What is Digg?54 Comments
- TheComputerMutt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28Not if the course in question is gaming history.
RTFA - chad78, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26Here's the link to the actual test (PDF)
http://www.freefileupload.net/file.php?file=files/220606/1151018462/HOGExam05.pdf
It's not really that easy. Yes there are a few screenshot match questions - but there are some pretty tough questions as well. Including an essay. I'm sure if I took the class, I could ace it - but just general gaming knowledge didn't prepare me for questions like: "Who created Space Invaders?" or "Which of the following films was *not* made into an X-rated video game in the early 80s?" or "During World War II, in 1942, a team of codebreakers at Bletchley Park used valve-based computing machines called Bombe to aid in breaking German military ENIGMA code messages. Who led this team and designed the Bombe, which were the first programmable
electronic computers?"
Now, the essay questions I could have some fun with.... - Bleu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Mirrored.
http://bluegrunt.googlepages.com/HOGExam05.pdf - MrCodeDude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Can someone mirror the PDF? It keeps timing out for me.
- mrpackrat42, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14@fgsfds
Aha! I always wondered why so many musicians accepted record label contracts with such unfavorable terms. Apparently they just can't count. :) - fgsfds, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14'Facts are useless, theory is what matters!' is an oft-spoken mantra, and it's a load of *****. Facts and theory are mutual requisites. Without theory, fact is just data. Without fact, theory can never be tested.
Indeed, lets see what Georgia Tech's gaming degree yields, shall we?
You know, the one where theory is taught endlessly but they never teach you how to *do* anything?
On a side note, I've spoken with musicians who argued fervently that america needs to get rid of math classes and make music required. Specifically, they had it in for basic algebra. - dpk87, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16Good luck finding anything remotely like that at Georgia Tech. Instead of stuffing the student's minds with useless facts they actually teach... *gasp* theory.
Actually, giving an exam like that could possibly get someone fired. Honestly if your paying to goto a school that gives you an exam like that, maybe you should rethink where you are. - jizzimmy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8That screenshot is obviously from Chex Quest.
- solidcube, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Just so's you know, you should really read up on Enigma and Bletchley Park. You wanna talk about something AMAZING, it doesn't get much more amazing than that.
Check the Wikipedia article on Enigma/ULTRA. Very interesting reading there and pretty much essential IMO for anyone interested in computers.
One wonders what Alan Turing would have accomplished by now if he hadn't been hounded into obscurity and eventual suicide. - Agret, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7MIRROR: http://bluegrunt.googlepages.com/HOGExam05.pdf
Thanks to eblue or something, he posted later on, just saving it from being lost. - ZoomPicard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I did a Computer Games Programming Degree at Teesside at few years ago while I did enjoyed most parts of the course including that exam, there were a few fundamentals wrong with the course. I was promised a placement on the course yet I never managed to get one. You learn latter on it seems that very few games companies have very little interest in training and further development of people. (Perhaps there is a feeling that they do not need to, so they do not try).
While the course taught many practical skills and theory based skills you were still left at the very end with a fundamentally missing skill... the ability to program effectively. The course was designed to teach you all the theory but skimmed on the ability to programming well, leaving this area mostly to the students themselves.
At the end of the day I still regret not doing a standard computer science degree. Its hard enough finding a job but even harder if people sideline you just because you have done a games based degree. - Clearz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I diddnt get to see the paper (Digg effect) but maybe thats just one module of the course in first year called 'Game History' or something. Understandable.
- imjustabill, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I took a history of video games class at University of Nebraska Omaha last semester. Either everyone thought it would be cake, or nobody ever studied, becuase most of our test averages were in the 60s and 70s, though I did pretty well.
- Etheo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Thanks, been waiting for a mirrored link :)
- dpk87, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8I didn't state that all facts should be thrown out the door, I said "useless facts". And while the term 'useless' is opinionated and quite vague, I think I don't have to define what one would consider useless and not useless in a web discussion such as this.
I do however believe that matching screenshots to the title of a game is useless. - ilovemusic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If anyone has a cached copy of this or something of the sort, email it to joeyowo at gmail dot com and I'll host it.
- dirtyfratboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"nope no v3 yet, but is anyone else's voting of individual posts disabled? I can't seem to vote on comments, the thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons aren't there."
I briefly lost the "reply" links on comments 2 days ago... Hmm, strange. - MrCodeDude, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8Will you guys please stop posting about Digg v3? You spamming every front-page topic isn't going to make it debut any faster.
- chevy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Some of the examples are fairly silly, but really no sillier than memorizing trivial facts in an American History class for a PoliSci course.
And I can even see some value to the trivia and anecdotes for game design students. By getting some history and hopefully placing that knowledge in a proper context, students can start to actually develop a theory of computer game design that doesn't exist right now. You need to learn technical details, but it takes much more than mere technical skill to create a game worth playing. - SatansMagicHat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yeah, explain why this test is any more useless than my "Existentialism in Literature" class, please. Cuz as far as I can see, at least this class relates to the students' ***** major.
- PlaidPhantom, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5That's why I never get any better with music. I'm just too good at math. Dang.
- Bleu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think it is nice that people taking those tests need to know classic stuff. How would you feel if your co-worker didn't know what Kid Icarus was?
- pauldonnelly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This test is pretty awful. While that stuff should be required knowledge to pass a video game history course, the test itself is just testing memorization skills. Most of the questions are just gimmes if you've played the games in question. A course worth its salt would talk more about game types and video games' impact on society than about how some hippie caterpillar makes you stagger around.
- Magistrate, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Anyone have that cached copy of the test? The "file host" is dead.
- matthewecornish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So one exam that makes up part of one module that makes up one year of three in a degree programme is a bit easy? Big deal...
- dpk87, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5nope no v3 yet, but is anyone else's voting of individual posts disabled? I can't seem to vote on comments, the thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons aren't their.
- Durinthal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Being a music/CS double major in all but name (can't fit all the classes in so I'm dropping a few of the music ones), I'd say that pure music theory is actually quite similar to a programming language in the structured logic that it uses. Granted, for all of that logic, it's still the sound that counts.
- aahpandasrun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Too many pointless details from random games. Knowing what hardman's weakness is in megaman 3 isn't important to the total history of video games. Would a history of film class ask you what Ferris Beuler's girlfriend's name was? How about more short answer questions that have to do with explaining or describing things? History is not just about what, it's also about why.
- billybob476, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's like playing Scene It for video games.
- andrewgatenby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hehehe.... I actually went to Uni of Teesside and sat a very similar exam to this one around 3-4 years back. I think the opening question had a picture of Sonic The Hedgehog, and the question was to "Name this famous early 90s videogame character".
The actual practical work that took place in well funded computer labs was that weekly we would play through a different set of games by each genre - one week FPS, one week RTS, one week RPG etc.
The guys at the place where I work now don't actually believe me that this was the sort of stuff my course involved - I have proof now! Mwahahahaha!!!!! - wiii, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Question #25:
Defender used a 4-position Joystick? IIRC it were 2 or 3, depending on if you count the zero position. You just needed that to steer up and down, left/right was done with reverse/thrust. - Swivelhead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The Computational Media program at Georgia Tech, offered by the College of Literature, Language and Communications does teach media history such as this, like Bush, Berners-Lee and other such visionaries as well as design practice. New Media theorist are a large study at Tech and there is no "Game Design" major at Tech. However, there are opportunities to study of video game theory and design. There are also ample opportunities to use your project classes at Tech to create video games. There is a Living Worlds Symposium once a year and a video game developers club.
Unfortunately, since Tech's classes focus on theory, people who chose to criticize its curriculum never notice that the school's projects are incredibly intensive. Yes, they teach theory. And they leave the process of gaining practical knowledge up to the student to learn for each project. If you chose not to learn it, you fail the class. Case closed. That's why Tech graduates are in demand in the marketplace. It produces a graduate able to interpret standard theories as well as be self-sufficient in practice. Case in point, in 2000 when I graduated with a BS in CS from there, the 2430 class taught "Control and Concurrency".
http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs2430_98_fall/
We had two weeks to learn C to complete the first assignment. There was no tutorial. In another class, students had to comment their assembly code in equivalent lines of pascal code. Pascal was no longer taught in the entry level classes anymore, it had been changed to Java two semesters before. What did the professor say when some of the students protested? "Too bad, you have a week." He also checked for the pascal comments to compile/interpret.
Now tell me that an education where professors hand feeds you cookie cutter assignments, focus on the trendiest technology, minimize the importance of history and theory, and pat you on the back for being more experienced is more valuable than GaTech's methods.
Remember, too, when looking at this test, you're seeing specific questions that gauge the breadth of the students knowledge, probably from a general topics on games class. To criticize the specific questions asked on one particular exam (as opposed to each individual class' exam, which are changed to prevent cheating) may be too hasty. - M3wThr33, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I actually own the book that was mentioned. Of course, I own far too many game books.
- chad78, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Did you RTFA? Probably not. If you had, you'd see that the game history course is only one of the many classes you have to take. Other classes are about programming and theory and design. But if you are going to be making video games, knowing where they came from would be good. If more video game programmers knew their video game history, they wouldn't keep repeating the same mistakes. for example, if game makers knew about the ET for Atari fiasco, they wouldn't keep thinking that a good movie / TV show / anime series means a good game. You actually have to make the game good for it to sell.
- billybob476, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Agreed, however as was stated above by ZoomPicard:
"While the course taught many practical skills and theory based skills you were still left at the very end with a fundamentally missing skill... the ability to program effectively."
I must also agree with ET for Atari, I had that gmae. It sucked hard. - webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You mean British students taking this exam?
Although, Teeside. Probably answer New York... - billybob476, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Frankly, I take exception to these "game design" programs. Game programming can be one of the most challenging programming fields to excel in. To be a great game developer, I don't think you should need to (or be required to take!) a course in which you have to identify Sonic. You should be learning the ins and outs of C++ and Java, OO programming, OpenGL and (gasp!) Assembler. If you are trying to be a game programmer and know little to nothing about the history of games then go be an accountant, you'll do better.
- pedmond, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I wonder how many of these students who know all about FPS know what the capital city of the US is...
- BewilderedRonin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If I was working for a game dev and someone didn't know what Kid Icarus was, I'd smack 'em upside the head with a whiskey bottle.
Kid Icarus rules! Death to eggplants! - Intrepion, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1#16
a) Monkey nuts!
AHAHAHAHAHA - foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I lost the reply and the Thumbs yesterday for 20 minutes
- Osfel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yes, it was definately not a 4-position joystick on Defender.
Also on question #34
...you shoot the centipede...However, you also have another enemy: What is it?
The answer being b) spider. The question implies that there was only one other enemy, but Centipede also had two others: the flea and scorpion. - i3enedek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Its the Into to Games exam it started off as 50 questions then they made it 100 still managed to get 76% in 30 minutes. One friends technique was to answer all questions with either Nolan Bushnel or Sonic, suffice to say he got 68%.
- chevy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Fair enough, but there is a level of history that is pretty close to the trivial "what was Ferris Beuler's girlfriend's name". Memorizing dates and names *can* help you develop insight and develop a memory framework to place facts and ideas into without trying to just do a memory dump - otherwise questions like "when was the battle of Hastings", "who was Edward II's wife", "what king was forced to sign the Magna Carta" would have no place in introductary history classes.
You can't place too much value on rote memorization, but I think dismissing it entirely is wrong. - frowned, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I just graduated from Teesside, that paper is a lot harder than the original one I saw (the one with a pic of sonic and the question, "who is this?"). I was stupid and took the VR module instead of this one where they teach you VRML, a technology that was outdated even then in 2001.
- timophy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0I find it hard to believe that bangbus.com is female oriented
- Archangeleon, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1It definitely wasn't something that you were guaranteed a 100 on, but I could answer about 80% of the questions without thinking that hard.
- duce, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1this is so lame this looks like a really stupid test man.
if you think you can get into the industries if you have this kind of a degree your just dumb.
do know that 95% of all Game-Dev peeps have never done any study to make games. its just all self teaches job.
all my friends in the industry are all self teach-ed same whit really good animators and 3D modellers and C++ programmers most of them start doing this stuff when they are around 12 start doing modding and stuff and start learn from other people. and this is just so lame. - D4r7h3v1l, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3I can pacture it now...
A guy asleep in an office chair next to a big red button with "v3" written on it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Whoops, meant to reply.. dig this down.
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