Every time I hear about record labels these days I'm forced to think about the indies, who create the best music and get paid the least. My only hope is that a site like mp3.com will learn from the mistakes of mp3.com and come up with a solution for indies to profit and truly compete against big labels with more even footing. Nobody likes a grudge match like I do.:-)
Bait and switch concepts always fail business, and it looks like Apple will have to cave to the pressure from groups like the RIAA (who happen to be in love with shady business practices). Drug dealers do the same thing; $0.99 for the first hit and then you get gouged when you're hooked! Maybe taco was right after all?!?
Mossberg might be powerful in terms of the flow of money (ie: entropy), but the collective minds of Slashdot readers will always be more powerful in terms of long-term product/service viability because it's communities like Slashdot that truly direct the whole world-influence; if we see shit, we call it shit, and if we see gold we call it gold. Sites like Slashdot influence informed technology purchases, I would think, much more than someone like Mossberg could.
> In the end, you probably alienated both management and the people with whom you worked.
Unevenly applied management causes this kind of office atmosphere. It's a rookie move for a manager to apply rules to some and not others. If you are a manager and you feel like only applying rules to part of your staff, you have to drop any rule that would have to be applied in this manner.
Hardly any security problems will crash VB at runtime. Same goes for PHP. Security and bugs are two different things, really. Security is a system design plan, while bugs are merely accidents that crop up from time to time. Some bugs are caused by incorrect system design, and others are merely accidental.
Why you should switch is entirely up to you. VB and PHP are not the same system at all. VB creates executable code, and PHP is only a scripting solution. For my needs, PHP is the best choice. What are your needs?
> In the end, if you get fired for taking a moral stand, there are many employers who would like to have you on board.
Send them my way. I need a career kickstart.
> In most cases, employers who would fire you for such a reason, would never hire you in the first place.
SO true. Many of these kinds of infractions go unreported because it's quite difficult to prove discrimination in the hiring process. Anything short of a 20/20 expose piece likely won't work, or will work only a small percentage of the time.
Forcing someone to lie is common practice in most companies. They may call it "marketing" but I call it collective creativity. Updating our systems... that's a good one. Most systems are updated in parallel, so updates should not cause down-time.
> They can take away my employment, but they can't take away my ethics and dignity.
Having been to many corporate functions, I would have to point out that it's the secret mission of many managers to rob you of all ethics and dignity in the hopes that it will make you a better "team player". God I love Dilbert!!!:-)
I think it was a trick. You see they told us to wear the hats and then the guy told me to take it off. I'm pretty sure if there was a uniform, I would have a case, but it's pretty obscured. I was not really given the chance to remove the hat, and I would have but I was being screamed at, at the time. I was standing there dumbfounded! Ack, what a mess that was.
> Now, unless you are not disclosing some other kind of trouble you caused, it seems like your boss is a real asshole.
I think you got this one correct. I was a model employee who always solved the computer problems as the surfaced, quickly. The management just didn't respect computer people at all. We were all labled as such and generally mistreated.
> When you come out, they scan it. If it registers any errors, it spits back out, and you get to re-do. If it is correct, it sucks the ballot into the box and records the data electronically.
The security problem is that people will see your ballot and match it to your face. If it spits out a ballot that's got errors, they can see who *you* voted for. That's the problem. They need a system that will protect your identity. And you can't trust someone, just anyone, to use a system they are unfamiliar with.
See, he's concerened about voting fraud, and you wore a hat to work and refused to take it off.
I totally agree. The reason I posted this was because I wanted to illustrate how difficult it can be to sue a former employer in Canada. The details are pretty irrelevant because most companies can dance around them. I'm quite pleased this fellow is trying to shine a light on voter fraud, but I wanted to emphasize how much he's risking doing so. It ain't easy!
> "I didn't feel that just shutting up was, in my opinion, the American thing to do," he said.
I can totally understand this point of view. I've experienced similar events in my career. But not exactly the same, in that my former employer was just a bully, not distributing defective products.
I'm always surprised when I hear of terminated employees suing their bosses. Most of us don't have the resources to pull off successful termination suits in Canada, because we have to put our lawyers on retainer, and the whole process seems hardly worth the effort.
I was recently terminated by my employer after filing several grievances for harassment, and I looked into a lawsuit. What I found was not impressive at all; it could take years for me to successfully sue my former employer and the onus for proof was on me. There were witnesses to the events, but for obvious reasons, they weren't taking my side, as they were all afraid to lose their jobs. I wore a hat in the office, a company hat, and the boss handed them out only a few days prior to the final straw. When I wore it to work, the boss told me to take it off and I said that I had hat-head, and that I would not wear it the following day, but that I had to wear it that day. FYI, the employer did not tell us never to wear these company hats in the office, prior to the event. The boss caused a huge scene and started swearing at me in front of the whole office, calling me names and carrying on like a total madman. As a result of the disturbance, I had a meeting with HR and we agreed that I would have two-weeks "come as you please" time, where I could work from home or work late at night instead of working regular hours. The boss informed me that this was not acceptable, and he insisted that I be present while some important clients were there. I gave in, not wanting to further confront this boss. Finally, on the last day of the so-called free-time, I informed the HR manager that I would not be present, and that I would be working from home. I was fired by my boss the same day.
So, after being wrongfully dismissed, I looked into suing my employer, and the cost is extremely prohibitive. I may not even win, I was informed, because I broke some office policy by refusing to remove the company hat, even though it was given to me a few days prior, and even though I was told to wear it. The fact that I was insubordinate, or it could be implied that I was insubordinate, is the reason I would have no grounds, or it would be totally hard to prove my case, even though I was verbally abused on several times prior to this event. Even though I was on HR leave, I could still be fired, because I guess the manager somehow trumps HR?
All in all, my case was too complicated to be profitable in court. I would end up losing money or merely breaking even. The fact that I'm a white male in his mid-thirties, also has an impact on the possible success of such a case.
> I attack those things because they are indicative of a disinclination to share information.
I don't see it that way at all. Give it time and we'll get our ducks in a row.
> Because reading is better than listening.
Not true. Why is radio so popular? Why is television so popular? Reading conveys 86% more information than text; you get a sense of meaning from listening to someone speak that is not present in text.
Of course we are going to publish some things on our project, when it's done. But not beforehand, really. The only purpose for publishing things beforehand would be to allow people like you to tear them apart. Why would I waste my time? I would rather spend it on the product itself.
> It seems USCCT doesn't know much about game development. They were probably impressed by the lofty goals, while I'm more focused on the fact that you have no way to approach those goals.
Oh please. Spare me that bullshit. How could you possibly know what I'm capable of? Are you omnipotent? I think not.
> Screenshots. Renders. Slides. Charts. Design docs. Anything like that would restore a little faith.
That would be great if I was interested in restoring faith in you. I gave up on that the minute I read your first comment, because you would never be into a project like this. I think you are outside of our demographic, actually.
> visiting your actual website makes it appear that there is no progress at all.
Go work on a game for a few years and come back to me. Learn about your topic before speaking about it; there doesn't have to be any information up until the project ships. That's because we don't want to lose our focus.:-)
> Just look at it from the high-level: you plan to implement a game about popularity and social hierarchy on top of DOOM, an engine whose only means of interpersonal interaction is firing bullets! If you want to create a project exploring clique behavior of adolescents, try starting from a base that actually supports "human relationship" as a concept; something like The Sims.
Not at all. I'm not about to boing-boing condepts at you, but what I will say is that it's much closer to GTA than The Sims; the social constructs occur within the story, or at least that's what the dev docs are saying right now. They could change after we get Doom 3 (yet another reason not to publish them yet).
> As they say in Hollywood, if you can't hook em in 25 words, you got nothin'.
Yet again, you're wearing your pants on your head. Marketing on DFC will only begin when the game is ready and tested, not before.
> Heard about Fair Use? Heard about quoting small sections of a work as part of a critique? You have no right to prohibit me from advising others as to the nature of the file.
Yes, and you were instructed in the readme that fair use included listening to the audio only. You're welcome to quote it, but I think it's in bad taste to do so, because the readme states it as prohibited by the author. Why don't you start challenging the GPL if you think EULAs aren't legal? By all means, go paint a huge bullseye on your skull.:-)
> the Irish Minister for the Environment has bowed to pressure and conceded that the system has not been proven safe
Well, until an Open Source Evoting system is available, and the kinks are flushed out, many closed source systems will keep trying to get this contract or that contract. The simple fact is, they should all be designing Internet voting using the Online Banking Model, and keeping the source code open so that it can be truly stress-tested and understood.
I was under the impression that Atlantis was only used as a fictitious example, a parable, from the early Greek philosophers, to teach the destruction of a socity to those who might not otherwise understand it.
> Heave the "baby" out with the bathwater. Spyware is called spyware because of what it is.
I agree. To me, spyware is anything that has no purpose but to relay private information back to a server. Usually it latches on other software, like a parisite, but everything would work better without it. Personally, I don't care if registration software falls into the spyware definition. If I want to register my software, I'll hit the product website and hand over my info. But that's a waste of time, for me, the end user, who has no time for such crap.
I am pleased you listened to the presentation, but I also think your review is biased, as you hated the project before you listened to the presentation. You attack the sound quality, the file, the configuration... there is nothing you liked about it, right? Well the only way that could be true, is if you had some kind of preconceived notion of how to identify with it, in all your glory.;-)
> How to obfuscate the fact you have almost nothing to say:
This whole post is formatted like a GNAA troll. Are you a member of GNAA? If not, you should consider framing your comments in a way that won't trigger flamebait responses.
Because I'm a good guy, I'll answer all of your comments, as if they aren't a troll.
The response from USC Cinema-Television was 100% positive. How do you explain that? Is it because my 80min presentation had no content? They admire the scope of the project and they admired the fact I was doing this, even against the grain of many, many people... because it's a project I believe in.
> I actually have great respect for the people who do projects along these lines (I admire Powerkill for example)- I simply have no belief that you are actually doing one!
What would it take to convince you?
> You post about DFC in the present tense, which is premature at best. This seems to be an attempt to give your public opinions more credibility, by creating the illusion of some firsthand experience.
I think most of it is in future tense, but I think I get your point. You are among the millions of movie goers and gamers who think that movies and video games happen overnight! My hats off to you and those like you. If it weren't for people like you, making games would be so boring!! My public opinions, on the other hand, are serious, and rooted in a lifelong experience in video game design. I posted information about my personal history in the first part of the recording, because I was asked to.
> I've been in the mod-scene too... and I've seen many over-ambitious projects that had such grand ideas that they obviously were never going to get off the ground.
What mods have you created or worked on? Or are you a player of mods? I've seen many over-ambitious projects too, and I have a great deal of experience with many of them. That's the beauty of it. When you get enough experience with failure, you can succeed because you learn where the land mines are and you step around them.
I have a team of people working on DFC right now. We have been working on it for over a year, to get it right. And the project has gone through many revisions, many shitstorms from casual gamers or the inflamed, and it all comes down to the simple fact that nobody can stop a free project, no matter how much they wish to (as long as it doesn't infringe trademarks like Aliens TC when they were foxed). You clearly appear to be one of the people who doesn't wish to see Doom for Columbine released, and you're welcome to that opinion, but it's sad when people try to hose a project before it sees the light. You have no business doing that.
> This seems to be an attempt to give your public opinions more credibility, by creating the illusion of some firsthand experience.
To you it seems like nothing more than a troll. That's your opinion, but wouldn't you like to see a serious project that combats school bullying and violence?
> Many, many people have had oddball game ideas that'll never come to anything. But much of them have the decency not to pretend do have accomplished something until they actually do.
What a totally ridiculous statement. I have not announced that I have accomplished anything. I have not misrepresented myself or this project, either.
> Id software has a philosophy: "When its done"- think about it sometime.
If you had actually thought about it, you wouldn't have used it in that sense. "When it's done" is a
> But more generously, can't you look at the "troll" label in a positive way?
I can see why you might suggest this; you are trolling for comments yourself, and I think it's in bad taste to do so. Picking fights never has any positive effect. Why don't you listen to what I've said in the seminar with USC Cinema-Television and get back to me? See if you have the same impression of the project after you have grounded yourself in the subject matter a little better.
I will say this much; I've done my time in the mod community since the mid nineties, and I intend to create DFC because I think it's a compelling subject that deserves attention; and I think I can make a fun, interesting game out of it using the Doom 3 engine. What's wrong with that?
> Many books have been written then adapted to screen without the author giving thought to the limitations of the movie effects at the time.
You raise an interesting point. The problem, however, is that film and novella are quite similar. They take place, event after event, scene after scene, chapter after chapter; the crux of video game design is usability, which never enters the realm of film.
> It was something like that. It basically wrote 0's to the memory until the PC shit itself and crashed.
I remember when I only had 16k to play with on my TI 99/4A. I saved all summer to get the expansion box and the extra 16k cardie. If I had invested that money, I would rich today! But I'm a poor jobless bastard....
This was likely a troll, but I will answer it as if you were being serious.
> Yeah, because we all know that having one singular borglike corporate vision leads to all sorts of creative innovation.
How did you arrive at that conclusion?
> So, maybe it's not a systemic problem. But if use the word systemic will the slashdot mods mark me insightful ?
But it is a systemic problem because video game design is still very young and correct systems have not been implemented to transfer between style, design and theory, from paper to video or 3d animation. Plenty of hours still need to be spent working on teamwork. Plus with some new systems in place that adapt to technology trends, we're one step closer. Not there yet, however.
> I suppose I demonstrated that. Well, we've been flamed and trolled for quite some time. We get lots of "0% content" trolls, and lots of "obscene" trolls... but our hearts are in the right place. If you happen to listen to that presentation, let me know what you think!;-)
Download the 80min presentation for USC Cinema-Television. Many of the concepts for the project are detailed in that seminar audio. This is an anti-violent project dedicated at tackling some pretty difficult content, from the perspective of an outcast.
> "Doom for Columbine" doesn't immediately strike me as an appropriate name.
I think it fits, as the project is about Columbine and the project is dedicated to the victims.
> I guess by your reasoning that special effect movies are impossible as well.
I didn't say that, really. Movies that have CG in them differ strongly from video games because they are not realtime; you can render anything with a few dozen systems working through the weekend, but if you want a client to render your scenes, they had better be well-thunk. When you have mouse and video lag to worry about (ie: real-time framerates), it makes the story harder to tell if you don't understand these issues, fully. Authors who do understand these things tend to create video games with fantastic stories that convince us of the reality of the situation, without detracting from the gameplay at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Every time I hear about record labels these days I'm forced to think about the indies, who create the best music and get paid the least. My only hope is that a site like mp3.com will learn from the mistakes of mp3.com and come up with a solution for indies to profit and truly compete against big labels with more even footing. Nobody likes a grudge match like I do. :-)
Bait and switch concepts always fail business, and it looks like Apple will have to cave to the pressure from groups like the RIAA (who happen to be in love with shady business practices). Drug dealers do the same thing; $0.99 for the first hit and then you get gouged when you're hooked! Maybe taco was right after all?!?
> the collective minds of Slashdot readers will always be more powerful in terms of long-term product/service viability
What part of the above statement confused you?
Mossberg might be powerful in terms of the flow of money (ie: entropy), but the collective minds of Slashdot readers will always be more powerful in terms of long-term product/service viability because it's communities like Slashdot that truly direct the whole world-influence; if we see shit, we call it shit, and if we see gold we call it gold. Sites like Slashdot influence informed technology purchases, I would think, much more than someone like Mossberg could.
> I need a way to port a huge (80k LOC) VB/IIS web app project over to PHP in a couple of days without it failing and me/my staff looking incompetent.
Maybe you could outsource it to someone? I'm not very busy right now...
> In the end, you probably alienated both management and the people with whom you worked.
Unevenly applied management causes this kind of office atmosphere. It's a rookie move for a manager to apply rules to some and not others. If you are a manager and you feel like only applying rules to part of your staff, you have to drop any rule that would have to be applied in this manner.
Only rules that apply to everyone are valid.
> Why should I switch to Linux/PHP/mySQL
Hardly any security problems will crash VB at runtime. Same goes for PHP. Security and bugs are two different things, really. Security is a system design plan, while bugs are merely accidents that crop up from time to time. Some bugs are caused by incorrect system design, and others are merely accidental.
Why you should switch is entirely up to you. VB and PHP are not the same system at all. VB creates executable code, and PHP is only a scripting solution. For my needs, PHP is the best choice. What are your needs?
> In the end, if you get fired for taking a moral stand, there are many employers who would like to have you on board.
:-)
Send them my way. I need a career kickstart.
> In most cases, employers who would fire you for such a reason, would never hire you in the first place.
SO true. Many of these kinds of infractions go unreported because it's quite difficult to prove discrimination in the hiring process. Anything short of a 20/20 expose piece likely won't work, or will work only a small percentage of the time.
Forcing someone to lie is common practice in most companies. They may call it "marketing" but I call it collective creativity. Updating our systems... that's a good one. Most systems are updated in parallel, so updates should not cause down-time.
> They can take away my employment, but they can't take away my ethics and dignity.
Having been to many corporate functions, I would have to point out that it's the secret mission of many managers to rob you of all ethics and dignity in the hopes that it will make you a better "team player". God I love Dilbert!!!
I think it was a trick. You see they told us to wear the hats and then the guy told me to take it off. I'm pretty sure if there was a uniform, I would have a case, but it's pretty obscured. I was not really given the chance to remove the hat, and I would have but I was being screamed at, at the time. I was standing there dumbfounded! Ack, what a mess that was.
> Now, unless you are not disclosing some other kind of trouble you caused, it seems like your boss is a real asshole.
I think you got this one correct. I was a model employee who always solved the computer problems as the surfaced, quickly. The management just didn't respect computer people at all. We were all labled as such and generally mistreated.
> When you come out, they scan it. If it registers any errors, it spits back out, and you get to re-do. If it is correct, it sucks the ballot into the box and records the data electronically.
The security problem is that people will see your ballot and match it to your face. If it spits out a ballot that's got errors, they can see who *you* voted for. That's the problem. They need a system that will protect your identity. And you can't trust someone, just anyone, to use a system they are unfamiliar with.
Maybe ABM/ATM machines could be used for voting?
See, he's concerened about voting fraud, and you wore a hat to work and refused to take it off.
I totally agree. The reason I posted this was because I wanted to illustrate how difficult it can be to sue a former employer in Canada. The details are pretty irrelevant because most companies can dance around them. I'm quite pleased this fellow is trying to shine a light on voter fraud, but I wanted to emphasize how much he's risking doing so. It ain't easy!
> "I didn't feel that just shutting up was, in my opinion, the American thing to do," he said.
I can totally understand this point of view. I've experienced similar events in my career. But not exactly the same, in that my former employer was just a bully, not distributing defective products.
I'm always surprised when I hear of terminated employees suing their bosses. Most of us don't have the resources to pull off successful termination suits in Canada, because we have to put our lawyers on retainer, and the whole process seems hardly worth the effort.
I was recently terminated by my employer after filing several grievances for harassment, and I looked into a lawsuit. What I found was not impressive at all; it could take years for me to successfully sue my former employer and the onus for proof was on me. There were witnesses to the events, but for obvious reasons, they weren't taking my side, as they were all afraid to lose their jobs. I wore a hat in the office, a company hat, and the boss handed them out only a few days prior to the final straw. When I wore it to work, the boss told me to take it off and I said that I had hat-head, and that I would not wear it the following day, but that I had to wear it that day. FYI, the employer did not tell us never to wear these company hats in the office, prior to the event. The boss caused a huge scene and started swearing at me in front of the whole office, calling me names and carrying on like a total madman. As a result of the disturbance, I had a meeting with HR and we agreed that I would have two-weeks "come as you please" time, where I could work from home or work late at night instead of working regular hours. The boss informed me that this was not acceptable, and he insisted that I be present while some important clients were there. I gave in, not wanting to further confront this boss. Finally, on the last day of the so-called free-time, I informed the HR manager that I would not be present, and that I would be working from home. I was fired by my boss the same day.
So, after being wrongfully dismissed, I looked into suing my employer, and the cost is extremely prohibitive. I may not even win, I was informed, because I broke some office policy by refusing to remove the company hat, even though it was given to me a few days prior, and even though I was told to wear it. The fact that I was insubordinate, or it could be implied that I was insubordinate, is the reason I would have no grounds, or it would be totally hard to prove my case, even though I was verbally abused on several times prior to this event. Even though I was on HR leave, I could still be fired, because I guess the manager somehow trumps HR?
All in all, my case was too complicated to be profitable in court. I would end up losing money or merely breaking even. The fact that I'm a white male in his mid-thirties, also has an impact on the possible success of such a case.
> I attack those things because they are indicative of a disinclination to share information.
:-)
:-)
I don't see it that way at all. Give it time and we'll get our ducks in a row.
> Because reading is better than listening.
Not true. Why is radio so popular? Why is television so popular? Reading conveys 86% more information than text; you get a sense of meaning from listening to someone speak that is not present in text.
Of course we are going to publish some things on our project, when it's done. But not beforehand, really. The only purpose for publishing things beforehand would be to allow people like you to tear them apart. Why would I waste my time? I would rather spend it on the product itself.
> It seems USCCT doesn't know much about game development. They were probably impressed by the lofty goals, while I'm more focused on the fact that you have no way to approach those goals.
Oh please. Spare me that bullshit. How could you possibly know what I'm capable of? Are you omnipotent? I think not.
> Screenshots. Renders. Slides. Charts. Design docs. Anything like that would restore a little faith.
That would be great if I was interested in restoring faith in you. I gave up on that the minute I read your first comment, because you would never be into a project like this. I think you are outside of our demographic, actually.
> visiting your actual website makes it appear that there is no progress at all.
Go work on a game for a few years and come back to me. Learn about your topic before speaking about it; there doesn't have to be any information up until the project ships. That's because we don't want to lose our focus.
> Just look at it from the high-level: you plan to implement a game about popularity and social hierarchy on top of DOOM, an engine whose only means of interpersonal interaction is firing bullets! If you want to create a project exploring clique behavior of adolescents, try starting from a base that actually supports "human relationship" as a concept; something like The Sims.
Not at all. I'm not about to boing-boing condepts at you, but what I will say is that it's much closer to GTA than The Sims; the social constructs occur within the story, or at least that's what the dev docs are saying right now. They could change after we get Doom 3 (yet another reason not to publish them yet).
> As they say in Hollywood, if you can't hook em in 25 words, you got nothin'.
Yet again, you're wearing your pants on your head. Marketing on DFC will only begin when the game is ready and tested, not before.
> Heard about Fair Use? Heard about quoting small sections of a work as part of a critique? You have no right to prohibit me from advising others as to the nature of the file.
Yes, and you were instructed in the readme that fair use included listening to the audio only. You're welcome to quote it, but I think it's in bad taste to do so, because the readme states it as prohibited by the author. Why don't you start challenging the GPL if you think EULAs aren't legal? By all means, go paint a huge bullseye on your skull.
> the Irish Minister for the Environment has bowed to pressure and conceded that the system has not been proven safe
Well, until an Open Source Evoting system is available, and the kinks are flushed out, many closed source systems will keep trying to get this contract or that contract. The simple fact is, they should all be designing Internet voting using the Online Banking Model, and keeping the source code open so that it can be truly stress-tested and understood.
I think it's crap like this that is going to get you ignored.
> waste of time and resources
If it's such a waste of time, why are you spending all your time on it arguing with me about Doom for Columbine?
Ahhh it's people like you that destroy gaming communities everywhere. I bet you're a Fallout fan, am I right?
I was under the impression that Atlantis was only used as a fictitious example, a parable, from the early Greek philosophers, to teach the destruction of a socity to those who might not otherwise understand it.
> Heave the "baby" out with the bathwater. Spyware is called spyware because of what it is.
I agree. To me, spyware is anything that has no purpose but to relay private information back to a server. Usually it latches on other software, like a parisite, but everything would work better without it. Personally, I don't care if registration software falls into the spyware definition. If I want to register my software, I'll hit the product website and hand over my info. But that's a waste of time, for me, the end user, who has no time for such crap.
I am pleased you listened to the presentation, but I also think your review is biased, as you hated the project before you listened to the presentation. You attack the sound quality, the file, the configuration... there is nothing you liked about it, right? Well the only way that could be true, is if you had some kind of preconceived notion of how to identify with it, in all your glory. ;-)
> How to obfuscate the fact you have almost nothing to say:
This whole post is formatted like a GNAA troll. Are you a member of GNAA? If not, you should consider framing your comments in a way that won't trigger flamebait responses.
Because I'm a good guy, I'll answer all of your comments, as if they aren't a troll.
The response from USC Cinema-Television was 100% positive. How do you explain that? Is it because my 80min presentation had no content? They admire the scope of the project and they admired the fact I was doing this, even against the grain of many, many people... because it's a project I believe in.
> I actually have great respect for the people who do projects along these lines (I admire Powerkill for example)- I simply have no belief that you are actually doing one!
What would it take to convince you?
> You post about DFC in the present tense, which is premature at best. This seems to be an attempt to give your public opinions more credibility, by creating the illusion of some firsthand experience.
I think most of it is in future tense, but I think I get your point. You are among the millions of movie goers and gamers who think that movies and video games happen overnight! My hats off to you and those like you. If it weren't for people like you, making games would be so boring!! My public opinions, on the other hand, are serious, and rooted in a lifelong experience in video game design. I posted information about my personal history in the first part of the recording, because I was asked to.
> I've been in the mod-scene too... and I've seen many over-ambitious projects that had such grand ideas that they obviously were never going to get off the ground.
What mods have you created or worked on? Or are you a player of mods? I've seen many over-ambitious projects too, and I have a great deal of experience with many of them. That's the beauty of it. When you get enough experience with failure, you can succeed because you learn where the land mines are and you step around them.
I have a team of people working on DFC right now. We have been working on it for over a year, to get it right. And the project has gone through many revisions, many shitstorms from casual gamers or the inflamed, and it all comes down to the simple fact that nobody can stop a free project, no matter how much they wish to (as long as it doesn't infringe trademarks like Aliens TC when they were foxed). You clearly appear to be one of the people who doesn't wish to see Doom for Columbine released, and you're welcome to that opinion, but it's sad when people try to hose a project before it sees the light. You have no business doing that.
> This seems to be an attempt to give your public opinions more credibility, by creating the illusion of some firsthand experience.
To you it seems like nothing more than a troll. That's your opinion, but wouldn't you like to see a serious project that combats school bullying and violence?
> Many, many people have had oddball game ideas that'll never come to anything. But much of them have the decency not to pretend do have accomplished something until they actually do.
What a totally ridiculous statement. I have not announced that I have accomplished anything. I have not misrepresented myself or this project, either.
> Id software has a philosophy: "When its done"- think about it sometime.
If you had actually thought about it, you wouldn't have used it in that sense. "When it's done" is a
> But more generously, can't you look at the "troll" label in a positive way?
I can see why you might suggest this; you are trolling for comments yourself, and I think it's in bad taste to do so. Picking fights never has any positive effect. Why don't you listen to what I've said in the seminar with USC Cinema-Television and get back to me? See if you have the same impression of the project after you have grounded yourself in the subject matter a little better.
I will say this much; I've done my time in the mod community since the mid nineties, and I intend to create DFC because I think it's a compelling subject that deserves attention; and I think I can make a fun, interesting game out of it using the Doom 3 engine. What's wrong with that?
> Many books have been written then adapted to screen without the author giving thought to the limitations of the movie effects at the time.
You raise an interesting point. The problem, however, is that film and novella are quite similar. They take place, event after event, scene after scene, chapter after chapter; the crux of video game design is usability, which never enters the realm of film.
> It was something like that. It basically wrote 0's to the memory until the PC shit itself and crashed.
I remember when I only had 16k to play with on my TI 99/4A. I saved all summer to get the expansion box and the extra 16k cardie. If I had invested that money, I would rich today! But I'm a poor jobless bastard....
This was likely a troll, but I will answer it as if you were being serious.
> Yeah, because we all know that having one singular borglike corporate vision leads to all sorts of creative innovation.
How did you arrive at that conclusion?
> So, maybe it's not a systemic problem. But if use the word systemic will the slashdot mods mark me insightful ?
But it is a systemic problem because video game design is still very young and correct systems have not been implemented to transfer between style, design and theory, from paper to video or 3d animation. Plenty of hours still need to be spent working on teamwork. Plus with some new systems in place that adapt to technology trends, we're one step closer. Not there yet, however.
> I suppose I demonstrated that. ;-)
Well, we've been flamed and trolled for quite some time. We get lots of "0% content" trolls, and lots of "obscene" trolls... but our hearts are in the right place. If you happen to listen to that presentation, let me know what you think!
> That poster's a troll. He attempts to plug his own 0% complete Doom mod in every topic relating to FPS or violent games.
This is simply untrue.
> What's it about?
Download the 80min presentation for USC Cinema-Television. Many of the concepts for the project are detailed in that seminar audio. This is an anti-violent project dedicated at tackling some pretty difficult content, from the perspective of an outcast.
> "Doom for Columbine" doesn't immediately strike me as an appropriate name.
I think it fits, as the project is about Columbine and the project is dedicated to the victims.
> I guess by your reasoning that special effect movies are impossible as well.
I didn't say that, really. Movies that have CG in them differ strongly from video games because they are not realtime; you can render anything with a few dozen systems working through the weekend, but if you want a client to render your scenes, they had better be well-thunk. When you have mouse and video lag to worry about (ie: real-time framerates), it makes the story harder to tell if you don't understand these issues, fully. Authors who do understand these things tend to create video games with fantastic stories that convince us of the reality of the situation, without detracting from the gameplay at all.