Warren Spector farts hot air out of his mouth

[AEmer]

@ Gamer

Aww, well I guess that's a decent summary. I was expecting fireworks and cussing. Guess I'll need to watch some tv for my drama fix.

but I also feel the situation here would've been altogether improved if people looked past his style of writing and stopped bitching about it.

I agree.

[YeomanTheCastle]

Not to cause controversy or a shitstorm here, but CP's ban was long overdue in my opinion. He was constantly being a douche to other members.

[VectorM]

Medieval societies were focused on God (you can see it the way cities were built around Churches)
During the Renaissance societies focused on The Human Being,
Modern Day Society is centererd on money (Banks and Insurance Companies are in the city center nowadays)

Do you seriously think, that some bankers/governments' decision on the placement of a building is reflective of the views of society as a whole?

- During the Renaissance societies focused on The Human Being

Based on what? If you are going to tell me, that Famous Person Z and Famous Person Y were focused on that, then I can just as easily say, that modern society is NOT based on money, because virtually every big movie is anti-capitalist, or something of that nature.

Even assuming that influential people were really focused on "The Human Being", the views of famous people =/= the views of society as a whole. The avarage citizen in those days did NOT give that much of a damn about God.

[AEmer]

Yeomann:

Ok, that's it, I can't keep my mouth shut about this. Do you know why CP got banned this time? Because he was bloody well second guessing the moderators. I mean, he also used an overtly hostile tone and phrasing when he should have actually paid attention to what he was told, and yeah, that's the direct reason, but he only got there because he was acting like bans and not bans should affect his discussion or even be his business in the first place.

I'm not going to tell you to stop backseat moderating, that's simply not my place, but I am going to say that I find it offensive. Our mods aren't thin skinned and I doubt they'd want to address it, because when you're a mod everything you say about mannerisms and rhetorics can sound very different, but it's insulting when you loudly proclaim they're running this place wrong, and that's _exactly_ what you do when you're second guessing them like this.

Look, Jonas said it right here:

And CP, arguing against me, or any other mod here, will not get you banned. Pulling the "oh no I can't argue against you, you'll just ban me!" card will only make you look like an asshat to a community that I bet can't even remember the last time somebody was banned from here

Using the concept of bans as some kind of discussion token, like Vector and you and CP did in that lovely forum play, as a rhetorical slam or a put down, doesn't just misunderstand the sentiment this place is being run with, it also seems to say that you know better than the people who run it. I really like the place the way it is right now, so to borrow a phrase, to me, it makes you look like an asshat when you say stuff like you just did.

[Hashi]

During the Renaissance societies were centered around The Human Being! Today's society is centered around currency!

Are you kidding? During the rennaissance, societies were centered around indentured servitude, where people were permanently tied to their place of birth and forced to work insane hours for land owners just to sustain themselves and their families. During the rennaissance art was something that happened because of rich and powerful patrons who funded artists to essentially work for them, and the idea of art as anything other than a craft would be considered quaint and fantastical by those who practiced it back then.

The commercial needs of art and entertainment have always been a factor, and in fact I'd say they've only lessened over time - and I see no evidence that commercial motives are more present now than they were 10, 20, or 30 years ago. More people are able to make money doing videogames now than was the case back then, but the people who can live off of game development now are if anything only more likely to do it for their own amusement and creative fulfilment than for commercial interests. Independent game development as a concept has only really come into being over the past ten years, and that part of the industry is doing better than ever right now...

Well thought post, Jonas. But why do you question the fact we're living in a materialistic world? This acquisitive mentality has seeped into every aspect of lives nowadays, even videogames (some DLCs - not all of them - are just daylight robbery, some unfinished games shouldn't have been released prematurally,...). Now you said, and rightly so, that the Renaissance was also a period of indentured servitude. But I was more aiming at the societal (global) aspect of things. Now here's my whole point:

- Medieval societies were focused on God (you can see it the way cities were built around Churches)
- During the Renaissance societies focused on The Human Being,
- Modern Day Society is centererd on money (Banks and Insurance Companies are in the city center nowadays)

Now I'll let everyone the judge on which period was/is better. But There's one thing I don't like: when money takes precedence over the rest.

Man! I can't believe we disagree. But that's fine, Jonas:

Next time I see you I'll Riot-Prod you from the b**t and steal your augmentation canister. THAT will teach you!

no no no, that's way off. There has never been a nirvana when money hasn't run society, unless of course you are thinking about a time before currency was invented. If anything, things are 10000000x better today as there is such thing as a middle class, and more people can share in the wealth. We're egalitarian on a scale never seen before in human history. Think about empires. It's easy to say "so and so Empire was a rich empire" but that's a meaningless statement. The vast majority of money went to the tiny ruling class of every empire in history, every society in history, until the Dutch empire became the first to sustain growth and allow more common people to become rich. Venice was another.

[YeomanTheCastle]

Yeomann:

Ok, that's it, I can't keep my mouth shut about this. Do you know why CP got banned this time? Because he was bloody well second guessing the moderators. I mean, he also used an overtly hostile tone and phrasing when he should have actually paid attention to what he was told, and yeah, that's the direct reason, but he only got there because he was acting like bans and not bans should affect his discussion or even be his business in the first place.

I'm not going to tell you to stop backseat moderating, that's simply not my place, but I am going to say that I find it offensive. Our mods aren't thin skinned and I doubt they'd want to address it, because when you're a mod everything you say about mannerisms and rhetorics can sound very different, but it's insulting when you loudly proclaim they're running this place wrong, and that's _exactly_ what you do when you're second guessing them like this.

Look, Jonas said it right here:

And CP, arguing against me, or any other mod here, will not get you banned. Pulling the "oh no I can't argue against you, you'll just ban me!" card will only make you look like an asshat to a community that I bet can't even remember the last time somebody was banned from here

Using the concept of bans as some kind of discussion token, like Vector and you and CP did in that lovely forum play, as a rhetorical slam or a put down, doesn't just misunderstand the sentiment this place is being run with, it also seems to say that you know better than the people who run it. I really like the place the way it is right now, so to borrow a phrase, to me, it makes you look like an asshat when you say stuff like you just did.

Alright. What. The. Fuck.

You're speaking as if I'm out to provoke people, when that clearly wasn't my intention. I am not telling the moderators how to do their job, so don't put fucking words in my mouth. If you honestly think that what I said, which had no evil intentions or whatever, was worth three angry-as-hell paragraphs, then you seriously need to get over yourself because it wasn't called for.

I understand how this place is run, I'm not out to change that, but I was expressing an opinion on CP. I am not second guessing anyone. My post wasn't aimed at the the moderators and I did not mean any offense to Jonas or DDL or whoever when I said that he should have been banned earlier. I did not say "hey u gais fucken suk cuk at moteratin", so stop acting as if I did. You wanna go ahead and believe that I want to piss them off, you go right ahead. If you want to think of me as an asshat, you do that too. I honestly couldn't give a shit. If you're offended by what I said, then I apologise because that wasn't my intention. But you seriously need to stop jumping to conclusions as you have done here, because it makes you look like an asshat.

Whatever, man. Think what you like, but I'm not going to get into a big, massive fuck off argument about what I did and didn't say.

[AEmer]

Alright, I apologize. Went back and went through that previous thread, and I must admit that you do not appear to have mentioned moderation or banning there, and apparently I lumped you togeter with Vector and CP by mistake. I'm sorry for snapping at you because I misremembered. I still think what you said is rude, but it didn't deserve the response I gave it.

CP's ban was long overdue in my opinion. He was constantly being a douche to other members.

I believe this is rude out of carelessness rather than out of conceit or malice. I know you didn't _mean_ anything evil, but you're talking about censoring someone, and you said that the people who could censor him should have done so long ago. My point was this: Leave the moderation to the moderators, they're good at it, and don't tell them how to moderate (at least in the midst of a discussion), because they've 'got this' and you should honestly trust them.

[CrocMagnum]

...Do you seriously think, that some bankers/governments' decision on the placement of a building is reflective of the views of society as a whole?...

…no no no, that's way off. There has never been a nirvana when money hasn't run society, unless of course you are thinking about a time before currency was invented. If anything, things are 10000000x better today as there is such thing as a middle class, and more people can share in the wealth. We're egalitarian on a scale never seen before in human history. Think about empires. It's easy to say "so and so Empire was a rich empire" but that's a meaningless statement. The vast majority of money went to the tiny ruling class of every empire in history, every society in history, until the Dutch empire became the first to sustain growth and allow more common people to become rich. Venice was another.

Again ! What you say is right, both of you. But maybe you didn’t see my point:

First I didn’t create those theories out of thin air. I learned this at University. And I insist those are theories, not some truth set in stone.

Secondly this isn’t a question of me wanting to go back to better ‘happier’ times. Geez ! I’m not blind to progress. Understandably you won’t find someone stating cities should have Churches at their center: many societal changes are GLOBAL. And note that this is just what I was hinting when I said to Jonas: “But I was more aiming at the societal (global) aspect of things”. Of course no one wants indentured servitude nor slavery. Those are historical facts.

I just wanted to point out that today the energies of societies are channeled into one purpose: make money. The switch from individual towards financial is very clear for my part. I just say: Don’t put the well-being of people in the back burner. This is a bad message/legacy for our kids.

Wait!?! Wasn’t this a thread about Warren Spector? If he reads this maybe he's banging his head on the keyboard right now. Let’s quote the man at least. His take on what he learned as an experienced developer:

You discover you don’ have time to waste. Think about this. I’ve been working in this industry for 30 years, a little bit more than 30 years now, and my entire life is summed up in 21 things. 21, ok! How many more am I gonna work on? Who knows? You know 5, 10, maybe? 3? Every single one of them better having a better chance of doing something special. There is no time to waste on ‘somebody needs to make money so I’m gonna take this job’.

(Source: Warren Spector Keynote Speech, 14:16 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Fnn0yOw74

[VectorM]

First I didn’t create those theories out of thin air. I learned this at University. And I insist those are theories, not some truth set in stone.

This might be just me, but the appeal to University Education is an argument that almost never works on me. Especailly since I think modern Universites are a joke (feel free to go all sceptic on me for that statement ).

Wait!?! Wasn’t this a thread about Warren Spector? If he reads this maybe he's banging his head on the keyboard right now.

Sorry to be Mr. Killdream, but the chance of him reading ANYTHING on this forum is smaller than the chance of me being hit by lightning 3 times in a row.

I doubt he even read the responces people gave him when he congratulate the TNM team for their work.

There is no time to waste on ‘somebody needs to make money so I’m gonna take this job’.

That is probably a bit easy for him to say, since he is probably pretty well off already, but sure.

[that guy]

"a flawed gem for having an interesting hook handled terribly" actually describes Day Z amazingly well in my opinion. Great idea, horrible game.

[gamer0004]

I think there's a lot of stuff about Day Z that works surprisingly well actually. To be more precise: they're not good "game mechanics" but they work very well to generate an amazing experience. I think its graphics are somehow very atmospheric, even if animations are pretty terrible, and its mechanics are rather clunky but that also makes things more tense and realistic. You're a shipwreck survivor (or something), not a suave secret agent.

Unfortunately, its "anti-h4x" department is really lacking. I've been turned into a cow and a friend of mine got his account deleted because he got a ghillie suit which he had gotten from someone else - a hacker, as it turned out. Also, the game only managed to save my equipment about half the times, which meant I sometimes had spent hours finding good equipment and then lost is all because the game didn't save it.

[AEmer]

DayZ is fucking amazing. If you don't think so, you've been unlucky or the game type just isn't for you.

@ Gamer:

You can fix those problems by playing on a better server. I suggest BMRF - billy mays rememberence foundation. It's a 4-server private hive in the US, with a pretty decent ping to europe, a few custom loot locations, a whitelist (!), an admin team which is on the ball, generally very stable, and a donation-reward-program which gives very meek advantages; and of course, the AS50 isn't enabled.

There's a number of issues with a lot of servers, but cheaters and hackers are the biggest problem, followed by corrupt admins, followed by pay-to-win reward programs, followed by stability issues. BMRF may be in the US, but it is far and away the best server I've come accross, and I've looked!

Right now, I'm playing with a friend of mine. She's just starting out, and she's scared of everything, so you know that game with a gruff survivor trying to take care of a young woman that's coming out? That's what I'm playing. You've no idea how much fun that is. Since there are no cheaters or abusers, generally when we come accross other players, we have a very decent chance of fighting them off. I typically try diplomacy if they've got any indication we're there; I speak to them, tell them we're friendly, and sometimes we get left alone, and sometimes we have to fight. We hunt game and set up campfires where we boil water, and we spend a lot of time listening or killing zombies with a hatchet while the other person keeps an eye out and his hand on an assault rifle. We take it slow and try to survive.

With my other group, where we're decidedly more bandity, we have an M14 we've named Charlene. She's survived more than 10 different users and has racked up at least 15 kills. We've had a few helicopters by now, and we actually had a huey for a while, which held our entire group of 7 people at the time. DayZ is a very good game, if you can get the hardcore mechanics and learn to work around the bugs.

[gamer0004]

Thanks, I'll look into that. I've also heard good stories of the RPS server.

[VectorM]

DayZ is fucking amazing. If you don't think so, you've been unlucky or the game type just isn't for you.

Or the game simply isn't that amazing.

[AEmer]

Potentially, but then the 100+ hours I've logged in it have terribly mischaracterized the game.

Failing that, it really is pretty fucking amazing.