"The Auction House game" :
- Virtual Stock Market. well, virtual merchant game anyway. Tried that once, spent some time finding
cheap stuff at AH and selling it at market value (read: what some nutcase would pay for it).
Quite fun, actually, and a good change from the grind.
I'll admit some people really enjoy this. A coworker of mine plays basically only plays the AH in WoW and he's probably one of the most wealthy non-guilded individuals in the game. Most interesting perhaps is that real-world market theory applies to the WoW auction house. It's not really my cup of tea, but I can definately understand why someone might enjoy this.
Name a game or hobby where accomplishments and/or collecting stuff is not related to social standing.
Doesn't matter. One of the fundamental purposes of games is that they be enjoyable, and most folks don't find grinding enjoyable. However, because ones ability (and social status) in WoW is inextricably tied to grinding for items, most see it as an often unpleasant means to an end. The problem here is that the end is abstract--new content is continually added so the reward remains perpetually out of reach.
On an unrelated side-note, my greatest issue with WoW is that all this loot can be carried into battlegrounds, so even success in PvP is inextricably linked to grinding. It's been quite a while since I played so things may have changed, but it used to be that a skilled player with normal gear had little chance of defeating an unskilled player with raid gear, simply because of the stat differential. One might argue that this is similar to someone bringing a street cat to a NASCAR race, but WoW battlegrounds have no entry classes to differentiate players with different resources. So again, all modes of play reinforce the need to grind, and I assert that grinding is not fun.
This person has made a conscious choice to play more games and leave them half-finished, rather than playing fewer games and finishing them. I'd certainly take a few good games (the Half-Lives, the Halos, the Final Fantasies) over many, many bad ones (the Dooms, the Quakes, Final Fantasy X-2). So, he has two related, possibly valid complaints: It's hard to actually find a really good game, so he wishes he could play more games, in order to find that one -- except that games take a long time to complete, so he can't actually beat as many as he'd like to.
I agree with what you're saying, but I think it's worth mentioning another perspective as well. It's possible that the reviewer simply quits playing a game if it doesn't feel sufficiently rewarding or fun to play it in small chunks. After all, the point of playing games is to have fun, not to work towards the finish to feel some sense of completion. Perhaps these games just did a bad job of being "fun" quickly enough into a typical play session or in providing a sense of progress when played an hour here and an hour there. If this is the case, then the reviewer's play history is more the search for a game that fits his play style than it is the saga of a quitter. Though I'll admit that finding a console RPG that fits this criteria is essentially impossible. The reviewer would do better to play a different type of game or to move to PC RPGs instead.
Sure they want to sell to us, but we're not the "core demographic". They want someone who's going to play the game fiercely, talk about it to all their friends and gamers online, spread the gospel, and therefore sell more copies to more hardcore gamers, and so on and so on....
I'd be interested to see the actual median player age for various types of games. I suspect that it's probably higher than game companies typically target in many categories and it's likely getting higher over time as first-gen gamers grow older.
But the gameplay has to be structured in a way that it can be crystallized and played in smaller nuggets, and yet still flow.
Exactly. See my comment about PC games vs. console games elsewhere in this topic. This is also why I hate when games are simultaneously developed for a console and PC, as they tend to both be "dumbed down" to suit a younger target audience and more limited hardware interface, and often eliminate most of the technical features that make PC games more appealing (save anywhere, progress logs, etc).
Rep grind with various factions. Battlegrounds -- faction rep, PvP rank/honour. Raid instances. Crafting professions (aka "The Auction House game").
I read this as:
Grind for faction points (which can get you cheaper/special loot). Grind for honor (which can be traded for loot). Grind for loot. Grind for crafting materials (whch can be turned into loot).
It's really no wonder that WoW is far and away the most popular MMORPG ever created. Purple items--gotta catch 'em all!
This is only true if you have loads and loads of free time on your hands like a high school or college student might.
It's not about game length so much as the minimum session time required to enjoy the game. Console games, for example, often have save points, which imposes a necessary minimum on the time investment necessary to make any progress. Many MMORPGs are the same way as the time required to complete a mission is often measured in hours.
Enjoyment can be correlated to reward as well. MMORPGs often target hardcore gamers when designing character progression rates and quest rewards, so the games can often require a significant commitment for players to feel any sense of achievement.
Most single-player PC games tend not to have these problems however. Game state can typically be saved at any point, and most PC games offer decent feedback on player progress. So casual gamers should be able to play as time allows and get back on their feet within a few minutes of loading a saved game by reviewing quest logs or other state tracking features.
As a fan of console RPGs, I run into this all the time. Some games keep the fun continuous. Others require a lot of old-school level grinding to wring out the rewards. Some games make it easy to pick the game up and remember where you were if work intervenes for a week or two. Others leave you feeling like you need to start over.
See above:-) Console games are typically terrible for erratic schedules. Though one easy way to track progress in a console RPG is to get the walkthrough and bookmark where you left off. Reading the preceding section or two is typically enough help remember where you are without the need to write down very much. And there's no saying you have to read ahead.
I would think that the leak and recent press about the leak would bring much more attention to the video than the AOL premiere would have, particularly from people who aren't already Weird Al fans. In fact, I like Weird Al and I had no idea this premiere was happening, but I did see the video on YouTube the other day and now I'm looking forward to his new album (which I also didn't know about). Is the issue that AOL planned to pay Weird Al based on some calculated viewership number? If it's just publicity then someone needs to sit down and do the math before saying this ruined anything. Frankly, if I could get the Weird Al CD by mailing him a check for $10 I'd do so in a heartbeat. AOL and whoever else can jump off a short pier.
Also, its one thing to temporarily alter the separation and balance of powers laid out in the US constitution during a time of war - but in this case war has not been declared
I thought there was a formal declaration of war against Iraq. Granted, that's not quite the same as an unending war against an idea, but it's made a good excuse for the past few years.
Not to troll, but only under certain circumstances. Using a gun to kill in self defense or in service to your country is not illegal.
This actually varies by state in the US. In some states, if someone breaks into your house and attacks you with a knife and you shoot him, you can be arrested for the use of unreasonable force. Here's a quote from a defense law website:
Any force that exceeds the minimum amount reasonably necessary to defend against an assailant may result in the authorities charging the defender with a crime as well as the assailant. . . When determining the reasonableness of the force used, the law will look to any non-violent alternatives, if any, available to the defender at the time of the incident. Non-violent alternatives may include such things as yielding to the assailant's verbal insults, backing away from a fight, refusing to engage in mutual combat, or other somewhat humbling actions. Some states permit a defender to "stand his/her ground" and not yield to an assailant.
This can be a real problem in some cases because a trained fighter can be accused of using unreasonable force simply for punching someone.
FRPG table-top gameplay endures because something like "Never Winter Nights", is prohibitively expensive to develop a good adventure for. There's an intrinsic worth to all the maps, the (often quite bad) art, the stories and the histories. And at the very core of things, interaction and story-telling take skill and it takes a human.
I think table-top and online play are so different as to not be terribly comparable, unless you're talking about IRC gaming or some such. Table-top gaming has a completely different place than online play--it moves more slowly, and focuses more on social interaction than anything. By contrast, online gaming is essentially always real-time, so play tends to jump back and forth between socialization/roleplay and hurried combat encounters where little to no player interaction occurs (because there's no time for it). This is my greatest frustration with online gaming as a player, and why I personally feel that online roleplay in a combat-oriented game such as D&D doesn't work very well.
The other major issue is one you mentioned: build time. Or more accurately, the need to pre-build content in the first place. Building a decent world in Neverwinter Nights really doesn't take terribly long once you get the hang of it, but the game world is still largely static. Contrast this with a table-top session where modifying the game world is as simple as saying something and perhaps drawing a few lines on a piece of paper and Neverwinter Nights seems stiflingly limited by comparison. And as someone who "shoots from the hip" more often than not when DMing, this is a big deal.
IRC-style online play seems to offer a solid middle-ground for spread-out groups who want to mimic the table-top experience, though I've done far less of this than the graphical game approach. Howerver, it offers a substantial advantage over table-top play in that distance isn't a factor. Coupled with a decent graphical game client for this style of play, the IRC model seems pretty promising.
WTF difference is their between a "Casual Gamer" and a "Leisure Gamer"?
I assume you meant "Leisure gamer" and "Dormant gamer." It's difficult to be sure, but my guess is that it has to do with the number of hours per month each spends playing games. Leisure gamers seem to spend a lot more time gaming than Dormant gamers, mostly because they have more free time. This distinction is arguably a bit silly, but it may apply to game design with respect to the length of an average gaming session. For example, a Leisure gamer might have the time for a raid in WoW while a Dormant gamer would not, even though both are interested in the same type of game.
I do think the addition of a few more categories is a step forward however. For example, a lot of gamers would be considered power gamers in terms of how they approach gaming, but casual gamers in terms of available time (represented by "Leisure gamer" and "Dormant gamer" in the list). Blizzard seems to have been catering to power gamers with little end game content for casual gamers, beleiving that casual gamers will rarely make it that far. But this obviously ignores a rather large subset of players in the Dormant and Leisure categories. Social gamers are another category for which MMORPGs tend to have a lot of appeal, but they typically approach content with a more "casual" play style. Often, these players experience very little content for the time they spend online because they're more interested in roleplay or simply chatting.
Personally, I think email replies strategies are consistent for individuals, but I haven't seen a general rule that applies to people in general. For example, there are some people I email that always reply promptly while others do not. And some people tend to send detailed emails while others never write more than two or three sentences. I think this has more to do with general philosophies of work and the importance of email as a means of communication to the individual. Some people are always "too busy" to bother, and others simply prefer face time (either because of accountability or because they find email exchanges awkward).
This is not true, some people will discriminate against people who are not the build which they consider optimal for a particular 'role' (healing in this case). Also, many people will assume that a Monk/* is a healer without asking, or sometimes even when they say they are not... so it's not always the wonderful happy place you make it out to be. That said I've joined pickup groups with Elementalist/Monk healers before who did an excellent job and I have no hesitation partying up with anyone who communicates before we go on a quest/mission.
This approach applies fairly well to scripted raid-based games like WoW where number-crunching is almost required for success. But Guild Wars is so dynamic that player skill and team coordination is far more important that any specific build or spec. Running missions in Guild Wars is kind of silly at times, because there are a lot of clueless players who insist on specific builds or refuse to accept others. These are also typically the groups to avoid, and I think such behavior is an indication that the group leader doesn't really know what he's doing and that the mission may end up a failure. One thing I really like about Guild Wars is that the mission sequence has a few choke points in terms of difficulty, and many unskilled players never seem to make it all the way to end game. Compared to WoW where persistance is rewarded, I've found this to be a wonderfully refreshing change.
However, each layer of security, the locks, the security system, and the safe, adds a deterrant. There's the time that has to be invested getting in, the fear of someone hearing the alarm going off and the ticking clock of the authorities being notified and dispatched, not to mention the hassle of locating and gaining access to the inside of the safe. Only someone who invested some serious research time and effort could gain access to my valuables and get away with it. And for what? My passport, some petty cash, and copies of my legal documents?
In New Jersey where I used to live, smash and grab was the most popular form of burglary. Typically, the thief would throw a piece of patio furnature through a sliding glass door and plan to be gone in under five minutes. That may not be enough time to break open a safe, but it's long enough to grab unsecured jewelry or console games (console games being one of the most popular targets for petty theft). Last I heard, no one had been caught for the crimes, even though they had occurred fairly regularly for a while.
How often do children dial 911 for fun? Or make prank calls to the police station? I did say "as long as the interface is designed properly." If the child has to click through a few windows describing the criteria for which reporting someone is allowed, and describing the repurcussions for wasting the police's time, I think it would dissuade most children from making prank reports or reporting people for something stupid. After all, most children are afraid of the police, and this guarantees police attention. Worst case the online group could contact the child's local police department and send someone to his house for a little chat.
Another reason people don't file police reports for this sort of thing are all the technical barriers that must be overcome: the complainant has to provide contextual information, at least including the time the incident occurred and who was involved. The police would then traditionally have to obtain warrants, contact AOL or MSN or whoever and pull IP logs, then do the same with the respective ISPs to get names and addresses. And if there is no reliable log of the conversation then the accused can deny the conversation ever took place.
With this service, I would expect MSN to forward aliases, a full chat log with accurate timestamps, the IP addresses of the involved parties, profile information, and anything else MSN may have on record. This eliminates the need for diligence on the part of the complainant and a good bit of footwork for the police handling the issue. And so long as the interface is designed properly, I think the chance of accidental or fake reports to be quite low (not considering worms that may target the feature).
All in all I think this is a fairly decent feature to add to a commercial chat client. If nothing else, it will likely be better than what we have now--ie. nothing.
The Internet stuff was just fun that people were having with it, but I don't think that necessarily meant that those people wanted to see the movie... those who had made that decision based their decision more on the traditional marketing than on all this Internet buzz.' Was all of the hype about blogger power just that -- hype?
Not at all. Bloggers have the ability to reach a massive audience, and many actually do. However, it wouldn't surprise me if the average blog reader were inclined to make more informed decisions than his tv-watching counterpart. Or simply that people in general are more inclined to act in an informed manner than they were ten years ago. Either way, just because people spent a lot of time making fun of a movie doesn't mean that any of them will actually pay $10 to go see it.
As an aside, I personally think it's amazing the folks in Hollywood actually thought a movie called "Snakes on a Plane" would clean up in the box office. I like bad horror films, spoofs, etc, but the name of the movie alone classified it as something I don't intend to ever see.
Folks who suggest replacing human investors with computer algorithms don't understand the basic workings of the stock market. You cannot predict the next value of a stock simply using past and current information from within the stock exchange. You cannot find a `pattern` in the stock price no matter how much computing power you use: there is no pattern, except for the well know economic cycles that influence all stocks.
It should be possible to act based on the short term velocity of a stock price, as at that point the only real factor is how people react to price changes, which I would expect to be relatively consistent. Obviously however, execution fees could be a barrier here. Aside from that, it should be possible to trade index securities as these represent some section of the market as a whole, and are therefore largely unaffected by the fluctiations of individual stocks. Other non-stock securities are a possibility as well--government bonds perhaps, as their price is extremely stable.
Besides, even if an algorithm could be devised, it would be useful only if it could be kept secret, otherwise using it on a large scale will deny any speculative gain.
People are already trying this sort of thing in online gambling, and securities markets are basically the same thing but with much higher stakes. Also, I know for a fact that algorithmic trading already takes place with good results, so it's really more a matter of how more popular it will become than whether it is possible.
The Divine Proportion is one of the most well-known geometric properties. Here is a link to the wiki page for the uninformed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio
May just be me, but the whole CS/IT debate would have you incorrect on this one. CS is for computer problems (ie hardware) and IT is for programming, nes?
No. Computer Engineering is for designing hardware, Computer Science is programming-related, though that could end in a theory-oriented job (algorithm design and such) as easily as a coding-type job.
It's simple. Have them mixed all the stuff together. If it goes BOOM, that's bad. If it doesn't, no problem. They were actually doing this in some locations: http://www.xopl.com/blog/embedded/liquidshit.jpg I guess the alerts should come with instructions on what to do with the items being confiscated.
Just because a person likes computers and has some aptitude for programming does not mean that they will enjoy a career in IT.
It's a bread field. A "job in IT" may mean troubleshooting computer problems or it may mean writing production-quality programs for internal use. A CS degree could definately help with the latter, but it may not be of tremendous use for the former.
When I decided to stay in school and get a second degree in computer science 11 years ago, I already had a lot more programming experience, from the sound of it, than this person does. I enjoyed programming as a hobby, and I enjoyed my coursework and excelled in it.
I think this is one of the most important qualities for would-be programmers (or really, members of any changing field). While I recently went back to school to finish a degree I abandoned years ago for a career in the field (for the satisfaction more than anything else, I'll admit), I do believe that academic experience and grades have little correlation to understanding or ability in the field. Much more important are personal interest and outside experience. That said, it can be difficult to simply get your resume in the proper hands if X, Y, or Z are missing from your resume.
My advice: brush up on your tech and interview skills, polish your resume, and look for the job of your dreams. At the same time, begin looking into education options and consider applying somewhere. If you get an appealing offer then either forget about school or consider part-timing a degree. If you don't get an offer then go to whatever school you've chosen and continue looking for jobs on a more casual basis. In job interviews, it might be worth either mentioning that you're taking classes related to the job you're interviewing for or that you're considering a part-time education to improve your abilities. The company may simply not care or they may think it's a great idea. I suppose what I'm getting at is that you should just give it all a try and see what happens. If you want your degree either way then do that too. Many companies will even help pay your tuition if the degree is job-related.
Slashdot Mirror
"The Auction House game" :
- Virtual Stock Market. well, virtual merchant game anyway. Tried that once, spent some time finding
cheap stuff at AH and selling it at market value (read: what some nutcase would pay for it).
Quite fun, actually, and a good change from the grind.
I'll admit some people really enjoy this. A coworker of mine plays basically only plays the AH in WoW and he's probably one of the most wealthy non-guilded individuals in the game. Most interesting perhaps is that real-world market theory applies to the WoW auction house. It's not really my cup of tea, but I can definately understand why someone might enjoy this.
Name a game or hobby where accomplishments and/or collecting stuff is not related to social standing.
Doesn't matter. One of the fundamental purposes of games is that they be enjoyable, and most folks don't find grinding enjoyable. However, because ones ability (and social status) in WoW is inextricably tied to grinding for items, most see it as an often unpleasant means to an end. The problem here is that the end is abstract--new content is continually added so the reward remains perpetually out of reach.
On an unrelated side-note, my greatest issue with WoW is that all this loot can be carried into battlegrounds, so even success in PvP is inextricably linked to grinding. It's been quite a while since I played so things may have changed, but it used to be that a skilled player with normal gear had little chance of defeating an unskilled player with raid gear, simply because of the stat differential. One might argue that this is similar to someone bringing a street cat to a NASCAR race, but WoW battlegrounds have no entry classes to differentiate players with different resources. So again, all modes of play reinforce the need to grind, and I assert that grinding is not fun.
This person has made a conscious choice to play more games and leave them half-finished, rather than playing fewer games and finishing them. I'd certainly take a few good games (the Half-Lives, the Halos, the Final Fantasies) over many, many bad ones (the Dooms, the Quakes, Final Fantasy X-2). So, he has two related, possibly valid complaints: It's hard to actually find a really good game, so he wishes he could play more games, in order to find that one -- except that games take a long time to complete, so he can't actually beat as many as he'd like to.
I agree with what you're saying, but I think it's worth mentioning another perspective as well. It's possible that the reviewer simply quits playing a game if it doesn't feel sufficiently rewarding or fun to play it in small chunks. After all, the point of playing games is to have fun, not to work towards the finish to feel some sense of completion. Perhaps these games just did a bad job of being "fun" quickly enough into a typical play session or in providing a sense of progress when played an hour here and an hour there. If this is the case, then the reviewer's play history is more the search for a game that fits his play style than it is the saga of a quitter. Though I'll admit that finding a console RPG that fits this criteria is essentially impossible. The reviewer would do better to play a different type of game or to move to PC RPGs instead.
Sure they want to sell to us, but we're not the "core demographic". They want someone who's going to play the game fiercely, talk about it to all their friends and gamers online, spread the gospel, and therefore sell more copies to more hardcore gamers, and so on and so on....
I'd be interested to see the actual median player age for various types of games. I suspect that it's probably higher than game companies typically target in many categories and it's likely getting higher over time as first-gen gamers grow older.
But the gameplay has to be structured in a way that it can be crystallized and played in smaller nuggets, and yet still flow.
Exactly. See my comment about PC games vs. console games elsewhere in this topic. This is also why I hate when games are simultaneously developed for a console and PC, as they tend to both be "dumbed down" to suit a younger target audience and more limited hardware interface, and often eliminate most of the technical features that make PC games more appealing (save anywhere, progress logs, etc).
What can a L60 do in Wow?
Rep grind with various factions.
Battlegrounds -- faction rep, PvP rank/honour.
Raid instances.
Crafting professions (aka "The Auction House game").
I read this as:
Grind for faction points (which can get you cheaper/special loot).
Grind for honor (which can be traded for loot).
Grind for loot.
Grind for crafting materials (whch can be turned into loot).
It's really no wonder that WoW is far and away the most popular MMORPG ever created. Purple items--gotta catch 'em all!
This is only true if you have loads and loads of free time on your hands like a high school or college student might.
:-) Console games are typically terrible for erratic schedules. Though one easy way to track progress in a console RPG is to get the walkthrough and bookmark where you left off. Reading the preceding section or two is typically enough help remember where you are without the need to write down very much. And there's no saying you have to read ahead.
It's not about game length so much as the minimum session time required to enjoy the game. Console games, for example, often have save points, which imposes a necessary minimum on the time investment necessary to make any progress. Many MMORPGs are the same way as the time
required to complete a mission is often measured in hours.
Enjoyment can be correlated to reward as well. MMORPGs often target hardcore gamers when designing character progression rates and quest rewards, so the games can often require a significant commitment for players to feel any sense of achievement.
Most single-player PC games tend not to have these problems however. Game state can typically be saved at any point, and most PC games offer decent feedback on player progress. So casual gamers should be able to play as time allows and get back on their feet within a few minutes of loading a saved game by reviewing quest logs or other state tracking features.
As a fan of console RPGs, I run into this all the time. Some games keep the fun continuous. Others require a lot of old-school level grinding to wring out the rewards. Some games make it easy to pick the game up and remember where you were if work intervenes for a week or two. Others leave you feeling like you need to start over.
See above
I would think that the leak and recent press about the leak would bring much more attention to the video than the AOL premiere would have, particularly from people who aren't already Weird Al fans. In fact, I like Weird Al and I had no idea this premiere was happening, but I did see the video on YouTube the other day and now I'm looking forward to his new album (which I also didn't know about). Is the issue that AOL planned to pay Weird Al based on some calculated viewership number? If it's just publicity then someone needs to sit down and do the math before saying this ruined anything. Frankly, if I could get the Weird Al CD by mailing him a check for $10 I'd do so in a heartbeat. AOL and whoever else can jump off a short pier.
Also, its one thing to temporarily alter the separation and balance of powers laid out in the US constitution during a time of war - but in this case war has not been declared
I thought there was a formal declaration of war against Iraq. Granted, that's not quite the same as an unending war against an idea, but it's made a good excuse for the past few years.
But my printer is out of paper.
I misread the OP. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Not to troll, but only under certain circumstances. Using a gun to kill in self defense or in service to your country is not illegal.
This actually varies by state in the US. In some states, if someone breaks into your house and attacks you with a knife and you shoot him, you can be arrested for the use of unreasonable force. Here's a quote from a defense law website:
Any force that exceeds the minimum amount reasonably necessary to defend against an assailant may result in the authorities charging the defender with a crime as well as the assailant. . . When determining the reasonableness of the force used, the law will look to any non-violent alternatives, if any, available to the defender at the time of the incident. Non-violent alternatives may include such things as yielding to the assailant's verbal insults, backing away from a fight, refusing to engage in mutual combat, or other somewhat humbling actions. Some states permit a defender to "stand his/her ground" and not yield to an assailant.
This can be a real problem in some cases because a trained fighter can be accused of using unreasonable force simply for punching someone.
I dont know about you, but room temperature around here is a bit more then 0C, so 'round here our water is in it's liquid form at room temperature.
Exactly. Water is actually more dense in liquid form than solid form.
FRPG table-top gameplay endures because something like "Never Winter Nights", is prohibitively expensive to develop a good adventure for.
There's an intrinsic worth to all the maps, the (often quite bad) art, the stories and the histories. And at the very core of things, interaction and story-telling take skill and it takes a human.
I think table-top and online play are so different as to not be terribly comparable, unless you're talking about IRC gaming or some such. Table-top gaming has a completely different place than online play--it moves more slowly, and focuses more on social interaction than anything. By contrast, online gaming is essentially always real-time, so play tends to jump back and forth between socialization/roleplay and hurried combat encounters where little to no player interaction occurs (because there's no time for it). This is my greatest frustration with online gaming as a player, and why I personally feel that online roleplay in a combat-oriented game such as D&D doesn't work very well.
The other major issue is one you mentioned: build time. Or more accurately, the need to pre-build content in the first place. Building a decent world in Neverwinter Nights really doesn't take terribly long once you get the hang of it, but the game world is still largely static. Contrast this with a table-top session where modifying the game world is as simple as saying something and perhaps drawing a few lines on a piece of paper and Neverwinter Nights seems stiflingly limited by comparison. And as someone who "shoots from the hip" more often than not when DMing, this is a big deal.
IRC-style online play seems to offer a solid middle-ground for spread-out groups who want to mimic the table-top experience, though I've done far less of this than the graphical game approach. Howerver, it offers a substantial advantage over table-top play in that distance isn't a factor. Coupled with a decent graphical game client for this style of play, the IRC model seems pretty promising.
WTF difference is their between a "Casual Gamer" and a "Leisure Gamer"?
I assume you meant "Leisure gamer" and "Dormant gamer." It's difficult to be sure, but my guess is that it has to do with the number of hours per month each spends playing games. Leisure gamers seem to spend a lot more time gaming than Dormant gamers, mostly because they have more free time. This distinction is arguably a bit silly, but it may apply to game design with respect to the length of an average gaming session. For example, a Leisure gamer might have the time for a raid in WoW while a Dormant gamer would not, even though both are interested in the same type of game.
I do think the addition of a few more categories is a step forward however. For example, a lot of gamers would be considered power gamers in terms of how they approach gaming, but casual gamers in terms of available time (represented by "Leisure gamer" and "Dormant gamer" in the list). Blizzard seems to have been catering to power gamers with little end game content for casual gamers, beleiving that casual gamers will rarely make it that far. But this obviously ignores a rather large subset of players in the Dormant and Leisure categories. Social gamers are another category for which MMORPGs tend to have a lot of appeal, but they typically approach content with a more "casual" play style. Often, these players experience very little content for the time they spend online because they're more interested in roleplay or simply chatting.
Personally, I think email replies strategies are consistent for individuals, but I haven't seen a general rule that applies to people in general. For example, there are some people I email that always reply promptly while others do not. And some people tend to send detailed emails while others never write more than two or three sentences. I think this has more to do with general philosophies of work and the importance of email as a means of communication to the individual. Some people are always "too busy" to bother, and others simply prefer face time (either because of accountability or because they find email exchanges awkward).
This is not true, some people will discriminate against people who are not the build which they consider optimal for a particular 'role' (healing in this case). Also, many people will assume that a Monk/* is a healer without asking, or sometimes even when they say they are not... so it's not always the wonderful happy place you make it out to be. That said I've joined pickup groups with Elementalist/Monk healers before who did an excellent job and I have no hesitation partying up with anyone who communicates before we go on a quest/mission.
This approach applies fairly well to scripted raid-based games like WoW where number-crunching is almost required for success. But Guild Wars is so dynamic that player skill and team coordination is far more important that any specific build or spec. Running missions in Guild Wars is kind of silly at times, because there are a lot of clueless players who insist on specific builds or refuse to accept others. These are also typically the groups to avoid, and I think such behavior is an indication that the group leader doesn't really know what he's doing and that the mission may end up a failure. One thing I really like about Guild Wars is that the mission sequence has a few choke points in terms of difficulty, and many unskilled players never seem to make it all the way to end game. Compared to WoW where persistance is rewarded, I've found this to be a wonderfully refreshing change.
However, each layer of security, the locks, the security system, and the safe, adds a deterrant. There's the time that has to be invested getting in, the fear of someone hearing the alarm going off and the ticking clock of the authorities being notified and dispatched, not to mention the hassle of locating and gaining access to the inside of the safe. Only someone who invested some serious research time and effort could gain access to my valuables and get away with it. And for what? My passport, some petty cash, and copies of my legal documents?
In New Jersey where I used to live, smash and grab was the most popular form of burglary. Typically, the thief would throw a piece of patio furnature through a sliding glass door and plan to be gone in under five minutes. That may not be enough time to break open a safe, but it's long enough to grab unsecured jewelry or console games (console games being one of the most popular targets for petty theft). Last I heard, no one had been caught for the crimes, even though they had occurred fairly regularly for a while.
How often do children dial 911 for fun? Or make prank calls to the police station? I did say "as long as the interface is designed properly." If the child has to click through a few windows describing the criteria for which reporting someone is allowed, and describing the repurcussions for wasting the police's time, I think it would dissuade most children from making prank reports or reporting people for something stupid. After all, most children are afraid of the police, and this guarantees police attention. Worst case the online group could contact the child's local police department and send someone to his house for a little chat.
Another reason people don't file police reports for this sort of thing are all the technical barriers that must be overcome: the complainant has to provide contextual information, at least including the time the incident occurred and who was involved. The police would then traditionally have to obtain warrants, contact AOL or MSN or whoever and pull IP logs, then do the same with the respective ISPs to get names and addresses. And if there is no reliable log of the conversation then the accused can deny the conversation ever took place.
With this service, I would expect MSN to forward aliases, a full chat log with accurate timestamps, the IP addresses of the involved parties, profile information, and anything else MSN may have on record. This eliminates the need for diligence on the part of the complainant and a good bit of footwork for the police handling the issue. And so long as the interface is designed properly, I think the chance of accidental or fake reports to be quite low (not considering worms that may target the feature).
All in all I think this is a fairly decent feature to add to a commercial chat client. If nothing else, it will likely be better than what we have now--ie. nothing.
The Internet stuff was just fun that people were having with it, but I don't think that necessarily meant that those people wanted to see the movie... those who had made that decision based their decision more on the traditional marketing than on all this Internet buzz.' Was all of the hype about blogger power just that -- hype?
Not at all. Bloggers have the ability to reach a massive audience, and many actually do. However, it wouldn't surprise me if the average blog reader were inclined to make more informed decisions than his tv-watching counterpart. Or simply that people in general are more inclined to act in an informed manner than they were ten years ago. Either way, just because people spent a lot of time making fun of a movie doesn't mean that any of them will actually pay $10 to go see it.
As an aside, I personally think it's amazing the folks in Hollywood actually thought a movie called "Snakes on a Plane" would clean up in the box office. I like bad horror films, spoofs, etc, but the name of the movie alone classified it as something I don't intend to ever see.
Folks who suggest replacing human investors with computer algorithms don't understand the basic workings of the stock market. You cannot predict the next value of a stock simply using past and current information from within the stock exchange. You cannot find a `pattern` in the stock price no matter how much computing power you use: there is no pattern, except for the well know economic cycles that influence all stocks.
It should be possible to act based on the short term velocity of a stock price, as at that point the only real factor is how people react to price changes, which I would expect to be relatively consistent. Obviously however, execution fees could be a barrier here. Aside from that, it should be possible to trade index securities as these represent some section of the market as a whole, and are therefore largely unaffected by the fluctiations of individual stocks. Other non-stock securities are a possibility as well--government bonds perhaps, as their price is extremely stable.
Besides, even if an algorithm could be devised, it would be useful only if it could be kept secret, otherwise using it on a large scale will deny any speculative gain.
People are already trying this sort of thing in online gambling, and securities markets are basically the same thing but with much higher stakes. Also, I know for a fact that algorithmic trading already takes place with good results, so it's really more a matter of how more popular it will become than whether it is possible.
The Divine Proportion is one of the most well-known geometric properties. Here is a link to the wiki page for the uninformed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio
May just be me, but the whole CS/IT debate would have you incorrect on this one. CS is for computer problems (ie hardware) and IT is for programming, nes?
No. Computer Engineering is for designing hardware, Computer Science is programming-related, though that could end in a theory-oriented job (algorithm design and such) as easily as a coding-type job.
It's simple. Have them mixed all the stuff together. If it goes BOOM, that's bad. If it doesn't, no problem.
They were actually doing this in some locations: http://www.xopl.com/blog/embedded/liquidshit.jpg I guess the alerts should come with instructions on what to do with the items being confiscated.
Just because a person likes computers and has some aptitude for programming does not mean that they will enjoy a career in IT.
It's a bread field. A "job in IT" may mean troubleshooting computer problems or it may mean writing production-quality programs for internal use. A CS degree could definately help with the latter, but it may not be of tremendous use for the former.
When I decided to stay in school and get a second degree in computer science 11 years ago, I already had a lot more programming experience, from the sound of it, than this person does. I enjoyed programming as a hobby, and I enjoyed my coursework and excelled in it.
I think this is one of the most important qualities for would-be programmers (or really, members of any changing field). While I recently went back to school to finish a degree I abandoned years ago for a career in the field (for the satisfaction more than anything else, I'll admit), I do believe that academic experience and grades have little correlation to understanding or ability in the field. Much more important are personal interest and outside experience. That said, it can be difficult to simply get your resume in the proper hands if X, Y, or Z are missing from your resume.
My advice: brush up on your tech and interview skills, polish your resume, and look for the job of your dreams. At the same time, begin looking into education options and consider applying somewhere. If you get an appealing offer then either forget about school or consider part-timing a degree. If you don't get an offer then go to whatever school you've chosen and continue looking for jobs on a more casual basis. In job interviews, it might be worth either mentioning that you're taking classes related to the job you're interviewing for or that you're considering a part-time education to improve your abilities. The company may simply not care or they may think it's a great idea. I suppose what I'm getting at is that you should just give it all a try and see what happens. If you want your degree either way then do that too. Many companies will even help pay your tuition if the degree is job-related.