Wow youve never worked in a self-destructive company.
Assumption. WRONG.
They are not going to write any policy, they are just going to assign it to someone downstream, namely you.
I didn't say "make them write the policy". I said "involve them in it".
Also, I am, unfortunately, familiar with the "it's my stuff, but if I fuck it up it's your fault".
In those cases, I make sure that the person STILL participates. Even if minimally, and signs off on everything appropriately then try to find ways around their stupidity.
Oh, did I mention that I'm fully conversant in "cover your ass"?
You've created a policy and don't have the owner-level execs onboard?
That's failure #1 right there. Good policy making for security purposes isn't "And IT saith THUS!". Operating in this kind of vacuum gets your enforcement NO PLACE. Fast!
You have to involve these people pretty much from the get-go. This way they understand why the policy is in place and have less self-provided incentive to circumvent it.
And yes, as others have said, a small amount of "horror story" can go a long way too. But only DURING the policy creation process. Afterwards, they look at it as simple justification of an arbitrary policy.
And the danger of attorney fee awards will prevent entities (including artists) from abusing the DMCA (even more) and encourage them to actually review their accusations to see if they hold up to the light of fair use or not.
Unfortunately they didn't do it BEFORE sinking a metric assload (as opposed to an imperial assload) of extra cash into it, too caught up in the development cycle to call it quits when it wasn't done, wasn't working, and wasn't any good.
At least they're out of TR-rehab and back to putting support into the games that ARE paying their bills.
No. DLink's response to everything consumer-grade is is thus.
Act dumb (well, they're not REALLY acting)
Sit on hands
Offer an exchange
Hope the problem customer just "goes away".
Years of experience with trying to get them to actually SUPPORT the crap they ship has taught me this.
Their "pro grade" support is SLIGHTLY better. But it's the difference between getting a root canal with no pain killers and getting a root canal with no pain killers while being repeatedly kneed in the nuts (which is ESPECIALLY impressive if you happen to be female).
Maybe if enough people ask, they'll actually tell someone why they have a complete fucking moron in a position of scholastic authority over their kids.
And an 8600 is perfectly acceptable. They're not talking about graphics horsepower for the most part (though an 8600 should be fine there too). They're talking about supported APIs.
Your enjoyment or the game? The game's still there, and with the latest adjustments to AE, the problem of PL from 1-50 in a couple hours is pretty much moot. You CAN still fight all-boss maps if you really want. But your XP and ticket earnings will be next to nothing. Essentially you HAVE to run balanced missions (mobs consist of all three critter types (minion, lieutenant, boss) or your earnings get slashed. Dramatically.
Additionally, the various difficulty levels modify your earnings now and come with a minimum list of powers taken. Running at too easy a level cuts earnings, and trying to shave off powers doesn't work anymore.
Note: If you want to still fill a map with tons of enemies and saw through it as a form of PL, you're welcome to. The fact is, you're fighting as hard or harder than the regular content would make you do to achieve the speedy leveling.
First you need to know something about how instances are made in CoX. They are cookie cutter dungeons made with the same map layout blocks. So if you have played for more then a month you will know how each corridor is laid out, where monsters spawn.
While this is true, you have a plethora of maps to choose from and while some of them are quite similar, their spawn points are just different enough that you can't simply say "oh, this is the twisty base corridor so spawns will be here, here, and here." And since the mission editor allows the maps to randomize...
There are exceptions to some of those dungeons, but very rare. Now they did attempt to improve on this at one point. For example Striga island and Croatoa have really good quests/arcs compared to other content. However apart from the Ritiki warzone redone the instances had not changed at all.
Content like you're talking about is fairly labor intensive. It also has the least amount of long-term return. You get a couple guys working 40+ hours a week for several months to put in a buttload of new content and players blast through it in hours or days (weeks if they are lazy).
AE was put in to help OFFSET the problem. Not be a complete remedy.
Add to that AE being easier then the actual rest of the game, meant that everyone was camped out in the AE building while the rest of the city zones were pretty much ghost towns.
Again, this is no longer the case. Plus, with the adjustments to the difficulty settings, the new Super SideKicking, and especially the modifications that now allow higher levels to earn XP in lower-level TFs, there's no excuse for anyone not to run regular content now.
Difficulty settings changes.
You now have control over the relative level of the enemies to you. From -1 to +4
You have control over spawn sizes from solo player spawns up to spawns normally used for teams of 8. When teaming, it uses whichever setting is greater (team size or your spawn size setting).
The ability to fight bosses even when solo
The ability to fight Heroes/Archvillains when solo
So now, if the game seems too "easy mode" for you, crank up the level of the enemies, bump the spawn size, and turn on bosses. Turns it into a completely different game.
Additionally, if you feel that leveling isn't coming fast enough for you, doing any of the above will dramatically increase your XP earnings and leveling speed.
Also, if you want to control how fast you're leveling, you have the option available to turn off XP earnings (as if you were Level 50) and earn double Inf (money) instead.
Super SideKicking.
The way the old sidekicking/exemplaring worked, you had to have one player of the appropriate level for each lowbie. This was sometimes referred to as "mentor tetris". A lot of times it was difficult to get a team of the right mix together. And, if a mentor had to leave, either the sidekick had to leave too, or everything stopped until another mentor was found. Also, wandering too far from your mentor would cause you to revert t
Not Corning. Corelle (slightly different product, same company).
CorningWare is marketed for it's resistance to thermal stresses (going freezer to over). Corelle is marketed for it's durability (though it has problems with thermal stressing).
1: Ignore the screaming patient on the table. 2: Use leather restraints on the patient. The web ones are too easily snapped by someone in a full fight-or-flight frenzy. 3: Avoid the use of the word "oops" 4: Avoid the use of the phrase "uh oh" 5: NEVER use "oh shit", "oh crap" or any other variants thereof. 6: Have a mallet ready for "topical anesthesia" if necessary. If the need exists, apply to patient's forehead both vigorously and repeatedly. 7: Use surgical drapes, most patients freak (hard!) if they can see their own inside pieces and parts. 8: Avoid calling your surgical assistant "Igor", even if that is his name. 9: Refrain from cackling maniacally.
Okay, free speech means you can pretty much say whatever the heck you want.
What it does NOT guarantee is that you will be immune to the consequences of your free speech.
If you're going to be proverbial and scream "Fire" in the ubiquitous crowded theater, cause a stampede and someone gets injured or killed, you're liable for that.
Also, the freedom of speech in the US only extends to the government's ability to censor your speech.
Private entities (like Google) can and DO censor your speech. You're free to try and say whatever you want, but they are under NO obligation to provide you with a forum from which to do so. They can do it for any reason (good/bad/indifferent) or for no reason.
This is not the same thing as he is talking about.
He's talking about the whole "well if the software eats our data we get a reimbursed by XYZ company" mentality.
Even with a support contract, you don't. PERIOD. They'll work to make sure that your problems are repaired so it doesn't happen again. But if data is lost, it's gone. They're not required in any way, shape or form to make monetary, product, or technical restitution for it.
If you don't believe me, take a read through the boilerplate for your support contract.
Call them by any other name, but thats how you get an ideal game balance.
Maybe. Let's take a look at a game that, while still holding to the trinity, tries to step away a bit. City of Heroes.
Tank: Just what it says. However, it's possible to construct tanks in such a way that they don't need to be healed (note, this can be somewhat expensive, but it can be done) and thus, don't need outstanding damage output to eventually whittle down the enemies. Sure, such things will allow the content to be overcome FASTER, but that's not the argument here.
Blaster (Mage): Very high damage output, but essentially a glass cannon. Go fast, go splat. It's possible, while taking a small hit to total damage output, to increase defenses enough that you're rarely hit. Thus, you can nuke the enemies before they kill you and aren't sitting there going "I need a h3al0r!" while still drawing and managing your own aggro.
Defender (Priest): While this AT is notable for it's healing, healing consists of ONE power out of a set of 24. The rest are attacks, defenses/resists, and a long list of self and team BUFFS and enemy DEBUFFS. It's possible to increase your defenses enough that your heal and buffs will outstrip incoming damage long enough for the AT's "anemic" damage, combined with powerful enemy-weakening debuffs bring the mobs to their knees.
It's entirely possible to solo most of the content in the game solo (save zone raids and certain ArchVillains (high-end super-bosses) whose powers hit points of weakness in your power set or build.
The trinity can make gaming EASIER, but it's NOT required. In CoH, 8-man teams of all the same AT can go just as fast as 8-man teams mixed to include the trinity.
Additionally, to further chuck wood on the pyre that is this misconception, CoH allows you multiple builds on the same toon. So you can have a blaster built for teaming that forgoes much of it's defenses for raw damage output and recharge, while another build is geared towards soloing and survivability, or PVP with the peculiar mix of powers that will keep it alive in there. Need to have a different performance profile? Hit a trainer and flip to another one.
For anyone insisting that you NEED the trinity, I insist the following.
Online advertisers will ensure their ads aren't too annoying
Yeah. Because this has worked REAL well so far.
Never mind the war going on between the crapvertisers and the adblockers.
Never mind the annoying fucking pop-overs.
Never mind the stupid in-video adverts now being used that cover over 1/3 of the content being displayed and don't go away until you click them away.
the company says, and netizens will ultimately realize that online advertising is a good thing.
And I say "Stick to search. When it comes to the psycho-social aspects of the advertising debate, you're just a piker (albeit a big, burly, heavily armed piker, but still a piker) giving tactical and strategic advice to people who know their business better than you do."
Marketing? Yeah right. The REAL issue will be SUPPORT. Having had to deal with D-Link support (both consumer and professional), I'd much rather be slowly eviscerated with a knitting needle.
And if it's something that can't be reduced to a cookie-cutter firmware setting with no options available, D-Link will fuck it up.
Honestly, I can't tell you. At worst, it could kill any advancement (if such exists) in your company. From the sound of it though, it's "get a soul-ectomy and become a manager" or you've hit a career plateau.
My dad's an okay guy. He's pretty with it. But I wouldn't say he's smarter than my mom (especially not right in front of her, that's just ASKING for an ass-whupping with a spiked stun stick). Same thing goes with my maternal grandmother and my recently deceased grandfather (except saying something to the effect above would just get me killed outright, family or no...short Irish women...they pack a lot of rage into those small frames...) I don't really remember a lot about my paternal grandmother, but I'd assume, from my grandfather's demeanor, something similar existed there too).
Seriously. Most of the men in my family are/were amiable, phlegmatic guys. The women wore the pants though...
Slashdot Mirror
As if we don't have enough self-absorbed dipshits fiddling with their phones at inappropriate times NOW!
A product in search of a market.
Wow youve never worked in a self-destructive company.
Assumption. WRONG.
They are not going to write any policy, they are just going to assign it to someone downstream, namely you.
I didn't say "make them write the policy". I said "involve them in it".
Also, I am, unfortunately, familiar with the "it's my stuff, but if I fuck it up it's your fault".
In those cases, I make sure that the person STILL participates. Even if minimally, and signs off on everything appropriately then try to find ways around their stupidity.
Oh, did I mention that I'm fully conversant in "cover your ass"?
You've created a policy and don't have the owner-level execs onboard?
That's failure #1 right there. Good policy making for security purposes isn't "And IT saith THUS!". Operating in this kind of vacuum gets your enforcement NO PLACE. Fast!
You have to involve these people pretty much from the get-go. This way they understand why the policy is in place and have less self-provided incentive to circumvent it.
And yes, as others have said, a small amount of "horror story" can go a long way too. But only DURING the policy creation process. Afterwards, they look at it as simple justification of an arbitrary policy.
Right now you guys haven't got a leg to stand on.
And the danger of attorney fee awards will prevent entities (including artists) from abusing the DMCA (even more) and encourage them to actually review their accusations to see if they hold up to the light of fair use or not.
I can haz Madden 2011??
Or Madden 2012?
No Madden 2013 because the world's ending but hey...
Oh yeah, and I can hope that EA puts out NON-SPORTS games and have that futile hope rubbed in my face.
Just the unit responsible for TR.
Unfortunately they didn't do it BEFORE sinking a metric assload (as opposed to an imperial assload) of extra cash into it, too caught up in the development cycle to call it quits when it wasn't done, wasn't working, and wasn't any good.
At least they're out of TR-rehab and back to putting support into the games that ARE paying their bills.
No, that just gives them time to draft the restraining order.
No. DLink's response to everything consumer-grade is is thus.
Years of experience with trying to get them to actually SUPPORT the crap they ship has taught me this.
Their "pro grade" support is SLIGHTLY better. But it's the difference between getting a root canal with no pain killers and getting a root canal with no pain killers while being repeatedly kneed in the nuts (which is ESPECIALLY impressive if you happen to be female).
Here's the Contact Us page for Millennial Tech Middle School.
http://www.mtechmiddle.org/apps/contact/?rn=8783875
Maybe if enough people ask, they'll actually tell someone why they have a complete fucking moron in a position of scholastic authority over their kids.
We're talking about work done by an 11 year old kid here on a very simple implementation of a motion detector.
Not some final-year electrical engineering student wiring up a blinknenlights redux.
Just back it up to his front door.
Knock, and when he comes to the door, hit the afterburners.
No more loud neighbor problems.
Even if he never opens the door.
No, they didn't. "Literally" does not mean "figuratively" or "hey here's some exaggeration for effect"
You obviously don't know a couple of our machinima authors. Sorry, but I did mean and intend it as "literally".
So please take your insults elsewhere Mr. AC.
GPU. Not CPU.
And an 8600 is perfectly acceptable. They're not talking about graphics horsepower for the most part (though an 8600 should be fine there too). They're talking about supported APIs.
AE killed it.
Your enjoyment or the game? The game's still there, and with the latest adjustments to AE, the problem of PL from 1-50 in a couple hours is pretty much moot.
You CAN still fight all-boss maps if you really want. But your XP and ticket earnings will be next to nothing. Essentially you HAVE to run balanced missions (mobs consist of all three critter types (minion, lieutenant, boss) or your earnings get slashed. Dramatically.
Additionally, the various difficulty levels modify your earnings now and come with a minimum list of powers taken. Running at too easy a level cuts earnings, and trying to shave off powers doesn't work anymore.
Note: If you want to still fill a map with tons of enemies and saw through it as a form of PL, you're welcome to. The fact is, you're fighting as hard or harder than the regular content would make you do to achieve the speedy leveling.
First you need to know something about how instances are made in CoX. They are cookie cutter dungeons made with the same map layout blocks. So if you have played for more then a month you will know how each corridor is laid out, where monsters spawn.
While this is true, you have a plethora of maps to choose from and while some of them are quite similar, their spawn points are just different enough that you can't simply say "oh, this is the twisty base corridor so spawns will be here, here, and here." And since the mission editor allows the maps to randomize...
There are exceptions to some of those dungeons, but very rare. Now they did attempt to improve on this at one point. For example Striga island and Croatoa have really good quests/arcs compared to other content. However apart from the Ritiki warzone redone the instances had not changed at all.
Content like you're talking about is fairly labor intensive. It also has the least amount of long-term return. You get a couple guys working 40+ hours a week for several months to put in a buttload of new content and players blast through it in hours or days (weeks if they are lazy).
AE was put in to help OFFSET the problem. Not be a complete remedy.
Add to that AE being easier then the actual rest of the game, meant that everyone was camped out in the AE building while the rest of the city zones were pretty much ghost towns.
Again, this is no longer the case. Plus, with the adjustments to the difficulty settings, the new Super SideKicking, and especially the modifications that now allow higher levels to earn XP in lower-level TFs, there's no excuse for anyone not to run regular content now.
Difficulty settings changes.
So now, if the game seems too "easy mode" for you, crank up the level of the enemies, bump the spawn size, and turn on bosses. Turns it into a completely different game.
Additionally, if you feel that leveling isn't coming fast enough for you, doing any of the above will dramatically increase your XP earnings and leveling speed.
Also, if you want to control how fast you're leveling, you have the option available to turn off XP earnings (as if you were Level 50) and earn double Inf (money) instead.
Super SideKicking.
The way the old sidekicking/exemplaring worked, you had to have one player of the appropriate level for each lowbie. This was sometimes referred to as "mentor tetris". A lot of times it was difficult to get a team of the right mix together. And, if a mentor had to leave, either the sidekick had to leave too, or everything stopped until another mentor was found. Also, wandering too far from your mentor would cause you to revert t
Not Corning. Corelle (slightly different product, same company).
CorningWare is marketed for it's resistance to thermal stresses (going freezer to over).
Corelle is marketed for it's durability (though it has problems with thermal stressing).
1: Ignore the screaming patient on the table.
2: Use leather restraints on the patient. The web ones are too easily snapped by someone in a full fight-or-flight frenzy.
3: Avoid the use of the word "oops"
4: Avoid the use of the phrase "uh oh"
5: NEVER use "oh shit", "oh crap" or any other variants thereof.
6: Have a mallet ready for "topical anesthesia" if necessary. If the need exists, apply to patient's forehead both vigorously and repeatedly.
7: Use surgical drapes, most patients freak (hard!) if they can see their own inside pieces and parts.
8: Avoid calling your surgical assistant "Igor", even if that is his name.
9: Refrain from cackling maniacally.
Actually what you were seeing wasn't flickering.
It was stuttering during horizontal movement. It's a byproduct of the Real3D process.
Okay, free speech means you can pretty much say whatever the heck you want.
What it does NOT guarantee is that you will be immune to the consequences of your free speech.
If you're going to be proverbial and scream "Fire" in the ubiquitous crowded theater, cause a stampede and someone gets injured or killed, you're liable for that.
Also, the freedom of speech in the US only extends to the government's ability to censor your speech.
Private entities (like Google) can and DO censor your speech. You're free to try and say whatever you want, but they are under NO obligation to provide you with a forum from which to do so. They can do it for any reason (good/bad/indifferent) or for no reason.
Have you ever had a support contract before?
This is not the same thing as he is talking about.
He's talking about the whole "well if the software eats our data we get a reimbursed by XYZ company" mentality.
Even with a support contract, you don't. PERIOD. They'll work to make sure that your problems are repaired so it doesn't happen again. But if data is lost, it's gone. They're not required in any way, shape or form to make monetary, product, or technical restitution for it.
If you don't believe me, take a read through the boilerplate for your support contract.
Call them by any other name, but thats how you get an ideal game balance.
Maybe. Let's take a look at a game that, while still holding to the trinity, tries to step away a bit. City of Heroes.
Tank: Just what it says. However, it's possible to construct tanks in such a way that they don't need to be healed (note, this can be somewhat expensive, but it can be done) and thus, don't need outstanding damage output to eventually whittle down the enemies. Sure, such things will allow the content to be overcome FASTER, but that's not the argument here.
Blaster (Mage): Very high damage output, but essentially a glass cannon. Go fast, go splat. It's possible, while taking a small hit to total damage output, to increase defenses enough that you're rarely hit. Thus, you can nuke the enemies before they kill you and aren't sitting there going "I need a h3al0r!" while still drawing and managing your own aggro.
Defender (Priest): While this AT is notable for it's healing, healing consists of ONE power out of a set of 24. The rest are attacks, defenses/resists, and a long list of self and team BUFFS and enemy DEBUFFS. It's possible to increase your defenses enough that your heal and buffs will outstrip incoming damage long enough for the AT's "anemic" damage, combined with powerful enemy-weakening debuffs bring the mobs to their knees.
It's entirely possible to solo most of the content in the game solo (save zone raids and certain ArchVillains (high-end super-bosses) whose powers hit points of weakness in your power set or build.
The trinity can make gaming EASIER, but it's NOT required. In CoH, 8-man teams of all the same AT can go just as fast as 8-man teams mixed to include the trinity.
Additionally, to further chuck wood on the pyre that is this misconception, CoH allows you multiple builds on the same toon. So you can have a blaster built for teaming that forgoes much of it's defenses for raw damage output and recharge, while another build is geared towards soloing and survivability, or PVP with the peculiar mix of powers that will keep it alive in there. Need to have a different performance profile? Hit a trainer and flip to another one.
For anyone insisting that you NEED the trinity, I insist the following.
LEARN TO PLAY
Online advertisers will ensure their ads aren't too annoying
Yeah. Because this has worked REAL well so far.
Never mind the war going on between the crapvertisers and the adblockers.
Never mind the annoying fucking pop-overs.
Never mind the stupid in-video adverts now being used that cover over 1/3 of the content being displayed and don't go away until you click them away.
the company says, and netizens will ultimately realize that online advertising is a good thing.
And I say "Stick to search. When it comes to the psycho-social aspects of the advertising debate, you're just a piker (albeit a big, burly, heavily armed piker, but still a piker) giving tactical and strategic advice to people who know their business better than you do."
Marketing? Yeah right. The REAL issue will be SUPPORT. Having had to deal with D-Link support (both consumer and professional), I'd much rather be slowly eviscerated with a knitting needle.
And if it's something that can't be reduced to a cookie-cutter firmware setting with no options available, D-Link will fuck it up.
Honestly, I can't tell you.
At worst, it could kill any advancement (if such exists) in your company.
From the sound of it though, it's "get a soul-ectomy and become a manager" or you've hit a career plateau.
My dad's an okay guy. He's pretty with it. But I wouldn't say he's smarter than my mom (especially not right in front of her, that's just ASKING for an ass-whupping with a spiked stun stick).
Same thing goes with my maternal grandmother and my recently deceased grandfather (except saying something to the effect above would just get me killed outright, family or no...short Irish women...they pack a lot of rage into those small frames...)
I don't really remember a lot about my paternal grandmother, but I'd assume, from my grandfather's demeanor, something similar existed there too).
Seriously. Most of the men in my family are/were amiable, phlegmatic guys. The women wore the pants though...
*GOD! That's a horrific mental image!*