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rupertlittlebear
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rupertlittlebear wrote:
Does the name Polyanna mean anything to you.
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b4lazarus
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

PiratesFan wrote:
Cobol is still in use to this day. How do you think most banks Worldwide are being run off of. Yes they have fancy graphical online menus now days but the cost to convert all their data to not use Cobol is astounding where they rather pay programmer to fix issues like the Y2K issue. That is the whole basis of that scare and Cobol is the main culprit of it. The Programmers where too lazy at the time to add the extra 2 digits in thinking that they would never use it for that long. Boy were they wrong about the banking industry... How do you think banks stay in business. That is the mainstream use of Cobol ... I am sure there are many other places that still use cobol but aren't as widely known as the banking systems and some other government systems.


An amazingly large number of U.S. government defence contractors (weapons systems, etc.) still use COBOL as their primary business programming language. Billions of dollars were spent to upgrade these systems in fear of the Y2K bug crashing strategic weapon system production computers.
COBOL programmers were being hired for up to $300.00 per hour in the ending months running up to Y2K. Yet COBOL is commonly compiled into machine "assembly" language....still the basis for most every command line programming language in use today. Today COBOL is considered "verbose", not obsolete.
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Airsaw
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rupe, I wouldn't have you any other way. Let rupert be rupert!
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Howie
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Airsaw wrote:
rupe, I wouldn't have you any other way. Let rupert be rupert!


Yes, I agree with Airsaw. Any other Rupert wouldn't be worth a plug nickel. Rupert don't change. We all luv you the way you are. (Game companies may not Luv you, but we do. Who cares about them anyways...) Confused Razz Smile

3 cheers for Rupert! Arr!
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fossaman
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Indeed, rupert just wouldn't be his war canoe totin' self without the pessimism.
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Howie
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 11:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

fossaman wrote:
Indeed, rupert just wouldn't be his war canoe totin' self without the pessimism.


I agree fossaman. Rupert is one fine game company critic. It keeps them on their toes, that’s for sure. Hail Rupert... Worship 3 more cheers for Rupert, the best darn game critic there is. We need more people like Rupert that refuse to settle for 2nd best. If the entire game playing community was like Rupert then we would have had this patch months ago... Arr!
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b4lazarus
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 12:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Howie wrote:
fossaman wrote:
Indeed, rupert just wouldn't be his war canoe totin' self without the pessimism.


I agree fossaman. Rupert is one fine game company critic. It keeps them on their toes, that’s for sure. Hail Rupert... Worship 3 more cheers for Rupert, the best darn game critic there is. We need more people like Rupert that refuse to settle for 2nd best. If the entire game playing community was like Rupert then we would have had this patch months ago... Arr!


Rupert may be more of a realist than pessimist in today's gaming market. The "Beta Tester" retail market complaint may sound like a broken record or sour grapes to some casual Polyanna players, but developers depend on consumers upgrading their equipment to play the current games. Developers and distributors also depend on gaming forum gurus to come up with solutions and work arounds for the missing pieces of code.

A patch is almost always a compilation of fixes demanded by the playing community...and these patch responses are usually based on the number of sold copies of a title compared to the number of complaints. Some of this code is almost always left out of the initial release on purpose, for economic reasons! The final decisions for patch releases are made based on the cost of patching vs. the number of pissed off customers you have.

Ahhh Capitalism...I love it.
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Airsaw
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 1:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

b4lazarus wrote:
Ahhh Capitalism...I love it.
Never met anyone in sales who played games at all, besides golf, and that poorly. They claim it's to please the client, but we all know better.
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rupertlittlebear
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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KingWilly
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 3:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

fossaman wrote:
Indeed, rupert just wouldn't be his war canoe totin' self without the pessimism.


The pessimism is starting to rub off.

My crew be waiting for this new Firaxian ship named "Patch 2" which has yet to be sighted by my man in the crow's nest. There is supposed to be some wonderful treasure on board, but as yet it has not been sighted...maybe it's behind the island in front of us. Sailor
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rupertlittlebear
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 3:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I fail to realise why it is called pessimism, given the history of lies.

After all, how many lies does it take to make any optomist a pessamist.

Or to rephrase, given the benefit of the doubt, how many lies does it take to convince you that they are not telling the truth.

1?
2?
5?
10?
Polyanna?
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Wolfwood
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 6:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is Polyanna a lie? Surprised

Because of the whole Atari mishap, I'm giving Firaxis the benefit of a doubt. As I've said many times before, they have a good rep as far as patching up their games goes. All modern games seem to need patching, more or less, so even thought it would be great to demand perfect work from the programmers on the first go, it is hardly realistic.
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Airsaw
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 6:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wolfwood wrote:
All modern games seem to need patching, more or less, so even thought it would be great to demand perfect work from the programmers on the first go, it is hardly realistic.
I've heard this several times, already, and I'm not buying it. They just don't take the time to work out the bugs. They don't examine their creation well enough, or they have other people do it for free on a hit or miss basis. If computer programming were SO iffy and touchy, how come we see it so well done in other venues, such as the military?

No. I think a program can be made to run correctly and the business considerations push things into production. That's no excuse. Separate the marketing from the science of computer programming. It is a science, no? I think those who put forward this point of view of programs HAVE to be buggy, and there's no alternative are acting as apologists, and nothing more.

I'd even bet money certain technicians caught up in this would swear up and down their game could have been bug free had it not been for the profit-minded upper ups. This view is now verging on urban mythology, like man eating alligators in New York sewers.
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KingWilly
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 6:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I hate to disagree with Wolfwood (probably the first time) but I agree with Airsaw (and Rupert to a lesser extent) on this one. The games should be made to include no (or as few as possible) bugs at all. The games of old (originla Pirates springs to mind) contained very few bugs, so why can't this be the case now. I know that the games are more complex now, but time should be taken to make sure that when a consumer purchases a game, it is complete as is.

Testing should have been done prior to release and these small bugs fixed. And if these bugs were known at the time of release, then a patch should have been released soon after.

I know many games have patches released these days, but should we expect it?

I think not.
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headrock
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 9:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Again I agree with Airsaw. The Beta Testing should be done professionally, almost surgically, not by volunteers. I mean, a car company doesn't give out prototypes to people on the street and say "hey, drive this around and see if you can crash it", now do they? Product quality control is an essential part of the manufacturing process, you can't just treat it as a side-neccesity, and no one but the gaming industry would dare to do it. They CAN do it only because WE don't argue.

P.S. as to gaming becoming a science - the University of Jerusalem is going to open a Gaming course as part of computer science. I've already contacted them in regards for enrolling... as a lecturer! Woohoo! Smile
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