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But the most astounding thing about Scientology "new recruits" is that they are OK with being led along step by step, not knowing what their doctrine will be next.

Essentially, it's kind of like a fraternity, which people are forced to pay in order to be part of said organization. I don't think this is really astounding. If you're promised greater knowledge after you progress through each step, I'd imagine most people would be compelled to go forward.

As to scientology not being a religion, one of the definitions of religion is...
"a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects." In fact, I couldn't find anything in any of the definitions that dealt with higher power. More just about discovering the universe. Now, it happens that most religions discover the universe through a higher being, but it isn't necessary. This lends to the question, "Why don't we consider, say athiesism a religion?" That's because athiest only implies that you don't believe in a higher power, and generally they don't meet in a group and have specific practices. Now if you have a group of athiests, that follow some sort of rules to life, it could be considered a religion.

That's where I'm heading with Scientology.  It's difficult to separate it from the herd because it takes money from its members.  Or because the mythology is ridiculous.   Or because its members behave aggressively.

I don't see that their mythology is any more ridiculous that any other. As far as taking money, most religious organizations have some form of dues. However, yes, they do need to have money to get into the inner circles of their religion. That's probably what strikes people as being a pyramid scheme. And I believe it is one too. Now if they use most of their money to achieve their spiritual or otherwise goals, I have no problem with it. But if their's just a few people at the heart of the religion who are just banking money from others beliefs, that's what I would find deplorable. However, in someways, thats no worse than a lot of businesses, it's just their selling their product as a religion. If people are content with what their buying, though, it doesn't really matter.

-MillsJROSS

http://www.hosting-review.com/

This is a review site of top hosting sites. I don't know whether the site is valid or not, but I got the link from a w3 consortium, so I assume it's good information.

-MillsJROSS

I don't really see that scientology is that horrible of a religious based on it's ideals for man. Maybe it's the Heinlein in me that allows me to accept that they can't be any worse than any other religion. The only thing I actively don't care for in their religion is the pyramid scheme. However, it only seems really bad because it's more or less part of their religion, but in most communities it's people with wealth that become the upper tiers of their religion anyway. 

I haven't really researched their religion enough to have any true dislike of them. I'm sure, as with any religion, that some of the things they strive for are good and decent. However, as with any religion, not everything necessarily is going to sit well with me.

I know people often say that if you're having problems it's easy to get brainwashed into this religion, but I don't see how that's different than any other religion. There's plenty of born again Christians who were at a low point and found something through religion. I don't see how this is that much different. The only difference is that this religion is only 50 or so years old and other religions number in the 1000's. As long as they don't have a crusade to convert people, and then maim them if they don't agree with their philosophy, they're cool with me.

-MillsJROSS

I was kidding when I said "It helps if you have friends." But I'm morally opposed to using smileys.

But you either enjoy Facebook or it's equivallent, or you don't.

-MillsJROSS

It helps if you have friends.

But it's not really about having a website, it's about creating a network of people that you can easily get in contact with. There could be many benefits in keeping in touch with people. You never know whats down the road.

-MillsJROSS

I go back and forth between being an addict on facebook, and just checking it once a week.

I've never used myspace, so I can't compare the two, but this is a very effective way to keep in contact with everyone. It's also nice for planning events. It's a nice way to keep pictures of yourself and friends up there. (I have a few mittens pictures up). Mostly it's just fun to see when people start or end a relationship.

-MillsJROSS

You could always include a rating for scripting outside of the scope of the average rating. If the scripting is bad it will probably affect the rating anyway, and visa versa, as already mentioned. So perhaps having a stand alone score. Perhaps with this score, there can also be given comments as to how a game fell short of good scripting or succeeded in great scripting. At least, this way, it will help the game creator to get some grasp of what he/she may be doing wrong and needs to work on.

To me, it's apparent when there's good scripting and bad scripting, and it's not just lack of scripting. One little thing that usually get's me a little peeved is when people take the time to have their character walk to a hotspot, but the character blocks the hotspot, and so for every action you need to move the main character over. It is also about lack of scripting, or filling out the game for me. I want a message for every action I do, it doesn't have to be unique, that's expecting  a lot, but I want some form of communication that tells me things are happening. I consider this as leaving out essential, to me, and easy to achieve scripts.

-MillsJROSS

I don't tend to notice this so much, but to honest, this is the only forum I frequent on a regular basis, and don't tend to go seeking other forums.

I don' t think there is a way to change this, other than by forcing people to register to post. If people want to be nasty, though, they will be. More often, than not, they also will be the only one's to post. I know when I go on You Tube, I don't ever post, even if I think something is funny/good. Unless I'm going to be making some (hopefully) constructive criticism, I generally avoid posting. There's really no way to have a big sense of community on a page like You Tube anyway.

The internet isn't an exclusive club, and there are a lot of immature people roaming around on their free time. Some are waiting for a chance to think of something cleverly insulting, or just insulting. Some of it may be perceived as harmless fun. When I create good friends, much of our past time is spent playfully insulting each other. I'd like to think that there are many people who unintentionally post an insult because they perceive a comfort zone of others that may or may not be present.

Really there's almost no point in arguing with people who intentionally post to insult people, because they don't really care what your saying. The same goes for forums where there's an established precedence for being insulting to new people or insulting ideas they don't agree with.

I'm just glad, that for the most part, this forum seems to stay away from that.

-MillsJROSS

I'd rather have Granny Zombiekiller by my side, anyway.

Look on the bright side, perhaps someone, maybe a time traveler, knew that if you drove your car going to work, you'd die in a horrible accident. Just tell me if you found any plutonium around the paremeter of the knife cut.

-MillsJROSS

What's the alternative? We can discuss discussing a possible discussion about maybe thinking about the process of beginning to set up a discussion about setting up a panel? Are we that anally retentive about the symantics of the situation?

I think your perception of discussion is a bit over the top. We're discussing a plan of attack, openly, and then proceding with what we (CJ) thinks is best. However, as already mentioned, the way this thread was brought forth seemed a bit less open then how we usually run things.

It seems there is a sense of urgency to get things done immediately or something bad will happen. Yes, discussion might slow down action, but it might help refine our ideas before they are put to action. Regardless of what we do, we're going to end up fixing something down the line. 

Not to be crude, but we must shit or get off the pot.

I'm just trying to make sure we won't get anything on the seat.

-MillsJROSS

Quick answer: I'd like to help anyway I can. I graduated last month, started work, but I now have a lot of free time I never had while in school.

The age requirement.  I think this is reasonable because while not every adult behaves responsibly, I would argue that most understand responsibility better than children/teens do and won't flake out as much.

I think I used the wrong word, here. I meant forum age. I do respect there be a minimum age requirement.

-MillsJROSS

I appreciate this and understand where you're coming from. Basically, we've had several public discussions on how the games database should work, and we usually end up without a consensus and nothing happens. The reason this initiative was discussed behind closed doors was so that we could make a decision and get on with it.

I don't agree, because it seems one of the times we discussed things we actually got the system we have now. I mean we discussed among the forum, and things happened. Obviously, the system we have now wasn't as great as we expected, but we've learned from it, and it was a step up from our last system.

Nobody said this was a democratic process. A system of rating that pleases everybody is more or less an impossibility. Either all 3000+ members of this community have a say in the process, or it goes to a group of regular, longtime members to sort out.

No one ever said this was a democracy, but we've mostly been very good about discussing things before a decision is made. Yes, at some point someone, CJ, has to give the greenlight to do something. However, as a longtime member of this forum, I very much would like to express my oppinions. So I am doing just that.

There's no room for "Well every member doesn't need to have a say, but I think that...", which will only prove to slow the job at hand to a crawl and mire it in petty forum politics which may arise out of someboby's perceived dissatisfaction with the process.


I, for one, would like to see some action now, rather than sit through everybody's two cents on the subject.

Since when have we really had that much forum politics? I think what we need to do is discuss and then have action. Obtain as many oppinions as possible and move forward with that. I think there are people with good ideas, and I don't feel that we should not care about what people have to say.

The formation of a rating, and cataloging, body should be arranged and instigated by one or more moderators, which I believe it has been, since we trust these people to maintain our forums, run the awards, etc.

I don't see why this should prove any different.

Well, for one, it's not up to moderators to decide what awards win or not. Most of the categories were also attained by open discussion. A moderator is a person of established trust, and they should be a part of this, but we should have a say as well.

Also Mills, I wasn't implying that you're a scared child but I stand by the statement that you're preaching doom without seeing the system in action.  I really, really dislike it when people attack something without seeing a working example from which to form a complete opinion.  Right now you (and not you alone, really) are forming an opinion based on a single document that is a WIP of some basic criteria used for rating the games.  Meanwhile, if you have some suggestions to improve the document format then by all means share them.

Of course I don't agree with this. All I'm getting now is promises that things are being done and snippets of information as to what is happening. I'm not in the know, so to speak. Perhaps, I'd be less prone to be against this material, if all the discussions were at least open to the public eye. I don't have to see something in action to form an oppinion about it. I can concede the fact that I may be wrong, I may be crazy, but it just may be a lunatic your looking for. If this system works, great! But I just in general, don't like feeling that my oppinions on the subject seem not as weighted as people in the current secret panel.

Ideas:
One, I don't like a forum age requirement for the panel. As mentioned, newer members aren't embedded into this community have a more subjective oppinion of games. As we're appealing to people who are essentially just browsing the game section, without being in a community, it seems newer members voting habits would be more in touch with said browsers.

Two, if a panelist is a hard working individual, than he/she should not have a predestined time to leave the panel. Don't get rid of people who are doing a good job. Just don't cap off the amount of people in the panel, either.

Three, I think a good system would almost be what rotten tomatoe has. In this fashion people can  either go by the critics or the masses. With the only criteria being, "I liked it," "I didn't like it."  And if people wanted to, right up comments/reviews so maybe the author could get some vital feedback, too all the merrier.

Four, the moderators should be reponsible for getting rid of dead links on the game database, whether that's by moving it to a deadlink section that can come back alive, if the link is reestablished, or just deleting them. They should also be responsible for genre selection. Moderators should, to me, have the power to move things accordingly, and to keep things running smoothly, and that's the end of the line.

And I'm done, for now.

-MillsJROSS

I don't think panic would be the word I'd use, this is something I don't like, I said so. If the system is used, I will adjust, I never said I wouldn't.

First of all, what we have on our hands is a situation, that needs to be solved, preferably quickly.
The situation is basically that 1/3-1/2 of the database entries are dead links, and another 1/4 are made up by games so bad they're not worth downloading.

It seems to me, that dead links aren't an enormous problem. Remove the game (Which Ace Quest has been part of this category for a while). Or put it in a section of dead links (to perhaps keep the voting system intact), and if people want to bring their game back from dead links then they can always do so. Then either contact the author through PM, and tell them if they want to readd their game, their welcome. That's a problem that could be catalogued in a day, and dealt with by a panel, but has little to do with voting.

If 1/4 of the games are really bad, then people will download them and find out for themselves. This in itself isn't a problem. The problem of our voting system isn't the unplayable games, it's the good ones that never got found.

Another part of this situation is that we have a system of rating games now (the users' percentage) that is far from consistent; some games have a hundred votes, some have only one, and people most often just vote 100% for their favourite games and 0% for games they hate, or games whose authors they hate. Furthermore, people don't have any criteria to weigh their votes against.

That's been a problem for a while, and I agree completely that something needs to be done about it.  But to say there is no criteria would be a lie. The voting system does have criteria, it's a question of whether people are sticking to it or not.

Considering that so many members are suddenly very concerned with how the rating is carried out, I find it peculiar that this voting has never been brought to attention. Sure, the verdict of an official panel will weigh more, but the users' percentages have for very long been the only system, and bound to have made huge impact on people's downloading habits.

Um...I find it peculiar that you don't remember this voting system being brought to attention on, I believe, two fairly big threads.

AGSers definitely care how this system is being done with.

We have some 800 titles to wade through. We need to be effective and professional. We're trying a method now, and this method has been approved by CJ. If, in the end, your very own favourite little darling game ends up with one cup less than you had expected, it's not much to do about it. We can't accomodate for all. In return, we might end up with a games database that looks like somebody actually cared about it.

This seems like a very condescending statement to me, if it isn't I apologize. Bit it seems as if you're saying I'm arguing because my games won't get the points I think they deserve, which is far from my mind. I'm not concerned with games I've created. If I was, my games wouldn't have dead links. Now maybe you are talking generaly, but your post is, more or less, in response to mine, so I interpreted as a comment at me.

Not every AGS-member can have their wishes accomodated for, especially when they aren't prepared to take part in the very labour (signing up for the panel) of sorting the database themselves.

Once again, don't know if this is general or not, if it is, I once again apologize. The last thing I want to do is be condescending myself. I for one, am prepared to take part in the very labour, but I don't agree with the system given to me, so I don't feel inclined to do volunteer my work.

It just feels like there's a lot of discussion behind closed doors when this is something for the community. It wasn't really brought forth to the community, but it's more like, this is what we're going to do, deal with it. Well, I for one will deal with it, but I don't want to deal with it.

Once again looking and ProgZmax's post I want to repeat myself. My game has nothing to do with this discussion. I know people think that I always have AQ on my mind 100%, and perhaps two or three years ago, you might have been right. But my game has nothing to do with disliking this voting system. I just don't like this voting system on it's own merits.

Cheer up and don't be so down on a process just because it's new or seems scary.  Many game sites have a site rating and it doesn't hurt them.  DON'T PANIC!

I'm not uncheery. I'm just not going to be silent when I don't particularly like something. I'm not a scared child waiting for the boogey voting sytem to come and get me, I'm an adult, who perceives this idea to need work, and it needs to be discussed on the forums, rather than in some other silly little place where the community can't offer oppinions.

-MillsJROSS

I really don't like this idea very much. I agree we do need some new rating system, but I'm not sure this is the way to go.

For one, I don't like the idea of getting rid of panel members. Mainly, for consistency sake. This isn't to say panel members should be set in stone. I just think that if your doing a good job of playing games and voting to some criteria, then there's no reason to get rid of you. You're being productive, and we seem to be under the assumption that there's an endless supply of people who are qualified AND willing to replace people. Get all the people on the panel you can, is really what I'm getting at. Including people under the two year mark. Seems to me, if someone can play games and rate them, it's more accurate if their not embedded within this community as much. If anything, newer people would tend to be more subjective. Also, with the backlog of games it seems you need all the help you can get.

I'm iffish about the criteria being used to judge games. It could be my lack of understanding on how this is going to work, but it just doesn't sit well with me. It seems that there would be games that I love that would fall on the negative side. Is each point getting it's own cup? To me that would make more sense. In this way people could pick and choose what is more important to them when looking at a breakdown of how many cups were given in certain areas.

I don't know how the information will be displayed, just cups, I assume. But I think there has to be some breakdown of how the rating was gotten. The bad graphics lowered the rating to something. Otherwise the cup system is really no better than the percentage system.

I agree with scotch. If this is rating is going to be used more as a filter for people playing the games, than constructive criticism for the actual author of the game, it should be more based on the subjective, "We Liked it." Then some small reasons why.

If a game is buggy just give it some sort of icon that represents how buggy, and let players choose from that.

While it's evident that a lot of thought has been put into this, it also seems like this is being rushed without really having a good discussion about it. It doesn't seem we need a panel till we've discussed all the kinks out. I also just see a panel of people slowly losing interest.

I don't think we need a "dedicated" panel. I think we need a better rating system that is open to everyone. I think we don't need to add on to the old rating system, but almost wipe it clean. I think we need a rating system that is specifically helpful to the author of the game, as well as used to filter out worse games. And I think we then need a panel of people to use the general masses oppinion and rate it according to that.

I really think this needs to be discussed further, and if it wasn't so late in the night for me, I would elaborate and suggest criteria that I think should be in there. The only gem of an idea here is breaking things up into genre's, otherwise, I'm opposed to this way of going about the voting system.

-MillsJROSS

I enjoy these movies. I'm not looking for anything great, just some action, a few one-liners, and piratey things. All of the movies have provided me that, and I've been content with it.

One complaint I'd have of the last two are the length of the films. They do keep getting longer, and the first one was long too, but since it was in a tight one story arch movie it seemed to flow better. Wheras the new ones story is really kind of sparse and they fill it in with too much action and one-liners.

Another complain is really just the references to their previous movies, which I haven't seen in a while. It's not really their fault that I don't rewatch movies over and over again, but it did take me a while to remember what exactly had happened before the third installment.

It kept me mostly entertained for it's length, and I know I'll see the fourth movie.

-MillsJROSS

1994 Green Toyato Camry, sport addition (which means I have a spoiler and two doors). Still is currently my car, and I plan it being my car until I run it to the ground.

As a first car I suggest Toyota's or Honda's. They tend to be fairly low maintenance, at least where I live.

-Justin

Why would CJ quit being a god?

And in reality, even if he decided to stop doing anything he'd probably leave the source code with someone he could trust. I don't think he'd release open source, but you never know.

-MillsJROSS

You've lost so much of MrColossal's respect.

I'd honestly like to believe in things like psi balls, but the unicorn told me they didn't exist.

-MillsJROSS

It is a very well written game. Very fun to play. It's only flaw is that it is a bit buggy. But if you like longer dialog with tons of wit, it's a great game.

-MillsJROSS

I can't speak for the KQ new collection, as I have not bough it yet. However, I did immediatly buy the SQ collection, even though I had the previous collection.

All in all, it was obviously quickly put together, and the manual wasn't complete. However, as you can find the original documentation on-line, it wasn't that big of a deal. I found the install to be fine, mainly because the games are so small, you might as well just have them on your system. They ran well, and I had a lot less timing issues than I've had in the past. The only problem I had was running the sixth one, which because it was running from the DOSBOX it was running far slower than it had a need to. I ended up just making a seperate installation of SQ6, from a previous cd I bought.

I'm kind of half and half on how I feel about these products. From what I can gather, they were hastily put together. I think they could have been put together better, manual wise. And if any of the collections had their AGI remake, they didn't include the older version of the game. It seems like it took far too long for this collection to come out, considering the product. However, that said, it is more manageable on newer computers. Yeah, you don't have the option of playing with settings on installation, but it took me an hour sometimes to install and fiddle with everything to get some of the games working previously. It also worked with my soundcard a hell of a lot better, and I wasn't forced to listen to my internal speaker. And as the collections compromise, generally, five or more games, 20 dollars isn't that bad of a price.

I do intend to buy all the collections, as there are a few games in some of these collections that I've missed. Yeah, they do suffer from some flaws from packaging, but the games themselves are gems.