Please discontinue your celebration of Christmas and/or Hannukah. You have no idea what they are about.
Because the primary purpose of the celebration of these holidays are about the purchase and exchanging of gifts? If so, why should we go about critisizing someone's method of going about it?
Work on some code, and totally forget about it. If I can look at the code and understand what I was doing and why, then no need to comment on it; otherwise, put in comments. Then totally forget about it again. Look at the code once more, read the comments, and if I still don't understand what my function/piece of code is doing, then my comment sucks and it needs to be reworded.
Simple. Of course, the hard part is always 'totally forgetting about it.' Generally what I do for that is either concentrate on another piece of code, or just leave it alone for an extended period of time. If neither options are feasible for me, then I would ask someone else to critique it. If that's not possible either, then I just roleplay a critic when I go over my notes.
LOL. I did the exact same thing. He's got some pretty cool maps to look at - sure brought back some memories. What's pretty interesting is that how small (relatively) the world of Legend of Zelda actually was! It's amazing looking at each different area and trying to remember how the puzzles went. I imagined myself running thru the map, and I didn't even realize I was whistling the tune for the past 10 mins untill I read your post.
Must be a rote thing.
For people that don't recognize what parent is referring to, IKEA (the one near my home anyways) has a little dining/cafeteria section, where they sell -among other foodstuffs- Swedish meatballs. They are pretty tasty.
I suppose using the term 'steaming pile' is more commonly associated with excrement, but then again parent was going for funny. Well, now it's not that funny any more since I've had to explain the joke. Sorry!
"..good thing Nintendo is taking the risk, because we get to see if their plan will work out. And if it does, we'll bury them with our own MS version!" (insert cackle here)
What terribly long winded questions! Here's a condensed version.
(questions snipped for brevity, apologies if any questions were mangled. Also, please read it with a grain of salt *smirk*)
1) Question: How much economic monitoring do you do? Both in-game and on the secondary market (eBay)? Have you considered working with an economist (Steven D. Levitt comes to mind, but there are dozens of others as well) to study some of these phenomenon?
Response: We ban bots. I've banned 3 myself today.
2) Question:..It's easy to guess that you've encountered challenges due to scale that no other developer has before. Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently, and when?
Response: Why yes, there are things we wished we would have done differently...wha.. is this a two part question?.. Brain.. hurts!
3) Question:..What kind of hurdles did you have to overcome to get both Windows and Mac versions to co-exist and have you had to make any sacrifices because you were only able to do something on one platfrom and not both?
Response: We made a windows AND a mac version. That means, if you have a mac, you can install it, and play it! Without a PC!
4) Question: What is the process the dev team goes through for balancing character classes, items, NPCs, etc.?..
Response: It's very difficult. Otherwise it wouldn't be easy. Ppl complain all the time. Stop bitching.
5) Question:..Are you planning to introduce "events" into the gaming world that would actually shape it permanently, like in Asheron's call?
Response: We made it so you can run around and fight stuff. It's awesome.
6) Question:..The early game is brilliant, and playing it was a joy. Why is that so hard to retain in level 60 play?
Response: Dungeons are cool. You can crawl thru them with 39 of your friends. It's awesome.
7) Question: Let me be up front: I don't play any MMORPG's...probably never will. I'm sure WOW is fantastic, but I generally stick to console games. Which sort of leads to my question. How in the world did the decision for a Warcraft MMORPG get made?
Response: Please play World of Warcraft. It's pretty awesome.
8) Question: Farming bots can frequently be spotted in the game, and I have evern personally recieved in-game mail spam advertizing mmobay.com . What do you plan to do to curb this issue that is eating away at the economy and atmosphere of your realms?
Response: Dood, we answered this questions 7 questions ago. RTFA plz.
9) Question:...So, my question is, are there any plans for more solo content for the endgame?
Response: Dungeons are cool. You can crawl thru them with 39 of your friends. It's awesome.
10) Question: would your company encourage, allocate time for and generally nudge willing developers to blog? If anyone's worried about bad postings and replies to the blog, a good example to look at is the Microsoft IE7 bloggers. A public blog seems to have influenced Microsoft into fixing IE7 to a degree more than initally planned, which is a Good Thing for many. A theory is their developers wanted to do the right thing, and the blog helped support that.
took a quick look at the pdf, and it seems like this idea is nothing really more than having a series of localized proxy-type servers that sort of act as middle men that communicate between the servers and the clients.
I don't see how this is anything unique and different from how other mmo's are currently deployed, and there are still the same problems that plague mmos. For example, one of the things they mentioned was the partitioning of the world map into discrete pieces. To help reduce load, sure. But what happens when everbody tries to 'storm the base' all at once?
When the pvp patch came out for World of Warcraft, serveral of the largest guilds of my server (Mannoroth) for opposing factions got together to siege/defend a capital city. (I'm trying to be as vague as possible to please bear with me) The problem isn't when you have a full raid party of 40 vs another party of 40, but rather when you have multiple raid parties vs multiple raid parties. We were in Orgrimmar, and we were being stormed by almost 300+ alliance, with almost just as many Horde waiting to defend. The load got so heavy the server crashed several times (nevermind the fact that the sheer number of ppl on the screen caused video cards to choke). The lag got so bad, ppl have given up on massive sieges altogether.
Massive sieges are still the holy grail of online gaming. I don't think it'll happen anytime soon.
Seriously, lower the price. When OSX is priced at $~130, I grudgingly purchased it. (Ok, afterwards I fell in love but that's not the point.)
When XP pro is priced at $150, it was painful for me to purchase. I didn't bother purchasing another copy for my extra boxes, either looked for some crack, or pirated copy or whatever. Otherwise I just installed a flavor of Linux.
If Vista is priced at $99, I would surely purchase one for my gaming machine. For a Pro version. Not some bs crippled Home(TM) garbage.*
If it's priced at $50, I'll buy a copy for every one of my machines. For a Pro version.*
*Disclaimer: Anything could happen in the next year. Perhaps 2006 _COULD_ be the year of the desktop for Linux. Or OSX86 might be out by then. But the truth is, if it's cheap enough, I might burn a few bucks to essentially give it a shot. Hell, I've bought quite a bit of terrible terrible console video games for like $70. If Windows Vista is under $100, I'll be willing to burn a benjamin.
I consider the Mini with its aluminum shell to be much better constructed than the Nano with the softer plastic scratches really easily.
Actaully the backside of the Nano is aluminum. I beleive the backside of the 20gig/60gig Ipods are of the the same exact material. So the potential to scatch up the Nano is roughly the same risk amount as to scratch up any other regular Ipod.
I've picked up a Nano and have used it for a few days. It's pretty dense weight-wise especially for it's size, but considering it's small form factor, I totally don't mind running with it without fear of risking any damage to moving parts (to which the Mini would have).
It's totally not an Ipod photo replacement; more like a rugged substitute to take to places you wouldn't want to risk damaging any peice of electronics that are worth $300+. I beleive Apple made the decision to drop the Mini, because too many people WERE considering the Mini as the Ipod substitute (and hence causing a drop in sales for the regular Ipod). With the direction of the Nano, it's small enough and cool enough that you Want It Real Bad (TM), but not big enough to hold your entire music collection. Which forces you to consider buying an Ipod Photo AFTER you bought an Ipod Nano.
Ok, this is completely offtopic, but I thought I saw this article's headline plagarized verbatim from another site yesterday. Looks like I'm not mistaken.
At the very least we can give digg.com some credit.
a degree from a decent 4 year program should still prepare you to move out into the tech world.
I agree with you. Unfortunately in the tech world, especially with the fast turnaround employment rate, HR does not want to spend money on training anybody for obscure things, even if one is fully capable of learning the ropes in a matter of weeks and already has a general understanding of it. What companies generally want is people that can do things Right Now The First Time. It really sucks for recent grads. And it's really great for veteran in the field.
Basically what you are left with is 10% of all tech people that are Googleworthy(companies go after them), 30% of all tech people that are trying to get in the field (this includes people that are genuinely interested and people that are in it for the money, although the latter group is shinking very quickly) and 60% that are absolutely mediocre that just happened to be very very lucky and advanced high enough in the corporate world before the bubble burst where they are considered invaluable resources and have no trouble looking for a job. The problem for the 30% trying to get in, is that the 60% mediocre group has set the standard for the industry's performance/level of expected intelligence, and unfortunately, has been set so low that your biggest asset in the hiring phase is proof you've "been there, done that," not your "potential to do it all."
Rumor from the grapevine has is that Samsung approached Apple and offered to match the cost of the tiny harddrive that are currently in the Ipodmini. So, Apple really isn't losing any money per unit. Then again, Apple really isn't going to gain any either. The big benefit is mostly consumer based: longer battery life, no moving parts, smaller space. The big benefit for Samsung is that they get a major push for a lot of these into the market, and force out their competitor at the same time. Then they make a name for themselves and get other companies like Creative, Dell or even Microsoft to purchase, once they can afford to reduce costs. When can we start seeing these things in laptops?
I wish there was a direct correlation between "Making more money" and "Quality Products." Let's face it: Microsoft is the McDonalds of the Operating System world. They aren't interested in giving you the best thing on earth, they are interested in supplying you with barest essential needs to sustain you, in order to maximize their profit without sacrificing their customer demand and quarterly profits.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to bash Microsoft. Overall I beleive their product fills the need of the majority of their customers in terms of productivity. And yes, there are other Operating Systems out there that are much better suited for different or more specialized needs.
But if all you are looking for is a cheap burger and a soda to prevent you from, well - starving, then you can bet your job that most people are not going to go to DB Bistro Moderne to get a $50 Foie Gras burger when the McDonalds down the street will fulfill that need perfectly,more cost effectively, and quicker.
People that actively search for a better alternative solution will always luck out. To these guys, the cheap burgers they find are the Carl's Jr, or the In-N-Out Burgers: higher quality burgers for the same amount of cost and convenience (YMMV, but you get the gist of what I'm trying to say). But the majority of the world doesn't really care. To them, a burger is a burger is a burger is a burger. All they care is:
1) Can I get on the internet to buy stuff?
2) Can I chat with my friends?
3) Can I take photos and print them from my computer?
4) Can I write documents or other work related material?
5) Can I listen to music with it?
6) Does it *just work?* (I really hate that term)
In fact, it's only a recent trend that we are starting to see quality coming up from the woodwork. As more Wendys are popping up, McDonalds is forced to up their quality standards in order to keep customer satisfaction (again, whether or not you beleive Wendys has higher quality products is irrelevant). It's the capitalistic way. Microsoft doesn't want to enforce a level of quality if it's going to cause them to lose money, unless they need to. And they are starting to need to.
Dude, you should RTFP post more carefully before you decide to 'correct' him. I beleive MustardMan's assessment on how the mouse works is correct: emphasis is given on *where* the mouse button was pressed down on, not which button. The whole shell is the mouse button, hence therefore you have the *look* of one mouse button. Functionally, you have two mouse buttons due to the added touch sensor. It's a pretty nonconventional way to make a mouse, and much more expensive I bet - but hey, pretty cool nonetheless.
You know while I was thinking about how this probably better for Sony to deal with online purchases, I did a quick read over the pre-launch stats. Of all the participants in the prelaunch, the average amount of money a player spent was roughly $14 in 2 weeks. That's almost $30 a month? And this is ON TOP of that monthly fee?? HOLY CRAP - I can't beleive it took Sony so long to jump on the bandwagon. I mean, if the average player is spending that much per month just on goods, shit man, sony should just throw out their monthly fee and watch their subscription rate skyrocket!
A few years ago one of my friends (who was a med student at the time) was talking about the effects of heroin. He started talking about some experiment (this is a paraphrase, don't quote me on this) where they hooked up some device that connected to the part of the mouse brain that is associated with pleasure. That device was triggered by a switch, to which the mouse could press down on. Whenever the mouse pressed down on the switch, the device would send a little jolt? signal? something to the 'pleasure zone' of the brain, and the mouse would the effects of something apparently similar to the taking a shot of heroin.
At first the mouse would stumble upon it, and *whoops* it got high by accident. Eventually it figured out whenever it pressed the button, it would get high. More and more the mouse would hit the trigger to get high. Eventually the mouse was so severely addicted, it died of starvation as it was violently slamming the button trying to get it's 'fix,' the mouse forgot to eat. (please excuse my grammar)
No idea why this little story came up, I didn't really read your post too thoroughly, and I was thinking about if they did create an Orgasm-on-demand button, how many people would die with wide grins on their faces. I suppose this topic brought up the idea of an addiction. The reason why my friend was trying to tell me that story was because I was trying to quit smoking, and he was talking about how other addictions are far worse than smoking (like heroin), and that smoking is a relatively lighter addiction to control. A pretty clinically sadistic pep talk, that's for sure.:-) And yeah, I quit smoking.
Ok, so according to TFA, here are the main ingredients:
Character Customization
Combat
Crafting
Player Housing
Quests
Skills
You know, when I was keeping up with info on the *new upcoming gaming genre* of UO (back in 96), I had all kinds of visions of what an MMORPG was supposed to mean. I wanted to see an actual thriving world with actual thriving NPC's (with some semblance of an AI)running it. I expected to see AI driven dragons roaming around the Far East Plains, and I expected to see AI critters stay far far away from the Far East Plains as the dragons will summarily eat anything that crosses it's path. I wanted to see in-game AI driven politics between in-game AI driven factions (that we can participate in and possibly manipulate).
I wanted to see an actual world. A living breathing city filled with NPC's with a some kind of reason for it's existence, whether it's making food or forging armor or growing crops. A city where NPC watchmen come out at night at 6pm and start lighting the street lamps. A city where a sudden drop in player subscriptions will NOT affect the economy and outlook of a city. A place where players can truly build their own citys, with NPCs slowly populating it.
Sadly, I got none of that.
Instead, we have games where the R in RPG does not stand for 'ROLE,' but instead stands for ROLL (you know, like as in rolling the dice? I crack myself up). MMORPGS have turned into nothing but a numbers game, with higher end content requiring nothing more than the cooperation and coordination of multiple players juggling the right numbers at the right time simultaneously.
I have yet to see an MMORPG I've truly thought of as a role playing game.:-(
Well, communication is the ultimate nerd weakness, isn't it?:-) After all, slashdot is one of the main places to hear geeks complaining about their non-existent relationship with a significant other.
I would say it's a double-edged sword. If you are constantly letting him know what you are doing, all he will be hearing is the Charlie Brown style "whaaawhaaawhaaWhaaWhaa" speak and will not be able to decipher between something that is trivial and something that is critical. To him it's all trivial, and he doesn't care how it's done, he just wants it *done.* Managers don't want to get involved in trivial matters, they just want insurance that you can take care of it. Plus if our communication is landing on deaf ears, you think geeks will continue doing so, knowing that it's a complete waste of time? And so, when there is a trivial becomes non-trivial and he discovers it, guess who's ass he's going to take it out of?
1) Lack of communication, and you get in trouble.
2) Communication, and if the boss doesn't want to hear it, you get in trouble anyway.
Is there any wonder why the antisocial elitist IT guy stereotype is still prevalent? It's because this is what it takes to retain our jobs. It's crappy, and we hate it, and we all know we aren't like that amongst peers. But the minute management is looking for costcutting measures, IT staff gets shitcanned or is staying with BurgerKing wages. After all, IT doesn't bring in any profit, we just waste company resources in the eyes of the company.
Slashdot Mirror
Because the primary purpose of the celebration of these holidays are about the purchase and exchanging of gifts? If so, why should we go about critisizing someone's method of going about it?
Work on some code, and totally forget about it. If I can look at the code and understand what I was doing and why, then no need to comment on it; otherwise, put in comments. Then totally forget about it again. Look at the code once more, read the comments, and if I still don't understand what my function/piece of code is doing, then my comment sucks and it needs to be reworded.
Simple. Of course, the hard part is always 'totally forgetting about it.' Generally what I do for that is either concentrate on another piece of code, or just leave it alone for an extended period of time. If neither options are feasible for me, then I would ask someone else to critique it. If that's not possible either, then I just roleplay a critic when I go over my notes.
I hope I'm not the only one that does this..?
Merlot is a grape. :-P (sorry for the nerd attack)
Trying to debug his stuff was hell!
LOL. I did the exact same thing. He's got some pretty cool maps to look at - sure brought back some memories. What's pretty interesting is that how small (relatively) the world of Legend of Zelda actually was! It's amazing looking at each different area and trying to remember how the puzzles went. I imagined myself running thru the map, and I didn't even realize I was whistling the tune for the past 10 mins untill I read your post. Must be a rote thing.
Looks like we are in the midst of seeing a legal-troll get metamodded to oblivion. Lets see if he'll end up getting the (-1 DISBARRED) moderation...
I suppose using the term 'steaming pile' is more commonly associated with excrement, but then again parent was going for funny. Well, now it's not that funny any more since I've had to explain the joke. Sorry!
LOL. Ghostbusters references are usually beaten to death, but that was well placed. Thanks.
"..good thing Nintendo is taking the risk, because we get to see if their plan will work out. And if it does, we'll bury them with our own MS version!" (insert cackle here)
(questions snipped for brevity, apologies if any questions were mangled. Also, please read it with a grain of salt *smirk*)
1) Question: How much economic monitoring do you do? Both in-game and on the secondary market (eBay)? Have you considered working with an economist (Steven D. Levitt comes to mind, but there are dozens of others as well) to study some of these phenomenon?
Response: We ban bots. I've banned 3 myself today.
2) Question: ..It's easy to guess that you've encountered challenges due to scale that no other developer has before. Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently, and when?
Response: Why yes, there are things we wished we would have done differently...wha.. is this a two part question?.. Brain.. hurts!
3) Question: ..What kind of hurdles did you have to overcome to get both Windows and Mac versions to co-exist and have you had to make any sacrifices because you were only able to do something on one platfrom and not both?
Response: We made a windows AND a mac version. That means, if you have a mac, you can install it, and play it! Without a PC!
4) Question: What is the process the dev team goes through for balancing character classes, items, NPCs, etc.?..
Response: It's very difficult. Otherwise it wouldn't be easy. Ppl complain all the time. Stop bitching.
5) Question: ..Are you planning to introduce "events" into the gaming world that would actually shape it permanently, like in Asheron's call?
Response: We made it so you can run around and fight stuff. It's awesome.
6) Question: ..The early game is brilliant, and playing it was a joy. Why is that so hard to retain in level 60 play?
Response: Dungeons are cool. You can crawl thru them with 39 of your friends. It's awesome.
7) Question: Let me be up front: I don't play any MMORPG's...probably never will. I'm sure WOW is fantastic, but I generally stick to console games. Which sort of leads to my question. How in the world did the decision for a Warcraft MMORPG get made?
Response: Please play World of Warcraft. It's pretty awesome.
8) Question: Farming bots can frequently be spotted in the game, and I have evern personally recieved in-game mail spam advertizing mmobay.com . What do you plan to do to curb this issue that is eating away at the economy and atmosphere of your realms?
Response: Dood, we answered this questions 7 questions ago. RTFA plz.
9) Question: ...So, my question is, are there any plans for more solo content for the endgame?
Response: Dungeons are cool. You can crawl thru them with 39 of your friends. It's awesome.
10) Question: would your company encourage, allocate time for and generally nudge willing developers to blog? If anyone's worried about bad postings and replies to the blog, a good example to look at is the Microsoft IE7 bloggers. A public blog seems to have influenced Microsoft into fixing IE7 to a degree more than initally planned, which is a Good Thing for many. A theory is their developers wanted to do the right thing, and the blog helped support that.
Response: Use the forums plz, kthxbye.
I don't see how this is anything unique and different from how other mmo's are currently deployed, and there are still the same problems that plague mmos. For example, one of the things they mentioned was the partitioning of the world map into discrete pieces. To help reduce load, sure. But what happens when everbody tries to 'storm the base' all at once?
When the pvp patch came out for World of Warcraft, serveral of the largest guilds of my server (Mannoroth) for opposing factions got together to siege/defend a capital city. (I'm trying to be as vague as possible to please bear with me) The problem isn't when you have a full raid party of 40 vs another party of 40, but rather when you have multiple raid parties vs multiple raid parties. We were in Orgrimmar, and we were being stormed by almost 300+ alliance, with almost just as many Horde waiting to defend. The load got so heavy the server crashed several times (nevermind the fact that the sheer number of ppl on the screen caused video cards to choke). The lag got so bad, ppl have given up on massive sieges altogether.
Massive sieges are still the holy grail of online gaming. I don't think it'll happen anytime soon.
When XP pro is priced at $150, it was painful for me to purchase. I didn't bother purchasing another copy for my extra boxes, either looked for some crack, or pirated copy or whatever. Otherwise I just installed a flavor of Linux.
If Vista is priced at $99, I would surely purchase one for my gaming machine. For a Pro version. Not some bs crippled Home(TM) garbage.*
If it's priced at $50, I'll buy a copy for every one of my machines. For a Pro version.*
*Disclaimer: Anything could happen in the next year. Perhaps 2006 _COULD_ be the year of the desktop for Linux. Or OSX86 might be out by then. But the truth is, if it's cheap enough, I might burn a few bucks to essentially give it a shot. Hell, I've bought quite a bit of terrible terrible console video games for like $70. If Windows Vista is under $100, I'll be willing to burn a benjamin.
Actaully the backside of the Nano is aluminum. I beleive the backside of the 20gig/60gig Ipods are of the the same exact material. So the potential to scatch up the Nano is roughly the same risk amount as to scratch up any other regular Ipod.
I've picked up a Nano and have used it for a few days. It's pretty dense weight-wise especially for it's size, but considering it's small form factor, I totally don't mind running with it without fear of risking any damage to moving parts (to which the Mini would have).
It's totally not an Ipod photo replacement; more like a rugged substitute to take to places you wouldn't want to risk damaging any peice of electronics that are worth $300+. I beleive Apple made the decision to drop the Mini, because too many people WERE considering the Mini as the Ipod substitute (and hence causing a drop in sales for the regular Ipod). With the direction of the Nano, it's small enough and cool enough that you Want It Real Bad (TM), but not big enough to hold your entire music collection. Which forces you to consider buying an Ipod Photo AFTER you bought an Ipod Nano.
Those Apple bastards.
At the very least we can give digg.com some credit.
I agree with you. Unfortunately in the tech world, especially with the fast turnaround employment rate, HR does not want to spend money on training anybody for obscure things, even if one is fully capable of learning the ropes in a matter of weeks and already has a general understanding of it. What companies generally want is people that can do things Right Now The First Time. It really sucks for recent grads. And it's really great for veteran in the field.
Basically what you are left with is 10% of all tech people that are Googleworthy(companies go after them), 30% of all tech people that are trying to get in the field (this includes people that are genuinely interested and people that are in it for the money, although the latter group is shinking very quickly) and 60% that are absolutely mediocre that just happened to be very very lucky and advanced high enough in the corporate world before the bubble burst where they are considered invaluable resources and have no trouble looking for a job. The problem for the 30% trying to get in, is that the 60% mediocre group has set the standard for the industry's performance/level of expected intelligence, and unfortunately, has been set so low that your biggest asset in the hiring phase is proof you've "been there, done that," not your "potential to do it all."
Rumor from the grapevine has is that Samsung approached Apple and offered to match the cost of the tiny harddrive that are currently in the Ipodmini. So, Apple really isn't losing any money per unit. Then again, Apple really isn't going to gain any either. The big benefit is mostly consumer based: longer battery life, no moving parts, smaller space. The big benefit for Samsung is that they get a major push for a lot of these into the market, and force out their competitor at the same time. Then they make a name for themselves and get other companies like Creative, Dell or even Microsoft to purchase, once they can afford to reduce costs. When can we start seeing these things in laptops?
If your contact is online, give them a call...
If they don't have a mic, send them an IM...
If they are offline, send them an email
It's such a simple idea, I can't beleive nobody thought of trying to consolidate all points of communication under one roof. Very very slick!
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to bash Microsoft. Overall I beleive their product fills the need of the majority of their customers in terms of productivity. And yes, there are other Operating Systems out there that are much better suited for different or more specialized needs.
But if all you are looking for is a cheap burger and a soda to prevent you from, well - starving, then you can bet your job that most people are not going to go to DB Bistro Moderne to get a $50 Foie Gras burger when the McDonalds down the street will fulfill that need perfectly,more cost effectively, and quicker.
People that actively search for a better alternative solution will always luck out. To these guys, the cheap burgers they find are the Carl's Jr, or the In-N-Out Burgers: higher quality burgers for the same amount of cost and convenience (YMMV, but you get the gist of what I'm trying to say). But the majority of the world doesn't really care. To them, a burger is a burger is a burger is a burger. All they care is:
1) Can I get on the internet to buy stuff?
2) Can I chat with my friends?
3) Can I take photos and print them from my computer?
4) Can I write documents or other work related material?
5) Can I listen to music with it? 6) Does it *just work?* (I really hate that term)
In fact, it's only a recent trend that we are starting to see quality coming up from the woodwork. As more Wendys are popping up, McDonalds is forced to up their quality standards in order to keep customer satisfaction (again, whether or not you beleive Wendys has higher quality products is irrelevant). It's the capitalistic way. Microsoft doesn't want to enforce a level of quality if it's going to cause them to lose money, unless they need to. And they are starting to need to.
Dude, you should RTFP post more carefully before you decide to 'correct' him. I beleive MustardMan's assessment on how the mouse works is correct: emphasis is given on *where* the mouse button was pressed down on, not which button. The whole shell is the mouse button, hence therefore you have the *look* of one mouse button. Functionally, you have two mouse buttons due to the added touch sensor. It's a pretty nonconventional way to make a mouse, and much more expensive I bet - but hey, pretty cool nonetheless.
So what you are saying is, that 10M is enough for anyone? :-)
Sorry, it's early morning here and hot out. Trying to lighten the mood a the office...
You know while I was thinking about how this probably better for Sony to deal with online purchases, I did a quick read over the pre-launch stats. Of all the participants in the prelaunch, the average amount of money a player spent was roughly $14 in 2 weeks. That's almost $30 a month? And this is ON TOP of that monthly fee?? HOLY CRAP - I can't beleive it took Sony so long to jump on the bandwagon. I mean, if the average player is spending that much per month just on goods, shit man, sony should just throw out their monthly fee and watch their subscription rate skyrocket!
At first the mouse would stumble upon it, and *whoops* it got high by accident. Eventually it figured out whenever it pressed the button, it would get high. More and more the mouse would hit the trigger to get high. Eventually the mouse was so severely addicted, it died of starvation as it was violently slamming the button trying to get it's 'fix,' the mouse forgot to eat. (please excuse my grammar)
No idea why this little story came up, I didn't really read your post too thoroughly, and I was thinking about if they did create an Orgasm-on-demand button, how many people would die with wide grins on their faces. I suppose this topic brought up the idea of an addiction. The reason why my friend was trying to tell me that story was because I was trying to quit smoking, and he was talking about how other addictions are far worse than smoking (like heroin), and that smoking is a relatively lighter addiction to control. A pretty clinically sadistic pep talk, that's for sure. :-) And yeah, I quit smoking.
Character Customization
Combat
Crafting
Player Housing
Quests
Skills
You know, when I was keeping up with info on the *new upcoming gaming genre* of UO (back in 96), I had all kinds of visions of what an MMORPG was supposed to mean. I wanted to see an actual thriving world with actual thriving NPC's (with some semblance of an AI)running it. I expected to see AI driven dragons roaming around the Far East Plains, and I expected to see AI critters stay far far away from the Far East Plains as the dragons will summarily eat anything that crosses it's path. I wanted to see in-game AI driven politics between in-game AI driven factions (that we can participate in and possibly manipulate).
I wanted to see an actual world. A living breathing city filled with NPC's with a some kind of reason for it's existence, whether it's making food or forging armor or growing crops. A city where NPC watchmen come out at night at 6pm and start lighting the street lamps. A city where a sudden drop in player subscriptions will NOT affect the economy and outlook of a city. A place where players can truly build their own citys, with NPCs slowly populating it.
Sadly, I got none of that.
Instead, we have games where the R in RPG does not stand for 'ROLE,' but instead stands for ROLL (you know, like as in rolling the dice? I crack myself up). MMORPGS have turned into nothing but a numbers game, with higher end content requiring nothing more than the cooperation and coordination of multiple players juggling the right numbers at the right time simultaneously.
I have yet to see an MMORPG I've truly thought of as a role playing game. :-(
I beleive GP was thinking about Chris Tucker from Rush Hour. He's got the high-pitched voice that's more suitable for a whiny Starscream. :-)
I would say it's a double-edged sword. If you are constantly letting him know what you are doing, all he will be hearing is the Charlie Brown style "whaaawhaaawhaaWhaaWhaa" speak and will not be able to decipher between something that is trivial and something that is critical. To him it's all trivial, and he doesn't care how it's done, he just wants it *done.* Managers don't want to get involved in trivial matters, they just want insurance that you can take care of it. Plus if our communication is landing on deaf ears, you think geeks will continue doing so, knowing that it's a complete waste of time? And so, when there is a trivial becomes non-trivial and he discovers it, guess who's ass he's going to take it out of?
1) Lack of communication, and you get in trouble.
2) Communication, and if the boss doesn't want to hear it, you get in trouble anyway.
Is there any wonder why the antisocial elitist IT guy stereotype is still prevalent? It's because this is what it takes to retain our jobs. It's crappy, and we hate it, and we all know we aren't like that amongst peers. But the minute management is looking for costcutting measures, IT staff gets shitcanned or is staying with BurgerKing wages. After all, IT doesn't bring in any profit, we just waste company resources in the eyes of the company.