Don't let the Debian zealots get to you as you are correct. Debian likes to do things it's own way and it makes things very hard when dealing with other distros.
I will say though that Debian was the first distro that I ever used and I was deep into it for 2 years. It was smoking on my pentium pro at the time. =) I absolutely loved apt-get but eventually I got sick of fighting with the system.
I'm running Gentoo now.
Re:If you can't explain it in fifteen seconds...
on
Web 3.0
·
· Score: 1
Web 2.0 can be explained in 2 seconds, ie web-based applications.
Just because Jeffrey Zeldman takes 10 paragraphs to NOT describe it, doesn't mean others can't.
I am still trying to figure out from that article why Jeffrey doesn't like Web 2.0. Is it because it is getting too much hype or is it because he is not in the middle of it??
Yes, you are way too idealistic. A company's job is to make money. They only have 1 loyalty and that is to their shareholders.
As a CFO, how would you justify spending 3 billion in the U.S. to do the same thing that you could do for 1 billion in India?
A specific reply to your statement of:
"Additionally, technical support nowadays is often nothing more than reading down a checklist of "did you do this?" Yes, I did before I called. "Well, let's try it again." *groan* Fine. "That didn't work either? Then let's try this." Face facts - anyone can do checklists for troubleshooting. Why is that being off-shored?"
What does Raph Koster have to do with it? He hasn't had his hands in the SWG pool since way before pre-cu. This was the guy responsible for the good features of SWG, ie crafting, player cities, etc.
Did you read what Jeff had to say? It doesn't anything about a specific MMORPG. It talks about not doing sweeping changes to your game because you'll piss off your current player base...aka the ones paying your bills.
Would you care to comment on words of Jeff Hickman's speech at the Austin Game Conference? For your information Jeff Hickman is the Executive Produce for Dark Age of Camelot.
The transcript of his speech follows:
My rant is about how, as game developers, the fact that we often make changes to core pieces of our games after we launch. It's a critical error. We've made changes to our games that were core changes and, while I can't say they were detrimental to our game, they probably didn't achieve the goals we wanted them to achieve.
As we make these games, we attract a certain type of player. They come to our game because of the things we put in there. The core functionality, the systems, the gameplay we put in, and then for whatever reason, because we see another game that looks really cool, that's maybe doing better than us, or we want to change our billing structure to make more money, or whatever the reason happens to be, we come out and make a systems change to our game, and what does it do? It alienates our current players. The people who are playing our game right now.
We go out and say, ''you know what, we want more of those players, we want that 3.5 million from that game over there.' So instead of sticking to the thing that our players really love, we changing it. And now we're alienating the players playing our game, losing our subscribers. The 3.5 million who are over there playing that game, they're happy. They're playing that game already. We're not attracting them - or, it's very difficult to attract them. So the chance that you're taking as a developer making those changes is so huge. And you see it happen all the time. If you look at the games out there, there's not many big games - or small games that have not made that error. So, that's my rant.
I've been playing on the Tempest server for 2 years. I've had 2 accounts that whole time and I have unbelievably loved the game.
Sure, it had it's flaws and bugs but it's appeal was that it was unique. The combat, skill trees and crafting were different than anything out there.
Things need to be balanced though. Nobody denies that. What SOE has done is not balance. It is a complete replacement of the current system and it screws long time customers over. I would say that abotu 75% of everything I own in game is now garbage. That is alot of wasted time.
I don't know what happened at SOE that could get the CU to be changed like this but I think that some head of the company came along and said "WoW is the most popular MMO out there. Make our game like it NOW"
Anyone who has played WoW knows that it is not the combat that makes WoW fun. It is the Content and Polish of the game. 2 things that SWG lacked (and even more so now)
If you check out http://www.swgpetition.com/ you will see that 12 thousand people have signed it. Factoring in trolls and people with more than 1 account, I would guess that 15 thousand people have cancelled. That's alot of monthly income for a company.
It is just idiotic that SOE has treated their customers this way. We've been telling them for 2 years about what is wrong with the game and they have decided to just go in the other direction.
SOE even had an "alpha team" of players and correspondents that were setup to help them figure out what the biggest problems were and how to fix them. Basically a bunch of brainstorming between the Devs and Users. 2 months ago they shut that all down and went with the current CU. It was a major slap in the face to the correspondants that were trying to help. The Devs ask for all this input and then severed all ties. Most of the correspondants quit after that. And when I say most, I mean 90%.
I won't get into the CU too much but it is a completely new system. You get to "respec" your character and your items were automatically converted. The respec is full of bugs and takes a good pre-CU character and turns them into a gimp. Uber legendary items have been converted into garbage that a novice craftsman can make better versions of. I have never been big on loot and items but I know of ALOT of people that spent millions on items that are not worthless.
What else? Combat is now boring as hell. And bugs... oh, so many bugs.
Here is an analogy of what has happened. Say you bought a tire from a company. It's just a tire and does the job. You let the company know what can be better about the tire; you spend hours with them in meetings and on the phone explaining that maybe the tred needs to change a bit. 2 months later the tire company send you a square tire. What are you supposed to do with a square tire?
Obviously you are angry at the benefits teachers get because you don't think they deserve them.
A couple things to consider.
1) Teachers are part of a UNION. My father was in a union at a lumber mill and they were payed more than they were worth and the benefits were phenominal. The same goes for teachers. It is the way unions work.
2) Teachers have a quick burn-out rate. You think babysitting your bitchy kid is easy day in and day out? No, it isn't. Now add 30 more bitchy kids to the list.
3) Teachers are in high demand. High demand = more money/benefits.
Thank you for taking the time to write that out. I've never played UO but I find it interesting to read about how these "virtual worlds" face the same issues as the real world. ie crime.
Canada already sells a lot of power to the U.S. Since most provinces generate their power using hydro dams it is several times more efficient than selling power generated by nuclear power.
For example, it may take several hours to turn on a nuclear generator but with hydro all you have to do is open a flood gate to generate the power. 2 hours vs 2 minutes.
You are right that discrimination is a huge issue, but you missed one important thing. If people were taught to respect ALL living things, from the smallest lifeform to the person sitting beside them on the train, issues of religion, race, etc... would disappear.
> More bluntly, "If you meet the Buddha on the > road to Enlightenment, kill him.." > > (That is, if you meet anyone whom you start > believing is the authority on your particular > brand of religion, stop following that person, > because you've been suckered.)
Haha.. you are so right! I asked my teacher one day "How do you know when you become enlightened?" and she said "You won't. Besides a true Buddhist would never go around saying they were enlightened because true enlightenment is the absence of ego."
"Why is it people are comfortable with companies sponsoring Yoga, a religious practice? Meditation is one thing"
Unfortunately I don't think that Yoga and Meditation in the West are being taken as "spiritual practices". The only Yoga I've taken was at the YMCA and let me tell you, that was not a spiritual practice. It was a glorified stretching routine. I could see classes in meditation being the same thing.. ie for stress relief only.
As a practicing Buddhist I have no problem with people taking Yoga and Meditation in these ways, it just wasn't for me. I was looking for something more spiritual.
"The most important thing is to just sit. How many Slashdotters ever allow themselves to just sit? To just clear your mind without thinking of anything?"
You do realize that for most of the people in the West this is one of the scariest things to do? Unfortunately we live in a world where people must be entertained all of the time and no one has taken the time to really learn about themselves and who they are.
I've heard of Chyogyam Trungpa but never picked up any of his books. I'll give it a shot.
Have you ever read Jack Kornfield? I find that he is quite the story teller but very down to earth.
Slashdot Mirror
That's right folks! If you buy Oracle instead of SAP you are ANTI-American and most likely a terrorist.
Don't let the Debian zealots get to you as you are correct. Debian likes to do things it's own way and it makes things very hard when dealing with other distros.
I will say though that Debian was the first distro that I ever used and I was deep into it for 2 years. It was smoking on my pentium pro at the time. =) I absolutely loved apt-get but eventually I got sick of fighting with the system.
I'm running Gentoo now.
Web 2.0 can be explained in 2 seconds, ie web-based applications.
Just because Jeffrey Zeldman takes 10 paragraphs to NOT describe it, doesn't mean others can't.
I am still trying to figure out from that article why Jeffrey doesn't like Web 2.0. Is it because it is getting too much hype or is it because he is not in the middle of it??
I'd post as an Anonymous Coward too if I still played SWG. =)
Played for almost 2 years, left for 6 months after the CU game out, gave it another shot and was doing ok until the NGE thing.
Pre-CU my friends list was always full (ie, 50 people on), post-CU I'd be lucky to see 5 people, post NGE = no friends left.
I'm glad I cancelled but it's too bad there aren't any MMOs out there that have the type of community building that SWG had (cities, crafting, etc)
DnL may fix that though...
Yes, you are way too idealistic. A company's job is to make money. They only have 1 loyalty and that is to their shareholders.
As a CFO, how would you justify spending 3 billion in the U.S. to do the same thing that you could do for 1 billion in India?
A specific reply to your statement of:
"Additionally, technical support nowadays is often nothing more than reading down a checklist of "did you do this?" Yes, I did before I called. "Well, let's try it again." *groan* Fine. "That didn't work either? Then let's try this." Face facts - anyone can do checklists for troubleshooting. Why is that being off-shored?"
It is off-shored because it is cheaper.
Too bad the company this guy works for doesn't follow ANY of the things he's written.
Word on the street is that SWG is losing alot of players right now and they are trying to do everything in their power to prevent that.
They have 2 good things in the last week to keep players:
1) Everybody will be getting a 2nd character slot (still not enough IMHO).
2) The ToOW refund.
These 2 things are not enough to keep me around though. I am sick of SOE's treatment of customers.
What does Raph Koster have to do with it? He hasn't had his hands in the SWG pool since way before pre-cu. This was the guy responsible for the good features of SWG, ie crafting, player cities, etc.
The CU1 and CU2 are not his doing.
Kate =(
/. ?
Not much is going on with the server. Tempest is dying badly. The CU his us hard. I talk to Felton all the time. He is playing WoW and Civ4 right now.
Who is this ex-Tempest folks that lurks on
Did you read what Jeff had to say? It doesn't anything about a specific MMORPG. It talks about not doing sweeping changes to your game because you'll piss off your current player base...aka the ones paying your bills.
Mr Smedley,
e nt&task=view&id=1468&Itemid=35)
Would you care to comment on words of Jeff Hickman's speech at the Austin Game Conference? For your information Jeff Hickman is the Executive Produce for Dark Age of Camelot.
The transcript of his speech follows:
My rant is about how, as game developers, the fact that we often make changes to core pieces of our games after we launch. It's a critical error. We've made changes to our games that were core changes and, while I can't say they were detrimental to our game, they probably didn't achieve the goals we wanted them to achieve.
As we make these games, we attract a certain type of player. They come to our game because of the things we put in there. The core functionality, the systems, the gameplay we put in, and then for whatever reason, because we see another game that looks really cool, that's maybe doing better than us, or we want to change our billing structure to make more money, or whatever the reason happens to be, we come out and make a systems change to our game, and what does it do? It alienates our current players. The people who are playing our game right now.
We go out and say, ''you know what, we want more of those players, we want that 3.5 million from that game over there.' So instead of sticking to the thing that our players really love, we changing it. And now we're alienating the players playing our game, losing our subscribers. The 3.5 million who are over there playing that game, they're happy. They're playing that game already. We're not attracting them - or, it's very difficult to attract them. So the chance that you're taking as a developer making those changes is so huge. And you see it happen all the time. If you look at the games out there, there's not many big games - or small games that have not made that error. So, that's my rant.
(taken from: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_cont
Regards,
Trospar (Tempest)
Mr Smedley,
I have played on Testcenter and it is loaded with bugs. Your company has given 2 weeks from announcement to release. This a huge change in the game.
Why are you rushing to put it out? Why not do it as bug-free as possible instead of pushing a buggy product out to your customers?
Regards,
Trospar (Tempest)
I've been playing on the Tempest server for 2 years. I've had 2 accounts that whole time and I have unbelievably loved the game.
Sure, it had it's flaws and bugs but it's appeal was that it was unique. The combat, skill trees and crafting were different than anything out there.
Things need to be balanced though. Nobody denies that. What SOE has done is not balance. It is a complete replacement of the current system and it screws long time customers over. I would say that abotu 75% of everything I own in game is now garbage. That is alot of wasted time.
I don't know what happened at SOE that could get the CU to be changed like this but I think that some head of the company came along and said "WoW is the most popular MMO out there. Make our game like it NOW"
Anyone who has played WoW knows that it is not the combat that makes WoW fun. It is the Content and Polish of the game. 2 things that SWG lacked (and even more so now)
If you check out http://www.swgpetition.com/ you will see that 12 thousand people have signed it. Factoring in trolls and people with more than 1 account, I would guess that 15 thousand people have cancelled. That's alot of monthly income for a company.
It is just idiotic that SOE has treated their customers this way. We've been telling them for 2 years about what is wrong with the game and they have decided to just go in the other direction.
SOE even had an "alpha team" of players and correspondents that were setup to help them figure out what the biggest problems were and how to fix them. Basically a bunch of brainstorming between the Devs and Users. 2 months ago they shut that all down and went with the current CU. It was a major slap in the face to the correspondants that were trying to help. The Devs ask for all this input and then severed all ties. Most of the correspondants quit after that. And when I say most, I mean 90%.
I won't get into the CU too much but it is a completely new system. You get to "respec" your character and your items were automatically converted. The respec is full of bugs and takes a good pre-CU character and turns them into a gimp. Uber legendary items have been converted into garbage that a novice craftsman can make better versions of. I have never been big on loot and items but I know of ALOT of people that spent millions on items that are not worthless.
What else? Combat is now boring as hell. And bugs... oh, so many bugs.
Here is an analogy of what has happened. Say you bought a tire from a company. It's just a tire and does the job. You let the company know what can be better about the tire; you spend hours with them in meetings and on the phone explaining that maybe the tred needs to change a bit. 2 months later the tire company send you a square tire. What are you supposed to do with a square tire?
SOE, this is not how you treat customers. Idiots.
Obviously you are angry at the benefits teachers get because you don't think they deserve them.
A couple things to consider.
1) Teachers are part of a UNION. My father was in a union at a lumber mill and they were payed more than they were worth and the benefits were phenominal. The same goes for teachers. It is the way unions work.
2) Teachers have a quick burn-out rate. You think babysitting your bitchy kid is easy day in and day out? No, it isn't. Now add 30 more bitchy kids to the list.
3) Teachers are in high demand. High demand = more money/benefits.
What magical world do you live in?
You are correct though, but people are lazy, cheap and ignorant.
That is why we have so much technology taking over our lives... good or bad as that may be.
If you get a chance pick up the book Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. A very good read for anyone in the software industry.
Did you quit? or what happened?
> Scientists and Engineers live the longest next to pre-med
Ok, my question is: What do those medical students know that we don't? I would guess *Don't goto hospitals*
Thank you for taking the time to write that out. I've never played UO but I find it interesting to read about how these "virtual worlds" face the same issues as the real world. ie crime.
Canada already sells a lot of power to the U.S. Since most provinces generate their power using hydro dams it is several times more efficient than selling power generated by nuclear power.
For example, it may take several hours to turn on a nuclear generator but with hydro all you have to do is open a flood gate to generate the power. 2 hours vs 2 minutes.
You are right that discrimination is a huge issue, but you missed one important thing. If people were taught to respect ALL living things, from the smallest lifeform to the person sitting beside them on the train, issues of religion, race, etc... would disappear.
> the Deaf community generally shuns them as
> their equivalent of "tools of Satan."
It is a sad sad world when a community shuns another for improving their life.
Do they shun you because they are purists or is there a medical reason that I do not know about?
> More bluntly, "If you meet the Buddha on the
> road to Enlightenment, kill him.."
>
> (That is, if you meet anyone whom you start
> believing is the authority on your particular
> brand of religion, stop following that person,
> because you've been suckered.)
Haha.. you are so right! I asked my teacher one day "How do you know when you become enlightened?" and she said "You won't. Besides a true Buddhist would never go around saying they were enlightened because true enlightenment is the absence of ego."
I was impressed by what my teacher had to say.
"Why is it people are comfortable with companies sponsoring Yoga, a religious practice? Meditation is one thing"
Unfortunately I don't think that Yoga and Meditation in the West are being taken as "spiritual practices". The only Yoga I've taken was at the YMCA and let me tell you, that was not a spiritual practice. It was a glorified stretching routine. I could see classes in meditation being the same thing.. ie for stress relief only.
As a practicing Buddhist I have no problem with people taking Yoga and Meditation in these ways, it just wasn't for me. I was looking for something more spiritual.
"The most important thing is to just sit. How many Slashdotters ever allow themselves to just sit? To just clear your mind without thinking of anything?"
You do realize that for most of the people in the West this is one of the scariest things to do? Unfortunately we live in a world where people must be entertained all of the time and no one has taken the time to really learn about themselves and who they are.
I've heard of Chyogyam Trungpa but never picked up any of his books. I'll give it a shot.
Have you ever read Jack Kornfield? I find that he is quite the story teller but very down to earth.