Unless you've done it, I don't think you're really in a position of authority from which to speak.
I am an independant game developer. I can tell you that engine development is really a relatively small part of the picture. It's important, no, critical, obviously, but not, in my opinion what takes the most time to get right.
By your logic, it shouldn't take any time at all to make, say, a movie, because they don't have to invent cameras and the actors already exist. There's just a lot more too it than that.
Yeah, I mean, the release dates are way too far apart. I mean, if E2 doesn't come out until 2007, I'm just not playing it. Forget it. If Valve can't turn around the next segment in two months, they just can't keep my attention.
You know, forget that Valve makes really great games, or that they're probably really hard to make. They just need to work harder.
Seriously, what the hell? How many years do we wait between movie sequels? TV seasons? Are you really saying that episodic content as a concept is a failure because it takes less than a year to turn around? How long did it take between HL1 and HL2? Did you boycott THAT because they took too long? Did you lose interest?
I think this line of thinking is absurd. It makes no sense from a gameplay perspective. To use the aformentioned example, if the crack dealer from GTA shouldn't drop in on the Sims BBQ, why have that ability? Even in MMOs, one of the major points of the game, ostensibly, is to experience the world. If the worlds are all the same, or can be transversed easily, why bother? There has already been an attempt at this, it's called Second Life. You can, in fact, have a magic castle next to an urban wasteland. Gameplay suffers, and at it's best, SL is a giant chatroom with a pretty (if slow) interface.
This is a half-baked idea that falls apart in the face of even casual reasoning.
Re:Oh, no hot air, I see...
on
The New Boom
·
· Score: 1
I'm sure that "The New Boom" is nothing like "The Long Boom" that Wired talked about in 1997. You know, right before the bust.
SCO doesn't eat thier own dog food.
on
SCOrched Earth
·
· Score: 1
I'm sure everyone's done this already, but check this out:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=sco.com
They haven't run thier own version of UNIX since March 2002. What do they use now? Apache on Linux!!!
I was a CS major and I'm now a developer. I know your pain, man. I thought it would be all fortune and glory, that I'd change the world, that I'd make things better somehow.
I was able to carry that excitement through to my first few gigs - all for small companies. Eventuallu I busted my ass and got a gig as CTO of a startup. I busted my ass all day every day to build a cutting edge XML web publishing architecture. We were on the bleeding edge. It was a cool project and a huge ego-infator.
Then the company had money problems. My project was the first thing to go, and me with it.
Two years of hard work, good thinking and belief got me what? Two weeks severance.
I got another gig with a giant publishing company, where I'm a little cog in a giant machine. I go to meetings, write specs and code, and try to stay out of trouble. And you know what? It pays the rent. I don't give a rat's ass what I'm doing all day anymore. Why?
I got back into music, where I have complete control, and the results are 1000 times more rewarding. People understand what I do, that it's me doing it, and that it's entertaining. That's all that matters. Maybe I'll get somewhere. Maybe I won't.
Very few of us get to work at something we believe in. The rest of us pay the bills and have hobbies. While I used to find that depressing, I now find it liberating. Who am I to aroggantly presume I can change the world? No one. Now I can just try to be happy living in it.
With out starting a Holy War, let me say this: Information wants to be free. I say this not because I'm some kind of tree huggin' hippie, I'm a paid commercial developer. I say it because the very ideas of copyrights and patents are absurd. If any and all information can be patented and copyrighted, why don't we all just copyright our names and charge people to use them? This sound extreme, but freakin' Amazon patented "one-click", the most obvious use of cookies there is! Where does it end?
I don't know about the best software ever, but this thing is freakin' QUICK. I'm browsing slashdot in both Netscape 6 and IE 5. Netscape is running CIRLCLES around IE.
My question is, what happened to 5? Did Netscape forget how to count or are they trying to "Outversion" IE?
Either way, I'm not sure about the stability yet, but the speed is certainly greater than anything else out there at the moment.
1. This "the masses cannot comprehend" litany is as untrue as it is uninteresting. Fact is, if Linux was preloaded on machines the way windows is, it would be used by a great many more people. OEM support is what keeps Linux from the masses. (Something M$ spends a lot of time and $$ on)
2. Windows IS NOT EASY TO INTALL OR MAINTAIN, DAMMIT. I don't know where that line of crap came from. Granted, due to Point Number One, (above)more people know how to do it, but that does not constitute ease of use!
3. It is you who is in his own little world, my friend. And If you don't read slashdot, how did you post this?
Yeah! Very intuitive! As a matter of fact, screw names altogether! Let's refer to EVERYTHING by number. Let's just refer to each other by social security number! Let's refer to everything we buy by it's UPC number! I can see it now! "Hey, 098-09-2324! I have to run down to the store and get some 213819429413!"
I agree with your "highway robbery" statement, but I think your solution is a little ridiculous.
In fact, what if this has already been accomplished, and all the sensory input you're getting right now is bogus? The red pill or the blue pill? AHH!!! I"M FREAKING MYSELF OUT!!!
As an aside, I'm in for anything that could teach my fat ass kung fu without actually removing it from my chair.:)
While I think your 'prophet of doom' approach to this technology is perhaps a bit extreme, I totally agree with your opinion of the interviewer. Where did they get this guy? If I were that poor scientist, I would be asking myself, "If this freak asks me what something too small to see LOOKS LIKE one more time, I think I'm going to ram my pen up his nose!"
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you've done it, I don't think you're really in a position of authority from which to speak.
I am an independant game developer. I can tell you that engine development is really a relatively small part of the picture. It's important, no, critical, obviously, but not, in my opinion what takes the most time to get right.
By your logic, it shouldn't take any time at all to make, say, a movie, because they don't have to invent cameras and the actors already exist. There's just a lot more too it than that.
Yeah, I mean, the release dates are way too far apart. I mean, if E2 doesn't come out until 2007, I'm just not playing it. Forget it. If Valve can't turn around the next segment in two months, they just can't keep my attention.
You know, forget that Valve makes really great games, or that they're probably really hard to make. They just need to work harder.
Seriously, what the hell? How many years do we wait between movie sequels? TV seasons? Are you really saying that episodic content as a concept is a failure because it takes less than a year to turn around? How long did it take between HL1 and HL2? Did you boycott THAT because they took too long? Did you lose interest?
Whine. That will surely make everything better.
I think this line of thinking is absurd. It makes no sense from a gameplay perspective. To use the aformentioned example, if the crack dealer from GTA shouldn't drop in on the Sims BBQ, why have that ability? Even in MMOs, one of the major points of the game, ostensibly, is to experience the world. If the worlds are all the same, or can be transversed easily, why bother? There has already been an attempt at this, it's called Second Life. You can, in fact, have a magic castle next to an urban wasteland. Gameplay suffers, and at it's best, SL is a giant chatroom with a pretty (if slow) interface.
This is a half-baked idea that falls apart in the face of even casual reasoning.
I'm sure that "The New Boom" is nothing like "The Long Boom" that Wired talked about in 1997. You know, right before the bust.
I'm sure everyone's done this already, but check this out:
m
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=sco.co
They haven't run thier own version of UNIX since March 2002. What do they use now? Apache on Linux!!!
I was a CS major and I'm now a developer. I know your pain, man. I thought it would be all fortune and glory, that I'd change the world, that I'd make things better somehow.
I was able to carry that excitement through to my first few gigs - all for small companies. Eventuallu I busted my ass and got a gig as CTO of a startup. I busted my ass all day every day to build a cutting edge XML web publishing architecture. We were on the bleeding edge. It was a cool project and a huge ego-infator.
Then the company had money problems. My project was the first thing to go, and me with it. Two years of hard work, good thinking and belief got me what? Two weeks severance.
I got another gig with a giant publishing company, where I'm a little cog in a giant machine. I go to meetings, write specs and code, and try to stay out of trouble. And you know what? It pays the rent. I don't give a rat's ass what I'm doing all day anymore. Why?
I got back into music, where I have complete control, and the results are 1000 times more rewarding. People understand what I do, that it's me doing it, and that it's entertaining. That's all that matters. Maybe I'll get somewhere. Maybe I won't.
Very few of us get to work at something we believe in. The rest of us pay the bills and have hobbies. While I used to find that depressing, I now find it liberating. Who am I to aroggantly presume I can change the world? No one. Now I can just try to be happy living in it.
With out starting a Holy War, let me say this: Information wants to be free. I say this not because I'm some kind of tree huggin' hippie, I'm a paid commercial developer. I say it because the very ideas of copyrights and patents are absurd. If any and all information can be patented and copyrighted, why don't we all just copyright our names and charge people to use them? This sound extreme, but freakin' Amazon patented "one-click", the most obvious use of cookies there is! Where does it end?
I don't know about the best software ever, but this thing is freakin' QUICK. I'm browsing slashdot in both Netscape 6 and IE 5. Netscape is running CIRLCLES around IE.
My question is, what happened to 5? Did Netscape forget how to count or are they trying to "Outversion" IE?
Either way, I'm not sure about the stability yet, but the speed is certainly greater than anything else out there at the moment.
1. This "the masses cannot comprehend" litany is as untrue as it is uninteresting. Fact is, if Linux was preloaded on machines the way windows is, it would be used by a great many more people. OEM support is what keeps Linux from the masses. (Something M$ spends a lot of time and $$ on)
2. Windows IS NOT EASY TO INTALL OR MAINTAIN, DAMMIT. I don't know where that line of crap came from. Granted, due to Point Number One, (above)more people know how to do it, but that does not constitute ease of use!
3. It is you who is in his own little world, my friend. And If you don't read slashdot, how did you post this?
Yeah! Very intuitive! As a matter of fact, screw names altogether! Let's refer to EVERYTHING by number. Let's just refer to each other by social security number! Let's refer to everything we buy by it's UPC number! I can see it now! "Hey, 098-09-2324! I have to run down to the store and get some 213819429413!"
I agree with your "highway robbery" statement, but I think your solution is a little ridiculous.
Not to defend the Intellimouse, but come on: A rash? I don't like them either, but enough with the medical problems. :) --JB
In fact, what if this has already been accomplished, and all the sensory input you're getting right now is bogus? The red pill or the blue pill? AHH!!! I"M FREAKING MYSELF OUT!!!
:)
As an aside, I'm in for anything that could teach my fat ass kung fu without actually removing it from my chair.
While I think your 'prophet of doom' approach to this technology is perhaps a bit extreme, I totally agree with your opinion of the interviewer. Where did they get this guy? If I were that poor scientist, I would be asking myself, "If this freak asks me what something too small to see LOOKS LIKE one more time, I think I'm going to ram my pen up his nose!"