This sort of thing goes on all the time. It's been happening on MUDs since day 1 and MMOGs are just the latest incarnation of it. You see it on message boards, too, and many other social groups where the rules are, essentially, arbitrary. Usually one person runs the place, with a small cadre of yes men. Sometimes, drama occurs where there is disputes among the elites, but generally speaking, the one person's word is law. And they have no qualms about being capricious and arbitrary.
There are virtually no artificial communities who have a concept of a "Constitution" or a "Bill of Rights" that protects potential members. Many do not even have an officla process for dealing with disputes/violations in a fair manner, like in a justice system. And since there's no voting, there's no accountability with the person in charges makes bad decisions. The only thing you can do is "vote with your feet", and leave. Reasoned debate rarely works, because if you're right, most people are too egotistical to admit it and it only makes them more disinclined to do anything for you. Meanwhile, "friends" get special treatment.
This happens even with commercial services. Even with corporations. And since your "feet" are the only power you have, PR becomes more important than "justice".
As someone who also has a title in their name, I feel your pain. In this case, the MMOG specifically fell down, not in their naming policy, but in how it was implemented.
1. If it was so important, they shouldn't have allowed Cmdr from the start. The fact they let you have the name for so long should give you some "grandfathered" consideration.
2. They felt it was so important that, once discovered, they had to act on it immediately. Again, this is simply incosiderate. A good support organization should have given you some more time, more notice, and a proper hearing with someone in charge who could review your case in a fair manner. Even if they felt the rules didn't give them many alternatives, merely the *opportunity* for you to be heard would have been of great value to you, and made you feel better.
3. Like nearly all MMOGs, as you discovered, the GMs have very little actual power, and there's virtually no end-to-end support system in place. I'm sure the lead developer or lead community relations manager probably wouldn't mind either removing Cmdr from the "bad" list, or at least, wouldn't mind making an exception in your case. But there's no way for you or even a GM to actually refer the matter through official channels in a speedy and satisfactory fashion.
Now, I'm not suggesting you get "special" treatment, but I do think that once the right people at Blizzard hear about this, there's a chance either the title will be "allowed" for everyone's name, or potentially only existing characters will be allowed to be "grandfathered" in. You have a chance through this article to actually get this matter the attention that ALL custoemrs should get when they have a dispute like this. But, if Blizzard doesn't resolve the issue to your satisfaction, you really should "vote with your feet" and move on to another game. And people who agree should have the character to do the same.
Anyway, this will certainly be a topic of conversation at the Austin Game Conference this week!
The problem is simply one of length. Think about the shuttle, or any rocket... the engines keep acelerating the spacship for hundreds of miles before they are done. If you want to do the same with a linear accelerator, you'd need a track hundreds of miles long... not very practical.
Alternatively, you can increase the acceleration of a magnetic rail, but astronauts are not going to survive, say, 9gs for such a prolonged period. So even though this allows for a shorter rail, it's not very practical for manned flight. However, it does have some potential use for unmanned cargo, particularly on places like the moon where there's no atmosphere the slow the payload down while you're shooting it down the rail.
Bruce
PS - Another point about the atmosphere is that rockets spend some amount of their initial time simply getting above most of the dense atmosphere, and then spend the rest of it getting the required horizontal/orbital speed. A magnetic rail would have the object accelerated to those high speeds while still deep in the dense atmosphere, requiring more energy and causing substantially more heating.
Div Devlin at http://www.gamerifts.com/ also has the story confirmed. Unless the same source leaked it to him, Corpnews, and me, I'm pretty sure this isn't just a rumor. As I was the only one who got the DC Comics tip, that would seem to indicate there are different sources involved here. All the job openings previously listed on Monolith's web page have also disappeared.
Moving between companies is a great way to promote your career.
Consider that a huge team of people worked on WoW. Now, Blizzard is quite happy, and probably wants to keep the lead designer, producer, etc. to keep working on the live team, the next expansion, etc.
But what if you're one of the assistant designer? Well, unless Blizard decides to start making another MMOG, you're probably out of luck getting promoted to a lead design position. But other companies will have lots of MMOGs in development and need lots of lead designers. Same goes for producers, QA, writers... the list goes on and on.
Blizzard, meanwhile, will probably put a lot of the money it makes from WoW into more non-MMOG titles. Okay if that's what you want to do, but some people want to work on MMOGs specifically.
4.8 Will Vanguard: Saga of Heroes support voice communication?
Yes, through XNA and other technologies we hope to support voice communication natively (e.g. without the need for third party software).
Voice communication will be there to enhance group communication and will be totally optional. Current thinking is to design gameplay around both ways such that neither method of communication becomes an distinct advantage. Thus if you like voice chat you can use it, but if you do not you would not have to use it. We plan to have a "push-to talk" key and the option of muting, coinciding with the ignore option of text chat.
The vast majority of communication in the game will continue to be traditional and via a keyboard, as will some group/raid communication.
We assume, just as it is now with third party software, that players who already know each other will get the most use out of voice chat.
Additionaly, the use of voice fonts, etc. is being looked into.
1.8 What is this XNA I keep hearing about from Microsoft and how will it affect Vanguard?
XNA is a growing group of software tools that allow developers to more rapidly develop their games. Additionally, Microsoft wants to share tools and technology between its different platforms (e.g. Win32, Xbox, future platforms).
Vanguard is one of the chief early adopters of this ever-growing group of software. For example, we will be using technologies from Xbox live, voice communication, and already have the ability to play the game via an Xbox-style controller with a tiny keyboard attached to it (a TID).
Someone let out all the Vanguard fanbois, and their ire is all directed at me now.:P Must have been a post on the vsoh boards?
Anyway, it's important to stress that these are all just quick impressions, not in-depth reviews. I don't think my thoughts about Vanguard were particularly harsh. I admitted that I didn't get a chance to see the whole thing; just that what I saw pretty graphics and not much else. From what they've said otherwise, the game doesn't sound very innovative. Sorry, but that's just the way it is; everyone who has read Brad's manifesto knows that he is planning on an old-style, hardcore, group-centric game like EQ1. I'm sure the games other features are important to some people, but do you really think the primary marketing for the game is going to be "Innovative Crafting!" or "Seamless World With No Zones!"? No, those will take a back seat to the real theme of the game. And while you may not like the more casual friendly, heavy instancing, etc. style of gameplay many newer MMOGs are moving to, I believe you are not the majority of the market.
Vanguard will be very appealing to SOME people. Hell, some people still play WWII Online and Horizons. What my job is to discern is what sort of impact the game will have on the market. Brad says he wants 500K subscribers -- it ain't gonna happen, unless Koreans embrace the game. He says he'd be happy with 250K, and he might get that, but it's hardly guaranteed. He'll get at least 100K though.
Might there be a really great game hiding in Vanguard? It's possible, but I didn't see it, and if the guys at Sigil were interested in my opinion, they should have made a better effort to convince me and other E3 goers. Not having their own booth means a lot of people at E3 never even saw the game. This may seem superficial to you, but the issue is not the game is objectively a good one but how the game is going to be perceived by the gaming public. Sometimes the best games in the world can languish in unpopularity due to poor marketing.
I'm not an eye-candy nut, but the market *is*. I'm not reviewing the games based upon my personal preferences, but I am giving first impressions and judging how the game might be received by OTHERS in the gaming community. And the inescapable truth of the North American market is that graphics are important. Great gameplay might be able to trump mediocre graphics, but poor gameplay can't. And great graphics can sometimes sustain even a mediocre game.
Great graphics are also an indicator of how much money is spent on the title. Sure, it's possible for a title to be all hat and not cattle. But chances are if they spent a lot on graphics, they're going to spend a lot on marketing too, and the two together can turn even a so-so title into a hit. 8-bit sprites may be fine with compelling gameplay, but chances are the 8-bit sprite guys aren't going to get a publisher, so you'll never see it in the store or read about it in a review, so you'll never even know about it.
But still, gameplay is very important. But it is almost *impossible* to judge a MMOG's gameplay before late beta if not release, because so much usually gets added and changed towards the end of the production cycle. And with MMOGs constantly changing, a game can start with good gameplay and wind up sucking after several patches, or vice-versa.
It is interesting to note that of the four games I know of with integrated voice chat - PlanetSide, There, Tabula Rasa, and Auto Assault - three are FPS/shooter/sci-fi type of play. But I don't think voice chat is somehow how at odds with fantasy play. You do have fantasy races, sure, but they are no different from alien races (or the lack thereof).
Personally I don't think there will be a big problem with voice chat breaking immersitivity. Those who want it will use it and those who don't, won't. Will this cut down on the amount of cross-gender roleplaying? Probably somewhat, but not too much, since I've known plenty of guys who RPed female characters in PnP games. Other developers believe we need to implement a "voice masking" type of technology, so players can retain anonymity.
My biggest concern is that such technology may segregate players too much. People who embrace voice chat might not want to socialize much with those who don't have it. Grouping is more difficult, for one. Secondly, they'll wonder why the person doesn't have it. Are they not really female? Are they secretly black (or white)? Perhaps they stutter. We might see a lot of people offering excuses, e.g. "I'm deaf" or "My microphone broke" and so on. But will this cause people to naturally segregate into voice and non-voice social groups? Only time will tell.
1. There games are order by company in no particular order, but I did put the bigger companies towards the front of the list. Dungeons & Dragons Online gets my "Best in Show" award, as it impressed me the most, but I was also intrigued by SUN and both Tabula Rasa and Imperator.
2. I focused primarily on upcoming MMOGs, not existing ones or expansions (CoV being arguable). I wasn't trying to provide a comprehensive review of each game; just a quick idea of what the game's about and what struck me the most about it.
3. The list is far from comprehensive -- there were a few MMOGs that I missed, plus dozens more that weren't there, and a slew of Asian ones as well. Any of these could be a sleeper hit!
Blade Runner featured a lot of photographs, as that was one of the characteristics of Replicant psychology. However, the specific photgraph in question was, in fact, meant to be holographic.
The back cover is a color still from an aborted sequence in which
Leon's photo turns out to be a hologram that shows Batty's head turning
(Cinefex no. 9, July 1982).
You may also recall the photograph of the little girl and her mother that "moved" for a second.
>Once you show someone a quote, they ASSUME they >have total control over how it will appear, >facts be dammned. And if you don't change the >quote the way they want, they are in a stronger >position to sue you, becuase showing them the >quote for approval in the first place arguably >implies you doubt whether it was accurate to >begin with.
Yes, and... what's your point? Sorry, but you get no sympathy from me. People misaccurately represent their thoughts and feelings all the time. Surely your story should be about what they ACCURATELY want to convey, not about something they misspoke? Oh no, that wouldn't be as sexy a story, would it? It's funny how you justify your behaviour by appealing to the facts; sure it's a fact they SAID it but is it a fact they MEANT what it looks like?
Too much of our news items are "So-and-so said outrageous thing!" followed by all the trouble that they get into for saying it and the usual explanation that it was taken out of context or said in the heat of the moment or an honest mistake or what not. And it's not surprising that's often the result -- it's not news if a known racist says something racist; it's news if some non-racist says something racist, because people say, "Aha, so-and-so is really a racist!" and then it turns out of course they actually aren't, they just misspoke, but now it's all a big mess.
So yes, sometimes people if given a second chance to review their words will soften their words. That's part of the nature of the print medium compared to speech; it's the proverbial "in black and white" after all. Deal with it; as a reporter you should be concerned with getting the correct story, not getting the sexiest story.
>Once you show someone a quote, they ASSUME they
>have total control over how it will appear,
>facts be dammned. And if you don't change the
>quote the way they want, they are in a stronger
>position to sue you, becuase showing them the
>quote for approval in the first place arguably
>implies you doubt whether it was accurate to
>begin with.
Yes, and... what's your point? Sorry, but you get no sympathy from me. People misaccurately represent their thoughts and feelings all the time. Surely your story should be about what they ACCURATELY want to convey, not about something they misspoke? Oh no, that wouldn't be as sexy a story, would it? It's funny how you justify your behaviour by appealing to the facts; sure it's a fact they SAID it but is it a fact they MEANT what it looks like?
Too much of our news items are "So-and-so said outrageous thing!" followed by all the trouble that they get into for saying it and the usual explanation that it was taken out of context or said in the heat of the moment or an honest mistake or what not. And it's not surprising that's often the result -- it's not news if a known racist says something racist; it's news if some non-racist says something racist, because people say, "Aha, so-and-so is really a racist!" and then it turns out of course they actually aren't, they just misspoke, but now it's all a big mess.
So yes, sometimes people if given a second chance to review their words will soften their words. That's part of the nature of the print medium compared to speech; it's the proverbial "in black and white" after all. Deal with it; as a reporter you should be concerned with getting the correct story, not getting the sexiest story.
Bruce
... it's not so much that editors don't fact-check, but that those quoted don't get the chance to fact-check. I've been interviewed a number of times, but I've never gotten to see the final text before publication. I think reporting would be much better if, once stories were written, those mentioned/quoted in the story had a chance to review what the article says and offer feedback to the reporter and editor. This could clear up a lot of misunderstandings and misquotes that neither party intended.
Although several other movies and TV shows have had this "error", Blade Runner is not one of them. The picture was always intended to be a futuristic 3d hologram sort of thing; you can actually see a visual effect in some of the shots, but it's not very good, and so a lot of people just thought it was a regular photgraph.
Back in the MUD days, Marcus J. Ranum created UnterMud, which allowed people to connect their own personal muds and transfer objects between them. Nothing really became of it, though; although players want user extensibility, they also need a structured ruleset within which they can play, which they can rely on to provide a consistent framework for their play. They don't want the risk of radical rules changing whenever they move from one server to another.
1. A lot of developers are distrustful of Microsoft. They don't feel they genuinely care about the "art" and "innovation" of games; they just want to make money off them. An incident like this will not help Microsoft's reputation in the game development community. This is not to say Microsoft is bad -- in fact, they've been extremely helpful in making games -- but there's always a profit motive behind it.
2. Fatman rocks, he did some of the best game music in the "MIDI era", and I've had the pleasure of hearing him live as well.
3. If you haven't read his book, I highly recommend it (my brother is mentioned in it twice!). Even if you're not into audio, he has some great stories. Check out his web site as well for more stories.
X has changed a lot from the early versions to the modern ones, and there have been numerous Window managers and operating environments over the years. I would have liked to have seen more discussion of that.
Also, what about Sun's aborted alternative, Sunview?
A discussion of some of the Windows alternative GUIs (Dashboard, etc.) would also have been interesting.
I don't know how Turbine does it. That's like their 3rd or 4th round of VC funding for the company, and AC1 and AC2 were mediocre at best. I agree that DDO and LotRO are powerful franchises, but if someone gave a company like Playnet (makers of WWII Online) that much money they could go out and buy the rights to make games based on powerful franchises, too.
Slashdot Mirror
This sort of thing goes on all the time. It's been happening on MUDs since day 1 and MMOGs are just the latest incarnation of it. You see it on message boards, too, and many other social groups where the rules are, essentially, arbitrary. Usually one person runs the place, with a small cadre of yes men. Sometimes, drama occurs where there is disputes among the elites, but generally speaking, the one person's word is law. And they have no qualms about being capricious and arbitrary.
There are virtually no artificial communities who have a concept of a "Constitution" or a "Bill of Rights" that protects potential members. Many do not even have an officla process for dealing with disputes/violations in a fair manner, like in a justice system. And since there's no voting, there's no accountability with the person in charges makes bad decisions. The only thing you can do is "vote with your feet", and leave. Reasoned debate rarely works, because if you're right, most people are too egotistical to admit it and it only makes them more disinclined to do anything for you. Meanwhile, "friends" get special treatment.
This happens even with commercial services. Even with corporations. And since your "feet" are the only power you have, PR becomes more important than "justice".
As someone who also has a title in their name, I feel your pain. In this case, the MMOG specifically fell down, not in their naming policy, but in how it was implemented.
1. If it was so important, they shouldn't have allowed Cmdr from the start. The fact they let you have the name for so long should give you some "grandfathered" consideration.
2. They felt it was so important that, once discovered, they had to act on it immediately. Again, this is simply incosiderate. A good support organization should have given you some more time, more notice, and a proper hearing with someone in charge who could review your case in a fair manner. Even if they felt the rules didn't give them many alternatives, merely the *opportunity* for you to be heard would have been of great value to you, and made you feel better.
3. Like nearly all MMOGs, as you discovered, the GMs have very little actual power, and there's virtually no end-to-end support system in place. I'm sure the lead developer or lead community relations manager probably wouldn't mind either removing Cmdr from the "bad" list, or at least, wouldn't mind making an exception in your case. But there's no way for you or even a GM to actually refer the matter through official channels in a speedy and satisfactory fashion.
Now, I'm not suggesting you get "special" treatment, but I do think that once the right people at Blizzard hear about this, there's a chance either the title will be "allowed" for everyone's name, or potentially only existing characters will be allowed to be "grandfathered" in. You have a chance through this article to actually get this matter the attention that ALL custoemrs should get when they have a dispute like this. But, if Blizzard doesn't resolve the issue to your satisfaction, you really should "vote with your feet" and move on to another game. And people who agree should have the character to do the same.
Anyway, this will certainly be a topic of conversation at the Austin Game Conference this week!
Bruce
MMOG Analyst
The problem is simply one of length. Think about the shuttle, or any rocket... the engines keep acelerating the spacship for hundreds of miles before they are done. If you want to do the same with a linear accelerator, you'd need a track hundreds of miles long... not very practical.
Alternatively, you can increase the acceleration of a magnetic rail, but astronauts are not going to survive, say, 9gs for such a prolonged period. So even though this allows for a shorter rail, it's not very practical for manned flight. However, it does have some potential use for unmanned cargo, particularly on places like the moon where there's no atmosphere the slow the payload down while you're shooting it down the rail.
Bruce
PS - Another point about the atmosphere is that rockets spend some amount of their initial time simply getting above most of the dense atmosphere, and then spend the rest of it getting the required horizontal/orbital speed. A magnetic rail would have the object accelerated to those high speeds while still deep in the dense atmosphere, requiring more energy and causing substantially more heating.
All These Islands Are Yours
Except Hans.
Attempt No Landing There.
Use Them Together.
Use Them In Peace.
Bruce
Offcial announcements:
7 05_warnerbros.html 2 ,1073757,00.html t ml?.v=1
http://www.sonyonline.com/corp/press_releases/061
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,2081
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050617/sony_time_warner.h
Interestingly, the DC Comics MMO is scheduled for Q4 2007.
Bruce
Div Devlin at http://www.gamerifts.com/ also has the story confirmed. Unless the same source leaked it to him, Corpnews, and me, I'm pretty sure this isn't just a rumor. As I was the only one who got the DC Comics tip, that would seem to indicate there are different sources involved here. All the job openings previously listed on Monolith's web page have also disappeared.
Bruce
FYI, my next update on my web site will have WoW at 2 million subscribers according to inside sources.
Bruce
http://www.mmogchart.com/
Moving between companies is a great way to promote your career.
Consider that a huge team of people worked on WoW. Now, Blizzard is quite happy, and probably wants to keep the lead designer, producer, etc. to keep working on the live team, the next expansion, etc.
But what if you're one of the assistant designer? Well, unless Blizard decides to start making another MMOG, you're probably out of luck getting promoted to a lead design position. But other companies will have lots of MMOGs in development and need lots of lead designers. Same goes for producers, QA, writers... the list goes on and on.
Blizzard, meanwhile, will probably put a lot of the money it makes from WoW into more non-MMOG titles. Okay if that's what you want to do, but some people want to work on MMOGs specifically.
Bruce
Someone let out all the Vanguard fanbois, and their ire is all directed at me now. :P Must have been a post on the vsoh boards?
Anyway, it's important to stress that these are all just quick impressions, not in-depth reviews. I don't think my thoughts about Vanguard were particularly harsh. I admitted that I didn't get a chance to see the whole thing; just that what I saw pretty graphics and not much else. From what they've said otherwise, the game doesn't sound very innovative. Sorry, but that's just the way it is; everyone who has read Brad's manifesto knows that he is planning on an old-style, hardcore, group-centric game like EQ1. I'm sure the games other features are important to some people, but do you really think the primary marketing for the game is going to be "Innovative Crafting!" or "Seamless World With No Zones!"? No, those will take a back seat to the real theme of the game. And while you may not like the more casual friendly, heavy instancing, etc. style of gameplay many newer MMOGs are moving to, I believe you are not the majority of the market.
Vanguard will be very appealing to SOME people. Hell, some people still play WWII Online and Horizons. What my job is to discern is what sort of impact the game will have on the market. Brad says he wants 500K subscribers -- it ain't gonna happen, unless Koreans embrace the game. He says he'd be happy with 250K, and he might get that, but it's hardly guaranteed. He'll get at least 100K though.
Might there be a really great game hiding in Vanguard? It's possible, but I didn't see it, and if the guys at Sigil were interested in my opinion, they should have made a better effort to convince me and other E3 goers. Not having their own booth means a lot of people at E3 never even saw the game. This may seem superficial to you, but the issue is not the game is objectively a good one but how the game is going to be perceived by the gaming public. Sometimes the best games in the world can languish in unpopularity due to poor marketing.
Bruce
MMOG Analyst
http://www.mmogchart.com/
I'm not an eye-candy nut, but the market *is*. I'm not reviewing the games based upon my personal preferences, but I am giving first impressions and judging how the game might be received by OTHERS in the gaming community. And the inescapable truth of the North American market is that graphics are important. Great gameplay might be able to trump mediocre graphics, but poor gameplay can't. And great graphics can sometimes sustain even a mediocre game.
Great graphics are also an indicator of how much money is spent on the title. Sure, it's possible for a title to be all hat and not cattle. But chances are if they spent a lot on graphics, they're going to spend a lot on marketing too, and the two together can turn even a so-so title into a hit. 8-bit sprites may be fine with compelling gameplay, but chances are the 8-bit sprite guys aren't going to get a publisher, so you'll never see it in the store or read about it in a review, so you'll never even know about it.
But still, gameplay is very important. But it is almost *impossible* to judge a MMOG's gameplay before late beta if not release, because so much usually gets added and changed towards the end of the production cycle. And with MMOGs constantly changing, a game can start with good gameplay and wind up sucking after several patches, or vice-versa.
Bruce
http://www.mmogchart.com/
It is interesting to note that of the four games I know of with integrated voice chat - PlanetSide, There, Tabula Rasa, and Auto Assault - three are FPS/shooter/sci-fi type of play. But I don't think voice chat is somehow how at odds with fantasy play. You do have fantasy races, sure, but they are no different from alien races (or the lack thereof).
Personally I don't think there will be a big problem with voice chat breaking immersitivity. Those who want it will use it and those who don't, won't. Will this cut down on the amount of cross-gender roleplaying? Probably somewhat, but not too much, since I've known plenty of guys who RPed female characters in PnP games. Other developers believe we need to implement a "voice masking" type of technology, so players can retain anonymity.
My biggest concern is that such technology may segregate players too much. People who embrace voice chat might not want to socialize much with those who don't have it. Grouping is more difficult, for one. Secondly, they'll wonder why the person doesn't have it. Are they not really female? Are they secretly black (or white)? Perhaps they stutter. We might see a lot of people offering excuses, e.g. "I'm deaf" or "My microphone broke" and so on. But will this cause people to naturally segregate into voice and non-voice social groups? Only time will tell.
Bruce
http://www.mmogchart.com/
Just a couple things to add:
1. There games are order by company in no particular order, but I did put the bigger companies towards the front of the list. Dungeons & Dragons Online gets my "Best in Show" award, as it impressed me the most, but I was also intrigued by SUN and both Tabula Rasa and Imperator.
2. I focused primarily on upcoming MMOGs, not existing ones or expansions (CoV being arguable). I wasn't trying to provide a comprehensive review of each game; just a quick idea of what the game's about and what struck me the most about it.
3. The list is far from comprehensive -- there were a few MMOGs that I missed, plus dozens more that weren't there, and a slew of Asian ones as well. Any of these could be a sleeper hit!
Bruce
http://www.mmogchart.com/
You people have got to stop calling them the Wachowski Brothers. They're the Wachowski Brother and Sister now.
Bruce
Blade Runner featured a lot of photographs, as that was one of the characteristics of Replicant psychology. However, the specific photgraph in question was, in fact, meant to be holographic.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/movies/bladerunner-faq/The back cover is a color still from an aborted sequence in which Leon's photo turns out to be a hologram that shows Batty's head turning (Cinefex no. 9, July 1982).
You may also recall the photograph of the little girl and her mother that "moved" for a second.
Bruce>Once you show someone a quote, they ASSUME they
>have total control over how it will appear,
>facts be dammned. And if you don't change the
>quote the way they want, they are in a stronger
>position to sue you, becuase showing them the
>quote for approval in the first place arguably
>implies you doubt whether it was accurate to
>begin with.
Yes, and... what's your point? Sorry, but you get no sympathy from me. People misaccurately represent their thoughts and feelings all the time. Surely your story should be about what they ACCURATELY want to convey, not about something they misspoke? Oh no, that wouldn't be as sexy a story, would it? It's funny how you justify your behaviour by appealing to the facts; sure it's a fact they SAID it but is it a fact they MEANT what it looks like?
Too much of our news items are "So-and-so said outrageous thing!" followed by all the trouble that they get into for saying it and the usual explanation that it was taken out of context or said in the heat of the moment or an honest mistake or what not. And it's not surprising that's often the result -- it's not news if a known racist says something racist; it's news if some non-racist says something racist, because people say, "Aha, so-and-so is really a racist!" and then it turns out of course they actually aren't, they just misspoke, but now it's all a big mess.
So yes, sometimes people if given a second chance to review their words will soften their words. That's part of the nature of the print medium compared to speech; it's the proverbial "in black and white" after all. Deal with it; as a reporter you should be concerned with getting the correct story, not getting the sexiest story.
Bruce
>Once you show someone a quote, they ASSUME they >have total control over how it will appear, >facts be dammned. And if you don't change the >quote the way they want, they are in a stronger >position to sue you, becuase showing them the >quote for approval in the first place arguably >implies you doubt whether it was accurate to >begin with. Yes, and... what's your point? Sorry, but you get no sympathy from me. People misaccurately represent their thoughts and feelings all the time. Surely your story should be about what they ACCURATELY want to convey, not about something they misspoke? Oh no, that wouldn't be as sexy a story, would it? It's funny how you justify your behaviour by appealing to the facts; sure it's a fact they SAID it but is it a fact they MEANT what it looks like? Too much of our news items are "So-and-so said outrageous thing!" followed by all the trouble that they get into for saying it and the usual explanation that it was taken out of context or said in the heat of the moment or an honest mistake or what not. And it's not surprising that's often the result -- it's not news if a known racist says something racist; it's news if some non-racist says something racist, because people say, "Aha, so-and-so is really a racist!" and then it turns out of course they actually aren't, they just misspoke, but now it's all a big mess. So yes, sometimes people if given a second chance to review their words will soften their words. That's part of the nature of the print medium compared to speech; it's the proverbial "in black and white" after all. Deal with it; as a reporter you should be concerned with getting the correct story, not getting the sexiest story. Bruce
... it's not so much that editors don't fact-check, but that those quoted don't get the chance to fact-check. I've been interviewed a number of times, but I've never gotten to see the final text before publication. I think reporting would be much better if, once stories were written, those mentioned/quoted in the story had a chance to review what the article says and offer feedback to the reporter and editor. This could clear up a lot of misunderstandings and misquotes that neither party intended.
Bruce
Although several other movies and TV shows have had this "error", Blade Runner is not one of them. The picture was always intended to be a futuristic 3d hologram sort of thing; you can actually see a visual effect in some of the shots, but it's not very good, and so a lot of people just thought it was a regular photgraph.
Bruce
Back in the MUD days, Marcus J. Ranum created UnterMud, which allowed people to connect their own personal muds and transfer objects between them. Nothing really became of it, though; although players want user extensibility, they also need a structured ruleset within which they can play, which they can rely on to provide a consistent framework for their play. They don't want the risk of radical rules changing whenever they move from one server to another.
Bruce
1. Invest $100 million in Red Hat
2. ???
3. Profit!
Bruce
My thoughts...
1. A lot of developers are distrustful of Microsoft. They don't feel they genuinely care about the "art" and "innovation" of games; they just want to make money off them. An incident like this will not help Microsoft's reputation in the game development community. This is not to say Microsoft is bad -- in fact, they've been extremely helpful in making games -- but there's always a profit motive behind it.
2. Fatman rocks, he did some of the best game music in the "MIDI era", and I've had the pleasure of hearing him live as well.
3. If you haven't read his book, I highly recommend it (my brother is mentioned in it twice!). Even if you're not into audio, he has some great stories. Check out his web site as well for more stories.
Bruce
X has changed a lot from the early versions to the modern ones, and there have been numerous Window managers and operating environments over the years. I would have liked to have seen more discussion of that.
Also, what about Sun's aborted alternative, Sunview?
A discussion of some of the Windows alternative GUIs (Dashboard, etc.) would also have been interesting.
Bruce
I don't know how Turbine does it. That's like their 3rd or 4th round of VC funding for the company, and AC1 and AC2 were mediocre at best. I agree that DDO and LotRO are powerful franchises, but if someone gave a company like Playnet (makers of WWII Online) that much money they could go out and buy the rights to make games based on powerful franchises, too.
Bruce