You may think that magic has no place in a cyberpunk type world, but there are those of us who do play and like the idea. What is the difference between a midieval barbarian using magic to fight off a villan or a wage mage fighting off the Knight Arrant? Just different times, and I certainly am not living in a midieval castle, Shadowrun is much easier to relate to. FASA didn't say "The President is going to be Dunkelzahn the Dragon" They did a vote of real players and they are the ones who chose out of a diverse set of characters that the dragon would win the presidential election. Not to mention it has made for some great runs. I'm sure AD&D didn't use some Ideas from other fiction for their game settings either...and TSR has been in business for over 25 years now, and they keep producing great games. With the other books you mention, they are reading books. They are not roleplaying source books. I don't want to read about someone else's adventure! I want to make my own! I want to decide if I should run into the building, guns blazing, or if I should sneak in the back where there's an awakened cocatrice waiting for me on a leash... If these other books are so great, why don't you make your own role playing system based on them? This is what I have and I like it.
We used to have 2 people at the help desk (1st level support, just there to cover the phones), now after my partner was offered better pay in another department, I'm by myself. Then the company decides they want to down size the IS department so now that I've been promised another person as soon as we can, they renig on it and say sorry! I input the problems into a database that generates "tickets" for the Technical Services department (which for some reason that I cannot fathom, I am not in) who take the ticket and go fix the problems that I can't handle over the phone. One thing people don't realize is that with 2 people at least you can tag team with the phones. When there is something I have to do, I have to go looking for someone to watch the phone for me. It is very stressful trying to find someone when nature is calling very loudly. When you have just talked to a (irate, drunk, un educated in the way of computers) user, you can talk about it with the other support person and they understand what you're talking about. A great stress reliever. What irritates me is when the user lies about problems to get what they want. When they break their stuff to get a newer (something). When they call not 5 minutes after they just called you and start complaining that the tech person isn't there yet. When I get hung up on. When someone says I'm slacking off...yeah, let them answer 20 whining people in a row and see if they aren't going to catch their breath for a few minutes. Being Sworn at.
Man I need a new job. I can't handle talking to users anymore. Now that my partner is gone, there is no let up on the flow of calls, I've been SO stressed lately.
Microsoft makes Outlook and Access and Windows, but yet it keeps crashing it's own OS constantly! So that theory doesn't work either. But if you're going to build an OS, then strive to make it flexable enough to make it stand up to stupid programmers as well as stupid users.
*disclamer* I know little to no programming and I don't pretend to know either. *end disclaimer*
My dream is that a UI will be able to test the user for average intelligence then bring up an interface that is on the level that the user is on.
If the user is too stupid to use a computer it will show in big white letters on a black screen. "You are too stupid to use this computer. Please get a clue then try again."
If the user has the intelligence of a child (whatever the actual user's age), then make it with only a few large buttons and heavy restrictions.
If the user is average and has at least a lick of common sense, then at least make the errors give the people a clue what is going on. Instead of "memory dump..." put "I hope you saved whatever you were just working on or you're screwed. Don't bother to call Tech Support, they're just going to tell you to reboot it anyway."
If the user is advanced then go ahead and keep the UI the way it is.
But Above all, make it stable! Even if they have 50 million applications open and a huge Access Database plus Oulook, make it so it doesn't crash and my life will be a whole lot simpler!
Slashdot Mirror
You may think that magic has no place in a cyberpunk type world, but there are those of us who do play and like the idea. What is the difference between a midieval barbarian using magic to fight off a villan or a wage mage fighting off the Knight Arrant? Just different times, and I certainly am not living in a midieval castle, Shadowrun is much easier to relate to.
FASA didn't say "The President is going to be Dunkelzahn the Dragon" They did a vote of real players and they are the ones who chose out of a diverse set of characters that the dragon would win the presidential election. Not to mention it has made for some great runs.
I'm sure AD&D didn't use some Ideas from other fiction for their game settings either...and TSR has been in business for over 25 years now, and they keep producing great games.
With the other books you mention, they are reading books. They are not roleplaying source books. I don't want to read about someone else's adventure! I want to make my own! I want to decide if I should run into the building, guns blazing, or if I should sneak in the back where there's an awakened cocatrice waiting for me on a leash...
If these other books are so great, why don't you make your own role playing system based on them? This is what I have and I like it.
We used to have 2 people at the help desk (1st level support, just there to cover the phones), now after my partner was offered better pay in another department, I'm by myself. Then the company decides they want to down size the IS department so now that I've been promised another person as soon as we can, they renig on it and say sorry! I input the problems into a database that generates "tickets" for the Technical Services department (which for some reason that I cannot fathom, I am not in) who take the ticket and go fix the problems that I can't handle over the phone.
One thing people don't realize is that with 2 people at least you can tag team with the phones. When there is something I have to do, I have to go looking for someone to watch the phone for me. It is very stressful trying to find someone when nature is calling very loudly.
When you have just talked to a (irate, drunk, un educated in the way of computers) user, you can talk about it with the other support person and they understand what you're talking about. A great stress reliever.
What irritates me is when the user lies about problems to get what they want.
When they break their stuff to get a newer (something).
When they call not 5 minutes after they just called you and start complaining that the tech person isn't there yet.
When I get hung up on.
When someone says I'm slacking off...yeah, let them answer 20 whining people in a row and see if they aren't going to catch their breath for a few minutes.
Being Sworn at.
Man I need a new job. I can't handle talking to users anymore. Now that my partner is gone, there is no let up on the flow of calls, I've been SO stressed lately.
DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOUR HELP DESK PEOPLE!
Which is a good reason the cats need to go...
Microsoft makes Outlook and Access and Windows, but yet it keeps crashing it's own OS constantly! So that theory doesn't work either. But if you're going to build an OS, then strive to make it flexable enough to make it stand up to stupid programmers as well as stupid users.
*disclamer* I know little to no programming and I don't pretend to know either. *end disclaimer*
- If the user is too stupid to use a computer it will show in big white letters on a black screen. "You are too stupid to use this computer. Please get a clue then try again."
- If the user has the intelligence of a child (whatever the actual user's age), then make it with only a few large buttons and heavy restrictions.
- If the user is average and has at least a lick of common sense, then at least make the errors give the people a clue what is going on. Instead of "memory dump..." put "I hope you saved whatever you were just working on or you're screwed. Don't bother to call Tech Support, they're just going to tell you to reboot it anyway."
- If the user is advanced then go ahead and keep the UI the way it is.
But Above all, make it stable! Even if they have 50 million applications open and a huge Access Database plus Oulook, make it so it doesn't crash and my life will be a whole lot simpler!