What breaks immersion for me is rubber-band AI. It typically shows itself in racing games. Usually, this means it's extremely easy to catch the pack, kind of easy to work your way through the pack, and next to impossible to check out. That certainly detracts from my enjoyment of the game, possibly more than any other design aspect. Simply having an option to shut that off would be enough, though.
That's definitely not it. I know that plenty of interviews have been happening. You don't get to the interview if you don't meet whatever baseline requirements are set.
On a side note, my primary box is XP. Some of the devs here run Win7 and about as many have a Mac, but XP's still the dominant platform.
I live and work in a 1mil+ American metro area. We're a Microsoft shop (C#, SQL Server). The rumor mill here says that we have about two dozen open req's that can't be filled because there aren't enough good candidates here. We've basically tapped out the local population. Note that I said *good* candidates. We're still interviewing; they're just not up to snuff.
I'm still waiting for the day I can hook to even the most basic Skype interface using Pidgin. All of my contacts use Yahoo!, MSN, or GTalk - except one. And he swears by Skype. Consequently, I don't ever communicate with him online (even though he's a close relative), because I don't want that xxxx installed on any box I use.
The vast majority of my zip are older than me, NRA members, die-hard Republicans, less computer-savvy than my 11yo daughter, and retired from factory work. They can blast ads for "Guns and Ammo" and the latest Ford F-150 all they want - I ain't buyin'.
We've had a Wii for a year and a half now. It was my first console since the 8-bit NES, though I've been a on-again, off-again PC gamer for... well... ever. Anyway, my kids (K-8 range) are obviously more interested in Mario Kart and Animal Crossing than Call of Duty. While I think the Wii serves their demographic well (just threw up in my mouth a little writing that), it's not my preferred platform. I'm a racing sim fan, and of the dozens of racing games, there's only one serious title - F1 2009 (anything resembling mario kart, monster trucks, or drifting is not serious, and I'm not a bike fan). And Gran Turismo, the current leader of the pack, is obviously not available. But had I picked up a PS3, I'm sure my kids would've lost out just as much (and I'm certainly not going to buy both).
My point is that it would have been nice to cater to both me *and* my kids. But that doesn't fit with how these companies are doing business these days.
I'm so glad I'm not an admin any more - but when I was, I had a simple solution. I posted outbound logs to our intranet in a user-friendly, easy-to-browse format. Anyone in the company could see what was popular. Pr0n completely dropped off the radar, as did (iirc) WeatherBot, or something like that. When the guy finally saw with his own eyes what a drain his stupid little app was having on our bandwidth, he uninstalled it (I probably could've forced the issue, but thought it was smarter to convince him than order him).
- A modern-day IndyCar Series console game, similar to F1 2009. This is a personal request, and will be at the top of my list until one is made. - A real successor to the one-shot, one-kill FPS Rainbow Six 3. There may be one, but I bought Vegas and it sucked. Too much plot, and you could "recover" from wounds. I want a simple, straightforward tactical shooter with everything as realistic as possible - AI, damage, etc. No plot, no characters. - Wing Commander Privateer 3 - A martial arts game that takes into account all of the motion-capture features of the Wii controls. - Stunts 2. This list is remake-heavy, but that game rocked and really needs an update. Why? You can design your own tracks. - The next SimCity 2000. The original SC was too simple, and subsequent versions were too complicated. Unlike my previous requests, this is not so much a remake as a request for a game with similar gameplay. Not as basic as the theme park games - something with some teeth. A SimPolitics? A SimCorporation? Complicated topics, but not a complicated interface. - A classic battlefield general game without the point-and-click. In other words, give me the same restrictions the real generals had. Maps are inaccurate, weather is unpredictable, subordinates make mistakes, messages get lost. - An astronaut simulator. Connect the LEM to the command module. Go on a spacewalk to fix the heat tiles. Land the shuttle without crashing. Won't be edge-of-your-seat, but can be very educational.
These are just a few. What's interesting to me is that they're all simulations of something real (ok, except for Privateer, but that's real in my head). I think we've really gotten away from that in recent years. How many played Flight Simulator when you were younger?
1. I drew up a keyboard layout once in Visio, so that I could then create versions of it for various games. Rainbow Six 3 comes to mind. I keep the paper near my keyboard, because I often forget about 20% of the commands. If this was included with the game, that would have been nice, especially since it likely would have been better cardstock than my coffee-stained 8.5x11.
2. Ultima had the kewlest packaging. I still have the old boxes with the cloth maps tucked around somewhere. Now *that* was the way to package a game.
3. Icons drive me nuts. NWN is a good example. The documentation is needed so that you can interpret all the squigglies. When they just use words on the screen, then I won't need that documentation any more.
I would think that the most logical approach to internet connectivity would be a co-op that charges tiered per-kb prices based on clearly-defined speed metrics. Of course, we never do anything logical in this country, but am I wrong? Being in essence a utility, I'd think that internet connectivity can be treated like one, and isn't that how utilities are best managed?
Wider lanes, rumble strips, automatic transmissions, ABS, GPS... Americans are given training wheels to keep from falling over and hurting ourselves. So what do we do? Let our driving get that much worse.
Overall speed is not the issue. Distractions, carelessness, and a lack of skill are. Anyone wanting a driver's license should be subjected to a test a hundred times more rigorous than the one we have now.
IndyCar has the road and street courses of F1, the ovals of NASCAR, a fraction of the budgets of either, the Greatest Spectacle in Racing each May, and a good balance of technology and driver skill.
Plus, they're in the decision-making stage for the 2012+ chassis, and one of the competitors (Delta Wing) is a freakish design that's actually being billed as "open source".
I haven't been in academia since '96. True, I didn't consider the publicly-funded aspect of the school, but even in light of that I would leave it to the discretion of the teacher if I were an administrator there.
I personally don't think that such institutions should be publicly funded, but that's a whole other discussion.
I don't see what all the discussion's about - this should be the teacher's call. If they don't want laptops in their classroom, I don't care how good your counter-argument is.
I started out at 15 making $5/hr assembling 386's. There's a problem here, but it's not strictly about the age. It's *what* you have 15yo's doing and under what conditions.
I was actually a bit surprised that my employer didn't make the list. And then I realized just how fortunate I am to think such a thing. Quite an epiphany.
A while back, my cable company raised my rate. So, of course, I called. By the way, there is no DSL available in my area, so cable is my only cost-effective broadband option. And if it weren't for the fact that internet access alone costs nearly as much as access+basic cable, I would simply have that. Anyway, they offered a new rate for the next year if I subscribed to the digital package. Ok, fine. So they deliver a box. I try it out for all of a couple hours and find that it's an annoyance - my TV remote won't control it, I don't like its remote, and channel-flipping now incurs a delay each flip. So I unhook the box, stuff it away until they ask for it back, and go back to analog.
The moral of the story is that I'm paying for crap I don't want and don't use, but it's the most sensible option given my circumstances. Stoopid cable company.
Slashdot Mirror
...the vendor can't take it away from me.
What breaks immersion for me is rubber-band AI. It typically shows itself in racing games. Usually, this means it's extremely easy to catch the pack, kind of easy to work your way through the pack, and next to impossible to check out. That certainly detracts from my enjoyment of the game, possibly more than any other design aspect. Simply having an option to shut that off would be enough, though.
That's definitely not it. I know that plenty of interviews have been happening. You don't get to the interview if you don't meet whatever baseline requirements are set.
On a side note, my primary box is XP. Some of the devs here run Win7 and about as many have a Mac, but XP's still the dominant platform.
I live and work in a 1mil+ American metro area. We're a Microsoft shop (C#, SQL Server). The rumor mill here says that we have about two dozen open req's that can't be filled because there aren't enough good candidates here. We've basically tapped out the local population. Note that I said *good* candidates. We're still interviewing; they're just not up to snuff.
I'm still waiting for the day I can hook to even the most basic Skype interface using Pidgin. All of my contacts use Yahoo!, MSN, or GTalk - except one. And he swears by Skype. Consequently, I don't ever communicate with him online (even though he's a close relative), because I don't want that xxxx installed on any box I use.
The vast majority of my zip are older than me, NRA members, die-hard Republicans, less computer-savvy than my 11yo daughter, and retired from factory work. They can blast ads for "Guns and Ammo" and the latest Ford F-150 all they want - I ain't buyin'.
We've had a Wii for a year and a half now. It was my first console since the 8-bit NES, though I've been a on-again, off-again PC gamer for... well... ever. Anyway, my kids (K-8 range) are obviously more interested in Mario Kart and Animal Crossing than Call of Duty. While I think the Wii serves their demographic well (just threw up in my mouth a little writing that), it's not my preferred platform. I'm a racing sim fan, and of the dozens of racing games, there's only one serious title - F1 2009 (anything resembling mario kart, monster trucks, or drifting is not serious, and I'm not a bike fan). And Gran Turismo, the current leader of the pack, is obviously not available. But had I picked up a PS3, I'm sure my kids would've lost out just as much (and I'm certainly not going to buy both).
My point is that it would have been nice to cater to both me *and* my kids. But that doesn't fit with how these companies are doing business these days.
I'm so glad I'm not an admin any more - but when I was, I had a simple solution. I posted outbound logs to our intranet in a user-friendly, easy-to-browse format. Anyone in the company could see what was popular. Pr0n completely dropped off the radar, as did (iirc) WeatherBot, or something like that. When the guy finally saw with his own eyes what a drain his stupid little app was having on our bandwidth, he uninstalled it (I probably could've forced the issue, but thought it was smarter to convince him than order him).
...but I wish did...
- A modern-day IndyCar Series console game, similar to F1 2009. This is a personal request, and will be at the top of my list until one is made.
- A real successor to the one-shot, one-kill FPS Rainbow Six 3. There may be one, but I bought Vegas and it sucked. Too much plot, and you could "recover" from wounds. I want a simple, straightforward tactical shooter with everything as realistic as possible - AI, damage, etc. No plot, no characters.
- Wing Commander Privateer 3
- A martial arts game that takes into account all of the motion-capture features of the Wii controls.
- Stunts 2. This list is remake-heavy, but that game rocked and really needs an update. Why? You can design your own tracks.
- The next SimCity 2000. The original SC was too simple, and subsequent versions were too complicated. Unlike my previous requests, this is not so much a remake as a request for a game with similar gameplay. Not as basic as the theme park games - something with some teeth. A SimPolitics? A SimCorporation? Complicated topics, but not a complicated interface.
- A classic battlefield general game without the point-and-click. In other words, give me the same restrictions the real generals had. Maps are inaccurate, weather is unpredictable, subordinates make mistakes, messages get lost.
- An astronaut simulator. Connect the LEM to the command module. Go on a spacewalk to fix the heat tiles. Land the shuttle without crashing. Won't be edge-of-your-seat, but can be very educational.
These are just a few. What's interesting to me is that they're all simulations of something real (ok, except for Privateer, but that's real in my head). I think we've really gotten away from that in recent years. How many played Flight Simulator when you were younger?
1. I drew up a keyboard layout once in Visio, so that I could then create versions of it for various games. Rainbow Six 3 comes to mind. I keep the paper near my keyboard, because I often forget about 20% of the commands. If this was included with the game, that would have been nice, especially since it likely would have been better cardstock than my coffee-stained 8.5x11.
2. Ultima had the kewlest packaging. I still have the old boxes with the cloth maps tucked around somewhere. Now *that* was the way to package a game.
3. Icons drive me nuts. NWN is a good example. The documentation is needed so that you can interpret all the squigglies. When they just use words on the screen, then I won't need that documentation any more.
BF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck
I would think that the most logical approach to internet connectivity would be a co-op that charges tiered per-kb prices based on clearly-defined speed metrics. Of course, we never do anything logical in this country, but am I wrong? Being in essence a utility, I'd think that internet connectivity can be treated like one, and isn't that how utilities are best managed?
Wider lanes, rumble strips, automatic transmissions, ABS, GPS... Americans are given training wheels to keep from falling over and hurting ourselves. So what do we do? Let our driving get that much worse.
Overall speed is not the issue. Distractions, carelessness, and a lack of skill are. Anyone wanting a driver's license should be subjected to a test a hundred times more rigorous than the one we have now.
IndyCar has the road and street courses of F1, the ovals of NASCAR, a fraction of the budgets of either, the Greatest Spectacle in Racing each May, and a good balance of technology and driver skill.
Plus, they're in the decision-making stage for the 2012+ chassis, and one of the competitors (Delta Wing) is a freakish design that's actually being billed as "open source".
Never heard of this until now. *Definitely* looking into it.
Forget Wolverine. this has Dr. Curt Connors / Lizard written all over it.
I haven't been in academia since '96. True, I didn't consider the publicly-funded aspect of the school, but even in light of that I would leave it to the discretion of the teacher if I were an administrator there.
I personally don't think that such institutions should be publicly funded, but that's a whole other discussion.
I don't see what all the discussion's about - this should be the teacher's call. If they don't want laptops in their classroom, I don't care how good your counter-argument is.
I started out at 15 making $5/hr assembling 386's. There's a problem here, but it's not strictly about the age. It's *what* you have 15yo's doing and under what conditions.
I was actually a bit surprised that my employer didn't make the list. And then I realized just how fortunate I am to think such a thing. Quite an epiphany.
...its GUI is more like Microsoft Office pre-2007 than Microsoft Office 2007 is, and I have never gotten used to the 2007 interface.
A while back, my cable company raised my rate. So, of course, I called. By the way, there is no DSL available in my area, so cable is my only cost-effective broadband option. And if it weren't for the fact that internet access alone costs nearly as much as access+basic cable, I would simply have that. Anyway, they offered a new rate for the next year if I subscribed to the digital package. Ok, fine. So they deliver a box. I try it out for all of a couple hours and find that it's an annoyance - my TV remote won't control it, I don't like its remote, and channel-flipping now incurs a delay each flip. So I unhook the box, stuff it away until they ask for it back, and go back to analog.
The moral of the story is that I'm paying for crap I don't want and don't use, but it's the most sensible option given my circumstances. Stoopid cable company.
I was gonna say the same thing... just in fewer words. And shorter words. With some more grammatical mistakes. So... um... yeah.
Y'know, jacking with the UI worked *so* well for Vista. I use OpenOffice.org as much as possible now because it's more Office-like than Office 2007.
Make it faster and less buggy. But please don't change it.
...get more from Iran and North Korea, right? Oh, wait...