Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
Games

Balancing Player Input and Developer Vision? 77

Chris_Jefferson writes "I work on a simple iPhone puzzle game called Combination. Probably the most frequent request I get from users is for an in-game hint system, to help them out on the harder problems. However, when I tried beta testing such a system, almost every user would just hammer the hint button as soon as they got stuck for longer than 30 seconds, spoiling (I believe) their enjoyment of the game. Should games programmers decide they know what's best for users, and not give them features they are crying out for? Has anyone ever seen a good middle-ground, where users are helped, but can't just skip their way through the entire game?" This question can be generalized for just about any game that's being continually developed — where should the game's designer draw the line between responding to feedback and maintaining what they feel is is the greater source of entertainment?
Security

Submission + - ApacheCon Europe'08 live video streaming (linux-magazin.de)

os2man writes: "ApacheCon Europe 2008, the official user conference of the Apache Software Foundation will be held 7 April through 11 April in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Some of the tracks will be broadcasted via live streaming: System Administration (Wednesday), Web Security (Thursday) and Web Services and Web 2.0 (Friday). There's a 99 euros registration fee for the tracks, although all keynote sessions and the opening plenary are available free of charge."
Operating Systems

Submission + - OpenSSH releases version 5.0 (openssh.com)

os2man writes: "OpenSSH (OpenBSD Secure Shell) is a set of computer programs providing encrypted communication sessions over a computer network using the ssh protocol. It was created as an open source alternative to the proprietary Secure Shell software suite offered by SSH Communications Security. OpenSSH is available for almost any Operating System."
Security

Submission + - Some thoughts on security after ten years of qmail

os2man writes: "Qmail is one of the most widely used MTA on the Internet and has a solid reputation for its security level. On "Some thoughts on security after ten years of qmail 1.0, Daniel J. Bernstein, reviews the history and security-relevant architecture of qmail; articulates partitioning standards that qmail fails to meet; analyzes the engineering that has allowed qmail to survive this failure; and draws various conclusions regarding the future of secure programming. Good read for anyone involved in the secure development area."
User Journal

Journal Journal: 1,111,111,111 since Jan 01 1970

In a few moments, at 02:58:31 March 18th (European Central Time) the exact number of seconds since 00:00:00, January 1st 1970 will be exactly 1,111,111,111. That means that running date +%s on a UNIX system will show 1111111111

Slashdot Top Deals

"It takes all sorts of in & out-door schooling to get adapted to my kind of fooling" - R. Frost

Working...