The Bridge - 2011-08-30 (page 3 of 4)

« first day (411 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (4634 days later) »

8:04 PM

> (by the way, go vote up the second answer there because it's better than the first one)

So, how long until someone edits that out?

user30

eh

user30

when did devdays become so expensive

user30

I thought it was going to be like $299 this year

@Powerlord I already did.

user30

oh right, I can volunteer and get a free ticket

user30

8:10 PM

but provide my soul in exchange

user30

Gaming's best questions

@ThomasMcDonald Wait, what?

Lookit all that Witcher 2.

user30

@Powerlord Was just posted in the podcast chat

user30

> The current algorithm divides the number of page views with the total amount of question and answer feedback received (adding a bonus for high view counts), excluding questions with less views than the median :- 270.

8:22 PM

@brettwhite you around?

user30

He's in the podcast live chat

Then no, or at least he's too busy.

user30

wait, he was in the live chat

Anyone here a EU LoL player? I've got some skin codes from PAX I can trade

okay, well it occurs to me I might need to ping him as @brettwhiteΨ anyways

8:27 PM

It could be witches, some evil witches. Which is ridiculous, 'cause witches, they were persecuted. Wicca good, and love the earth, and women power, and I'll be over here.

@Wipqozn Ping system works based on the first three letters.

So @Wip should also ping you.

IT does indeed. I've noticed that myself, but was uncertain how it worked.

@Gra is starting to confuse me with all the avatar switching.

Also, does @WippedCream also ping you?

No sir

It probably pings based on the number of letters, with 3 being the minimum.

@ArdaXi It'll settle soon.

We'll be going back to my Gaming to be the final one.

8:32 PM

@Wipqozn It used to.

user30

Jeff just said we were his least favourite site

user30

get the pitchforks ready chaps

@ThomasMcDonald Well, he's our least favourite person. Fair's fair.

in the podcast, or the chat?

user30

in podcast

8:42 PM

Did he give any reasoning for this?

user30

Yeah, all the other SE's could be professions, our tag system is broken, we're not really a good fit for the network

just curious if it has to do with anything more then the fact we don't agree with him on every policy

Nope, it's not about the community

He doesn't mind us, he finds the site problematic in his eyes.

I will agree with his first point, however we're not the only site that falls under that.

user30

Yeah, I thought his argument fell down there

8:44 PM

There are professional gamers

user30

ubuntu, webapps

You should have a look at how many people in SE find Jeff problematic.

Didn't he back down from that opinion, anyway?

@Wipq Hello

@BrettWhiteΨ Hello!

user30

Evening @Brett.

8:45 PM

hello

user30

I see you got my email eventually

I sent you an email, and left a comment in the respective meta. If I can withdraw from tropico 4, I would like to. I don't see myself having the time to play it.

user30

still going for the content anyway, ended up buying it on Steam

I was set to get it through steam, if that makes any difference.

@Wipqozn Did you want a steam copy or physical copy?

8:47 PM

@BrettWhiteΨ Steam.

@Wipqozn Got you, okay, I'll see about getting it removed. Thanks!

@BrettWhiteΨ If you already sent it, it should be possible to re-gift it if anyone else would like it and can contribute.

It appears there's a new, undocumented and rather easy (?) TF2 achievement, Grossy Park

I'll be damned if I knew what it is

@badp Let's have a look.

@badp Hmm, not in the API yet.

well I got such an achievement message and it looked authentic

8:51 PM

Unless you meant Gorky Parked of course.

nope

It wasn't authentic then.

...unless that's the Italian translation

but that would make 0 sense

What was it called?

"Grossy Park"?

You don't have an achievement called that.

Only achievement you got today was "May I Cut In", and that was this morning.

To be honest, I must say that DX:HR is much more worth the full price than for example Portal 2 was.

Really now?

Not a sizable surprise, really.

portal 2 is great, but it is only ~10 hours long. I wouldn't want it to be longer mind you, it's just the right length for what it is, but it does hurt it's cost to value ratio.

cost to value isn't the right term there... but I'm sure you get the idea.

user30

8:58 PM

waits for Arda to moan about it only being 3 hours

10 hours for both co op an single player that is.

Although 10 is a bit of an over shot.

@ArdaXi No it was somebody else

@Wipqozn A bit?

@ArdaXi Indeed. It's closer to 8 for both.

It's closer to ~5 for both.

Depending on your intelligence I suppose.

I mean, how long did we do about co-op, @badp? Not much more than 2 hours, right?

9:12 PM

Tsk, the last few levels took up a hour each

@badp an hour.

Anyway, I finished SP in 3 hours.

I took much more.

user image

3

user30

In which Arda attempts to deny that Dutch is a country

Jun 2 at 15:32, 2 minutes total – 12 messages, 5 users, 8 stars

Bookmarked Jun 2 at 15:35 by Thomas McDonald

FallenAngelEyes

@ThomasMcDonald Our tag system is broken?

user30

9:20 PM

@FallenAngelEyes Apparently.

FallenAngelEyes

@ThomasMcDonald This is news to me. How so?

user30

Something about platform tags, despite the fact we don't really do that

@FallenAngelEyes 25 character limit is constantly challenged, we can't do platform tags (we don't want to anyway so a non-point), and tags like [strategy] get better visibility than the more important game name tags

user30

then he gave the example of the strategy tag

@GraceNote I thought JEff hated game name tags?

9:22 PM

@Wipqozn He hates the fact that [space-bunnies-must-die] could possibly be a valid tag

@Rapida They're not here. I don't think they're really interested in giving away they craft for free given that many pay for training

But for actual games, they're the most important and significant identifying factor. Hence, they're what should show up in the title.

FallenAngelEyes

@GraceNote Well I do agree strategy is practically useless and should die

@FallenAngelEyes Yes, we all agree on that.

FallenAngelEyes

@GraceNote This just seems like a weird sort of elitism to me

user30

9:23 PM

We have some amusing conversations bookmarked

It's... complicated.

So do we need to start looking into OSQA just yet? :P

And in that I don't agree with it (since, comparatively, [bunny-must-die] is an excellent game that people really should play).

(No I'm not following the podcast.)

Podcast's over

FallenAngelEyes

9:24 PM

@GraceNote If we all agree with it, why isn't it dead?

user30

@badp Me and Mana are pretty much doing that for game-rec

@FallenAngelEyes Too prevalent that it's not the easiest to clean up

@ThomasMcDonald I don't think it can work on any Q&A form

perhaps something like aardvark

user30

@badp The basic premise should work under QA.

user30

This is an odd conversation.

Nov 2 '10 at 14:00, 2 minutes total – 12 messages, 3 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked Nov 2 '10 at 14:03 by badp

user30

9:26 PM

eh.

FallenAngelEyes

@GraceNote Shall we spearhead some sort of movement then to do it in steps? If we all agree it's not healthy, we should start pruning it. It's just going to get worse the longer we keep it around.

user30

but then you'll get the angry retag mob running around after you

What's the problem with strategy?

Too generic?

'sup bros

and sises

@badp A number of pro gamers have guides on solomid, so I don't think it is impossible. I just don't think we have established enough pull to get them to our site.

9:32 PM

Eh. i tried to attract the best Italian Quake 3/Live player to Gaming, but he had other, more personal, more Italy-focused plans e.g.

(this was before the site launched)

@ThomasMcDonald Nah, you'll need to invent your own system somehow.

@Mana sup dawg, yo mo fizzle

@Wipqozn we bros man you long time

@Mana Well that's just offensive.

@Wipqozn It was me screwing up these lyrics

not that it matters since nobody can make out those lyrics but the band members themselves anyways

9:38 PM

@Mana You just made it worse.

I'm going to report these actions to a mod.

@Mana, are you around? Have a complaint to make.

user30

eh

user30

there's really a Bitcoin stackexchange

user30

no joke?

No joke.

user30

I am disappoint.

9:46 PM

I guess we'll see how it goes but I'm not particularly optimistic.

user30

Wonder how long that one will be around for

user30

Also, deese guise in here says we cant make game-rec a QA

Then again I'm not very optimistic about a bunch of things

0

Q: The FAQ is confused about my powers

For users with reputation between 2000 (inclusive) and something, the FAQ says that we have the following abilities: 2000 Edit other people’s posts, vote to approve or reject suggested edits The first part is accurate, as you've no doubt seen. The second part, however ... occasionally I fi...

discussion suggested-edits

user30

dey all be hatin on your ideaz

9:47 PM

Well, some work needs to be done on the general format of the Q&A site to get game recommendations working properly.

user30

Yeahah.

user30

Well fire away, before I get deep into code

@ThomasMcDonald Don't you know about the bitcoin professionals?

user30

@badp Nope, nor the webapp professionals

user30

nor the Jewish professionals, nor the RPG professionals, nor the professional skeptics etc etc

9:50 PM

Well, I think we need to keep track of games through like a database. When you recommend a game you need to fill out two fields: Game name and uh what it provides that satisfies the recommendation.

user30

database is a good start

user30

so someone says "recommend me a game like..."

user30

and another bro comes along and says "yadda yadda because..."

Right.

user30

and then?

9:52 PM

Well, then the upvotes and downvotes come along. People upvote good recommendations and downvote bad ones.

FallenAngelEyes

OMG WANT

user30

okay

user30

we have exp?

I don't know where to put Castle4 between the scale of A/D maps that suck

Maybe.

9:53 PM

@FallenAngelEyes Err, this has existed for many many years.

I think it's above Hoodoo and Dustbowl, but dunno about Egypt.

I'm not sure what rep/exp would provide to a site like this one.

Badges would be cool though.

user30

'this guy is a good recommender'

@Mana I think it should be more structured than simply "Recommend me a game like" and "yadda yadda because"

user30

but then he made a shit recommendation here so it turns out reputation doesn't actually make a difference

9:54 PM

Like. Castle4's second stage is ONE FUCKING LONG CORRIDOR. And the fourth point is the END of it, which means the RED spawn point is between the 3rd and the 4th point. And it is ELEVATED. And it is only accessible on foot through a small door that one SENTRY can comfortably block. There is a barrell on the other end, like in Dustbowl's 3rd point, but it's only cosmetic.

Like, not just two fields, but have actual fields.

@ArdaXi I agree. What structure do you think would work better?

FallenAngelEyes

@ArdaXi What other products have been made that do this?

@FallenAngelEyes I assumed you draW?

@Mana I'm not sure what fields should be included, personally.

FallenAngelEyes

9:55 PM

@Wipqozn yar

That's fucking retarded

@FallenAngelEyes Nifty. Purely a hobby, or do you draw for your career as well?

FallenAngelEyes

@Wipqozn Haha, god I wish I could draw for my career

@FallenAngelEyes The Dane-Elec Zpen comes to mind.

WACOM. HAVE MY DIGITAL INK BABIES.

2

FallenAngelEyes

9:56 PM

@ArdaXi That's just built for writing, not drawing and art

@FallenAngelEyes It's quite literally the same product.

user30

aaaaaanyway

The only thing is that the Zpen includes OCR. The Wacom thingy doesn't.

The Zpen is perfectly capable of exporting to vector images.

user30

how could it be more structured than "recommend me something like x" and then "y because z"

@ThomasMcDonald Maybe we divide the "z" part into bullet point fields?

9:58 PM

@ThomasMcDonald Genre: X, Gameplay: Y, Setting: Z.

FallenAngelEyes

I've never heard of Dane Digital at all

There are many, many, many things a user might be interested in.

0

Q: Why didn't main characters continue to move in War In Middle Earth?

A long time ago I played War In Middle Earth on the Commodore 64. As you played through you could somewhat recreate the events of the books. I took Frodo across the Misty Mountains, down through Mirkwood Forest, down towards Morder. Very quickly my heroes would stop moving. Gandalf stopped movi...

commodore-64 lord-of-the-rings war-in-middle-earth

FallenAngelEyes

But yeah, do want that thing ;_;c

@FallenAngelEyes Really? They've had huge ad campaigns in NL, mostly magazines and such.

10:00 PM

@FallenAngelEyes me too ;_; My scanner sucks, yo.

@FallenAngelEyes It's existed for like 3 years already.

FallenAngelEyes

I don't read any magazines here

Quest once in a while

@FallenAngelEyes Yeah, that's the only one I read too.

FallenAngelEyes

@Mana Yeah, it'd be nice to be able to cut out the middle process of scanning crap

Anyway, the Zpen will only run you about €65.

user30

10:01 PM

@Arda hrm, but then is it too structured?

I don't think it can be 'too structured'.

user30

like won't people feel the need to fill out all the boxes!

Hardly.

I'd personally prefer to minimize the whole Q&A bit.

FallenAngelEyes

@ThomasMcDonald One thing that GamerDNA does is ask you to assign characteristics to a game and choose the ones you found most interesting/germane to the game of choice

That's exactly what I mean.

If you build up a database of games with rigid data structures, people can easily search for a game they want, cutting out the asking bit entirely.

FallenAngelEyes

10:03 PM

@ArdaXi Yeah, that's what this site has

The problem is that automated suggestions suck. Even the best of them.

@Mana That depends on how well you do them.

There are lots of subtle factors that go into making a good game recommendation and I think only actual gamers can really capture that.

FallenAngelEyes

For example

The whole idea behind it is Machine Learning.

FallenAngelEyes

10:04 PM

The traits listed there are the top ones users have chosen

@ArdaXi I know, I know about Machine Learning. Still...idk.

FallenAngelEyes

FPS RPG Hybrid's results give you this

@Mana You'll want to de-emphasize the asking bit, but still have it as an integral part of the site.

People will still search first, if they don't find it using automated methods, they can use the asking.

I see. So maybe have them perform a search before giving them the Ask Question button?

The asking will be rigid, based on pre-programmed 'traits' (maybe let people with enough rep or whatever create them), and the answering will be too.

Then you use these answers to seed the site's knowledge, making the searches more accurate.

10:07 PM

I see. It seems more and more like extending a Q&A engine isn't going to work.

Exactly.

Anyone here have any recommendations for games like iKariam(en.ikariam.com)? I miss my days playing there.

If you think this idea is profitable, use this. code.google.com/apis/predict

@FOak I've forgotten what Ikariam is like; what sort of game is it again?

@FOak based solely on the screen shots. Perhaps Civilization?

10:09 PM

user image

@ArdaXi I noticed. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

But it costs money.

its a browser based time based game

you sortof build cities, and militaries, then raid people

but mostly time based

there was a similar space version of the game that I cant remember

OGame maybe

@FOak I played a game called KingsAge once

FallenAngelEyes

Yeah, OGame

That's still running

I used to play that

10:11 PM

[I really wish game recs were allowed)

FallenAngelEyes

@FOak You may wanna try Lord of Ultima

@FOak Coincidentally, we were just talking about what it would take to make a site specifically for game-rec

@Mana It doesn't cost a lot of money to use that Google API, I think advertising would be well able to fund it, especially if we can promote the site using Gaming.

Storage: $0.17/GB/Month
PUT, POST, LIST* Requests: $0.01 per 1,000 Requests
GET, HEAD requests: $0.01 per 10,000
Upload data: $0.10/GB
Download data:
$0.15/GB to Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
$0.30/GB to Asia-Pacific

FallenAngelEyes

That has the same type of citybuilding/resource harvesting/army building that Ikariam has (I used to play that too)

So, realistically, I doubt it'll be much more than $1 a month.

10:12 PM

Listen to Fallen, she's smart

FallenAngelEyes

lol

Thanks guys (and Fallen)

FallenAngelEyes

also @Mana, while I definitely would be willing to help you in any way I could in making a game rec site, I'd be worried that you'd try to end up trying to reinvent the wheel

and thusly have a hard time drawing an audience :(

@FallenAngelEyes I'm worried about the same thing, yo.

FallenAngelEyes

Making stuff is haaaaaaard

10:14 PM

I should probably see what other sites are out there. Still...I just want to get this done in a way that makes sense, you know?

FallenAngelEyes

@FOak No prob. Are you looking only for browser based stuff?

Right

Well

I would check out what the current gaming social networking sites have to offer

So look at Xfire, Raptr, GamerDNA, and Playfire

See what they're doing wrong/not doing enough of that you think you could offer improvements on

@Mana Why not just propose it on Area 51?

FallenAngelEyes

The thing is, people probably don't want to sign up on yet another gaming social networking site if it doesn't have something that makes it stand out more from what already exists

@FallenAngelEyes I don't see a proper game recommendation site anywhere. They either do personal recommendation (forums) or machine recommendation, not both.

FallenAngelEyes

And Xfire's, Raptr's, and GamerDNA's game tracking is a really appealing feature

10:16 PM

@GnomeSliceツ I believe it was proposed in the past, but rejected. Or so I've gathered from the bridge conversations.

@FallenAngelEyes Do they not have APIs?

@Wipqozn It was.

FallenAngelEyes

@ArdaXi Well then we'd have to work on making something interesting enough to make people feel that we'd do a better job than the machines and forums

@FallenAngelEyes Machines & Forums > Machines | Forums.

FallenAngelEyes

@ArdaXi The sites draw their information from the API's of the respective services, so I believe that would be a possibility as well if you want to make your own site but I know nothing about site building so I have no idea how difficult that is.

@Wipqozn Correct

FallenAngelEyes

10:18 PM

Like I know Microsoft's API allows time tracking for what you play on GFWL/XBox but PlayStation's does not, so all they can do is track trophy acquisition

@FallenAngelEyes You can have people import their playing habits from Steam, Xfire, XBL, etc.

This looks interesting. mahout.apache.org

FallenAngelEyes

As long as you keep doing the tracking on your own site as well, that'd probably be fine. Raptr offered a one time hours import from XFire, for example.

Well, yeah, but I don't want a client running on their PC tracking their times.

FallenAngelEyes

Hm, how would you continue tracking then? Just have them constantly re-import?

But 'hours played' is a statistic that doesn't tell you much anyway.

I have way more hours logged for Modern Warfare 2 than I do for Portal 2. That doesn't mean I think Portal 2 is a worse game.

FallenAngelEyes

10:23 PM

It isn't, but some people still like to have it :) (myself included)

user30

You can get that data from Steam

FallenAngelEyes

For example though, Raptr doesn't take hours played into account when calculating what genres you played the most

Because I own more separate "action" games, it had a higher stat for action for me than for RPG, though I've spent more combined hours in RPGs than any of my action games

I'm guessing you guys are familiar with Pandora, right?

user30

Not particularly

~~Goddamnit why did they have to take that away from me~~ They work by classifying music by its features.

Stuff like 'female vocal', 'low beatrate', the instruments used, et cetera et cetera.

FallenAngelEyes

10:26 PM

@ArdaXi I feel ya

They then look at music you like, note their features, and see what features are more common.

FallenAngelEyes

and make you a kickass radio station

Then, as you like and dislike songs, the scores of the features of those songs are incremented and decremented.

This is basically a Naive Bayes Classifier.

I once wrote an app that did this using the Last.FM API. It worked incredibly well.

Like, I would give it two of my playlists and the songs in it to train.

Then I would give it a song, it would look up the tags of the song and tell me in which of the two playlists it fits better.

It never made a single mistake, actually.

So you're going to want lots and lots of tags for each game, populated by users.

Any of you speak C#?

user30

keep talking arda, I'm reading

FallenAngelEyes

Negatory

10:31 PM

github.com/ArdaXi/Bayes.NET

user30

c# is evil.

I like it, shut up.

FallenAngelEyes

Your e is a question mark in the readme

@FallenAngelEyes I am aware.

In fact, I can probably fix it.

There we go.

Anyway, it's reasonably easy to use. I could probably port it to other languages quite easily too.

Basically, this thing works like this.

foreach tag in game do Classifier.Add(game, tag)

Then if you want to recommend a game, you take the tags the user either supplied or are already in a database for them, and call Classifier.Classify(tags) which returns a list of games and the probability they match the tags supplied.

user30

@Mana Is there a disadvantage to killing everyone?

user30

10:36 PM

like randomly taking some civilians out?

Yeah.

user30

...

If you get detected by the police you're basically hunted by them every time you walk around Detroit.

And one of them is this guy who wears a steel helmet and who takes like 6 headshots to kill and who has a shotgun that can take off 75 health in a shot or kill you instantly if you're close enough

user30

Okay, so I won't get detected then

user30

apart from that?

10:37 PM

Loneliness?

Well, you run out of ammo. Also if you kill people who give you missions you fail them instantly.

i.e. one of the hookers gives you a really long mission that gives you around 5000-6000 experience

user30

Yeah, I done that

I'm guessing you mean the hooker who isn't?

user30

I'm in hengsha now

Okay, then go nuts

user30

10:40 PM

Particularly, the pod gardens area, where I seem to be able to execute everyone

The Stack Exchange Blog

Stack Overflow Blog: Welcome Valued Associate Demis Bellot

Posted by Alison Sperling on August 30th, 2011

The NYC Headquarters of Stack Exchange welcomes Demis Bellot! As a developer on the Careers 2.0 team, Demis is excited to work on a platform with a large and influential reach. Demis is best known online as the creator of http://www.servicestack.net/ – An Open Source Mono and .NET Web Service Framework.

An avid traveler, Demis enjoys taking photos in lovely locations, which often look photoshopped (like these).

While he isn’t a hobbyist per se, Demis can be easily convinced into a game of tennis or golf. With his multitude of skills, Demis is sure to be a strong contributor to the Dev Team. Welcome Demis! …

Well, yeah. You can execute everyone. Everywhere. Except Sarif(although I'm hoping that changes later)

user30

Ooh, I have 4 praxis.

user30

And now I have typhoon and social enhancery

I'm going to give this horrible boss fight another try.

Did I tell you about how I hate boss fights?

FallenAngelEyes

10:47 PM

@ArdaXi Play some Touhou with me :D I'm sure that'll make it better

@Arda Yeah, the boss fights suck. I want to find whoever made this game have boss fights and punch them in the face,

user30

lol at not going to be able to pay this guy

@FallenAngelEyes Wassa Touhou?

Quora Team sent me a message.

@badp?!?!

10:47 PM

Dunno, GMail is taking a while to open that conversation

FallenAngelEyes

user30

You have a Quora account? For what? ಠ_ಠ

Bullet Hell is so not my genre.

Oh, it's nothing interesting

At any rate they've asked me to keep it quiet, so whatever.

@ThomasMcDonald Mostly to suggest silly topics to Jin and whatnot

@FallenAngelEyes LIGHTWEIGHT. GO INSANE MODE OR GO HOME.

FallenAngelEyes

10:52 PM

@Mana hush you, I'm doing this to relax, not to throw my controller through my monitor

user image

So pretty.

@ArdaXi u r

@Mana <3

@Mana Lunatic, you mean

@GraceNote Yeah, I always forget.

10:55 PM

If you forget again I'll have to beat it back into you with the force of a billion bullets.

3

hurray for abusive mod relationships

Anyway, if this game-rec site thingy is really something we want to explore, I don't think that it should be too difficult technically.

Obligatory resurfacing comment about r/gamerec?

@GraceNote Read the monologue I posted a while back.

« first day (411 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (4634 days later) »

Transcript for

Aug '1130

The Bridge

General Arqade Chat. We tried to leave once, but the door lock...

--gaming jin-fanclub lazers murder -politics -stars

join this room
about this room

00:00

06:00

12:00

18:00

all times are UTC

site design / logo © 2024 Stack Exchange Inc; legal

mobile