LAT Applications for Classic (Shaun)
 

<Shaun>

I'm just curious, but any aprx. date when the new LAT members will be announced? Thanks

</Shaun>

I am becoming increasingly convinced that there's an amarican epidemic of temporary illiteracy.

Read the news page. The way it works is each member votes on each application. When a majority votes yes, I tell them they're in. When a majority votes no, I tell them they're out. When every last member has voted, including the guys in Graphics, I announce who's in, and tell everyone else if they didn't get an email they're out anyway.

I named mine LATtest.zip so would it have gotten written over?

Shaun i'd assume it takes quite a while to get every single active member to look over and vote on over 30 applications
each submission is 3 examples and for NPC scripting it might take much more than it would for perhaps a Graphical position every person has to first -download- 30+ zip files which is probably a pain then go over about 100 files and decide whether they're good enough...

In my opinion, the LAT application rules are stupid. Saying "yes, you must submit exactly 3 scripts" is so constrictive. Why do you even need to look at the scripting or whatever? If it was me, I'd just ask for them to give me something impressive and then before I'd even opened the editor I'd probably have a rough idea of whether I'd hire them. Looking at the script is just an extra. Just as long as they don't have "if()" anywhere or whatever then I'd be happy.

But three scripts? *****ic. Many scripts need others to even work.

No Kaimetsu, the reason behind it is for fairness. If some people included 100 scripts and others included 1 script then the LAT team would have more basis on which to hire the one with 100 scripts in his application
they want everyone to have equal judgement. If it's so hard to make a program work with less than 3 different scripts then maybe you shouldn't be trying that hard.

Yuh huh. Practical example: Flagball. It's my lil' game I scripted. It includes a "pass" function that lets you pass the ball to the nearest player on your team. Now, if I don't include any NPC players to show it in action, how can I show it works? Maybe I should use up all three NPCs on one section of my submission?

Yes, and if one person gave me 100 scripts then I'd just look at a sample of them. One impressive script is impressive whether or not it has two friends to back it up.

Yes if you looked at a sample of them then that would defeat m point, however it'd be exactly what Tyhm is saying here. Only include enough as we'll only be looking at 3. Include any less then you'll be rejected because it won't be enough to compare to other players.

Anyway, this is Graal you're talking about there isnt a lot of competition
if (asdf) {
//my script rules
die; }

i dont think you would need that big of an example knowing the competition isn't at that level.

If you showed them just the script for that game, no they wouldn't know it would work but any good scripter can tell from one part of a program if it was created by someone who knows what the heck he's doing.

ok, i spend two months on my lat appliciation and i didnt send it, is it still open?:mad: :confused:

ha!
 

<Shaun>

Ha! I r be Canadian, not American! Well, I thought you would have an aprx. date because you'd probably know how many LAT Members have voted, and you could probably estimate the date. I read the news, I know how it works, and you didn't have to be *nice* enough to type out that long message, you could have said "I don't know"

</Shaun>

you know if you talk to him like that youre probably injuring your chances :( i think that cooperation and teamwork/people skills is a big part of being a LAT member

Actually, you can be a real jerk as long as you're skilled and still get on LAT. It's not a popularity contest.
Yes, it's closed. No, I can't estimate when the remaining 9 members will finish voting, it's kind of out of my hands. Nor would it be fair to say they can't vote because they're focusing on finals.
And if you read the news, why did you ask when you'd know? Did you just not think it through all the way?;)

Dangit, dude, what's the POINT of the 3-only rule? What would be the downside of killing it? You might get 100 scripts, but so what? Look at a few of them and judge from there. It's like saying "you must include precisely 395 lines of code."

Kaimetsu look at it this way
if not for fairness then purely out of convienence
if you're only REALLY going to look at a few scripts, then why not put a limit on it? it saves the others from having to download every single level Freddy FooFoo ever made and 100000 head recolors and such

Fine, reject the people who send 702432 scripts, but what about the ones who send 5? Or maybe only 2 good ones? Should we disqualify them even if, say, they were better than Tyhm? Of course not.

3 to judge. You can have support NPCs if it's that big a deal, say, one that sets your AP to whatever, one that fills up your magic and some defaults to test it on. But if you can't impress us with 3 NPCs....if you need to take a room filled with a hundred damn variations on the Dancing Boots....A) you're not that good, and B) you have no sense of what "Good" is.

'sides, a good scripter can usually compress several NPCs into one via showimg and creative tiling. Rule stays. Don't like it, tough.

Sure, you can do it with 3 NPCs, but I don't see why the restriction has been placed. You've said why it shouldn't be a problem for us, but why would it be a problem for you if somebody submitted, say, 4?

Sure, that's easy, but it defies logic. You'll accept 600 NPCs if I cleverly compact them into 3?

Anyway, just to clarify, I'm not complaining because I want to apply (which is what your tone seems to imply). I'd hate to script for Classic. No NPC server = yuk.

i think hes trying to say that if you have to have more than 4 or 5 NPCs in a 'script' then you're not good enough..

That and the sheer bulk of things to review.
I mean, the first turn at democratic applications back when Fox was in charge, ONE person whose name I will not repeat gave 1 level with about 20 NPCWs.
Among them was, of all things, MY DANCING BOOTS.
Not only did that level take hours to review, but it contained stolen NPCs, probably all of them from scattered servers. It's bad enough I have to get 18 LAT Members to judge 34 Applications with 3 things to judge each...but I mean, people would submit 18-level quests, where each level was just the castle tileset and some baddies. Or a variation on the Magic Boomerang. Or something stolen from another playerworld. Or a bunch of Bomys. Or just their house. As it stands, there are 34*3*18 judgements to be made before this thing is over: that's 1836 repetitions of "Is this good enough? Is this good enough to make the whole application good enough?".
If I allowed 10 NPCs, Tiling/levels, or Graphics, the total would rise to 6120. And mind, this was a relatively small batch, we usually get around 80 applications.
My view of it is, if you're gonna give me this much of a headache BEFORE I hire you, are you really going to benefit the team?!?

(And not you as in guy who's arguing with me, you as in guy who sends me 15 NPCs to judge and no text file)

Surely you can get rid of the useless ones from first glance. Tyhm, you could eliminate 80% of people just by looking at single scripts from them. Any stupid stuff like "if(){" and you delete their applications. You don't have to look through every NPC at all.

Besides, practical situation: Genius scripter sends you stuff. You notice he has mistakenly sent you 4 NPCs instead of 3. So, you put his application aside. Idiot scripter has included 3 but has the worst scripts you've ever seen. Should you look through all 3 of the idiot scripter's, or just check one of the genius scripter's?

Remember that if a really skilled person applies then they're doing YOU a favour, not the other way around.

It's simple. If you can't follow directions, you can't be on the LAT. End.

It's simple. Being tolerant of mistakes leads to a better LAT overall.

Hiring people who can't or won't follow simple directions leads to a LAT full of people who can't or won't follow simple directions.

"I need you to remake the hotel and link it up to level3.graal"
"Okay"
Months pass
"Got the hotel for me?"
"Hotel? Naw, I made a swimming pool, and added it to Destiny instead."
"But that's not what I asked you to do."
"Hey, it's what I wanted to do, and it shows my skills better!"
"Yes, it certainly does. Alright guys, firing vote..."

There's a difference between blantantly disobeying orders and making tiny mistakes without thinking about it.

Of all people who apply to LAT, perhaps 5% will make a stupid mistake and end up rejected.

Of those rejected, perhaps 10% are good enough to get accepted and thus improve the team.

By these statistics, allowing for small mistakes will make the LAT effectively 0.05% better. And that's better than a kick in the teeth.

(Shaun)
 

<Shaun>

I think another point that Tyhm may or may not be trying to point out is that if he accepts 4 npc's for a submission, then that person or possibly more will start to think it's ok and not care if they add 4 or 5, thus making more work.

</Shaun>

how is that stupid

A 0.05% increase in overall productivity does not justify losing another month per application period.

i really dont see the point of lats scripting thats what nats do

Gnargh! It's like the stupidest line ever! It's an if statement. Why use it if you're not going to specify a condition?

You wouldn't need to. How about this: If somebody makes a small mistake and adds too many NPCs then just delete the extras and then pass them onto the rest of the team. Heck, I don't know why you bother with the big vote thing anyway. It only takes a few people to decide efficiently whether someone has what it takes. Ideally, only the best scripters would judge scripts because they're the best qualified to actually understand them.

An ideal server would have 5 head staff members - Head LAT, Head NAT, Head GFX, Head GP, & Owner...All other staff work under these 5 branches to to form a tree, A person higher up on the tree may fire anyone working under him, for example Head LAT hires 3 people to work under him, 1 of them has 6 people working under him, now if Head LAT decides that One of People working under him is crappy, him and the people working under him are fired, and the people working under him are forced to work under someone else, by creating it this way, staff can more effectivly produce levels, say one branch is told to make a Castle, one branch off that branch works on east side, another on west side, another on outside, and another on center...

Oh yea, about following simple directions: Why follow directions that have no obvious point? Ask yourself: Why not 2? Why not 5? Why not 1? Becuase tyhm is lazy bum who sits on his bum all day and drinks rum? Because he fails to see that any person with common sense wouldn't include 57383198469302753705023965403864532742019347201837 21073210746327453204712046120846 NPCs on a level? maybe...And also, why even look at the scripts? No one online will be able to look at a script and know wether or not it has 5 NPCs or if it has "if ()" in it? whats inside the code does not matter! Its the output! THE OUTPUT DAMN YOU!!!!!

o.O
Kaimetsu you must not have been around in the 'dark age'
*shudder* i remember one particular nameless LAT admin.. made graal look like CUBA
we would wait a month before one new level was put up sometimes
i think this is to prevent that from happeneing
everything mus tbe fair =\

Huh? you mean without anything en parentheses?

NAT is a uniquely G2K1 thing. LAT on Classic does levels/tiling, NPCs, and our own graphics now that we've been forbidden from monopolizing the GFX team's time. >_<;

We vote because it's the fairest system available. My predecessors would hire based on name, that was silly. One of them took applications from the people he liked, had a few of us vote on them, then hired none of them. Voting does 2 things: it gives everyone a say (even if their say is limited to "No vote, thanks"), and it shows me who's actually here. Apparently half the current LAT is dead weight. Not surprisingly, mostly transfers from Graphics. Last time I ask for one of those...

Here's the crux of it. If we go with a vote, I can vote against you and you can still get in. If we go with the monarchy/dictatorship system, I vote against you and you're blacklisted from ever applying to the LAT again. Do you really thing voting's the worse option?

when will the next LAT tryout be ?

Not for a while. Have to finish this one first, then fire the stragglers. I'm pretty sure Linkson's quit Graal in disgust and didn't tell me....

Yeah. What's the point of a conditional statement that doesn't contain conditions?

I didn't say just one person does all of everything. Just gets rid of the no-hopers and passes the promising ones along.