The tough job starts now? Not really... The other orbiters are processed in separate buildings, by separate groups of technicians. After Columbia, each flight requires a 'backup' orbiter be available to rescue the crew, should an emergency arise, so Atlantis is already nearly flight-ready. The processing of Atlantis and the training of the next crew has been underway for quite some time. It's not like KSC can only process one orbiter at a time...
I have never finished Doom 3 just because it scares me too much to play. I can play it for about 20 - 30 minutes, then I have to quit.
When the doors to a room open, and I see a dark room, I KNOW there's something in there that will jump out and attack me when I go in. I don't want to go in. I want to stay outside the room where I know there's nothing that will jump out at me. Finally, I go in. Sure enough, something screams and jumps out at me from the darkness, spewing fire and clawing at me. I knew it was coming, I knew where it was coming from, yet I still jump out of my chair and scream right back at those red eyes in the blackness...
I can go through that about 10 times before I have to play something else.
Those damn graphics keep me going back, though. If only they'd make a non-horror game with that engine, with those kinds of graphics and imagination to the levels... I love all the machinery and lights, but when they unexpectedly move and make noise I yell again and end up draining half my plasma ammo by blasting an innocent hydrocon transducer. I also have that 'need to beat the game' thing going on as well.
Being scared in games might be needed, but when it starts to impact your underwear laundry schedule, it's probably a little too much.
The IBM A31P is currently the type of computer they use on board. They have about a dozen deployed around the station, all networked together. Unfortunately, at the moment, they're still using coax cables instead of standard twisted pair cables. Eventually, once they certify the built-in ethernet port in the laptops, they'll upgrade to that, and stop using the 3Com PCMCIA cards & 'dongles' to connect them.
They can use wireless, but they are still using Proxim cards and access points. Hopefully, the plan to upgrade to 802.11 on board will be implemented sometime next year. Unfortunately, because it takes so long for new electronics to be certified and flown, that the hardware ends up being antiquated by the time it's replaced.
"And there's the answer right there; anything left loose on the space station WILL end up on or in an air vent."
Not always. There's quite a few nooks and crannies that things can get bumped into on accident. Things end up getting pushed behind bags, stuck in between the removable panel covers, etc... They find a few things in the vents occasionally, but not enough to believe a mod to the vent covers would be a panacea. (There actually are vent covers, which makes this story a bit surprising; things aren't supposed to get sucked in there.)
If they end up near enough to a vent to be affected by the suction, they might get pulled towards it, but unlike the movies would portray it, air vents and leaks aren't quite like hurricane force winds.:)
During Bill MacArthur's flight (Increment 12), he lost his PDA for about 4 weeks. He was later doing some maintenance on some of the vents in the airlock, and it came shooting out of an out-flow vent, along with some other missing items. Apparently, it had gotten sucked into a vent somewhere, and had been sitting in a duct. Things easily get away from you in the station if they're not tethered down or put back exactly where they came from.
They use an Inventory Management System to track inventory, but when you consider that there are over 30,000 individual items and locations onboard, it gets a little hard to manage. It works well most of the time, but any inventory system is only as good as its data. If they forget to mark down where they put something, it could take ages to find.
So your issues are: 1: Death penalties 2: Travel Times 3: Soloable content 4: Landmass size 5: Simplified Game Mechanics 6: Level 60 content
#1 and 2 are simply difficulty level related. You want it to be more difficult on you when you die, and more difficult to get around.
#1: All death penalties really amount to is lost time, whether it be due to lost xp or time returning to the corpse. Every game has varying degrees of death penalties, but to say that WoW is the only one that's not excessive isn't accurate. I can think of a couple games without much death penalty. This is definitely not unique to WoW. SWG and AO both had fairly lax death penalties. SWG's was similar to WoW, except that you would be damaged instead of your gear.
#2: Many games have made it easy to get from one zone to another. I'd rather spend my time actually playing the game than just racking up miles on my boots. Does 'hardcore' mean running from place to place over and over, instead of actually doing something more interesting? CoH was extremely easy to navigate. With travel powers and trams, you could get anywhere extremely quickly. SWG had transports to different worlds; AO had teleporters and The Matrix. This is definitely not a WoW-only sort of thing.
#3: Also not unique to WoW. I can also think of many games that allowed for soloable content as well as group content throughout the level progression. CoH springs to mind.
#4: Also not unique to WoW. CoH has a tiny landmass. I wouldn't call WoW's size that small, personally. However, the upcoming expansion is going to increase it by 25%.
#5: I think your description is a little vague. Can you cite some specific comparisons?
#6: I'd agree that there is limited content for level 60 characters at the moment, but new instances are being added on a regular basis. There's 4 instances in the game at the moment for level 60+ characters, with another one being added with the next patch. The expansion will add a few more when it comes out.
WoW may have some of the qualities you describe, but it's not right to claim they only exist in WoW; they've been in one game or another since the dawn of gaming, from old single player games through the MMOs. .
. "It may not appeal to the 'mindless masses' but there is a captive, faithful audience out there."
I really don't understand your hostility towards WoW players. Is your wife mindless? Are all 5 million subscribers 'mindless'?
"Why does everything have to have 5 million customers and be a "WoW clone" to be successful?"
I didn't say successful. I said 'huge' - your terminology. To me, 'huge' means large number of players. I would consider WoW to be 'huge'.
'Successful' is a much more subjective word. If their goal is to make a game and sell it, they can easily 'succeed.' If their goal is to make enough money to sustain itself, but not be a major phenomenon, then they might succeed at that as well. The latter goal isn't a rare thing these days. .
.
"WoW is a watered down MMO. Levels are easy, the endgame converges on 3 instances, the raiding content is sparse, there is very little to do once you are 60... they made a simple game, no wonder it is popular, simple minds, simple games!"
Your opinion makes it sound like you've played it quite a bit. If it was so horrible, why did you keep playing it? If you didn't play it all that much, then you've got a fairly un-informed opinion. In either case, that's just your opinion. You hate WoW, and that's fine. Mocking the people who do play it just makes you sound petty. .
.
"I don't care if I am close minded. There are a lot of us waiting for a game that is hardcore, that has strict rules, that doesn't hand you levels and gear on a silver platter."
All you're describing is changing the difficulty level, not 'removing anything WoWish.' Exactly what is it that is unique only to WoW that you hate so much? There have been other games before WoW that were fairly similar in difficulty level. Yet WoW seems to be made out to be some kind of abomination, that no one who claims to be 'hardcore' could ever enjoy, unlike every other game that came out in the history of MMOs.
.
.
"People two years ago were ready to pre-order this game as soon as it was a possibility. It is rare that a game is so well-received."
That doesn't mean they're going to like the final product. Most MMOs go through a lot of changes during their lifetime; just look at SWG. So people were willing to buy a game they hadn't seen. That doesn't mean it's going to be any good.
"Vanguard will be huge." "...this game will cater to the hardcore gamer, not to the casual one."
I don't see how this can be anything but mutually exclusive. WoW has a lot of content for both casual and hardcore gamers, and has become 'Huge'. (The amount of content available to each group is debatable.)
The number of casual gamers out there far outweigh the hardcore ones. If a new game (Any new game) caters only to hardcore gamers, the numbers in the potential customer base will prohibit it from becoming anywhere as popular as WoW. .
.
"I say its a Good Thing that they get rid of anything WoWish."
I say this is a very dangerous and closed-minded thing to say. For this game to be so immensely popular, it must be doing something right. Your suggestion is to remove all the elements that make it such a successful game, and make a new one out of the result. Why do you think this will be any good?
"Glass is also a feature that we all have come to respect and love"
Says who? Shame on me for not wanting an OS that requires a bleeding edge computer to run. I remember the good old days when an OS was supposed to run the killer aps, and not be one.
Exactly. A program is only be as good as its data. Taking and inventory of what you've got, and recording that data would only mask the symptoms of the underlying problem. The real solution is to organize the books, and eliminate the chaotic random scheme you have now. With your current setup, your inventory program would be completely dependant on being updated whenever a book is placed on a shelf, which takes discipline for the life of the application. Taking the time now to organize the shelves will greatly reduce the amount of work down the road, as long as you put your books back where you found them.
I missed the bit where it said they would pay all the fees related to scratched discs. Perhaps they'll just acknowledge the fees. I'd like to acknowledge the problems with the 360, and I plan on staying away from them as a result.
BTW, I love reading stories from people who haven't yet had problems with a faulty product. Their experience is fine, so it must be a good product. Everyone else must not know what they're doing. Thank you for the anecdotes.:)
"With some sort of universal power mechanism (splash pad, dc power at the plug, etc) many businesses lose a revenue stream."
And with some sort of universal power mechanism, many businesses could discover a new revenue stream.
Somebody's got to make adapters for old products to use the new pad chargers... Someone could get rich making more efficient and smaller pads... Decorator pads, pads for the car (built into the dash board, perhaps?), etc, etc...
Let's get Tesla Coils everywhere. I'd love to see those things zapping away at all the electrical devices, charging and scorching them with terrific zapping noises.
I also want one of those Jacob's Ladder spark things, but that really doesn't have anything to do with this story.
I loved enslaving people and running around with the entire town in tow before engaging the enemy stronghold.
Having 4 cyborgs in trench coats whipping out huge chain-guns to mow down the bad (good?) guys whilst surrounded by their army of zombified cyber-slaves was too much fun.
I would say we need another one of those games, but they'd probably just 3D the heck of it, and you'd end up with a first person shooter.
That's what I was thinking. I guess it comes down to "It's legal until the judge deems otherwise." I can't come up with a good acid test of what makes a person private enough not to be a target of satire. One man's privates is another man's publics?
"He's made himself a public figure, that makes him venurable to things like that. It's true, you can't do that to some random private citizen. If I went and started selling "I hate eln" t-shirts tp get back at you I could get in trouble (well, assuming I was using your real name that is). However we are allowed to mock public figures, be they politicians, celebrities, etc. So by going on 60 minutes and the like, he's made himself a public figure and subjected himself to this."
What makes a person private vs. public? How do I know if it's fair game to make a t-shirt about someone and not 'get in trouble'? What level of 'public-ness' must a person attain to become fair game? What law/rule/statute would it be breaking to make/wear/sell a t-shirt that said 'I hate John Smith'?
Clearly original the book was intended purely as a simulator for baby-eating, so we can either use that as instructional material, or offer to donate $10k to charity if someone writes a book about burning books. Wait, someone already wrote a book about that. I guess we skip directly to the step about retracting our offer and suing anyone who mocks us.
"If you ask me this article looks like it was written by someone from one of the gold selling companies, giving helpful hints such as when to be one of the farmers customers, in order to legitimise their business. It's a pity they have to ignore and argue against basic economic principles to do so."
His helpful hints can let you screw the farmers over.
Did you actually read the article?
Slashdot Mirror
The tough job starts now?
Not really... The other orbiters are processed in separate buildings, by separate groups of technicians.
After Columbia, each flight requires a 'backup' orbiter be available to rescue the crew, should an emergency arise, so Atlantis is already nearly flight-ready.
The processing of Atlantis and the training of the next crew has been underway for quite some time.
It's not like KSC can only process one orbiter at a time...
My kingdom for a mod point!
HHGTTG > *
I have never finished Doom 3 just because it scares me too much to play. I can play it for about 20 - 30 minutes, then I have to quit.
When the doors to a room open, and I see a dark room, I KNOW there's something in there that will jump out and attack me when I go in. I don't want to go in. I want to stay outside the room where I know there's nothing that will jump out at me. Finally, I go in.
Sure enough, something screams and jumps out at me from the darkness, spewing fire and clawing at me. I knew it was coming, I knew where it was coming from, yet I still jump out of my chair and scream right back at those red eyes in the blackness...
I can go through that about 10 times before I have to play something else.
Those damn graphics keep me going back, though. If only they'd make a non-horror game with that engine, with those kinds of graphics and imagination to the levels...
I love all the machinery and lights, but when they unexpectedly move and make noise I yell again and end up draining half my plasma ammo by blasting an innocent hydrocon transducer.
I also have that 'need to beat the game' thing going on as well.
Being scared in games might be needed, but when it starts to impact your underwear laundry schedule, it's probably a little too much.
The IBM A31P is currently the type of computer they use on board. They have about a dozen deployed around the station, all networked together.
Unfortunately, at the moment, they're still using coax cables instead of standard twisted pair cables.
Eventually, once they certify the built-in ethernet port in the laptops, they'll upgrade to that, and stop using the 3Com PCMCIA cards & 'dongles' to connect them.
They can use wireless, but they are still using Proxim cards and access points. Hopefully, the plan to upgrade to 802.11 on board will be implemented sometime next year.
Unfortunately, because it takes so long for new electronics to be certified and flown, that the hardware ends up being antiquated by the time it's replaced.
If Rockstar wrote the software for it, you could just unlock the 'secret' avatar...
But then your house would be rated 'M'.
"And there's the answer right there; anything left loose on the space station WILL end up on or in an air vent."
:)
Not always.
There's quite a few nooks and crannies that things can get bumped into on accident. Things end up getting pushed behind bags, stuck in between the removable panel covers, etc...
They find a few things in the vents occasionally, but not enough to believe a mod to the vent covers would be a panacea. (There actually are vent covers, which makes this story a bit surprising; things aren't supposed to get sucked in there.)
If they end up near enough to a vent to be affected by the suction, they might get pulled towards it, but unlike the movies would portray it, air vents and leaks aren't quite like hurricane force winds.
During Bill MacArthur's flight (Increment 12), he lost his PDA for about 4 weeks. He was later doing some maintenance on some of the vents in the airlock, and it came shooting out of an out-flow vent, along with some other missing items. Apparently, it had gotten sucked into a vent somewhere, and had been sitting in a duct.
n /crew-12/html/iss012e12909.htmln /crew-12/html/iss012e18578.html
n /crew-12/ndxpage1.html
Things easily get away from you in the station if they're not tethered down or put back exactly where they came from.
They use an Inventory Management System to track inventory, but when you consider that there are over 30,000 individual items and locations onboard, it gets a little hard to manage.
It works well most of the time, but any inventory system is only as good as its data. If they forget to mark down where they put something, it could take ages to find.
When you have everything you could possibly need for living in, working on, experimenting, and maintaining a space station for six months, in an enclosed space the size of a few school buses, things can get kinda cluttered.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/statio
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/statio
Whole gallery here:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/statio
So your issues are:
1: Death penalties
2: Travel Times
3: Soloable content
4: Landmass size
5: Simplified Game Mechanics
6: Level 60 content
#1 and 2 are simply difficulty level related. You want it to be more difficult on you when you die, and more difficult to get around.
#1: All death penalties really amount to is lost time, whether it be due to lost xp or time returning to the corpse. Every game has varying degrees of death penalties, but to say that WoW is the only one that's not excessive isn't accurate.
I can think of a couple games without much death penalty. This is definitely not unique to WoW. SWG and AO both had fairly lax death penalties. SWG's was similar to WoW, except that you would be damaged instead of your gear.
#2: Many games have made it easy to get from one zone to another. I'd rather spend my time actually playing the game than just racking up miles on my boots. Does 'hardcore' mean running from place to place over and over, instead of actually doing something more interesting? CoH was extremely easy to navigate. With travel powers and trams, you could get anywhere extremely quickly. SWG had transports to different worlds; AO had teleporters and The Matrix.
This is definitely not a WoW-only sort of thing.
#3: Also not unique to WoW. I can also think of many games that allowed for soloable content as well as group content throughout the level progression. CoH springs to mind.
#4: Also not unique to WoW. CoH has a tiny landmass. I wouldn't call WoW's size that small, personally. However, the upcoming expansion is going to increase it by 25%.
#5: I think your description is a little vague. Can you cite some specific comparisons?
#6: I'd agree that there is limited content for level 60 characters at the moment, but new instances are being added on a regular basis. There's 4 instances in the game at the moment for level 60+ characters, with another one being added with the next patch. The expansion will add a few more when it comes out.
WoW may have some of the qualities you describe, but it's not right to claim they only exist in WoW; they've been in one game or another since the dawn of gaming, from old single player games through the MMOs.
.
.
"It may not appeal to the 'mindless masses' but there is a captive, faithful audience out there."
I really don't understand your hostility towards WoW players. Is your wife mindless?
Are all 5 million subscribers 'mindless'?
"Why does everything have to have 5 million customers and be a "WoW clone" to be successful?"
... they made a simple game, no wonder it is popular, simple minds, simple games!"
I didn't say successful. I said 'huge' - your terminology. To me, 'huge' means large number of players. I would consider WoW to be 'huge'.
'Successful' is a much more subjective word. If their goal is to make a game and sell it, they can easily 'succeed.' If their goal is to make enough money to sustain itself, but not be a major phenomenon, then they might succeed at that as well. The latter goal isn't a rare thing these days.
.
.
"WoW is a watered down MMO. Levels are easy, the endgame converges on 3 instances, the raiding content is sparse, there is very little to do once you are 60
Your opinion makes it sound like you've played it quite a bit. If it was so horrible, why did you keep playing it?
If you didn't play it all that much, then you've got a fairly un-informed opinion.
In either case, that's just your opinion. You hate WoW, and that's fine. Mocking the people who do play it just makes you sound petty.
.
.
"I don't care if I am close minded. There are a lot of us waiting for a game that is hardcore, that has strict rules, that doesn't hand you levels and gear on a silver platter."
All you're describing is changing the difficulty level, not 'removing anything WoWish.'
Exactly what is it that is unique only to WoW that you hate so much?
There have been other games before WoW that were fairly similar in difficulty level. Yet WoW seems to be made out to be some kind of abomination, that no one who claims to be 'hardcore' could ever enjoy, unlike every other game that came out in the history of MMOs.
.
.
"People two years ago were ready to pre-order this game as soon as it was a possibility. It is rare that a game is so well-received."
That doesn't mean they're going to like the final product. Most MMOs go through a lot of changes during their lifetime; just look at SWG. So people were willing to buy a game they hadn't seen. That doesn't mean it's going to be any good.
"Vanguard will be huge."
"...this game will cater to the hardcore gamer, not to the casual one."
I don't see how this can be anything but mutually exclusive.
WoW has a lot of content for both casual and hardcore gamers, and has become 'Huge'. (The amount of content available to each group is debatable.)
The number of casual gamers out there far outweigh the hardcore ones.
If a new game (Any new game) caters only to hardcore gamers, the numbers in the potential customer base will prohibit it from becoming anywhere as popular as WoW.
.
.
"I say its a Good Thing that they get rid of anything WoWish."
I say this is a very dangerous and closed-minded thing to say.
For this game to be so immensely popular, it must be doing something right.
Your suggestion is to remove all the elements that make it such a successful game, and make a new one out of the result.
Why do you think this will be any good?
"Glass is also a feature that we all have come to respect and love"
Says who?
Shame on me for not wanting an OS that requires a bleeding edge computer to run.
I remember the good old days when an OS was supposed to run the killer aps, and not be one.
Exactly. A program is only be as good as its data.
Taking and inventory of what you've got, and recording that data would only mask the symptoms of the underlying problem. The real solution is to organize the books, and eliminate the chaotic random scheme you have now.
With your current setup, your inventory program would be completely dependant on being updated whenever a book is placed on a shelf, which takes discipline for the life of the application.
Taking the time now to organize the shelves will greatly reduce the amount of work down the road, as long as you put your books back where you found them.
"There is nothing remarkable about your IP address."
Much like the hundreds of bottle caps tell me; I am not a winner.
...When I can see the fingerprints on the glass pane used for the 'floating pen' effect in "2001"...
You're off by 9 years.
That, or it just took out one of the real landing sites...
"- RTFA. Microsoft DID acknowledge the problem."
:)
I missed the bit where it said they would pay all the fees related to scratched discs. Perhaps they'll just acknowledge the fees.
I'd like to acknowledge the problems with the 360, and I plan on staying away from them as a result.
BTW, I love reading stories from people who haven't yet had problems with a faulty product. Their experience is fine, so it must be a good product. Everyone else must not know what they're doing.
Thank you for the anecdotes.
I've never seen pr0n as an analgy to funding space exploration before.
Bravo. +1 insightful.
"With some sort of universal power mechanism (splash pad, dc power at the plug, etc) many businesses lose a revenue stream."
And with some sort of universal power mechanism, many businesses could discover a new revenue stream.
Somebody's got to make adapters for old products to use the new pad chargers...
Someone could get rich making more efficient and smaller pads... Decorator pads, pads for the car (built into the dash board, perhaps?), etc, etc...
There's always a way to make money.
Screw the little pad thingie.
Let's get Tesla Coils everywhere.
I'd love to see those things zapping away at all the electrical devices, charging and scorching them with terrific zapping noises.
I also want one of those Jacob's Ladder spark things, but that really doesn't have anything to do with this story.
I loved enslaving people and running around with the entire town in tow before engaging the enemy stronghold.
Having 4 cyborgs in trench coats whipping out huge chain-guns to mow down the bad (good?) guys whilst surrounded by their army of zombified cyber-slaves was too much fun.
I would say we need another one of those games, but they'd probably just 3D the heck of it, and you'd end up with a first person shooter.
*And I hate him for it!
I'd buy that shirt.
That's what I was thinking.
I guess it comes down to "It's legal until the judge deems otherwise."
I can't come up with a good acid test of what makes a person private enough not to be a target of satire.
One man's privates is another man's publics?
"He's made himself a public figure, that makes him venurable to things like that. It's true, you can't do that to some random private citizen. If I went and started selling "I hate eln" t-shirts tp get back at you I could get in trouble (well, assuming I was using your real name that is). However we are allowed to mock public figures, be they politicians, celebrities, etc. So by going on 60 minutes and the like, he's made himself a public figure and subjected himself to this."
What makes a person private vs. public?
How do I know if it's fair game to make a t-shirt about someone and not 'get in trouble'? What level of 'public-ness' must a person attain to become fair game?
What law/rule/statute would it be breaking to make/wear/sell a t-shirt that said 'I hate John Smith'?
Clearly original the book was intended purely as a simulator for baby-eating, so we can either use that as instructional material, or offer to donate $10k to charity if someone writes a book about burning books.
Wait, someone already wrote a book about that.
I guess we skip directly to the step about retracting our offer and suing anyone who mocks us.
His helpful hints can let you screw the farmers over.
Did you actually read the article?