The networking guys fixed the problem via network configuration a few years back if I remember, the key thing is that hosts monitor the network and learn how to troubleshoot things quick.
Nothing stalls a laddered tournament faster than teams that can't play, especially if it's ranked
Temperature control is absolutely a huge thing, though sometimes you get locked into a venue
For about 5 years we were using the Mayfield Trade Center and the AC kept overloading and dying, that was utter hell, not just for the people but for the hardware too. Trouble is Edmonton can get up to the 30-40ÂC range in the summer (85-100 F) so you have the power load from the event AND the power load from the AC, it turned out the Mayfield had those systems connected together and it was a big ol' mess.
I attend Fragapalooza on a yearly basis and they manage ~200 folks, I've volunteered a few times myself for setup / teardown and over the years some things have become apparent:
1. Power Having stable power distribution is your top priority, no matter how much you've solved other problems when power goes down it's going to kill everything. Worse yet if you have rolling power issues that's going to put a real kink in your tournament scheduling. The main thing to consider when it comes to power distribution is what kind of hardware is going to show up, if you are using tournament machines where every build is identical then it shouldn't be a problem, if people are bringing their own machines you're going to have to sort out wildly fluctuating power configurations.
2. LAN Your LAN setup needs to be flawless, monitored and set up to find and eliminate problems. That one person who shows up with DHCP turned on is going to be a cancer, the faster you can find problems like that and solve them the better. You'll also need people to keep an eye out for hacking, tournament play, it happens
3. WAN Problem 1: You're hosting a LAN style event with a required WAN connection, you can do everything in your power to ensure that you've got the bandwidth to handle X number of simultaneous players as well as whatever the players who aren't in the tournament are playing, even if you handle this perfectly online-only games are a bitch to run tournaments for because if the servers you are connecting to go down your event is over or will drag on way too long. Even checking for potential maintenance windows to ensure there's not going to be downtime during your tournament hours is something important that's easily overlooked.
Other stuff you're going to need to consider is gate security and floor security, not just for things like theft but also for... conflagrations between players. When people get mad you need to be able to deal with them quickly otherwise things start to escalate, it's bad for your event, it's bad for your attendees.
Anyway, all this stuff probably seems obvious but it's hard to achieve AND maintain
When you are close to the end of your own play testing phase you need to build multiple prototypes.
If you want to get the word out to people about your game, particularly sites that review games and recommend them to potential crowd funding audience is that you must have betas you can send to people.
And don't underestimate the time required to develop, build and create a beta for your game, in-house playtesting can take months of refinement. Review feedback is going to add a new cycle of changes / testing.
It's a big investment both in time and materials even before you reach out for funding, and after all that you may not be able to reach your goal, so be prepared for that up front.
It's worse than just in-yo-face endorsement, it was active incitement to try to turn something actually interesting into yet another contrived "reality" show.
It was easy for them to push peoples' buttons, what was unexpected (and the most interesting part of this whole debacle IMO) is that rather than sit there and be harassed by assholes everybody just walked out.
I hope that Maker Studios learnt something from this experience and keep tight watch on outside "consultants" so that the next time it will stay true to the spirit of what was attempted and make something really worth watching
So imagine you have super-realistic characters, then you have them do something impossible like ride a dragon or glitch out on the physics engine... no matter how many hours you put in making them look really Real all it takes is one fuckup and you find yourself staring up from the Uncanny Valley wondering what happened.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes sorry that's exactly it
The networking guys fixed the problem via network configuration a few years back if I remember, the key thing is that hosts monitor the network and learn how to troubleshoot things quick.
Nothing stalls a laddered tournament faster than teams that can't play, especially if it's ranked
Temperature control is absolutely a huge thing, though sometimes you get locked into a venue
For about 5 years we were using the Mayfield Trade Center and the AC kept overloading and dying, that was utter hell, not just for the people but for the hardware too. Trouble is Edmonton can get up to the 30-40ÂC range in the summer (85-100 F) so you have the power load from the event AND the power load from the AC, it turned out the Mayfield had those systems connected together and it was a big ol' mess.
I attend Fragapalooza on a yearly basis and they manage ~200 folks, I've volunteered a few times myself for setup / teardown and over the years some things have become apparent:
1. Power
Having stable power distribution is your top priority, no matter how much you've solved other problems when power goes down it's going to kill everything. Worse yet if you have rolling power issues that's going to put a real kink in your tournament scheduling. The main thing to consider when it comes to power distribution is what kind of hardware is going to show up, if you are using tournament machines where every build is identical then it shouldn't be a problem, if people are bringing their own machines you're going to have to sort out wildly fluctuating power configurations.
2. LAN
Your LAN setup needs to be flawless, monitored and set up to find and eliminate problems. That one person who shows up with DHCP turned on is going to be a cancer, the faster you can find problems like that and solve them the better. You'll also need people to keep an eye out for hacking, tournament play, it happens
3. WAN
Problem 1: You're hosting a LAN style event with a required WAN connection, you can do everything in your power to ensure that you've got the bandwidth to handle X number of simultaneous players as well as whatever the players who aren't in the tournament are playing, even if you handle this perfectly online-only games are a bitch to run tournaments for because if the servers you are connecting to go down your event is over or will drag on way too long. Even checking for potential maintenance windows to ensure there's not going to be downtime during your tournament hours is something important that's easily overlooked.
Other stuff you're going to need to consider is gate security and floor security, not just for things like theft but also for ... conflagrations between players. When people get mad you need to be able to deal with them quickly otherwise things start to escalate, it's bad for your event, it's bad for your attendees.
Anyway, all this stuff probably seems obvious but it's hard to achieve AND maintain
They should have used the term "explore"
and I wish there were more photos from the dive in the article, it's fascinating
Spoken by someone who isn't heavily invested in Spice commodities
My question is will this have an impact on shipping immediately or do we have enough reserve to keep the navigators going?
To be honest I'd like to see something like Rocksmith where you hook up your guitar and play simple parts or something and have the difficulty ramp up
You will be missed.
Linux games on Steam?
http://store.steampowered.com/...
Also it completely breaks formatting if you zoom in to 150% like I do
When you are close to the end of your own play testing phase you need to build multiple prototypes.
If you want to get the word out to people about your game, particularly sites that review games and recommend them to potential crowd funding audience is that you must have betas you can send to people.
And don't underestimate the time required to develop, build and create a beta for your game, in-house playtesting can take months of refinement. Review feedback is going to add a new cycle of changes / testing.
It's a big investment both in time and materials even before you reach out for funding, and after all that you may not be able to reach your goal, so be prepared for that up front.
If that's the case I suspect a fairly large license audit on the way...
He collected exactly 100 gold coins
Well, that's one way of going over your manager's head (that is to say, through it)
I guess I should have worded that differently, what I meant was Public Domain
Here's a handy dandy list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Archive.org is your friend
Beyond movies, you can also find old TV shows and music that are no longer under copyright
"Kids get in the car. We're goin' to the box factory!"
Strange, all these planes end up in Georgia...
To serve us cheap, watered down beer!
I for one welcome our new robotic stadium vendor overlords
That's the CD skipping
It's worse than just in-yo-face endorsement, it was active incitement to try to turn something actually interesting into yet another contrived "reality" show.
It was easy for them to push peoples' buttons, what was unexpected (and the most interesting part of this whole debacle IMO) is that rather than sit there and be harassed by assholes everybody just walked out.
I hope that Maker Studios learnt something from this experience and keep tight watch on outside "consultants" so that the next time it will stay true to the spirit of what was attempted and make something really worth watching
What's that in the bar?
Is it an Ale?
Is it a Lager?
NO! It's SUPERBEER
*theme tune plays*
Whoops
From SCTV to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day and so many guilty pleasures from the 80s
You will be missed
So imagine you have super-realistic characters, then you have them do something impossible like ride a dragon or glitch out on the physics engine... no matter how many hours you put in making them look really Real all it takes is one fuckup and you find yourself staring up from the Uncanny Valley wondering what happened.
at least you'll see it coming...