Unfortunately, its probably worse than they're making it sound....because by interactive services, they most likely mean "interactive advertising", so you can click a link or something and get more information. I'd be SHOCKED if this turned out to be a good thing.
So I understand what you posted, and wholeheartedly agree with it...but I have somewhat of a different issue...
I have great ideas, not necessarily new...but in-demand enough to be sellable...except I have a marketing/advetising background. I'm a geek, and am definitely familiar with computers and whats going on, but when it comes to programming, or creating a prototype of an electronic device, I'm hosed since I don't have those skills and by the time I was able to teach myself them...it would be obsolete.
Can you suggest any resources for someone in my situation to find people who can fully handle those aspects of it? What about manufacturing? What is a good starting point for that for someone who knows absolutely nothing about it?
"I agree, on surface these games don't seem to have any major stories other than go there kill that and come back with his head and you get phat lootz."
Unfortunately I don't see any MMORPG ever becoming MAJORLY story driven. Why? Because it is not as satisfying for the majority of their players to actually have to think through the story to progress. Remember, all MMORPGs are in essence...are glorified Skinner Boxes. Having to think through the story is simply a barrier in their clicking through of menus to get their reward. And like you said, it doesn't matter what the story is if the end result is that the quest itself is a generic "kill X, return with Y and be rewarded with Z".
"What? South Korea? Why on earth would South Korea EVER attack the U.S.?"
They've already gotten to me....North Korea tried to takeover my mind with nano-probes and tried to get me to blame South Korea.....but....I...am....fighti&&
TripMaster, damn you for beating me to it but bonus points for saying it way better than I ever could.
This is the equivelant of banning firearms, only on a larger...must more destructive scale. When you ban them, only the people who are willing to break the law will use them, and these people are more likely to use them for some not-so-friendly uses.
What is to stop South Korea from using nanotech weapons against us (presuming the tech is actually put into weapon form some day)? The answer is...not much of anything. And because of that, I would much rather we had researched the hell out of it and were prepared for it than live in lala land pretending that the technology and people's intentions to use it for their own personal gain will suddenly disappear overnight if we ban this.
Banning the technology isn't the solution...the solution can be found in trying to solve the underlying social issues that would cause someone to want to use the tech to harm people.
When the game isn't out yet......, reviewers have nothing to go on except what the developer lets them see/tells them. Now....if you were the developer do you think you'd be saying "we have some concerns over our gameplay being mediocre.....so I'd hold off on buying our title until we see what the whole thing comes together as"? I mean, I can't exactly blame them. What I CAN do is blame the people who write previews and judge things to be the best thing since sliced bread without analyzing some of the features and seeing how similar it is to whats out there.
A perfect example of this was the farce of those supposed "Video Game Awards" that just happened....I don't even remember what they were called, but what I do remember happening is that games that weren't even released yet were winning awards like Game of the Year and other such nonsense. If you thought written previews were bad....man...it was scary how much of a marketing spectacle it was. They should have called it "Crap we're going to lie to you about and ram down your throats Awards".
"* Unskippable (and boring, and irrelevant to gameplay) FMV before each level - if for whatever reason you power down before finishing a level, you have to sit through the whole thing again next time you play. And unskippable credits? Which are just white text on a black background? What the fuck is that all about?"
No kidding....I started watching the credits.....got very frustrated that I couldn't skip them....came on here and made this post...and they're STILL going. What parent didn't mention is that these credits are AT THE FRIGGIN BEGINNING! Its nothing but a black screen with very slow white text that fades in and out.....and it goes on for freakin ever. For a game that is touted as gun porn...where the point is to get in there and start shooting, they sure as hell make it hard for you to do just that.
"If this "secure eraser" is so awesome, then what trace was there that this "secure eraser" had been used?"
I didn't RTFA (O RLY?) but....since this was a company laptop, they might have known he had certain files on there as part of his work, and now they are not there and they can find no trace of them. Of course I'm just pulling that out of nowhere...but hey, why not.
"I don't want to be exposed to GLBT chatter over PUBLIC CHANNELS. If they want to do it in the privacy of their guild, that's cool! But it should NOT be allowed in public channels."
If you were referring to discussion about GLBT issues and discussion topics...that would be one thing...but what the hell is wrong with advertising that something is friendly to those people. Its the same as having an advert for any other type of guild. This wasn't "chatter"...it was a fairly succinct advert.
What I would love.....and what would never happen...is to have "rounds" of the game. You start off the world, and you have a single zombie running around and he converts a few NPCs. Then it spreads....the world would start off very heavy on the human side, but gradually, if things went smoothly, it would convert to zombies only....depending on the organization of things. Of course what you can't account for is griefers who might get converted to zombies and try to prevent them from killing humans, or humans who try to get other humans killed.
After all of one side had been killed off, the game would "reset".
I've actually been looking at the Archos PMPs, since they have a nice form factor, large screens, and seem to be able to play a lot. Have you noticed any difficulties playing any types of file formats? In addition to divx stuff with a lot of random codecs (not just the NIMO one) I have some Xvid stuff as well.
So I've been in the market for a portable media player, mostly for my Divx movie collection and TV shows to watch on the morning commute. My main concern is ability to handle obscure codecs, screen size, and battery life. This thing should be able to handle codecs fine....the screen looks decent...but how is the battery life for playing movies? That seems to always be the shortcoming of these devices. Now if you slapped a fuel cell in there, then maybe we'd be talking.
BTW, can anybody recommend a PMP? The video iPod has a TINY screen, and I've heard mixed things about most of the other players out there.
While I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your post, I don't see how it really solves things...
My point was that play is something you do as an extra "fun" activity, whereas work is not due to the stress involved. Its not just a matter of things being complicated, which is what your solution seeks to solve. If you dumb your life down in essence so that you just have to worry about living, eating and drinking, sleeping and being warm...those things are still more or less "required" to get by, while Play is not. What I'm looking for is a way to find something that I can do for a living that is so enjoyable that the line between work and play is seriously blurred.
This story really brings up an issue that is a lot deeper than just playing an MMORPG and getting paid for it.
The question is...where do you draw the line between Work and Play.
To me, the line becomes drawn when I have deadlines, quotas, expectations, and the very real risk of losing income. This all adds a lot of stress, and I cannot simply walk away from it because it is how I make a living. Play on the otherhand is something I can walk away from at any time for any reason...whether I'm bored, frustrated, found something new, have more important things to do, etc. There is potentially some stress with Play, such as with competitive Play, however it is nowhere near on the same level as with Work.
If anybody on Slashdot disagress with what I've written and can give an example from their own lives of how their work is considered play (based on the terms I've outlined above) please by all means do...as I am continually trying to figure out a way to find out what job I would love to do for the rest of my life and am looking for a way to actually ENJOY coming into work and not be wishing I was doing something else.
To your point, yes, it can be accomplished by just setting the value to a higher number...however what you need to take into consideration are two things:
First, there are rules within the gameworld much like there are rules within reality. They operate differently, but just as you can't go printing as much money as you want in real life, you can't give people as much gold as they want in the game. It would simply unbalance the economy.
The second thing you need to take into consideration is the time spent on this, which is quite real indeed. These farmers are being paid for their time to play this game. Not very much, but they are still being compensated.
I'm not saying gold farming doesn't suck, or that it does not harm the games that it invades...but these people most certainly DO contribute something to society in terms of spending since this involves the transaction of REAL money. And while it is asinine that this flourishes, it is definitely not ridiculous when you look at the systems in place that allow for farming to continue.
"There will be a clearer outlawing of offenses like denial-of-service attacks in which systems are debilitated.""
And where will monstrosities such as Sony's rootkit fit into this? Surely our corporate overlords would be held just as accountable under these new laws as a poor 16 year old hacker in his parents' basement.
Since I haven't seen any +3 comments yet that mention this, I'll go ahead and be the one to say it...
I think the strategy guides, with the exception of a few shining examples (the Pokemon and Final Fantasy guides immediately come to mind), have been nothing but a lightly veiled attempt at milking as much money as possible from the gamer.
I remember the day when the best strategy guides were the thick books that CAME WITH THE DAMN GAME! And if I sound like an old fart...keep in mind that I'm only 22. This has been a recent trend to put as little information in with the game as possible. Sometimes games only include a controller layout quicksheet and nothing else aside from a few lose ad flyers floating around in the box. I wonder how much of a cut the publisher gets from the strategy guide companies to do that?
I haven't purchased a strategy guide since I got on the internet, and sites like gamefaqs are making them fast obsolete. But give me the good ol days of nicely produced minibooklets over a $20, mostly fluff strategy guide any day. I mean hell, for games like Diablo, half the info in the guide was obsolete come the first patch. And don't even get me started on some of the "Tips and Strategies" they give in some FPS guides...."Crouch to increase your accuracy!", "Grab health packs to replenish your health!"...Really? No shit Sherlock.
"As soon as he was done talking, the group said 'Rollback' almost as one. The moderator seemed like he saw that coming, because he'd probably heard the term a dozen times already from the other groups.""
Or...because knowing Lucas and Sony...those bastards are probably planning on releasing a SWG Classic edition that you'll have to shell out another $50 for....
Why don't you try rereading my post. I have already placed my stake firmly on the side of science, which is why I was looking for some scientific explanations on this other than the highly unlikely "raining alien goo" theory.
While I won't feed the trolls website by giving him the traffic...I will say this about the following quote:
"but does the community need to resort to using third-class promotional tactics with total downloads number?""
As an advertising executive, all I have to say to this guy is WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF NEW MEDIA!
These "third-class" promotional tactics are HIGHLY effective, and cut through the other garbage out there. And aside from that, I would much rather see a company relying on the goodwill of its users and "fanboyism" to get ahead than to plant shills on forums, etc.
Can anybody here suggest some plausible alternatative explanations? Is it at all possible that minerals or "organic soup" or something was reabsorbed enmasse into the atmosphere and rained down? I mean....I am DEFINITELY not religious...but this is a little creepy (read:cool) even for me. Raining blood? Isn't that one of the signs of the apocolypse or something?
While most of the posts here are understandably discussing salaries for coders...as a non-coder, who is an advertising/marketing professional, can anybody here comment on starting salaries at game companies in the Marketing Department? What about other departments? What sorts of positions are open to entry level people aside from coding?
And if you could please spare me any of your flames about marketing, etc. Its a necessary evil, and just because some companies are evil when it comes to marketing, that doesn't mean they all are.
I am fascinated by all this stuff, but I am not a biologist, so I don't understand most of these terms and names for things...can anybody here possibly supply an analogy or put things in laymans terms? Or possibly link to some good "beginners" material on this subject?
Unfortunately, I am not that familiar with the S. Korean ID number system...so this may sound a bit uninformed (it is).
Are these ID numbers the equivelant of SSNs? It seems like they are a bit less protected seeing as how you have to use them to register for things as mundane as games...whereas in the US I believe it would be illegal for an MMO to ask for that. Is the reason they use the stolen IDs so that they cannot get busted for farming? Or are they trying to bypass having to pay a monthly fee, thereby increasing their margins significantly?
Slashdot Mirror
I have great ideas, not necessarily new...but in-demand enough to be sellable...except I have a marketing/advetising background. I'm a geek, and am definitely familiar with computers and whats going on, but when it comes to programming, or creating a prototype of an electronic device, I'm hosed since I don't have those skills and by the time I was able to teach myself them...it would be obsolete.
Can you suggest any resources for someone in my situation to find people who can fully handle those aspects of it? What about manufacturing? What is a good starting point for that for someone who knows absolutely nothing about it?
Unfortunately I don't see any MMORPG ever becoming MAJORLY story driven. Why? Because it is not as satisfying for the majority of their players to actually have to think through the story to progress. Remember, all MMORPGs are in essence...are glorified Skinner Boxes. Having to think through the story is simply a barrier in their clicking through of menus to get their reward. And like you said, it doesn't matter what the story is if the end result is that the quest itself is a generic "kill X, return with Y and be rewarded with Z".
They've already gotten to me....North Korea tried to takeover my mind with nano-probes and tried to get me to blame South Korea.....but....I...am....fighti&&
This is the equivelant of banning firearms, only on a larger...must more destructive scale. When you ban them, only the people who are willing to break the law will use them, and these people are more likely to use them for some not-so-friendly uses.
What is to stop South Korea from using nanotech weapons against us (presuming the tech is actually put into weapon form some day)? The answer is...not much of anything. And because of that, I would much rather we had researched the hell out of it and were prepared for it than live in lala land pretending that the technology and people's intentions to use it for their own personal gain will suddenly disappear overnight if we ban this.
Banning the technology isn't the solution...the solution can be found in trying to solve the underlying social issues that would cause someone to want to use the tech to harm people.
When the game isn't out yet......, reviewers have nothing to go on except what the developer lets them see/tells them. Now....if you were the developer do you think you'd be saying "we have some concerns over our gameplay being mediocre.....so I'd hold off on buying our title until we see what the whole thing comes together as"? I mean, I can't exactly blame them. What I CAN do is blame the people who write previews and judge things to be the best thing since sliced bread without analyzing some of the features and seeing how similar it is to whats out there.
A perfect example of this was the farce of those supposed "Video Game Awards" that just happened....I don't even remember what they were called, but what I do remember happening is that games that weren't even released yet were winning awards like Game of the Year and other such nonsense. If you thought written previews were bad....man...it was scary how much of a marketing spectacle it was. They should have called it "Crap we're going to lie to you about and ram down your throats Awards".
No kidding....I started watching the credits.....got very frustrated that I couldn't skip them....came on here and made this post...and they're STILL going. What parent didn't mention is that these credits are AT THE FRIGGIN BEGINNING! Its nothing but a black screen with very slow white text that fades in and out.....and it goes on for freakin ever. For a game that is touted as gun porn...where the point is to get in there and start shooting, they sure as hell make it hard for you to do just that.
I didn't RTFA (O RLY?) but....since this was a company laptop, they might have known he had certain files on there as part of his work, and now they are not there and they can find no trace of them. Of course I'm just pulling that out of nowhere...but hey, why not.
If you were referring to discussion about GLBT issues and discussion topics...that would be one thing...but what the hell is wrong with advertising that something is friendly to those people. Its the same as having an advert for any other type of guild. This wasn't "chatter"...it was a fairly succinct advert.
After all of one side had been killed off, the game would "reset".
Also, how is the battery life on it?
BTW, can anybody recommend a PMP? The video iPod has a TINY screen, and I've heard mixed things about most of the other players out there.
My point was that play is something you do as an extra "fun" activity, whereas work is not due to the stress involved. Its not just a matter of things being complicated, which is what your solution seeks to solve. If you dumb your life down in essence so that you just have to worry about living, eating and drinking, sleeping and being warm...those things are still more or less "required" to get by, while Play is not. What I'm looking for is a way to find something that I can do for a living that is so enjoyable that the line between work and play is seriously blurred.
The question is...where do you draw the line between Work and Play.
To me, the line becomes drawn when I have deadlines, quotas, expectations, and the very real risk of losing income. This all adds a lot of stress, and I cannot simply walk away from it because it is how I make a living. Play on the otherhand is something I can walk away from at any time for any reason...whether I'm bored, frustrated, found something new, have more important things to do, etc. There is potentially some stress with Play, such as with competitive Play, however it is nowhere near on the same level as with Work.
If anybody on Slashdot disagress with what I've written and can give an example from their own lives of how their work is considered play (based on the terms I've outlined above) please by all means do...as I am continually trying to figure out a way to find out what job I would love to do for the rest of my life and am looking for a way to actually ENJOY coming into work and not be wishing I was doing something else.
Please for the love of god prove me wrong.
First, there are rules within the gameworld much like there are rules within reality. They operate differently, but just as you can't go printing as much money as you want in real life, you can't give people as much gold as they want in the game. It would simply unbalance the economy.
The second thing you need to take into consideration is the time spent on this, which is quite real indeed. These farmers are being paid for their time to play this game. Not very much, but they are still being compensated.
I'm not saying gold farming doesn't suck, or that it does not harm the games that it invades...but these people most certainly DO contribute something to society in terms of spending since this involves the transaction of REAL money. And while it is asinine that this flourishes, it is definitely not ridiculous when you look at the systems in place that allow for farming to continue.
And where will monstrosities such as Sony's rootkit fit into this? Surely our corporate overlords would be held just as accountable under these new laws as a poor 16 year old hacker in his parents' basement.
I think the strategy guides, with the exception of a few shining examples (the Pokemon and Final Fantasy guides immediately come to mind), have been nothing but a lightly veiled attempt at milking as much money as possible from the gamer.
I remember the day when the best strategy guides were the thick books that CAME WITH THE DAMN GAME! And if I sound like an old fart...keep in mind that I'm only 22. This has been a recent trend to put as little information in with the game as possible. Sometimes games only include a controller layout quicksheet and nothing else aside from a few lose ad flyers floating around in the box. I wonder how much of a cut the publisher gets from the strategy guide companies to do that?
I haven't purchased a strategy guide since I got on the internet, and sites like gamefaqs are making them fast obsolete. But give me the good ol days of nicely produced minibooklets over a $20, mostly fluff strategy guide any day. I mean hell, for games like Diablo, half the info in the guide was obsolete come the first patch. And don't even get me started on some of the "Tips and Strategies" they give in some FPS guides...."Crouch to increase your accuracy!", "Grab health packs to replenish your health!"...Really? No shit Sherlock.
Or...because knowing Lucas and Sony...those bastards are probably planning on releasing a SWG Classic edition that you'll have to shell out another $50 for....
"but does the community need to resort to using third-class promotional tactics with total downloads number?""
As an advertising executive, all I have to say to this guy is WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF NEW MEDIA!
These "third-class" promotional tactics are HIGHLY effective, and cut through the other garbage out there. And aside from that, I would much rather see a company relying on the goodwill of its users and "fanboyism" to get ahead than to plant shills on forums, etc.
And if you could please spare me any of your flames about marketing, etc. Its a necessary evil, and just because some companies are evil when it comes to marketing, that doesn't mean they all are.
Are these ID numbers the equivelant of SSNs? It seems like they are a bit less protected seeing as how you have to use them to register for things as mundane as games...whereas in the US I believe it would be illegal for an MMO to ask for that. Is the reason they use the stolen IDs so that they cannot get busted for farming? Or are they trying to bypass having to pay a monthly fee, thereby increasing their margins significantly?