I think one of the interesting parts of doing a BSG prequel of the new series will be the fact that the miniseries showed that Cylons and Vipers once looked like they did in the classic series. Wonder how manyelements of the new prequel series will be influenced by the designs in that show...
It'll be amusing to see old low-tech (non-CG) Cylons in a big-budget series.
Just a guess, but I wonder if you could defeat it by shooting 3 RPGs from 3 different directions at it? Can it act that quickly against all of them?
From TFA:
The system can simultaneously engage several threats, arriving from different directions, is effective on stationary or moving platforms, and is effective against short and long range threats (such as RPGs and ATGM).
Although I'm not sure the exact numbers, Puzzle Pirates was near 10,000 players a while ago and has probably far surpassed that now.
In fact they recently launched two new oceans (servers) to handle additional players. One of these servers runs off a different business model that allows unlimited play time but where you actually pay real dollars for additional game features (buying a ship, getting promoted, etc). It's a great experiment and has already worked well for people who like playing the puzzles but don't want to pay the price for a full subscription.
This is really a mischaracterization of the game, and I don't see how you could reach this point of view.
I've never played any game that's so open and inviting to new players. For new pirates just starting out it's a fun game environment centered around playing puzzles. As you advance through the game you can get more involved in the social/political aspects (as well as perfect your puzzle skills) and try to achieve higher rank and status in a crew or flag. I suppose if you're completely incapable of social interaction you might not get far beyond the basic game, but that's not the same as others more adept at it being "granted monopolies."
As far as the Game Design forum, I have to wonder if you heard this second-hand. There is a pretty free flow of ideas and debate from people in all levels of the game, and the developers openly discuss and interact with anybody who has a good, original idea or insight, both in the forums and actually in-game. I remember standing on the docks on one of my first days playing the game, and carrying on a conversation with one of the lead designers regarding ideas for new clothing options. For a team of six developers to spend so much time interacting with players of all levels is really amazing.
The only restriction of speech that occurs (thankfully) on the forums is when frequently discussed issues are brought up again and again. Those posts are often locked and moved to the archive ("Davy Jones' Locker"). This is done in an effort to keep the forums clean and readable for newer players. If you think heated debate over game design issues doesn't take place, you have obviously never read those forums.
As far as free economy aspects of the game, just in the last couple of weeks a major update to the game was released that introduced 1) bazarres, where anyone who owns a ship can get involved directly in the economy by selling goods at a stall, and 2) the ability to blockade and claim entire islands. One flag just conquered a major island in the last couple of days (or "liberated" it from the developers) and declared it a free market where they will try to institute a democratic system of government with the involvement of the citizens and shop-owners.
If you haven't played this game, ignore the parent and check it out: Puzzle Pirates
I've already hyped the great features in Puzzle Pirates elsewhere here, but I'll do so again, because it has clever solutions to so many of these issues.
In Puzzle Pirates, there is no death to speak of, but the closest you can come is having your ship sunk. This is a fairly rare occurence, since it requires that your flag be declared "at war" with the other ship's flag - a consensual act voted on by the leaders of both parties. Most of the time battles result in simply boarding the losing ship and pillaging their goods and money.
Although losing an expensive ship is a pretty big negative, the other penalty of having a ship sunk from under you is actually one that is desired by players. When your ship is sunk, the whole crew washes up on the shore of the island they set out from. Although the characters experience no actual injury or harm, on very rare occasions some characters will have a resulting eyepatch, pegleg or a hook from injuries experienced in the sinking.
This is the only way to acquire these desirable marks of distinction, and this makes getting sunk - and warfare in general - a double-edged sword, and something that players both desire and fear at the same time. As yet I don't believe there is anyone in the game world who has any of these physical attributes. This is probably because there have so far been very few declared wars. A pending update will introduce colonization of islands, which will require warfare, so there should soon be a number of pirates walking the docks with peglegs and hooks...
Although Puzzle Pirates doesn't include player death of any kind, there is a clever system for discouraging unbalanced attacking of inexperienced ships. Each ship you encounter is highlighted by a color representing its ability level relative to your own (determined by stats). Red is far more advanced, green is equal in skill, and blue is much less experienced, with a spectrum of colors in between to help you decide whether to attack. Attacking reds can be a fun challenge, but most battles take place between green ships who are fairly equal in experience and skill.
In order to minimize griefing, attacking a blue ship will run a random chance of instead encountering the BLACK SHIP OF DEATH, a unbeatable ghost ship manned by undead skeleton pirates. This ship will mercilessly slaughter your crew and take all the goods in the hold ("slaughter" is a relative term, they're just eliminated from the puzzle duel).
It's a very effective and fun technique for solving this problem and new or relatively inexperienced players are rarely preyed upon. Some crews of course go out and attack blue ships in hopes of facing the famed Black Ship, but they usually get their asses handed to them, and disengage if they actually do end up attacking a blue ship unintentionally. I believe no one has defeated the latest incarnation of the Black Ship, though many have tried...
I haven't had a chance to play the full Halo online yet, but if it's anything like the demo, the game is not for beginners.
I played Halo on XBox quite a bit, and am fairly good in FPS games in general, but the demo had me wanting to break my keyboard. The basic problem was that banshees would strafe or just crash into the spawn point constantly, killing everyone as they spawn. After a couple of days of playing the demo, but barely getting to actually play beyond the "spawn-die-spawn-die" cycle, I just gave up in frustration.
I'm ADD and this was perfect. Despite my serious interest, I couldn't read the entire original post, and was skimming through all the other wordy posts till this one popped out.
I took the opposite approach. I share my name with the famous golfer Greg Norman, and I can definitely relate to Michael Bolton in Office Space, since almost all my business meetings or job interviews start with someone seeing my name, laughing and saying "HEY - Greg Norman! You related to him?" or the much more common "So what's your handicap? HAHA!"
Sometimes they make it worse by adding "Bet you get that all the time huh?" or "You know there's a golfer named that right?" No, I had no idea there's a golfer named that. No, nobody has ever pointed it out before.
To solve the problem, I simply registered notthegolfer.com to use for my personal email address (the site is currently down).
It actually makes for a great ice-breaker and gets a good chuckle out of business partners and prospective employers, who then skip the obvious jokes. At my last job I had a co-worker who didn't really understand why I'd chosen that domain name. Then at a company christmas party a VP was walking around meeting us all and his eyes lit up when I introduced myself. He launched into the whole "Hey! Just like the golfer! What's your handicap...?" crap for several minutes. After he walked away, my co-worker finally leaned over and said "Dude, I just TOTALLY got your domain name..."
Are you saying the War on Terrorism serves no purpose? I think we can all agree it won't end all terrorism, or solve the world's problems, but does that mean we shouldn't be fighting it?
Unlike the War on Drugs, maybe the War on Terrorism is worthwhile in and of itself. We haven't had any attacks on US soil since 9/11, and the Taliban was removed from power in Afghanistan. Whatever you might think of the direction or the effort in our current campaign, isn't it true that it has been effective?
Does it really matter if we're actually successful in wiping terrorism off the face of the earth?
But really, a demonstration of Flash being useful - I still haven't seen it.
Flazoom had a four-part series of articles discussing various "rich-internet apps" built with Flash that have had provable ROI for companies. These are apps that use the advantages of Flash to delivery enhanced interactive experiences for users.
These are all web-based applications that would be difficult if not impossible to achieve throught DHTML or Java. Like most modern Flash apps, they use animation sparingly, for transition effects.
Your observation's pretty accurate, but I'd disagree on the last part. People with these conditions are generally not able to function well in real life anyway. Video games are an escape, but for people with real ADHD issues, they can't really make it much worse.
The problem we have with the ADHD stigma (that bleeds to my problem with articles like this) is that the true ADHD kid can't sit still for ANYTHING and can't concentrate on ANYTHING to save his/her life. If your kid can't sit still in school but can come home and play Pokemon on his GBA for 4 hours, your kid isn't hyperactive.
I think you need to try talking to someone with the condition, cause you've really touched on a common misperception about ADD/ADHD here. ADHD does not mean that you have no attention span whatsoever, it means that you have no control over your attention span. The true ADHD kid's attention will constantly fixate on some sort of satisfying stimulus, whether it's TV, a butterfly, a daydream, or a video game.
Once fixated on something that really stimulates their mind, you'll have a hard time getting them to break their fixation. Video games provide a perfect, constant stimulus that really satisfies this urge. Try telling someone with true ADHD to focus on a task for any period of time, and they will not be able to do it, unless it meets the need for stimulus.
It is commonly pointed out that Attention Deficit Disorder is really mis-named. A better name might be Attention-Control Deficit Disorder, because it actually affects the person's ability to modulate their own attention span or control their focus.
Exactly. I have it and I'm the exact same way. When I'm into a game, the rest of the world doesn't exist. When I finally shut down the game and come to bed my wife will bring up a conversation we had while I was playing, and I'll have no idea what she's talking about.
But like you said, it's not just a video game issue. The same thing happens whether I'm reading, watching TV, driving or staring out the floor.
In that case I completely agree with you. That's misdiagnosis, it's a big problem, and it affects not only the kids themselves, but indirectly everyone who has the real condition and actually needs treatment (and no, a "stern beating" is never a good treatment, whatever the cause of the behavior). It reflects and bolsters a lack of understanding of the affliction. But comments like this on Slashdot, which are frequently moderated up, also add to this stigma surrounding it.
But even with a proper diagnosis, medication is one form of treatment, and should never be the first.
It just amazes me how many people get set off about a condition that they really know nothing about. Well, then again - this IS Slashdot.
If people who feel passionately about it would take the time to research it and then confront the issue, they might understand the problem, instead of just labelling it "Bullshit."
YOU turned out just fine. Good for you. You were hyperactive, not ADD/ADHD. Something that you and others seem unable or unwilling to understand is that there is a difference between ADHD and simply hyperactive kids. Sure, most kids are hyper, and it is a part of growing up. Most do not have ADHD. ADHD is the extreme end of the spectrum, when the child has no control over their attention span, no understanding of time or consequence of action, and an inability to learn it. ADHD is what you find when the even the most stringent discipline fails, and the best parenting has no affect.
Yes, I have ADD. I am a 26-year-old professional. Yes, it is a serious condition that affects every aspect of my life and makes every situation a challenge. Medication is one part of the solution for it, without which my life would be a complete mess. And it does not stifle my creativity, but instead allows me to embrace it, and focus it into meaningful results.
What is it about this condition that people are so angry about it? The lack of information about it and the skepticism around it is understandable, but some people like yourself get downright furious when the subject comes up. This kind of attitude is what makes this condition even harder to deal with. It's why I can't tell my boss why I'm late to work every day, because I'm worried he'll have the same reaction.
Slashdot Mirror
I think one of the interesting parts of doing a BSG prequel of the new series will be the fact that the miniseries showed that Cylons and Vipers once looked like they did in the classic series. Wonder how manyelements of the new prequel series will be influenced by the designs in that show...
It'll be amusing to see old low-tech (non-CG) Cylons in a big-budget series.
The system can simultaneously engage several threats, arriving from different directions, is effective on stationary or moving platforms, and is effective against short and long range threats (such as RPGs and ATGM).
So yes, it can handle that... even while moving.
It is an automoton wiggling around sucking things up excreting things. There is no awareness there.
Right. Kind of like Ted Kennedy.
hardware.slashdot.org? Where's the slashdot announcement? And why are octopi in the hardware section? Do they run linux or something?
Not yet, but someone's working on it. (scroll to the bottom for concept sketches and renderings)
Although I'm not sure the exact numbers, Puzzle Pirates was near 10,000 players a while ago and has probably far surpassed that now.
In fact they recently launched two new oceans (servers) to handle additional players. One of these servers runs off a different business model that allows unlimited play time but where you actually pay real dollars for additional game features (buying a ship, getting promoted, etc). It's a great experiment and has already worked well for people who like playing the puzzles but don't want to pay the price for a full subscription.
Ugh. This will give a whole new meaning to "treadmilling" in MMORPGs.
LISTEN!!
#FFFFFF is the new #000000
This is really a mischaracterization of the game, and I don't see how you could reach this point of view.
I've never played any game that's so open and inviting to new players. For new pirates just starting out it's a fun game environment centered around playing puzzles. As you advance through the game you can get more involved in the social/political aspects (as well as perfect your puzzle skills) and try to achieve higher rank and status in a crew or flag. I suppose if you're completely incapable of social interaction you might not get far beyond the basic game, but that's not the same as others more adept at it being "granted monopolies."
As far as the Game Design forum, I have to wonder if you heard this second-hand. There is a pretty free flow of ideas and debate from people in all levels of the game, and the developers openly discuss and interact with anybody who has a good, original idea or insight, both in the forums and actually in-game. I remember standing on the docks on one of my first days playing the game, and carrying on a conversation with one of the lead designers regarding ideas for new clothing options. For a team of six developers to spend so much time interacting with players of all levels is really amazing.
The only restriction of speech that occurs (thankfully) on the forums is when frequently discussed issues are brought up again and again. Those posts are often locked and moved to the archive ("Davy Jones' Locker"). This is done in an effort to keep the forums clean and readable for newer players. If you think heated debate over game design issues doesn't take place, you have obviously never read those forums.
As far as free economy aspects of the game, just in the last couple of weeks a major update to the game was released that introduced 1) bazarres, where anyone who owns a ship can get involved directly in the economy by selling goods at a stall, and 2) the ability to blockade and claim entire islands. One flag just conquered a major island in the last couple of days (or "liberated" it from the developers) and declared it a free market where they will try to institute a democratic system of government with the involvement of the citizens and shop-owners.
If you haven't played this game, ignore the parent and check it out:
Puzzle Pirates
I've already hyped the great features in Puzzle Pirates elsewhere here, but I'll do so again, because it has clever solutions to so many of these issues.
In Puzzle Pirates, there is no death to speak of, but the closest you can come is having your ship sunk. This is a fairly rare occurence, since it requires that your flag be declared "at war" with the other ship's flag - a consensual act voted on by the leaders of both parties. Most of the time battles result in simply boarding the losing ship and pillaging their goods and money.
Although losing an expensive ship is a pretty big negative, the other penalty of having a ship sunk from under you is actually one that is desired by players. When your ship is sunk, the whole crew washes up on the shore of the island they set out from. Although the characters experience no actual injury or harm, on very rare occasions some characters will have a resulting eyepatch, pegleg or a hook from injuries experienced in the sinking.
This is the only way to acquire these desirable marks of distinction, and this makes getting sunk - and warfare in general - a double-edged sword, and something that players both desire and fear at the same time. As yet I don't believe there is anyone in the game world who has any of these physical attributes. This is probably because there have so far been very few declared wars. A pending update will introduce colonization of islands, which will require warfare, so there should soon be a number of pirates walking the docks with peglegs and hooks...
Although Puzzle Pirates doesn't include player death of any kind, there is a clever system for discouraging unbalanced attacking of inexperienced ships. Each ship you encounter is highlighted by a color representing its ability level relative to your own (determined by stats). Red is far more advanced, green is equal in skill, and blue is much less experienced, with a spectrum of colors in between to help you decide whether to attack. Attacking reds can be a fun challenge, but most battles take place between green ships who are fairly equal in experience and skill.
In order to minimize griefing, attacking a blue ship will run a random chance of instead encountering the BLACK SHIP OF DEATH, a unbeatable ghost ship manned by undead skeleton pirates. This ship will mercilessly slaughter your crew and take all the goods in the hold ("slaughter" is a relative term, they're just eliminated from the puzzle duel).
It's a very effective and fun technique for solving this problem and new or relatively inexperienced players are rarely preyed upon. Some crews of course go out and attack blue ships in hopes of facing the famed Black Ship, but they usually get their asses handed to them, and disengage if they actually do end up attacking a blue ship unintentionally. I believe no one has defeated the latest incarnation of the Black Ship, though many have tried...
I haven't had a chance to play the full Halo online yet, but if it's anything like the demo, the game is not for beginners.
I played Halo on XBox quite a bit, and am fairly good in FPS games in general, but the demo had me wanting to break my keyboard. The basic problem was that banshees would strafe or just crash into the spawn point constantly, killing everyone as they spawn. After a couple of days of playing the demo, but barely getting to actually play beyond the "spawn-die-spawn-die" cycle, I just gave up in frustration.
You actually think the federal government could manage this without screwing it up?
They barely managed to get the DoNotCall list going, and I'm still getting tons of calls...
I'm ADD and this was perfect. Despite my serious interest, I couldn't read the entire original post, and was skimming through all the other wordy posts till this one popped out.
Keep em short people, geez...
I took the opposite approach. I share my name with the famous golfer Greg Norman, and I can definitely relate to Michael Bolton in Office Space, since almost all my business meetings or job interviews start with someone seeing my name, laughing and saying "HEY - Greg Norman! You related to him?" or the much more common "So what's your handicap? HAHA!"
Sometimes they make it worse by adding "Bet you get that all the time huh?" or "You know there's a golfer named that right?" No, I had no idea there's a golfer named that. No, nobody has ever pointed it out before.
To solve the problem, I simply registered notthegolfer.com to use for my personal email address (the site is currently down).
It actually makes for a great ice-breaker and gets a good chuckle out of business partners and prospective employers, who then skip the obvious jokes. At my last job I had a co-worker who didn't really understand why I'd chosen that domain name. Then at a company christmas party a VP was walking around meeting us all and his eyes lit up when I introduced myself. He launched into the whole "Hey! Just like the golfer! What's your handicap...?" crap for several minutes. After he walked away, my co-worker finally leaned over and said "Dude, I just TOTALLY got your domain name..."
So what's at
0 00 ,001 miles?
11,912,216,896,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
You get yourself 120 laser pointers...
Are you saying the War on Terrorism serves no purpose? I think we can all agree it won't end all terrorism, or solve the world's problems, but does that mean we shouldn't be fighting it?
Unlike the War on Drugs, maybe the War on Terrorism is worthwhile in and of itself. We haven't had any attacks on US soil since 9/11, and the Taliban was removed from power in Afghanistan. Whatever you might think of the direction or the effort in our current campaign, isn't it true that it has been effective?
Does it really matter if we're actually successful in wiping terrorism off the face of the earth?
The four areas discussed were:
Product Configurators
Simplified Forms
Product Finders
Applications
A few good examples mentioned in the series include Iokio's Camera Finder, Footjoy and the Mini Cooper Builder.
These are all web-based applications that would be difficult if not impossible to achieve throught DHTML or Java. Like most modern Flash apps, they use animation sparingly, for transition effects.
Me: I, I, I, I, I didn't receive my paycheck this week.
Boss: Uh, you're gonna have to talk to Payroll about that.
Me: I, I did and they, and they said -
Boss: Uh, we're gonna need to move you downstairs into Storage B.
Me: No...I...I...
Boss: Uh, we have some new people coming in and we need all the space we can get.
Me: No...no...no...no...but...but...but...I, I, I -
Boss: If you could just pack up all of your stuff and move it down there, that would be terrific. See ya. (He walks away.)
Me: I can't...Excuse me. I believe you have my stapler?
Your observation's pretty accurate, but I'd disagree on the last part. People with these conditions are generally not able to function well in real life anyway. Video games are an escape, but for people with real ADHD issues, they can't really make it much worse.
I think you need to try talking to someone with the condition, cause you've really touched on a common misperception about ADD/ADHD here. ADHD does not mean that you have no attention span whatsoever, it means that you have no control over your attention span. The true ADHD kid's attention will constantly fixate on some sort of satisfying stimulus, whether it's TV, a butterfly, a daydream, or a video game.
Once fixated on something that really stimulates their mind, you'll have a hard time getting them to break their fixation. Video games provide a perfect, constant stimulus that really satisfies this urge. Try telling someone with true ADHD to focus on a task for any period of time, and they will not be able to do it, unless it meets the need for stimulus.
It is commonly pointed out that Attention Deficit Disorder is really mis-named. A better name might be Attention-Control Deficit Disorder, because it actually affects the person's ability to modulate their own attention span or control their focus.
Exactly. I have it and I'm the exact same way. When I'm into a game, the rest of the world doesn't exist. When I finally shut down the game and come to bed my wife will bring up a conversation we had while I was playing, and I'll have no idea what she's talking about.
But like you said, it's not just a video game issue. The same thing happens whether I'm reading, watching TV, driving or staring out the floor.
In that case I completely agree with you. That's misdiagnosis, it's a big problem, and it affects not only the kids themselves, but indirectly everyone who has the real condition and actually needs treatment (and no, a "stern beating" is never a good treatment, whatever the cause of the behavior). It reflects and bolsters a lack of understanding of the affliction. But comments like this on Slashdot, which are frequently moderated up, also add to this stigma surrounding it.
But even with a proper diagnosis, medication is one form of treatment, and should never be the first.
It just amazes me how many people get set off about a condition that they really know nothing about. Well, then again - this IS Slashdot.
If people who feel passionately about it would take the time to research it and then confront the issue, they might understand the problem, instead of just labelling it "Bullshit."
YOU turned out just fine. Good for you. You were hyperactive, not ADD/ADHD. Something that you and others seem unable or unwilling to understand is that there is a difference between ADHD and simply hyperactive kids. Sure, most kids are hyper, and it is a part of growing up. Most do not have ADHD. ADHD is the extreme end of the spectrum, when the child has no control over their attention span, no understanding of time or consequence of action, and an inability to learn it. ADHD is what you find when the even the most stringent discipline fails, and the best parenting has no affect.
Yes, I have ADD. I am a 26-year-old professional. Yes, it is a serious condition that affects every aspect of my life and makes every situation a challenge. Medication is one part of the solution for it, without which my life would be a complete mess. And it does not stifle my creativity, but instead allows me to embrace it, and focus it into meaningful results.
What is it about this condition that people are so angry about it? The lack of information about it and the skepticism around it is understandable, but some people like yourself get downright furious when the subject comes up. This kind of attitude is what makes this condition even harder to deal with. It's why I can't tell my boss why I'm late to work every day, because I'm worried he'll have the same reaction.