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Creating the Online eGC1 (RRF)
SAGE is the university's web-based system for submitting a grant application and routing it electronically for campus review and approval before it is submitted to an extramural funding source. The RRF, which is internal funding, is also using SAGE to manage its proposal applications. This means that some of the data requested may not be applicable to the RRF. These instructions will explain how to complete all of the input fields applicable to RRF.
If you have not used SAGE before, check with your unit's ASTRA administrator to be sure you have access to SAGE with the appropriate role.
For technical help in completing the eGC1, check with your unit's administrator or email firstname.lastname@example.com. A response is usually provided between 30 and 120 minutes after the request is received.
To create a new eGC1 (electronic Grants and Contracts form 1):
- Open a web browser and start at the SAGE homepage.
- Click the Sign in button.
- Click the Create New eGC1 button.
- Select No, create a standard eGC1 and click the Next button.
- Click the Create Standard eGC1 button. A blank eGC1 will open.
Note: The eGC1 does not have to be filled in entirely at one time. It can be closed and saved at any point by clicking "Save & Close this eGC1" on the left-hand menu, and re-opened later. Once created, it will be listed on the "My eGC1s" page, and can be opened by clicking on the eGC1's number.
Follow the steps below to fill in the eGC1. Note that for some of the required fields you will be instructed to enter a generic value specific to the RRF.
Use the links on the left-hand menu (or the Previous/Next arrows at the top right of each page, or Previous and Continue at the bottom of each page) to move from one page to another. Any data entered will be saved as you move from page to page.
Details (Initial Page)
- Be sure to note the unique eGC1 number assigned to this application so you can add it to the Proposal Cover Page (Step 1).
- Full Application Title – the title of the proposal. (Note: descriptive titles help the review committee understand the content of the proposal).
- Short Title – a short version of the proposal title; used as the budget title (limit of 22 characters, the first 3 should be RRF)
- Begin Date and End Date – use the generic values below. (Note: these dates will not be your actual budget period – if awarded you will choose your own budget period.)
- Begin Date – for Spring, use June 16 of this year; for Fall, use January 16 of next year
- End Date – use a date that is one year after the begin date
- Sponsor Deadline – use the RRF due date
- For Spring, the first Monday in March of this year; for Fall, the last Monday in September of this year
- For Time of Day, 5:00 pm; for Time Zone, Pacific
- Organization Code Receiving Funding – "Look Up Organization Code" and select the appropriate code for the department that will be administering the funding (your fiscal specialist or unit administrator can provide this code number)
- Application Type – select either "New" or "Resubmission (Previously Denied)" as appropriate
- Project Details
- Project Type – select "Grant"
- Sponsored Program Activity Type – select either "Research: Basic" or "Research: Applied" as appropriate
- Sponsor – "Look Up Sponsor" search for and select "Royalty Research Fund (RRF)"; no other sponsor information is needed
- Does the funding originate from a different entity than the sponsor listed above (flow-through)? – select No
- Additional Information for RRF Applicants – this section displays at the bottom of the Details page when RRF is chosen as the Sponsor
- Research Area – select the one that best classifies the research (this might not match your departmental affiliation; please see hint below)
- Hint: Review the departmental affiliations of committee members in each category. Your proposal has a better chance of being successful if it is appropriately aligned with the expertise on the committee.
- Application for RRF Scholar – select either Yes or No; if Yes, be sure that documentation of teaching load is included in section E of the "Description of Research."
- Note: RRF Scholar means that the proposal includes a request for one quarter of teaching release time; see the full definition and requirements.
- Research Area – select the one that best classifies the research (this might not match your departmental affiliation; please see hint below)
PI, Personnel & Organizations
- Use the "Look Up Principal Investigator" button to select the PI for this application
- If the search results include more than one entry, select the one that corresponds to the department that will be receiving and administering the funding.
- Check that the UW box number, Phone, and Email are properly filled in; enter this information if needed.
- Investigator Status will automatically be set to Yes, and the Significant Financial Interest and Compliance Details columns will display current information for the PI.
- If there are co-PIs, add their names on this page so that their departments appear on the Approval Graph. Note: Do NOT include any personnel other than investigators (as defined by GIM 10 Significant Financial Interest Disclosure Policy).
- Use the "Add Personnel" link to search for and select each co-PI.
- If a co-PI has more than one entry, select the appropriate title and/or department.
- Choose "Co-Investigator" from the drop-down menu for the Role Type. Note: Do NOT select "Multiple PI."
- Investigator Status will automatically be set to Yes, and the Significant Financial Interest and Compliance Details columns will display current information for the Co-Investigator.
- Use the "Add Personnel" link to search for and select each co-PI.
- Disclosure Notification
- All investigators are required to create a disclosure for each eGC1 using the Financial Interest Disclosure System (FIDS), so click the "Send Disclosure Notification" button to email all personnel who have investigator status.
- Note: Until all investigators have completed a disclosure for the eGC1, it is not ready to be submitted to the sponsor (as indicated on the Certify & Route page).
- Additional Organizational Unit Reviewers
- Click on the "View Draft Approval Graph" link to see the units that will be approving the application
- Identify any other UW organizations or departments involved, that require review of this application (for joint appointment departments, organizations providing space, equipment, etc.)
- Interdisciplinary Organizational Unit Reviewers
- Identify any interdisciplinary facilities, centers, or services that will be involved, and require review of this application.
Contacts & Assign Access
- Use the "Look Up" button to add the Administrative Contact for the department receiving funding. This contact will receive email notification from SAGE about the eGC1.
- Use the "Look Up" button to add the Budget Contact if applicable; if there is none, leave blank. Complete only if there is a separate Budget Contact for your unit.
- Note: If a co-PI needs access to the online eGC1 application, the PI will need to assign access permission. Click on the "Add Another User" link, search for and select the co-PI. For Permission Type, select "Read/Write" from the drop-down menu. The co-PI will then be able to open and edit the eGC1.
Abstract & RFA/RFP
- From the Proposal Cover Page, copy and paste (or enter) the abstract into the Abstract text box
- For all other fields on the page, enter "N/A" or "not applicable"
Activity Locations
- Activity Locations
- List all locations of UW research activity on the proposed project.
- Space Planning
- Indicate whether any construction or renovation of existing facilities will be included in this project.
- International Involvement
- List any countries other than the U.S. where research will take place for this project, including subrecipient sites.
Budget & Fiscal Compliance
- For F1 "Will F&A costs be reimbursed at less than the federally negotiated rate for the UW?" – select No
- For F2 "Will administrative or clerical support be included in the budget as direct costs? (see GIM 23)" – select No
- For F3 "Does this application commit funds for cost sharing or matching?" – select No
- From the proposal budget document, enter the subtotals for each of the FAS Object Codes (1-8) in the Total (All Periods) boxes
- No other information is needed on this page
Cost Sharing
- No information is needed on this page
Non-Fiscal Compliance
- Answer all of the questions.
- If you answer "Yes" to HS-1, then:
- For HS-1A "Delayed Onset: Will IRB application submission be delayed until after award because you will (1) identify and develop new protocols that will be supported by the award or (2) complete other research described in the proposal that is necessary before the human subjects research can be fully planned." – select No
- For HS-1B "IRB Approval Pending: Will you need to submit a new IRB application, modify an existing IRB application, or are awaiting approval of a current IRB application for the human subject research in this project?" – select Yes
- List any known IRB Applications.
- If you answer Yes to AU-1, then list all known Animal Use protocols. If a protocol does not yet exist, list a "New Protocol".
- Human Subjects and Animal Use: If the proposal involves human subjects and/or animals, the PI must provide evidence of the necessary approvals before funds can be released. The PI is responsible for submitting the proposal to the appropriate committee after awards are announced
Application Summary
- Use this page to review the information entered
Attached Documents
Attachments: The proposal documents attachment will be uploaded in Step 3 of the "Instructions for Preparing an RRF Proposal." Be sure to indicate "Draft" or "Final" in the file description. Note: the final version must be attached by the RRF deadline or the application will not be accepted – NO EXCEPTIONS.
Certify & Route
- Complete the Application Document Information section
- Will paper documents be submitted … – answer "No"; there are no paper documents submitted as part of an RRF application
- Will sponsor documents be submitted … – answer "No"; the RRF application is not being submitted to an off-campus sponsor
- Complete the Significant Financial Interest (SFI) section
- Answer the question: "Is this application ready to be submitted to the sponsor?" This question must be marked "Yes" by the RRF deadline or the application will not be accepted – NO EXCEPTIONS. Note: Until all investigators have completed a financial interest disclosure for the eGC1 (using FIDS), it is not ready to be submitted to the sponsor.
- Use the "Check for Errors" link at the bottom of the page to verify that all required fields have been filled in; if not, navigate back to the appropriate page and correct the error
- Click on the "View Draft Approval Graph" link to see the units that will be approving the application
- For any co-PIs, verify that the appropriate units are represented.
- Note: The Additional Information field is used for comments to your unit approvers only (division, department, dean).
Click the "Save & Close this eGC1" link on the left-hand menu to save the application at this point.
Return to the Instructions for Preparing an RRF Proposal and complete steps 3-5. Please note that your proposal submission will not be considered complete until you have submitted the Suggested Reviewers Memo as outlined in step 5.


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School Safety Legislation Since Newtown
After the devastating school shootings in Newtown, Conn., in December, state lawmakers around the country vowed to act. The mission: devise ways to prevent a similar tragedy.
They came up with hundreds of possible strategies.
An Education Week analysis of more than 450 bills related to school safety filed in the days, weeks, and months after the deadliest K-12 school shooting in U.S. history found that legislators have proposed solutions that include arming teachers, adding guards or police officers, and shoring up the security of school buildings.
The bills included all have a direct link to education, or to the Newtown shootings. So while bills about magazine size and assault-weapon restrictions are included, those involving background checks for gun purchases are not, unless they also contained provisions related to schools. Where the same version of a bill was introduced in both legislative chambers, generally, only one was counted. Read More ▼
Categorical Analysis
In the analysis, Education Week placed each bill into at least one of seven categories. Because some bills dealt with multiple aspects of school safety, they are classified in multiple categories. Just because two bills are in one category does not mean they have the identical goal.
A few proposals proved difficult to categorize, including one Missouri bill that would bar school employees from asking students about any firearms in their homes. And one Texas bill would allow districts to offer high school students elective classes on firearm safety that would teach the history and importance of the Second Amendment. (Education Week decided to place both of those bills in our "School Climate and Student Supports" category.)
Geographical Trends
The analysis includes trends in how legislatures reacted in different regions of the country, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. The breakdown includes information from four regions of the country (Northeast, South, Midwest, and West) as well as state activity. For example, Connecticut lawmakers were, not surprisingly, very active when it came to school safety bills.
In each of the four geographic regions used by the Census Bureau, "School Emergency Planning" legislation was the most popular category. The numbers below don't represent individual bills, but which categories legislation addressed.
The analysis found that lawmakers in the South introduced the highest number of relevant bills, 188, while Northeast legislators introduced the second-highest total, 107. The West region, meanwhile, generated the least activity, with just 64 bills related to school safety in some way.
- ■ School Emergency Planning
- ■ Police in Schools
- ■ Arming School Employees
- ■ Easing School Gun Restrictions
- ■ Building Safety Upgrades
- ■ School Climate and Student Supports
- ■ Gun Control
Despite high-profile "Gun Control" legislation in Connecticut and New York, "School Emergency Planning" was the most popular category of legislation in the Northeast region. Read More ▼
Notes & Sources
Education Week labeled bills dead only if that status could be confirmed. The analysis included bills that died because they help illustrate trends in legislation and provide insight into what lawmakers have been thinking.
For the most recent update to our legislative tracker, some bills received a "pending-carryover" designation. This means that the bills will "carry over" from the 2013 to the 2014 legislative sessions, since lawmakers have not taken final action regarding them. Some of these bills will may receive further official consideration, while some will may not proceed any further and will die. In the interactive graphic portion of this presentation, these bills are categorized as "pending."
The National Conference of State Legislatures provided baseline information for this analysis.
If you believe any relevant bills are missing from the analysis, please let Education Week know. Send information to Andrew Ujifusa ([email protected] | @StateEdWatch).
Vol. 32
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.

subset: commoncrawl


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I'm a sandboxer at heart. I lke the emergent gameplay, and the opportunity to go 'off-script.' But ideally with just a *touch* of theme to it, to get you started and showcase the possibilities.
Progression: I like an asymptotic approach. Vertical in the beginning, tapering off to a more horizontal/lateral direction that approaches *but never quite reaches* a certain overall powerlevel. Something that can keep the sense of 'character development' endless or near-endless, but that doesn't scale out of reach of the neophyte (or require long periods of stalling or 'welfare boosting' to let the neophyte catch up.) Eve's approach is the closest I've seen ot the ideal.
i prefer mmos with mixed playstyles, most likely a themepark with great sandbox elements, though nothing like this exists really. i played WoW a lot and it was loads of fun, however the game became more and more linear, all the classes were evened, the skill system was torn down to a simple "click one of this 3 abilites every X levels" and there is no individuality at all now. the raids are still pretty epic, however i never liked the abandonment of 40 Man raids. even if your individual skills didnt matter that much in its time, it was simply the group strength, which made you pass these raids. It meant something if you were in a guild who has beaten Nefarian or even a few bosses in naxxramas. Now its just the overpainted picture of a scripted MMO giving players loads of epic items for these so-called "raidfinder-raids" which are just a boring way of keeping players happy with epics.
also i never liked any kind of dungeonfinders, they made instances very unpersonal, and thats my main point in an mmo: socializing. most of the finders in MMOs are serverwide, so you dont even need to get players from your own servers. no instance search in chat, which i didnt find any harder than pressing a button to queue up.
I play RPGs to roleplay, which to me as a long time pen-and-paper gamer is defined as the player "telling their _own_ story." I lean toward sandbox games as a result, simply because I don't feel as constrained to tell someone else's story instead of my own.
It is not that themepark games cannot empower that as well: CoH is a good example of a game that largely allowed a player character to tell their own story despite being a themepark. It simply seems to be less likely to occur in themeparks... a logical result, given the differences of design philosophy involved.
On the concept of what makes an end-game work: I think, in the final analysis, it boils down to community. In the MMOs that have had my attention for long periods, i.e. years instead of months, the consistent element that kept me coming back was reminiscent of a line from the old sitcom Cheers: "sometimes you want to go; where everybody knows your name; and they're always glad you came..."
Not exceptionally helpful from a game designer standpoint, perhaps, but something to keep in mind. Potential elements that help engender such an environment: allowing for significant distinction in character look, so that individuals can be recognized by sight in game; reasonably short but non-trivial periods of downtime, allowing for at least brief social interactions; challenges requiring coordination of effort but relatively little activity (again, encouraging communication); interface elements that aid in identification/remembrance of player characters interacted with before; and so on.
Blogging semi-regularly at http://damianov.wordpress.com
Shadowbane was an awesome MMO and I enjoyed it greatly and it had a very sandbox end game.
However the game was ruined by unlimited open PvP to the point where every Shard (server) was run by a single super-guild and if you were somehow not allied with them they would spawn camp you until gave up playing. If you had a deed and were building a fort, the super-guild would come along level it if it was not flying their guild banner.
Darkfall has the potential to be the 'best' (end) game because it has a combination of Eve's skilling and popular fantasty.
However, somewhere they lost the plot and are wiping the server.
Therefore, I believe the 'best' endgame is WoW because of the shear diversity of activities offered.
But bear in mind that MMORPGs are basically escapism, so you have to be careful how much time you spend playing them.
TBH, I do not know. Although I have played nearly every AAA MMO since 2003 I have only stayed with WOW for more than a year (7 years and quit with MOP). Probably the reason is that I don't stick around for more than 3 months on any MMO is because am a solo player. The only MMO that I have seen that had a decent endgame for the solo player was RIFT. You could continue to grind and your stats would slowly get better.
I do not like pvp but I remember spending 2 hours a day and 12 hours on weekends playing Alterace Valley in the Burning Crusade over and over and over. Yes it was gear and rep grind but I loved being in a group and being able to heal. The architecture of the battleground meant that you could not really zerg. No other battleground (WOW or any other game) has come close. Now that MMOs are trying to eliminate pvp healers I don't see anything like that happening again.
I'd definitely stick with a Sandbox. I'd like nothing more than the game dumping me off in some huge open world with no goal or story whatsoever.
As for the not-so-on-topic endgame... It's pretty much when you reach max level/final area/complete all quests... something of that sort, right? Well why have it at all? Getting to the next level, or acquiring a new skill should be so difficult, people wouldn't be reaching the so-called endgame. It's a simple matter of adding a zero or two at the end of the xp requirements. (Not really, but almost.)
Originally posted by tornmandate
I'd definitely stick with a Sandbox. I'd like nothing more than the game dumping me off in some huge open world with no goal or story whatsoever.
As for the not-so-on-topic endgame... It's pretty much when you reach max level/final area/complete all quests... something of that sort, right? Well why have it at all? Getting to the next level, or acquiring a new skill should be so difficult, people wouldn't be reaching the so-called endgame. It's a simple matter of adding a zero or two at the end of the xp requirements. (Not really, but almost.)
Sadly Devs these days care nothing but making a quick buck, prime example SWTOR. Hopefully more Dev's will look at what EvE has done and make games that can keep the players interested more then 2 weeks. For me I'm looking forward to the game World of Darkness which is based of the RPG "Vampire the Masquerade" which is being made by the people who made EVE and will be a sandbox game too.
for me its sandbox pve. Im not interested in pvp and absolutely will not play a game with any type of open world pvp ever again except for world of darkness if it ever gets made. pvp just brings out some real asshats in the gaming community and quite frankly I dont have time to deal with idiots like that.
I currently play asherons call even though it is 13 years old. I also absolutely hate the word end game. there should be no end game, its a mmo the game should go forever.
there should be no such thing as level cap. your character doesnt stop learning just because he reached a certain point. base character development on things other than just gear. innate abilities that you can purchase with exp or some other form of currency, something other than running raid x every week for 3 months just to get a few pieces of gear. in those types of games you never see your character get more powerful once he reaches level cap, he just gets more gear. take the gear off and he has not gained one bit in power, its just depressing.
This might take me a bit to answer.
"The elusive end game is what many MMO players are looking for in order to keep playing the same game for long months on end." ~ Okay, this statement makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. So, you plan for a game that is supposed to be set in a potentially perpetual universe… to END, from the outset? Alright, when THAT makes sense to someone, let me know, please? 'The END-game… players are looking for to KEEP PLAYING… for long months on end…'? Wait, WHAT?!
Rather than allowing the words 'end game' to creep into the planning at ANY point during the planning, as with a regular video game that is designed to come to an end, why not allow for a different term, such as 'content in-game release point', or just simply like any other business designed to be perpetual? Have a tasks benchmark point, such as 1500 tasks in-game prior to release; we all know MMO developers are going to put in expansions and updates, and those apply to the game overall, but they really don't go to any sort of 'end game content'.
"I'm too much of an old school RPG Game Master at heart to trust the care of my world to the players, and I think that's why I never really got into EVE." ~ Now, this is something I'm very familiar, having been a tabletop role-player since my middle school days -too long ago to be recognizable, anymore, just AFTER the dinosaurs, I'm afraid-, and for the tabletop this sort of mentality is fine. As a compromise between the two viewpoints of allowing players to create the world or keeping a tight control over it, build the stories and assets you want to see placed in your world to begin with and, once you've reached your planned saturation point, then begin to develop tools for other players to get in and create, as well. Keep in mind that there are thousands of others in the world who have been GamesMasters and will find your game to be the perfect place to put together adventures they love, have developed, and/or have run for their players. For those who are not tabletop gamers, there are still many out there who will want to take ideas they've seen and/or developed, before, and see them in your game. It's the height of selfishness to not allow them to work magic you didn't think of.
"Costumes and Emotes are usually the worst selling microtransactions in any given game's cash shop, when they sit side-by-side with power items that have an actual improvement on your character's combat effectiveness." ~ I hate to say this, HATE IT, but unfortunately MMORPGs are designed to power players up. Had MMOs been designed with the traditional role-playing ideals in-mind, two things would have happened:
1) Traditional RP players would not expect all of the power-ups available since EverQuest and Asheron's Call, and
2) MMORPGs would have died on the vine, because video gamers would not have taken to playing something where they couldn't build their characters up and gain super-powers to keep them playing to the end of the game.
In this way, I agree with you, Matt, that face-to-face contact is very important to keep players interested in the game, or you have to go with incentives. It's pretty sad that we have a now-me society, because there are a lot of great stories to be told, but no one to enjoy them.
"Which appeals to you more as a player, Sandbox or Theme Park and why? Is there an element of the other that you don't mind? Is there an element of the other that drives you away?" ~ I believe that both have their place. To be honest with you, from what I've read about how tasks will be gathered, and with the removal of "quest hubs" from the game, it sounds to me as though The Elder Scrolls Online will have the perfect mixture, or at least the next-best step to doing so. However, my thought is that a game needs to have a perfect mixture of both; after all, what's the problem with having a relatively open world while finding the periodic beginning campaign task that will take your character, and your friend's characters into a long chain of events that ENDs in some manner of catastrophic and perfectly heroic event?
The ONE thing I feel MMORPG developers (keep in mind the RPG stands for Role-Playing Game) have missed, wholesale, is how role-playing adventures, campaigns, and actual quests are developed, and that's because most of the industry is full of console gamers who have played games mistakenly labeled as RPGs, but do not actually have any decent story-telling abilities themselves. TESO might be the first MMORPG that tells several decent stories, and I am only saying that based off prior experience with Bethesda games, particularly Oblivion and Fallout 3. I hope they will set the benchmark for telling stories in games; however, even Bethesda does not have the whole of it, and I'm afraid I will wait forever before I see actual tasks related to actual adventures, unless somehow I win the lottery or I gain a huge inheritance and take to making the game myself.
Champions Online, Star Trek Online, pretty much any Cryptic game I have played, especially now that they are so closely in bed with PWE, who has forced players to get a second account WITH THEM to be able to play any of those games -IGNORANCE-, turned me entirely off within the first 30 levels. Why? Because their stories are about getting into fights, and little else. Star Trek was SOMEWHAT different because you could drive a starship around in their universe, but their map -as cool as it is- only allows you to go from planet to planet in a very close frame… there is no real travel, and I never saw an actual shipboard adventure. Basically, without going much further, Cryptic's games are a bunch of pretty graphics and character design and background elements, with zero substance.
"I'll be at C2E2 in Chicago at the end of April. My panel is on Friday, April 26th at 3:15 entitled "Playing a Hero in MMOs", stop by if you have a chance!" ~ Oh, man, I wish I could make it to Chicago for that. I can't make it out of my driveway, right now, hehe, but I hope that your panel will show up on YouTube somewhere, so I can see it.
Not to sound like a sycophant, but one of the greatest strengths to City of Heroes was its diversity of options. It wasn't all things to all people, but there was enough for everyone at all levels. That's really what's lacking in anything that's out there on a free-to-play model. World of Warcraft is doing it, but the implimentation, not to mention the actual content, is so vanilla that I just can't stick with it for more than a $30 timecard, and forget the cash shop.
Really, what I want from a game depends entirely on the game and my mood. I have to have four (or more) different games installed on my computer, now, to be able to scratch a given itch. Sometimes, I just want to go off and run missions/quests solo. Sometimes I want to run with a team/group. Sometimes, I want to go fishing, but it's snowing outside. (OK, that last one wasn't in CoH, but you get the idea.)
If you're listening and willing to comment, what are your thoughts on Jack's statement to Jeremy during the MMORPG.com panel at PAXEast on the future of MMOs? Barring that, regarding the general comments of the panel regarding the cancellation of CoH?
Originally posted by jtcgs
Asherons Call told a story and a good one at that.
Asherons Call was a sandbox because the game didnt lock you into it.
Asherons Call had levels, but it also had open skill choices so no classes where XP was placed into those skills for an almost infinitely increasing character power.
Asherons Call had an open world where you can go anywhere you wanted.
Its been done already, it can be mainstream easily if a company would just put money into it and BTW, the game is still going today, after some 15 years with people paying a sub.
First, I am glad you recognize that different games appeal to different people and that's OK. I don't think I could get into EVE for several reasons but I'm not going to knock people who do. It would be like insulting someone because they prefer Rocky Road when you think putting nuts in ice cream is just wrong.
Second, I'm surprised about how costumes were poor sellers. With my Paragon Points about all I bought were extra costume slots and costume sets. But I think CoH is the exception due to the already wide range of costumes. In a superhero game, different costumes are nearly mandatory. I had one character who had different costumes at different levels to reflect her growing power (an mental unstability).
I haven't played enough MMOs to say themepark vs sandbox, just that the end content has to be fun. CoH did it with trials. STO is doing it with dull Reputation options where you basically buy stuff and over the course of weeks get to option to buy special equipment. I spent the last week there doing basic things and not having much fun doing it. It's a skinner box that has me in its grip.
With a sandbox, you need a goal. I've tried some sandbox games and I felt adrift like "what do I do now". Bragging rights don't concern me much since IMHO it shows that you spend too much time playing games. Ohhh you got the purple swirl gear that lets you do 0.1% more damage. How many all-nighters did that take? Have you bathed yet?
Bottom line, games are meant to be fun. If the content you have after reaching max level is fun then you have a winner.
hmm if you're asking other people about their motivation for leveling, i think we got ourselves a problem xD
that's the developers job
Mystery Bounty
While I absolutely LOVE a good RPG, I have to say that I am absolutely sick and tired of being The Hero(ine) from day one level one in an MMO. So very, very sick and tired of it. Do I like becoming The Heroine? Hell yes. But I like to develop INTO that, because I deserve it, I've done all the myriad things that becoming The Heroine requires, amongst NPCs and other PCs, and not be crowned that simply because I logged in after I completed character creation."
Zharre hit th nail on the head for me with her post. Why do all MMO's force you into the "you're the best darn Hero!" or "You're the most evil Villain!" immediately after logging in? I want an MMO that my character grows into. When I do PnP gaming I don't make my players Gods immediately. I am betting that you don't either Matt.
Personally I like a game that has a few bad guys that I can't kick their tails in when I go in the mission. What I want at that point is a way to bypass the mission and get better so that I can go in and kick their tail at some point in the future. That doesn't mean that I want ti die trying however. Back when I was playing CoH a good example was the original first Antimatter mission. You went in to beat him and he teleported away. A few missions later after you had usually leveled, you met up with him again and gave him what for. Not to say that this mechanic is the correct one to use, but maybe the antagonist beats you senseless and you wake up later. or maybe he just walks past you out the door. Anyway that it happens it makes your character feel that they are not up to the job just yet.
On to your question about Sandbox or Theme Park. I don't see why it has to be ether/or. I thought that AE was a great idea, that could have been eve better if some of the missions been moved out of that setting into the "real" world. There were some fantastic writers who didn't get the exposure that their work should have. While there would have been howling about "my story wasn't picked", I feel that for the game overall letting some of the players write content and giving them access to a story arc system would have been a fantastic step forward for MMO's.
So do I like sandboxing? In some cases yes, but don't box me in so much that I cannot make bad choices for my character or have options for content that I dislike.
Do I want a total Theme Park? Not really, but the Theme Park concept is a great diversion from normal content development and the strictures thereof.
Both have postives and negatives. There isn't really any reason that we can't have both.
Ura Hero.
I wish i could get to C2E2 to talk to you Matt but it's not in the cards right now.
Anyway to your question.
I thought CoH/CoV kind of brought the two styles together to some extent. There was plenty of story content there to be followed if you chose to use your contacts, or you could just hit the streets and defend the citizens, thus making your own stories as you went along. Then the Polics Scanner came along and while that could be considered a contact I used it as a basis for a character that was more or a less a police robot.
Since CoH shutdown I have been searching for another game to play and can't say I have found one that suits me. I play Wizard 101 simply because it has more options than other games and is more fun. It is not anywhere close to being a sandbox type game, but i believe you could advance your character just street fighting [so to speak].
I guess I'm looking for something that brings the two together in some fashion like I think CoH did by the time it shutdown.
Heya Posi (if I can still call you that),
As usual with things you do, you got me thinking. So let me start with this:
There's always a new skill to learn, so you are forever improving your character. I would be really interested to see if that system could attract a more mainstream audience attracted to a fantasy MMO. I know a lot of EVE's engagement comes through the fact that it's the ultimate sandbox. Developers set up the rules of the world and the players make the stories. I see this idea having some potential, and would watch the development of such a game closely.
In a lot of ways this also described the first iteration of Star Wars Galaxies, and it was a big part of the appeal and passion for me (and most of the friends I know who played). While the skill system ended up being about earning and spending the max possible points, the ways to combine those points was widely varied. Sure there were cookie cutter builds for the people that wanted to be the most combat effective, but for everyone else, you could mix and match effectiveness with flavor and utility and get really interesting characters. But to address this:
I mean I tried it when all my friends were playing, but I was so unguided that I felt like just another cog in a great machine. I didn't feel like the hero
Sure if you wanted to swg could feel like jobs in space, but there were a lot of routes to being the hero as well. At least, if you were your own personal GM, you could easily feel like hopping in your starship and fighting for the Rebellion was a big hero moment. You're right though that EVE (from my limited experience) didn't tend to give players that option.
Your game was great in the number of different ways players could advance and feel like they were doing things, even if for the bulk of the lifespan of your game the tech wasn't there to let players feel like they were changing the world around them. I saw where you were headed with it, and I was looking forward to more.
SWG letting players change the world was indeed too open ended though. Player housing and towns were great, but player churn meant too many abandoned buildings spread across what had once been pristine adventuring and exploring areas.
CoH was an interesting midpoint between sandboxy and playing on rails. I guess as a sandbox fan, I'd say it only broke down in terms of having a smooth and painless way to "feel domestic" The concept of your crafting system was great, but the UI variations between personal storage, Auction house, banks, and base storage, as well as windows that only rarely remembered your preferences made it a chore. Costume design was a joy, but having no easy way to design costumes and still socialize frustrated a lot of people. Base design too was fun, but you had to jump through hoops to be able to socialize, and getting things done took a LOT of time.
CoH made up for a lot of that with the simple genius of the Sidekick Exemplar system. I'm still waiting for some other game to shamelessly rip that idea off whole cloth, because it solved so many problems, when it was done right. It felt genuinely good to level down and help someone, or level up with higher friends even when your lowbie couldnt contribute as much. If the ability to go back and do older missions had been a little more seamless (Ouroboros time travel was thematically fun and appropriate, but again, a tedious UI). Mission Architech was also overall another win for player control. It would have been more of a paragon (heh sorry) to the entire gaming world if not for social elements that were somewhat beyond a developer's control. Maybe if the cheating potential hadn't be quite as high in the early days, and maybe if the ability to sift grain from chaff had been a little more reliable, a larger social network would have built up around the system and our player community would have grown it a little more wisely. You guys broke ground on it though.
I guess what I'm saying is, there are ways to balance between the EVE experience and the riding on rails living someone else's cutscene gaming experience. Your game balanced on some, missed on others. Others missed on things you hit out of the park.
I still miss City of Heroes every day. I'm eagerly awaiting new games that take the lessons you guys taught us and deliver something even close to as much sustainable fun.
Hey Matt,
Welcome to MMORPG, I saw they hired you but I got busy and missed your posts. I'm hoping to read through all of them today because I'm having a slow day.
About the Endgame Topic, It was interesting to hear your comments. Here's my reply:
"For me the attraction to any endgame has always been friends...Because of this, I implemented an extremely social endgame for City of Heroes, the Incarnate system."
The minds of the developers and the minds of players are very different.
When I was playing COH during the incarnate trials, I found the trials brought out the worst in people. The trials were reasonable short (good move!) and so I hoped this would allow people to be flexible. Instead, I would see people trying to get that "perfect" team or become obssessed with their authority and boot people during trials for various reasons. Few people did open trials which I felt should have been used more in the spirit of the game.
As a player, my social needs was to play with other reasonable people (well-mannered, tolerant, supportive, etc.) for a good experience. I didn't feel the need to play with "My Friends." To me, this was a place I could go to and just be accepted. I'd played all the maps, had lots of badges, plenty of XP...the game was a release for me. The level 1-30 content was the underestimated gem of the game!
With that said, I had hardcore weekends where I played the game whole weekends. I could do this because I was single. I never had people with me the whole time so I had rolling teams. Some could only play an hour or so, some could play a half-day, etc. I worked with whatever came my way to enjoy myself. I played with young, old, females, male, even some who spoke different languages. I even allowed people who were in the hard levels(35-48) stay on to just collect XP even though they had other things to do.
With that said, I have not yet found an MMO that has replicated the arrangement of COH. Examples, SWTOR, the players are mostly hardcore/nasty and the game requires lots of bandwidth(100kbps) and a high level of dexterity because so much of the game is manual (drops, equipment repairs, etc.) for a reasonable experience but more bandwidth gives an advantage in this game. STO, is a soloist game...I don't care what anyone says. Space combat kills me!! ZZZZZZZZZZ! The ground missions in STO are so bad that one time I used a fire extinquisher to do combat! I heard that Eve is good but I won't return to the button mashing to move your ship in constant circular patterns. COH mopped up all of these games by keeping the core gaming principles in mind ( Easy to learn/play, automate as much as you can, and "better together" play). COH was the only MMO where I preferred team to solo...
"Exploration, on the other hand, is trickier. It's the hardest to incentivize and reward, because of the internet....Yes, it was incredibly satisfying to figure out how to get to a holocron in Star Wars: The Old Republic without using a guide, but eventually players who wanted their character to have maxed out stats would resort to one of a dozen online walkthroughs or videos on how to get every holocron in the game, and the magic was gone. Although there are some holocrons that I swear I have no idea how anyone would have ever figured out how to get them, but kudos go to the brave explorers who first uncovered them and their secrets."
This comment surprised me. Players have only so much time online. I think you got this right with Leader/Player slider difficulty in COH. I was interested in exploring but I knew I might be coming back to the zone later so I wasn't trying to waste an afternoon by myself...


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Tachyonized Dbl Terminated Quartz -Med
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Tachyon Products
Tachyon products presented here were developed by N.E.T., a research and development company based in Europe. Currently they focus on researching the effect of influence of exotic forms of matter such as non-ionized plasma, gluonic dark matter and neutrino dark matter on tachyon field. They also do research of behavior of tachyon field at extremely low temperatures, for example in liquid nitrogen. In suborbital and orbital space around Earth they study the effect of cosmic rays upon the tachyon field. The company is cooperating with leading companies from the civilian space research initiative, such as Bigelow Aerospace and UP Aerospace. They were present at the first commercial suborbital test flight for small companies thanks to their cooperation with ZG Aerospace LLC. They are participating in the Fly your stuff program of Bigelow Aerospace aboard their Genesis II orbital spacecraft.
What are Tachyons?
Tachyons are subatomic particles that travel faster than light. They are particles that infuse physical matter with spiritual light. Tachionization is a technological process that infuses physical matter with an increased quantity of tachyons and permanently changes quantum properties of atomic nuclei which compose that matter. Chemical composition is not altered, the change occurs on subatomic level. Because it decreases entropy of physical matter it reverses the aging process and strengthens the immune system. How does something get Tachionized and what is the process? Tachyons are from outer space where this energy is in abundance. We have this energy on earth also, but it is very limited due to artificial interferences in the earths electromagnetic lifeforce matrix. The technology is that being used is connected to a crystal is that is now orbiting earth in a sattelite called Genesis. This satelite was placed by Bigelow a public Aerospace company. This crystal and has created a wormhole in the atmosphere where tachyons are connected via the quantum field to a special tachyon chamber on the earth. This tachyon chamber is designed by Pleiadeans and it is run by trusted earth based scientists. The details are propietary.
Is the tachionization permanent or will the effects dilute after time?
This process is permanent and irreversible. It is not possible to remove tachyons by exposing them to heat, magnetic field or any type of chemical reaction.
Is the tachionization process safe?
This process is completely safe. It does not change chemical composition of matter and it does not create any type of electromagnetic field nor any type of radioactivity.
Why are tachyon products a good choice among wellness products?
Tachyon products are among the most effective means to improve our quality of life, removing physical causes of many diseases and imbalances in our bodies. Tachyon products cannot be misused and go well along with other wellness products. Since tachyons equally influence our physical body and our higher energy bodies, they improve our well-being and accelerate our spiritual growth dramatically.
Are there any side effects of tachyon products?
It is good to know that they trigger a purification and detoxification process that lasts uo to a few weeks and can have some mild side effects, such as headaches, sleeplessness,…This is just a sign that toxins are rapidly leaving your body which is in fact getting healthier! It is good to drink plenty of water during that time.


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What types of locking does Kodo provide?
Kodo provides support for both datastore locking and optimistic. Datastore locking is implemented using pessimistic database operations that acquire locks on all objects that are retrieved in a transaction. Optimistic locking, on the other hand, will verify that no other transaction has modified any of the objects at commit time, and throw an exception if the object has been changed. Advanced users can get more fine-grained control over locking using Kodo's object locking APIs. See Section 9.4, "Object Locking".
Which kind of locking should I use for my application?
The answer depends greatly on the type of application you are developing. The advantage of using pessimistic locking is that the application does not need to worry about any locking violations at commit time, but at the cost of potentially introducing serious locking contention into your application. The advantage of using optimistic locking is that it can be much faster and makes more efficient use of database connections, since it does not necessarily need to hold open a single connection for the duration of a transaction. The primary disadvantage of optimistic locking is that the application must catch lock violation exceptions at commit time and take the appropriate actions upon failure (such as re-trying the operation, or telling the user a violation has occurred). Advanced users who want something between these extremes can use Kodo's fine-grained object locking APIs, detailed in Section 9.4, "Object Locking".
Why do I get optimistic exceptions even though I am using pessimistic transactions?
If your objects have an optimistic version indicator, then Kodo will still perform optimistic locking logic even if you are using pessimistic transactions. This is so that you can mix optimistic and pessimistic transactions over the life cycle of your application.


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The Ghostbusters have faced everything from demons to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man — but when Death itself gets taken out of commission, a new threat is unleashed on New York that could require the team to contemplate an extreme solution: gender balance.
In this this exclusive preview of Ghostbusters #15, coming out tomorrow from IDW Comics, the team recruits some new female members to help with a huge, massive problem. This comic includes all the stuff you expect from Ghostbusters, including dorky banter and huge battles with stupid city officials. And let's face it — this is the closest you're going to get to seeing Bill Murray back in the iconic tan jumpsuit.
Here are some preview pages from the comic — click to make giant. Ghostbusters #15 hits the stands tomorrow.


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Bernard,Thanks for your opinions.I feel like such a newb when it comes to compact and mirror-less cameras as I only really shoot my M9 and D800. This is for my lovely bride and I want it to be a surprise.I aM quite intrigued by the J1 but wonder how the image quality is. My wife primarily shoots for family events and travel. She prints mostly 4x6 for photo albums and wants a versatile camera that is relatively small yet still has nice image quality. IQ doesn't have to be the absolute best, but she would like some DOF capability. She complains about the lack of shallow DOF and shutter lag as she also like shooting people on the street.
After reviewing and looking at a large array of cameras, I decided on the Nex 7 because:
Damn, a woman's priorities simply baffle me.........a purple braided leather strap?


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Bad Jobs News For Rochester: GM Closing Its Highly Touted Fuel Cell Plant
The upstate economy took another significant blow today as General Motors announced it will close its fuel cell plant in Honeoye Falls, just south of Rochester.
The decision means the 220 salaried employees who worked in the research and development facility won't be employed in the area. The company said most of the employees will be offered the opportunity to transfer to the Global Powertrain Engineering Headquarters in Pontiac, Mich., the Democrat and Chronicle reports.
"This decision has significant business advantages for the company,"said Kim Carpenter, GM spokeswoman.
"For example, it will enable GM to capitalize on synergies with the rest of the powertrain and vehicle organizations. The majority of the GM employees will be offered the option to relocate in Michigan."
The news comes after Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. announced just last week that it military completions center in Big Flats, Chemung County, at year's end—a loss of 570 jobs.
The Honeoye Falls facility had for years been hailed as a prospective boom for the Rochester area and a linchpin to its innovation economy. But the facility appeared to struggle as questions rose about the potential for hydrogen-powered vehicles.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has made reviving the upstate economy his top initiative, but the two latest factory closures are a hit to that message.
Still, the newspaper reported that Carpenter said the business environment in New York compared to the environment in Michigan was not a factor in the decision.


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BTW, Scott Merkin has a cool article about how much grateful Alexei is for Jose Contreras' influence on him on and off the diamond.
Other White Sox links:
- J.J. says Chris Sale's change-up is the key to his potential success, updates us at the closer competition, and with Tony Andracki post the 1960-69 All-Chicago team.
- James looks at the closer competition too, previews the starting rotation, and writes about Buddy Bell's conference call.
- THT's Jeff Moore looks at the Sox' farm system.
And BTB's Lewie Pollis updates the 'The Simple WAR calculator' to version 2.0.


text: Well, this sucks. I've torn the ATF and CF ligaments in my right ankle a few times over the last 10 years, the most recent being Memorial Day weekend when I fell in an inshore hole. (STFU and stop laughing, I can hear you)..... Yesterday after a nice weekend of boogin', I noticed that my right ankle and foot was a bit swollen and slightly tender to walk on. I stuck my TENS unit on it and iced it for the night. It was still a bit tender today, so I called my orthopedic surgeon, who squeezed me in for an appointmet and an MRI at the hospital. The ligaments are pretty shot, there's a lot of scar tissue and there is some tendonitis in there. I have to have it surgically repaired, and I'll be out for 4-6 months. I'll be having surgery in December, after my Bahamas vacation. Here's just one of the many sucky things about this. My OS told me that he'd like me to stay out of the water (but he knows that I'm not going to, being that I only have a limited amount of time left). I have to wear a brace all the time now. I also can't wear fins anymore, because the action of finning is too stressful on the severely damaged ligaments. He also doesn't know if he wants me wearing fins after the surgery, because even though swimming with fins is good therapy post surgery, using them in the ocean isn't. They want you to use them in a pool. Suck ass! I finally found fins that I really love, and are comfortable on that foot and work well - Kicks and Laguna Neofins, and it took me half a lifetime and a million pairs of fins to find them. Does anyone else have any experience with ankle ligament injuries?? I refuse to be stuck in waist high and less surf for the rest of my life because I can't wear fins.


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Five students stand together at the front of a bright, spacious classroom. The tables that serve as desks are pushed aside and the chairs arranged in rows to form an audience. Spencer Isensee, an outgoing, ponytailed eighteen-year-old junior at P.S. 1 Charter School, begins the group's end-of-quarter presentation. "For this class, we've been mainly looking at our government," he says to the assembled sixth- to twelfth-graders. "Our government is this weird thing that's focused on this system of checks and balances."
He's animated. He's gesturing. He's fired up about civics.
"All you ever heard of Sonia Sotomayor?" he asks. "She's the newly, the first fuckin' Latina woman to be part of the Supreme Court justices."
Denver Public School
A teacher chides Isensee for swearing. He nods, but he can't stop himself.
"That's huge!" he says. "There's only been three women in the past, and we have the fourth one as a Latina woman? That's great progress. We have a black man as president and a Latina woman in the friggin' Supreme Court!"
It's not a valedictory speech, but it is evidence that students at Denver's longest-running charter school are excited about learning.
Founded in 1995, P.S. 1 serves 237 middle- or high-school students who have struggled elsewhere — academically, socially or both. One out of ten was pushed out of his or her old school, while one in seven dropped out. One out of every five kids at P.S. 1 has a history of repeated school suspensions, and one in three is involved with the courts. The academic challenges are just as daunting: 25 percent of students qualify for special education, and 75 percent are behind in reading and math.
"One hundred percent of our population comes because another school hasn't worked for them," says P.S. 1 principal Laura Laffoon.
But P.S. 1 hasn't worked, either, at least according to Denver Public Schools. In late November, the DPS board voted to shutter the school, where test scores have been dismal for years. The decision, which will take effect in the summer of 2011, was part of an effort to turn around low-performing schools; DPS is also closing other schools, including Skyland Community High School, another struggling charter serving at-risk kids. And it marks the first time DPS has rescinded a charter because of poor academic performance, a move experts say is important if the state wants a shot at winning millions of dollars in Obama-administration grants set aside for school reform.
The closures also come in the wake of a tumultuous school board election in November, in which candidates questioned how much attention the district should pay to its 24 charter schools at a time when traditional public schools, which serve approximately 90 percent of Denver students, are struggling too.
"If a district embraces charters, they have to be willing to close charters when they've been given a chance and have failed," says Alan Gottlieb, the vice president for policy and business engagement at Denver's Public Education and Business Coalition and the editor of Education News Colorado. DPS, he says, "is trying to get tougher."
The board granted P.S. 1 a one-year extension, however, which will allow the district time to solicit ideas for a school that could take its place, because, as Superintendent Tom Boasberg pointed out during a November 9 school board meeting, "they serve a group of students for whom we don't have a better option at this point."
The idea for P.S. 1 was hatched in 1993, the brainchild of progressive-education guru Rex Brown. At the time, Brown worked for the Denver think tank Education Commission of the States and had just written a nationally acclaimed book called Schools of Thought that called for education reforms to address students' lack of creative-thinking skills.
One night, Brown and architect David Tryba were discussing the revitalization of LoDo, and Tryba wondered aloud about putting a school inside the building that would house the Tattered Cover. He asked Brown to help him pitch the idea to the owners of the property, who loved it. They thought a school would encourage families with children to move downtown, where they would also work and shop.
At first, Brown wasn't sure what shape the school would take. But when new state legislation allowing for charter schools was passed that spring, he jumped on the opportunity. (The main difference between charters and traditional public schools is the amount of autonomy they have; for example, charter schools are exempted from rules governing the length of the school day, which students they admit and which teachers they hire. In return, they're expected to innovate — and ideally share what they learn with other schools.)
In 1994, Brown and his supporters formed a non-profit organization called Urban Learning Communities and presented a detailed — if lofty — proposal to DPS that envisioned P.S. 1 as a small "learning community" that would be open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. year-round, where students would learn from teachers and vice versa. It called for a multi-racial, multi-lingual student body that would use the city as its campus, partnering with businesses on projects and helping revitalize Denver's urban core.
At the time, DPS was resistant to charters, which are still considered to be public schools and therefore funded by public dollars. District officials were worried that they would siphon cash from their already-tight budget and at first refused to fund them.
But P.S. 1 had well-connected backers, such as then-governor Roy Romer, and after appealing to the state board of education, the school was granted one of Denver's first charters — and guaranteed the funding to run it — in 1995.
It opened that fall with 64 students in borrowed space on the sixth floor of the central Denver Public Library (the plan to open in LoDo had fallen apart). A few weeks later, P.S. 1 moved to a musty VFW post near Bannock Street and Speer Boulevard, where it was housed for a few years before moving to its current location, in the brick Bank Note building at 1062 Delaware Street.
Brown quit his policy job to serve as its first principal, and from the beginning, he says, "we wanted to break the mold. When we designed the school, we said let's not do anything the way it's currently being done in traditional schools unless we discover that's the best way to do it." Instead of tests, there were portfolios. Instead of lectures, there were projects. In the first five years, students worked with the mayor and city council to build Denver's first skateboard park and helped the Colorado Historical Society archive media coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing trial. They wrote haiku about urban life that were sandblasted into new sidewalks on Acoma Street and helped build low-income housing in Globeville. They even organized a trip to Honduras in the wake of 1998's Hurricane Mitch to do the same for hurricane victims. Each student had a personal learning plan and an advisor to help monitor his or her progress.
In 1999, then-U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley toured P.S. 1 and hailed it as a model for other charters. Newspaper editorials praised it, too.
But there were problems. Finances were tight, and the dream of a year-round school for all ages fell short. The staff struggled with creating a cohesive curriculum and assessing student projects. "The tricky part for us was translating what our kids were learning into terms that the school district could understand," Brown says.
One of the biggest mistakes he made was growing the school too fast — P.S. 1 doubled in size from year one to year two, and doubled again by year four — and Brown admits that he underestimated the kinds of problems that students would show up with.
"He was trying to create a cutting-edge national model of a secondary school that would serve kids in an urban setting," says education policy expert Alex Medler, vice president of the Colorado Children's Campaign. "But the kids that were attracted to the school were not the population he was anticipating." They were tougher.
Still, P.S. 1's first renewal was a breeze. In November 1999, the school presented DPS with a 29-page narrative of all that P.S. 1 had accomplished and a thick binder of financial documents, student work and newspaper clippings to back it up. But P.S. 1 wasn't shy about its struggles, either. "Although test scores have been higher than the district averages," school leaders wrote, "the scores mask a bi-polar population of inner-city kids who are ready for self-directed learning and students who are not."
The school was granted a renewal and others after that, but it was never as easy as the first time. Over time, P.S. 1's population of at-risk students grew, and the school's focus shifted away from the multi-age, multi-disciplinary projects that had wowed the school board and back toward building students' basic skills. Test scores declined, and school board members became more and more hesitant to grant charter renewals. But, former and current members say, P.S. 1 kept asking for one more chance and the board kept saying yes.
"Individual boardmembers visited the school and saw firsthand that there was a unique student population," says former boardmember Elaine Berman, who served from 1997 to 2005 and was in favor of renewing P.S. 1's charter in 2005. That time around, the renewal came with caveats: P.S. 1 had to replace all staff members who were relevant to the school's problems and restructure its organization. It did so, hiring a new principal, who turned out to be Liz Aybar, a former P.S. 1 teacher.
The next time P.S. 1 applied for a renewal, in 2007, boardmembers were skeptical. The Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act had put more emphasis on test scores nationwide, and DPS had responded by rolling out a new formula that allowed it to easily compare school performance. P.S. 1's had worsened to what district officials called "dismal."
The school had other problems, too. Staff turnover was huge. Aybar was the school's fourth principal in ten years. Brown had left in 2000 because of health reasons, and P.S. 1 had gone through two more principals in the interim. One declined to comment; the other, Steve Myers, couldn't be reached for this story. Myers left P.S. 1 for a school in Massachusetts, but he resigned after a student accused him of making inappropriate comments. When that story broke, teachers here revealed that they had reported what they believed to be inappropriate conduct by Myers as well. ("Principal Principles," February 7, 2002). Other founding staff members had also left, some because of the introduction of a self-help program at P.S. 1 that had connections to the Landmark Forum, a controversial California organization that some people have compared to a religious organization or even a cult ("The First Step, May 4, 2000").
Although a DPS advisory committee recommended closing P.S. 1, the school board bucked the recommendation in a 4-3 vote and granted P.S. 1's charter renewal. But it also put P.S. 1 on probation and demanded that it improve its student performance.
Theresa Peña, who still serves on the school board, remembers it as a difficult decision. "None of us felt good about the academic environment at P.S. 1," says Peña, who voted to close the school. But there was nowhere else "for the students to go. You either lose those kids or keep it open and compromise their educational environment."
Conditions at the school improved slightly, and in 2008, that same advisory board recommended that the school be given another chance. But Aybar left the same year to take an education policy job in Governor Bill Ritter's office. (She didn't return e-mails or phone calls seeking comment.) And by the time P.S. 1 applied for another renewal, in late 2009, with more dismal test scores to show, it was out of second chances.
In early September, a team of DPS evaluators visited P.S. 1 in connection with its charter-renewal application. They found that while the students seemed happy, their academic performance was abysmal: Just 37 percent were proficient in reading, while only 7 percent were proficient in math, according to their scores on the Colorado Student Assessment Program tests, or CSAPs — tests that all Colorado students in grades three through ten are required to take.
And although an independent analysis of P.S. 1's test scores commissioned by the school showed that students were doing better on the tests — even if they weren't passing them — and that students who had been at the school longer did better than those who had recently enrolled, the scores were still bad. And there was no doubt that they were worse than in 2003, when two-thirds of students scored proficient.
DPS evaluators also noted that the kids seemed uninterested in their schoolwork and that the building was "cluttered and dirty." Their final recommendation: Allow the school to stay open for one more school year, then close it in 2011.
A second evaluation, done by the state Department of Education in late October, echoes the first. It takes note of the "exemplary" relationships between students and teachers at P.S. 1: "A positive can-do attitude permeates the culture."
But, it also says, "there is a learning environment of low expectations of students at P.S. 1. The use of excuses as to why students cannot achieve must be eliminated. It's imperative that staff move beyond a focus on family circumstances, poverty, lack of skills and knowledge.... P.S. 1 may be the last hope for some of their students to have a chance at success in life. If a learning environment of high expectations is not present, some students will only continue down a very tragic life path."
Education policy expert Gottlieb agrees. "Test scores aren't everything," he says. "But there are a lot of times when parents and kids love schools that suck, and they don't always know best. If the reason kids like [a school] is because the teachers are nice to them and don't push them, that's not a good reason to stay at a school."
Principal Laffoon defends accusations that P.S. 1 has low expectations.
"Saying you're just going to pass a kid because you feel compassion for their situation and so you're going to give them a grade they don't deserve or give them credit where they don't deserve it — that's low expectations. I don't think we do that," says Laffoon, who was a teacher at P.S. 1 for ten years before becoming principal last year. "Their credit in class is tied to their mastering outcomes that are standards-based."
Still, at the November 9 board meeting, Superintendent Boasberg announced plans to "turn around" the district's three lowest-performing schools and its three lowest-performing charters. The turnaround plan for each school differed. For some, he recommended revamping their structure. For others, he suggested sharing space with high-performing charters, such as West Denver Prep, a middle school with a rigorous application process and an academic program that's produced high test scores and is hailed as a success story. For P.S. 1, it meant closure.
In crafting the plans, Boasberg says, it didn't matter to him whether low-performing schools were district schools or charters. "I think we've been very clear that we've got the same exact standards, the same rigorous standards, for all our schools, whether they're district-run schools or charter schools," he tells Westword. If a school is failing, Boasberg says, the district has to do something about it.
Some boardmembers thought P.S. 1 should have been closed immediately.
"This is just another example with DPS where we say, 'We're going to close it, we're going to close it...if you don't get better, we're going to close you,' and then we never do it," outgoing boardmember Michelle Moss said at the meeting. She noted that P.S. 1 serves high-risk kids, including scores of special-education students, but said she'd had enough. "I'm not sure they're educating special-ed kids. I'm not sure they're educating anybody. I mean, you look at what they're doing in terms of their performance; it's appalling. And it has been appalling since I've been on this board."
This type of reform has been embraced by the Obama administration and encouraged by its Race to the Top program, a competition among states for $4.35 billion in grant money. Colorado stands to win between $60 and $175 million if its application, which must be submitted by January 19, is accepted. States will be chosen based on factors such as the strength of their teachers and school leaders, and their strategies for improving struggling schools — a factor experts say is key.
"If you can't show the public and the U.S. Department of Education that you're serious about closing down underperforming charters, you're going to run into trouble with the community for closing down neighborhood schools (instead) — and you're going to run into trouble with the Department of Education," Gottlieb says.
This kind of reform was also at the center of the recent school board election, which pitted a slate of union-supported candidates — many of whom were more skeptical of charter schools — against so-called reformers, who were seen as being in favor of them.
Two union-backed candidates — Andrea Merida and Nate Easley Jr. — won on November 3, along with one reformer, Mary Seawell. On November 30, the outgoing board voted on the turnaround package hours before the new candidates were sworn in (with the exception of Merida, who had herself sworn in by a judge earlier that day so she could vote on the reforms). Some people were outraged at Merida's action, but others felt that the new boardmembers should have been given the chance to vote on the plans.
The seven-member board voted unanimously to shutter P.S. 1, despite the school's efforts to rally the troops and campaign against closure.
Peña said that this time around, the decision wasn't hard to make. "We've given them multiple opportunities and they just haven't figured it out," she says. "We can't keep making excuses for programs that are chronically failing children."
Spencer Isensee finishes his presentation about Sonia Sotomayor, which is dotted with several more curses and admonishing looks from his teacher.
Next up is Jeremy Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old who recounts the civics class's lessons on current events. "Something that I thought was extremely funny was that Barack Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize," he says, "and the ironic thing about that is that he just also sent 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan."
Sandoval first enrolled in P.S. 1 three years ago. After his first year, though, his mom wanted him to go to a "normal" high school, so he transferred to Englewood High. But he hated it and skipped school 85 times that year. This year, he's back at P.S. 1. "It was a big change," he says of transferring to 850-student Englewood High.
"It's all huge and they don't know anyone's name," he says. "There's no atmosphere. You come here, and it's all love and everyone knows you."
That's the number-one reason students give for why they like P.S. 1, why they show up, why they don't want the school to close.
Tiffany Clymer, a petite seventeen-year-old junior with bleached-blond hair and dark eye shadow, used to go to Dora Moore middle school, where she says the teachers ignored her questions and heaped attention on the "smart people" instead.
"Here, the teachers are your friends," says Clymer, who has attention deficit disorder and trouble concentrating. And she gets good grades. Three years ago, she was an eighth-grader who read at a fourth-grade level. Now she reads at a twelfth-grade level.
Parents and grandparents like the school for many of the same reasons.
Yvonne Johnson has heard the district's explanation for closing P.S. 1, and she's read about the school's low test scores and lack of academic rigor. But to her, that's not the point. "I hate numbers, I hate numbers, I hate numbers," says Johnson, who is raising her three grandchildren — fifteen-year-old D'Von, fourteen-year-old D'Vonte and thirteen-year-old Tavier — and drives them to P.S. 1 every morning. "You're throwing kids away for numbers. They need to forget the numbers, forget the grades they're making. They need to realize other schools gave up on [these kids] and they're graduating from P.S. 1."
Laurie Eisenhart, a single mom whose seventh-grade son, Colton, has ADD, is also disappointed. "It's like I found this great place for him and now they're going to make him leave," she says. "Are you kidding me? Because of CSAP crap?"
Jen Derosby, who has taught at P.S. 1 for nine years, disagrees with the district's belief that teachers at P.S. 1 use students' circumstances as "excuses." She and other teachers say they believe in their students and think they can achieve but recognize that they may need extra help, extra attention, extra problem-solving to get there. "If we did care about these kids, we'd talk about how race and gender and socioeconomic status affect their learning," she says. "Does that mean they can't learn? Hell, no. But to ignore that, to be like, 'Little robots, learn, learn, learn!' is silly."
"It's sort of like they're supposed to walk into the halls of the school and they're just supposed to drop off their baggage and suddenly just be focused on their education," adds principal Laffoon. "That's doesn't happen."
DPS is currently working on writing guidelines for the kind of school it would like to take P.S. 1's place, but it's a tall order. "We are seeking to have a replacement school to meet [the students'] needs because there are many special-needs students at P.S. 1 and we recognize that," Boasberg says. If no one submits a proposal that meets DPS's guidelines, the district will create one. "I think, frankly, we've been a little passive about willing to go out and actively create a school like that, and we need to do it."
The district has encouraged P.S. 1 to submit a plan of its own through its request-for-proposals process. But the enthusiasm for doing so among the school's staff varies.
"How do you think about building the next school when you're still teaching in the first?" asks P.S. 1 English teacher Laura Inscho. "It would be like building the car while driving it and texting and paving the road."
"If we knew the plan was to do an RFP, we'd be engaging 110 percent," says math teacher Eric Noggle. "We can't commit to doing an RFP when there's so much uncertainty about next year, about our jobs, about our kids."
If there is no suitable replacement, some students say they'll enroll in one of the district's alternative schools, such as the Emily Griffith Opportunity School, a dropout retrieval school. Others may just go back to their neighborhood schools, where they weren't successful before and where their chances of graduation are slimmer. The district hopes to open more alternative campuses in 2011, including two Multiple Pathways Centers designed to provide both academics and social services. But there will be limited room; although P.S. 1 students can apply, there's no guarantee they'll get in.
Laffoon is among those who see an opportunity to reinvent P.S. 1. "I think [the district] is trying to create a situation that allows us to remake ourselves," she says. "I think that's their intention — to say you can't keep existing the way you've been existing because there are some things that just aren't going well, and here's this opportunity."
Urban Learning Communities, the Rex Brown-created nonprofit that still oversees P.S. 1 and manages its finances, is still undecided on what to do. Its all-volunteer board is fairly new; of the six directors, chairwoman Jennifer Kramer-Wine, an education-policy analyst by trade, is the longest-serving, having joined in 2005. But members have said they want to be part of the process no matter what happens.
One option the board has considered in the past is to become an alternative school. Alternative schools are not subject to sanctions based on test scores. (Denver currently has ten; five are charters and five are district schools.) The bar is high, though: According to Colorado state law, an alternative school must serve at least 95 percent at-risk kids or exclusively serve dropouts or students who have been expelled.
P.S. 1 doesn't currently meet those criteria. Although many of its students are dropouts and expelled students, not all of them are. And its at-risk population hovers around 70 percent, though some staff suspect that it's actually higher.
That puts P.S. 1 in a tricky spot.
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As boardmember Amanda Brown says, the school is in "a kind of limbo area where you're serving a harder population but there's not a different way of looking at your school based on that."
The board is also looking into partnering with local and national school-support organizations, such as the Coalition for Essential Schools or Communities in Schools, which could help P.S. 1 identify and secure additional resources. "We're currently exploring some partnerships and reaching out in the community because we want to look at new ways of doing things if what we're doing isn't the right thing entirely," Brown says. "Is there someone else out there who has a good idea?"
"That's one of the biggest lessons for us — that we certainly can't do this alone," Kramer-Wine adds. But she and others don't want the conversations and partnerships to end with P.S. 1. Instead, she says, they want to "really raise this to a broader conversation than one school trying to survive. It's, really, how does the district serve the students we have in our building?"
So far, no one has been able to answer that question.


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Yoga gear and apparel provider, Manduka (@MandukaYoga) recently started a regular contest on their Facebook Page for 2012. The nature of their "Happy YOU Year" contest is to "Tell us what you plan to do, or be, in 2012" and every day that week they were giving "a Manduka gift to help that intention become reality". An amazing and honorable, well-intentioned promotion that I really thought had a great message behind it. So I entered a comment explaining my plan to bring Yoga Practice to the hiking and backpacking community to promote better health and fitness. Well, my story won their attention on that particular day and they announced they were sending me their lightweight travel mat! This was the perfect choice to help bring Yoga to the trail.
The eKO SuperLite® Travel Mat is made of natural tree rubber and is a 100% "biodegradable rubber that won't fade or flake" and offers "superior grip". The mat is very light for a Yoga mat (2lbs) and is as flexible as a towel or blanket. It easily folds, rolls or wraps up into any duffel, case or backpack. They come in a variety of colors and all have the awesome "Upward Frog" Manduka logo. The mat doesn't offer a great deal in the way of padding, but it's the trade-off for having the luxury of being able to take the mat virtually anywhere.
I've been able to use the mat several times now, some inside just to try it and some outside. I've only had it out on the trail once so far and I loved it. It was just enough padding to soften the rock outcropping I used it on. It also packed easily, I simply folded it in half and then rolled it like a bed-roll and strapped it in to the pack where the bed-roll would usually go – perfect! I imagine being able to use it as an extra layer under an inflatable sleeping pad on overnight trips. It would protect the inflatable from potential puncture issues and the grip would keep things from sliding around in the tent. And it would be there waiting for me in the morning for some nice tent-side Sun Salutations!
So far I am really happy with this generous gift from Manduka and would recommend it to anyone interested in making trail-side Yoga a part of their hiking and camping experience.
Manduka eKO SuperLite® Travel Mat – $39
Manduka Sojourner Package – $60 (normally $75)


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More casting bits to share with you today. Here they are in brief:
- Carey Mulligan (Drive) is in negotiations to star in the dark comedy thriller, Nancy and Danny. James Marsh (Man on a Wire) is on board to direct from a Brad Ingelsby script.
- Elle Fanning (Super 8) is set to star in Olive's Ocean, an adaptation of Kevin Henke's 2004 Newbury Award-winning young adult novel by the same name.
Hit the jump for more details on both projects.
THR reports that Mulligan is in talks to star as a gold-digging woman whose big-city dreams have turned to dust. She uses a dim-witted man in a get-rich-quick scheme in order to land a high school crush, but her plans quickly go awry. The black comedy is being compared to Gus Van Sant's 1995 picture, To Die For, which starred Nicole Kidman in a breakout role. Mulligan has already broken through by starring in films like Drive and Shame, and will next be seen in Baz Luhrman's The Great Gatsby opposite Leonardo DiCaprio next summer.
Deadline reports that Fanning is set to star in Olive's Ocean, with a script drawn up by Christina Hammonds Reed. The plot centers on a teen whose classmate dies in a tragic accident. Upon finding that the deceased girl had secretly hoped to be her friend, Fanning's character spends a summer soul searching. Fanning is currently filming alongside Angelina Jolie in Disney's Maleficent. Here's a look at the book description from Olive's Ocean (via Amazon):
Sometimes life can change in an instant
Martha Boyle and Olive Barstow could have been friends, but they weren't. Weeks after a tragic accident, all that is left are eerie connections between the two girls, former classmates who both kept the same secret without knowing it. Now, even while on vacation at the ocean, Martha can't stop thinking about Olive. Things only get more complicated when Martha begins to like Jimmy Manning, a neighbor boy she used to despise. What is going on? Can life for Martha be the same ever again?


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To get in touch with our team, use our contact finder. Or view our network page to find addresses for our offices around the world. For Press queries only please contact Tracey Edginton 020 7578 1098.
VisitEngland's Christmas Trip Tracker Survey released today shows that more than 13 million Brits (26%) are planning an overnight trip in the UK during the Christmas and New Year period, bringing an estimated £2.6 billion boost to the economy.
The UK is expecting a rise in overseas visitors during Christmas and into the New Year.
Lord Elis- Thomas, Minister for Culture Sport and Tourism for the National Assembly for Wales has appointed Ian Edwards as the British Tourist Authority Boards' (BTA) newest board member.
The English Destinations Forum took place today to update industry on our activities.
VisitBritain today welcomes a new Eurostar and Virgin Trains partnership to offer a united travel service for the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) market, to drive growth in international business events to the UK.


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In some ways, Saturday night was business as usual for Mark Watson. Having been involved in professional soccer either as a player or coach for more than two decades, the pregame rituals were still generally the same.
Yet one thing was undeniably changed: culpability for the outcome of the San Jose Earthquakes' road trip to Colorado rested most heavily on Watson's shoulders – for good or bad.
As it turned out, Watson's debut as the Quakes' interim head coach, his first game as an MLS decision-maker, came off as close to perfect as he could reasonably expect, ending in a 2-1 victory against the Rapids that was San Jose's first win away from home this season.
READ: Postgame: What led to Yallop's dismissal from the Earthquakes?
"It was very familiar but also a very new experience," said Watson, who had been a Quakes assistant for three years. "I've been through hundreds and hundreds of games, and gone through the process, but it was definitely a different feeling being the boss. ... You're in charge. You have the final say on everything. We discuss everything – tactics, players, substitutions – as a staff, we always do that. But now I have the final say."
That final say went over well with a veteran Quakes group left shocked by the departure of Frank Yallop, the only coach San Jose had known since rejoining MLS as an expansion side in 2008.
"There's a lot of similarities, but [Watson] has definitely put his mark on it, his spin," striker Chris Wondolowski said by way of comparison between the two coaches. "He's definitely detail-oriented, very specific, which is something that we need at this moment, and he's doing well with that. I think a lot of the guys are buying into it."
Colorado Rapids 1, San Jose Earthquakes 2 | MLS Match Recap
While Watson talked up the need for better possession and more patience offensively, the Quakes still paired target men Alan Gordon and Steven Lenhart up top, and a classic Route 1 pass by Justin Morrow from the center of San Jose's backline eventually led to Lenhart's 24-yard bolt in the 11th minute. Even so, the Watson-led incarnation of the Quakes was hardly a carbon copy of Yallop's squad.
"I think the biggest things Mark preached building up to the game was [retaining] our defensive shape and being hard to break down and trying to possess the ball, not always having to fly forward," goalkeeper Jon Busch said. "Take care of the ball, and if it means pulling it back, pulling it back. But if it means hitting long balls, hitting long balls. It's what we like to call 'effective soccer.'"
READ: Quakes' Chris Wondolowski to appear in Bay Area public service announcements for You Can Play Project
Watson also endeared himself to his players with his snap reaction – kicking a ball back into the field of play – after midfielder Sam Cronin was chopped down in the 48th minute by Rapids forward Edson Buddle.
"We all know Watty has a really strong personality," said Morrow. "I think that showed through in the game a little bit. When Frank stepped out and he came in, we let him know that we had his back, 100 percent."
What remains to be seen is whether the club will follow suit. Watson has been given the job on a half-year basis as an extended tryout of sorts. In the meantime, the club is still looking at other options for 2014.
That means every result can be seen as a referendum of sorts on Watson's tenure. Not that the 42-year-old is looking at it that way.
"Whatever my tag is, it doesn't bother me," Watson said. "I'm here to win games."


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