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Wired Releases Annual Vaporware List 311

Posted by Hemos from the where's-the-product dept.
alacqua writes: "Wired has an article titled Vaporware 2001: Empty Promises which is a top-ten list of last year's vaporware. 'You've Got Smell!' made it, but the Justice Department did not. Says Wired, 'Speaking of Microsoft, some smart-aleck readers opined that the most vaporous thing in tech last year was the Justice Department's failure to deliver on its promise to punish Bill Gates for his company's monopolistic misdeeds -- but we thought that a bit of a stretch.'"
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Wired Releases Annual Vaporware List More

Wired Releases Annual Vaporware List

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  • Wasn't last year's Vaporware's list OS X? I think we will always have vaporware esp. since it only costs a few bucks to get an AP Wire sent out! Oh well. My 2k2 Vaporware prediction is that we will still not see DNF -- but I wouldn't mind being wrong on that!
    • Yea - I thought I read this earlier

      Ripped right from the article (aka don't mod me up for this)

      http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,40484,00 .h tml is 2000
      http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,33142,00 .h tml is 1999
      http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,16974,00 .h tml is 1998

      The articles in time are interesting - I get a feeling somewhere in 2000 we decided that multipage articles are great for hits }:P

  • Slashdot moving to PNG from Gif (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07, 2002 @06:49PM (#2801387)
    Anyone remember that one?
    • Old Slogan:

      Slashdot: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.

      New Slogan:

      Slashdot: Do as We Say, Not as We Do.
  • This would be the biggest 'vaporware' of all.

  • This year's vaporware ... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    who wants to bet Lindows tops that list?

  • you know... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rev.LoveJoy ( 136856 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @06:52PM (#2801404) Homepage Journal
    Duke Nukem Forever should really be renamed Dikatana2.

    Cheers,
    RLJ

    • Re:you know... (Score:2, Informative)

      by rosewood ( 99925 )
      There is no evidence of the possible suckage/no suckage of DNF. Also - DNF has never had a release date - although after the E3 video came out - I sure as hell expected it this christmas. The only comparison between the Diakatana and the DNF is the long ass wait. Thats it. (Maybe some creedence to your statement if DNF is stuck in a 3 year timewarp)
      • That's kind of what I'm getting at. I have this lingering fear we'll see a game with great one-liners, polished controll, clean install, looks like Quake2.

        Yeah, I hope I'm wrong too...
        -- RLJ

  • From the article:

    But 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller wasn't very upset to hear about his product getting the Vaporware top spot. "It's a very ambitious game," he said. "It's not cookie-cutter shooter like most are nowadays

    If it's another FPS, how can it NOT be cookie-cutter ?
    • But 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller wasn't very upset to hear about his product getting the Vaporware top spot. "It's a very ambitious game," he said. "It's not cookie-cutter shooter like most are nowadays If it's another FPS, how can it NOT be cookie-cutter ?

      it probably contains an abnormally large amount of vulgarity, nudity, and monsters. perhaps even vulgar nude monsters.

    • Re:FPS are, by definition, cookie-cutter (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Erasmus Darwin ( 183180 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @07:21PM (#2801545)
      "If it's another FPS, how can it NOT be cookie-cutter ?"

      Half-Life was an FPS that managed to avoid being cookie-cutter, through the inclusion of plot and scripting. Most FPSes at the time consisted of "You're on a strange world. Go fight.", while Half-Life had a more immersive feel to it. The technology behind it may have been nothing revolutionary, but the overall effect was anything but cookie-cutter.

      Thief redefined the term FPS to mean "first person sneaker". It's technically the same sort of game as Quake or Doom, but a few tweaks to the rules of the world result in entirely different gameplay.

      Just because most FPS games have been content to go with very straight-forward games, there're significant changes that can be made to avoid being cookie-cutter.

  • #4 Team Fortress 2.

    That is a great question!! What the hell happened to that? TF is a great game, and the thought of adding real voice to the game seemed like a sure-thing. Now, years later, I haven't heard squat.
    Reading the TF2 site, I noticed that it was given a "Game of the Year" award...in 1998!
    Vapor award for vaporware!

    Go figure!

  • I for one am glad that the Government, for whatever reason, was denied the opportunity to meddle in the affairs of business! The whole Microsoft lawsuit was nothing more than a ham-handed attempt by various Democrat cronies at making a name for themselves (as seen by Jackson's shameless publicity maneuvers) by attacking one of America's great success stories in the commercial world.

    Government has no business interfering with the market! As any Economics 101 student, a free market is the most efficient way of allocating limited resources known to man, and every time the Government gets involved we end up with corruption and red tape which serve only to line the pockets of the beurocrats at the expense of honest taxpayers - that's you and me folks! Whether you like Microsoft's software or not, they are an important part of our economy responsible for the continued employment of thousands and an important driving force in the computer industry.

    No, I'm glad that since George has come to power this ridiculous socialist attack on our economy has been derailed and things have gotten back to how they should be - a free market, not one in which the Government meddles in order to score points. Recognising the power of the free market is what has made America the economic powerhouse of the world, and those that choose to ignore this are little better than the liberals that decry our actions in Afghanistan.

    • Re:Vapourware? Thank God! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dbretton ( 242493 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @07:00PM (#2801437) Homepage
      Wow! Wayyy OT.

      Ask any Economics 101 student and he will tell you that a free, open service market will eventually become closed, and the barriers to entry then raised insurmountably high. At this point, you need the government to step in and free up the market.

      If I run a steel corporation and corner the steel market, what do I do next? In order to have my company continue to flourish, it must need to grow. If I have closed out a market, I need to expand to other markets....like utilizing that steel...
      My next move would be to get involved in steel construction...then automotive and shipbuilding, each time utilizing my corporation's vastly deep pockets to outperform my competitors in my new market....
    • However, government does meddle in the marketplace: by purchasing M$ products, they validate the actions of the company. They are also a large purchaser, whose actions have repurcussions on the market as a whole.

      Yes, Econ 101 might say that government interference is bad. But take a later course (or a special seminar), and you will see that many of the assumptions of Econ 101 are not so simple in the real world. First: perfect information. Consumers do not have perfect information. FUD is spread all around. More importantly: no buyer or seller has the power to individually alter the market. In this case, both M$ and the government have this power. The former through marketshare, and the latter by both legal means and methods of purchase. Finally, there must be no significant barriers to entry. There haven't been. Until the past... couple of years. There are substantial barriers to entry (patents, copyright, and other IP law).

      America is not a free market. It is, in some cases, a slightly freer market than many others. But don't presume that this case is a prime example of basic economics. Outside of the classroom, those basic principles do not have effect on companies with 90% marketshare.

      An A for Econ 101. A D for Econ 401.

    • Re:Vapourware? Thank God! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Violet Null ( 452694 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @07:05PM (#2801467)
      Government has no business interfering with the market!

      Yep. I dream of the day when food products no longer need to have those annoyingly informative nutritional labels upon them. I yearn for when we can break free of the schackles imposed upon us by "truth in advertising". I'll lead the parade when we get rid of "safety standards". I'll...

      Oh, wait. You're a troll. Nevermind.
      • Ironically, I believe that the libertarian view is that private lawsuits and public disclosure would take care of the loss of food and drug protection (and personal safety, etc.)

        BUT, the Republicans, in their twisted world, want to remove the government protections, allow licenses and agreements that allow public disclosure (the software licensing that prevents printing of statistics, for example), and put a cap on damages and fees awarded to plaintiffs and their attorneys.

        I have no idea if the LP has similar views regarding lawsuits, software licenses, etc.
        • Ironically, I believe that the libertarian view is that private lawsuits[...]

          Wouldn't "private lawsuits" require the government meddling in the affairs of business? Wasn't this whole shebang started because of lawsuits lodged by various parties against Microsoft?

          (I'm not trying to argue, here, just to understand. I was under the impression that the Libertarian platform was no government except for a military for national defense, a police force/courts for personal (ie, non-corporate) crimes, and the minimum personnel required to collect taxes to pay for the above.)

          allow licenses and agreements that allow public disclosure (the software licensing that prevents printing of statistics, for example)

          I don't get this part; did you mean disallow public disclosure?
          • First point:

            There are two persons. One is a human being, the other a corporation. Let's say the corporation sells a product called a quarter pounder, and represents it as being a quarter pound of vegetables on a bun. It turns out to be a quarter pound of ground kangaroo on a bun. The corporation lied to the human, and now will not return the money.

            Under libertarian system, obviously, the human can complain loudly and frequently about the actions of the corporations. I believe that *some* libertarians would also say that the human has a right to appear before court. There is a verbal contract: corporation will provide a quarter pound of vegetables on a bun to human in exchange for $1.99. Corporation did not fulfill their end of the bargain. Courts are supposed to solve disagreements between people. Here is such a case.

            And the other part (about disallowing public discourse) was indeed a type on my part. Sorry.

            Also, I should note that I'm not an expert on Libertarians. This is just my understanding of their views.

  • Warcraft 3? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Cheetah86 ( 136854 )
    How did warcraft 3 make the list of vaporware? It's coming out soon, the beta is tonight... Just because something is delayed doesn't make it vaporware.

    • Re:Warcraft 3? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by _UnderTow_ ( 86073 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @07:04PM (#2801464)
      I agree, I'm pretty tired of people crying when blizzard pushes back the release dates of their games. Everything they have put out from Warcraft 1 to Diablo 2 has been a solid, well polished game.

      Blizzard's overall attention to detail is WAY above the average for the video game industry. 3D Realms and Valve completely deserve their spots on this list however.
      • I agree with you except for D2. When the D2 patch v1.01 came out, it broke the game for *many* CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives. It wasn't until very recently that Blizzard finally owned up to that fact and fixed the problem.

        Until recently, I had to run a cracked version of D2 because it wouldn't detect the CD in the drive. Solid and well polished do not come to mind when thinking of a description.
      • Registration [blizzard.com] for beta starts in about three hours (PST). Dang it (for ActiveX part)!
    • It's vaporware if it was promised last year.

  • Who came up with the name iSmell anyway? (Score:3, Funny)

    by bihoy ( 100694 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @07:05PM (#2801470)
    I always laugh when I see that name.
    I keep thinking of a jingle a colleague
    of mine proposed "Pull my finger for iSmell".
    Gotta luv it!

  • You can't have it both ways (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mESSDan ( 302670 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @07:09PM (#2801489) Homepage
    3 items the article mentioned were games that have been in development for quite a while. Why is a 4 year development cycle a problem? What is wrong with "When it's done"?

    I for one am glad that the software developers (3D Realms for Duke Nukem Forever in particular) are taking their time creating this game. I am sick and tired of games being released these days that need patch after patch, often times just to make the game PLAYABLE, let alone enjoyable.

    Where and when should developers draw the line? Shouldn't that be for them to decide?

    • GameSpot article (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It is on the alltime greatest vaporware games. [gamespot.com] Its worth a read.

    • Crumble Ware (Score:2, Funny)

      by panck ( 69848 )
      I hereby coin the term "Crumble Ware" to apply to things like Anarchy Online, that maybe should have been left as Vapor for a little longer. They were sent out into the hands of eager consumers before they were done, and were shoddy and incomplete.

      So I'm now nominating the following products into the Crumble Ware top 10:

      Mac OS X v 10.0 (10.1.2 is actually quite good)

      Xbox (see /. here [slashdot.org] )

      Halo (only on xbox)

      AO

    • Re:You can't have it both ways (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jafac ( 1449 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @08:44PM (#2801888) Homepage
      If you choose to believe that a 4 year development cycle is going to eliminate all bugs, and yield perfect software - then goody for you. But you're wrong.

      The problem here isn't even a long development cycle. The problem is - you obviously have a situation here where the company's MARKETING department is running the show. They announce their product WAY before it's done, because they feel they need to win the pissing contest with their competitors.
      The whole problem here is one of credibility. Nobody calls these people on their "innacurate statements" (also known as "lies" in some circles). So the market (particularly the analysts and press) is actually partly to blame for this situation. Then, when Marketing has overpromised, and created a level of expectation that is simply not grounded in reality, Engineering is forced to cram in coding and testing to meet Marketing's outrageous goals. In most cases, this leads to a buggy piece of crap - no matter how many years it spends in development.

      The cause of vaporware is in the marketing department, not the engineering department. The cause of buggy software is usually an engineering team that has been stretched too thin, or pulled in too many different directions - by a management team that can't or won't stand up to the political forces of the marketing department.

      This isn't limited to games, by the way, either. It's 99% of the software industry. Open your eyes.
      • The cause of buggy software is usually an engineering team that has been stretched too thin, or pulled in too many different directions - by a management team that can't or won't stand up to the political forces of the marketing department.

        There's that, and there's also the fact that the technology changes. In 1997, when DNForever was announced (according to the article), we were anxiously awating quake 2. Think of all the changes in technonlogy that have happened since then. I mean, even quake 3, UT, and half life are old, now.

        The only way you can excuse a 4 year development cycle in a game is if they are creating an entirely new engine. The way the game market works now-a-days, when you release a game in a marketing blitz, it not only has to be fun in order to make the cut, but it has to have pounding graphics. I personally don't think black and white is all that fun, and i own it, but it does pump my PIII-900 for a loop, hence its good reputation. Any game coded in 1997 isn't going to impress me technologically.

        If you want to pump a game, grab someone else's engine and write your front end. (alice) Or, if you don't want to release something that has amazing graphics, but rather awesome gameplay, release uplink [introversion.co.uk]

        ~z
    • Where and when should developers draw the line? Shouldn't that be for them to decide?

      Part of the problem is common to all software. There are competitors out there constantly raising the bar. If you planned your software to have a certain set of features, but it takes twice as long as anticipated, your competitors may have released something similar already. I suspect that this is particularly true of games. Games don't seem to be particularly original. They tend to be slight improvements of existing games. This is even more true of games which are sequels, where you're forced to at least keep some of the feel of the original.

      Another part of the problem is that games, especially action games, need to have up to date eye-candy. If you release a 3-d shooter using an out-of-date 3-d engine, you're in trouble. (This was one of the major complaints about Daikatana, wasn't it?)

  • 3G phones (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nzhavok ( 254960 )
    aren't exactly vaporware, unlesss you consider vaporware to be something that is already designed, built and in operation.

    OK so there was a lot of fuss made over them and unless your in Japan you're probably not going to get your hands on one. But realize that the phone companies buying 3G bandwidth was not a guarentee you were going to get the phones straight away, more like an insurance policy that the telco's would still be alive in a few years when they are providing it.

    Also why does warIII make this list? It's just going into public beta, they could have at least selected 'World of Warcraft' instead.
    • Also note this Reuters article [reuters.com]. 3G phones began shipping to the US last wednesday. Sure, it'll take a little time for the carriers to get their CDMA 1x towers going, but it's very close to being available in the US.
    • I don't recall any operators promising 3G within 2001 anyway. Definitely a case of hyped expectations.

  • Photoshop for OS X was demoed today... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Cutriss ( 262920 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @07:13PM (#2801514) Homepage
    It's in the /. MacWorld coverage [slashdot.org].

    But still, they're right. I think I can be correct (mostly) in saying that Apple wouldn't exist today if it weren't for Adobe, and without X-native Adobe apps, X will flounder. It's a *wonderful* OS, but Adobe has long been providing Apple with the killer apps it needs to stay alive, and OS X is no exception.

  • The Vapor List Problems... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Thomas M Hughes ( 463951 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @07:16PM (#2801525)
    Aside from promises made aproximately 40 years ago (and every decade since then), I don't know of anyone who honestly expected AI to arrive in 2001, especially no one who knew anything about it in 2001, or in 2000, or 1999, etc. Claiming its vaporware was a bit off. No one is marketing HAL to the masses everyday, like the other things on the list.

    Secondly, Blizzard has always been late with their games. Usually several years late. In fact, I submitted a story (that actually got accepted) to Slashdot a few months ago saying that Warcraft3 wouldn't be out until 2002. Blizzard is almost always the first to say "Calm down, its not ready yet" as opposed to other items on the list that we were always being told "Expect to get this real soon!"

    I always felt Vapor involved products that we were falsely told to expect soon. Both AI and Warcraft3 were things that we should have known weren't coming anytime soon. Thinking otherwise is a result of being ill informed.

    • ...I don't know of anyone who honestly expected AI to arrive in 2001...No one is marketing HAL to the masses everyday....

      Actually, didn't you provide the counterpoint to your own claim here?

      Clearly, the guy who dreamt up HAL [salonmag.com] thought AI would be feasible by 2001. Of course, he wasn't selling products, but if you limited yourself to products that were announced but never shipped before the company went out of business, you'd have a hard time finding products anybody had ever heard of.

      There just aren't that many spectacular flops every year. For every Androbot [robotswanted.com] or Indrema, there are hundreds of companies nobody has ever heard of.

  • That "digital film" idea is a pretty damn good idea. If it had a good enough sensor, it would rock to be able to use a real camera with real lenses. It makes me wonder if they could make the sensor part thin enough to fit in the average camera.

    Other problems are battery life (not a lot of room for batteries), and where can you put a flash card (don't think it would fit in that format).

    Still, if someone could pull that off, it might rock hard. Imagine being able to use either film or digital depending on what you're doing.

  • stinky... (Score:2, Funny)

    by onyxcide ( 470907 )
    It's probably a good thing that the iSmell didn't make it last year. I can see a whole new world of disasterous hacking in the works. The ability to make somebody's iSmell give off an iFart whenever you felt like it would probably cost companies billions as all their employees begin bickering and taking constant fresh-air breaks.
    • This is all old hat.

      I've been using an HP StinkJet(tm) 630C for years.

      They recently issued a plugin for IE94.6 that adds smell to web-sites (if they use whiff-script or Java Whifflets).

      The official StinkJet(tm) cartriges are quite expensive, but you can refill the various cartrige resevoirs with tinctures made of household products, old laundry and composting mackerel fillets.

      I've noticed I get through a lot of mackerel when viewing www.microsoft.com...

  • Vaporware? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @07:27PM (#2801573) Homepage
    Wired doesn't get it: software development is HARD. I can't really blame them, though, when so-called software developers don't get it. How hard can it be, I say, when I myself have developed several Visual Basic applications? Naturally this doesn't distinguish between doing it and doing it RIGHT. There is the problem of defining requirements; they generally turn out to conflict; then they change every other week. I'll say it again: developing commercial software for general release is HARD. And for the terminally inattentive, I'll spell out the rule of software release:

    It is released when it is released. Don't expect it any sooner.

    Anyway, here's Wired's (software) Vaporware for the last three years. Consider this year's in light of it...

    Vaporware 1998: Windows 2000
    It's here now.

    Vaporware 1999
    9. Ideaworks3d's Vecta3D
    It's here now.
    7. Games for the Mac
    Not a Mac afficionado; all I know is that there are Mac games, but not many. I'll give them this one.
    6. SDMI
    It's here now, though flawed in both concept and execution...
    5. Daikatana
    It's here now.
    4. Diablo II
    It's here now.
    3. Netscape's Communicator 5.0
    It's here now (though they secretly incremented the version number while no one was looking).
    1. Windows 2000
    See 1998's list, above

    Vaporware 2000
    10: Tribes 2
    It's here now.
    6: Warcraft III
    Hey, they finally nailed one!
    4: A New Linux kernel (2.4, specifically)
    It's here now.
    3: Black and White
    It's here now.
    2: Duke Nukem Forever
    This one's not here, but the article itself states there's no scheduled release date! How is this vaporware?
    1: Mac OS X
    It's here now.

    So, Wired, in the software category, you called 2 out of 14 (both of which are still under active development). The rest weren't vapor. How, then, should we view this year's software entries?
    • 6: Warcraft III

      Hey, they finally nailed one!

      Please explain to me how something which is having a call for beta testers in 6.5 hours, dozens of screenshots, and follows Blizzards usual development/release cycle "nailing one"?
      • Have you no charity for an entity so terminally wrong? By your own admission, it's not even in BETA?! If this is somehow proof that's it's not vapor, then it's a strange world you live in...a strange world we ALL live in...
        • You have to look at the source.

          Blizzard has a history of lengthy development times, and their beta's are often times higher quality than the games other companies ship gold.

          They also have dozens of screenshots, complete story lines, and it is in beta very soon.

          This is not vapor. This is waiting for a good product, from a good manufacturer who wont release shit. More companies need to do this, in my opinion.
          • You have to look at the source
            They won't release it...

            I'm not knocking Blizzard. I'm knocking Wired. You don't find it the least bit humorous that the only two items they've correctly identified as vaporware are "Mac games" (what gives with that? There are no Mac games?) and WC3 (clearly under current development; to be released when it's released). The entire point of my post is that Wired's vaporware list contains no vapor.
            • Saying that it contains no vapor is one thing, saying that WC3 is vapor is just stupid. If it were any other company, I would say you have a point. But it's Blizzard. Hell, if they ever hit a release date hell would freeze over.

              Nice joke w/ the source thing though ;)

    • Re:Vaporware? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Skuld-Chan ( 302449 )
      What about prey? - it was on one of those lists...

    • Re:Vaporware? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dimator ( 71399 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @08:39PM (#2801863) Homepage Journal
      Ya, software development is hard. Someone tell the damn marketing department at 3D Realms that, because I remember seeing magazine ads for Duke Nukem Forever (wired's #1 vaporware), when according to the CEO, they havent even begun to think about a release date, four years after the game was announced! How can it possibly live up to the expectations it has amassed?

      My take on the Vaporware awards is this: they're not so much making fun of late software (because as you said, it is hard to do) but they're making fun of companies that stand on the highest peak, releasing one press release after another, shoutting out how earth-shattering their product is going to be, while not having anything remotely complete to ship.

      You don't see, for example, iD doing that. "When it's done" has always been their release date, and they don't go nuts bragging about the next game years before hand.
    • You fail to realize that the reason there is no release date for Duke Nukem Forever is that it was first promised in '98. It was supposed to be a "quick" game like Daikatana using the Quake II engine. We all knew it would languish in the midst of a knee-jerk engine switch and we were RIGHT! But don't suffer from a Hitleresque failure of long-term memory, everyone who was there knows the game was promised to us many years ago before the release date was changed to "when it's done." Any story otherwise is a lie.

    • Did you know dillon_rinker is going to be born in a couple of months? Strange but true ... dillon_rinker's Mum is currently six months pregnant.

      Hey buddy, take it in perspective. When they wrote the list it was right. That's why they put a date on it.

      (BTW, that first paragraph was snipped from something from many years ago. It was correct when it was written.)

      • When they wrote the list, they were being impatient. Take Windows 2000, for example...was there ever any DOUBT that there would be another version of NT? The only question is when. I would suggest that the date that the next version of Windows will be released is the date it's released on. Predictions of how long it will take are 100% inaccurate...that's my point. Marketers and business dweebs announce release dates. Developers, at best, announce when they'll be done with the module they're currently working on (only 420 more modules to code! 87% of them are unanalyzed! it'll only take a couple of weeks to do!)

        So what do you call someone who believes a professional liar? Particularly when the professional liar is proven to be a liar, year after year after year?

        That was point #1...look for software after it's released. Pay no attention to marketers.

        Point #2 is more subtle, perhaps. Vaporware is never produced. The term was coined for a Microsoft practice of announcing a product, driving all third-party development away from the niche, and then failing to produce the product. Frankly, none of the item's on Wired's list meet this criterion...Warcraft III will be produced, and Mac games continue to be produced.

        My perspective is that the article was a waste of time, a snide little piece intended to make writer appear clever and in-the-know. It had the journalistic quality that I've come to expect from People magazine; a more wretched hive of vapidity you'll never fine.

  • What about Xanadu? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by eggstasy ( 458692 )
    Xanadu [xanadu.com] has definitely got to be the king of vapourware! Four decades in the making, and still not ready :)
    I guess it will never be, really. The original concept was way too wacky, even for modern times. But three cheers to Ted Nelson for his advances in Hypertext systems! Many of his concepts are used on the internet nowadays. Modern version-control systems remind me of his "time-scrolling" idea, and although we dont need "visible" links we certainly would be better off having zero broken links. He even foresaw copyright problems in the digital age!

  • ...goes to GNOME's lack of anti-aliased fonts.

    AA fonts may not have been promised by any developers but how can we live in the year 2002 without anti-aliased fonts on our desktop? Sometimes I find a quiet, isolated spot and just sob quietly thinking about it.

    I know there's the gdkxft [sourceforge.net] project, but let's get it into standard distributions soon.

  • SimVapor (Score:3, Funny)

    by RareHeintz ( 244414 ) on Monday January 07, 2002 @07:50PM (#2801673) Homepage Journal
    Hmm... Didn't see SimNeighborhood (or whatever the hell it was that EA & Maxis were going to call the game on the scale in-between SimCity and The Sims) mentioned anywhere. Seems good for at least an honorable mention, no?

    Then there was also <insert Microsoft slam here>. And don't forget <insert Sun's latest Java-enabled pipe dream> - I mean, who couldn't see that coming!

    OK,
    - B

    • Hmm... Didn't see SimNeighborhood (or whatever the hell it was that EA & Maxis were going to call the game on the scale in-between SimCity and The Sims) mentioned anywhere. Seems good for at least an honorable mention, no?

      No, that was apparantly cancelled. If so, it's not really vapour.

      --Dan
    • Simsville was canceled [gamespot.co.uk] en september by Maxis.

      I was one of the people almost waiting in line to buy it but, IIRC, the game was much to big and things just didn't fit together the way they were supposed to so Matt Wright did the right thing and didn't release another game fiasco (`a la Daikatana).

  • AI? (Score:2, Informative)

    by mlk ( 18543 )
    Wired should take a look at Brooks work ( http://www.ai.mit.edu/ [mit.edu] ), they are getting there, pritty darn quickly too...
    Cog ( http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-g roup/cog [mit.edu] ) is flipping cool, as is many other projects at the AI lab at MIT.

    mlk

  • Strange irony (Score:2, Insightful)

    by xX_sticky_Xx ( 526967 )
    I find it funny that Warcraft 3 made the list on the same day that beta test signups for WC3 are being accepted. Mind you, the site [blizzard.com]seems to be completely down at the moment.
  • The only thing that could be more vaporus than Duke Nukem Forever would be the OS X version of Duke Nukem Forever.
  • Ok this is going a tad off topic but...
    'Speaking of Microsoft, some smart-aleck readers opined that the most vaporous thing in tech last year was the Justice Department's failure to deliver on its promise to punish Bill Gates for his company's monopolistic misdeeds...

    This is just more proof that when a person (OJ Simpson) or corporation(m$) has the financial resources and the power that comes with it to go one on one with the gov in a court room they always win and we (the taxpayers) lose?
    • I thought Top Ten Lists were OUT in the wake of Sept. 11. No wait, that was In or Out lists. That were out. My bad. I'm outta here.
  • Number 1: Major Code Rewrite
    Duke has never been about the engine its always been about Duke and the wacky adventures he gets into. "Come Get Some" comes to mind. 3DRealms went back and totally rewrote the game for the Unreal engine. Never ever ever ever go back and totally rewrite something unless your working in parallel. It just isn't worth it.

    Number 2: This has been hyped for a LONG TIME
    I was still living in the DORMS playing Quake 2 when they said this thing would be out soon. I distinctly remember chatting with people on the second map on the original CTF rotation about it. Don't give me the crap about "Its done when its done".

    Number 3: Give leeway to those companies that deserve
    At Microsoft anytime you are on a team that ships a product you get an award. id Software and John Caramack will have shipped Doom 3 before this thing gets out the door. Blizzard gets leeway because they generally take longer but STUFF SHIPS! This must make 3DRealms investors bonkers. Do you pull the plug on the funding or do you get out a product.

    I predict DNF will be exactly like Romero's piece of trash. It will smack of dating, be full of holes, and everyone will laugh. Show of hands of people who thing they could have studied C++ and game programming for two years then went pack to an ALREADY built engine and wrote this thing? Not sure if I could but I bet a big hunk of individuals here could.

    HT

  • Silicon Film (Score:3, Informative)

    by Hans ( 1533 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2002 @02:00AM (#2802726) Homepage
    I think they did start shipping at a point this year actually, but after a month they suspended operations:
    link [dpreview.com].

  • Duke Nukem Now has a date? (Score:3, Informative)

    by mESSDan ( 302670 ) on Tuesday January 08, 2002 @03:30AM (#2802840) Homepage
    Check Amazon UK [amazon.co.uk].

    Or alternatively: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005NCE Z/o/qid%3D1010095826/sr%3D8-1/ref%3Dsr%5Faps%5Fvg% 5F1%5F1/026-6218755-4392446

    two words, HOLY SHIT!

    Our Price: £27.99

    Platform: Windows 95, Windows 98

    Release Date: 8 March, 2002. Not Yet

    Available: You may still order this product.

    We will ship it to you when it is released by the manufacturer

  • What about the Tux2 file system that was announced on Slashdot [slashdot.org] last year? The SourceForge site [sourceforge.net] is dead and Google only turns up the original announcement and links to dead pages.

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