DAO is not World of Warcraft or a typical dungeon brawler.
It's a game built around a complex story, with multiple paths through that story. That flexibility means that there's no single "ideal" party, and that there will be multiple ways to achieve most game objectives (including winning combats).
Also, it sounds like you're trying to charge through every combat and turn the game into one long frontal assault. Bioware's pause-and-click combat system is designed for *tactics*, not tanking. Each combat demands a different approach, and your party members' relative strengths and weaknesses change as they level.
I think you're missing a lot of the game's depth and making a lot of unnecessary frustration for yourself.
Why do so many of those transatlantic cables seem to land in New York?
Two Reasons: Geography and Routing
1) Geography: First, the Guardian's map is a little oversimplified. Most of those cables come ashore in Eastern Long Island or along a relatively narrow stretch of New Jersey coastline, about 50 miles south of NYC proper. They're in those places because of submarine geography. The sea floor isn't flat- there are mountains and canyons, etc. Ever tried to run network cable through a crowded office? Pain in the neck, right? Now imagine doing it with six-foot long tweezers and a blindfold...for 3,000 miles. The cable-layers pick the flattest, least cluttered path they can. In the mid-1950s, we started to get good sonar maps of the North Atlantic sea floor. Laying undersea cable is *expensive*, and there was a big burst of it as those maps started to take the guesswork (and a lot of the risk) out of the equation. And once a company found a good route, they tended to keep using it.
2) Routing. A *lot* of information passes through those cables. It's compressed (Hoffman encoding, anyone?), and at each end you have to decompress it and then route it back into the land line system. This is a big, complicated operation (Much more so in the '50s and '60s when so many of the US-Europe cables were laid), and it's cheaper to add capacity by laying more cables between existing terminals than to build new ones.
Note that some companies (including Apollo) are starting to build new routes- the economics for doing that are getting better as cable gets cheaper and data traffic grows (shame on all the Americans downloading video files from peers in Sweden).
So yes, the undersea cable system *should* have much more redundancy, but it *won't* until somebody can make money building and selling that redundant capacity. And actually, these events will speed up that process; According to the Guardian, 50% of India's bandwidth is cut off. The people who own the pipes for the 50% that still works are having a *very* profitable week.
Note that libraries, universities, and other research-intensive institutions can already buy subscription access to the archives of the New York Times and most other major newspapers.
My university pays NYT a considerable fee for access to several years of archives from any computer on the campus network. This new subscription policy is really just an attempt to sell that kind of service to individuals instead of institutions.
Students having better computer skills than the curriculum and/or teachers can handle is a big, and often unrecognized, problem in the U.S. public school systems. There have been a lot of expensive technology initiatives to buy hardware and software for schools, but little time and money spend on teacher training.
My high school (mid-90s) required all students to take at least one computer class before graduating- choices were typing/word processing, MS Office, or (later) web design. Problem was, none of the teachers had a clue- the school system reassigned home economics and shop teachers to teach the computer classes without any training or preparation. Hey, all electives are the same, right?
Not. Technology in schools is worthless without teachers who can use it.
My grandmother suffers from vascular dementia, one of several brain disorders common in the elderly that produces Alzheimers-like sympthoms- confusion, memory loss, etc. Most of the time, her condition can be controlled with medication, but when she gets bad, she can forget where she lives and even how to operate a touch-tone phone. During those periods, she needs to be monitored 24 hours a day for her own safety. Right now, this is done by family members or visiting nurses (at considerable expense) Sooner or later, my grandmother is going to have to move to an assisted living facility with a locked "memory ward," something everyone in the family dreads.
I would hate to see this kind of tracking or monitoring technology imposed on the general population for all the usual Big Brother and civil liberties concerns. However, a system such as the Cloverwood facility in the article uses could be a godsend for my grandmother and the increasing number of elderly citizens with Alzheimers and other dementia disorders. Cameras and pendants are far less invasive (and potentially, far less expensive) than being followed around all day by a nursing aide. Used wisely, this technology could help elderly citizens with mental disorders stay independent and maintain their dignity for longer than is currently feasible.
"Shakespeare can put all England on stage in Henry IV, I am confident that we can put on the whole of Middle Earth..."
Oy veh...Note that putting the story of Henry IV on stage took Shakespeare two very long plays-- Henry IV parts one and two together are over seven hours, uncut. Even then, the scope of the plays is much smaller than the War of the Ring. Yes, the historical backdrop of Henry IV is a series of wars and rebellions that cover most of England as well as Brittany, but the realy story is much smaller. It's about the (contested) king, his son Hal, and a few other key court figures suh as Hotspur and Falstaff. The real plot is the search for honor by these characters, NOT the wars and the fate of the kingdom. Anyway, to cover the full scope of the war/political story, you have to include two more plays, Richard II and Henry V, which would bring the stage running time to over twelve hours.
So Shakespeare did NOT put "all England" on stage in Henry IV...he was much too smart to try that. Pity the West End producers can't learn from the Bard.
There's another, more complete obituary from the AP at: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010512/ts/obit_a dams.html
I picture Mr. Adams sitting now in some metaphysical version of Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, sipping Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod Beeblebrox and Arthur Dent.
I hope that Mr. Adams, in whatever state of existence he now occupies, has found the Question to which the answer is 42.
Is anyone else reminded of the concept of an 'impartial observer' from that sci-fi book about a child who was raised by martians. Sorry, can't remember the name of the book, but it was also the first time I heard the term 'grok'.
The book is "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein. Definitely Heinlein's most controversial work, and one of the classics of American science fiction.
The "impartial observers" Shotgun mentions were called "Fair Witnesses" in the book. Basically, they were people who underwent years of training to develop perfect memory. They wore white robes when they were in 'witness mode'- a sort of trance state. The robes signified that the witness was 'recording' everything he/she saw and heard for probable use in court (Think of it as a visual warning that "everything this person sees and hears may be used against you in a court of law").
I don't think the "Fair Witness" idea really applies to the AAAS proposal, since Fair Witnesses were supposed to be walking video cameras, not experts in a particular field. However, while AAAS -appointed experts would not be completely unbiased and impartial (not possible), they would be a LOT better than experts selected, paid, and prepped by a plaintiff's legal team.
More info on Robert Heilein and "Stranger in a Strange Land" at http://www.wegrokit.com/siasl.htm (wurm42 not affiliated with site)
On 16 Robots Take Over, I think you're forgetting Asimov's Foundation series, in which robots took over the entire Galactic Empire- they were just subtle about it, so none of us carbon-based folk noticed.
And for a thoughtful look at how very sudden (though not world-ending) global warming would affect earth, see the Red/Green/Blue Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson.
Actually, digital formats aren't necessarily better for preservation. ..Electronic formats can become unreadable in a few years because 1) the physical medium can be unstable (e.g. magnetic tape deteriorates quite quickly), or 2) the medium or data format can become obsolete (e.g. 5.25" floppy disks). Formats can be converted, but this can be an expensive and problematic process;
Umm..that's not really true anymore. In the past, when digital information was stored on floppy disks or reel-to-reel magnetic tape, media degredation was a problem. But nobody's talking about putting the Library of Congress on 5.25 floppies. This is the era of hard drives, web servers, and multiple backups. Any serious effort to put the Libary of Congress (or any other large information archive) on the web will use a variety of easily read file formats, and will be upgraded frequently.
The Library of Congress on one set of floppies sitting in a warehouse somewhere would be very vulnerable to media degredation and format obsolesence. However, the same information on a well-maintained web server can be updated and converted to new formats very easily (FILE->SAVE AS). Also, even if everyone who wanted to could physically get to the Library of Congress and obtain research credentials (you can't just walk in, you know...), there are still only a few copies (max) of each work. Thousands of people can access a web site at the same time, and none of them will spill drinks or tear the pages of a rare book.
If anyone is interested in how a really well-organized e-text archive works, I encourage them to look at Project Gutenburg at http://sailor.gutenberg.org/
Slashdot Mirror
Second this!
DAO is not World of Warcraft or a typical dungeon brawler.
It's a game built around a complex story, with multiple paths through that story. That flexibility means that there's no single "ideal" party, and that there will be multiple ways to achieve most game objectives (including winning combats).
Also, it sounds like you're trying to charge through every combat and turn the game into one long frontal assault. Bioware's pause-and-click combat system is designed for *tactics*, not tanking. Each combat demands a different approach, and your party members' relative strengths and weaknesses change as they level.
I think you're missing a lot of the game's depth and making a lot of unnecessary frustration for yourself.
Why do so many of those transatlantic cables seem to land in New York?
Two Reasons: Geography and Routing
1) Geography: First, the Guardian's map is a little oversimplified. Most of those cables come ashore in Eastern Long Island or along a relatively narrow stretch of New Jersey coastline, about 50 miles south of NYC proper. They're in those places because of submarine geography. The sea floor isn't flat- there are mountains and canyons, etc. Ever tried to run network cable through a crowded office? Pain in the neck, right? Now imagine doing it with six-foot long tweezers and a blindfold...for 3,000 miles. The cable-layers pick the flattest, least cluttered path they can. In the mid-1950s, we started to get good sonar maps of the North Atlantic sea floor. Laying undersea cable is *expensive*, and there was a big burst of it as those maps started to take the guesswork (and a lot of the risk) out of the equation. And once a company found a good route, they tended to keep using it.
Seafloor mapping:
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/03fire/background/mapping/mapping.html
Timeline of transatlantic cables, 1951-2000:
http://www.atlantic-cable.com/Cables/CableTimeLine/index1951.htm
2) Routing. A *lot* of information passes through those cables. It's compressed (Hoffman encoding, anyone?), and at each end you have to decompress it and then route it back into the land line system. This is a big, complicated operation (Much more so in the '50s and '60s when so many of the US-Europe cables were laid), and it's cheaper to add capacity by laying more cables between existing terminals than to build new ones.
Overview of cable topography & operations for one big cable operator, Apollo Systems:
http://www.apollo-scs.com/networktopology/
Note that some companies (including Apollo) are starting to build new routes- the economics for doing that are getting better as cable gets cheaper and data traffic grows (shame on all the Americans downloading video files from peers in Sweden).
So yes, the undersea cable system *should* have much more redundancy, but it *won't* until somebody can make money building and selling that redundant capacity. And actually, these events will speed up that process; According to the Guardian, 50% of India's bandwidth is cut off. The people who own the pipes for the 50% that still works are having a *very* profitable week.
Note that libraries, universities, and other research-intensive institutions can already buy subscription access to the archives of the New York Times and most other major newspapers.
My university pays NYT a considerable fee for access to several years of archives from any computer on the campus network. This new subscription policy is really just an attempt to sell that kind of service to individuals instead of institutions.
Students having better computer skills than the curriculum and/or teachers can handle is a big, and often unrecognized, problem in the U.S. public school systems. There have been a lot of expensive technology initiatives to buy hardware and software for schools, but little time and money spend on teacher training.
My high school (mid-90s) required all students to take at least one computer class before graduating- choices were typing/word processing, MS Office, or (later) web design. Problem was, none of the teachers had a clue- the school system reassigned home economics and shop teachers to teach the computer classes without any training or preparation. Hey, all electives are the same, right?
Not. Technology in schools is worthless without teachers who can use it.
My grandmother suffers from vascular dementia, one of several brain disorders common in the elderly that produces Alzheimers-like sympthoms- confusion, memory loss, etc. Most of the time, her condition can be controlled with medication, but when she gets bad, she can forget where she lives and even how to operate a touch-tone phone. During those periods, she needs to be monitored 24 hours a day for her own safety. Right now, this is done by family members or visiting nurses (at considerable expense) Sooner or later, my grandmother is going to have to move to an assisted living facility with a locked "memory ward," something everyone in the family dreads.
I would hate to see this kind of tracking or monitoring technology imposed on the general population for all the usual Big Brother and civil liberties concerns. However, a system such as the Cloverwood facility in the article uses could be a godsend for my grandmother and the increasing number of elderly citizens with Alzheimers and other dementia disorders. Cameras and pendants are far less invasive (and potentially, far less expensive) than being followed around all day by a nursing aide. Used wisely, this technology could help elderly citizens with mental disorders stay independent and maintain their dignity for longer than is currently feasible.
"Used wisely" is the key phrase here.
"Shakespeare can put all England on stage in Henry IV, I am confident that we can put on the whole of Middle Earth..."
Oy veh...Note that putting the story of Henry IV on stage took Shakespeare two very long plays-- Henry IV parts one and two together are over seven hours, uncut. Even then, the scope of the plays is much smaller than the War of the Ring. Yes, the historical backdrop of Henry IV is a series of wars and rebellions that cover most of England as well as Brittany, but the realy story is much smaller. It's about the (contested) king, his son Hal, and a few other key court figures suh as Hotspur and Falstaff. The real plot is the search for honor by these characters, NOT the wars and the fate of the kingdom. Anyway, to cover the full scope of the war/political story, you have to include two more plays, Richard II and Henry V, which would bring the stage running time to over twelve hours.
So Shakespeare did NOT put "all England" on stage in Henry IV...he was much too smart to try that. Pity the West End producers can't learn from the Bard.
There's another, more complete obituary from the AP at:a dams.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010512/ts/obit_
I picture Mr. Adams sitting now in some metaphysical version of Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, sipping Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod Beeblebrox and Arthur Dent.
I hope that Mr. Adams, in whatever state of existence he now occupies, has found the Question to which the answer is 42.
Is anyone else reminded of the concept of an 'impartial observer' from that sci-fi book about a child who was raised by martians. Sorry, can't remember the name of the book, but it was also the first time I heard the term 'grok'.
The book is "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein. Definitely Heinlein's most controversial work, and one of the classics of American science fiction.
The "impartial observers" Shotgun mentions were called "Fair Witnesses" in the book. Basically, they were people who underwent years of training to develop perfect memory. They wore white robes when they were in 'witness mode'- a sort of trance state. The robes signified that the witness was 'recording' everything he/she saw and heard for probable use in court (Think of it as a visual warning that "everything this person sees and hears may be used against you in a court of law").
I don't think the "Fair Witness" idea really applies to the AAAS proposal, since Fair Witnesses were supposed to be walking video cameras, not experts in a particular field. However, while AAAS -appointed experts would not be completely unbiased and impartial (not possible), they would be a LOT better than experts selected, paid, and prepped by a plaintiff's legal team.
More info on Robert Heilein and "Stranger in a Strange Land" at http://www.wegrokit.com/siasl.htm (wurm42 not affiliated with site)
On 16 Robots Take Over, I think you're forgetting Asimov's Foundation series, in which robots took over the entire Galactic Empire- they were just subtle about it, so none of us carbon-based folk noticed.
And for a thoughtful look at how very sudden (though not world-ending) global warming would affect earth, see the Red/Green/Blue Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson.
Actually, digital formats aren't necessarily better for preservation. . .Electronic formats can become unreadable in a few years because 1) the physical medium can be unstable (e.g. magnetic tape deteriorates quite quickly), or 2) the medium or data format can become obsolete (e.g. 5.25" floppy disks). Formats can be converted, but this can be an expensive and problematic process;
Umm..that's not really true anymore. In the past, when digital information was stored on floppy disks or reel-to-reel magnetic tape, media degredation was a problem. But nobody's talking about putting the Library of Congress on 5.25 floppies. This is the era of hard drives, web servers, and multiple backups. Any serious effort to put the Libary of Congress (or any other large information archive) on the web will use a variety of easily read file formats, and will be upgraded frequently.
The Library of Congress on one set of floppies sitting in a warehouse somewhere would be very vulnerable to media degredation and format obsolesence. However, the same information on a well-maintained web server can be updated and converted to new formats very easily (FILE->SAVE AS). Also, even if everyone who wanted to could physically get to the Library of Congress and obtain research credentials (you can't just walk in, you know...), there are still only a few copies (max) of each work. Thousands of people can access a web site at the same time, and none of them will spill drinks or tear the pages of a rare book.
If anyone is interested in how a really well-organized e-text archive works, I encourage them to look at Project Gutenburg at http://sailor.gutenberg.org/