced developers, only trying to hurt the free market.

I think it is a serious threat. What if almost no one knew of FreeTrack, and/or it barely worked except mouse emulation with most titles, requiring lots of time to set up right and all that. That'd be extremely good for NaturalPoint sales.

I have a TrackIR 5 and I absolutely love it. But it was really extremely expensive for what it probably costs to make, and for what functionality I could make myself with much cheaper ingredients. I don't regret getting it (except that shitty TrackClip Pro) and it surely delivers much better performance than anything much cheaper currently available. I think it is the cost (probably massive profit margains) that they are trying to protect, not so much faith in their good hardware. As good as the hardware is, the cost cannot be justified for everyone, versus a much cheaper home made model.

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

[...] But of course, that requires MUCH more initiative and creativity than just demanding from others do the job or ranting and insulting other people.

Feuerfalke, I think you might have confused together parts of his post - part of it was my text and part was his reply to it. Since he did not use the quote function it is not entirely apparent who wrote what. Unless it is merely I who is confused by your post

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

Nobody forces you to use TrackIR. It's an option offered to you, not something you can demand. You can very well just fly without it or come up with an alternative solution (e.g. using freetrack for mouse-control and simulate headtracking this way).

But of course, that requires MUCH more initiative and creativity ~

quite true in the first parts and with regard to the second... its much, much easier to just "tap into" somebody else's initiative and creativity, eh?


Sigur_ros...

It has nothing to do with free market access or denial of access

Do you have a problem with a company protecting its property?




Flanker35M...

I reserve the right to treat any punk, who espouses the right to hack, with the contempt they deserve...

[Feuerfalke]

I didn't reply directly to him or you. I'm sorry, but there were numerous similar threads before, here and in the zoo. So far, nothing new here either.

So I just quoted what was written, because I wanted to reply to that odd example and the discussion in general. You can't force people to regard a problem from a different side as their own, anyway, so I didn't waste any energy on that. If people want to rant, they rant, no matter what topic.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Wolf_Rider, going to personal insults and namecalling kind of devalues your arguments, you let emotion come in the way of analytic discussion. One must be capable of discussing the matter, not going down to personal level. You discuss about an issue concerning head tracking in SoW, not MikkOwl as a person, right? Anyways, interesting thread..I just wonder if I am a punk too as I have a FreeTrack device built from a web cam and electronics + I have the TrackIR 4.0Pro + TrackClip..ehumHave a good day all

[sigur_ros]

Wolf, interface is not property, it is communication protocol that anyone can use if they can understand it, this is protected by law and helps free market. Otherwise interfaces would be too powerful and be like a patent, creating guaranteed monopolies without requiring any officially recognized invention. Wings of Prey still uses unencrypted interface but BoB will be encrypted I think. This encrypting business is very dirty.

[brando]

Just for the record, Naturalpoint have been around since way before TrackIR. Their original product was called SmartNav and was designed to help people with disabilities to use their computers. It still exists (now at version 4) and is a great product which aided me a lot when I lost my arm. At the time, their technical support and personal back-up was exemplary and I believe it remains so. For me, the development of a head-tracking system for use with flight sims was a great bonus and remains so.

If we are to talk about analogies lets try something a little closer to reality. I was a bricklayer, trained in this ancient art and gained my qualification through practise. Imagine yourself in this position, working away at your trade and earning the rate of pay determined by local usage. Then suppose that another bricklayer comes onto the building site and offers to work for free...how would you react? You both have the tools of the trade and the knowledge ... but you need to put food on the table and otherwise support your family, while the newcomer is miraculously free of these very normal requirements.
I think I can speak for the majority of bricklayers when I say that he'd be taken around the block and seriously dissuaded from his benevolent but deluded stance.

I can see no difference between the 'benevolent' bricklayer's stance and that of those who are promoting Freetrack. Perhaps they should go and play the game on a Linux-based computer where open source is seen as a good thing, and stop trying to wreck the jobs of people who design hardware and software that exist in the money-earning world of computers and computer-gaming. I don't blame Naturalpoint for protecting their interests in this genre - and their actions are infinitely less savage than being taken around the block by a bunch of angry brickies, be sure!

B