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Asheron's Call
''Asheron's Call'' (AC) was a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows PCs, developed and published by Turbine Entertainment Software. Though it was developed by the Turbine team (with Microsoft's extensive assistance), it was published as a Microsoft title until 2004. The game was set on the island continent of Dereth and several surrounding smaller islands and archipelagos on the fictional planet of Auberean. The game was played in a large seamless 3D virtual world which could host thousands of players' characters (or avatars) at a time. Released on November 2, 1999, it was the third major MMORPG to be released, and was developed at the same time as those earlier games: ''Ultima Online'' and ''EverQuest''.Grossman 2003, p. 299 After initial success, its subscription numbers dropped as newer MMORPGs moved into the market. Its host servers remained online for over 17 years after the game's original launch. It was announced on Decemb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turbine (company)
WB Games Boston (formerly Turbine Inc., then Turbine Entertainment Software Corp., and originally CyberSpace, Inc.) is an American video game developer. The studio is best known for its massive multiplayer online role-playing games, ''Asheron's Call'', ''Dungeons & Dragons Online'', and ''The Lord of the Rings Online''. On April 20, 2010, the company was acquired by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment for $160 million and became a part of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE), the video game division of Warner Bros. Entertainment. History Turbine was founded as CyberSpace, Inc in April 1994 by Jeremy Gaffney, Jonathan Monserrat, Kevin Langevin, and Timothy Miller, some of whom were students from the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Brown University. In 1995, the company was based in Monserrat's mother's house with 12 staff members. They found an office in Providence, Rhode Island but later moved to Westwood, Massachusetts to better take advantage of the software engineers co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NPCs
A non-player character (NPC), or non-playable character, is any character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster or referee rather than by another player. In video games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer (instead of a player) that has a predetermined set of behaviors that potentially will impact gameplay, but will not necessarily be the product of true artificial intelligence. Role-playing games In a traditional tabletop role-playing game such as ''Dungeons & Dragons'', an NPC is a character portrayed by the gamemaster (GM). While the player characters (PCs) form the narrative's protagonists, non-player characters can be thought of as the "supporting cast" or "extras" of a roleplaying narrative. Non-player characters populate the fictional world of the game, and can fill any role not occupied by a player character. Non-player ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Gaming World
''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through the 1990s and became one of the largest dedicated video game magazines, reaching around 500 pages by 1997. In the early 2000s its circulation was about 300,000, only slightly behind the market leader ''PC Gamer''. But, like most magazines of the era, the rapid move of its advertising revenue to internet properties led to a decline in revenue. In 2006, Ziff announced it would be refocused as ''Games for Windows'', before moving it to solely online format, and then shutting down completely later the same year. History In 1979, Russell Sipe left the Southern Baptist Convention ministry. A fan of computer games, he realized in spring 1981 that no magazine was dedicated to computer games. Although Sipe had no publishing experience, he formed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GameSpot
''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition to the information produced by ''GameSpot'' staff, the site also allows users to write their own reviews, blogs, and post on the site's forums. It has been owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. In 2004, ''GameSpot'' won "Best Gaming Website" as chosen by the viewers in Spike TV's second ''Video Game Award Show'', and has won Webby Awards several times. The domain ''gamespot.com'' attracted at least 60 million visitors annually by October 2008 according to a Compete.com study. History In January 1996, Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein quit their positions at IDG and founded SpotMedia Communications. SpotMedia then launched ''GameSpot'' on May 1, 1996. Originally, ''GameSpot'' focused solely on personal computer games, so a sis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CNET
''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and television in addition to its website and now uses new media distribution methods through its Internet television network, CNET Video, and its podcast and blog networks. Founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through that unit's acquisition of CNET Networks in 2008. It has been owned by Red Ventures since October 30, 2020. Other than English, ''CNETs region- and language-specific editions include Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. History Origins After leaving PepsiCo, Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie launched ''CNET'' in 1994, after website Yahoo! was launched. With help from Fox Network co-founder Kevin Wendle and forme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Future US
Future US, Inc. (formerly known as Imagine Media and The Future Network USA) is an American media corporation specializing in targeted magazines and websites in the video games, music, and technology markets. Headquartered in New York City, the corporation has offices in: Alexandria, Virginia; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Washington, D.C. Future US is owned by parent company, Future plc, a specialist media company based in Bath, Somerset, England. History The company was established when Future plc acquired struggling Greensboro ( N.C.) video game magazine publisher GP Publications, publisher of ''Game Players'' magazine, in 1994. The company launched a number of titles including ''PC Gamer'', and relocated from North Carolina to the San Francisco Bay Area, occupying various properties in Burlingame and South San Francisco. When Chris Anderson, the founder of Future plc, sold Future to Pearson plc he retained GP, renamed Imagine Media, Inc. in June 1995, and operated it as h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999. The site provides an excerpt from each review and hyperlinks to its source. A color of green, yellow or red summarizes the critics' recommendations. It is regarded as the foremost online review aggregation site for the video game industry. Metacritic's scoring converts each review into a percentage, either mathematically from the mark given, or what the site decides subjectively from a qualitative review. Before being averaged, the scores are weighted according to a critic's popularity, stature, and volume of reviews. The website won two Webby Awards for excellence as an aggregation website. Criticism of the site has focused on the assessment system, the ass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GameRankings
GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff being merged with the similar aggregator Metacritic. Rankings GameRankings collected and linked to (but did not host) reviews from other websites and magazines and averages specific ones. While hundreds of reviews may get listed, only the ones that GameRankings deemed notable were used for the average. Scores were culled from numerous American and European sources. The site used a percentage grade for all reviews in order to be able to calculate an average. However, because not all sites use the same scoring system (some rate out of 5 or 10, while others use a letter grade), GameRankings changed all other types of scores into percentages using a relatively straightforward conversion process. When a game accumulated six total reviews, it w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dark Age Of Camelot
''Dark Age of Camelot'' is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in October 2001 in North America, and in January 2002 in Europe. The game combines Arthurian lore, Norse mythology, and Irish Celtic legends with high fantasy. It is set in the period after King Arthur's death, when his kingdom has split into three realms, which are in a constant state of war with each other. ''Dark Age of Camelot'' includes both player versus environment (PvE) and realm versus realm (RvR) combat. Developed by Mythic Entertainment, the game is in large part an adaptation of a previous text-based game '' Darkness Falls: The Crusade'' (1999). On February 5, 2014, it was announced that development of ''Dark Age of Camelot'' would be transferred from Mythic Entertainment to Broadsword Online Games, a newly established studio, which also subsequently took over development of Mythic's other MMO game, ''Ultima Online''. Mythic was shut down shortly thereafter, on May 29, 2014. In 201 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CNET Gamecenter
''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and television in addition to its website and now uses new media distribution methods through its Internet television network, CNET Video, and its podcast and blog networks. Founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through that unit's acquisition of CNET Networks in 2008. It has been owned by Red Ventures since October 30, 2020. Other than English, ''CNETs region- and language-specific editions include Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. History Origins After leaving PepsiCo, Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie launched ''CNET'' in 1994, after website Yahoo! was launched. With help from Fox Network co-founder Kevin Wendle and former ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Load Balancing (computing)
In computing, load balancing is the process of distributing a set of tasks over a set of resources (computing units), with the aim of making their overall processing more efficient. Load balancing can optimize the response time and avoid unevenly overloading some compute nodes while other compute nodes are left idle. Load balancing is the subject of research in the field of parallel computers. Two main approaches exist: static algorithms, which do not take into account the state of the different machines, and dynamic algorithms, which are usually more general and more efficient but require exchanges of information between the different computing units, at the risk of a loss of efficiency. Problem overview A load-balancing algorithm always tries to answer a specific problem. Among other things, the nature of the tasks, the algorithmic complexity, the hardware architecture on which the algorithms will run as well as required error tolerance, must be taken into account. Therefore c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cluster (computing)
A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Unlike grid computers, computer clusters have each node set to perform the same task, controlled and scheduled by software. The components of a cluster are usually connected to each other through fast local area networks, with each node (computer used as a server) running its own instance of an operating system. In most circumstances, all of the nodes use the same hardware and the same operating system, although in some setups (e.g. using Open Source Cluster Application Resources (OSCAR)), different operating systems can be used on each computer, or different hardware. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and availability over that of a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability. Computer clusters emerged as a result of convergence of a number of computing trends including th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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