I finally broke down and got snow leopard party so I could install Windows 7. Yes, the $29 was the crippling factor, as Windows wasn't critical to what I was doing. The $100+ you speak of is $0 in my case because I'm at a collage where we get Windows 7 Business for free (even after we leave).
Maybe others have special 'deals' as well? Or maybe some are more afraid of Apple's wrath in pirating software than Microsoft's.
WoW borrowed quite a few successful features from Diablo 2, talent trees, equipment with random suffixes, gem, ect... Some of these features were streamlined, like the talent tree (not every talent has 20 maximum points you can invest). What features (if any) that worked well for WoW will be incorporated into Diablo 3, and how will these be modified to better adjust to Diablo's different play style?
I really don't think the update services for Vista are that bad performance wise. But... my job didn't amount to anything, I was pretty much there so that the update division could state that they did performance testing.
Actually the reason the minor version number started at 16386 is that the part of the upper bits for the version number are used to indicate branch. In this case the release bit is set to 1, if this was a 'test' build then it would be set to 0. Another bit (which isn't set) is used for the corporate branch, which includes security updates that aren't as fully vetted and changes to core components requested by corporate partners. Additionally, the lower 16 bits of the build (6000) is used to indicate service pack (at least that was the plan right before release). This change to how service packs were handled was done in the last month, and yes Microsoft fudged the version number towards the end so it would be 6000 (although it was close to that at the end).
(I was the performance test engineer for Vista update services during the initial release of Vista)
If the courts allowed a company to monopolize an adword, Google, would probably just increase the cost of using those words, stating that using a biding system won't work for that word if there is no competition. So, trying to reduce the cost of advertising with Google won't work.
If you get xp for killing a monster you are rewarded for making the kill with XP and anything it drops, and for the amount of time it took to kill it (the faster you kill it and the faster you can recover your resources, the faster you can go to your next target).
How do you measure 'skill of execution', or 'something useful'? Even in WoW, the designers cannot measure pvp skill in battlegrounds, as they don't want to punish players for being with less skilled team mates. They have already said they will modify the battleground areas to reward more honor (currency you can use to buy pvp gear) when defending bases as otherwise you are rewarded less even though you are trying harder to win the match.
Do you reward players for being able to defeat a mob they've killed 100 times before when they do so efficiently, or do you reward the players that go and try to kill every different mob with different attacks/AI, even if they aren't the best at doing so? Would a system that only grants rewards for completing quests reward players for skill (by seeing how well a player adapts), or would this just be too frustrating?
Currently in WoW, when you play a character there are 2 categories of progression. First is leveling: you only need a little skill to level, more skill may let you level faster (or enjoy it more as you do), but ultimately if you stick to the game long enough you will get to the maximum level. Second is simply known as end content: You progress in PvE by obtaining better gear, although you can obtain good gear with little skill (and without friends) it will take a while as you would either need to purchase tradeable gear from other players (which is never top end, and quite expensive) or spending time getting reputation up (which cannot be sped up by player more).
With skill and friends you can attempt various levels of group content that give different levels of gear. As your gear improves and as developers add new content to the game, these encounters become easier. When the content becomes so easy that it is trivial, you will probably find there is little reward for doing this content, and you need to try more difficult stuff available. Currently there is content that is sufficiently challenging to everyone (the top elite players out there claim the most difficult challenge is impossible), you are more likely going to get board, not because there is nothing left to do, but rather because enough of your friends got frustrated that you cannot get a good enough group together to try the challenging stuff.
Remember, the more real time that passes, the most in game content that is added, which allows players to catch up and do the most challenging content, and try the once challenging content on an easier level. Once an expansion hits (every 1-2 years) the level cap is increased which put the players at maximum level at almost equal footing.
As far as PvP goes, there is casual PvP (battlegrounds) up to and including maximum level (battlegrounds) which will reward good, but not the best gear. In battlegrounds many players (10 - 40 per side) compete within a set of special rules (capture the flag, control bases, ect...). On the more serious side there is arena where players compete competitively in small teams with simple rules. The best gear is awarded to the players who can get a high rating and who spend at least a moderate amount of time participating. Every 3 months or so, better gear is released, allowing players who do better in the current time period to get better gear than those who did good in the past.
At least where I'm from, if a professor requires the use of his/her book in one of his/her own classes, (s)he will not get any money from the students buying the book (although the publisher will).
As companies get larger they tend to attract 'bad karma'. Companies offset this though good will, often donations to charities. Bill Gates is a lot less evil when you consider all the money he has donated. Google uses YouTube (and other services) as a source of good will.
People are more willing to forgive Google's slip ups and places where there is no good choice to make (e.g. censorship in China) if they show they are out to make the world a better place.
Re:Well.. What are they doing wrong? ...
on
Rethinking the MMOG
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
1. Yea, it sucks. MMORPGs are designed to be the only game you will play for months. A typical RPG game has about 20-30 hours of gameplay, and took about a year to make. Try to scale that to people who play 20-30 hours per week and keep them occupied for several months, without grinding and you will find you will never complete the game.
2. High level areas are fun for the first few times you do it. They are designed as a real challange. But once you figured out the challange, yes they can get boringin when you are forced to run it time and time again. But these areas are the limit point of content, where there just isn't anymore. So these areas have to strech out the remaining content as long as possible.
3.People are attracted to MMORPGs due to their low cost, at around only 15$ per month it can save you a lot of money on buying games. Professional GMs will drasticly increase the game cost, and you have the problem of some GMs being "easier" than others. In pen and paper each GM can run their own world with their own rules. Try to scale this to an MMORPG and the GMs world will collide in horrid ways.
4. In WoW different encounters require different stragities. Pretty much every boss end level, you are either going to wipe several times on the first go, or you look up what stragity to use. For most people, the AI stragities and the counter-stragities are well known. If you want something more intresting, go and create a smart AI... tell us when you are done, so we can nominate you for a Nobel Prize.
5. Most games give ways to avoid griefing. In WoW... don't play on a PvP server; if you are PvP just wait 5 minutes before resurection. If its a quest NPC... do something else. This is a sacrifice by letting players have more control over their enviroment; some abuse this feature.
6. MMOs can have their own content, but it could not be connected to the real content, as in you could not simply allow a player to create a monster that drops some awsome uber item. Runescape does allow player made dungeons (although a bit limited). You can create your own content without limitation in Neverwinter Nights, but characters in different user's enviroments cannot interact without GMs permission (like in pen and paper games).
7. Yep... several MMORPGs have that. Runescape has that in spades. And Eve is entirly based around that.
With having to mix in support for the old legacy drivers, along with the newer trust system, its not too supprising that a loop hole was found. This is area where Apple has the advantage. Microsoft would probably have been in much bigger trouble if they decided to require all driver makers to rewrite their drivers (and manifests) with the newer spefication.
Although I wouldn't be supprised if in the future Microsoft does in fact lock down its operating system and write all drivers for third party itself, requiring the hardware maker pay them to do so.
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I finally broke down and got snow leopard party so I could install Windows 7.
Yes, the $29 was the crippling factor, as Windows wasn't critical to what I was doing.
The $100+ you speak of is $0 in my case because I'm at a collage where we get Windows 7 Business for free (even after we leave).
Maybe others have special 'deals' as well? Or maybe some are more afraid of Apple's wrath in pirating software than Microsoft's.
WoW borrowed quite a few successful features from Diablo 2, talent trees, equipment with random suffixes, gem, ect... Some of these features were streamlined, like the talent tree (not every talent has 20 maximum points you can invest).
What features (if any) that worked well for WoW will be incorporated into Diablo 3, and how will these be modified to better adjust to Diablo's different play style?
I really don't think the update services for Vista are that bad performance wise. But... my job didn't amount to anything, I was pretty much there so that the update division could state that they did performance testing.
Actually the reason the minor version number started at 16386 is that the part of the upper bits for the version number are used to indicate branch. In this case the release bit is set to 1, if this was a 'test' build then it would be set to 0. Another bit (which isn't set) is used for the corporate branch, which includes security updates that aren't as fully vetted and changes to core components requested by corporate partners. Additionally, the lower 16 bits of the build (6000) is used to indicate service pack (at least that was the plan right before release). This change to how service packs were handled was done in the last month, and yes Microsoft fudged the version number towards the end so it would be 6000 (although it was close to that at the end).
(I was the performance test engineer for Vista update services during the initial release of Vista)
If the courts allowed a company to monopolize an adword, Google, would probably just increase the cost of using those words, stating that using a biding system won't work for that word if there is no competition. So, trying to reduce the cost of advertising with Google won't work.
And if you took all the air in the world and weighted it you would get...?
being light is not the same as weight.
If you get xp for killing a monster you are rewarded for making the kill with XP and anything it drops, and for the amount of time it took to kill it (the faster you kill it and the faster you can recover your resources, the faster you can go to your next target).
How do you measure 'skill of execution', or 'something useful'? Even in WoW, the designers cannot measure pvp skill in battlegrounds, as they don't want to punish players for being with less skilled team mates. They have already said they will modify the battleground areas to reward more honor (currency you can use to buy pvp gear) when defending bases as otherwise you are rewarded less even though you are trying harder to win the match.
Do you reward players for being able to defeat a mob they've killed 100 times before when they do so efficiently, or do you reward the players that go and try to kill every different mob with different attacks/AI, even if they aren't the best at doing so? Would a system that only grants rewards for completing quests reward players for skill (by seeing how well a player adapts), or would this just be too frustrating?
Currently in WoW, when you play a character there are 2 categories of progression. First is leveling: you only need a little skill to level, more skill may let you level faster (or enjoy it more as you do), but ultimately if you stick to the game long enough you will get to the maximum level. Second is simply known as end content: You progress in PvE by obtaining better gear, although you can obtain good gear with little skill (and without friends) it will take a while as you would either need to purchase tradeable gear from other players (which is never top end, and quite expensive) or spending time getting reputation up (which cannot be sped up by player more).
With skill and friends you can attempt various levels of group content that give different levels of gear. As your gear improves and as developers add new content to the game, these encounters become easier. When the content becomes so easy that it is trivial, you will probably find there is little reward for doing this content, and you need to try more difficult stuff available. Currently there is content that is sufficiently challenging to everyone (the top elite players out there claim the most difficult challenge is impossible), you are more likely going to get board, not because there is nothing left to do, but rather because enough of your friends got frustrated that you cannot get a good enough group together to try the challenging stuff.
Remember, the more real time that passes, the most in game content that is added, which allows players to catch up and do the most challenging content, and try the once challenging content on an easier level. Once an expansion hits (every 1-2 years) the level cap is increased which put the players at maximum level at almost equal footing.
As far as PvP goes, there is casual PvP (battlegrounds) up to and including maximum level (battlegrounds) which will reward good, but not the best gear. In battlegrounds many players (10 - 40 per side) compete within a set of special rules (capture the flag, control bases, ect...). On the more serious side there is arena where players compete competitively in small teams with simple rules. The best gear is awarded to the players who can get a high rating and who spend at least a moderate amount of time participating. Every 3 months or so, better gear is released, allowing players who do better in the current time period to get better gear than those who did good in the past.
At least where I'm from, if a professor requires the use of his/her book in one of his/her own classes, (s)he will not get any money from the students buying the book (although the publisher will).
As companies get larger they tend to attract 'bad karma'. Companies offset this though good will, often donations to charities. Bill Gates is a lot less evil when you consider all the money he has donated. Google uses YouTube (and other services) as a source of good will. People are more willing to forgive Google's slip ups and places where there is no good choice to make (e.g. censorship in China) if they show they are out to make the world a better place.
1. Yea, it sucks. MMORPGs are designed to be the only game you will play for months. A typical RPG game has about 20-30 hours of gameplay, and took about a year to make. Try to scale that to people who play 20-30 hours per week and keep them occupied for several months, without grinding and you will find you will never complete the game.
2. High level areas are fun for the first few times you do it. They are designed as a real challange. But once you figured out the challange, yes they can get boringin when you are forced to run it time and time again. But these areas are the limit point of content, where there just isn't anymore. So these areas have to strech out the remaining content as long as possible.
3.People are attracted to MMORPGs due to their low cost, at around only 15$ per month it can save you a lot of money on buying games. Professional GMs will drasticly increase the game cost, and you have the problem of some GMs being "easier" than others. In pen and paper each GM can run their own world with their own rules. Try to scale this to an MMORPG and the GMs world will collide in horrid ways.
4. In WoW different encounters require different stragities. Pretty much every boss end level, you are either going to wipe several times on the first go, or you look up what stragity to use. For most people, the AI stragities and the counter-stragities are well known. If you want something more intresting, go and create a smart AI... tell us when you are done, so we can nominate you for a Nobel Prize.
5. Most games give ways to avoid griefing. In WoW... don't play on a PvP server; if you are PvP just wait 5 minutes before resurection. If its a quest NPC... do something else. This is a sacrifice by letting players have more control over their enviroment; some abuse this feature.
6. MMOs can have their own content, but it could not be connected to the real content, as in you could not simply allow a player to create a monster that drops some awsome uber item. Runescape does allow player made dungeons (although a bit limited). You can create your own content without limitation in Neverwinter Nights, but characters in different user's enviroments cannot interact without GMs permission (like in pen and paper games).
7. Yep... several MMORPGs have that. Runescape has that in spades. And Eve is entirly based around that.
With having to mix in support for the old legacy drivers, along with the newer trust system, its not too supprising that a loop hole was found. This is area where Apple has the advantage. Microsoft would probably have been in much bigger trouble if they decided to require all driver makers to rewrite their drivers (and manifests) with the newer spefication.
Although I wouldn't be supprised if in the future Microsoft does in fact lock down its operating system and write all drivers for third party itself, requiring the hardware maker pay them to do so.