Identification of Common Problems In Game Design - Design, Prototyping, UI, Graphics

Hello Everyone!
I am a Games Design Masters Student in University of Central Lancashire and I have decided to make a small survey to identify common problems in Games. Survey takes only about 5 minutes and you just have to fill in some simple questions such as the problems you are most unhappy with the games.
Than I may try to find a solution to specified problems depending on the survey results. More data i have will result in more efficient and correct results, therefore you can freely share this survey in any web page, blog or social media.
Thank you for the help!
Note : No personal data is collected.
Survey : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1e3y_oH-AhnlvY6YWh8Hamabq-lqgzCeOxbsrkfd0fTQ/viewform?usp=send_form

Related

Dedicated File Sharing Website for XDA

Hello All,
I am a regular visitor of the XDA and found it the most resourceful website on the planet. It gives me a sense that I have come to my people place.
After browsing on to various posts and topics I felt that I should also do something for this community and decided to create file sharing website where most powerful brains (XDA members) can put there hard work and share with the world without any difficulty as I have seen many of you people uses (4shared.com, rapidshare, megaupload, etc) but they all not so easy place to download the files. I want to give you people a beautiful place to upload and download files.
I firmly believe that we can grow high with each others support and can always take a further step even in those directions for which people says "Its Blocked".
I want that this place (XDA should be called as one stop mobile solution place) because where peoples thought ends we start working from that place.
But I want to know that do you people really require this service, because only after that I will be able to work upon it.
Please give my your feedback.
vikas_vtcm said:
Hello All,
I am a regular visitor of the XDA and found it the most resourceful website on the planet. It gives me a sense that I have come to my people place.
After browsing on to various posts and topics I felt that I should also do something for this community and decided to create file sharing website where most powerful brains (XDA members) can put there hard work and share with the world without any difficulty as I have seen many of you people uses (4shared.com, rapidshare, megaupload, etc) but they all not so easy place to download the files. I want to give you people a beautiful place to upload and download files.
I firmly believe that we can grow high with each others support and can always take a further step even in those directions for which people says "Its Blocked".
I want that this place (XDA should be called as one stop mobile solution place) because where peoples thought ends we start working from that place.
But I want to know that do you people really require this service, because only after that I will be able to work upon it.
Please give my your feedback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Many people have tried this before, but the bandwidth needed usually puts paid to them, as cost of running is HUGE. One month, I used 3TB bandwidth just for one ROM. If our team has 5 ROMs just now, that could be a lot of bandwidth (not necessarily 15 TB, but lots)... Multiply that by number of devs, you could have issues with finding a data center...
And storage space. Each ROM for android is 100 to 200 MB, multiplied by all the devs, that would be a hell of a lot of storage space... And where would you back it up to?
It would be a mammoth task... Just saying
pulser_g2 said:
Many people have tried this before, but the bandwidth needed usually puts paid to them, as cost of running is HUGE. One month, I used 3TB bandwidth just for one ROM. If our team has 5 ROMs just now, that could be a lot of bandwidth (not necessarily 15 TB, but lots)... Multiply that by number of devs, you could have issues with finding a data center...
And storage space. Each ROM for android is 100 to 200 MB, multiplied by all the devs, that would be a hell of a lot of storage space... And where would you back it up to?
It would be a mammoth task... Just saying
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your quick response,
Bandwidth and the data space will not be a problem with me ...
As i can arrange an Unlimited data space and bandwidth for this service. With a real high speed connectivity...
But I need your support .... Are you with my me???
Hello all,
I need feedback please...
Is this services really required???
As Pulser said, bandwidth can be a huge issue. However the even larger issue would be with the software companies taking issue with a central repository like what you propose.
Generally, rapidshare and the others offer a certain degree of anonymity, which came in handy whenever Microsoft got a bug up its butt.
Sent from my rooted Droid X, powered by Froyo and Big Red.
As NATF said, the issue of hosting the files would put you in shaky legal waters (regardless of where you live or hold the server, since something like this could reach international scales pretty quickly)...
Even with unlimited bandwidth and unlimited space, I can assure you there will be a limit, where the datacenter would not allow a dedicated server to operate at (I presume you are talking dedicated server, as anything less than full dedicated would have you kicked off the package faster than you could say XDA
But as for bandwidth, I have saturated out 5x100Mbps mirrors with one ROM release, so I honestly think you would be facing an immense task.
Coupled with the fact that even the tiniest slip up would result in almost all the ROMs available being offline while maintenance occurred (making your service lose credibility), if there was data loss, it could be catastrophic if nobody had backups. (Data loss could be due to police raid and seizure warrant, or hack attempts)
Personally, I will always release ROMs from either servers I own, or using space kindly donated by users of our ROMs who have servers operating below capacity.
Mediafire/multiupload etc are also so popular that it would be hard to persuade people to move across. And being able to upload there keeps people further from Microsoft etc, rather than directly uploading...
Imagine if you got subpoenaed for ftpd logs (the logs of all uploads to the server), or worse, the apache access ogs (the details of everyone who downloaded from it)
Whilst it's a very kind and generous offer, I think the logistics and legal issues would prevent it being feasible. A central repository is a good link in the chain to burst, hence why the scattergun approach is much more effective
pulser_g2 said:
As NATF said, the issue of hosting the files would put you in shaky legal waters (regardless of where you live or hold the server, since something like this could reach international scales pretty quickly)...
Even with unlimited bandwidth and unlimited space, I can assure you there will be a limit, where the datacenter would not allow a dedicated server to operate at (I presume you are talking dedicated server, as anything less than full dedicated would have you kicked off the package faster than you could say XDA
But as for bandwidth, I have saturated out 5x100Mbps mirrors with one ROM release, so I honestly think you would be facing an immense task.
Coupled with the fact that even the tiniest slip up would result in almost all the ROMs available being offline while maintenance occurred (making your service lose credibility), if there was data loss, it could be catastrophic if nobody had backups. (Data loss could be due to police raid and seizure warrant, or hack attempts)
Personally, I will always release ROMs from either servers I own, or using space kindly donated by users of our ROMs who have servers operating below capacity.
Mediafire/multiupload etc are also so popular that it would be hard to persuade people to move across. And being able to upload there keeps people further from Microsoft etc, rather than directly uploading...
Imagine if you got subpoenaed for ftpd logs (the logs of all uploads to the server), or worse, the apache access ogs (the details of everyone who downloaded from it)
Whilst it's a very kind and generous offer, I think the logistics and legal issues would prevent it being feasible. A central repository is a good link in the chain to burst, hence why the scattergun approach is much more effective
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your credible feedback..
Is there some solution to overcome all theses legal and other kind of issues... and on my side I will look in the matter and get back to you guys...
I really appreciate that you guys took pain in putting some light in this matter.

[Q] Information about the nitty gritty of XDA

hey, i recently joined this page on facebook (i've withheld the name of the page as to not seem like i'm here to promote it or such, not that it requires promotion with its 2 million members) and a many of us including the owner of the page there are a free-thinking bunch. The problem is that whenever some user finds something we say offensive, we get reported and are blocked from posting for 10-12 hours, sometimes entire days...
The gracious admin there took it upon himself to finance an entirely new site as a refuge for us. But most of lack the technical know-how of getting a site up and running. We have a few volunteers ready to devote their time and skills to help in the site's construction.
The owner suggested a forum-esque feel to the site rather than something like facebook itself and when anyone mentions forum the only thing my mind thinks is XDA!! This site is the epitome of what a forum should be about!!
So i was hoping if anyone could give me some sort of information as to what the site is based on (HTML, PHP, etc)? what type security measures should we be looking at? we read something about a using social networking engines to enable features like instant messaging...
i was hoping if someone could point me (and by relation, us) in the right direction.
Any help would be much appreciated.
psychocyst said:
hey, i recently joined this page on facebook (i've withheld the name of the page as to not seem like i'm here to promote it or such, not that it requires promotion with its 2 million members) and a many of us including the owner of the page there are a free-thinking bunch. The problem is that whenever some user finds something we say offensive, we get reported and are blocked from posting for 10-12 hours, sometimes entire days...
The gracious admin there took it upon himself to finance an entirely new site as a refuge for us. But most of lack the technical know-how of getting a site up and running. We have a few volunteers ready to devote their time and skills to help in the site's construction.
The owner suggested a forum-esque feel to the site rather than something like facebook itself and when anyone mentions forum the only thing my mind thinks is XDA!! This site is the epitome of what a forum should be about!!
So i was hoping if anyone could give me some sort of information as to what the site is based on (HTML, PHP, etc)? what type security measures should we be looking at? we read something about a using social networking engines to enable features like instant messaging...
i was hoping if someone could point me (and by relation, us) in the right direction.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This site is running on vBulletin 3.8.6 which is commercial software. There are free bulletin boards out there. As for security, this is a massive topic that I don't think anyone can summarise. Obvious things like good password policies (long and random, never re-used, etc) and keeping all software patched up to date are key. Other than that it all depends on the implementation. Also, there are penetration testing tools that you can find off the internet to test your site.
Dave
thanks a million Dave. i'll look into it and pass the message on to our group.
psychocyst said:
thanks a million Dave. i'll look into it and pass the message on to our group.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What Dave said, but beware that your site is only as secure as the system it runs on.
Your system can be the most secure in the world, with lovely nice PHP code, the latest patched vBulletin install, and I might still get into it...
If you are using shared web hosting, and some peon is using an out of date wordpress install, they can likely wreak a fair bit of havock on a poorly setup server.
Unfortunately most shared hosting is poorly setup. If you have 2 million members, you WILL need dedicated server space. I would also suggest you need to seriously consider the undertaking here - 2 million people is A LOT, and I don't know how many simultaneous users you are talking about, but it sounds a big target...
You will need a fairly powerful server from the sounds of it. I would suggest looking at the available forum systems, installing them (free ones), or trying out the demos.
I assist in the running of a number of sites, from single figure numbers of visitors per day, through to hundreds of thousands/millions per day... The requirements for these differ HUGELY. While something free like SMF might be good for a site with 200 folk, it's not likely a good idea on a site with 100,000 visitors per day posting...
Consider backup strategies too, for WHEN the worst happens - not if... Where will you store backups? How will you secure them?
Finally, remember to look to the future. phpBB is pretty poor, I suggest avoiding it. But what will you move to next? Make sure you pick a system that ain't gonna die tomorrow... If it does, you are stuck without security updates, and you might find it hard to migrate to another one... Be sure to go with a system that has good support to migrate further if/when the time comes...
woah!! ok, this was a big help...although we have close to 2 million people signed on, only about 30 - 40% of those are regularly active and perhaps 100 or so who're almost always there...
i saw BBCode implementation at linux mint forums and found it a total fail compared to XDA...i had completely forgotten about the back-up portion...
knew i could count on XDA for a lil' help...God i love this site!!
psychocyst said:
woah!! ok, this was a big help...although we have close to 2 million people signed on, only about 30 - 40% of those are regularly active and perhaps 100 or so who're almost always there...
i saw BBCode implementation at linux mint forums and found it a total fail compared to XDA...i had completely forgotten about the back-up portion...
knew i could count on XDA for a lil' help...God i love this site!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha no worries.
From those figures I would size the site based on coping with 5000 simultaneous users minimum. I doubt you will get as much tbh, as many people hit the homepage and look at the latest, then go to the next site they visit.
If you can afford, aim to cope with 10k+ simultaneous, to cover you for if you get a bout of publicity...
I'd reckon on a well-run server you would be OK with 8 to 16 GB of RAM, and a few hundred gigabytes of hdd. Bandwidth is hard to gauge without info on the site and content...
But I think it could be run for under $400 per month, and that is a very high estimate to cover things like multiple backup locations.
You will instantly ruin your site reputation if you need to use backups and they don't work...
If nobody is experienced in server management, hire someone to do it. These things are often best left to the experts where you are unsure... It will likely pay for itself in their expertise at least 3 times a month (or at least that's how often some of my clients proclaim I saved their "lives" )

Mobiroo [Toronto]: Jr Mobile/Web QA Analyst

ABOUT US:
Based in downtown Toronto, we are an exciting, dynamic and rapidly growing company in the mobile industry. Founded in early 2009, we bring a unique alternative to mobile apps with a patent-pending platform. Recently awarded with the coveted Deloitte Fast 50 "Companies to Watch" Award, Mobiroo is being widely recognized as major player in the mobile app space.
MOBIROO'S CULTURE:
Know that you are part of the core team, in an organization that's at the cusp of rapid growth, with an opportunity to reap the long-term benefits
Tremendous growth opportunities in terms of leading, taking on responsibilities and gaining valuable experience through a first-of-its-kind platform
Work with a dynamic, motivated, passionate team that knows how to have fun
LOOKING FOR:
Someone who is dynamic, energetic, diligent and motivated to join our Quality Assurance team. The candidate will be responsible for testing and reporting issues for our web portal, campaigns and 3rd party mobile applications. The chosen candidate will have the opportunity to lead, learn, and gain incredible exposure to mobile, web and systems development.
If you are eager to work and test the latest technologies, to push our brand new, global mobile product, we are eager to hear from you!
ABSOLUTE MUST-HAVE SKILLS:
Minimum of 1 year of performing manual QA, testing, and debugging of applications.
Able to switch priorities at a moments notice.
Be able to work as a team but also unsupervised for extended periods.
Able to write and execute test cases.
Strong attention to detail.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills
NICE TO HAVE SKILLS:
Previous experience either implementing or using an automated QA/testing process
Understanding of Mobile devices and their operating Systems (Android/BlackBerry)
Current on mobile and web technologies (.NET, web services, mobile apps, etc.)
GENERAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:
Test 3rd party applications to ensure code integration is valid.
Debugging issues on mobile devices (must be able to learn this quickly)
Testing apps, campaigns and the overall software platform and provide ideas for enhancements.
Assist with the integration of QA Process where applicable
Support Sales/Business Development team from time to time.
LOCATION: Downtown Toronto (5-10 minutes walking from Toronto's Union Station)
Please send your cover letter, resume and salary expectations while applying to techjobs (at) mobiroo (dot) com

[Warning] News Republic App = Data Hog? (Updating...)

So i was browsing through the "data usage" feature of of my GSIII and i noticed that the "News Republic" app had used about 863 MB of data as a background process since August 6th! I am usually on wifi so hopefully this is a non-issue but I think this is an absolute ludicrous amount for an app I rarely use.
Just want to give this as a warning to everyone, since many of us TMO folk have data throttling caps.
Anyone else experience this?
Request that you contact News Republic, offer to help
Hello elterible,
While many apps continue to run in the background, especially on Android devices, News Republic should not be using such a significantly high amount of data, even for several weeks of time. It is possible that you are looking at the total aggregate data of all apps for that time frame, or that a setting is misconfigured. We would like to help you to resolve this, so that you can continue to use News Republic in the comfort of knowing that it is no more a "data hog" than most other news apps, and less than many!
We value all user comments, and would offer to put you in direct contact with our developer team at: [email protected]
Please write to us, and I will have a developer review whether any of our settings are using more data on your specific device than it should.
We appreciate that you use our app to read your news!
-Rich @ Mobiles Republic / US
Wow, i was not expecting the company to reply to my post directly.
I have since uninstalled News Republic but let me try to reinstall the app and try to recreate the data usage that i saw. While i am confident that i did not mistake my aggregate usage for just News Republic usage, if i cannot replicate my high data usage results, I will adjust my post here on xda accordingly. I will follow up directly to the e-maill address you posted with my results.
Again, thank you for taking the time to read and reply to my issue. This clearly shows that mobile republic takes pride in their products and sometimes, good service and response time alone is worth the cost of admission

[Q] All about beacons (iBeacon & Eddystone)

Hello there,
This wants to be a thread where I could gather as much information as possible about this subject. As the information piles up I will modify its title.
I recently became interested in this subject and the usage ideas are coming up on a daily basis. But basically all of them have to do either with better location or with Tasker automation.
So I am searching for people that have experience with beacons both to learn from their experience and to find good and cheap beacon sources. To start with I am looking for some cheap 1-2 beacon package (under 10-15€ per beacon), maybe with extra sensors included. A free sample of such a beacon would be perfect to start with.
So lets start the discussion about beacons!

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