Jon Bon

Heh. I see where Kell is coming from, and I can't deny his logic. I however consider my level of contributions what should be standard and obtainable by anyone. I feel I don't deserve praise as much as others deserve shame for not giving back as much as they take (not applicable to pretty much anyone reading this). Which is why I think people like Kell, Moonpearl, ForeverZero, Heretic, Bigace (not limited to) deserve nominations for their specific unique, and likely otherwise non existent help. As well as people like Jeri3d, Justabox, (not limited to) and the other developers who although they do not frequent the forum they make sure to come back and update their products and provide customer support to our users who need their help with what was posted. I contribute the amount I do out of a social obligation for the amount of help I receive. Receiving praise is appreciated but feels weird, like being congratulated for doing the right thing. In reality it is a cumulative effort that makes up a community, no one part greater than another or the sum of the whole.

I definitely think that bar at the top is an excellent idea. I checked the reference examples out, and yeah they do all look good. As far as branding goes, a logo/symbol isn't all you need. I would suggest at minimum working on a tagline/catchphrase, and picking a hex color to be the GDU official color. This way people here the line and think your 'thing' (ba-ba-ba-ba-baaaa I'm loving it.), or see the colors and think your 'thing', (Examples: red and gold for mcdonald's, or walmart blue). Shapes and graphics are another one. If the site is always boxy, keep it boxy, if it's rounded keep it rounded, shapes give a uniform feel, and when seen elsewhere remind of them of where they saw it before, your site. Graphics too, so not like a logo, but like banners, and other graphical non logo stuff used to represent your site. That leads into things like, fonts, and text layouts, keeping things similar when advertising/posting official site stuff makes it more recognizable, then when posted else where it becomes synonymous with your brand. The key to branding and brand awareness is to making your product points bold, and unique, but at the same time memorable. (Now I'm off to work to go do merchandising and marketing for my paid job.)

Haha nice. I think Kell should win to be honest. My logic for that is only that the help I give could be done be almost anyone, his help is specific to a skill I do not have and there for I find his help to be more valuable. The people who help with scripting here, I value higher than anything I can bring to the table. Thanks for all your support everyone, I am glad to have made such an impact, and promise to keep up my helpful nature.

Exactly. People are stupid (as a whole), and don't understand how things work. Which brings us back to the point of the topic, forcing alphanumeric, case sensitive passwords on people. This makes the password likely to not be related to their life and near impossible to 'find out'. Perfect example. The average con artist would be able to steal our identity within hours using zero 'tech' methods, like the one mentioned above. With things like facebook, and other social networking sites people give away their information too readily without realizing it. There is little need to even route through trash like a detective of old, now a days you just go to their local internet hangout and read everything they wrote. But if your passwords and your secret question responses are nothing to do with your life, then no one can realistically guess them with logic. If you let people pick all letter passwords 50%+ are going to put 'puppy', 'myskiidoo', 'chevyninetyseven'. But then again, I would bet any money there is someone out there right now who loves their 97 chevy and their password is Chevy97, alphanumeric and case sensitive. A password should be impossible to guess through deductive reasoning.

They were all really really simple stuff, all things I assumed you (or the alpha tester) would notice when playing through and before releasing it for reals. I don't want to say lies from the top of my head because I can't remember specific examples, but there were enough, but nothing major. If you want I would be more then happy to Alpha test your complete project and give you detailed notes into 'glitches'. EDIT: I stopped reporting glitches on demos because it's a demonstration of what you plan to release, and not the finished product. I just thought it was kinda rude of me to spam people with in depth errors and glitches.

Agreed, if everything you need a password for was different, sufficient number of characters to not be an easy guess, and nothing related to your life in anyway shape or form, then it wouldn't matter if they got access to any one place, because it wouldn't grant them access to others. But it's people who make simple passwords for their forums accounts, make personal messages on their forum accounts with personal information (mother's maiden name, their last name, place of birth, favorite pet) things you need to crack more secure stuff, like bank info. Then when someone get's into your forum or faceboook or whatever with your simple 12345 password, and uses the abundance of 'secret' information otherwise only visible to you, to gain access to the real goods, credit card and bank stuff, through 1-800 numbers, and password recovery functions. All that database stuff (to me) is irrelevant because it's on the companies side to protect it, and only represents the 'tech' way to steal stuff. People were doing fraud and stealing identity long before computers, and those methods still ring true. It's those methods that extra secure,. long, non related, and unique passwords are good to protect against. The good ol' fashioned con(confidence) man.

I loved the two dev blogs. I always assume people are young when making a game, but from your production quality I should have expected a fellow 20+ nerd like myself. I am definitely envious you guys have people to work with in real life, and collaborate together. That laptop and wickedly huge screen setup looked sweet too. My only 'complaint' was that the audio was a touch hard to hear, not too bad, but something that if you all tried to project your voices a bit when on camera it would help the viewer to hear you better. The other thing I noticed is you play with a keyboard setup when testing the game, I wanted to suggest maybe hooking up a gamepad and/pr a PS3/Xbox controller as a gamepad to use to test the game as you make it. I almost always use a gamepad when playing others peoples indy creations, and test with one too, it's just more smooth and less clunky for an rpg. Something to consider. In any case the game looked really good. I like the real time action sequence, although it was hard to figure out what was going on, it looked very interactive and cool. I really like the look and feel of the characters, reminds me a little of the style of the animated series Teen Titans, which I loved and haven't really seen anything similar since. Alignment always rocks too, and the trophy system is a definite bonus in games now a days. Loved the idea of a Nexus where the player goes and it has game elements you can access, reminded me of the Nexus in Ever Quest. You guys seem to have a lot of good ideas combined together into a nice system for your game. I can't wait to find out more about the story. Keep up the passionate work team Dark Matter. ~Cheers!

This entire post is made objectionably and is not designed to attack or sully the credibility of anyone. There are many possibilities here. Because of the alleged circumstances around his proposed death it is entirely possible that the obituary was asked to be omitted from the newspapers so the family would not be contacted by other news and media sources wishing to cover the heroic nature of his death. Since we already know someone was on an account of his that said he had passed away, an activity on his other accounts could be the person in question who made the original statement. At this point the only fact we have is that someone on Kiriashi's account has told us he passed away as well as the circumstances of his death. The person could be Kiriashi himself, or as Marked mentioned, a trolling family member, or someone who has 'hacked' his accounts. Anything else is speculation, and many logical assumptions can be drawn to explain the other missing pieces of information, but they remain just that, assumptions. We could sit here and hypothesize all day to no benefit. I will look into this for the community, and in honor of his memory attempt to find hard evidence.

Everything in the entire world should have a button with a universal symbol for help on it. When you press the button it asks you which language please, you respond. Then a polite slow and accurate female voice explains to you how to use whatever it is you are currently interacting with. That's the future I want, flight attendant type explanations for everything, I sound like I'm being sarcastic but I am really not. My point is that forcing people to use an alphanumeric and case sensitive password also forces them to use a password that is likely not involved with their life, and does protect against one of the methods of stealing passwords. I think that on the same spot that says 'password strength' it should also say 'have you used this password before? Each password should be unique for extra security', or something to that effect. If you picked a 1 character password, and it could only be a letter or a number, and I got 3 tries before it locked me out every 24 hours, that means it would only take me 12 days to go through all 36 possible combinations(number and letters). If I tried to crack tons of peoples passwords each day, I would have tons and tons and tons of access after the 12th day, remembering some would crack right away, or before day 12. The amount of characters a password has and their complexity, and relation to your life is always relevant. But I agree the most important factor is repeat usage. People should be 'forced' to make complex passwords for the same reason they are 'forced' to cross the street at a corner(not J-walk), it's just safer.

Moonpearl, you're a monster, no a machine. You never cease to impress me, and that's a hard feat. Good job on this mate, kudos!

I noticed tons of glitches but since it's a demo, and not the real game, I just assumed it would get alpha and beta tested accordingly before it was actually ready. This was a demo, and there for just an example of what the game could be like correct? That's how I took it anyhow, which is why I liked it. If this was a full release I would have torn it apart, because it's incomplete.

I never considered it. I generally take people at their word for things, and trusted the information through proxy, which is never a good idea. In any event, I definitely posses the deductive reasoning skills to easily find if this is real or not. If you have his full name, and last knowm city of habitat, it's extremely simple. Find his phone number, work information, anything using his name and city, and then call him or his family or someone that knows him. That would also give you the location to look into the newspaper's obituaries. I would just call him/his family/friends and ask politely explaining the situation how he was/is a member of an online community who holds him close to their hearts and was concerned for his well being and to the authenticity of his death. Any reasonable person either grieving or not would handle that situation well, in my opinion. Then once you have validity for or against the claim you can post here accordingly. I would be more than happy to do this for you, but would need the base information. Activity on his accounts is circumstantial, you need hard proof from an eye witness.

The version I had the first time was not the same extraction file or name as what I downloaded today. The game worked perfectly after downloading it a second time. I like it, I love the drawing style of the enemies, I don't know what it is, but it's very fresh and cartoony. I died almost past the spiral, wasn't really healing or anything. Seems like it'll be good from the little I played, felt rustic almost. Keep it up, I would try another demo release when one is ready etc, and might end up going back to this one if I have more time.

This has it's rough edges, but it's not without it's shining points either. This has an awesome classic feel to it. The personal interactions and dialogue and done well enough, and the city, world map, and indoor layouts are near perfect. This is an excellent nostalgia type game, great job. How much is finished, and how much does the demo show?

*Bug Report* -The show choices event command that displays low, medium, or high stakes, and 'forget it', has cancel still set to option 2 (medium) instead of option 4(Forget it). Simple mistake, I assume you just forgot since the other one is setup correct, I do it all the time. Impressions This is excellent man. Awesome mini game, I will definitely include this in my creations. I have dabbled with making similar systems, but this is all made up. Great job, we need more eventing based mini game type stuff like this for sure, keep up the great work. ~Cheers!

If you get time try looking into a program called dropbox at dropbox.com. It will allow you to share a folder with each other on your computer, you can have one live version of the project to update with new stuff, and each an offline version to edit and make stuff with. Take's a bit to setup for bigger projects, time wise for download and syncing, but once it's all ready syncing is fast and adding stuff takes seconds to be ready on the other computer for viewing. If you need help setting up a dropbox system for you and your team mate let me know send a pm and i'll help best I can.

I'm 28 and was never taught about passwords. I can only imagine the people 30-80(and my 80+ great grand mother uses facebook), they were all 'taught' this too right? Nope, they need to be forced, trust me. They come from days when there were no debit cards. People 25 and under do not make up the majority of the working body of the planet, nor do they make up the direction of how paid services should be run.

I am fairly sure you can break them down to raw code, and edit it accordingly. I definitely remember a section like that. At least the members profile pages.

There are two ways to steal passwords. I agree breaking into the database and stealing a large amount of them is the way to do it. But it is by far not the only way or the right way. As much as you should have a password that does not pertain to your every day life, people do not follow this. I could easily 'hack' the average persons life by guessing their passwords and other personal information. People do need to be told to use alphanumeric and case sensitive passwords, because the con artists of old who were around long before computers still employ these techniques to steal identities and personal information. Which with today's facebook and social networking site days is super easy. Mother's maiden name, available online, pet's names, available online, favorite book/show, available online. We can't forget the tricks of old.

Character's Name: Jhonis Stewart Bonaccio III Weapons: Small Self Defense Knife (currently equipped) Pockets(5/10): x1 Stim Pills(2/10 Uses), x2 Small Food, x1 Bottle Water. _______________________________________________________________________________ Split from James, JSB was forced to move deeper into the parking garage. With light only visible from fires on cars, the design layout was impossible to see. Panicked and scared JSB began to run straight ahead as it was the only visibly clear route. Weaving slight left and right between the cars, using the reflective headlights for markers. Just as JSB started to think he would make it, someone grabbed him at the shoulder and he went spiraling backwards. For the third time today JSB was disoriented and seeing stars, and for a moment thought he was back at one of those new york massage parlors he enjoys so much. Feeling someone on top of him, and quickly realizing it's not Mia from Chez Muscal, he begins to feel sharp claws grabbing his arms, and smell foul breath in his face. His eyes began to work again, the stars cleared, and he saw the face in front of him, a grotesque half-face. Drooping jaw, one eye missing, and barely enough skin to call it human. The thing snarled at him and bit the air inches from his face. His wits more about him, he made an effort to jump back, no change of position, he was grasped too tightly by the drooling beast on top of him. He then realized he wasn't holding the thing off of him, it was being held back by something else. Looking around, he noticed the zombie had a wallet chain looped around the front bumper of a nearby car, he was hooked. JSB Laughed, Kneed his attacker in the chest, which loosened the deadly grip, and moved back to safety. JSB took a deep breath, laugh again, and spit at his assailant. He laughed another time and kicked it in the face. Unbeknownst to him the wallet chain in question was not one of good quality you might find at a high end leather store, but in fact, one of the $1 bulk bin variety. JSB Laughed yet again and reeled back for a strong kick, as he prepared for the attack, the monster broke his chain, leaped forward and knocked the naive JSB down for his fourth time today. Luckily JSB had been in a kick-ready position and the attacker landed square on JSB's foot and flew over top of and behind him after the leap. JSB jumped forward and up to his feet doing a quick 180* preparing himself to defend against the attacker. A few seconds past and nothing happened. He then began to hear faint gurgling, and moved closer to the sound. By now his eyes had begun to adjust to the low light, and he could see clearer. The attacked had fly off of JSB and landed head first into a piece of steel rebar just to block cars from parking. JSB opened his mouth to let go yet another arrogant laugh, as he began to hear feet shuffling and what seemed like subtle moaning in the near distance. Not inclined to find out who or what it was, he quickly looked up to get a better feel for his surroundings. The way he came from was still clear, and the way straight ahead had another stair well to lead back down. Deciding better to go forward then back, he quickly got up and ran for the nearby stairwell. Reaching it safely, he entered in and closed the reinforced security door behind him and took a deep breath. The stair well had a small window in it, JSB took the opportunity to look out it. He hadn't realized how high up he had gone, his view made him seem like he must be at least 5 stories up, and could see a large majority of the city. What he saw next chilled his bones. It had been less then an hour since he had driven in, and he could see small fires all over town. When he looked closer in the distance he could see the odd person being attacked, or running scared. "What is going on, and how did it happen so fast? Was it this bad when I drove into town?"-he thought. He then noticed the light shine from the window off a sign on the wall beside him, it read "Underground Mall Entrance", with a big red arrow pointing down the flight of stairs. Figuring he didn't have much of a choice he made his way further down the parking garage, and hopefully into the mall.

I couldn't agree more. This is why in the outlined case above, I would have linked them to my recruitment thread on my site, which states you have to have 1 year minimum experience. I would also ask for references etc to where they had been an admin. The post here is far more polite, and friendly and less professional as the one on my site, I would have made strangers, or new people here jump through hoops to prove themselves. And rightfully so for the chance to get a pay job, and free merchandise. As far as not doing anything, I need/needed work done right away, and tasked pol immediately, so I would know within seconds if they were faking it. I totally agree with what you said above, but I have done real life hiring for jobs before, plus dealt with public relations, I can read people a mile away. For these reasons, I never hesitate to recruit publicly. As far as Pol specifically. I have read a large majority of what all the active members have posted here, and have a very good understanding of their motivations and work habits etc. So I never had doubts in how awesome he would be. But luckily since I made friends with his friend(ackley14), I have spoken with Pol over skype, and now am confident in my impressions as him, as a solid individual. Hehe yeah, I would hope first priority to RMXPU indeed, way more stuff for an admin to do here. I just need his brain lol. But with all that said, as I felt I had to, I value you opinions huge, because you have achieved more at your age then I have yet. EDIT: Thanks on the theme choice. Was the one I liked the most out of the first 30 or so picks. Pol choice the buttons up top cause I was having issue. Definitely want a custom one eventually, but since it's a work type site, im happy as long as it serves it's purpose hehe. Aesthetics be damned, as long as it's not neon. EDIT 2: @Marked gave ya admin, so you can tinker, and see what the system is all about.

Hehe. I like to create fair opportunity, so I figured post it and you never know I might meet someone new at the same time. Also, although I may be knowleged in the areas I am, I am very low when it comes to this stuff, so low it's hard to even gauge what kind of assistance I need and who can grant it. I more than appreciate the enthusiastic response. I will link you the address by all means, and if anyone else wants it, feel free to post here or ask, I would just prefer not to post it public for anyone until its setup etc. The theme is still temporary, and such.

I don't think I ever had the honor of speaking with him personally, but he was definitely one of the names of the members I noted when scouting this site originally, and one of the reasons I joined here. Such a sad day to hear this news. I can only hope to go as honorably as he did when it's my time to go.

I know, fail me. I missed the cut off point.