Its a sad thing that he assumed (PROBABLY wrongly) that we all know what a glasses is and he refused to teach us, its REALLY made me sad.

what a miss.

khubin?
Che khabar? Modatie ke aslan nistin! sms ham ke javab nemidin. Daneshgahe dr Mosabbeb nemiain?
Mitunam in film ro azatun begiram?
558-Marry Poppins

Movafagh bahid,
zzt

I’m not letting it go

About the web interface, you are right. It’s easy to put that particular options, but they need to have enough people using it before they go for it (unless they prefer it themselves and want people to be that way). They can’t put tons of options, so they go for the “most wanted” list. Just recently they added the “right to left” button because many people requested it. Maybe if a group of people (you and, hmmm, the ones who wrote that standard) ask for it they add it to their list of options. But as long as you are a strict minority you need to work that out yourself with GM (I mean let all your friends have that GM script and use it when they want to email you, so practical).

Customization of web application, as I tend to define it, is to provide API for the UI layer to be changed easily. If you check out the Gmail GM site (linked above) you’ll see that they are providing easy API to GM. It basically means that you can pretty much write you own UI layer. But writing a general UI similar to the ones we have with client side applications (with the ability to change things with clicks, drag and drop, hold and drag, different views of lists, different sorting criteria, threading and likewise) is extremely difficult to implement with javascript code. It’s tedious work man, believe me. You can in principle write a whole web-based client-side-like email client. But everyone is waiting for yzt to start the project. I know he loves javascript.

Here is the deal about the threading idea. It’s not just a pure random mutation! There is a great mind behind the any major change you see on Gmail. They did not come up with the idea of threading emails and hiding quoted text just randomly for the sake of “changing it”. Some intelligent being (I know you don’t think such things could actually exist) came up with the idea, it went through tons of modifications and finally was put there for the user, only to get feedback and be refined. Although I don’t use it, but it seems a good idea to me. Now if it breaks the ideas we have about the philosophy of life, I personally won’t give a sh*t. It works and people like it. And those who don’t can go create their own Google with their conservative ideas and keep their own market (remember, there used to be something called Yahoo Mail, that went bankrupt for keeping on the same old ideas about huge stupid image ads and, even more annoying, the flash ads). I don’t think Google is Google because the name starts with a G or ends in an e. It is what it is exactly because it has been on the right side of the history (mostly). And if it starts to go on the wrong side it will get ripped like Y and MS did. Mark my words on that.

In any case, I seem to be much more liberal than you are. I like to see wild new radical actions that have never been tried before. Even if the old conservative crowd (you? :D) think they are stupid.

Are you saying it was too difficult for Google people to add another option (”Start my reply below the original message.”) to Gmail? Would it have represented a significant code size increase or performance drop or technical challenge for them? I am no stranger to web development. I know it’s not that difficult! Of course, the number of options they could have added in practically unbound, so it’s rather unreasonable to expect them to implement this particular one.
And I don’t use Gmail’s web interface and I don’t generally top-post, so Greasemonkey won’t help me (in this case.) Thanks to Google, I have IMAP access (I know you know that, just making a point!) The problem I mentioned in the original post is about the mail I receive. And while a significant number of top-posters are Gmail users, they are not even a majority. It’s clearly a user problem, and one thing experience has taught me is that these user problems (ones that affects other people, and not themselves) will never gets solved.
The reason I mentioned Gmail was that (I believe) it actually hides the original text so you don’t see where your reply is placed explicitly. But top-posting is unfortunately the default in all the mail clients I can recall (web-based or not.)

By the way, I didn’t directly compare Google with Microsoft. I compared your comment to those from Microsoft zealots in mid-90s to 2000. Of course, now that Microsoft is largely irrelevant, their remarks seems hilarious in retrospect.
Despite the fact that Google is way way better than Microsoft (technically, philosophically, politically and attitude-wise,) I’d rather have an irrelevant OS-Nazi (because nothing that matters requires Windows anyways, except games) than an octopus gripping the Internet, from which there’s almost no escape. Google has done largely the Right Thing up to now, but who’s to say what will happen in the future?

What I said about innovation seems to have riled you up pretty good! I meant “change for the sake of change” is not innovation. If it doesn’t work, if it does work but it can be done somehow better, sure! Change it. Break it down and remake it from another perspective. But just changing stuff for sake of non-conformity is rather juvenile in my opinion.

Not all new ideas that look stupid to many are in fact good and innovative ideas. Scientology, Windows Vista and Gangsta Rap all seem stupid because they are stupid ideas.

By the way, have you checked out the script files and css files that come with Gmail? You’ll be amazed with the file sizes.

I totally disagree with you on the comparison of what I said and MS policies on software design. You miss a big point. I didn’t even mention the “freeness” of the software. I basically believe that you should not go with the flow. Every once in a while someone comes up with an idea that seems foolish at the time and then gains popularity. It’s looks like the natural selection, only with a mind behind the process. You need to have a market of free software to let things evolve like that. Those that have “better ideas” will evolve faster (more users, more contributers, etc). Those that look better at first or are conservative in the design will fail to compete with the evolving ones sooner or later.

“I don’t like the kind of innovation that breaks everything”

Take the Open Source model for instance. It looked like a stupid idea to “many” at first, and broke many “things”. None of those guys thought they were wrong at the time they opposed OS, but they were. But there were a community of developers who thought this is the right thing to do, and guess what, it was!

“I really didn’t expect you of all people to believe that someone else (and a corporation at that!) might know better that you yourself.”

I was not referring to myself or you for that matter. I’ve been using email clients for 6+ years now. I’m talking about the usual nagging people that come against any new idea because they think they know better what is good for them to do a job (excluding you ;)). But no, THEY DON’T. The public is too stupid to know in advance what is a good user interface and what’s not. Only the test of time can prove/disprove such things. So you put ideas to test (say beta test of Gmail) and then if you get good feedbacks you keep going with it. As long as there is a chance for the competitors to have their own market it will work fine. You see, I’m not trusting anybody! I’m trusting the open market. There is a huge difference.

All in all, I see your point. The way it is is easy, straightforward and well handled, but why not make it configurable? That’s my quibble!

I can think of these reasons, in no special order:

0. Because they can

1. Because they have these special ‘views’ about Internet and life: everything should be simple, fast and easy (and probably free, but you can never be sure about that). They will do what they think is better for the user (in the long run, once she gets over the stupid habits), and not what the user demands. You know (better than I do) that this is a basic principle in software design.

2. Because “It feels good to be the king”

3. Most importantly, people like Google’s threading mechanism. They’ve got good feedbacks and they are pushing it forward.

4. A new idea that breaks “logical protocols” is not necessarily illogical. It might just be another point of view or just another taste. Now can you tell my why writing from down to bottom is more “logical” than writing from bottom to top? (I mean what if we wrote everything from bottom to top, left to right). In fact in many poster designs the lines go from bottom to top, and guess what, I love it.

Crediting people for hiding “stuff” has a long history. It started with Adam and Eve

But, I have to add that Gmail doesn’t force you to top-post. Bottom-posting is easy too (not quite as easy as the former though.) But inline reply is even harder.

In any case, I’d rather have more than one birthday (cake) in a year. It’s more fun. And you can chill out if you get at least one birthday

However, from an engineering perspective, the difference in velocity you mention is not enough (in my physics-and-math-impaired opinion,) to cause a noticeable discrepancy in viewer time comprehension.
Therefore, I’m personally willing to forget about any mathematical differences. I think the specific state of Earth relative to the Sun (including position, spin state, etc.) can be used to define an exact (enough) and location-independent birthtime for people. Wouldn’t you agree?

And I still think you shouldn’t chill out! Why should anyone stop thinking? But you can chill enough to start seeing the world as an engineer (and be content with that,) instead of a mathematician, if you want a simpler and less abstract life.

Mind bugling, isn’t it? I think there is a space/speed invariant definition of simultaneity in special relativity.

Whatever this issue is, unlike those friends of yours, I don’t think this is irrelevant or that you should chill out!

Check out the discussion on an old post on my blog:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-YjgwYDI8dq8HKmpWliyQ8xn1Dg–?cq=1&p=1098

Well, obviously I am (and we are) happy about the response from the OGRE community (specially since the most experienced OGRE developers praised our work.) However, for me this happiness is balanced out by the limbo we are in right now. If we can secure enough funding, the development will rage on and everything will be as good as we can make them (there’s still the issue of time, but that’s an issue for everybody!) But OTOH if we fail to find people/organizations/publishers to fund our game effort, we will return to the old part-time style of game development, and who knows what happens then. In our state, if we lose even one of our team members (most likely to the Holy Conscription Service) we’ve lost a team lead, and indeed an entire team (since each and every one of the guys is a team onto his own.)

On to collisions. You are right in your observation, but the fix is (hopefully) just a matter of enlarging some bounding boxes (four pairs of fingers crossed!)

We do have guard moves, and a whole lot more combos and “finish him” moves. Maybe we should have put more in the demos.

About stop-run transitions, well, “Amir H. Fassihi” said what needed to be said. But just let me add that putting an smooth transition before starting to properly run or before coming to a standstill after running, in my opinion, may cause a feel of clumsiness and slowness for the character, which may in turn disrupt the flow of the game.

About the rest, thank you and I agree!

The music is great! When I first read you had original music going on, I was wondering how you can get good game music with an Iranian theme. He deserves credit for that, big time.

Having said that, when I saw these videos in HD, I was amazed (and amused) by the detailed graphics works going on. Not to look down on the work of the programmers, but you guys are doing a professional job. Those sketches reminds me of the “making” videos of heavy weighted games.

And I was looking at the Ogre thread, reading the responses to your post. I don’t know about you, but if ever got anything like that on my work, I would cheer up in each and every cell.

Keep on good work.

Few points (you probably find this more useful than what I said above):

- Collisions need more tuning with different characters

- I looooooooove the passive moves on attacks. Maybe it’s just me, but I love it when he stabs the bad guy in the back on the ground and the bad guy’s hands/legs move slightly. The same goes when the big monster smashes him on the ground

- Long vertical jumps are sexy in games, the more the better

- I didn’t see any guard moves (protective moves against enemies’ attacks). Or maybe I missed them.

- This is not just with this game, but rather with almost all the games that I’ve ever played: You can start running at the full speed starting from an still position. This makes the moves rather unnatural. For instance, you can see a sequence of stop-run-stop-runs at 2:50 of the first video here. I’d rather see some momentum or a transition phase (even if only for a fraction of second). It’s not just the speed, but rather with the style of “starting to run”. Sorry if I mumble too much, I just hate this in all games. The same goes with “stopping”, there is usually half a step forward after you decide to stop (with a small tilt of the body). Anyhow, you probably get what I mean.

Again, keep on good work and good luck.

Ehem!

You and your work is like a motivation for me, I’m constantly thinking about your game and that drives me into going forward, working [hard] and trying to catch up with you people.

This blog is such a hard stone on my back, constantly reminds me of how bad my English is and how ignorant I am of C++ (that I shouldn’t be) and the things that I should do and I don’t due to procrastination or other demons and darkness of my soul.

Thanks.

lol part: I was checking the referrer links to my blogs that I saw someone searched the term “soshiant game” in google and came into my blog, I wow’ed and typed ” soshiant game” (of course without quotes!) and I saw that my blog is listed on the results! (due to the post I wrote about your game, the night after I met you guyz at the expo)

What was your point in posting spam again?

@yzt:
inhance your spam blocker, as an evidence, it didn’t block that ^ comment.