Re:"Interesting" projects? It depends ...
on
Microsoft or Google?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Perhaps the most damning thing I can say about Microsoft is that I always wonder which is the real face of Microsoft, and which is dictated by necessity. Is Microsoft a large corporation that paints a false face of camaraderie and caring, or a fraternal group of motivated engineers who have grudgingly accepted the need for large corporate structure? I can't really tell. I don't think anyone can. Like economics, the peculiar synthesis of Microsoft's corporate culture is the result of human action, but not of human intent... so you just pick the one you'd like to believe and believe it.
I'm tempted to believe that a lot of the negatives we see highlighted are in many ways just a natural outgrowth of a company built by and full of software geeks that just want to make the best product they can. I haven't met anyone that hasn't seemed to genuinely just want to put together great, useful software.
And I know there's definitely legitimate caring in the company. Someone I know had a son with very serious Crohn's disease. At one point, they had to buy a special nutrient solution or something like that for feeding, since he couldn't even eat. It was VERY expensive - on the order of 10k a month. Combined with all the medical bills, they had hit the insurance coverage cap at that point. She sent an email to HR about the situation, how serious it was. The email went up and up the ladder - and the matter eventually got the attention of BillG. His response? That it was his company, he'd decide what insurance covers, and that he doesn't need his employees worrying about paying for things like this. The cap was removed, and they had no further troubles. (Sadly, their son passed away a couple months ago...)
Um.... no. People here drive carefully to hide the fact they really aren't that sure what they're doing.
I was in the Chicago area for 6 1/2 years. People there drive like idiots, but idiots who know what they're doing - 75 mph bumper-to-bumper traffic forces you to get really good at merging, changing lanes, paying attention, and the like.
People here can be scarier in many ways.
My favorite is still the "Redmond right-turn". It works like this: drive up to green light. Turn on right turn signal. Stop. Wait for light to turn yellow. Go, making sure that nobody else can get through the light.
Even worse than the driving here? The parking. My gawd, most people can't comprehend the idea of putting their vehicle roughly in the center between the white lines.
It's one of the few bad things I have to say about the area.
(The other is that it rains all the time. Really. You never see the sun. It's horrible. You'd never want to move here. Really. Move elsewhere. Anywhere else.:)
Yeah, I can definitely say that working over in the Millennium campus is different than working in most of the rest of Microsoft - perhaps that's part of the reason the teams there are not on main campus. I'm an SDE/T with Xbox Live, and I know I do a lot larger variety of stuff here than I did when I was working on main campus. I'm not "just" an SDE/T - everyone here gets their chance to get their fingers in multiple pieces. I haven't once felt like a "cog", that I'm rather insignificant, or just a peon. I may not be driving new features, but I know that I'm important to my team.
The most important thing is to be working on stuff you really WANT to work on - if you can do that, the rest of the details become secondary. I love my job, my team, what I'm working on, and I absolutely love living in Seattle - I chose that first, and then started looking at places to work.
Honestly, I have no idea - the media functionality like that is part of a different team that I have little contact with on a regular basis. Besides, were I to find out the details, I suspect it would fall into the sorts of things I wasn't allowed to talk about.:(
I agree, though, that it would be much nicer if you didn't have to use Windows Media Center to stream videos - especially since that would mean I could do video streaming. (I don't have a WMC PC nor plans to get one)
Who knows what will happen when Vista comes out though.
Your friend isn't playing as much as is implied. Pretty much everyone at the top has been using game saves to gain achievements without actually having to play the game. In other words, he's there by cheating.
Fortunately, this is being addressed (as seen on Ozymandias's blog in the comments)
For all the benchmark items leading up to launch - # of devkits out to developers, libraries and title certification requirements, starting production - the PS3 is well behind where the 360 was. I have a hard time believing their launch could be anything but substantially worse in availability and reliability.
And before you get too freaked out about the possibility of the Xbox being #1, consider the fact that the Xbox team is packed full of gamers. I work on the Xbox (part of the Xbox Live UI test team), and a heck of a lot of people are here because they want to make a great game console. I see offices with old game systems on the shelves, rows of game boxes, stand-up arcade machines in offices (a Q*Bert around the corner from me), and all sorts of other things. Whatever else you may think of the comnpany, just be aware that we want a great platform for gaming.
(Before someone mentions astroturfing, know that I've been using Slashdot for a HELL of a lot longer than I've worked at MS.)
I wouldn't be surprised if that feature was in the original specs and got dropped for launch to make sure they made the holiday season. Instead, it will be added in for a future firmware update.
It just makes too much sense to not include it at some point.
Well, Ensemble has been researching a console control system for RTS games for a while. Apparently, with a ported version of Age of Empires, they had it to the point that console players were beating PC keyboard/mouse players regularly.
Many games, to make development easier, will include multiple copies of their various assets on the disc.
I've heard multiple game devs say that if the guys really do have 20 gigs of UNIQUE content on the disc for Resistance, then the rest of the game industry will bow down to them as game development gods.
Well, it's hard for most of us here to have used it since it's invite only. If you're willing to pass some invites around for people to try the service, I think you'll get a number of people willing to check it out.
The big thing with games is, unlike movies, the amount of time it takes to finish them can very by person.
He's complaining about Tomb Raider Legend being so tough that it takes over 40 hours... I finished the game in substantially less time than that. Perhaps 20 hours at most. On the hardest difficulty level. I thought the game didn't have enough content to be worth the $60 price (which is why I'm glad I was able to borrow it). So I have a hard time appreciating the point.
I see the "Save and Restart" feature as a way to adjust the difficulty to the point that fits you as a gamer. If you're massively skilled and can get through the storyline starting with a lvl 1 character, then awesome. If you keep dying, then a save and restart effectively makes the game a bit easier for you. You don't have to grind if you don't want to.
And you CAN save civilians and complete the storyline at the same time. It's just that you have to manage your time well to do so. In fact, the "Saint" achievement, which requires you to save 50 of the 54 possible survivors, requires you to complete most of the storyline - and possibly even all of it if you'd like. It's just tricky to do. It's not bad game design - it's just a conscious choice as to how they wanted it to play. If you want to be able to save everyone and solve the storyline at the same time, and to have it be not that hard to do, then yes, you'll think it's bad design since it's not easy to do, but that's because they WANTED that heavy time pressure.
I've already played through the game twice, and plan to do it a couple more times because it's so much FUN to do.
Too bad the review here also fails to live up to what it promises... He's definitely not played enough Dead Rising to understand what's available. Yes, the whole storyline is discovered through time-critical case files that make it tough to just go around and slaughter zombies and play in the mall. But here's the amazing part - you don't have to do them! That's right, if you decide to skip out on the storyline, you'll get notified that "The Truth has Fallen Into Darkness", but you can just continue on and save survivors if you want, kill psychopaths, and slaughter zombies by the thousands. In fact, some of the game's achievements pretty much require you to do just that - there's no way you'll get Zombie Genocide, for example, playing the storyline. There's just not enough time to kill 53,597 zombies and still do the cases. (That amount is the population of the town, if anyone's wondering about the odd number)
It's not as freeform as GTA, but it does offer you a LOT of flexibility in how you play it and what you do. And with the hundreds of weapons, if all you want to do is kill zombies, there are plenty of ways to do it.
Oh, and don't forget the unusual save system - when you die, you can reload your game, which is normal. Or you can save and restart - all your gained levels, experience, and skills remain with you. So you can play again, only with a stronger main character. This is almost necessary - trying to go through the game from a Lvl 1 character is tough. Restart a few times with saving experience, though, and it becomes easier. Not easy, but easier.
Yes, there are flaws in the game. The aiming system for guns and throwing items, for example, is slow and clumsy. And the survivor AI could definitely use work. But it's a HELL of a lot better than this review implies.
Every group at Microsoft does interviews differently. So about the only conclusions you can really draw from an interview is how that specific group handles them for the time being.
I've interviewed twice here at Microsoft. Once was to get hired in at the company. A friend who was helping pass my resume around was convinced all I needed was to get flown out for an interview, and I'd get that job. She was right - I walked out at the end of the day certain that I was going to work at Microsoft and finally be able to move to Seattle. I was right. And I even found the day of interviews strangely enjoyable.
My second interview was earlier this year, when I decided I wanted to go for a position on a new team - the Xbox Live test team. It was significantly tougher - and at the same time, I was much more nervous because of how much I wanted the position. I was extremely uncertain how things went, especially cause of a rough hour with one interviewer, which involved a lot of odd C code when he knew I was quite rusty at C (after working with only C# for the past couple years). The interview was on a Friday, and on Monday morning I got notice I was getting the offer.
You can't really assume you know why you get or don't get a job offer here until you actually talk with the people who made the decisions. Especially since it's not just having the knowledge and skills to do the job that matters - they also want to make sure you fit into the group's culture.
I'm totally excited to hear that Settlers of Cataan (along with Carcassonne and Alhambra) is coming to Xbox Live Arcade! I absolutely love the board game, and if the XBLA version is decent, this is going to be a big, big time sink for me.
I work on Xbox Live. I am now involved with console gaming as a CAREER, not just a hobby. It's a dream job in many way. You think I'm gonna want to give it up? Only way that happens is if someone pays me to not work!
I have to say, I wonder how Digitech's face mapper would work regarding MY hair. How does it autodetect hair color? What would happen when it tries to do my face and hair, considering that I have pink and purple bangs, and green with blue tips over the rest of my head... I'm gonna have to see if I can find someone around here on another of the Xbox groups that has a demo to try out. That should be amusing to see.:)
All those additional items - friends list with presence, messaging, matchmaking, and the like - take additional effort during development to create, and more computing hardware to keep up and running. In other words, it costs quite a bit more money to provide them.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps the most damning thing I can say about Microsoft is that I always wonder which is the real face of Microsoft, and which is dictated by necessity. Is Microsoft a large corporation that paints a false face of camaraderie and caring, or a fraternal group of motivated engineers who have grudgingly accepted the need for large corporate structure? I can't really tell. I don't think anyone can. Like economics, the peculiar synthesis of Microsoft's corporate culture is the result of human action, but not of human intent... so you just pick the one you'd like to believe and believe it.
I'm tempted to believe that a lot of the negatives we see highlighted are in many ways just a natural outgrowth of a company built by and full of software geeks that just want to make the best product they can. I haven't met anyone that hasn't seemed to genuinely just want to put together great, useful software.
And I know there's definitely legitimate caring in the company. Someone I know had a son with very serious Crohn's disease. At one point, they had to buy a special nutrient solution or something like that for feeding, since he couldn't even eat. It was VERY expensive - on the order of 10k a month. Combined with all the medical bills, they had hit the insurance coverage cap at that point. She sent an email to HR about the situation, how serious it was. The email went up and up the ladder - and the matter eventually got the attention of BillG. His response? That it was his company, he'd decide what insurance covers, and that he doesn't need his employees worrying about paying for things like this. The cap was removed, and they had no further troubles. (Sadly, their son passed away a couple months ago...)
Um.... no. People here drive carefully to hide the fact they really aren't that sure what they're doing.
:)
I was in the Chicago area for 6 1/2 years. People there drive like idiots, but idiots who know what they're doing - 75 mph bumper-to-bumper traffic forces you to get really good at merging, changing lanes, paying attention, and the like.
People here can be scarier in many ways.
My favorite is still the "Redmond right-turn". It works like this: drive up to green light. Turn on right turn signal. Stop. Wait for light to turn yellow. Go, making sure that nobody else can get through the light.
Even worse than the driving here? The parking. My gawd, most people can't comprehend the idea of putting their vehicle roughly in the center between the white lines.
It's one of the few bad things I have to say about the area.
(The other is that it rains all the time. Really. You never see the sun. It's horrible. You'd never want to move here. Really. Move elsewhere. Anywhere else.
Yeah, I can definitely say that working over in the Millennium campus is different than working in most of the rest of Microsoft - perhaps that's part of the reason the teams there are not on main campus. I'm an SDE/T with Xbox Live, and I know I do a lot larger variety of stuff here than I did when I was working on main campus. I'm not "just" an SDE/T - everyone here gets their chance to get their fingers in multiple pieces. I haven't once felt like a "cog", that I'm rather insignificant, or just a peon. I may not be driving new features, but I know that I'm important to my team.
The most important thing is to be working on stuff you really WANT to work on - if you can do that, the rest of the details become secondary. I love my job, my team, what I'm working on, and I absolutely love living in Seattle - I chose that first, and then started looking at places to work.
Honestly, I have no idea - the media functionality like that is part of a different team that I have little contact with on a regular basis. Besides, were I to find out the details, I suspect it would fall into the sorts of things I wasn't allowed to talk about. :(
I agree, though, that it would be much nicer if you didn't have to use Windows Media Center to stream videos - especially since that would mean I could do video streaming. (I don't have a WMC PC nor plans to get one)
Who knows what will happen when Vista comes out though.
Not quite true. I hear the white house has special toilet paper with the text from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights printed on it.
Your friend isn't playing as much as is implied. Pretty much everyone at the top has been using game saves to gain achievements without actually having to play the game. In other words, he's there by cheating.
Fortunately, this is being addressed (as seen on Ozymandias's blog in the comments)
The Nyko Intercooler is not a good idea.
It does bad things.
For all the benchmark items leading up to launch - # of devkits out to developers, libraries and title certification requirements, starting production - the PS3 is well behind where the 360 was. I have a hard time believing their launch could be anything but substantially worse in availability and reliability.
And before you get too freaked out about the possibility of the Xbox being #1, consider the fact that the Xbox team is packed full of gamers. I work on the Xbox (part of the Xbox Live UI test team), and a heck of a lot of people are here because they want to make a great game console. I see offices with old game systems on the shelves, rows of game boxes, stand-up arcade machines in offices (a Q*Bert around the corner from me), and all sorts of other things. Whatever else you may think of the comnpany, just be aware that we want a great platform for gaming.
(Before someone mentions astroturfing, know that I've been using Slashdot for a HELL of a lot longer than I've worked at MS.)
Think... software update in the future.
I wouldn't be surprised if that feature was in the original specs and got dropped for launch to make sure they made the holiday season. Instead, it will be added in for a future firmware update.
It just makes too much sense to not include it at some point.
My guess is that it was the Ensemble Studios guys that were doing the playtesting to evaluate the control schemes, and not just casual FPS players.
Well, Ensemble has been researching a console control system for RTS games for a while. Apparently, with a ported version of Age of Empires, they had it to the point that console players were beating PC keyboard/mouse players regularly.
The Slashdot summary forgot to mention that Marvel Universe Online is PC and 360 both.
Here's a 1up article about it.
Many games, to make development easier, will include multiple copies of their various assets on the disc.
I've heard multiple game devs say that if the guys really do have 20 gigs of UNIQUE content on the disc for Resistance, then the rest of the game industry will bow down to them as game development gods.
Well, it's hard for most of us here to have used it since it's invite only. If you're willing to pass some invites around for people to try the service, I think you'll get a number of people willing to check it out.
The big thing with games is, unlike movies, the amount of time it takes to finish them can very by person.
He's complaining about Tomb Raider Legend being so tough that it takes over 40 hours... I finished the game in substantially less time than that. Perhaps 20 hours at most. On the hardest difficulty level. I thought the game didn't have enough content to be worth the $60 price (which is why I'm glad I was able to borrow it). So I have a hard time appreciating the point.
I see the "Save and Restart" feature as a way to adjust the difficulty to the point that fits you as a gamer. If you're massively skilled and can get through the storyline starting with a lvl 1 character, then awesome. If you keep dying, then a save and restart effectively makes the game a bit easier for you. You don't have to grind if you don't want to.
And you CAN save civilians and complete the storyline at the same time. It's just that you have to manage your time well to do so. In fact, the "Saint" achievement, which requires you to save 50 of the 54 possible survivors, requires you to complete most of the storyline - and possibly even all of it if you'd like. It's just tricky to do. It's not bad game design - it's just a conscious choice as to how they wanted it to play. If you want to be able to save everyone and solve the storyline at the same time, and to have it be not that hard to do, then yes, you'll think it's bad design since it's not easy to do, but that's because they WANTED that heavy time pressure.
I've already played through the game twice, and plan to do it a couple more times because it's so much FUN to do.
Too bad the review here also fails to live up to what it promises... He's definitely not played enough Dead Rising to understand what's available. Yes, the whole storyline is discovered through time-critical case files that make it tough to just go around and slaughter zombies and play in the mall. But here's the amazing part - you don't have to do them! That's right, if you decide to skip out on the storyline, you'll get notified that "The Truth has Fallen Into Darkness", but you can just continue on and save survivors if you want, kill psychopaths, and slaughter zombies by the thousands. In fact, some of the game's achievements pretty much require you to do just that - there's no way you'll get Zombie Genocide, for example, playing the storyline. There's just not enough time to kill 53,597 zombies and still do the cases. (That amount is the population of the town, if anyone's wondering about the odd number)
It's not as freeform as GTA, but it does offer you a LOT of flexibility in how you play it and what you do. And with the hundreds of weapons, if all you want to do is kill zombies, there are plenty of ways to do it.
Oh, and don't forget the unusual save system - when you die, you can reload your game, which is normal. Or you can save and restart - all your gained levels, experience, and skills remain with you. So you can play again, only with a stronger main character. This is almost necessary - trying to go through the game from a Lvl 1 character is tough. Restart a few times with saving experience, though, and it becomes easier. Not easy, but easier.
Yes, there are flaws in the game. The aiming system for guns and throwing items, for example, is slow and clumsy. And the survivor AI could definitely use work. But it's a HELL of a lot better than this review implies.
Every group at Microsoft does interviews differently. So about the only conclusions you can really draw from an interview is how that specific group handles them for the time being.
I've interviewed twice here at Microsoft. Once was to get hired in at the company. A friend who was helping pass my resume around was convinced all I needed was to get flown out for an interview, and I'd get that job. She was right - I walked out at the end of the day certain that I was going to work at Microsoft and finally be able to move to Seattle. I was right. And I even found the day of interviews strangely enjoyable.
My second interview was earlier this year, when I decided I wanted to go for a position on a new team - the Xbox Live test team. It was significantly tougher - and at the same time, I was much more nervous because of how much I wanted the position. I was extremely uncertain how things went, especially cause of a rough hour with one interviewer, which involved a lot of odd C code when he knew I was quite rusty at C (after working with only C# for the past couple years). The interview was on a Friday, and on Monday morning I got notice I was getting the offer.
You can't really assume you know why you get or don't get a job offer here until you actually talk with the people who made the decisions. Especially since it's not just having the knowledge and skills to do the job that matters - they also want to make sure you fit into the group's culture.
Assassin's Creed is NOT exclusive to the PS3 - it's coming to the Xbox 360 also...
I'm totally excited to hear that Settlers of Cataan (along with Carcassonne and Alhambra) is coming to Xbox Live Arcade! I absolutely love the board game, and if the XBLA version is decent, this is going to be a big, big time sink for me.
LOL...
I work on Xbox Live. I am now involved with console gaming as a CAREER, not just a hobby. It's a dream job in many way. You think I'm gonna want to give it up? Only way that happens is if someone pays me to not work!
I work for Microsoft. Like ANYONE here is gonna want to do anything other than hate me. :)
Hehe... it's not a good picture, but I do have one...
I have to say, I wonder how Digitech's face mapper would work regarding MY hair. How does it autodetect hair color? What would happen when it tries to do my face and hair, considering that I have pink and purple bangs, and green with blue tips over the rest of my head... I'm gonna have to see if I can find someone around here on another of the Xbox groups that has a demo to try out. That should be amusing to see. :)
How about this reason?
All those additional items - friends list with presence, messaging, matchmaking, and the like - take additional effort during development to create, and more computing hardware to keep up and running. In other words, it costs quite a bit more money to provide them.