No, they're useless to Joe Public who can't be bothered to go read them.
Thats a good point - you can't educate someone who won't listen. These people will be the ones who keep getting ripped off by their mechanics...
Knowledge of the mechanics, apart from enough to keep the vehicle road-worthy, are irrelevant.
That's the point! Make the education of the dangers of using the internet comprehensible by non-technical people, and they are much more likely to understand. You can't do this with insider-jargon. Explaining the difference between trojans and worms is irrelevant... what matters is the end result - the PC is no longer safe because it's been badly maintained.
Riiight, so what qualifies you to use online banking but not your mom?
The reason we argue "what if" cases like that is because they are bloody pertinent. Not everyone has a tech-savvy offspring to educate them.
Your mom sounds lucky - you "allow" her to use so very much of the wide resources of the internet. Congrats.
If it helps you to understand the car thing, the analogy is a little deeper than stealing credit card numbers... it's more about general safety. Think about it some more.
Say your mum gets an email, that looks like its from her bank, that directs her to a website that looks like her banking site, and asks for her details to "confirm" them... is she stupid for falling for that? No, she's just fallen for a scam that she'd not heard of before. Happens to people all the time, and you can't say they're all stupid people.
You say "didn't understand the security warning about phishing (rubbish name by the way)"... First, which security warning? Do you regularly read the security warnings that the food industry publishes? How about the security warnings from your banks? Do you even know where to find these warnings?
These security warnings are useless to Joe Public if posted to some security-orientated website. The only time they'll get absorbed by the public at large is when they hit mass media, and are explained in a "this is the bad thing that'll happen to you if you fall for this scam - here's a few examples of it" kind of way.
The point is that using technical jargon to "explain" a problem to a layman is, plainly, idiotic. It's a problem I get from a lot of the technical folks around me - frankly I don't care about the technical details, all I care about is the end result. They find this a difficult concept to grasp, and it's no wonder that the techs and users end up feeling exasperated when they try and fail to communicate.
Does the fact I know bugger-all about my car's motor make me an unsafe driver? No... I have mechanics to look after the safety of the vehicle, me to drive it and the highway agency to look after the roads. If there's a fault with my car, I expect to hear about it when I take it to the mechanic, or for there to be an announcement in the media that some part in my car needs replacing because it's unsafe. I *dont* expect to have to learn the intricacies of metal working, vehicle mechanics or assembly line techniques just to drive my car.
Getting ripped off by mechanics for lack of knowledge is a whole different point... but there's plenty of people out there willing to pay plenty of cash for technically minded folks to do "trivially simple" things for them.
Is seven different 8 character passwords (with numbers and mixed cases) really too much to ask?
I hope this is rhetorical. Seriously.
I'm the sort of person who does this; I have many levels of password for different occassions and situations. But that's not the case for most people, especially in business. They don't want to have to jump through hoops to be able to use their machines. It should just work!
It's not about business culture needing to change to understand the importance of digital security; it's about people implementing digital security systems understanding a little bit about people and how they want to use their machines.
Use stuff that everyone is already familiar with, and that doesn't take brainpower to implement! Build one system for the masses who turn up to work, sit at a terminal all day and then leave, and build another system for people who actually need to access their data from off-site. Make the simple system very, very simple - not insecure, just simple - and 80% of this problem goes away.
It really, honestly shouldn't be a requirement for the vast majority of office workers to remember 7 different passwords. That *is* too much to ask.
OgreChow got it bang on the head there. Map making like this is a great way to break into the industry - it's how you break the "they wont hire me without experience / can't get experience cause they wont hire me" cycle. You build your skills, you build your value.
On the original point - Could some professional map designer tell us if thats a reasonable fee to be paid? - I'd say yes and no. It really depends on your toolset, the purpose of the map, and the quality level you're trying to achieve.
Assume you are nice and comfy with the tools. A multiplayer map, which is much simpler than a singleplayer map, you're looking at least 2 man-months to create the geometry, texture it, and populate it with objects at a professional level.
You can bash highly *fun* levels together much, much more quickly, and if you're using an existing library of objects + textures it'll be quicker to tart it up as well.
So - if you go to the effort of making your own objects + textures, and finely craft every seam + light fixture, it probably wouldn't be worth it. But, if you make a level using their existing assets and make it fun enough to win the competition (proviso: I'd hope that's what the comp is about) you could almost certainly make it worth your time. As long as you have what it takes to win..
I'm not entirely sure you're seeing his point here.
As an end user, if my aim is to find information about Hamilton I will end up with confusing and internally inconsistent information from the wiki. I have no means of resolving these inconsistencies using solely the wiki because I am not a subject matter expert.
The point is that there is no means of verifying the veracity of the information being presented in the wiki. You can't trust what you're reading.
Yes, he could use the wiki, change the entry, add his knowledge on the subject... but the problem lies with people who have no knowledge on the subject and refer to the wiki expecting correct answers.
It's been said before - use the Wikipedia as a starting point for research, but don't depend on it for definitive answers!
Try re-reading my post and while you're at it, try to poke your head out of your own arse long enough to see my point, AC.
And as for a "Strawman" - what? Please, quite clearly and directly explain why you think I was misrepresenting your standpoint. Your premise was that to be competetive in gaming the primary barrier was financial - I rebutted, saying that skill and training were just as important in professional gaming as in professional sports. The one and only point where I possibly caricatured your position was by saying you grossly underestimated the skills required to be a pro gamer; considering some of your previous wording, I still think that was a fair statement and will stand by it. Please correct me if you feel it's necessary.
Now, would you be so kind as to state where you preemptively countered my point that playing games requires actual skill, not just a nice credit line? Ah yes, that's right - you haven't. Now please, back to my post and attack my argument, rather than using pathetic ad hominem attack.
I believe you're the one with the foot/mouth interface issues. Considering you're being A,C, I'm not sure why I'm even bothering with a rebuttal; I suspect I've been trolled. Well done.
Spectator video gaming has a big problem. Any spectator, using precisely the same equipment, is fully equipped to compete. The sole differentiator is experience/skill level at the particular game.
And this is different to playing soccer / baseball / football / whatever, how exactly?
Just because people get a little out of shape (or even disabled) doesn't mean they are incapable of playing sports. It does mean they won't be able to play at the highest level, granted - but that applies to pro-gamers as well. Being a pro gamer takes a hell of a lot of training and practice.
Buying a pimped-out Alienware rig or whatever isn't going to make you competetive with the pro gamers. Far from it. You are grossly underestimating the skill (and innate ability!) required to play games at a professional level. Sure you can play the same game as the pro gamers, but you'll develop an appreciation of the game in exactly the same way you developed an appreciation for a NFL Quarter-Back's skills when you tried to throw your first 50yrd hail mary.
Rank novices do not score points in the pro games. I've seen pro gamers play normally excellent, hardcore gamers and utterly devestate them. Luck is not nearly as much a factor as you seem to think - at least in the good games, the games that become professionally competetive.
One problem is the low barrier of entry. You plop down cash for the game, you take it home and play it. In time, you'll probably be about as good as almost everybody else that you play.
This may be true of some of the more shallow games out there, but you're very, very wrong on this skills point with regards to the games that are played at competetive levels. I've played against some of the best FPS gamers in the UK (who are competetive at the highest level available) and believe me, the skill difference is amazing. It's not just reaction times, it's spacial awareness, situational awareness, and some fairly amazing abilities to manipulate the controls and game logic. These people are worth watching in the same way that a pro sports person is worth watching - if you understand the sport being played.
Counterstrike, the most widely played FPS out there, has some unbelievably good players at the top level. But it's not just the individuals that make the game; it's their teamplay. I've downloaded + watched recordings of the CPL finals, and have enjoyed the experience immensely - mainly because I know whats going on.
This is the key point. Games are not simple, easy things to just "put on tv." You can't expect an audience of people unfamiliar with the game to immediately get the action, to be able to follow what's going on and understand the subtleties. It's just not going to work - it's like putting someone unfamiliar with Cricket in front of a 5-day Test and execting them to enjoy it. Not going to happen.
However: if you take the time to explain the rules, show the field, why the fielding choices have been made, explain some of the background between the players and intelligently show the action in between all of this, you can make it possible for the person to enjoy it! The very same principle applies to games on TV. All of the efforts I've seen thus far have been utter cop-outs, with poor editing of the action, no real explanation of what's going on, and a smarmy presenters. That is obviously never going to work.
Good TV can be made from games! It'll take an editor who actually knows games to do it though.
Frankly, I would expect an american company, to have learned from its past and not promote these types of stupidity..... Shame on you GTA producers.
Hate to nitpick, but Rockstar North are the developers... and they're based in Scotland.
Anyways - I believe your argument is flawed. It isn't the developer's fault that people are too weak to think for themselves, to look beyond a stereotype and make their mind up for themselves. Frankly, I'm appalled that you garner your world-view from things that corporations tell you.
If people would choose to make up their own mind about things rather than have an opinion spoon fed to them, this world would be a much happier place.
Here in the UK, the govt. has been trumpeting this line as a justification for the introduction of compulsory ID cards: "these ID cards will help in the fight against terrorism!"
The question that they haven't yet answered is: "How, exactly?"
ID cards would not have helped prevent 9/11. This isn't to do with being Luddite; even if these cards had foolproof biometrics and instant access to a flawless national database detailing all citizens in the country, it still wouldn't have stopped the particular foriegn nationals entering the US with their perfectly valid visas.
This isn't about shackling law enforcement agencies - it's about keeping the shackles off the general public. You should know this best of all, Mr Patriot - "Land of the Free" indeed.
Reading the parent made me wonder if a lot of mod's had the wool pulled over their eyes... Sounds like trolling to me.
But, since it's +4 interesting... I'll feed.
Who do you think pays for those high quality Soprano's productions? The suckers who don't have broadband + a burner? What happens when they dry up, no one subscribes to HBO, and we all want our entertainment for free? Guess what... no Sopranos.
Yes, the entertainment industry needs to grok the net and it's capabilities / appeals. But don't kid yourself - as a pirate, you are violating copyright laws and contributing to the decline of quility programming on TV.
Less cash from the customers = less output, plain and simple (Enron economics aside).
The Parent has it right here. Working in a lot of studios, you'll use in-house tools, which take a long time to get to the "easy / intuitive" stage. Often it doesn't happen until the game has nearly shipped!
However, the final point about texture work is a bit moot. That completely depends on the company / job you are going for - in some places, a Level Designer will need to be a fully fledged artist / architect / texture artist. However, there are a lot of places that recognise the differences between level design and level building - you don't have to be an artist to do level design. If you approach a company that doesn't expect it's Designers to be Artists, showing them a level created with other people's textures and 3D objects that *plays* well is going to be more impressive than a few textures.
A couple responses to the original article; UnrealEd is very powerful + well supported - use it for traditional FPS. Playing with particle systems is good fun =) Battlecraft (for Battlefield 1942) is less well supported but is great for designing landscapes, and very powerful once you get your head around it.
Designers have to be incredibly flexible, picking up new tools every project, shifting from genre to genre, and using a wide variety of skills. Good luck - it's hard work, but fun and rewarding. You can make more money doing other things, but this is a right laugh =)
You have a point in that it is never a deliberate thing (buying a game to "enhance our information processing"), but a lot of the "fun" you are talking about is about pushing our brains: where to best fit this L-block, learning the pattern of the spikes shooting out of the ground, how to stop the enemy from repairing their tank.
Its all about Situational Awareness, a concept the military has known about for a long, long time. Good games (the fun ones) are all about situational awareness: knowing the environment, the actions of other characters, the potential for your own character or moves. The more you know about what is happening in the game world around you, the better a player you can be. To improve in the games, we improve our situational awareness (information processing capabilities) within that game.
I wonder if there were any activities 100 years ago that demanded anything like the continuous attention to several different things at the same time as a modern RTS game (production status, resource gathering, unit health, enemy status, all in different places)? I'm sure there was, I just can't think of a decent example... either way, it is a good way to show how games are training people to do lots of very different tasks at the same time.
It's slightly more complicated that you make out. The war on cheating is not going to be "won" anytime soon - look at it this way:
People still hack websites! Despite all the patches and updates and upgrades etc, new vunerabilities are discovered every week. As soon as it is possible to win the war on hacking websites, it'll be possible to win the war on hacking games. I don't see this happening very soon.
What makes you think the developer should be held accountable? Do you hold Hasbro accountable if your friend starts stealing money out of the bank in Monopoly? When an athlete uses performance enhancing drugs to get an edge on the competition, is it the drug manufacturer's fault? Is it the race organisers fault? No - it is the athlete. It is the hackers who are responsible for hacking - go after them.
Long time players of multiplayer games know that the only way to have a cheat free experience is to play with people you know and trust, on private servers. Its sad, but true.
Why do people cheat? Thats a slightly naive question - apologies if that sounds like trolling, but seriously...
Why do people avoid paying taxes if they can? Why do people park in disabled spaces? Why do professional athletes use performance enhancing drugs?
Its human nature. It doesn't make it right, or any less distasteful, but there are people out there who just get off on cheating. Whatever their reasons, it isn't going away soon.
Nice ideas, all of them, but none of them perfect. Most of your points are already in effect in one way or another, but there remain ways around - and however much we try, there will always be exploits for the truely determined.
Your second point (aim variance) would be nigh on impossible to make work - I've seen some astonishing play at the highest level, from quake to counterstrike, that would boggle most software's code and result in false positives. I prefer to play games where the skilled can excel, rather than be limited to being as good as the pack.
The best way to catch cheats is for experienced, skilled players to observe the suspect play, either virtually or, ideally, physically. Still, even this is not perfect - people continue to try to cheat in casinos for instance.
The real root of the cause is what is interesting to attack: why do people cheat? There will always be people who try to break the rules, to live outside the law, to get one up on the other people. The only way to get around this, that I know, is to play with people I know and who's play I know is genuine. Enter a virtual community, rather than virtual invisibility.
This works the same way as the real world though - each community will have it's scandals, people will come and go, friends will be made and lost. I've seen clans destroyed when one of their members was unveiled as a cheat. I also saw a clan fall apart when one of their members turned out to not actually be a woman, but thats another story;)
My point? I don't think it is the games maker's responsibility to continuously fix cheats, in perpetuum. They should definately make it non trivial to cheat, but that is all that can be expected. We don't blame Hoyle when a buddy gets caught with the ace of hearts up his sleeve!
... But patients is required. It is unlikely that you'll be able to step directly into a role with a significant level of responsibility immediately, unless (as someone pointed out) you know someone in the Industry quite well.
(I should know, I've taken the long route. Hi Simoniker, how're the states treating you;)
Design is a great place to be, but it is also the focus of a lot of the tensions of games development. It's an incredibly dynamic environment, and games development is full of a lot of creative talent. People skills are as important as creative and technical skills, and you'll have to be ready with an open and flexible mind. You'll need to be able to pick up just about anything, from audio design to particle systems to simulating wingtip stall on an Apache. Designers come from all backgrounds; creative, technical, whatever. It doesn't matter, as long as you can communicate a clear vision and get down to business creating it, you can design.
This is a fairly typical route into becoming a Games Designer; it seems to have worked for me:)
Start in test. Plenty of places need testers. The easiest way to a fast promotion into Design is through a dev company, rather than a publisher (the less corporate the better; it is easier to talk to the management for starters.)
Learn the industry, how the teams work, how the tools work. This takes time. Do it in small steps, get good at it. Testing games is a great place to learn about games development, although don't imagine it to all be fun and games!
Make your voice heard in the company. Don't try to tell people their jobs (you're on the bottom rung, remember?) but don't hesitate with an opinion. Ask if people need help with their design work, start putting together mission descriptions / puzzle designs / game pitches etc. Show that you know what goes into making a good game, and more importantly that you know how it can be implemented.
Eventually, quite often dependant on the timing of contracts and signing new projects (remember that games are more and more commercial!) if you ask you'll become a Junior Designer. From here, it's hard work and more listening and learning. Show that you have what it takes to finish a game, that you can create fun and can get other people to work to your vision, and you will move up.
For me, the Tester to Lead Designer road took 4 years, roughly. Most would probably consider that a little quick: I certainly have no illusions or pretentions to know all there is to know about design. I've got 4 published games, and a 5th on the way; I'm certainly no Miyamoto (yet!)
Don't imagine for a second that games design is an easy career path; it is very hard work, but incredibly rewarding at the same time. If you like games;)
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Thats a good point - you can't educate someone who won't listen. These people will be the ones who keep getting ripped off by their mechanics...
Knowledge of the mechanics, apart from enough to keep the vehicle road-worthy, are irrelevant.
That's the point! Make the education of the dangers of using the internet comprehensible by non-technical people, and they are much more likely to understand. You can't do this with insider-jargon. Explaining the difference between trojans and worms is irrelevant... what matters is the end result - the PC is no longer safe because it's been badly maintained.
Riiight, so what qualifies you to use online banking but not your mom? The reason we argue "what if" cases like that is because they are bloody pertinent. Not everyone has a tech-savvy offspring to educate them. Your mom sounds lucky - you "allow" her to use so very much of the wide resources of the internet. Congrats. If it helps you to understand the car thing, the analogy is a little deeper than stealing credit card numbers... it's more about general safety. Think about it some more.
I disagree...
Say your mum gets an email, that looks like its from her bank, that directs her to a website that looks like her banking site, and asks for her details to "confirm" them... is she stupid for falling for that? No, she's just fallen for a scam that she'd not heard of before. Happens to people all the time, and you can't say they're all stupid people.
You say "didn't understand the security warning about phishing (rubbish name by the way)"... First, which security warning? Do you regularly read the security warnings that the food industry publishes? How about the security warnings from your banks? Do you even know where to find these warnings?
These security warnings are useless to Joe Public if posted to some security-orientated website. The only time they'll get absorbed by the public at large is when they hit mass media, and are explained in a "this is the bad thing that'll happen to you if you fall for this scam - here's a few examples of it" kind of way.
The point is that using technical jargon to "explain" a problem to a layman is, plainly, idiotic. It's a problem I get from a lot of the technical folks around me - frankly I don't care about the technical details, all I care about is the end result. They find this a difficult concept to grasp, and it's no wonder that the techs and users end up feeling exasperated when they try and fail to communicate.
Does the fact I know bugger-all about my car's motor make me an unsafe driver? No... I have mechanics to look after the safety of the vehicle, me to drive it and the highway agency to look after the roads. If there's a fault with my car, I expect to hear about it when I take it to the mechanic, or for there to be an announcement in the media that some part in my car needs replacing because it's unsafe. I *dont* expect to have to learn the intricacies of metal working, vehicle mechanics or assembly line techniques just to drive my car.
Getting ripped off by mechanics for lack of knowledge is a whole different point... but there's plenty of people out there willing to pay plenty of cash for technically minded folks to do "trivially simple" things for them.
I hope this is rhetorical. Seriously.
I'm the sort of person who does this; I have many levels of password for different occassions and situations. But that's not the case for most people, especially in business. They don't want to have to jump through hoops to be able to use their machines. It should just work!
It's not about business culture needing to change to understand the importance of digital security; it's about people implementing digital security systems understanding a little bit about people and how they want to use their machines.
Use stuff that everyone is already familiar with, and that doesn't take brainpower to implement! Build one system for the masses who turn up to work, sit at a terminal all day and then leave, and build another system for people who actually need to access their data from off-site. Make the simple system very, very simple - not insecure, just simple - and 80% of this problem goes away.
It really, honestly shouldn't be a requirement for the vast majority of office workers to remember 7 different passwords. That *is* too much to ask.
On the original point - Could some professional map designer tell us if thats a reasonable fee to be paid? - I'd say yes and no. It really depends on your toolset, the purpose of the map, and the quality level you're trying to achieve.
Assume you are nice and comfy with the tools. A multiplayer map, which is much simpler than a singleplayer map, you're looking at least 2 man-months to create the geometry, texture it, and populate it with objects at a professional level.
You can bash highly *fun* levels together much, much more quickly, and if you're using an existing library of objects + textures it'll be quicker to tart it up as well.
So - if you go to the effort of making your own objects + textures, and finely craft every seam + light fixture, it probably wouldn't be worth it. But, if you make a level using their existing assets and make it fun enough to win the competition (proviso: I'd hope that's what the comp is about) you could almost certainly make it worth your time. As long as you have what it takes to win..
I'm not entirely sure you're seeing his point here.
As an end user, if my aim is to find information about Hamilton I will end up with confusing and internally inconsistent information from the wiki. I have no means of resolving these inconsistencies using solely the wiki because I am not a subject matter expert.
The point is that there is no means of verifying the veracity of the information being presented in the wiki. You can't trust what you're reading.
Yes, he could use the wiki, change the entry, add his knowledge on the subject... but the problem lies with people who have no knowledge on the subject and refer to the wiki expecting correct answers.
It's been said before - use the Wikipedia as a starting point for research, but don't depend on it for definitive answers!
You judge games based on how long it takes to install?
Wow.
Personally, I go for games that are *fun to play*.
And as for a "Strawman" - what? Please, quite clearly and directly explain why you think I was misrepresenting your standpoint. Your premise was that to be competetive in gaming the primary barrier was financial - I rebutted, saying that skill and training were just as important in professional gaming as in professional sports. The one and only point where I possibly caricatured your position was by saying you grossly underestimated the skills required to be a pro gamer; considering some of your previous wording, I still think that was a fair statement and will stand by it. Please correct me if you feel it's necessary.
Now, would you be so kind as to state where you preemptively countered my point that playing games requires actual skill, not just a nice credit line? Ah yes, that's right - you haven't. Now please, back to my post and attack my argument, rather than using pathetic ad hominem attack.
I believe you're the one with the foot/mouth interface issues. Considering you're being A,C, I'm not sure why I'm even bothering with a rebuttal; I suspect I've been trolled. Well done.
And this is different to playing soccer / baseball / football / whatever, how exactly?
Just because people get a little out of shape (or even disabled) doesn't mean they are incapable of playing sports. It does mean they won't be able to play at the highest level, granted - but that applies to pro-gamers as well. Being a pro gamer takes a hell of a lot of training and practice.
Buying a pimped-out Alienware rig or whatever isn't going to make you competetive with the pro gamers. Far from it. You are grossly underestimating the skill (and innate ability!) required to play games at a professional level. Sure you can play the same game as the pro gamers, but you'll develop an appreciation of the game in exactly the same way you developed an appreciation for a NFL Quarter-Back's skills when you tried to throw your first 50yrd hail mary.
Rank novices do not score points in the pro games. I've seen pro gamers play normally excellent, hardcore gamers and utterly devestate them. Luck is not nearly as much a factor as you seem to think - at least in the good games, the games that become professionally competetive.
This may be true of some of the more shallow games out there, but you're very, very wrong on this skills point with regards to the games that are played at competetive levels. I've played against some of the best FPS gamers in the UK (who are competetive at the highest level available) and believe me, the skill difference is amazing. It's not just reaction times, it's spacial awareness, situational awareness, and some fairly amazing abilities to manipulate the controls and game logic. These people are worth watching in the same way that a pro sports person is worth watching - if you understand the sport being played.
Counterstrike, the most widely played FPS out there, has some unbelievably good players at the top level. But it's not just the individuals that make the game; it's their teamplay. I've downloaded + watched recordings of the CPL finals, and have enjoyed the experience immensely - mainly because I know whats going on.
This is the key point. Games are not simple, easy things to just "put on tv." You can't expect an audience of people unfamiliar with the game to immediately get the action, to be able to follow what's going on and understand the subtleties. It's just not going to work - it's like putting someone unfamiliar with Cricket in front of a 5-day Test and execting them to enjoy it. Not going to happen.
However: if you take the time to explain the rules, show the field, why the fielding choices have been made, explain some of the background between the players and intelligently show the action in between all of this, you can make it possible for the person to enjoy it! The very same principle applies to games on TV. All of the efforts I've seen thus far have been utter cop-outs, with poor editing of the action, no real explanation of what's going on, and a smarmy presenters. That is obviously never going to work.
Good TV can be made from games! It'll take an editor who actually knows games to do it though.
Hate to nitpick, but Rockstar North are the developers... and they're based in Scotland.
Anyways - I believe your argument is flawed. It isn't the developer's fault that people are too weak to think for themselves, to look beyond a stereotype and make their mind up for themselves. Frankly, I'm appalled that you garner your world-view from things that corporations tell you.
If people would choose to make up their own mind about things rather than have an opinion spoon fed to them, this world would be a much happier place.
Here in the UK, the govt. has been trumpeting this line as a justification for the introduction of compulsory ID cards: "these ID cards will help in the fight against terrorism!" The question that they haven't yet answered is: "How, exactly?" ID cards would not have helped prevent 9/11. This isn't to do with being Luddite; even if these cards had foolproof biometrics and instant access to a flawless national database detailing all citizens in the country, it still wouldn't have stopped the particular foriegn nationals entering the US with their perfectly valid visas. This isn't about shackling law enforcement agencies - it's about keeping the shackles off the general public. You should know this best of all, Mr Patriot - "Land of the Free" indeed.
Reading the parent made me wonder if a lot of mod's had the wool pulled over their eyes... Sounds like trolling to me. But, since it's +4 interesting... I'll feed. Who do you think pays for those high quality Soprano's productions? The suckers who don't have broadband + a burner? What happens when they dry up, no one subscribes to HBO, and we all want our entertainment for free? Guess what... no Sopranos. Yes, the entertainment industry needs to grok the net and it's capabilities / appeals. But don't kid yourself - as a pirate, you are violating copyright laws and contributing to the decline of quility programming on TV. Less cash from the customers = less output, plain and simple (Enron economics aside).
The Parent has it right here. Working in a lot of studios, you'll use in-house tools, which take a long time to get to the "easy / intuitive" stage. Often it doesn't happen until the game has nearly shipped!
However, the final point about texture work is a bit moot. That completely depends on the company / job you are going for - in some places, a Level Designer will need to be a fully fledged artist / architect / texture artist. However, there are a lot of places that recognise the differences between level design and level building - you don't have to be an artist to do level design. If you approach a company that doesn't expect it's Designers to be Artists, showing them a level created with other people's textures and 3D objects that *plays* well is going to be more impressive than a few textures.
A couple responses to the original article; UnrealEd is very powerful + well supported - use it for traditional FPS. Playing with particle systems is good fun =) Battlecraft (for Battlefield 1942) is less well supported but is great for designing landscapes, and very powerful once you get your head around it.
Designers have to be incredibly flexible, picking up new tools every project, shifting from genre to genre, and using a wide variety of skills. Good luck - it's hard work, but fun and rewarding. You can make more money doing other things, but this is a right laugh =)
You have a point in that it is never a deliberate thing (buying a game to "enhance our information processing"), but a lot of the "fun" you are talking about is about pushing our brains: where to best fit this L-block, learning the pattern of the spikes shooting out of the ground, how to stop the enemy from repairing their tank.
Its all about Situational Awareness, a concept the military has known about for a long, long time. Good games (the fun ones) are all about situational awareness: knowing the environment, the actions of other characters, the potential for your own character or moves. The more you know about what is happening in the game world around you, the better a player you can be. To improve in the games, we improve our situational awareness (information processing capabilities) within that game.
I wonder if there were any activities 100 years ago that demanded anything like the continuous attention to several different things at the same time as a modern RTS game (production status, resource gathering, unit health, enemy status, all in different places)? I'm sure there was, I just can't think of a decent example... either way, it is a good way to show how games are training people to do lots of very different tasks at the same time.
When I run the windows installer, my PestPatrol software reports "Family Key Logger 1.10" as being run - anyone else get that?
I did check out and thoroughly enjoy the original... don't remember this happening then =/
It's slightly more complicated that you make out. The war on cheating is not going to be "won" anytime soon - look at it this way:
People still hack websites! Despite all the patches and updates and upgrades etc, new vunerabilities are discovered every week. As soon as it is possible to win the war on hacking websites, it'll be possible to win the war on hacking games. I don't see this happening very soon.
What makes you think the developer should be held accountable? Do you hold Hasbro accountable if your friend starts stealing money out of the bank in Monopoly? When an athlete uses performance enhancing drugs to get an edge on the competition, is it the drug manufacturer's fault? Is it the race organisers fault? No - it is the athlete. It is the hackers who are responsible for hacking - go after them.
Long time players of multiplayer games know that the only way to have a cheat free experience is to play with people you know and trust, on private servers. Its sad, but true.
Why do people cheat? Thats a slightly naive question - apologies if that sounds like trolling, but seriously... Why do people avoid paying taxes if they can? Why do people park in disabled spaces? Why do professional athletes use performance enhancing drugs? Its human nature. It doesn't make it right, or any less distasteful, but there are people out there who just get off on cheating. Whatever their reasons, it isn't going away soon.
Nice ideas, all of them, but none of them perfect. Most of your points are already in effect in one way or another, but there remain ways around - and however much we try, there will always be exploits for the truely determined.
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Your second point (aim variance) would be nigh on impossible to make work - I've seen some astonishing play at the highest level, from quake to counterstrike, that would boggle most software's code and result in false positives. I prefer to play games where the skilled can excel, rather than be limited to being as good as the pack.
The best way to catch cheats is for experienced, skilled players to observe the suspect play, either virtually or, ideally, physically. Still, even this is not perfect - people continue to try to cheat in casinos for instance.
The real root of the cause is what is interesting to attack: why do people cheat? There will always be people who try to break the rules, to live outside the law, to get one up on the other people. The only way to get around this, that I know, is to play with people I know and who's play I know is genuine. Enter a virtual community, rather than virtual invisibility.
This works the same way as the real world though - each community will have it's scandals, people will come and go, friends will be made and lost. I've seen clans destroyed when one of their members was unveiled as a cheat. I also saw a clan fall apart when one of their members turned out to not actually be a woman, but thats another story
My point? I don't think it is the games maker's responsibility to continuously fix cheats, in perpetuum. They should definately make it non trivial to cheat, but that is all that can be expected. We don't blame Hoyle when a buddy gets caught with the ace of hearts up his sleeve!
... But patients is required. It is unlikely that you'll be able to step directly into a role with a significant level of responsibility immediately, unless (as someone pointed out) you know someone in the Industry quite well.
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:)
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(I should know, I've taken the long route. Hi Simoniker, how're the states treating you
Design is a great place to be, but it is also the focus of a lot of the tensions of games development. It's an incredibly dynamic environment, and games development is full of a lot of creative talent. People skills are as important as creative and technical skills, and you'll have to be ready with an open and flexible mind. You'll need to be able to pick up just about anything, from audio design to particle systems to simulating wingtip stall on an Apache. Designers come from all backgrounds; creative, technical, whatever. It doesn't matter, as long as you can communicate a clear vision and get down to business creating it, you can design.
This is a fairly typical route into becoming a Games Designer; it seems to have worked for me
Start in test. Plenty of places need testers. The easiest way to a fast promotion into Design is through a dev company, rather than a publisher (the less corporate the better; it is easier to talk to the management for starters.)
Learn the industry, how the teams work, how the tools work. This takes time. Do it in small steps, get good at it. Testing games is a great place to learn about games development, although don't imagine it to all be fun and games!
Make your voice heard in the company. Don't try to tell people their jobs (you're on the bottom rung, remember?) but don't hesitate with an opinion. Ask if people need help with their design work, start putting together mission descriptions / puzzle designs / game pitches etc. Show that you know what goes into making a good game, and more importantly that you know how it can be implemented.
Eventually, quite often dependant on the timing of contracts and signing new projects (remember that games are more and more commercial!) if you ask you'll become a Junior Designer. From here, it's hard work and more listening and learning. Show that you have what it takes to finish a game, that you can create fun and can get other people to work to your vision, and you will move up.
For me, the Tester to Lead Designer road took 4 years, roughly. Most would probably consider that a little quick: I certainly have no illusions or pretentions to know all there is to know about design. I've got 4 published games, and a 5th on the way; I'm certainly no Miyamoto (yet!)
Don't imagine for a second that games design is an easy career path; it is very hard work, but incredibly rewarding at the same time. If you like games
Hope that gives you some insight.