Actually, this would not be odd at all for large companies. It's basically the left hand not knowing what the right is doing, even in such a blatant fashion.
Best example is Sony, who has wound up suing itself a couple of times. I don't remember the exact article, but it detailed the problems facing the company since its technology arm was often at odds with its entertainment/content distribution arm. Time Warner, I bet, has run into the same problems with AOL under their belts.
Even in "smaller" companies this kind of stuff happens. My company works with car dealerships and manufacturers like Ford, GM, etc. We sell a lot of products and services to the Big Car Companies, but in one strange twist, once we wound up joining a class-action lawsuit with our direct competitors suing our customers over a certain program (basically the case is that the car companies aren't sharing the required information so their dealers won't be able to switch from their own systems -- I believe it was settled out of court). But even so, it never really affected relationships with the car companies or anyone else. It's this odd bit of business life that sometimes you can sue your best friend and help your most bitter enemy, but relationships with those people don't change as a result of the actions.
Forget String Theory and Quantum Mechanics; the business world is really where the bizarre happens.
Exceptions do exist, depending on the development team. "Toy Story 2" out-performed the original "Toy Story" for the very good reason of a great script backed by the latest improvements in computer animation.
Personally, I was a little disappointed in "Shrek," because it really wasn't all that different from a Disney film; the moral was "The inner you is what counts," as well as the long "celebration" scene at the end. It would have been refreshing to have seen Dreamworks break the mold of American amimated films completely by trying something new. Hopefully, they'll do that this time out.
I suppose it depends on what you consider "useful." I'm not big on the ads, but then, I'm not big on ads, regardless if they're interactive of not.
Being a long time fan of animation, I've enjoyed the new ways that the medium is being used on the web. But what I haven't seen mentioned on here (yet) is Flash's use off-line. My company has created numerous presentaions in Flash and Director, because there's so much more that we can do in those applications than we can in PowerPoint. It's certainly not perfect, but I have enjoyed the ability to create more interesting and in-depth animations in a GUI rather than notepad.
As for some sites that have "good" Flash, I can't speak for anyone else, but here's some spots that I've enjoyed:
NASA's home page. They mixed in the Flash rather well, IMHO.
I don't see it anymore, but Tron 2.0's website used to have a link to their "fCon" mock site, which had been built in Flash (IIRC). This was about as well-put together of a teaser site for a game that I've seen.
Atomfilms's animation section has boatloads of Flash animations, both interactive and non-interactive, and also -- not surprisingly -- some great, some not so great.
Finally, Salon every now and then has some editorial cartoons built in Flash, which, to me, is probably one of the best uses of the application.
Oh, and on my company's Intranet we have several online demos/tutorials/examples that have been created in Flash, which make "distance learning" much easier.
Personally, I enjoy working in Flash because of my background in animation and video. I've seen it used well. and I've seen it used poorly. Just like HTML, it's nothing more than a tool that is only as good as the person who uses it.
I'm guessing that the vast majority of P2P users are in one of two camps. Either A) They're still not aware of what exactly is going on (it's not like this has really gotten a lot of play in the mainstream press), or B) They're part of the "It's not going to happen to me" crowd.
Most of the people I know still download music without a second thought, and still don't consider this to be the horrible sin that the RIAA is stating it to be.
A third possibility is that some people, like the 12-year old who was sued, is still under the impression that by paying a subscription to KaZaA, they're in the clear to download music availible on that service.
In any case, it's still too early to tell if this is going to work or not. The more lawsuits the RIAA presses, the more coverage they'll get, and as evidenced thus far, it'll only drive the wedge between and the public further.
I never saw the movie, but I remembering hearing about it over NPR. There was some backlash because in reality, Hilter was quoted as referring to the people who did the attack as "attackers," not "terrorists." The point one critic made was that it's fine if you want paint post-9/11 America as the next WWII Germany, but making little "tweaks" such as that is in pretty bad taste. Plus, it implies that their arguement wasn't that strong, as they felt the need to strengthen it.
The reason you immediately thought about the PATRIOT Act was because that's exactly what the filmmakers were shooting for. Whether they're right or not is another topic, but they definitely skewed their version of history to make it better align with their views.
Matt
IANAL, but from my readings of copyright law, this is how I'd see it:
"I get up and leave the room, needing to go check on the burgers on the grill. My friend is the only one listening to the music. Is this copyright infringement, because my friend is listening to a copied CD that I'm willingly playing for him? I've made an authorized copy and I'm playing it for a friend - that's all I've done so far."
No, it's not copyright infringement, because it's not being reproduced and distributed; this amounts to a "private showing," of sorts, like the type your friendly neighborhood FBI Warning says is okay whenever you loan a movie to your friend.
"Suppose we take it a step farther. My friend really likes the band, and he swipes the CD while I'm not looking. I don't notice because I was too busy fiddling with the burgers, and he switches on the radio in it's place. Am I guilty of copyright infringement because my friend's taken my CD, or is he guilty of theft from me, for which I'm certainly not going to prosecute if I ever find out, or is my friend guilty of copyright infringement, taking a legal copy of a CD from me?"
Your friend would be gulity of theft, and you'd probably want to look into getting a different friend.
But no copyright infrigement has taken place, because the actual music has not being copied. If you made your friend a copy of the CD and gave it to him, *then* you'd be guilty of infringement.
"If there's NO copyright infringement at all in this situation, then what happens if I set up my computer to transfer files, I've got legal copies on my computer, and someone else takes them without me having given explicit permission?"
The key difference here, though, is that P2P works because you take the files you want to share and (in the case of KaZaA) put them in a folder named something blatantly obvious like, "Shared Folder." Nobody is really going to believe that you just "accidentally" dropped 500+ copyrighted files into that folder without knowing that someone else who downloaded the same software you did can come in and copy them to their machine. It could be argued that by placing said files in the share folder (or otherwise making them availble to the network) you are giving others permission to copy them, because if you didn't want them copied, you wouldn't have bothered to expose them in the first place.
I have dozens of ripped songs from my CD collection on my machine, but none are openly availible to the 'Net. Someone would have to hack my system to grab them, and if so, then it's not a hard defense to prove that they were copied against your will (which really sounds weird....).
All those years wishing that you could actually use Monopoly money are finally "paying off," so to speak. Maybe the next step is to replace all remaining Susan B. Anthony dollars with the Race Car and the gold ingot with the Shoe.
As others have pointed out, the cynical side of me wonders if this is just WOTC looking for a cheap way to develop a new game, rather than having to hire someone on full time. After all, ever since Hasbro slashed WOTC budget, they have to start finding new (and cheaper) ways of doing things.
But I honestly doubt this is the case, for several reasons:
--WOTC, as I mentioned, has had their budget cut tremendously. The odds that they could hire on more people on a full-time basis isn't too likely. The consultant-based contest approach might be the best way to still get decent products developed.
--I hate to break this to any aspiring game designers, but these positions are not six-figure incomes. One of my friends works for what remains of West End Games, and even when the company was doing well (i.e. before the went bankrupt), she was only making around 30K a year or so. The prize money really seems comparable to what an actual salary would be. Where WOTC saves is that they don't have to provide benefits, insurance, etc., that they would with a salaried employee.
--WOTC has recieved some pretty hefty bashing over the years, particularly for their handling of GenCon. Their customer base of Magic players has lost a lot of its power, and the remaining gaming communtiy, in general, just doesn't trust WTOC enough to buy their products. If they don't want to crash and burn like TSR did, they have to win those customers back -- this is probably a good way to go about it. Putting the power in the hands of the players will at least give them some better P.R.
Overall, I think it's an interesting idea. What I find most amusing is that this is similar to an actual project, in that the deadline is only a couple weeks away. I'd better get started on my submission.
Once all these details are handled computationally, the designer can focus on the most important aspect of the game world - the plot!
While generating the setting and population from a script has its merits, and I know that there are programs out there currently that allow this type of thing, I think in the end it really just creates really, really bland worlds, because no imagination goes into the design process.
The best thing about designing a Fantasy world is that the genre of Fantasy pretty much means that the laws of Physics are merely optional, not required. Terrain can be as bizarre and unrealistic as you want, and generally it leads to whole new ideas about civilizations that might have cropped up in the area, not to mention that the players will enjoy romping through the area far more than just trekking across a forest or field.
Think of Mt. Rainer -- just swap out Wizard's Island with the Devil's Tower for a scene that really conjures up a world of magic and monsters. Or drop part of the Grand Caynon in the Pine Barrens. Mix and match ecosystems and habits at will, or heck, just look at any number of covers for Yes albums.
The same goes for designing the flora and fauna of the world, and every other aspect, too. Not everything has to be weird or "new," but at the same time, not everything should be predictable or "standard."
Naturally, this may not be the way for everyone. A program to generate everything out to realistic detail is preferable to some, no doubt. My own personal feelings reside in that the more a Fantasy world incorperates the actual Fantastic, the more enjoyable it'll be for the players.
Matt
"Journalism" isn't all that easy to define, either
on
Blogging for Dummies?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
After all, is it a set of standards and proceedures for reporting information, or is it just the actual presenting of information that one discovered/uncovered/learned/etc.?
An editoral or opinion piece in many major newspapers are good examples, as some of them have the writers actually out covering some sort of story, whether it be government corruption or international tensions or what have you, but the only difference between the editorals and the articles is that the editorals have the author stating their own personal feelings about it, rather than "Just the Facts, Ma'am." Their opinionated pieces are basically the same as something the a guy posts on his website regarding something important to him.
Similarly, let's say I'm wondering about a topic, so I go out and ask around with some people connected to it, check what records I can find, do fact-checking, and then post my findings on my personal website, would that be journalism? I'm not a professional, and it's posted on a site that's not claiming to be a source of hard news, but all the same, if I followed the same proceedures that any other reporter does, what's the difference if it was read in a newspaper or on the web?
Very few people believe all the read on the 'Net, for good reason. Similarly, very few people believe all they see on TV, as well, also for good reason.
The whole concept of what "blogging" really is seems to a rather pointless debate. News can be reported in any format by any person, really -- the means doesn't make the difference. Teaching blog at a school just seems to me more or less showing students one way that a web site can be run, and not an exercise in some new "cutting-edge" journalism technique.
I've been following the fuel-cell car for a while now, and something that I've noticed is that no matter who the manufacter is, they all tend to point to replacing the supporting infrastructure as the biggest challenge.
The twist to this is that in terms of the fuel infrastructure, the car companies really have little to say about it -- that's up to ExxonMobil, BP, and the other oil giants. So far, I haven't heard any of them really give a response to this alternative fuel choice, but I have to wonder if this is something that they'll fight against (as it would totally change the way they do business), or if any of them will actually work towards supporting fuel-cell cars, and get a jump on their competition.
It's possible, I suppose, that some smaller start-up companies might be able to take off in the future by providing "hydrogen" and "methonal" stations, but given large companies massive desire to maintain the status quo, I doubt any type of transition will be easy to pull off.
At least in the meantime the new hybrid cars are getting more popular, and I'm all for it. 75 miles to a gallon can certainly hold me over until 2010.
Matt
Hopefully S.A. can keep this up for several years to come. Two of the biggest drawbacks that I've found about web awards in the past are:
1) Sites can suddenly disappear or (more frequently) slowly slid into inactivity.
2) A number of awards really aren't all that impressive because the award was either given by a friend, or has been handed out so many times (i.e. a "Pick of the Day") that the luster fades about as fast as David Lee Roth's stardom after Van Halen.
I've always liked the idea of an annual web awards, but given the very fluid nature of the web, I wasn't sure if the idea would really work. I suppose that other annual awards are given out for web work, but I think these are the first that aren't based (solely) on design and graphics.
Slashdot Mirror
Matt
Matt
Best example is Sony, who has wound up suing itself a couple of times. I don't remember the exact article, but it detailed the problems facing the company since its technology arm was often at odds with its entertainment/content distribution arm. Time Warner, I bet, has run into the same problems with AOL under their belts.
Even in "smaller" companies this kind of stuff happens. My company works with car dealerships and manufacturers like Ford, GM, etc. We sell a lot of products and services to the Big Car Companies, but in one strange twist, once we wound up joining a class-action lawsuit with our direct competitors suing our customers over a certain program (basically the case is that the car companies aren't sharing the required information so their dealers won't be able to switch from their own systems -- I believe it was settled out of court). But even so, it never really affected relationships with the car companies or anyone else. It's this odd bit of business life that sometimes you can sue your best friend and help your most bitter enemy, but relationships with those people don't change as a result of the actions.
Forget String Theory and Quantum Mechanics; the business world is really where the bizarre happens.
Matt
Personally, I was a little disappointed in "Shrek," because it really wasn't all that different from a Disney film; the moral was "The inner you is what counts," as well as the long "celebration" scene at the end. It would have been refreshing to have seen Dreamworks break the mold of American amimated films completely by trying something new. Hopefully, they'll do that this time out.
Matt
Being a long time fan of animation, I've enjoyed the new ways that the medium is being used on the web. But what I haven't seen mentioned on here (yet) is Flash's use off-line. My company has created numerous presentaions in Flash and Director, because there's so much more that we can do in those applications than we can in PowerPoint. It's certainly not perfect, but I have enjoyed the ability to create more interesting and in-depth animations in a GUI rather than notepad.
As for some sites that have "good" Flash, I can't speak for anyone else, but here's some spots that I've enjoyed:
NASA's home page. They mixed in the Flash rather well, IMHO.
I don't see it anymore, but Tron 2.0's website used to have a link to their "fCon" mock site, which had been built in Flash (IIRC). This was about as well-put together of a teaser site for a game that I've seen.
Atomfilms's animation section has boatloads of Flash animations, both interactive and non-interactive, and also -- not surprisingly -- some great, some not so great.
Finally, Salon every now and then has some editorial cartoons built in Flash, which, to me, is probably one of the best uses of the application.
Oh, and on my company's Intranet we have several online demos/tutorials/examples that have been created in Flash, which make "distance learning" much easier.
Personally, I enjoy working in Flash because of my background in animation and video. I've seen it used well. and I've seen it used poorly. Just like HTML, it's nothing more than a tool that is only as good as the person who uses it.
Matt
...Should *all* software be treated any differently than, say, automobiles?
Don't want others to think we're baised, after all... :)
(And yes, I know MicroSoft is the worst culprit.....)
Matt
I'm guessing that the vast majority of P2P users are in one of two camps. Either A) They're still not aware of what exactly is going on (it's not like this has really gotten a lot of play in the mainstream press), or B) They're part of the "It's not going to happen to me" crowd.
Most of the people I know still download music without a second thought, and still don't consider this to be the horrible sin that the RIAA is stating it to be.
A third possibility is that some people, like the 12-year old who was sued, is still under the impression that by paying a subscription to KaZaA, they're in the clear to download music availible on that service.
In any case, it's still too early to tell if this is going to work or not. The more lawsuits the RIAA presses, the more coverage they'll get, and as evidenced thus far, it'll only drive the wedge between and the public further.
Matt
I never saw the movie, but I remembering hearing about it over NPR. There was some backlash because in reality, Hilter was quoted as referring to the people who did the attack as "attackers," not "terrorists." The point one critic made was that it's fine if you want paint post-9/11 America as the next WWII Germany, but making little "tweaks" such as that is in pretty bad taste. Plus, it implies that their arguement wasn't that strong, as they felt the need to strengthen it. The reason you immediately thought about the PATRIOT Act was because that's exactly what the filmmakers were shooting for. Whether they're right or not is another topic, but they definitely skewed their version of history to make it better align with their views. Matt
"I get up and leave the room, needing to go check on the burgers on the grill. My friend is the only one listening to the music. Is this copyright infringement, because my friend is listening to a copied CD that I'm willingly playing for him? I've made an authorized copy and I'm playing it for a friend - that's all I've done so far."
No, it's not copyright infringement, because it's not being reproduced and distributed; this amounts to a "private showing," of sorts, like the type your friendly neighborhood FBI Warning says is okay whenever you loan a movie to your friend.
"Suppose we take it a step farther. My friend really likes the band, and he swipes the CD while I'm not looking. I don't notice because I was too busy fiddling with the burgers, and he switches on the radio in it's place. Am I guilty of copyright infringement because my friend's taken my CD, or is he guilty of theft from me, for which I'm certainly not going to prosecute if I ever find out, or is my friend guilty of copyright infringement, taking a legal copy of a CD from me?"
Your friend would be gulity of theft, and you'd probably want to look into getting a different friend.
But no copyright infrigement has taken place, because the actual music has not being copied. If you made your friend a copy of the CD and gave it to him, *then* you'd be guilty of infringement.
"If there's NO copyright infringement at all in this situation, then what happens if I set up my computer to transfer files, I've got legal copies on my computer, and someone else takes them without me having given explicit permission?"
The key difference here, though, is that P2P works because you take the files you want to share and (in the case of KaZaA) put them in a folder named something blatantly obvious like, "Shared Folder." Nobody is really going to believe that you just "accidentally" dropped 500+ copyrighted files into that folder without knowing that someone else who downloaded the same software you did can come in and copy them to their machine. It could be argued that by placing said files in the share folder (or otherwise making them availble to the network) you are giving others permission to copy them, because if you didn't want them copied, you wouldn't have bothered to expose them in the first place.
I have dozens of ripped songs from my CD collection on my machine, but none are openly availible to the 'Net. Someone would have to hack my system to grab them, and if so, then it's not a hard defense to prove that they were copied against your will (which really sounds weird....).
Matt
Matt
But I honestly doubt this is the case, for several reasons:
--WOTC, as I mentioned, has had their budget cut tremendously. The odds that they could hire on more people on a full-time basis isn't too likely. The consultant-based contest approach might be the best way to still get decent products developed.
--I hate to break this to any aspiring game designers, but these positions are not six-figure incomes. One of my friends works for what remains of West End Games, and even when the company was doing well (i.e. before the went bankrupt), she was only making around 30K a year or so. The prize money really seems comparable to what an actual salary would be. Where WOTC saves is that they don't have to provide benefits, insurance, etc., that they would with a salaried employee.
--WOTC has recieved some pretty hefty bashing over the years, particularly for their handling of GenCon. Their customer base of Magic players has lost a lot of its power, and the remaining gaming communtiy, in general, just doesn't trust WTOC enough to buy their products. If they don't want to crash and burn like TSR did, they have to win those customers back -- this is probably a good way to go about it. Putting the power in the hands of the players will at least give them some better P.R.
Overall, I think it's an interesting idea. What I find most amusing is that this is similar to an actual project, in that the deadline is only a couple weeks away. I'd better get started on my submission.
Matt
While generating the setting and population from a script has its merits, and I know that there are programs out there currently that allow this type of thing, I think in the end it really just creates really, really bland worlds, because no imagination goes into the design process.
The best thing about designing a Fantasy world is that the genre of Fantasy pretty much means that the laws of Physics are merely optional, not required. Terrain can be as bizarre and unrealistic as you want, and generally it leads to whole new ideas about civilizations that might have cropped up in the area, not to mention that the players will enjoy romping through the area far more than just trekking across a forest or field.
Think of Mt. Rainer -- just swap out Wizard's Island with the Devil's Tower for a scene that really conjures up a world of magic and monsters. Or drop part of the Grand Caynon in the Pine Barrens. Mix and match ecosystems and habits at will, or heck, just look at any number of covers for Yes albums.
The same goes for designing the flora and fauna of the world, and every other aspect, too. Not everything has to be weird or "new," but at the same time, not everything should be predictable or "standard."
Naturally, this may not be the way for everyone. A program to generate everything out to realistic detail is preferable to some, no doubt. My own personal feelings reside in that the more a Fantasy world incorperates the actual Fantastic, the more enjoyable it'll be for the players.
Matt
After all, is it a set of standards and proceedures for reporting information, or is it just the actual presenting of information that one discovered/uncovered/learned/etc.?
An editoral or opinion piece in many major newspapers are good examples, as some of them have the writers actually out covering some sort of story, whether it be government corruption or international tensions or what have you, but the only difference between the editorals and the articles is that the editorals have the author stating their own personal feelings about it, rather than "Just the Facts, Ma'am." Their opinionated pieces are basically the same as something the a guy posts on his website regarding something important to him.
Similarly, let's say I'm wondering about a topic, so I go out and ask around with some people connected to it, check what records I can find, do fact-checking, and then post my findings on my personal website, would that be journalism? I'm not a professional, and it's posted on a site that's not claiming to be a source of hard news, but all the same, if I followed the same proceedures that any other reporter does, what's the difference if it was read in a newspaper or on the web?
Very few people believe all the read on the 'Net, for good reason. Similarly, very few people believe all they see on TV, as well, also for good reason.
The whole concept of what "blogging" really is seems to a rather pointless debate. News can be reported in any format by any person, really -- the means doesn't make the difference. Teaching blog at a school just seems to me more or less showing students one way that a web site can be run, and not an exercise in some new "cutting-edge" journalism technique.
Matt
The twist to this is that in terms of the fuel infrastructure, the car companies really have little to say about it -- that's up to ExxonMobil, BP, and the other oil giants. So far, I haven't heard any of them really give a response to this alternative fuel choice, but I have to wonder if this is something that they'll fight against (as it would totally change the way they do business), or if any of them will actually work towards supporting fuel-cell cars, and get a jump on their competition.
It's possible, I suppose, that some smaller start-up companies might be able to take off in the future by providing "hydrogen" and "methonal" stations, but given large companies massive desire to maintain the status quo, I doubt any type of transition will be easy to pull off.
At least in the meantime the new hybrid cars are getting more popular, and I'm all for it. 75 miles to a gallon can certainly hold me over until 2010. Matt
1) Sites can suddenly disappear or (more frequently) slowly slid into inactivity.
2) A number of awards really aren't all that impressive because the award was either given by a friend, or has been handed out so many times (i.e. a "Pick of the Day") that the luster fades about as fast as David Lee Roth's stardom after Van Halen.
I've always liked the idea of an annual web awards, but given the very fluid nature of the web, I wasn't sure if the idea would really work. I suppose that other annual awards are given out for web work, but I think these are the first that aren't based (solely) on design and graphics.
Matt