You seeem to be assuming that bigger ship = better ship - and a more survivable ship.
It's not actaully the case - the most valuable element of the gang, is the person who's mobile, can scout and can tackle. Everyone else is just the 'air strike' you call in when you've found something to kill.
You're smaller and more mobile, which is a positive benefit for your mobility - I don't fly battleships very much any more, because they're slow, cumbersome and vulnerable.
And yes, the skill progression is slow - I believe a 'full character sheet' will take you something like 20 years. But they're also steady. Once you can fly a ship, you can fly a ship, and you're progression is slowly making you better at it as you do, whilst you're learning the ropes. Most combat roles can be done at T1 and T2, so you really don't need _that_ massive a skillset to be able to do something. (Admittedly, there are a few exceptions these days, but they're fairly niche).
*shrug*. Stop waiting to level up, and get on with the part of having fun, and it all works quite well.
Lag's also getting a lot better recently too - which is what this article is all about.
The other is, of course, that every skill caps at 5, and there's only so many skillpoints that you can use to fly a ship.
Most of the veteran players out there aren't 'maxed out' in any way shape or form either - I've not maxed my skills in any ship classes, as the last level of certain skills just isn't worth the time for me. (Weapon specialisations mostly, they take significant amounts of time, for an additional 2% gain).
But in a relatively short amount of time, you can be as good in most ship classes, and better in others. You'll never be able to fly _as many_ ships, because I'm always learning more, but... well, we can each only fly one ship at a time.
Actually they _are_ looking up an upcoming release for just the points you mentioned - you will be able to get out of spaceships in the near future.
But that aside, no, I'm finding the interaction in EVE quite good actually - voice comms (built in, or ventrillo) and chat channels. The reason I like it, is I actually find it more immersive - as a capsuleer, you're in the pod in the middle of your ship, and you're immortal - it therefore makes sense that you communicate almost exclusively by 'remote'.
As a rabid fanboy, I agree entirely. He's spot on with all the points he's making - the PvE element of EVE gets dull in a hurry, and if you don't interact with other players... well, yeah.
It's like elite, but worse.
What I find disappointing though, is that he fiddled around with the tip of the ice berg, proclaimed it too small and proceeded to sail on past. EVE is a game which _requires_ you be a self starter - that you go out and do stuff at your own behest. It's for that very simple reason that some people just don't get along with it - they are used to being told what to do, for questing, for getting loot, or... well, whatever.
They fly missions for a bit - and whilst they _are_ getting better, they're not exactly the most enthralling thing in the world. Conclusion: EVE is dull, and they move on.
I don't actually think that's such a bad thing - EVE is not a game that appeals to every gamer. At a pretty fundamental level, it does involve being horrible to other players. What in other games would be 'griefing' in EVE is 'business as usual'. The kind of player who's not really thinking 'wow, a whole universe, what can I do?' won't get along anyway.
*shrug*. I play EVE a lot, and I like the freeform nature. Others won't.
The only thing that has me miffed by Zero Punctuation, is he took a massively multiplayer PvP game - didn't interact with anyone, and didn't PvP, and proclaimed it crap.
I don't know. I mean, the -average- laptop user really doesn't deserve to own a computer. Really they don't. They've no idea how it works, and are doing all kinds of monkey-poo-flinging with it.
Maybe they're even just chucking it around, or leaving it on top of their car.
When someone actively doesn't deserve to own a computer, is it not a public service to steal it from them?
You make a very good point - each time you update a resume (or CV here in UKland) you should be writing it for the job you're applying for - different jobs will have different specs, so you should make a point of how _your_ experience meets _their_ spec. And gloss over stuff that isn't at all relevant - e.g. I have 'worked in a supermarket' as my first employment, and that just about gets a line of the CV as an indication that I wasn't a workshy layabout, and that's about it - unless I'm applying for something that required 'customer facing' skills, where the fact that I was doing customer services is valuable and relevant.
The gap is a killer. If there's something that fills the gap (e.g. you were at college at the same time) then it's acceptable to omit.
But personally I'd stick with a minimal 'did tech support for...' and just 'soft focus' it, as something not overly relevant. At least, assuming it wasn't overly relevant.
Can't see it myself - my experience of Solaris is it's about the most stable hardware/OS combination I've ever used. Even with Linux on a server platform, it's still not quite there with the level of stability, and it's still the case that Sun leads the game with hardware too.
Maybe X86+Linux will overtake Sun+Solaris, but it's not there yet.
Theft includes 'intent to permanently deprive'. Therefore it's not a good analogy for copyright infringement. I agree there's a moral case that asserts artists deserve to get paid for their work. But I don't see how the RIAA fits in there. In a world where distribution is converging at 'nearly free'... well, there's not really much reason for the middle man any more, is there?
I'd say it's entirely the opposite actually. The internet is a complete revolution in the way things are - the model that the MAFIAA are plugging is just plain obselete. When something can be trivially and rapidly duplicated, at what is essentially zero cost to the original source, then they _need_ to start thinking about it differently.
From the day someone figured out how to encode an MP3, the recording industry has been dying. It's trying back to hold back the tide by 'controlling' IP.
But if you think about it, people pay for their 'utilities' such as cable TV and broadband. That's really what the recording industries need to be shifting over to - less a 'pay for a CD, get some music on it' model, and more a 'pay for a service, and use it how you will' model.
I really do think that will work. Some of the dinosaurs will become extinct in the process, true, but... well, frankly the recording industry has too long been about marketing and propaganda, than actual innovation.
People WILL pay for stuff, even stuff that they could download - I've bought DVDs, I have friends who've bought DVDs. People pay for the 'DVD rental' companies like LoveFilm. Now, imagine a service where one of the big recording industries just let you have monthly sub for a 'feed' of _their_ media library? Y'know, almost like iTunes is doing? $5 a month, for 5G of... whatever you like from their catalogue.
That _will_ fly, it just requires someone to have the balls to actually stand up and do it, rather than trying to keep their stand castles intact as the tide comes in.
Yeah, but how many _more_ would you get if you didn't have it?
You'll never get away from the fact that some employees just don't know how to use computers, but you can at least empower the ones that do have some notion of how these new fangled boxes with colours actually work. There's a whole bunch of 'easy support' tools that can mean you're able to make life easier all round.
Not really. What's idiotic is the whiny privilege culture that people feel they're 'entitled' to demand a wage so much higher than elsewhere in the world. I've never held much truck with Unions, as either you're good enough at your job to write your own ticket anyway, or you're not, and you can kindly STFU and accept that you're just not that valuable. I mean, every employee, in my opinion, has a right to vote with his feet.
Depends if you're talking professionals, or "professionals". Getting hold of an experienced and skilled sysadmin, who know's what's what with a heterogenous, disaster tolerant environment, and a 'serious' datacentre - especially if there's 'niche' kit involved - is difficult, and they tend to be extremely valuable.
If however, by professionals you mean "has graduated and can code java" or "has an MCSE" then yes, there's no shortage of those, so they get treated like monkeys. To be fair though, quite a few of them live up to that prejudice.
Writing reports is a necessary evil I'd agree. My problem is more that my 'ideal' of an IT department is that everything is so stable, reliable and automated that there literally is nothing for your admin staff to do - apart from their own systems development projects, whilst vaguely keeping an eye on incoming incidents.
I mean, IT is a utility, and should be treated much the same - engineered to the level of 'enough' resilience that the end users never see an outage. Engineered enough that the systems are self monitoring, flagging up potential problems, and autocorrecting as much as possible, to avoid problems occuring.
The best sysadmins are the ones that are working hard to put themselves out of a job. Sadly they're functionally indistinguishable from the incompetent scumbags who ignore all the red lights in the server room, but can think up good excuses as to why it's no their fault that server XYZ blew up.
Actually a well designed IT system is able to deal with that instance too. We have departmental groups, where your friend at the next desk can actually 'handle' you having finger trouble and locking your account out, without having to deal with the helldesk.
We've got file system snapshotting, so users with enough savvy to do so, can instantly recover their own data from a checkpoint for the last week.
We've got all manner of 'stuff' that lets end users do little things like that, because it really improves our service 'responsiveness' and as a bonus cuts down on helpdesk traffic.
Not so much an insurance policy, as a useful extension on the mean time between failures - I can show you servers that have lived in a dusty broom cupboard, and servers that have run in a clean datacentre. The latter are the ones that have a longer service life.
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It's not actaully the case - the most valuable element of the gang, is the person who's mobile, can scout and can tackle. Everyone else is just the 'air strike' you call in when you've found something to kill.
You're smaller and more mobile, which is a positive benefit for your mobility - I don't fly battleships very much any more, because they're slow, cumbersome and vulnerable.
And yes, the skill progression is slow - I believe a 'full character sheet' will take you something like 20 years. But they're also steady. Once you can fly a ship, you can fly a ship, and you're progression is slowly making you better at it as you do, whilst you're learning the ropes. Most combat roles can be done at T1 and T2, so you really don't need _that_ massive a skillset to be able to do something. (Admittedly, there are a few exceptions these days, but they're fairly niche).
*shrug*. Stop waiting to level up, and get on with the part of having fun, and it all works quite well.
Lag's also getting a lot better recently too - which is what this article is all about.
The other is, of course, that every skill caps at 5, and there's only so many skillpoints that you can use to fly a ship.
Most of the veteran players out there aren't 'maxed out' in any way shape or form either - I've not maxed my skills in any ship classes, as the last level of certain skills just isn't worth the time for me. (Weapon specialisations mostly, they take significant amounts of time, for an additional 2% gain).
But in a relatively short amount of time, you can be as good in most ship classes, and better in others. You'll never be able to fly _as many_ ships, because I'm always learning more, but ... well, we can each only fly one ship at a time.
But that aside, no, I'm finding the interaction in EVE quite good actually - voice comms (built in, or ventrillo) and chat channels. The reason I like it, is I actually find it more immersive - as a capsuleer, you're in the pod in the middle of your ship, and you're immortal - it therefore makes sense that you communicate almost exclusively by 'remote'.
It's like elite, but worse.
What I find disappointing though, is that he fiddled around with the tip of the ice berg, proclaimed it too small and proceeded to sail on past. EVE is a game which _requires_ you be a self starter - that you go out and do stuff at your own behest. It's for that very simple reason that some people just don't get along with it - they are used to being told what to do, for questing, for getting loot, or ... well, whatever.
They fly missions for a bit - and whilst they _are_ getting better, they're not exactly the most enthralling thing in the world. Conclusion: EVE is dull, and they move on.
I don't actually think that's such a bad thing - EVE is not a game that appeals to every gamer. At a pretty fundamental level, it does involve being horrible to other players. What in other games would be 'griefing' in EVE is 'business as usual'. The kind of player who's not really thinking 'wow, a whole universe, what can I do?' won't get along anyway.
*shrug*. I play EVE a lot, and I like the freeform nature. Others won't.
The only thing that has me miffed by Zero Punctuation, is he took a massively multiplayer PvP game - didn't interact with anyone, and didn't PvP, and proclaimed it crap.
Maybe they're even just chucking it around, or leaving it on top of their car.
When someone actively doesn't deserve to own a computer, is it not a public service to steal it from them?
Well, the ones that get caught are :).
I'd like to be the top travelling salesman in the world, damnit!
Encouraging someone to do something stupid doesn't actually change the fact that it's stupid though :)
If you define 2 as:
1.5<=2<2.5
Then 2+2 is somewhere between 3 and 5, and any values where 2>2.25 the answer would be rounded to 5.
You make a very good point - each time you update a resume (or CV here in UKland) you should be writing it for the job you're applying for - different jobs will have different specs, so you should make a point of how _your_ experience meets _their_ spec. And gloss over stuff that isn't at all relevant - e.g. I have 'worked in a supermarket' as my first employment, and that just about gets a line of the CV as an indication that I wasn't a workshy layabout, and that's about it - unless I'm applying for something that required 'customer facing' skills, where the fact that I was doing customer services is valuable and relevant.
But personally I'd stick with a minimal 'did tech support for ...' and just 'soft focus' it, as something not overly relevant. At least, assuming it wasn't overly relevant.
Wow, that's a social life that is.
Maybe X86+Linux will overtake Sun+Solaris, but it's not there yet.
Yeah, but as long as the software doesn't actually cost any thing, then... you get what you pay for.
Get an ISP that isn't crooked.
When they're using the kind of energy that knocks out country powergrids, then yes, it is a consideration.
Theft includes 'intent to permanently deprive'. Therefore it's not a good analogy for copyright infringement. I agree there's a moral case that asserts artists deserve to get paid for their work. But I don't see how the RIAA fits in there. In a world where distribution is converging at 'nearly free'... well, there's not really much reason for the middle man any more, is there?
Then perhaps it's time to get a real job, and not carry on doing something you suck at.
From the day someone figured out how to encode an MP3, the recording industry has been dying. It's trying back to hold back the tide by 'controlling' IP.
But if you think about it, people pay for their 'utilities' such as cable TV and broadband. That's really what the recording industries need to be shifting over to - less a 'pay for a CD, get some music on it' model, and more a 'pay for a service, and use it how you will' model.
I really do think that will work. Some of the dinosaurs will become extinct in the process, true, but ... well, frankly the recording industry has too long been about marketing and propaganda, than actual innovation.
People WILL pay for stuff, even stuff that they could download - I've bought DVDs, I have friends who've bought DVDs. People pay for the 'DVD rental' companies like LoveFilm. Now, imagine a service where one of the big recording industries just let you have monthly sub for a 'feed' of _their_ media library? Y'know, almost like iTunes is doing? $5 a month, for 5G of ... whatever you like from their catalogue.
That _will_ fly, it just requires someone to have the balls to actually stand up and do it, rather than trying to keep their stand castles intact as the tide comes in.
You'll never get away from the fact that some employees just don't know how to use computers, but you can at least empower the ones that do have some notion of how these new fangled boxes with colours actually work. There's a whole bunch of 'easy support' tools that can mean you're able to make life easier all round.
Not really. What's idiotic is the whiny privilege culture that people feel they're 'entitled' to demand a wage so much higher than elsewhere in the world. I've never held much truck with Unions, as either you're good enough at your job to write your own ticket anyway, or you're not, and you can kindly STFU and accept that you're just not that valuable. I mean, every employee, in my opinion, has a right to vote with his feet.
If however, by professionals you mean "has graduated and can code java" or "has an MCSE" then yes, there's no shortage of those, so they get treated like monkeys. To be fair though, quite a few of them live up to that prejudice.
I mean, IT is a utility, and should be treated much the same - engineered to the level of 'enough' resilience that the end users never see an outage. Engineered enough that the systems are self monitoring, flagging up potential problems, and autocorrecting as much as possible, to avoid problems occuring.
The best sysadmins are the ones that are working hard to put themselves out of a job. Sadly they're functionally indistinguishable from the incompetent scumbags who ignore all the red lights in the server room, but can think up good excuses as to why it's no their fault that server XYZ blew up.
We've got file system snapshotting, so users with enough savvy to do so, can instantly recover their own data from a checkpoint for the last week.
We've got all manner of 'stuff' that lets end users do little things like that, because it really improves our service 'responsiveness' and as a bonus cuts down on helpdesk traffic.
Not so much an insurance policy, as a useful extension on the mean time between failures - I can show you servers that have lived in a dusty broom cupboard, and servers that have run in a clean datacentre. The latter are the ones that have a longer service life.