In the new system, how are we handling the detection and notification of errors, particularly Gateway errors?

Thanks,

JD

From: Jack B. Nimble
To: John Doe
Subject: RE: Error handling

In a world so alien it boggles the imagination, there is war, strife, anger, pain, and… hope.

A small impish creature named “Hell Dorado” commands an army of disgruntled ex-Keebler Elves (layoffs due to the declining economy) who now ride the wild currents of the ether within our network. These poor, twisted creatures are forced to scour the information wasteland of our logs looking for errors (particularly for Gateway errors – as they find them to be of a savory and unique flavor) and report the presence of said errors to their terrible task-master lest he unleash his binary whip upon them, lashing at their already tattered and tormented e-souls. It is quite the tale of misery, woe, oppression, and whoa. I hear that recently, a young unnamed hero has risen among the rank and file of now proclaimed “Ether Elves” and is trying to rally support to overthrow the czarist Hell Dorado.

Unfortunately for our unnamed hero, Hell Dorado’s spies are everywhere and word of this little rebellion has seeped back to the sinister ears of The Dreaded One (Hell Dorado). Now, Hell Dorado has unleashed his enforcers, the Daemons, to find and eliminate the rebellion and it’s upstart leader. Will the rebellion fail? Will Hell Dorado rule with an iron fist forever? Only you can find out…

7 Layers of Network is now available on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. Single and Co-op Multiplayer (2-4 players) campaign mode. ESRB rating: Ridiculous. All rights reserved for the innocent.

JN

Three overweight ladies and their fat little kids are standing in line at McDonald’s. One mother turns to her friends and says, “See, that’s the problem with America these days. They don’t have playgrounds at McDonald’s anymore, all they have are these video games.”

America, your course is clear. Install playgrounds at your McDonald’s, instead of video games, and your problem will be solved. You will once again be the perfect nation that all good American citizens know you must rightfully be. Video games are the bane of American perfection, and are not to be tolerated at the healthiest, most American fast-food establishment known to man.

Of course, this problem cannot be solved in America alone. We must take all video games out of foreign McDonald’s locations as well, and replace them with good old-fashioned American playgrounds, lest our problems persist. And if those foreign countries resist, then they must be communists, or terrorists, or the most evil gamists, and by American God® we must force them to change for the good of the American People®, because what’s good for America is best for the World, as everyone but retarded foreign communist evil gamists knows.

That is all.

This is what happens when you are unemployed and your trainer decides to have you come in at a time that is more convenient for him.

Coincidentally, I have a job interview on Friday for a job I applied at over six months ago, and I’m also having to battle the Navy over losing the single biggest reason I had to join because my recruiter forgot that the application had a deadline. My mom was in the hospital for pain that turned out to be completely mysterious and unexplainable, and I got to see a guy with a lightsaber compete against a transvestite in the costume competition of the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince midnight movie premiere.

Sometimes, it seems, random chance decides to make your week a little more interesting.

“Subject: New face in QA

All,

It is my pleasure to announce the latest addition to the Special Advanced Warning Software and Configuration Defect Detection Unit (SAWSCDDU; pronounced SAWS-kuh-do). Janet Dorn comes to Blamco not on a horse or by train, not on foot through the rain, not from under a rock or out of a box, not running from a wild boar or a rabid fox, but rather I think she drives in like a normal(1) person. In her years of driving to and from work and home, she has done so from such places as:
• her house – a structure with the purpose of acting as a shelter and residence for human beings (more specifically, Janet)
• Microsoft – a little start-up software company (keep an eye on this one, it will be big soon)
• Witness Systems Inc – not to be confused with the Witness Relocation Program
• Asymetrix Corp – not very symmetrical but they have cool digital tools for multimedia computer based training

Janet has waived her right to say something special at this time, instead she gave her full endorsement of the compositional skills of the herald heralding her arrival with the proviso that the herald does not incite a riot, looting, or wanton destruction through the act of this heraldry.

(1) This statement is in no way meant to disparage those individuals who walk, run, swim, ski (water, snow, or sand), fly, teleport, ride a cycle (uni, bi, tri, or motor), skate (inline, board, or old school quad rollers), ride the bus, ride a horse (or any other animal, real or imaginary), telecommute, simply will themselves to work, or use any method other than operating a device in such a manner as to be described as “driving” in order to get to work.

[Mentally Altered Guy]
Blamco – the Makers of Mac & Cheese”

Here we see the use of a footnote to assist in the misdirection. This suggests a level of competency which means that the author is not a “madman” per se, just nuts.

“Subject: New face in QA

All,

Having said that, let’s get on with the show. And now, our next guest… you may recognize her as Sgt. Tully from “Dead Heroes Never Die Again” or Mrs. Esterhouse in “Why Can’t I Have a Red Balloon” or ‘Big’ Tom Henry’s little cousin’s roommate’s sister’s imaginary friend Lotar (LOW – tar) the friendly alien in the after school special “Cranked out on Crack.” Or for those of you who like crossword puzzles, she was the answer to 15 across in the New York Times Sunday 18th October edition… Belle Baass.

Ms. Baass will be taking a short hiatus from her national tour of raising money for fund raisers to spend some time with us here at Blamco in the QA department. We welcome her as the latest addition to the Assemblage of Defect Detection and Reporting Personnel (ADDRP) formerly known as the Elite Bug Finding Force (after a naming conflict) with the official title of QA Intern.

Belle will return to Stanford in September where she will continue her pursuit of her former life (being defined as the series of events having transpired before her employment with Blamco). When asked about her single most favorite thing in the known universe, Belle replied with, “books, travel, movies, and food.” Upon further interrogation, it was revealed that books or travel were better than the others but books about travel were not really rated so high. Which proves that the sum of its parts is in no way related to the equitable division of assets. Well, that, and no one really likes candy corn.

Please welcome Belle to Blamco when you have a moment as she is a very pleasant and friendly individual who would love to say hi.

Thank you,

[Mentally Altered Guy]
Blamco – the Makers of Mac & Cheese”

In this case, one can see that there are facts which seem to relate towards what appears to be an email sent out to inform others: 1) a new employee has been hired, 2) some background information about the new employee, and 3) the role in which the new employee finds herself employed. However, as these facts are buried amidst the chaotic debris of madness, it is difficult to glean what is important (and relevant) from the drivel.

In this particular game, what is perhaps the most extreme experiment in game minimalism I’ve ever seen, the flow of ‘play’ proceeds thusly:

1) Start the game.
2) Pray that no one else in the world does the same for at least 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
3) Win.

And that constitutes the entirety of the game. Gameplay is visualized by a large status bar slowly changing from black to white, followed by, upon successful completion, an equally simple final screen. (I won’t tell you what it is in case you want to preserve the suspense. Alternately, the final screen is a bitmap included with the .zip, so if you really can’t wait, you can always make with the clicky-clicky.)

The fundamental conflict in the game is that as soon as another person, anywhere in the world, starts playing, you lose. The game vanishes from the screen and you must start over. Ultimately, in order to win the game, you must be the only person in the world playing this game for a minimum of four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Your own personal slice of time in which you are doing something unique, something that no one else in the world is doing.

As a commenter suggested, this is perhaps the world’s simplest MMO. It is also unique in that it is the only multiplayer game wherein one can only win if no one else is playing with you.

Does this actually constitute a game? All you have to do is click on the executable; in fact, there is no other way for the player to interact with the game. It is also the only way to interact with other players of the game, id est, killing their game by starting your own. However, in its standard-issue form, even that aspect is hidden from you; all you see is the status bar, and nothing else. Winning is pure luck: at no point is strategy or skill involved. Is it still a game?

Minimal representation, minimal interaction, and minimal victory requirements. Is it still a game?

Later, one might discover a better visualization of the game: a map of the current leader. After this, the game is more clearly a game, branching away from minimalist art and into an exploration of representational pseudo-solipsism and wanton griefing behavior. One is busy contemplating one’s uniqueness not via status bar but on an actual picture of the world, when lo! some asshole comes along and ruins your game. The battle is on! Start new games as quick as you can to kill your opponents’ games, or lull him into complacence and wait to snatch victory from his slimy, Turkish grasp at the last second! (Surprisingly, I saw a lot of players from Turkey while I watched. Don’t they have anything better to do in that country?)

Several commenters on the game’s orginal post indicated a desire to build a batch file for no reason other than to start games every couple minutes, just to fuck with other players and prevent them from ever winning.

—-

(Segue: I have decided that there are only three possible victory conditions given the map visualization mechanic, and they are as follows:
1a) By pure luck, no one else in the world is bothering to play at the same time as you.
1b) Other players are watching the map, and have kindly consented to allow you to win, without interruption.

Note that 1a and 1b are indistinguishable to the player.

2) You forcibly create a Type 1 situation by griefing all other players into submission.

For the record, I won a Type 2 victory. Bastards will learn not to screw with me when I’m on the perch. I return you to the rest of my post now.)

—-

Still, we come back to the question: is it a game? You don’t control anything, at best you have a status bar on top of a map picture, and victory conditions are entirely dependent on luck and whimsy. I say, yes, it is still a game. More than anything, after I started playing, I developed a strong desire to win. Frustration crept in occasionally, and boredom certainly, but throughout I was motivated to conquer for no other reason than that I could say I had done so. I have no doubts that what I was doing was playing a game, albeit one less traditional than anything else I’ve ever done to which was attached the moniker.

Ultimately, I feel that something deserves to be called a game if someone wants to play it. If no one wants to play it, it ceases to be (or never starts being) a game, and is instead a waste of time. This is the sufficient criterion for gamehood. Anything else - fancy graphics, captivating plot, complicated control-schemes, well-designed multiplayer environments, the works - is nothing more than window dressing. It all comes down to whether a person wants to play or not. To me, this is the only possible way to classify a game as a game.

—-

Right now, I am most likely not the only person unemployed and blogging from a laptop on a couch at home, daydreaming of Dew and the stress zone between the Infocalypse and the Singularity, and whether a mesh-style network comprises a non-singular, possibly-plural ontological entity. I am most likely not the only person barefoot, with a headache and an empty stomach, who is also warm and dry and attended by a mildly paranoid and rampantly disinterested cat. But for four minutes and thirty three seconds, I knew I was the only person playing a game.

For three and a half hours, I tried for four and a half minutes to myself, and eventually I got it. In the end, there was no great personal catharsis, no momentous feeling of individual identity, no lifechanging instant of satori. I was, however, mildly amused at my accomplishment. I have played the game, and I have won.

That is all for now.

“Subject: New face in QA

All,

Once again I find myself as a herald of wondrous news. The QA department would like to announce the newest member of the elite bug finding force: EBFF (Elite Bug Finding Force).

And now, ladies and gentlemen, working out of the cubicle adjacent to [existing male employee] and [existing female employee], weighing in at some amount of pounds which could be converted (if one wished) into kilograms, wearing normal clothes but favoring green, hailing from Redmond WA, with a record of 4-0, please welcome to Blamco the newest member of QA, [male first name ending in an "s" such as Thomas, Markus, Maximus, or Willis] “” [last name], QA Intern!

[male first name ending in an 's' such as Thomas, Markus, Maximus, or Willis]’s’ses’ favorite sport is Basketball but he opted to make no comment about his apparent indifference to trees. When asked, he neither supported nor denied the idea of air. In summary, [male first name ending in an "s" such as Thomas, Markus, Maximus, or Willis] will be staying with Blamco until September 7, 2007 at which time he will be off again to college in beautiful [city in California]. He is coming aboard to assist QA with the Dandy Boy migrations and learn a bit about the technical side of what we do here. Please welcome [male first name ending in an "s" such as Thomas, Markus, Maximus, or Willis] and help make him feel at home.

Note: The words “elite”, “force”, “kilograms”, “of” and similar expressions are intended to identify items, ideas, and concepts which may or may not be related in any way to the correct or proper definition of the aforementioned words but will be referred to hereafter as “the lamp’s reckoning.” Additionally, or, in addition to, any reference to the color green is to be likened to the darker, more forest-like green colors and should not in any way be interoperated to be of the more neon or pastel versions.

It is to note that [male first name ending in an "s" such as Thomas, Markus, Maximus, or Willis] [last name]’s moniker, or nickname, while not trademarked or copyrighted in any way by [male first name ending in an "s" such as Thomas, Markus, Maximus, or Willis] [last name], should not be used since it isn’t anything at all (per his request). “Devildriver”, having been taken by a band, is not now, nor has it been, professionally used in conjunction with [male first name ending in an "s" such as Thomas, Markus, Maximus, or Willis] [last name] or his likeness and all legal actions pending against Mr. [last name] pursuant to anything related to the name are hearsay at best.

Thank you,

[Mentally Altered Guy]”

As you can clearly see that [Mentally Altered Guy] has clearly progressed further along the slippery slope of insanity. At this rate, my theory is that [Mentally Altered Guy] will become completely instable in a matter of months. My next chapter will examine the his further progression but, in the interest of observing the changes, I will take further samples of his insanity with more frequency.

“Subject: Welcome [male name]

Greetings all,

Please welcome [male name] to the Blamco family. He joins our vast legions as a Quality Assurance Engineer (level II) having recently hailed from the entertainment software land where the grass is green and plentiful. When I asked him what he would rather be or a fish, he responded:

“I’m from central New York but I’ve been up and down the west coast for the last 15 years. All of my software experience has been in entertainment software and I consider myself a gamer although not the cool kind. I like hiking and doing outdoorsy stuff with my family just as much as camping at my computer. For something completely different I also keep honeybees. I’m looking forward to the fast paced, rockstar lifestyle that comes with being a Blamco employee.”

[Slightly Altered Guy]”

See, not too bad. In fact [male name] seems to be just as off kilter as the [Slightly Altered Guy]. All in all, this was a totally OK email with just a hint of odd.

In my next chapter, I shall examine the next step in the evolution of this insanity as it slowly starts taking over this man’s brain.