What possible reason could Lucas have for wanting his movie to be seen first by intense critics? Maybe he thinks he can pay them off too. Is it just to say his film opened at the festival? I guess if you have the cash laying around...
I don't disagree with you. How is such a person supposed to know how unbalanced they are? There are plenty who do play these games to excess and probably should not, but even out of those the number of "game induced" suicides is probably tiny. I'm sure there are warning signs for addiction, but killing yourself over it seems unrelated to addiction.
The best way to ensure, over the long run, maximized efficiency and high-level accountability is to leave the job to private enterprise. Companies competing for a profit will find ways to do things cheaper, faster and safer. The trade-off is that there are more likely to be some really bad ideas getting launched, and in space, no one can hear you scream... but that's another detail. Private enterprise might be more willing to take the risks that a post-Challenger United States (for example) is not.
Wait which is it? Safer or more risky? I agree with the cheaper and faster part though.
Thottbot is a web site where information about ingame items, skills, crafting recipes, quests, etc is gathered and searchable. There's a plugin for WOW that collects data from your play sessions in a format that thottbot can readily decompose and add to the database of game info. You don't need any addons to use thottbot.
Because everyone who plays a MMO game necessarily has internet access and thottbot is a free website to access, there's no disparity. Buying items with real world money and using them to gain an advantage is fundamentally different. The advantage gained by having access to more real world money is also at issue here.
I have only seen a little B5 but I was impressed by show's comprehensive vision. Maybe I should have watched it more in that case. However from reading Mr. Straczynski's assessment of Star Trek through the years I'm appalled by his apparent ignorance of Deep Space Nine. There just hasn't been a better star trek series. It had its low points, but on its worst day it was still better than most of TNG.
When Ballmer says it's the greatest video game ever written, he's probably thinking of greatness in terms only of how much money it made. More to the point, how much money it made him.
I saw some guy from Disney talking about the potential for a sequel for some Pixar movie, and he said "we think there's a tremendous amount of value in the franchise, and we are hopeful that the value will be able to be produced as a film and brought to the marketplace. We'd really like for Pixar to be a part of that effort, but if not then..."
You shouldn't equate the school system with teachers, and especially not with the small number of teachers you've personally had for classes. Most decisions about education are made by others. We do the teaching, but the system has little to do with us.
I teach math so I don't run into the issue of bias very often, but I have noticed that students aren't used to being asked questions. I almost never come out and tell students the answer to anything. More often I try to lead them to a new method or answer by asking them questions about what they already know. It's not easy at all. Kids just look at me expecting me to tell them. Perhaps that's the flaw is that kids get used to "the truth" coming magically from someone in authority. It would be much simpler if I just wrote down mathematics and they copied it and reproduced it on a quiz. No one learns anything that way though.
What's creative about that? These are all things that you could do in real life, and I've seen movies and whatnot where people do those things. Freeform gameplay isn't creative unless you have to do something that you normally couldn't do in that situation. I haven't really played any Metal Gear games so maybe I'm just missing out on the creativity.
Everything you're talking about sounds like it makes for a great game, but not creative.
I think the near future of Star Trek lies with the MMORPG that's supposedly in development. You can see from http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000891.ph p that gamers spend less time watching TV than other people and honestly if I wasn't playing an MMO game so much I would probably still make some attempt to watch star trek.
So they (Paramount) have an opportunity here to capture a lot of their old star trek audience and maybe make more money off us. If they (game developers) can find a way to make the game (or a portion of the game) episodic and involve actors in it, that would be extremely compelling for me. Personally I have no faith in star trek games, but you know. Prove me wrong, developers.
The case of a school newspaper is different from that of a newspaper in the real world. I sponsor the literary magazine at my school. We get submissions with a variety of controversial things in them, and it's kind of up to us to decide what's too risque or offensive to go in the magazine. I think that if a school wanted to publish a really raunchy magazine or didn't mind having lots of profanity in there, then godspeed. I'd buy it. But we don't do that because of where we are. The censorship (which it isn't even) isn't really coming from us, it's from the community we live in.
Ask those same school principals from the survey if they think students should be able to publish a newspaper on their own (outside of school) containing anything they want. The issue isn't that they think students don't have those rights. The issue is that they don't want something from a newspaper they choose not to control to come back and bite them.
Re:Computers are nice. Computers are fun...
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The Hundred-Buck PC
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If (say) 8 of these can serve the function of a school library, I'd say that meets a need that third world countries have. I don't think the idea here was low cost computing for the masses.
The real answer to this is in the last sentence of the article. The school system says they'll support the fundraiser if a less violent video game is played. The decision doesn't deny any students access, it regulates what they can do in the building. The normal school day is full of this kind of regulation.
I see your point. I think we agree that while you appreciated the sentiment, it wouldn't have provided you with anything practical. I think looking back you may believe it would have helped but at that time I doubt it would really have.
I sponsor the literary magazine at my school and we get innumerable submissions dealing with endless love or (on the other side) feelings of betrayal and newfound resolve. Bad, trite, poetry about bad breakups. We also get a few sumbissions with some depth. The big difference we've noted between these two groups of authors is that one group has read widely and the other has not. I'll let you guess which group is which.
We think about this issue of lots of shallow writing and have decided that some of the kids honestly don't know that everything they're saying has been said many times before and better. This phenomenon of believing yourself to be original when you're actually not doesn't confine itself to writing.
Telling kids it gets better doesn't help them deal with the reality of the present. Kids are used to hearing that and will appreciate the sentiment but still it's like saying nothing.
On the other hand, I quite agree that kids are too scheduled these days.
That's only true if you're competitive. I'm not and I'm perfectly happy without the powergamer.
What you've identified is what I'd call player-created social status in the game world, and that certainly does seem missing from WoW. I remember reading about this in some post or interview or something from Blizzard. Someone from the development team said that Blizzard has intentionally designed WOW as a game, not a social experiment. Many MMOG feature too much DIY society and not enough game. I played Lineage II a while and that was the complaint I had (and heard) most.
Maybe I'll get tired of it later but for now it's a nice change.
I hope it doesn't spoil anything to say that Yoda's fighting amounts to a spinning ball with a lightsaber sticking out. Like a tootsie roll pop but green. I wasn't that impressed.
It's only because it was so long ago that I'm not sure if they were largely right or completely right. There's also the question of how to gauge their accuracy. I assume the monks didn't know that these researchers were sort of running a pool to see who would leave and when. If someone left in the middle of the seventh month I'd say the researchers were pretty accurate to predict 6 months.
There was another essay by Morris Kline about topology I read for some other class. In it, the author intorduces topology by pointing out how numbers are just useless in some circumstances. Consider this recent conversation between you and the distance formula:
You: Where's the nearest 7-11?
Distance Formula: 3.2 mi
You: Oh ok thanks which way?
Distance Formula: Take any direction.
Which is to say that the distance formula doesn't answer the "where question" and for that you need topology.
I agree that people use their own criteria for deciding who is right for them, but I'm sure you'll agree that many people wind up being wrong. I've certainly been wrong about it before. It's possible then that there is a method for modeling this and predicting useful info and that the outcome would be different than you expected.
For Abstract Algebra that I took as a math major, we had to write a paper about a practical application. I read an article where researchers used the concept of relations to model the interpersonal relations at a monastery. The particular relation they chose was "esteem." They conducted a survey of the monks. The survey consisted of a list of monks, and each person had to indicate whether they esteemed the person more, less or equally with themselves. Using this information, the researchers predicted which of the monks would still be at that monastery in 6 months, one year, and 2 years. And they were largely right.
The portion of your post that made me think of this is that you mentioned a mathematical equation. There are lots of ways to model things besides equations. I'm not just nitpicking here. People think math is about quantities when really it doesn't have to be.
Slashdot Mirror
What possible reason could Lucas have for wanting his movie to be seen first by intense critics? Maybe he thinks he can pay them off too. Is it just to say his film opened at the festival? I guess if you have the cash laying around...
I was with you till Soviet Russia forgot you.
I don't disagree with you. How is such a person supposed to know how unbalanced they are? There are plenty who do play these games to excess and probably should not, but even out of those the number of "game induced" suicides is probably tiny. I'm sure there are warning signs for addiction, but killing yourself over it seems unrelated to addiction.
Thottbot is a web site where information about ingame items, skills, crafting recipes, quests, etc is gathered and searchable. There's a plugin for WOW that collects data from your play sessions in a format that thottbot can readily decompose and add to the database of game info. You don't need any addons to use thottbot.
Because everyone who plays a MMO game necessarily has internet access and thottbot is a free website to access, there's no disparity. Buying items with real world money and using them to gain an advantage is fundamentally different. The advantage gained by having access to more real world money is also at issue here.
I'm really glad you posted that because:
When Ballmer says it's the greatest video game ever written, he's probably thinking of greatness in terms only of how much money it made. More to the point, how much money it made him.
I saw some guy from Disney talking about the potential for a sequel for some Pixar movie, and he said "we think there's a tremendous amount of value in the franchise, and we are hopeful that the value will be able to be produced as a film and brought to the marketplace. We'd really like for Pixar to be a part of that effort, but if not then..."
I wonder if he's ever even seen a movie.
You shouldn't equate the school system with teachers, and especially not with the small number of teachers you've personally had for classes. Most decisions about education are made by others. We do the teaching, but the system has little to do with us.
I teach math so I don't run into the issue of bias very often, but I have noticed that students aren't used to being asked questions. I almost never come out and tell students the answer to anything. More often I try to lead them to a new method or answer by asking them questions about what they already know. It's not easy at all. Kids just look at me expecting me to tell them. Perhaps that's the flaw is that kids get used to "the truth" coming magically from someone in authority. It would be much simpler if I just wrote down mathematics and they copied it and reproduced it on a quiz. No one learns anything that way though.
What's creative about that? These are all things that you could do in real life, and I've seen movies and whatnot where people do those things. Freeform gameplay isn't creative unless you have to do something that you normally couldn't do in that situation. I haven't really played any Metal Gear games so maybe I'm just missing out on the creativity.
Everything you're talking about sounds like it makes for a great game, but not creative.
I think the near future of Star Trek lies with the MMORPG that's supposedly in development. You can see from http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000891.ph p that gamers spend less time watching TV than other people and honestly if I wasn't playing an MMO game so much I would probably still make some attempt to watch star trek.
So they (Paramount) have an opportunity here to capture a lot of their old star trek audience and maybe make more money off us. If they (game developers) can find a way to make the game (or a portion of the game) episodic and involve actors in it, that would be extremely compelling for me. Personally I have no faith in star trek games, but you know. Prove me wrong, developers.
Also Shogo MAD featured giant robots which I don't know if they're in Halo 2. I gotta have more giant robots.
Ask those same school principals from the survey if they think students should be able to publish a newspaper on their own (outside of school) containing anything they want. The issue isn't that they think students don't have those rights. The issue is that they don't want something from a newspaper they choose not to control to come back and bite them.
If (say) 8 of these can serve the function of a school library, I'd say that meets a need that third world countries have. I don't think the idea here was low cost computing for the masses.
If I remember bits and pieces I've read over the years, this is news because of the many false starts and half-assed renditions of HH in the past.
The real answer to this is in the last sentence of the article. The school system says they'll support the fundraiser if a less violent video game is played. The decision doesn't deny any students access, it regulates what they can do in the building. The normal school day is full of this kind of regulation.
I see your point. I think we agree that while you appreciated the sentiment, it wouldn't have provided you with anything practical. I think looking back you may believe it would have helped but at that time I doubt it would really have.
I sponsor the literary magazine at my school and we get innumerable submissions dealing with endless love or (on the other side) feelings of betrayal and newfound resolve. Bad, trite, poetry about bad breakups. We also get a few sumbissions with some depth. The big difference we've noted between these two groups of authors is that one group has read widely and the other has not. I'll let you guess which group is which.
We think about this issue of lots of shallow writing and have decided that some of the kids honestly don't know that everything they're saying has been said many times before and better. This phenomenon of believing yourself to be original when you're actually not doesn't confine itself to writing.
Telling kids it gets better doesn't help them deal with the reality of the present. Kids are used to hearing that and will appreciate the sentiment but still it's like saying nothing.
On the other hand, I quite agree that kids are too scheduled these days.
That's only true if you're competitive. I'm not and I'm perfectly happy without the powergamer.
What you've identified is what I'd call player-created social status in the game world, and that certainly does seem missing from WoW. I remember reading about this in some post or interview or something from Blizzard. Someone from the development team said that Blizzard has intentionally designed WOW as a game, not a social experiment. Many MMOG feature too much DIY society and not enough game. I played Lineage II a while and that was the complaint I had (and heard) most.
Maybe I'll get tired of it later but for now it's a nice change.
Out of This World, Flashback, and Future Wars were all great games for their time.
Future Wars was developed by Delphine Cinematique though so I don't know that it counts.I hope it doesn't spoil anything to say that Yoda's fighting amounts to a spinning ball with a lightsaber sticking out. Like a tootsie roll pop but green. I wasn't that impressed.
They may not be releasing a super gold bonus edition out of need. They may just want you to buy the same game again. It's working for Lucas.
I don't think Amos and Andy made people ashamed of being black.
It's only because it was so long ago that I'm not sure if they were largely right or completely right. There's also the question of how to gauge their accuracy. I assume the monks didn't know that these researchers were sort of running a pool to see who would leave and when. If someone left in the middle of the seventh month I'd say the researchers were pretty accurate to predict 6 months.
There was another essay by Morris Kline about topology I read for some other class. In it, the author intorduces topology by pointing out how numbers are just useless in some circumstances. Consider this recent conversation between you and the distance formula:
You: Where's the nearest 7-11?
Distance Formula: 3.2 mi
You: Oh ok thanks which way?
Distance Formula: Take any direction.
Which is to say that the distance formula doesn't answer the "where question" and for that you need topology.
I agree that people use their own criteria for deciding who is right for them, but I'm sure you'll agree that many people wind up being wrong. I've certainly been wrong about it before. It's possible then that there is a method for modeling this and predicting useful info and that the outcome would be different than you expected.
For Abstract Algebra that I took as a math major, we had to write a paper about a practical application. I read an article where researchers used the concept of relations to model the interpersonal relations at a monastery. The particular relation they chose was "esteem." They conducted a survey of the monks. The survey consisted of a list of monks, and each person had to indicate whether they esteemed the person more, less or equally with themselves. Using this information, the researchers predicted which of the monks would still be at that monastery in 6 months, one year, and 2 years. And they were largely right.
The portion of your post that made me think of this is that you mentioned a mathematical equation. There are lots of ways to model things besides equations. I'm not just nitpicking here. People think math is about quantities when really it doesn't have to be.