Diablo - TFA claims they bolted multi-player on 6 months before release. Tons of bugs. Go figure.
Diablo II (Realms) - Yeah, not really much excuse for that. Shoulda learned
Warcraft III, Starcraft - Maphacks. They send way too much data to the client. Shoulda learned.
WoW - Par for the course. I've not played an MMO that didn't have a bad patch here and there, and pleanty of downtime. Honestly, I'm SHOCKED WoW's been as bug free as it has -- just about EVERY MMO to date has had a dupe bug within a couple years of release, and Blizzard's track record with multiplayer security has always been dreadful.
Have you ever benchmarked multiple selects over a left join in MySQL?...my experience is that it's typically 10 times faster to use simple selects. "Try dumping the left join and using simple queries" is the first thing I suggest to my junior developers
My experience is EXACTLY the oposite. A well written, well indexed JOIN can return all the data you need in maybe the twice the time it takes to select rows one at a time. The simple truth is that a single database call for *any* query takes a decent number of milliseconds. Multiply that by 1,000 queries, and suddenly you're looking at multi-second page render times, where a single JOIN would have returned data in a split second.
I've personally turned many multi-second scripts that used looped queries into sub-second scripts with appropriate JOINs, and the like. If you can't optimize 1,000 identical queries into a single, faster query, you're doing something wrong.
They said the exact same thing about March Madness. They had one good idea: set up projectors in the break/lunch room and play the streams there. Then your employees have less cause to (1) waste bandwidth streaming video to every desk (2) goof off during non-work hours.
But really, are we gonna see one of these articles during every major sporting event now?
"I have to ask; how much is the data worth when a good part of the data is fake? I think that myspace is a cesspool, but everyone my age has one. I'll give you a hint: They aren't in their mid thirties earning 250k+ a year."
What they enter in their details is *worthless* compared to things like "A high percentage of people in this social network clicked on this ad, so let's show this ad to the other people in this network more often". It's not the user-entered data, it's _how you use the system_ while you're logged in.
Think about things like my.yahoo.com, and google's "Personalized Home". If you're using these features, then google and yahoo can associate *every* search you make with you, the person. If you use their email services, that's even more data on you. That's a hell of a lot of data. I know if you look at my yahoo mailbox, you can figure out where I live, work, who I associate with... My google search history actually details all that and more, since I've google mapped routes from home and work to dozens of places.
"People should vote for the party that represents them and their interests the better"
You know, I agree with that completely, in theory. However, in some political systems, it's just not practical. I voted green in the first two elections after I turned 18. Then I realized what a waste of a vote that is in the US. Specifically, when Bush took office by such a slim margin, I realized that nigh every green vote is a vote that probably could have otherwise kept him out of office.
Some countries aren't nearly so two party dominated. And in those, voting for third parties makes all kinds of sense. The US's two party system, and lack of congressional term limits really limits the available choices for those of us with non-mainstream points of view.
Then again, the last liesure suit larry was just as long, and probably cost twice as much at release. That was a real rip for those foolish enough to have paid for it.
I guess for those of us who are hesitant to pay $4/hour for a game can always wait til they relase the "SiN episodes 1-5 megapack" for $30 in a year.
Rational and real, since all rational numbers are real numbers.
Let x be a real number, such that 4 > x > 3. Let y be a real number such that y = ((4 - x) / 2) + x
By basic algebra, ((4 - x) / 2) + x x and y != x By our definition, x > 3, and transitively, ((4 - x) / 2) + x > 3
Therefore 3 ((4 - x) / 2) + x 4, and thusly 3 y 4
Simply put, for every x as defined above, you can always create another number between 3 and 4, simply by adding (((4 - x) / 2) + x) to it.
I'm sure this proof wouldn't get me a passing grade were it a descrete math assignment, but it's good enough for slashdot. I'm also sure there's a better proof in every descrete math textbook on the planet, but mine's 60 miles away at the moment:p
Come on. PC FPSers have being using dedicated servers for over a *decade* now.
And what's up with this "if your connection drops out, you can run around and shoot anyone" crap? Even quake 1 had this right in the mid nineties -- if your connection drops out, you don't get to move.
All in all, it sounds like they made some of the *worst* design choices *ever* in FPS multiplayer. Mindblowing.
Mud-dev con 2003 was attended by developers from all over the industry, including Shadowbane's lead, and some DAOC staff. IIRC, Raph Koster had RSVP'd, but ended up having to visit Lucas Film at the last minute, as SWG was in development at the time.
At any rate, the main sentiment of the conference was "Hey, let's do new things", with talk of abandoning things like:
The "server" construct. Why do you have to pick a server and stick with it in every MMO to date? Shouldn't this be abstracted away? In fact, there have been multi-user environments that have done just that for over a decade now.
The repeatable "fedex quest". Why is it Professor Smith needs us to run the Miracle Serum across town every 5 minutes? Don't they have enough already? Why don't quests have real side-effects on the game world? Why, when I deliver the serum, isn't someone actually cured?
Of course, doing new things in a way that actually attracts enough players to fund a large project is tough. That's really the game (and media) industry's problem at large: the same old same old is lucrative. Innovation is risky.
But if it's any consolation, game developers agree: the old shit's getting boring.
"...because it will become a world with lots of producers and no consumers."
That'd certainly be a change. SL's biggest problem has always been a lack of producers. In the begining, it was *useless* to consumers, 'cause there wasn't much to play with. You had to build it yourself. For casual players looking to just log on, goof off for an hour or two, and log out, that's a deal breaker.
And of course, the more producers you have, the more toys their are for consumers, and thusly the more consumers join.
The SL producer market is fairly analogous to the real-world software market. They're both skilled, technical jobs, and fairly inaccessible to your average user. Of course, the real-world software market has had its ups and downs as well. But if you ever suggested that there'd be more software producers than consumers, you'd be laughed out of the room.
Thanks for your correction. We're making that change now. (Journalist math for you).
As for 1 millisecond of delay, are you talking about on the wire (node-to-node), or inside-the-box (port-to-port) latency? (I've read reports that SONET/SDH has measured latency of around 1 millsec).
Looks like the author fucked up the definition of millisecond too:
"By comparison, latency in standard Ethernet gear is measured in milliseconds, or one-millionth of a second, rather than nanoseconds, which are one-billionth of a second"
When I go to blockbuster, and I pay the man $5 for my PS2 game, I can't re-sell it.
What exactly is preventing sony from adopting the same business model? As long as they're up front about the fact it's not a sale, I don't see where this is legally questionable. Better not try to charge $50 per 'rental' though. I'm pretty sure people wouldn't be so happy about that.
"except when one consumes services when telecommuting without paying for them."
Which services are these? GP mentions many services that certainly _aren't_ consumed, and yet it seems you haven't come up with a single specific example of services that _are_ consumed.
They do have PVP, sort of. There are certain areas of the world where you can die.
Part of the problem, though, is that you can create your own objects. So you can build missiles that never miss, and the like, for little to no cost.
I happen to know someone who created an object that warped to a random location in the zone it was deployed in, sprayed a hundred 'grenades' in every direction, and warped to another point in the zone, and did the same, over and over again, about once a second. Everyone in the zone was dead in under a minute, and the zone server came to its knees.
Slashdot Mirror
Now that you mention it...
Why doesn't firefox support Windows 3.1? Or DOS? There are still people out there using both!
</sarcasm>
Diablo - TFA claims they bolted multi-player on 6 months before release. Tons of bugs. Go figure.
Diablo II (Realms) - Yeah, not really much excuse for that. Shoulda learned
Warcraft III, Starcraft - Maphacks. They send way too much data to the client. Shoulda learned.
WoW - Par for the course. I've not played an MMO that didn't have a bad patch here and there, and pleanty of downtime. Honestly, I'm SHOCKED WoW's been as bug free as it has -- just about EVERY MMO to date has had a dupe bug within a couple years of release, and Blizzard's track record with multiplayer security has always been dreadful.
I guess they learned.
Sorry, that should read:
A well written, well indexed JOIN can return all the data you need in maybe the twice the time it takes to select a single row.
Have you ever benchmarked multiple selects over a left join in MySQL? ...my experience is that it's typically 10 times faster to use simple selects. "Try dumping the left join and using simple queries" is the first thing I suggest to my junior developers
My experience is EXACTLY the oposite. A well written, well indexed JOIN can return all the data you need in maybe the twice the time it takes to select rows one at a time. The simple truth is that a single database call for *any* query takes a decent number of milliseconds. Multiply that by 1,000 queries, and suddenly you're looking at multi-second page render times, where a single JOIN would have returned data in a split second.
I've personally turned many multi-second scripts that used looped queries into sub-second scripts with appropriate JOINs, and the like. If you can't optimize 1,000 identical queries into a single, faster query, you're doing something wrong.
They said the exact same thing about March Madness. They had one good idea: set up projectors in the break/lunch room and play the streams there. Then your employees have less cause to (1) waste bandwidth streaming video to every desk (2) goof off during non-work hours.
But really, are we gonna see one of these articles during every major sporting event now?
"I have to ask; how much is the data worth when a good part of the data is fake? I think that myspace is a cesspool, but everyone my age has one. I'll give you a hint: They aren't in their mid thirties earning 250k+ a year."
What they enter in their details is *worthless* compared to things like "A high percentage of people in this social network clicked on this ad, so let's show this ad to the other people in this network more often". It's not the user-entered data, it's _how you use the system_ while you're logged in.
Think about things like my.yahoo.com, and google's "Personalized Home". If you're using these features, then google and yahoo can associate *every* search you make with you, the person. If you use their email services, that's even more data on you. That's a hell of a lot of data. I know if you look at my yahoo mailbox, you can figure out where I live, work, who I associate with... My google search history actually details all that and more, since I've google mapped routes from home and work to dozens of places.
They watch what you do, not what you say.
"incredibly expensive shows like 24 and Lost WON'T EXIST if they can't make money."
http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing
5 episodes available!
Seems ABC's already adapted to our digital world.
"Be seeing you..."
Too much Oblivion I see
Or 'The Prisoner', of course.
It's always sad when kids mistake a reference to a reference for a reference to an original.
It's like, bad pointer arithmatic, or something.
"Ok, either that is some weird coincidence, or you managed to whip that up and get first post too"
He's a subscriber. That theoretically gives him at least 15 minutes to whip up a low-quality, yet hillarious cartoon before posting is allowed.
"People should vote for the party that represents them and their interests the better"
You know, I agree with that completely, in theory. However, in some political systems, it's just not practical. I voted green in the first two elections after I turned 18. Then I realized what a waste of a vote that is in the US. Specifically, when Bush took office by such a slim margin, I realized that nigh every green vote is a vote that probably could have otherwise kept him out of office.
Some countries aren't nearly so two party dominated. And in those, voting for third parties makes all kinds of sense. The US's two party system, and lack of congressional term limits really limits the available choices for those of us with non-mainstream points of view.
I agree that $20 for 5 hours is a bit steep.
Then again, the last liesure suit larry was just as long, and probably cost twice as much at release. That was a real rip for those foolish enough to have paid for it.
I guess for those of us who are hesitant to pay $4/hour for a game can always wait til they relase the "SiN episodes 1-5 megapack" for $30 in a year.
Rational and real, since all rational numbers are real numbers.
:p
Let x be a real number, such that 4 > x > 3.
Let y be a real number such that y = ((4 - x) / 2) + x
By basic algebra, ((4 - x) / 2) + x x
and y != x
By our definition, x > 3, and transitively, ((4 - x) / 2) + x > 3
Therefore 3 ((4 - x) / 2) + x 4, and thusly 3 y 4
Simply put, for every x as defined above, you can always create another number between 3 and 4, simply by adding (((4 - x) / 2) + x) to it.
I'm sure this proof wouldn't get me a passing grade were it a descrete math assignment, but it's good enough for slashdot. I'm also sure there's a better proof in every descrete math textbook on the planet, but mine's 60 miles away at the moment
Wow, FPSing on player-run servers?
Come on. PC FPSers have being using dedicated servers for over a *decade* now.
And what's up with this "if your connection drops out, you can run around and shoot anyone" crap? Even quake 1 had this right in the mid nineties -- if your connection drops out, you don't get to move.
All in all, it sounds like they made some of the *worst* design choices *ever* in FPS multiplayer. Mindblowing.
Mud-dev con 2003 was attended by developers from all over the industry, including Shadowbane's lead, and some DAOC staff. IIRC, Raph Koster had RSVP'd, but ended up having to visit Lucas Film at the last minute, as SWG was in development at the time.
At any rate, the main sentiment of the conference was "Hey, let's do new things", with talk of abandoning things like:
The "server" construct. Why do you have to pick a server and stick with it in every MMO to date? Shouldn't this be abstracted away? In fact, there have been multi-user environments that have done just that for over a decade now.
The repeatable "fedex quest". Why is it Professor Smith needs us to run the Miracle Serum across town every 5 minutes? Don't they have enough already? Why don't quests have real side-effects on the game world? Why, when I deliver the serum, isn't someone actually cured?
Of course, doing new things in a way that actually attracts enough players to fund a large project is tough. That's really the game (and media) industry's problem at large: the same old same old is lucrative. Innovation is risky.
But if it's any consolation, game developers agree: the old shit's getting boring.
"...because it will become a world with lots of producers and no consumers."
That'd certainly be a change. SL's biggest problem has always been a lack of producers. In the begining, it was *useless* to consumers, 'cause there wasn't much to play with. You had to build it yourself. For casual players looking to just log on, goof off for an hour or two, and log out, that's a deal breaker.
And of course, the more producers you have, the more toys their are for consumers, and thusly the more consumers join.
The SL producer market is fairly analogous to the real-world software market. They're both skilled, technical jobs, and fairly inaccessible to your average user. Of course, the real-world software market has had its ups and downs as well. But if you ever suggested that there'd be more software producers than consumers, you'd be laughed out of the room.
Techies are still a minority.
Believe it or not, I emailed them reguarding both the millisecond definition error, and the claim that pings, and they corrected it.
- center-ethernet.html
Subject: FW: Feedback http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/052506-data
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 17:03:03 -0400
From: "Phil Hochmuth"
To: merreborn@*****.com
Thanks for your correction. We're making that change now. (Journalist math for you).
As for 1 millisecond of delay, are you talking about on the wire (node-to-node), or inside-the-box
(port-to-port) latency? (I've read reports that SONET/SDH has measured latency of around 1
millsec).
Phil.
Looks like the author fucked up the definition of millisecond too:
l isecond&btnG=Google+Search
"By comparison, latency in standard Ethernet gear is measured in milliseconds, or one-millionth of a second, rather than nanoseconds, which are one-billionth of a second"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3Amil
"One thousandth of a second"
Seriously. How the fuck does this idiot get published?
When I go to blockbuster, and I pay the man $5 for my PS2 game, I can't re-sell it.
What exactly is preventing sony from adopting the same business model? As long as they're up front about the fact it's not a sale, I don't see where this is legally questionable. Better not try to charge $50 per 'rental' though. I'm pretty sure people wouldn't be so happy about that.
"except when one consumes services when telecommuting without paying for them."
Which services are these? GP mentions many services that certainly _aren't_ consumed, and yet it seems you haven't come up with a single specific example of services that _are_ consumed.
"It's easy to spoof email addresses with a very simple PHP script."
It's easy to spoof email addresses with a very simple telnet client.
telnet mail.example.com 25
HELO local.domain.name
MAIL FROM: billg@microsoft.com
RCPT TO: pranked@yourdomain.com
DATA
Subject:
.
QUIT
Hell, you can usually just set an arbitrary 'from' address in your email client. I learned that trick on Netscape 3.0 in gradeschool.
"So what did they blame before radio?"
The novel, actually.
"Lastly, filter out crack and it will simply become cr@ck. You get the idea."
Hey, whaddya know, google suggest filters the word 'porn' but not 'pr0n'.
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&q=pr0n
They do have PVP, sort of. There are certain areas of the world where you can die.
Part of the problem, though, is that you can create your own objects. So you can build missiles that never miss, and the like, for little to no cost.
I happen to know someone who created an object that warped to a random location in the zone it was deployed in, sprayed a hundred 'grenades' in every direction, and warped to another point in the zone, and did the same, over and over again, about once a second. Everyone in the zone was dead in under a minute, and the zone server came to its knees.
People were pretty pissed.
I've got a refurb compaq under my desk that came with a dual layer drive. The whole system (including a gig of ram and an Athlon 64 3000+) cost $450.
Also, the two different models of $900 HP laptops my fiance and I bought came with DL drives standard as well.
Dual layer drives were pricey and rare two years ago. Now, every lower-mid-range PC comes with 'em standard.
...that indie game devs stand to make _more_ money than those working at game companies.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/14
Great article.