if my velocity starts to make you sweat, then just don't let go

(from the bizarre album)

Look! Someone made a centostrich!! Well...An ostaur? What's a good name for...one of those?

(from the bizarre album)

And hey, if you really like the Titan weapons in City of Heroes, but you're wandering through SL? Now you can have one, because the same maker made a HUGE FRIGGIN' HAMMER to kill things with. Or just to carry.

And I have no words. Save for "NSFW".

So, back on the Marketplace thing--I had a long talk with a friend two nights back, on the breakdown between "major" and "showstopper". I actually sent out an entry railing against the changing of the Marketplace JIRA from one term to the other, because I agreed with it being a showstopper for the game...but maybe I need to track down actual definitions.

From the Business Dictionary site:

Action, condition, event, or problem (such as a court case) that is serious enough to halt an activity, program, or process until it is resolved.

Keep that in mind. Any process that is serious enough to halt the program.

Okay, so what does that mean, functionally? I actually have a perfect example for this: Phoenix' "Firestorm" viewer has a showstopper bug for me. I install it; I run it; it crashes. Every single time I try to use it. In fact, I cannot use Firestorm, because for me, on my system, it has that bug.

That's a showstopper--I am functionally unable to use the program as designed. It stops the show for me, flat out, end of example.

So how is "major" defined, then? Unfortunately, "major"--at least in programming terms--is iffier, and Google's no help. But Sir Zen actually stepped in and answered my question:

[18:51] ZenMondo Wormser: I would say major would be stuff that breaks content. I was reading back and saw no one answered you
[18:54] Emilly Orr: Yeah, I'd kind of given up. But Google's being little help on this one. So essentially, "major" breaks content, but doesn't cause total system failure?
[18:55] ZenMondo Wormser: That would be my take on it. Or if something works real out of spec. Like the bug I discovered making the RFL kiosks in 2010 that bug got fixed and went live just last week.
[18:56] Emilly Orr: Because what doesn't happen in test can start happening once the program goes live.

Now, I'm not including all the conversation, especially because I'm still trying for that policy of 'no real names' from SL transcripted conversation--but this really did help understanding, and I wanted to thank him again for that.

Right now, "major"--as defined by Sir Zen, and as is used by the Lindens, I believe, is anything that breaks in our experience, but does not totally shut down the game. This doesn't mean "major" isn't serious--it is, and in some cases, it's something that needs to be fixed urgently, because it does impact the whole of the game experience for the user.

But it's not an utter program halt, which is how "showstopper" is used.

Let me reiterate: "Major" is any malfunction in the process which seriously impacts our ability to interact with the program, but does not cut off all access to the program.

With that in mind, as much as I don't like how CommerceTeam Linden is handling the Marketplace issue, he was right to change the JIRA listing to Major from Showstopper, and Sera Lok was wrong to switch it back.

Unfortunately, that still leaves us where we are--it's not fixed, there's no ETA on when it will be fixed, and people are panicking more and more the more this drags on.

May have to go back to the JIRA again and read down for new responses. But that's for later.