I am at peace with my decision. Never again will I experience the thrill of taking out a driver on the first hole and watching as my ball sails high, higher, before settling gently onto the ladies’ tee box. Not once more shall I, in search of a wayward shot, be obliged to march into woods, or swamp, or marsh, or parking lot, or that fairway two holes over, or pro shop. Nevermore shall I shank it, pull it, hook it, slice it, flub it, duff it, lose it left, lose it right, sky it, top it, worm-burn it or — most humiliating of all — just plain miss it.
I have tried, at great cost to wallet and sanity, to become not lousy at golf. I have read books and watched Internet tutorials. I have invested in pricey irons and massive drivers and hilarious pants. I have taken a number of lessons from a number of golf pros. One of them went to the trouble of videotaping my swing so we could view and analyze it together. I remember catching his expression out of the corner of my eye as the tape played — he had the look of a young child watching someone beat a baby panda to death with a baby koala.
Scott Feschuk, “Let us now bid my game a sad farewell: Never again shall I shank it, pull it, hook it, slice it, flub it, duff it, sky it, or just plain miss it”, Maclean’s, 2010-07-08
July 8, 2010
QotD: Golf
Guild Wars 2: No dedicated healers
Aha! My suspicions were correct: Guild Wars 2 will have no dedicated healing class. This is kinda significant to me, as my most successful character in Guild Wars is a monk: a healer. This change was somewhat telegraphed when they revealed the details of the Elementalist class last month, by having a skill slot that was only to be used for a healing skill or spell.
Simple systems like this, along with cross-profession combos, and the dedicated healing skill slot, help free players from the MMORPG shackles, and let us break the mold even more. We’re making players more self sufficient, but are also providing appealing ways for them to effortlessly work together to create a more inspired moment-to-moment experience. That is why Guild Wars 2 does not have a dedicated healing class.
Everyone take a deep breath. It’s going to be OK.
We have lots of people in our studio that enjoyed playing monks in Guild Wars 2 and healers in other games. We examined what it was about the healer archetypes that people really enjoyed, and we took a look at what it was about those archetypes that made the game less enjoyable. Then we created professions to appeal to those types of players.
Support players want to be able to say, “Remember that one time when I saved you from certain death?” They want to stand in the line of fire and block attacks. They want to surround their allies with a swirling dome of air that keeps enemy projectiles from passing through it. It’s not about clicking on a health bar and watching it go up, it’s about being there for your friends when they need you.
We’ll see. I admit that there are less-than-exciting aspects to running a healer, but one of the upsides is that you’re always in demand for missions and quests. For former schoolyard geeky team-rejects like me, this is a not inconsiderable benefit.
I do acknowledge the truth in the comic that accompanied the article:
Click on thumbnail to enlargeUpdate: Interview with GW2 Lead Designer Eric Flannum (whose name is spelled in a couple of different ways in the article . . . perhaps a translation/transliteration issue, as Dieses Interview gibt es natürlich auch auf Deutsch).
Update the second: PC Gamer summarizes the healing and dying changes:
The tank stands in the front. The healer stands at the back. The damage dealers stand in the middle. So it has been for generations. Guild Wars 2 is making the latest and greatest effort to change that, PC Gamer can reveal, following an exclusive interview with game designer Jon Peters and lead designer Eric Flannum of ArenaNet. The biggest changes? Tanks are gone, healers are gone, the Death Penalty is gone, and you can still kick some arse while you’re lying on yours.
How Apple created and maintains a “shiny tech” reputation
Trevor Pott manages to deter a newly evangelized Apple fan:
The event sticks out for me because the user was not impressed by the iPhone because it was Apple, or the phone was hip. Rather it was because at a tradeshow they caught a colleague watching the Canucks getting beat on an iPhone. The concept of being able to stream video on a cellular network had never occurred to them before this. They saw it first on an Apple, it was evangelised by an ardent fan, and thus Apple “invented” it.
In this way Apple has “invented” everything of use in mainstream computing. From being the only computer for design, to inventing the MP3 player, smartphone, tablet computer, video conferencing and now, apparently, 3G streaming. When introduced to non-Apple alternatives, the people crying loudly for Apple gear seem shocked that it already existed in a previous form. The lesson I took from this is that users don’t care about the technology. With the exception of a few loudmouths on the internet, nobody cares that this was made by Apple, Sony, Microsoft or anyone else.
Users care about what a product can do. They care about how easily that product can do it. Users care about looks, but not as much as ease of use, good documentation, presentation of features and fantastic marketing. What’s more, good businessmen care about these things too; this is what makes their company tick, and what makes them money.
There’s a reason why a lot of successful technology folks try to sell “solutions” rather than products: it’s a much better way of addressing the users’ actual needs (even if it means you don’t recommend the glitzy, whizzy, shiny new Apple iThing). If you can de-mesmerize them long enough to actually address their needs instead of their wants, you’ll be doing them a much better service.
“Flying jeep” proposal
The Register looks at the “Tyrannos” flying jeep:
Who remembers the “Transformer TX” flying-car project, intended to equip the US Marines with a small four-seat vehicle able to drive about on the ground like a jeep, hover like a helicopter, or fly like a plane? The first team to publicly offer a contending design has now stepped forward.
That design is the “Tyrannos” from Logi Aerospace, allied with other companies and organisations including the South West Research Institute and Californian electric-vehicle firm ZAP.
The Tyrannos is nominally intended to provide Marines with the ability to leapfrog over troublesome roadside bombs, mines, and ambushes while remaining able to drive on the ground as they normally might. However, it promises to be much quieter than ordinary helicopters in use and far easier to fly and maintain.
If the Tyrannos can do all its makers claim, it really does have the potential to become the flying car for everyman.
That last sentence really does wrap up the situation: if it can do all that is claimed, it’ll be a fantastic new toy for the military and (eventually) lead to the flying cars we were promised forty years ago. The specs seem hopelessly optimistic, but perhaps I’m just jaded because I don’t have a flying car of my own yet . . .
Reader beware, however. The Transformer TX project is being run not by the Marines themselves but by DARPA, the Pentagon crazytech agency which won’t even touch a project unless it is extremely unlikely to succeed.
“Give us ideas that probably won’t work,” that is DARPA’s motto: and the Tyrannos team assembled their design specifically to DARPA requirements. And, let it be noted, they have yet to satisfy even DARPA’s very relaxed rules on what kind of ideas should get taxpayers’ money spent on them.
