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And lo on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:41:22 -0000, Gail Shaw sa dot com>
<"<initialsurname"@sentech> did spake, saying:
>
> "Warp" <war### [at] tag povrayorg> wrote in message
> news:47d531fe@news.povray.org...
>> Phil Cook <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
>> > The problem, I think, with MMORPGs is they lack the RP part. Oh sure
>> > you're pretending to be a dwarf or dark elf, but unless you can find a
>> > server that specifically states it's for role-play then it descends to
>> > grind to a new level and score phat loot while comparing DPS and
> demanding
>> > buffs; what your character is doesn't real matter any more.
>>
>> Reading some online stories about (A)D&D playing, it doesn't sound too
>> different from that. ;)
>
> Depends what kind of group you have. A bad group, with all the players
> just
> after the xp and the loot - very boring.
> A group that enjoys cooperative gaming and roleplaying - much, much fun.
Which is what the RP stands for, otherwise it's just a pencil and paper
co-operative FPS (or TPS with miniatures). The difference is a DM can
penalise players for not roleplaying and reward those who do; how do you
do that in a MMORPG without extensive monitoring?
> I've played one MMORPG - Guild wars. Bored the hell out of me after a
> couple weeks.
That's 'cos you were brung up on the proper stuff ;-)
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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And lo on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:25:45 -0000, Gilles Tran
<gil### [at] agroparistechfr> did spake, saying:
> 47d4bd0f@news.povray.org...
>
>> It's not a question of "so many features *I* don't need to use", but "so
>> many features that *most* users don't need to use".
>
> But this is where the fallacy is! Unless you know "most people" your
> knowledge of what they use is limited to your acquaintances, which may or
> may not be representative. Obviously noone uses every available feature,
> but the point is that given the sheer number of Excel users, all the
> features
> end up being used by a significant number of people who are dependent of
> them for their work. Possibly, only a limited percentage of Excel users
> use the solver or VBA for instance, but those who do *** really *** use
> them,
> because they're fundamental business tools.
But do the people who don't use the solver or VBA have the option of
removing it from their installation? What features are deemed integral to
the programme? We've chastised Andy for not knowing about Styles in Word,
but how many home users do? Yet there the code sits taking up space,
poised for use.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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news: op.t7s2zm10c3xi7v@news.povray.org...
> But do the people who don't use the solver or VBA have the option of
> removing it from their installation? What features are deemed integral to
> the programme? We've chastised Andy for not knowing about Styles in Word,
> but how many home users do? Yet there the code sits taking up space,
> poised for use.
My point is only that one cannot claim that some features are useless when
they are actually used intensively by parts of the user base. Is MS supposed
to make styles optional because Andy couldn't figure them out? User
requirements are real. Lots of people who are serious about using a word
processor need styles and collaboration tools. Lots of people who are
serious about using spreadsheets need automation. Lots of people who work
with presentation software need to embed video.
There's no denying that there's a bloat issue with many major applications.
Word 2003 had 31 toolbars and 1500 commands... Even Adobe plans a thorough
cleanup of the Photoshop interface. Still the solution is not to assume that
"most users" are a bunch of dummies who don't need better than what was
available in 1990. And about home users, my 75-year-old dad may not use
styles, but he still enjoys Word's ability to work flawlessly with bilingual
documents with parts written in different character sets. Is he an
exception? I don't think so.
G.
--
*****************************
http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer images
- Posters
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:25:45 +0100, Gilles Tran wrote:
> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> a écrit dans le message de news:
> 47d4bd0f@news.povray.org...
>
>> It's not a question of "so many features *I* don't need to use", but
>> "so many features that *most* users don't need to use".
>
> But this is where the fallacy is! Unless you know "most people" your
> knowledge of what they use is limited to your acquaintances, which may
> or may not be representative.
But yours is? You can't use the same logic to disprove my point and
prove yours at the same time. ;-)
> Obviously noone uses every available
> feature, but the point is that given the sheer number of Excel users,
> all the features end up being used by a significant number of people who
> are dependent of them for their work. Possibly, only a limited
> percentage of Excel users use the solver or VBA for instance, but those
> who do *** really *** use them, because they're fundamental business
> tools.
Well, not for me they're not. Not for most of the people I work with -
and I work in an office that consists of both technical and non-technical
people. Most of my closest coworkers are not technical, but quite a few
are. It used to be the other way around - I almost never dealt with the
non-technical people, being an IT person myself.
>> I don't know that 1-2-3 would be completely useless by modern standards
>> - I think a lot of tasks that people use Excel for these days aren't
>> much beyond what 1-2-3 was capable of.
>
> And 1-2-3, in spite of having a large user base and being a fantatisc
> product in its own right, was killed by Excel. People switched in
> droves, for very good reasons. After Excel came, we looked at our crummy
> 1-2-3 graphs and reports, at our painfully obfuscated 1-2-3 macros, and
> switched. Overnight.
Most of the reason for 1-2-3's demise was similar to the reason
WordPerfect was killed off - Microsoft engaged in anticompetitive
practices when it came to releasing API information for creating
applications for the first Windows platform. Everyone "had to have" the
Windows environment for some reason, and WordPerfect and Lotus were late
to the game *because* Microsoft didn't release the APIs externally (and
changed some of them between beta and RTM, just to *really* fsck-up their
competition).
This is not conjecture on my part - this is well-documented fact.
> You're vastly underestimating users and what regular people - and
> particularly business users - are able to do with office software and
> what they expect from their spreadsheets, word processors, databases
> etc. I understand that there's this curious myth about business users
> being clueless drones who just write a letter once in a while and
> occasionally use a spreadsheet to make an addition and then put the
> result in Powerpoint using Comic Sans, but that's just that, a myth.
I have spent a fair amount of time over the years working with the
business end of businesses. My first job out of college was with a
company where the MIS department was still part of the Finance
department. I've seen accounting spreadsheets that would make most
people's heads hurt for days on end.
Jim
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:18:52 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> Isn't that how you get cheap programmes, though? If you reuse code and
> generic solutions combined with not testing fully the production costs
> are kept low (ish).
Well, yes, code reuse is an important aspect of development today. But
there's nothing that says that reusable code must be sloppy or non-
optimised. :-)
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
>
> Yeah, but for $50, you can add another 2 GB of memory to the machine, so
> why not?
Possibly. At work that would mean changing both 1GiB modules to 2GiB
modules, which are SODIMM (yep, my workstation's a laptop), so I'm not
so sure about the price, but basically yes.
> One of the reasons for Microsoft's success in the industry is their huge
> programs. Hardware vendors *loved* Microsoft in the early days, because
> in order to use the software, you had to buy the biggest, baddest, *most
> expensive* machine they could sell you.
Yyyyep :).
> im
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 04:23:08 -0500, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> 20 years ago, I could run WordPerfect for DOS on a DOS machine that was
>> an 8086 or 80286 and got decent performance - instant responses and
>> whatnot.
>
> Was WordPerfect for 8086 wysiwyg? I doubt so.
Having used WP51 a fair bit, no, it wasn't WYSIWYG (but for many
programs, it's not WYSIWYG, but WYSIWYHYG) - but most users of WP could
predict with a staggering amount of accuracy what the page would look
like when it was printed. The earliest WYSIWYG word processors often did
unexpected things due to font selection or other factors, resulting in a
lot of frustration on the part of users of those early programs.
> The programs are doing different things. If you want to compare
> software
> on equal terms, compare it to LaTeX.
Um, no, I didn't have to learn what is essentially a semantic language in
order to use WP. That's a ridiculous comparison.
Jim
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:30:10 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>> Phone - " Sorry, I'm not interested in anyting you have to sell.
>>> Goodbye"
>>
>> Add "Stop calling me, because you will never win business from me by
>> being annoying/persistent".
>
> Thanks for the tips, guys...
Actually, I've got a situation with one of my instructors in the field
bugging a partner like this - the partner's too nice to say "go away"; he
thinks the guy is not a good instructor, but is willing to give him a
teach just to shut him up.
The guy has been calling almost non-stop begging for an opportunity to
teach (we require at least one class per year to remain in the program),
and also stopping by the office to beg in person.
Jim
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:32:44 +0000, Invisible wrote:
> I think you'll have to speak louder than that, but anyway...
Well, it's got to start somewhere.
Jim
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On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:32:05 +0200, Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>
>> Yeah, but for $50, you can add another 2 GB of memory to the machine,
>> so why not?
>
> Possibly. At work that would mean changing both 1GiB modules to 2GiB
> modules, which are SODIMM (yep, my workstation's a laptop), so I'm not
> so sure about the price, but basically yes.
Well, yeah - I've got 2 laptops and three desktop machines at home (and
another low-end desktop in the office). I was thinking from the
standpoint of a desktop machine - I think I paid about $50 for 1.5 GB of
RAM for my newest desktop.
Jim
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