You wouldn't think I'd make that error when posting, since I drive a Volvo, but yeah... realized it a little too late. Was intending to put down Volkswagen.
Basically, imagine that NASA is an inefficient huge gas guzzler - say, a Hummer.
Imagine that ESA is a small fleet of more gas efficient but boring compact cars - say, a Saab representing Sweden, a Volvo representing Germany, a Fiat representing Italy... you get the idea. Let's say there's about 11 cars, plus a bicycle from Canada I guess.
Now, somehow stuff all those cars into the Hummer, put a rocket on it, and launch it to Mars.
2. ANIME ANGEL TATOOS? In an American prison??? I doubt there are any anime nerds in lockup...
There will be plenty if this video's promise comes to fruition... just look at the most commonly downloaded torrents - barring porn, unless it has tentacles in it.
Well, that kind of makes it easy to never get your face recognized if you're a criminal. Just smile all the time, and it will mess up the facial recognition software, and they'll never figure out who you are.
"The Smiling Serial Rapist strikes again! Untraceable!"
I'm an advocate of 'letter of the law' in games. (And in real life, if you don't mind being an outcast)
I play EVE Online, and I love that aspect of it. As long as you don't break any laws, you're fine. And even if you do, you only take in game penalties, and perhaps the hatred of your peers.
What annoys me is that he seems surprised about being hated. No shit, sherlock. Try going to work in say, a Network Operations Center, and eating a ton of bean burritos every day before work and intentionally fart as much as you can, especially when standing right next to or in front of people. Sure, you're not breaking any laws, but you can gaurentee you'll be hated and an outcast for it.
Thanks guys. I didn't think this would actually make it to the front page, it's my first 'submission' and was expecting maybe a few responses from interested people.
Great advice from (most) people, short of the few that told me to keel over and die.
Few responses I have:
1. The job is very high stress. Bad. 2. I have a girlfriend who lives with me... so the little time I have daily, I spend with her. Besides her, yeah, my social life has suffered very very badly. And she hates it when I'm gone all the time. (No, she's not alone in the house overnight, and it's an insanely safe area - which I like) 3. I work in a very congested city type area which is NOT very safe outside. The building is VERY secure (full security staff, I get my laptop and bag checked every day...) and I'm far from alone in here, so running around would just piss people off. 3. My dad is a Type 2 diabetic with multiple heart attacks.
So... yeah, I think most of your advice above in regards to this job are correct. I also understand that I need to fit time in to do it, so unless I can remedy the job situation, I'll start lifting freeweights in the car during breaks and going on a diet. (I will take breaks regardless of the situation... the stress is starting to get to me pretty badly)
Thanks all, and thanks for the honesty. It really is in my own hands, but the advice helped.
But maybe it's the fact that we don't have enough wars going on to suit our nature. It was pretty normal going way back for every male to be involved in at least one or two deadly conflicts in their lifetime. Whether it was over food, land, family, women, or the age old money, wars and violence was much more common.
Ever notice that the vast majority of violent games players are males? And more often than not, males seem to take more satisfaction in the actual 'kill' than a woman? (I'd LOVE to see a study on this, as this is 100% anecdotal).<p>
I think it's natural for a man (and some women) to get their fix of 'violence' - a tendency perhaps inherited from centuries or millennium of justice being doled out with the sharp end of a pointy stick. Maybe we're making up for it now in a super-protective society by simulating it, to an extent.<p>
But yeah, this is all anecdotal. I'm not a sociological scientist.
I have read it, and I'm sorry, but I'm far from convinced: he makes some good points in his book, but this one is just silly. It's one thing to take a soldier who's going through the brutalising process of basic training, teach them to shoot a gun at a target, then throw them into a war-zone with a gun and people shooting back at them and expect them to shoot back; it's a huge jump to go from there to claiming that shooting a few pixels on a screen using a mouse button in the comfort of your own home will make the average person more likely to go on a killing spree.
It's not a far jump to say that simulating an environment in which we are trained to kill has absolutely no effect on us. Boot camps are essentially extended training simulations, when you look at it like this.
Discourse at this level can't possibly accomplish anything beyond giving us some simulation of justification for what we wanted to believe in the first place.
At one point someone asked about the price......I cut the converted price and posted it in the Mac Write document I was typing. The guy with the watch calculator was frozen staring at the Mac. So was the rest of the group.
Just a small insight, they were most likely gaping at the price of the unit, just as we do today when we look at buying an Apple.
Back in high school, I worked at a Media Play. It was a chain similar to Best Buy and Circuit City, but it had a massive book section alongside video games, software, music, and movies.
I worked in the video games/software section as a sales associate. Unfortunately, they didn't pay us commissions, but they sure as hell threatened us with losing our jobs if we didn't meet quotas.
Let me list out what we had to push on customers:
- "Free" issue of some general entertainment magazine (That would automatically charge your card if you didn't cancel in a week) - "Free" issue of some movie magazine (That would automatically charge your card if you didn't cancel in a week) - Dish TV subscription. (Yes, they wanted 16 year old 'associates' pushing a new TV form. Needless to say, only one person EVER sold one, and that was a manager) - Media Play Rewards Card (The only semi-reasonable thing, low signup fee and money back - worth it if you spent more than a hundred dollars a year there) - A Discover credit card... what the hell?
These were required to be pushed on EVERY CUSTOMER we saw, regardless of if they were walking to another section or not. I felt worst for the people heading towards the book section, as they had to pass through two other sections and were accosted at least once or twice before even reaching the book section.
This was only required if the customer was buying something electronic: (Gameboy, XBox, Playstation, etc)
- Extended Warranty Plan
We were told to lie about this, saying it was 100% coverage no matter what happened. Needless to say, 16 year old employees do not care to read a 10 page document of fine print to find this out. Not to mention that the store was on the way to being closed down (and they knew it) so these 3 year warranties wouldn't be honored anyway.
I never sold a single 'extra', even going so far as to tell people directly that these 'deals' were scams (except for the Media Play Rewards card, but I told them it'd be easier to just ask the cashier about it if they were interested) but I kept my job because I got a half dozen reports to my manager from customers about what a great employee I was.;) I still got bitched at, but I kept my job.
And this is a situation where there's no commission..;)
Really? I would think a novel about getting a steady flow of peons running between your gold mine and base, followed by a massive raid on the humans would be rather boring. Or, to put it in other words, more swobuh than zogzog.
You can describe ANY game by pure game mechanics and make it sound droll.
"You point your gun at the enemy. You pull the trigger. Your XP goes up. Rinse and repeat 5000 times."
Interesting stories and characters are important, but they must be balanced by varied and entertaining gameplay. The lack of either will be a limiting factor in how many people return to play once the primary plot is completed.
Neither of the factor is a must for a game to be a success. World of Warcraft for example. It has no story, weak characters and gameplay which been obsolete for about 10 years. Halo is another example.
All it takes is to target the right market at the right time and have a huge marketing budget. Everything else is optional
Warcraft actually has a very in depth backstory, moreso than any of the games listed above (with the exception of Final Fantasy, perhaps). There are novels surrounding the universe, a very very detailed history, and so on. The stories, however, play out in quests and raids. Most players don't read quests, just enough to figure out how to get XP, and most raids aren't even touched by the average player.
So I see your point there - there is no story, but that's because it's not a story driven game and therefore the players are not forced to sit through the lore. It's a community driven game - not a good one to compare to the others.
Halo, agreed. (Don't say 'it's just a FPS' - try the Half Life series)
Wow, this article is blatantly biased. Just look at the way he writes.
For the Joomla! examples, they feel the need to put quotations around everything. 'Control Panel', 'Title', and so on. Those same words (or similar words) in the WordPress section are for some reason easier to understand, so they don't warrant quotations.
Not to mention he described Joomla!'s processes as a technical writer would (loosely) and then described WordPress' processes as if casually telling a friend.
That alone stopped me from reading the article.
Disclaimer: I've used Joomla! once, and WordPress once. Both did their jobs admirably, but you can't compare apples and oranges - which is what this article is trying to do, with a heavy bias.
There's been PLENTY of time for the Marine One's blueprints to leak somewhere. Like, three decades. Funny that it came up right when everybody's starting to talk about the 11.2 billion dollar plan to replace the Marine One fleet.
Now they'll be able to say - justifiably, of course - that they have no option but to upgrade the fleet of aircraft! Sorry, taxpayers, but really - it's not like this is a couple trillion dollars or anything.
The article is inherently flawed. The writer is very confused as to the differences between immersion and realism... and I think confused about what immersion really is.
Realism - done correctly - will implement immersion well. Quick example, Armed Assault. Fairly realistic military sim, and the environment allows the player to be immersed in this 'reality'. Now, the reality is only interesting because it's a reality the player will [most likely] never experience.
Realism can be pretty terrible too. Imagine a game based on a regular 9-5 job? You stay in an cubicle the entire time, except for bathroom breaks? Sure, might have great immersion, but who wants that.
Sorry, getting off topic.
On to immersion. Immersion does NOT require realism or graphics of ANY kind. Best example - roleplayers. Going back to the D&D roleplayers, on to MUDs and IRC, and finally to graphical MMOs like Everquest and Star Wars: Galaxies. None of those things are realism. There's fantasy, cyberpunk, etc. etc. This is one level of immersion that's dependent upon the player's level of imagination and interest.
Then there's immersion generated by visual, ambiance, acting, and story. Roleplayers generate these on their own, but for non-roleplayers, these aspects are very impressive. Feeling like you're fighting demons in the depths of hell... it's immersion. It's NOT reality.
From the original post: "In historical board gaming, a related discussion has gone on for decades, posed as âoerealistic simulationâ of warfare vs. âoegood playable gameâ. In general, the most realistic âoesimulationsâ (realistic in historical terms, not, of course, in personal immersion) have been poor games."
To create a true realism, immersion is required. However, the inverse is not necessary... To create a true immersion, realism is not required.
This is where you're getting confused, I think. Immersion is a positive aspect for many gamers, especially if you are interested in getting involved in an interactive story.
If you don't want to do that, if you want to do it 'light', then yes, those 2D Wii games are wonderful. Yes, they're popular. But there will always be (well, in the foreseeable future) a sizable market for games that include immersion. (And a niche market for 'realism')
Slashdot Mirror
You wouldn't think I'd make that error when posting, since I drive a Volvo, but yeah... realized it a little too late. Was intending to put down Volkswagen.
Basically, imagine that NASA is an inefficient huge gas guzzler - say, a Hummer.
Imagine that ESA is a small fleet of more gas efficient but boring compact cars - say, a Saab representing Sweden, a Volvo representing Germany, a Fiat representing Italy... you get the idea. Let's say there's about 11 cars, plus a bicycle from Canada I guess.
Now, somehow stuff all those cars into the Hummer, put a rocket on it, and launch it to Mars.
Depends on which you think is tastier.
Ohhh, no! That means monkeys are as smart as babies! Are we supposed to stop eating them in our hamburgers and 'meat product' now?
Europe? That's in France, right?
- Signed, America
2. ANIME ANGEL TATOOS? In an American prison??? I doubt there are any anime nerds in lockup...
There will be plenty if this video's promise comes to fruition... just look at the most commonly downloaded torrents - barring porn, unless it has tentacles in it.
Is it just me or does MC Double Def "DP" sound like a black porn star's stage name?
Well, that kind of makes it easy to never get your face recognized if you're a criminal. Just smile all the time, and it will mess up the facial recognition software, and they'll never figure out who you are.
"The Smiling Serial Rapist strikes again! Untraceable!"
I'm an advocate of 'letter of the law' in games. (And in real life, if you don't mind being an outcast)
I play EVE Online, and I love that aspect of it. As long as you don't break any laws, you're fine. And even if you do, you only take in game penalties, and perhaps the hatred of your peers.
What annoys me is that he seems surprised about being hated. No shit, sherlock. Try going to work in say, a Network Operations Center, and eating a ton of bean burritos every day before work and intentionally fart as much as you can, especially when standing right next to or in front of people. Sure, you're not breaking any laws, but you can gaurentee you'll be hated and an outcast for it.
Thanks guys. I didn't think this would actually make it to the front page, it's my first 'submission' and was expecting maybe a few responses from interested people.
Great advice from (most) people, short of the few that told me to keel over and die.
Few responses I have:
1. The job is very high stress. Bad.
2. I have a girlfriend who lives with me... so the little time I have daily, I spend with her. Besides her, yeah, my social life has suffered very very badly. And she hates it when I'm gone all the time. (No, she's not alone in the house overnight, and it's an insanely safe area - which I like)
3. I work in a very congested city type area which is NOT very safe outside. The building is VERY secure (full security staff, I get my laptop and bag checked every day...) and I'm far from alone in here, so running around would just piss people off.
3. My dad is a Type 2 diabetic with multiple heart attacks.
So... yeah, I think most of your advice above in regards to this job are correct. I also understand that I need to fit time in to do it, so unless I can remedy the job situation, I'll start lifting freeweights in the car during breaks and going on a diet. (I will take breaks regardless of the situation... the stress is starting to get to me pretty badly)
Thanks all, and thanks for the honesty. It really is in my own hands, but the advice helped.
Bah had the wrong Comment Post Mode set....
Ever notice that the vast majority of violent games players are males? And more often than not, males seem to take more satisfaction in the actual 'kill' than a woman? (I'd LOVE to see a study on this, as this is 100% anecdotal).<p>
I think it's natural for a man (and some women) to get their fix of 'violence' - a tendency perhaps inherited from centuries or millennium of justice being doled out with the sharp end of a pointy stick. Maybe we're making up for it now in a super-protective society by simulating it, to an extent.<p>
But yeah, this is all anecdotal. I'm not a sociological scientist.
I have read it, and I'm sorry, but I'm far from convinced: he makes some good points in his book, but this one is just silly. It's one thing to take a soldier who's going through the brutalising process of basic training, teach them to shoot a gun at a target, then throw them into a war-zone with a gun and people shooting back at them and expect them to shoot back; it's a huge jump to go from there to claiming that shooting a few pixels on a screen using a mouse button in the comfort of your own home will make the average person more likely to go on a killing spree.
It's not a far jump to say that simulating an environment in which we are trained to kill has absolutely no effect on us. Boot camps are essentially extended training simulations, when you look at it like this.
Discourse at this level can't possibly accomplish anything beyond giving us some simulation of justification for what we wanted to believe in the first place.
At one point someone asked about the price... ...I cut the converted price and posted it in the Mac Write document I was typing. The guy with the watch calculator was frozen staring at the Mac. So was the rest of the group.
Just a small insight, they were most likely gaping at the price of the unit, just as we do today when we look at buying an Apple.
Back in high school, I worked at a Media Play. It was a chain similar to Best Buy and Circuit City, but it had a massive book section alongside video games, software, music, and movies.
I worked in the video games/software section as a sales associate. Unfortunately, they didn't pay us commissions, but they sure as hell threatened us with losing our jobs if we didn't meet quotas.
Let me list out what we had to push on customers:
- "Free" issue of some general entertainment magazine (That would automatically charge your card if you didn't cancel in a week)
- "Free" issue of some movie magazine (That would automatically charge your card if you didn't cancel in a week)
- Dish TV subscription. (Yes, they wanted 16 year old 'associates' pushing a new TV form. Needless to say, only one person EVER sold one, and that was a manager)
- Media Play Rewards Card (The only semi-reasonable thing, low signup fee and money back - worth it if you spent more than a hundred dollars a year there)
- A Discover credit card... what the hell?
These were required to be pushed on EVERY CUSTOMER we saw, regardless of if they were walking to another section or not. I felt worst for the people heading towards the book section, as they had to pass through two other sections and were accosted at least once or twice before even reaching the book section.
This was only required if the customer was buying something electronic: (Gameboy, XBox, Playstation, etc)
- Extended Warranty Plan
We were told to lie about this, saying it was 100% coverage no matter what happened. Needless to say, 16 year old employees do not care to read a 10 page document of fine print to find this out. Not to mention that the store was on the way to being closed down (and they knew it) so these 3 year warranties wouldn't be honored anyway.
I never sold a single 'extra', even going so far as to tell people directly that these 'deals' were scams (except for the Media Play Rewards card, but I told them it'd be easier to just ask the cashier about it if they were interested) but I kept my job because I got a half dozen reports to my manager from customers about what a great employee I was. ;) I still got bitched at, but I kept my job.
And this is a situation where there's no commission.. ;)
Really? I would think a novel about getting a steady flow of peons running between your gold mine and base, followed by a massive raid on the humans would be rather boring. Or, to put it in other words, more swobuh than zogzog.
You can describe ANY game by pure game mechanics and make it sound droll.
"You point your gun at the enemy. You pull the trigger. Your XP goes up. Rinse and repeat 5000 times."
Interesting stories and characters are important, but they must be balanced by varied and entertaining gameplay. The lack of either will be a limiting factor in how many people return to play once the primary plot is completed.
Neither of the factor is a must for a game to be a success. World of Warcraft for example. It has no story, weak characters and gameplay which been obsolete for about 10 years. Halo is another example.
All it takes is to target the right market at the right time and have a huge marketing budget. Everything else is optional
Warcraft actually has a very in depth backstory, moreso than any of the games listed above (with the exception of Final Fantasy, perhaps). There are novels surrounding the universe, a very very detailed history, and so on. The stories, however, play out in quests and raids. Most players don't read quests, just enough to figure out how to get XP, and most raids aren't even touched by the average player.
So I see your point there - there is no story, but that's because it's not a story driven game and therefore the players are not forced to sit through the lore. It's a community driven game - not a good one to compare to the others.
Halo, agreed. (Don't say 'it's just a FPS' - try the Half Life series)
Maybe the poster was hoping we'd see this and get all pissed off, then go sign up and post on that thread to make a fuss about it. :)
Wow, this article is blatantly biased. Just look at the way he writes.
For the Joomla! examples, they feel the need to put quotations around everything. 'Control Panel', 'Title', and so on. Those same words (or similar words) in the WordPress section are for some reason easier to understand, so they don't warrant quotations.
Not to mention he described Joomla!'s processes as a technical writer would (loosely) and then described WordPress' processes as if casually telling a friend.
That alone stopped me from reading the article.
Disclaimer: I've used Joomla! once, and WordPress once. Both did their jobs admirably, but you can't compare apples and oranges - which is what this article is trying to do, with a heavy bias.
A mobile version?
EVE Online from my Blackberry at work?
I'll be in heaven, and I won't get much work done.
This seems like very convenient timing to me.
There's been PLENTY of time for the Marine One's blueprints to leak somewhere. Like, three decades. Funny that it came up right when everybody's starting to talk about the 11.2 billion dollar plan to replace the Marine One fleet.
Now they'll be able to say - justifiably, of course - that they have no option but to upgrade the fleet of aircraft! Sorry, taxpayers, but really - it's not like this is a couple trillion dollars or anything.
Texas, Arizona, and California border Canada?
Wow, I need to update my maps.
Where at least I know I can break the law.
The article is inherently flawed. The writer is very confused as to the differences between immersion and realism... and I think confused about what immersion really is.
Realism - done correctly - will implement immersion well. Quick example, Armed Assault. Fairly realistic military sim, and the environment allows the player to be immersed in this 'reality'. Now, the reality is only interesting because it's a reality the player will [most likely] never experience.
Realism can be pretty terrible too. Imagine a game based on a regular 9-5 job? You stay in an cubicle the entire time, except for bathroom breaks? Sure, might have great immersion, but who wants that.
Sorry, getting off topic.
On to immersion. Immersion does NOT require realism or graphics of ANY kind. Best example - roleplayers. Going back to the D&D roleplayers, on to MUDs and IRC, and finally to graphical MMOs like Everquest and Star Wars: Galaxies. None of those things are realism. There's fantasy, cyberpunk, etc. etc. This is one level of immersion that's dependent upon the player's level of imagination and interest.
Then there's immersion generated by visual, ambiance, acting, and story. Roleplayers generate these on their own, but for non-roleplayers, these aspects are very impressive. Feeling like you're fighting demons in the depths of hell... it's immersion. It's NOT reality.
From the original post:
"In historical board gaming, a related discussion has gone on for decades, posed as âoerealistic simulationâ of warfare vs. âoegood playable gameâ. In general, the most realistic âoesimulationsâ (realistic in historical terms, not, of course, in personal immersion) have been poor games."
To create a true realism, immersion is required. However, the inverse is not necessary... To create a true immersion, realism is not required.
This is where you're getting confused, I think. Immersion is a positive aspect for many gamers, especially if you are interested in getting involved in an interactive story.
If you don't want to do that, if you want to do it 'light', then yes, those 2D Wii games are wonderful. Yes, they're popular. But there will always be (well, in the foreseeable future) a sizable market for games that include immersion. (And a niche market for 'realism')
Alright, my rant is done. Sorry. =)