Comment Re:Not going to happen (Score 1) 392
Or in this case, Comcast.
It may be my connection. While Slashdot and Starcraft 2 are fine, I just tried getting onto Xbox Live, and had trouble with that too.
Comment Re:Not going to happen (Score 1) 392
Funny. I *just* went to the main amazon.com page, and after 30 seconds of waiting, when all the page (text and images) hadn't come up, I gave up and left.
Someone seems to have done something to slow them down.
Comment Re:How to get into the industry? (Score 1) 250
This is not] the answer for everyone, but this is what I did:
Go to The Guildhall @ SMU. Graduate level education in game development.
My background. I had a BS in computer science, and four years experience doing a mix of programming and IT for two different Internet startups. I'd contributed programming to some open source game projects. However the only game position I'd managed to get an offer for was a significant pay cut in an area I didn't really want to live. After the second startup started not doing well, I decided to go to The Guildhall. After graduating a year and a half later, I got a good position at NCsoft, and have stayed in the industry since then.
Comment Don't even try... (Score 3, Insightful) 250
Like the AC first post says, Too many ideas, too few developers. In my experience, this is very true. If you truly want to create your game, I suggest working in the industry, and developing contacts, such that at some point down the road, you can bring together the funding and people you need to actually create it.
That's not to say there aren't also smaller scale projects that are successful as well - there are. However, most of them tend to either be of lower quality than many professional games, and/or have a number of people who have worked professionally in the industry.
Comment Re:My complaint: Carrier data plan still required! (Score 1) 329
Interestingly: My number failed to transfer over from Sprint to T-Mobile. So I called up, and talked with someone, and they setup service for me. Voice worked fine, but then I didn't have data. The browser brought me to a page where I got to choose which data plan I wanted (unlimited data @ $30/month, or unlimited data + messaging @ $40/month), and then I had data support...
So if I'd never picked either of those? I wonder...
Can We Create Fun Games Automatically? 198
togelius writes "What makes games fun? Some (e.g. Raph Koster) claim that fun is learning — fun games are those which are easy to learn, but hard to master, with a long and smooth learning curve. I think we can create fun game rules automatically through measuring their learnability. In a recent experiment, we do this using evolutionary computation, and create some simple Pacman-like new games completely without human intervention! Perhaps this has a future in game design? The academic paper (PDF) is available as well."
Apple Introduces "MacBook Wheel" 268
CommonCents noted an Apple announcement a few hours before the anticipated keynote. He says "Apples' latest must have gadget does away with the keyboard. With the new MacBook Wheel, Apple has replaced the traditional keyboard with a giant wheel."
Setting a Learning Curve In MMOs 156
Ten Ton Hammer has an article looking at the learning curves of modern MMOs. Many of the more popular games, such as World of Warcraft, go to great lengths to make learning the game easy for new players. Others, such as EVE Online, have had success with a less forgiving introduction. But to what extent do the most fundamental game mechanics limit the more complex end-game play?
"The current trend in MMOG's appears to be make the game so easy and interest-grabbing right out of the gate that even a person with the attention span of a monkey chewing on a flyswatter will be able to keep up and get into the swing of things. Depth of game mechanics is still possible with a system like this, but it needs to be introduced not only clearly, but later in the game, after a player has played enough to be hooked and is willing to put in some extra time to learn about the more intricate game mechanics available to them."
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