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thesevenseraphs · 7 years

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Bungie Weekly Update - 7/20/17

This week at Bungie, we’re putting you to the Test.

The Destiny 2 Beta is live. Two waves of Early Access players have rushed to the aid of a city under attack. The opening moments saw some Termites, but the pest control game of the Destiny Operations Center was on point. Tragically, we can’t say the same for the Guardians who were the first to confront the Red Legion…

It’s been an exciting week! A Beta is a rare opportunity for you to serve as a volunteer on our development team. As a product of the Bungie Community, I can remember the rush of breaking new ground in a work in progress – that sense that my footsteps in a new world were the very first to appear in that soil. During my time at Bungie, I’ve been on hand for several red letter days when a thundering herd of players storm into something brand new. I might be biased as a community guy, but there is no match for that excitement.

We’re learning a lot about what Destiny 2 will be at launch. If you’ve fired a shot in anger at the Red Legion, you’re helping us make a better game. Be sure to tell your friends we said so when they ask you where you got that Emblem.

Don’t take it from me, alone. Producer Jared Berbach has been working with the team that delivered the Beta to your console. Here’s what he had to say about it…

Jared: The Beta has been amazingly helpful for our development team. The analogy I always give is that the Beta is the plow on the front of the train that blasts all the snow off the tracks to clear our path. We had many updates to the original, but Destiny 2 is a brand new game using brand new technology in order to deliver an awesome experience. This new technology needs a lot of testing. This testing ultimately helps us validate that our new server model is working as we thought it would, and at the quality and scale we had hoped. It helps us evaluate our new tech advancements, including enhancements you’ll understand more fully when you play the full game. Ultimately, it paves the way for us to have a much smoother launch.

When Guardians finish a mission in Destiny, the takeaways are (1) sweet loot and (2) feedback about the moments of action that define the game. At Bungie, we have an enthusiastic ear for what you say about your experiences in the wild. The Destiny 2 Beta has been a great opportunity to listen. The test is far from over, but Beta Design Lead Rob Engeln has some acknowledgments to share mid-stream.

Rob: Aside from testing our processes and services, the Beta is also an opportunity for us to collect feedback and data to help us close out the final tuning for the game. We’re watching and playing with you. Thank you for sharing your experiences and helping make the launch version of Destiny 2 that much better. The PVE game tuning has changed pretty significantly since the Beta build was deployed. The nature of a Beta of this scale requires that it’s based off a build of the game that is now months old. So, in many cases, your feedback is helping us validate changes that were previously made based on internal feedback and playtesting. For example, we too felt that ammo (especially power ammo) was too scarce in PvE. In addition to retuning the drop rates, we built a system that guarantees power ammo drops for you and your Fireteam from certain enemies, giving power weapons a more reliable and predictable role in your arsenal. Other areas where we’ve made significant tuning changes include grenade effectiveness in PvE, Boss vitality, and weapon damage against non-player combatants.

There will come a time to share the full suite of statistics and the analysis. What did we learn? How many Guardians shared a bubble with Zavala? Time will tell. This grand experiment is ongoing, and we're tracking every data-point and forum thread. Tomorrow, we open the experience to anyone holding a controller connected to a PlayStation 4 or an Xbox One. On Sunday, we’ll open The Farm for one hour to see how players come together in the new social hub for Destiny 2.

We hope you’ll join us. There is a certain equity in “I was there before the game even shipped.” We thank you for being one of those people.

Game on!

The Rhythm of the Algorithm

BETA SPOILER ALERT: Once Ghaul kicks you off the stern of his attack ship, you’ll be invited to enter the new arena. The Destiny 2 Beta provides a preview for how competitive multiplayer is evolving alongside the rest of the game. Whenever Guardians meet in glorious combat, there are questions about how they were selected as opponents. Crucible Design Lead Lars Bakken has some answers for how you’ll meet each other in the heat of battle.

Lars: Hello everyone!

Lars from the Crucible Team here, aka: Thug Larz on the Internetz. We really hope you’re enjoying the Beta. Even though it’s just a taste of the full game, we believe it delivers a good preview of what you’ll experience this fall. As you play your first matches in the Destiny 2 Crucible, you’re probably wondering about how Matchmaking will work. Before we dive into the details, allow me to share our core design principles for the Crucible in Destiny 2:

Provide a great experience for players who enjoy competitive PvP activities

Ensure that players who enjoy PvP have fair and fun matches

We’re designing the Crucible for people who live for that competitive fire that wells up in their soul every time they are challenged. That’s important to us. So, what’s new for Matchmaking in Destiny 2? The obvious PvP evolutions are the 4v4 format and the two consolidated playlists. We hope these changes have a good impact on game quality. Destiny 2 Crucible Matchmaking places a greater emphasis on connection quality, but make no mistake: Skill is still a big component in finding worthy opponents for you to fight. When all these systems are singing in unison, it should help us reach our ultimate goal: To give all players, regardless of their skill, the best possible experience. While the new Quickplay and Competitive modes are designed to serve different moods, they are using the same MM settings in the Beta. We’ll be able to tune these separately post-Beta, and your playtesting will help us going forward. For those of you who are wondering, we bucket you separately depending on the playlist, so your Quickplay skill is tracked separately from your Competitive skill. TL;DR: We’re always trying to make sure your connection is solid, while also making sure we give you as fair a match as possible. Thanks again for helping us Beta test the game. We’ll see you starside.

We’re tracking all Destiny 2 Beta #Feedback on the forum. What do you think? Destiny has always been an experience that adapts to your best behaviors behind the gun. This is the first conversation we’ll have about Destiny 2 Crucible Matchmaking, but it will not be the last!

Pest Control

Destiny Player Support has orders to keep watch over the virtual ecosystem where you play. When pesky critters ruin your fun, they run them down. You’re always welcome to follow the running dialogue about the hunt. This is their report.

July 21: Destiny 2 Open Beta begins

Players who have yet to pre-order will be granted access to the Destiny 2 Beta on July 21 at 10 AM Pacific through the PlayStation Store or Xbox Store. Destiny Player Support is currently tracking the following issues.

Player reports of error code TERMITE when first attempting to sign in to the Destiny 2 Beta

Player reports of error code WEASEL occurring when inspecting weapons, armor, ships, or completing activities

Players reports of error code OLIVE occurring when attempting to complete the campaign mission Homecoming, or attempting to sign-in

Player reports of error code MOOSE occurring when entering new areas within activity spaces

Player reports of PlayStation error code CE-34878-0 appearing during gameplay until changing platform language settings

Infinite Super Abilities in the Strike activity

Infinite Ammo granted through various gear and subclass perk synergy

We have disabled in-game Clan invitations for the remainder of the Destiny 2 Beta, as functionality was leading to an increase in error code WEASEL. The cause of this issue has been forwarded to the appropriate team for investigation. Destiny 2 Beta Clan Issues do not impact Clan features on Bungie.net or within Destiny 1. While we are able to reduce the occurrence of some error codes impacting gameplay, other issues revealed during the Beta may not be addressed prior to the ending of Beta on July 23, 2017. To confirm additional known issues, please see help.bungie.net/beta. As we investigate and troubleshoot these issues, stay tuned to @BungieHelp for service status and updates

Reporting an Issue to the #Help forum

If you encounter any issues during the Destiny 2 Beta, please post a report to the #Help forum with the following information:

PlayStation Network ID or Xbox Live Gamertag

Time in which issue occurred

Activity in which issue occurred

Description of what happened

While players may not receive a response, issues will be forwarded to the appropriate teams for investigation.

#destiny #destiny the game #Destiny 2 #bungie weekly update

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dorcasrempel · 5 years

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3 Questions: The fact finders

When publication such as U.S. News and World Report roll out their annual university rankings, typically with MIT among the top schools listed, some may wonder where the data they’re based on actually come from.

The source of that information is MIT Instituational Research, which collects and compiles data on many facets of the Institute, or, as Director Lydia Snover puts it, on MIT’s “people, money, and space.” The Institutional Research (IR) website is a wonderland of data that tells the story of MIT’s evolution over recent decades. There are surveys of faculty, graduate students, undergraduates — and even undergraduates’ parents. Users can also take a deep dive into the demographics of different subsets of the MIT community and peruse financial figures on research expenditures, tuition, and more.

Public universities have been providing this kind of information for decades to state and federal agencies that fund them. It’s unusual for a private university such as MIT to have such a robust IR operation and to share so much of its data publicly, but Snover has long been a leader in the field of IR at the national, and even international, level. She was recently awarded the John Stecklein Distinguished Member Award from the Association for Institutional Research, for advancing the field of institutional research through extraordinary scholarship, leadership, and service.

MIT News caught up with Snover to talk about IR at MIT, her philosophy about transparency, and why she’s a fan of the Institute’s data warehouse.

Q: What are the main types of data that your office collects, and what are they used for?

A: We bring together data from lots of different operational areas at MIT — including human resources, the registrar, admissions, and facilities, to name just a few — to simplify it in some ways and create metrics that can be used by departments, labs, and centers to help them meet their goals.

We complete all information requests for university rankings, guidebooks, and various consortiums. We also administer surveys for organizations like the Consortium for Financing of Higher Education as well as some of our other peer institutions. The majority of surveys we administer are just for the MIT community, or subsets of it. We administer over 100 surveys a year. We support the accreditation process and assist when asked with grant applications.

We provide reports for department heads in preparation for meetings with the Corporation’s visiting committees. We’ll put together a 10-year profile that includes department-level trends in staffing, retention, enrollment, sponsored research expenditures, how graduate students are being funded, things like that. We can compare those numbers within MIT and for a subset of metrics with other peer institutions.

People like to talk about making data-driven decisions, but we prefer the term “data-informed.” We collect data that help MIT’s senior officers make decisions about what’s best for the Institute.

A lot of the data we collect are available on our website, including our survey data. We have philosophy that if we ask people to fill out a survey, they’re entitled to see the results!

Q: How has your mandate changed in the last 20 years, and what do you see in the office’s future?

A: Institutional Research was established in 1986 and initially we focused primarily on physical planning. Over the next 15 years we began administering surveys, responding on behalf of the Institute to external data requests, and providing briefing materials. In 2000 we moved to the Office of the Provost, and our portfolio has continued to evolve and grow, both in terms of the services we provide to MIT leadership and the greater MIT community, and our involvement in sharing data with other universities. The staff has evolved as well to include analysts, programmers, experts in survey design, data visualization, database design, statistics, and qualitative analysis. MIT IR has an extraordinarily gifted staff.

Nationally, large institutional research offices were needed mostly by public institutions to respond to state legislatures. Private universities and colleges have slowly built up their capacity, in large part to provide internal analysis. In 1988, MIT joined the Association of American Universities Data Exchange (AAUDE), a consortium which facilitates data sharing with other AAU universities on things like the composition of faculty at the department level. The number of private AAU universities participating in the AAU Data Exchange has gone from a handful in 1990 to all 27 since I and others began encouraging our colleagues to become active.

Before MIT became involved, members were mailing each other this information on paper — you’d have file cabinets of paper! — so MIT first volunteered to provide an FTP server to facilitate electronic exchange of data. Now the AAU Data Exchange has a data warehouse, which has made the whole system very efficient.

One area were we focus a lot of attention, through our surveys and other data collections, is on what happens to our graduates: What percentage are going into industry? What are the companies that are hiring them? It used to be that all universities cared about was how many students go to graduate school, but MIT sends a lot of graduates to industry.

One new project is working with Professors Susan Hockfield, Sangeeta Bhatia, Nancy Hopkins, Fiona Murray of the MIT Innovation Initiative and the Boston Biotech working group on some interesting issues in gender representation in biotechnology, looking at company leadership, issuance of patents, and other areas.

Q: MIT’s IR office is relatively big for a private university. Why is that?

A: The scope of work for MIT’s Institutional Research Office is unusual because we’re involved in many projects that are important to MIT but not typical for institutional research. For example, at MIT we work with MITx data and sponsored research trends.

We’re very lucky and unusual because at MIT we have centralized data systems but local decision making. The fact that we have only one registrar, for example, and centralized accounting systems makes it much easier for my office to pull data together and analyze it.

I can’t emphasize enough how important the MIT data warehouse is — to everyone at MIT, not just to us. If you’re an analyst in an office like ours, you’d have to learn query languages for all the different databases. You would also spend a large proportion of your time compiling and cleaning data. But IS&T set up this system so that data could feed into one central warehouse, and you don’t need special programming skills to pull information out of it. The MIT data warehouse has been the envy of most of our peers.

MIT is the best place in the world to do institutional research because we have faculty who aren’t afraid of the data, even if they show there’s room for improvement. There’s an engineering mentality that permeates MIT. If we find we’re different from our peers in a way that we need to fix, then we identify that and fix it. You never think you’re the best because there’s always something to improve on.

3 Questions: The fact finders syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/

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dorcasrempel · 5 years

Text

3Q: The fact finders

MIT News caught up with Snover to talk about IR at MIT, her philosophy about transparency, and why she’s a fan of the Institute’s data warehouse.

Q: What are the main types of data that your office collects, and what are they used for?

A lot of the data we collect are available on our website, including our survey data. We have philosophy that if we ask people to fill out a survey, they’re entitled to see the results!

Q: How has your mandate changed in the last 20 years, and what do you see in the office’s future?

One new project is working with professors Susan Hockfield, Sangeeta Bhatia, and Nancy Hopkins and the Boston Biotech working group on some interesting issues in gender representation in biotechnology, looking at company leadership, issuance of patents, and other areas. The goal is to be able to compare MIT to national averages and deliberate on how to make positive changes in the ecosystem.

Q: MIT’s IR office is relatively big for a private university. Why is that?

3Q: The fact finders syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/

0 notes