I think part of the question is how game testing differs from software testing, by which software is stress tested and tested for flaws and problems.
Most software testers are not disposable (except maybe those being outsourced to India, but that's a whole different matter) but they are also active in the coding process to correct software glitches, perform specific tests. Are game testers held by the same criteria, ie. able to code and correct problems, or are they merely there to play the game?
I think the idea behind 'disposable testers' is that they are given the job of playing a game, so naturally the assumption is that it's a BS job or that it's a fun job. Having never been in a game environment, I can't say, but it could be that the job is something akin to a Production assistant working for a studio, where there is so much competition that the position is considered disposable and thus those being hired are treated like so much trash.
Seriously, though, I don't really see a great advantage of having a singular wifi-spot and no internet connectivity. If you had, say, a satellite uplink, you could then provide wifi to a group in an area, but it's not like I could post on slashdot if all I had was an intranet island, particularly one with minimal range.
I can see some interesting social environments that could crop up as a result of wireless in general, though I think it'd happen along the PDA or bluetooth front. Information trading, for instance - social groups could share info like MP3s without fear of reprisal from the big bad media companies. I hear text messaging is really huge in places like hong kong, where you can pick someone up in a bar using your cell phone. I imagine if you were in a wilderness or military setting, it could be pretty nice, but they already have things like GPS and secure satellite uplinks. But base station backpacking?
Here's an ideal situation. Have a LAN party in the middle of the Ozarks by linking your backpacks together in a chain. Sure, you can play Quake now until your laptop dies. This, of course, that defeats the WHOLE PURPOSE of being in the woods, which is to get away from technology.
I'd like to see some upgrades on old games too, but nothing that alters the originals in terms of game balance, etc. For instance, very recently I got addicted to Starcraft again. This is a game made in like 1998, 6 years old, and still just as good as any console game I've played in years. I think if they improved graphics, controls and troop AI while keeping the original balance, it would be a solid v1.5. For now, I must wait for SCII and hope they don't ruin it with the 'hero' factor that made WCIII so lukewarm.
Harm to the consumer...Well, let's see, in the last month or so about 20 new viruses or worms have been released focusing on vulnerabilities in Windows, in addition several known security problems exist in IE which propogate the problem of viruses, and as Windows/IE is packaged together and has more than 90% of the market share, the viruses are much more easily spread and cost companies billions of dollars each time.
I have been requested by Infinium Labs to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. Infinium has recently concluded a large number of contracts to supply video game machines to end users. The contracts have immediately produced moneys equalling US$133,000,000. Infinium is desirous of selling their machines in other parts of the world, however, because of certain regulations of the Nigerian Government, it is unable to move these funds to another region.
You assistance is requested as a non-Nigerian citizen to assist Infinium in moving these funds out of Nigeria. If the funds can be transferred to your name, in your United States account, then you can forward the funds as directed by Infinium. In exchange for your accomodating services, Infinium would agree to allow you to retain 10%, or US$13.3 million of this amount.
However, to be a legitimate transferee of these moneys according to Nigerian law, you must presently be a purchaser of at least US$100,000 of Infinium stock.
If it will be possible for you to assist us, we would be most grateful. We suggest that you meet with us in person in Lagos, and that during your visit I introduce you to the representatives of Infinium which produce the good Phantom product, as well as with the creators of Duke Nukem Forever, a partner company.
Please call me at your earliest convenience. Time is of the essence in this matter; very quickly the Nigerian Government will realize that Infinium is maintaining this amount on deposit, and attempt to levy certain depository taxes on it.
I've never had any luck with antenna-based communication. How would service be affected by bad weather? I know digital is definently better than analog over the air, but it still brings back memories of moving my hand half an inch one way while holding up a large metal rod and dancing a jig.
I know this is off topic, so I'll start by saying that this isn't necessarily a bad thing that E&B is gone. As with any competitive environments, MMO companies are still trying to develop the killer app that will keep people glued to their PCs. Only, PCs are losing popularity compared to consoles, which is why I think they won't succeed until a very good console MMO comes out. So the MMOs will weed themselves out for a while, expect others to follow, and don't be surprised if someone hacks together a server or they release the code. Wouldn't that be an improvement?
That said, off topic I think EB Games is a pretty good haunt. Sure the games are overpriced but part of gaming is the joy of immediate satisfaction, which is the only reason I shop there. If you're looking for a deal go to amazon or ebay.
In any case, going to any game shop, you invariably run across the unfortunate side-effect of such establishments; the people who work there. They must be paid slave wages with commission because I inevitably get cornered (and keep in mind, these are small mall shops with barely an edge of breathing room) as they try and sell me on the things like the new Matrix. Yes. This happened, a guy tried to sell me the Matrix, and you could see the desperation in his eyes as visions of old ET landfills danced in his head. I remember asking a technical question on whether or not the Gamecube's broadband adapter works with NAT (I guess that is a tough one) and I just remember the complete blank look on the guy's face, like he wanted to sell me the broadband adapter but he knew nothing at all about it and was just caught with his pants down. I thought he might cry.
The sales types, however, will quickly run away if you give them a good stare. They pale in comparison to their partner, the 'comic book guy' who memorized every code and dual-plays EQ and DAOC 60hrs/week when he's not at work, treats every kid like shit and likes to inform you in a demeaning way that the new Defender is not nearly as good as the original Atari version even as you're buying it. Then he'll offer you five dollars of "in-store credit" for that new version of Mario Kart you had to resell to feed your starving children while he at the same time chides you for throwing away such a national treasure.
All I really want from a video game store is some space to look around and not be accosted. Why not make a video game store like a goddamn Barnes and Noble where you can play the games and drink coffee and sit down? I'm sure it's a business model issue, but I don't care that they've got a great new deal where you can trade in your playstation and 10 games and your mother and you can get a gameboy SP for $10 off. I just want to look around, I can read the fucking 'bargains' they've got pasted all over the place.
I'm glad you feel that way, but unfortunately you're in the minority.
If you ask me, there are two inherent problems with any MMORPG: the heroism dilemna and the villain dilemna.
How do you create a game in which each individual desires to be a hero? And how do you create a game in which villains are more rare?
Now as far as the heroism dilemna goes, it's very simple. You've got thousands of people on one server, the competition to be #1 or even legendary is very fierce. In a FPS, there's maybe 4-8 people in competition with each other, and it's more even a battle. In an MMORPG, you've got maybe 50-100 people all vying for top dog, all wanting to be the hero of legend, in some cases taking names like SirLanceslot or something similar. People want to be noticed, to be famous.
Well it's just not possible. Most (and not all, as in your example) don't want to be a simple security guard. They have those jobs out of game, it's called working in a cubicle farm or Walmart. They want to wield the sword of destiny or be part of a moving plotline.
Personally, I don't think MMORPGs will ever solve this dilemna. They can't devote enough time to be personal to each individual player and remain profitable. Possibly in the future, someone will come up with a ruleset that solves this problem, or maybe AI will become so good as to solve it. But I'm fairly doubtful. Smaller non-masive MORPGS would be ok, but we've yet to see a really good implementation. (I don't really consider NWN that although it's close, the graphics and worlds need to be better and less Lineage-like.)
The other dilemna is the villain dilemna. This one isn't so much a problem, it can be reasonably handled. But it applies to griefers. How do you prevent people from being complete jerks, stealing kills, killing other players in a PK environment, etc?
The answer is pretty simple: a self-policing society. But how do you self-police a society when everyone wants to be a hero and not a security guard? Maybe a few people would want to be the griefer-slayer, but not many.
Now, you could do a couple of things for both of these.
The problem with most people is wanting to be the hero without doing anything heroic. There's nothing heroic about slaying foo 20hrs/day like every other MMORPG that rewards the person who spends more time on the game. What is heroism, anyway? In the chivalrous sense, it's putting your life in danger for another. You have to risk something to be a hero. In a lot of examples, you have to die or be horribly maimed. Well, how to apply that to an MMORPG? Realism wouldn't hurt - or would it? Maybe people lose limbs, are horribly disfigured, or die regularly. Permadeath. Maybe that's what the society needs. That's skill-based, it forces players to be strategic and careful in combat. But it's not popular.
Now, let's use this in a society, let's just say medieval-fantasy since that is overdone right now. You are a local blacksmith. You don't fight, you just make really nice swords. You are rewarded for your swordmaking with lots of money from players who rely on your ability. You don't die so your skill level increases. Every once in a while, you make a masterpiece. Maybe only once or twice in the game, sort of by accident. This sword is so special that you can only give it to the right person. Maybe you're fitting into a bigger game plot that you aren't aware of. You're a part of that world's history at that point. You fit a niche. And you aren't dying.
Now, the other people who want to be heroes can go ahead and fight for fame and so on. But they die and permadeath takes hold and they don't retain their hero status. The real heroes would be revealed in this sort of society because of their skill. Maybe instead of level, there are certain incarnations of heroes. You may die a lot, but if you are smart and become a hero through certain deeds and then die, you retain some of what you had even though you are dea
Yes, let's protect ourselves from attacks by attacking the offenders and wreaking even more havoc. That'll go over well. I don't even want to go into how stupid a proposal this is. Let's start with the first detail: it's probably illegal.
I imagine it'll have some sort of military function, though.
"...if the company that produces the item is to be held responsible for it when it is used badly then Micr0$oft should be bearing the financial burdern of a successful virus."
Now I'm not a big Microsoft fan, nor do I find it amusing that every other day I get another email from someone carrying the Netsky virus. But it's an awful precedent to set to put the financial burden on the people who build an operating system to protect against every known virus. The reason Microsoft's OS is hit more than any other is more because Microsoft has a much larger share and is better known by hackers; one can infect many many more computers that way. OS companies, Linux included, would then spend most of their time fighting off the hacking attempts from their competitors who build viruses with the sole purpose of getting them in legal trouble...it just opens a whole can of worms up. Keep in mind that Linux and MacOS and every other OS out there has vulnerabilities too, they just don't get nearly as much attention.
Maybe they're upset because the French word for iPod is 'le iPod' and they want it changed to 'le computerfonografique' or something as equally stupid. You know how the French like to fight against their language being destroyed.
Which reminds me of that episode of Futurama, where the professors says he invented a translator for an incomprehensible dead language, says 'Hello' to it and hears, 'Bonjour.'
I used to play MUDs a lot. And by a lot I mean the fail out of college type. But this doesn't really seem like news to me. Sure, it's nerdy. But this sort of thing happens to MUDs all the time, and there are about 1000 of them, and aside from its mild popularity, it's about a maintenance window. Equipment failures, bad HDD, etc, that's not news. IMPs going and making a crazy server for a week, that's not news either. I remember when we were switching over to new code on a game I used to play, he made a non-PK mud PK, and gave people all kinds of weapons and NPCs were switched into and killing people. That was a lot of fun. But I wouldn't announce it as news. So I guess for about 10 people who care, you just made their day:)
But just for the record, who here still actively plays? And who doesn't? Who did?
I think the biggest problems with MMORPGs have always been their size. They are games trying to appeal on a massive scale, 1000+ people on a server at any time, 10-20 servers, with not enough people to support all the griefing, not a way to deal with newbies on a day to day basis, no way to advance anything interesting. Permadeath seems the least of the problems.
On the MUD I played, we had a pretty simple rule. Sure, it doesn't correspond with reality, but it was interesting nonetheless. We had alignments and reputation. If you killed too many humans, you can't go into the human city. If your alignment was evil, you couldn't go into the bastion of light city. If you were chaotic evil, you could kill anyone anywhere, but you could only take 10 deaths before you perma died. Anyone could go into special 'player killer areas,' where you could kill or be killed by anyone. This created a dark vs light sort of story, but people would incorporate their religion and alignments into play and actually roleplay. CE characters were few and far between, but they existed and were interesting to see people play. This is something I rarely saw on most MUDs, the integration of roleplay which i found to be the most interesting part.
Neverwinter nights is a starting point, but when are we going to see more games that allow creative people to build the games and police them themselves? When are the 'Gods' (Implementors) of the game going to play an active role, coming down and saying, 'You're exploiting a bug, stop' or 'welcome to my world. I am Lothar of the Hill People.'
Making money is very simple. You sell clients and servers. Servers are more expensive. You sell server space on one of your large mainframes. A server will support, say, 200 people tops before you'd need an upgrade. Mostly you don't care though, you get people to go to your server in groups of 30-50. These people interact with each other much more and the community is more interesting. The people who have the servers and the space pay a monthly fee, which they can then change and charge back to others if they wish. They make their own rules regarding the selling of items, etc.
Maybe it's difficult to program for one, but you'd find that a lot of open source and other programmers would latch on to this model and the worlds would get more interesting. If you own a client, you can go to Hell World one day and Happy Fun Rabbit Land the next. Maybe you'd charge them a monthly fee to allow access to all worlds, maybe not. Probably you'd make enough money off of selling server space and upgrades/server packs.
But instead, we have all these same retread MMORPGs which change like two things in their environment to distinguish themselves from the other dumb fantasy MMORPG. Which is too bad, really. I don't want to play an MMORPG because I rarely feel like I'm part of a tightly-knit community. I don't feel I can roleplay because everyone else is 'lol' and talking about their dog jumping on their keyboard. So I end up just bored.
Better Question: Where did the website go?
on
Where Did the Games Go?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Ahh/. effect.
Anyway, it's simple supply and demand. When you have 100 games all released for Christmas, it's not surprising that the huge supply and lower demand causes losses. Of course for that one game that outsells the best, maybe it's worth losses on other titles. Let's not also forget that a lot of titles just plain suck or are retreads. I can't tell which industry has suffered more from sequelitis, the movie industry or the video game industry.
We all know who the puppetmaster is. You don't have to wear all the hats to still be the man behind the curtain. This doesn't surprise me, Dell's quality has suffered in recent months and it wouldn't surprise me if he was doing this to take some of the pressure off of himself.
I think this is actually a very wise move by Dell, because while this is a guy who started a business on his own and became extremely good at it, I would be surprised (I honestly don't know) if he was that business school MBA who can lead a company over the long run. Plus, if Rollins messes up, he can always blame the new CEO for all the problems.
Little damage, my ass. However, I will point out, that on a positive note, I work in a network callcenter, every time one of these babies comes out our call volume spikes by as much as 30%. These virii are at least keeping the calls coming in, which is how we generate cash. So at least for us, it's job security on some scale.
Of course it doesn't help that people we've helped in the past by emailing them fixes, solutions, and patches have us under our address books, so in turn we get all their email telling us 'Hi.'
I agree that it'll be restricting, but while I don't think it'll be a commercial hit I think the game begins to push the envelope of what we can do. I imagine a killer app will be developed that uses voice recognition in the near future. Example: Metal Gear Solid. Maybe make some parts of the game voice recognition. Not the whole game, but maybe a specific part where you have to instruct someone on how to diffuse a bomb over the radio. Or maybe you can talk over the radio to your superior. Although most VR software requires you read it a script so it better recognizes your voice.
I think rather than dismiss the game as restrictive and not particularly fun, it's a good jumping point for more games to use the technology. I think the nextgen game products are more likely to take advantage of this, however, I don't see a great deal of VR games being made until the hardware improves a little bit. I'm seeing a lot of sequels right now, I think that's a sign that there won't be a huge variety of innovation until the next generation of consoles comes around.
'There is no question that games is one... market we will be in.'"
The "..." stands for overloaded.
I think it's a good idea, but right now, you've got three pretty massive players in Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. If you ask me, that's already one too many. I didn't mind it when pretty much only Sega and Nintendo were there, but when these companies start making excellent games ONLY for one system, you aren't serving your clientele, you're forcing them to choose your product or another. This is sort of like the VHS. Remember the Betamax issue? In the end, there was only one format. This is not the case in video games. Instead of one standard, we're forced to use all these proprietary game systems if we want to play all the best games. If you think about it, most hardware manufacturers have standards. Everyone agreed on CD and DVD standards, and for the most part PC standards. (well, until it came time for DVD-R and DVD+R, but I won't even go into that.)
Yet none of this seems to faze the video game world. So now we're going to have yet another competitor, not even counting the Infinium Labs Phantom system, in the market. And Nokia with its N-Gage, and now Sony in the handheld market too? Wow, can you think of a worse time to try and enter a market? And this just pushes the whole ownership issue, with cable able to control the content it provides.
You: "Take off your clothes." Rio: "You can't possibly mean that." You: "Oh, I do." Rio: "What do you do?" You: "Just take them off. It's the only reason I bought the damn game." Rio: "I'm not going to do that, sir." You: "Fine. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start." Rio: You: "Woot! It still works!"
That figure doesn't seem right. Why would you give SCO 86M? Right now their Market cap is only like 170M or so, according to Yahoo Finance. If you had 86M you could just BUY a majority share in them.
Well I'm guessing it's pretty obvious. Windows doesn't want to be seen as an active participant in this lawsuit, but it's fairly apparent that they're trying to influence the court's decision. This is probably legal but highly unethical. Also, whose pocket is this 86M coming out of? The shareholders, probably.
The whole thing stinks, but I'm not completely sure this is correct information. 86M is a lot of money to be giving (and not investing) in a company. Maybe the reason they aren't investing is that they know SCO's lawsuit isn't sound?
"Hey, Bob, can you do me a favor while I'm filling out this paperwork and take the bonnet off that car so we can do the oil change." "The What?" "The bonnet." "You mean the welded hood?" "It's called a bonnet." "Whatever. Sissy boy." "What was that?" "Nothing. I'm just working on that BONNET for you. Let me know if you want me to fill up your panties as well."
Slashdot Mirror
I think part of the question is how game testing differs from software testing, by which software is stress tested and tested for flaws and problems.
Most software testers are not disposable (except maybe those being outsourced to India, but that's a whole different matter) but they are also active in the coding process to correct software glitches, perform specific tests. Are game testers held by the same criteria, ie. able to code and correct problems, or are they merely there to play the game?
I think the idea behind 'disposable testers' is that they are given the job of playing a game, so naturally the assumption is that it's a BS job or that it's a fun job. Having never been in a game environment, I can't say, but it could be that the job is something akin to a Production assistant working for a studio, where there is so much competition that the position is considered disposable and thus those being hired are treated like so much trash.
Bah. I hate exercise.
Seriously, though, I don't really see a great advantage of having a singular wifi-spot and no internet connectivity. If you had, say, a satellite uplink, you could then provide wifi to a group in an area, but it's not like I could post on slashdot if all I had was an intranet island, particularly one with minimal range.
I can see some interesting social environments that could crop up as a result of wireless in general, though I think it'd happen along the PDA or bluetooth front. Information trading, for instance - social groups could share info like MP3s without fear of reprisal from the big bad media companies. I hear text messaging is really huge in places like hong kong, where you can pick someone up in a bar using your cell phone. I imagine if you were in a wilderness or military setting, it could be pretty nice, but they already have things like GPS and secure satellite uplinks. But base station backpacking?
Here's an ideal situation. Have a LAN party in the middle of the Ozarks by linking your backpacks together in a chain. Sure, you can play Quake now until your laptop dies. This, of course, that defeats the WHOLE PURPOSE of being in the woods, which is to get away from technology.
I'd like to see some upgrades on old games too, but nothing that alters the originals in terms of game balance, etc. For instance, very recently I got addicted to Starcraft again. This is a game made in like 1998, 6 years old, and still just as good as any console game I've played in years. I think if they improved graphics, controls and troop AI while keeping the original balance, it would be a solid v1.5. For now, I must wait for SCII and hope they don't ruin it with the 'hero' factor that made WCIII so lukewarm.
Harm to the consumer...Well, let's see, in the last month or so about 20 new viruses or worms have been released focusing on vulnerabilities in Windows, in addition several known security problems exist in IE which propogate the problem of viruses, and as Windows/IE is packaged together and has more than 90% of the market share, the viruses are much more easily spread and cost companies billions of dollars each time.
Yeah, no harm to the consumer there.
Dear Sir:
I have been requested by Infinium Labs to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. Infinium has recently concluded a large number of contracts to supply video game machines to end users. The contracts have immediately produced moneys equalling US$133,000,000. Infinium is desirous of selling their machines in other parts of the world, however, because of certain regulations of the Nigerian Government, it is unable to move these funds to another region.
You assistance is requested as a non-Nigerian citizen to assist Infinium in moving these funds out of Nigeria. If the funds can be transferred to your name, in your United States account, then you can forward the funds as directed by Infinium. In exchange for your accomodating services, Infinium would agree to allow you to retain 10%, or US$13.3 million of this amount.
However, to be a legitimate transferee of these moneys according to Nigerian law, you must presently be a purchaser of at least US$100,000 of Infinium stock.
If it will be possible for you to assist us, we would be most grateful. We suggest that you meet with us in person in Lagos, and that during your visit I introduce you to the representatives of Infinium which produce the good Phantom product, as well as with the creators of Duke Nukem Forever, a partner company.
Please call me at your earliest convenience. Time is of the essence in this matter; very quickly the Nigerian Government will realize that Infinium is maintaining this amount on deposit, and attempt to levy certain depository taxes on it.
Yours truly, etc.
Timothy Roberts
CEO, Infinium Labs
I've never had any luck with antenna-based communication. How would service be affected by bad weather? I know digital is definently better than analog over the air, but it still brings back memories of moving my hand half an inch one way while holding up a large metal rod and dancing a jig.
I know this is off topic, so I'll start by saying that this isn't necessarily a bad thing that E&B is gone. As with any competitive environments, MMO companies are still trying to develop the killer app that will keep people glued to their PCs. Only, PCs are losing popularity compared to consoles, which is why I think they won't succeed until a very good console MMO comes out. So the MMOs will weed themselves out for a while, expect others to follow, and don't be surprised if someone hacks together a server or they release the code. Wouldn't that be an improvement?
That said, off topic I think EB Games is a pretty good haunt. Sure the games are overpriced but part of gaming is the joy of immediate satisfaction, which is the only reason I shop there. If you're looking for a deal go to amazon or ebay.
In any case, going to any game shop, you invariably run across the unfortunate side-effect of such establishments; the people who work there. They must be paid slave wages with commission because I inevitably get cornered (and keep in mind, these are small mall shops with barely an edge of breathing room) as they try and sell me on the things like the new Matrix. Yes. This happened, a guy tried to sell me the Matrix, and you could see the desperation in his eyes as visions of old ET landfills danced in his head. I remember asking a technical question on whether or not the Gamecube's broadband adapter works with NAT (I guess that is a tough one) and I just remember the complete blank look on the guy's face, like he wanted to sell me the broadband adapter but he knew nothing at all about it and was just caught with his pants down. I thought he might cry.
The sales types, however, will quickly run away if you give them a good stare. They pale in comparison to their partner, the 'comic book guy' who memorized every code and dual-plays EQ and DAOC 60hrs/week when he's not at work, treats every kid like shit and likes to inform you in a demeaning way that the new Defender is not nearly as good as the original Atari version even as you're buying it. Then he'll offer you five dollars of "in-store credit" for that new version of Mario Kart you had to resell to feed your starving children while he at the same time chides you for throwing away such a national treasure.
All I really want from a video game store is some space to look around and not be accosted. Why not make a video game store like a goddamn Barnes and Noble where you can play the games and drink coffee and sit down? I'm sure it's a business model issue, but I don't care that they've got a great new deal where you can trade in your playstation and 10 games and your mother and you can get a gameboy SP for $10 off. I just want to look around, I can read the fucking 'bargains' they've got pasted all over the place.
Ok, done ranting.
Being a Jedi holds absolutely no interest for me.
I'm glad you feel that way, but unfortunately you're in the minority.
If you ask me, there are two inherent problems with any MMORPG: the heroism dilemna and the villain dilemna.
How do you create a game in which each individual desires to be a hero? And how do you create a game in which villains are more rare?
Now as far as the heroism dilemna goes, it's very simple. You've got thousands of people on one server, the competition to be #1 or even legendary is very fierce. In a FPS, there's maybe 4-8 people in competition with each other, and it's more even a battle. In an MMORPG, you've got maybe 50-100 people all vying for top dog, all wanting to be the hero of legend, in some cases taking names like SirLanceslot or something similar. People want to be noticed, to be famous.
Well it's just not possible. Most (and not all, as in your example) don't want to be a simple security guard. They have those jobs out of game, it's called working in a cubicle farm or Walmart. They want to wield the sword of destiny or be part of a moving plotline.
Personally, I don't think MMORPGs will ever solve this dilemna. They can't devote enough time to be personal to each individual player and remain profitable. Possibly in the future, someone will come up with a ruleset that solves this problem, or maybe AI will become so good as to solve it. But I'm fairly doubtful. Smaller non-masive MORPGS would be ok, but we've yet to see a really good implementation. (I don't really consider NWN that although it's close, the graphics and worlds need to be better and less Lineage-like.)
The other dilemna is the villain dilemna. This one isn't so much a problem, it can be reasonably handled. But it applies to griefers. How do you prevent people from being complete jerks, stealing kills, killing other players in a PK environment, etc?
The answer is pretty simple: a self-policing society. But how do you self-police a society when everyone wants to be a hero and not a security guard? Maybe a few people would want to be the griefer-slayer, but not many.
Now, you could do a couple of things for both of these.
The problem with most people is wanting to be the hero without doing anything heroic. There's nothing heroic about slaying foo 20hrs/day like every other MMORPG that rewards the person who spends more time on the game. What is heroism, anyway? In the chivalrous sense, it's putting your life in danger for another. You have to risk something to be a hero. In a lot of examples, you have to die or be horribly maimed. Well, how to apply that to an MMORPG? Realism wouldn't hurt - or would it? Maybe people lose limbs, are horribly disfigured, or die regularly. Permadeath. Maybe that's what the society needs. That's skill-based, it forces players to be strategic and careful in combat. But it's not popular.
Now, let's use this in a society, let's just say medieval-fantasy since that is overdone right now. You are a local blacksmith. You don't fight, you just make really nice swords. You are rewarded for your swordmaking with lots of money from players who rely on your ability. You don't die so your skill level increases. Every once in a while, you make a masterpiece. Maybe only once or twice in the game, sort of by accident. This sword is so special that you can only give it to the right person. Maybe you're fitting into a bigger game plot that you aren't aware of. You're a part of that world's history at that point. You fit a niche. And you aren't dying.
Now, the other people who want to be heroes can go ahead and fight for fame and so on. But they die and permadeath takes hold and they don't retain their hero status. The real heroes would be revealed in this sort of society because of their skill. Maybe instead of level, there are certain incarnations of heroes. You may die a lot, but if you are smart and become a hero through certain deeds and then die, you retain some of what you had even though you are dea
Yes, let's protect ourselves from attacks by attacking the offenders and wreaking even more havoc. That'll go over well. I don't even want to go into how stupid a proposal this is. Let's start with the first detail: it's probably illegal.
I imagine it'll have some sort of military function, though.
This is probably just be the codename, like Longhorn for Windows. I wouldn't be surprised if it'll just be the GameBoy DS.
"...if the company that produces the item is to be held responsible for it when it is used badly then Micr0$oft should be bearing the financial burdern of a successful virus."
Now I'm not a big Microsoft fan, nor do I find it amusing that every other day I get another email from someone carrying the Netsky virus. But it's an awful precedent to set to put the financial burden on the people who build an operating system to protect against every known virus. The reason Microsoft's OS is hit more than any other is more because Microsoft has a much larger share and is better known by hackers; one can infect many many more computers that way. OS companies, Linux included, would then spend most of their time fighting off the hacking attempts from their competitors who build viruses with the sole purpose of getting them in legal trouble...it just opens a whole can of worms up. Keep in mind that Linux and MacOS and every other OS out there has vulnerabilities too, they just don't get nearly as much attention.
Maybe they're upset because the French word for iPod is 'le iPod' and they want it changed to 'le computerfonografique' or something as equally stupid. You know how the French like to fight against their language being destroyed.
Which reminds me of that episode of Futurama, where the professors says he invented a translator for an incomprehensible dead language, says 'Hello' to it and hears, 'Bonjour.'
There's no pretty much. The MUD scene is dead.
:)
I used to play MUDs a lot. And by a lot I mean the fail out of college type. But this doesn't really seem like news to me. Sure, it's nerdy. But this sort of thing happens to MUDs all the time, and there are about 1000 of them, and aside from its mild popularity, it's about a maintenance window. Equipment failures, bad HDD, etc, that's not news. IMPs going and making a crazy server for a week, that's not news either. I remember when we were switching over to new code on a game I used to play, he made a non-PK mud PK, and gave people all kinds of weapons and NPCs were switched into and killing people. That was a lot of fun. But I wouldn't announce it as news. So I guess for about 10 people who care, you just made their day
But just for the record, who here still actively plays? And who doesn't? Who did?
Now if I he could only forge a lightsaber.
"After 2 months and four limbs later, the lightsmith completed the feat. However, the buyer, a Mr. D. Maul, could not be located for comment."
...ask every one when Godzilla is next scheduled to attack.
;)
Unfortunately, it looks like Gojira is scheduled for retirement.
I wonder how they'll get the gigantic gold watch on him, though...
I think the biggest problems with MMORPGs have always been their size. They are games trying to appeal on a massive scale, 1000+ people on a server at any time, 10-20 servers, with not enough people to support all the griefing, not a way to deal with newbies on a day to day basis, no way to advance anything interesting. Permadeath seems the least of the problems.
On the MUD I played, we had a pretty simple rule. Sure, it doesn't correspond with reality, but it was interesting nonetheless. We had alignments and reputation. If you killed too many humans, you can't go into the human city. If your alignment was evil, you couldn't go into the bastion of light city. If you were chaotic evil, you could kill anyone anywhere, but you could only take 10 deaths before you perma died. Anyone could go into special 'player killer areas,' where you could kill or be killed by anyone. This created a dark vs light sort of story, but people would incorporate their religion and alignments into play and actually roleplay. CE characters were few and far between, but they existed and were interesting to see people play. This is something I rarely saw on most MUDs, the integration of roleplay which i found to be the most interesting part.
Neverwinter nights is a starting point, but when are we going to see more games that allow creative people to build the games and police them themselves? When are the 'Gods' (Implementors) of the game going to play an active role, coming down and saying, 'You're exploiting a bug, stop' or 'welcome to my world. I am Lothar of the Hill People.'
Making money is very simple. You sell clients and servers. Servers are more expensive. You sell server space on one of your large mainframes. A server will support, say, 200 people tops before you'd need an upgrade. Mostly you don't care though, you get people to go to your server in groups of 30-50. These people interact with each other much more and the community is more interesting. The people who have the servers and the space pay a monthly fee, which they can then change and charge back to others if they wish. They make their own rules regarding the selling of items, etc.
Maybe it's difficult to program for one, but you'd find that a lot of open source and other programmers would latch on to this model and the worlds would get more interesting. If you own a client, you can go to Hell World one day and Happy Fun Rabbit Land the next. Maybe you'd charge them a monthly fee to allow access to all worlds, maybe not. Probably you'd make enough money off of selling server space and upgrades/server packs.
But instead, we have all these same retread MMORPGs which change like two things in their environment to distinguish themselves from the other dumb fantasy MMORPG. Which is too bad, really. I don't want to play an MMORPG because I rarely feel like I'm part of a tightly-knit community. I don't feel I can roleplay because everyone else is 'lol' and talking about their dog jumping on their keyboard. So I end up just bored.
Ahh /. effect.
Anyway, it's simple supply and demand. When you have 100 games all released for Christmas, it's not surprising that the huge supply and lower demand causes losses. Of course for that one game that outsells the best, maybe it's worth losses on other titles. Let's not also forget that a lot of titles just plain suck or are retreads. I can't tell which industry has suffered more from sequelitis, the movie industry or the video game industry.
We all know who the puppetmaster is. You don't have to wear all the hats to still be the man behind the curtain. This doesn't surprise me, Dell's quality has suffered in recent months and it wouldn't surprise me if he was doing this to take some of the pressure off of himself.
I think this is actually a very wise move by Dell, because while this is a guy who started a business on his own and became extremely good at it, I would be surprised (I honestly don't know) if he was that business school MBA who can lead a company over the long run. Plus, if Rollins messes up, he can always blame the new CEO for all the problems.
Little damage, my ass. However, I will point out, that on a positive note, I work in a network callcenter, every time one of these babies comes out our call volume spikes by as much as 30%. These virii are at least keeping the calls coming in, which is how we generate cash. So at least for us, it's job security on some scale.
Of course it doesn't help that people we've helped in the past by emailing them fixes, solutions, and patches have us under our address books, so in turn we get all their email telling us 'Hi.'
I agree that it'll be restricting, but while I don't think it'll be a commercial hit I think the game begins to push the envelope of what we can do. I imagine a killer app will be developed that uses voice recognition in the near future. Example: Metal Gear Solid. Maybe make some parts of the game voice recognition. Not the whole game, but maybe a specific part where you have to instruct someone on how to diffuse a bomb over the radio. Or maybe you can talk over the radio to your superior. Although most VR software requires you read it a script so it better recognizes your voice.
I think rather than dismiss the game as restrictive and not particularly fun, it's a good jumping point for more games to use the technology. I think the nextgen game products are more likely to take advantage of this, however, I don't see a great deal of VR games being made until the hardware improves a little bit. I'm seeing a lot of sequels right now, I think that's a sign that there won't be a huge variety of innovation until the next generation of consoles comes around.
'There is no question that games is one... market we will be in.'"
The "..." stands for overloaded.
I think it's a good idea, but right now, you've got three pretty massive players in Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. If you ask me, that's already one too many. I didn't mind it when pretty much only Sega and Nintendo were there, but when these companies start making excellent games ONLY for one system, you aren't serving your clientele, you're forcing them to choose your product or another. This is sort of like the VHS. Remember the Betamax issue? In the end, there was only one format. This is not the case in video games. Instead of one standard, we're forced to use all these proprietary game systems if we want to play all the best games. If you think about it, most hardware manufacturers have standards. Everyone agreed on CD and DVD standards, and for the most part PC standards. (well, until it came time for DVD-R and DVD+R, but I won't even go into that.)
Yet none of this seems to faze the video game world. So now we're going to have yet another competitor, not even counting the Infinium Labs Phantom system, in the market. And Nokia with its N-Gage, and now Sony in the handheld market too? Wow, can you think of a worse time to try and enter a market? And this just pushes the whole ownership issue, with cable able to control the content it provides.
You: "Take off your clothes."
Rio: "You can't possibly mean that."
You: "Oh, I do."
Rio: "What do you do?"
You: "Just take them off. It's the only reason I bought the damn game."
Rio: "I'm not going to do that, sir."
You: "Fine. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start."
Rio:
You: "Woot! It still works!"
That figure doesn't seem right. Why would you give SCO 86M? Right now their Market cap is only like 170M or so, according to Yahoo Finance. If you had 86M you could just BUY a majority share in them.
Well I'm guessing it's pretty obvious. Windows doesn't want to be seen as an active participant in this lawsuit, but it's fairly apparent that they're trying to influence the court's decision. This is probably legal but highly unethical. Also, whose pocket is this 86M coming out of? The shareholders, probably.
The whole thing stinks, but I'm not completely sure this is correct information. 86M is a lot of money to be giving (and not investing) in a company. Maybe the reason they aren't investing is that they know SCO's lawsuit isn't sound?
I can just see the manly mechanics in the shop.
"Hey, Bob, can you do me a favor while I'm filling out this paperwork and take the bonnet off that car so we can do the oil change."
"The What?"
"The bonnet."
"You mean the welded hood?"
"It's called a bonnet."
"Whatever. Sissy boy."
"What was that?"
"Nothing. I'm just working on that BONNET for you. Let me know if you want me to fill up your panties as well."
And has anyone noticed that Volvo looks more and more like Vulva? (I'm sorry, that word makes me giggle every time.)