MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: MAME.exe no longer showing compile date?

> > For a moment I was thinking 'wow Haze is so cool' and then;
> >
> > > We're not, for the most part, dealing with ultra-intelligent people here, if
> > anything a lot of our userbase seems to be of significantly below average
> > intelligence (but often with good practical skills instead)
> >
>
> Sorry, this wasn't meant explicitly as a 'user base' it was an observation.
>
> I've done things for other audiences and got a different feeling about the userbases,
> I think some of it is simply background, arcades attracted quite a rough crowd even
> back in the day, so people who follow MAME as 'something to play arcade' games are
> often of a similar background.
>
> As I said tho, I see a lot of good practical skills, the cab building etc. but when
> it comes to others areas there doesn't seem to be a good level of understanding
> without spoon feeding everything. The number of times we have to repeatedly dispel
> old myths and explain the obvious is significant, and yes, we need to do it, because
> it's important that the right information is out there, so no, cutting off all
> communications isn't a good idea.
>
> Now, I'm sorry if you actually find that offensive, I was simply considering it a
> requirement in the way we present what we do, ie, regardless of how the project might
> evolve we're always going to have to present an *easy* way of doing things and
> present easily digestible information because for the most part a lot of our userbase
> seem to need that - as soon as things get even slightly complex they flee. That's
> just going on personal experience, trying to convince people to use something like
> QMC2 and have them reject it, simply because it's not as much of a '1 click solution'
> as MAMEUI.
>
> We *could* go full 'fuck you' and make thing as complex as we'd like, make the
> barrier to entry for MAME *actually* steep, but I'm advising caution against that.

I think you all need to come to realize that computers to most of humanity are bloody egyptian hieroglyphs, and what's obvious or easy to understand to you is an entirely different language to them.
And no they're not stupid or doing this because they're lazy.
If any of you has ever been faced with he challenge of teaching people, teaching them stuff they've never heard about in their life and that's completely irrelevant to their everyday lives, then you might understand what the problem is.
It's not a matter of intelligence per se, but setting up a new way of thinking that translates whith what you already know.
Technology, and computers in general, are not natural at all to people if they didn't grow up with it practically.
Windows UIs are liked because they look mostly like the rest of Microsoft Windows, you just have to tick boxes, that's what computers are for most of humanity.
EDIT: Learning about computers and programs takes a lot of time people don't necessarily have. Does that make them unworthy of using computers and programs ?

When you talk about something like QMC2, I know the problem with it: it takes ages to set up properly, there's always something wrong, the wiki is huge and full of technical jargon, basically it defeats its own purpose: making MAME easily and immediately usable, directly from a UI.

I predict the new integrated MEWUI in comparison will become tremendously more popular and acclaimed, because it looks a lot like a Windows UI and is immediately useable.
It's clearly made by and for people who already are familiar with stuff.

One more EDIT sorry: Look, even if it's beginners stuff in your eyes, it's not the issue. What if I posted my next message in the simplest Chinese I can think of ? Would you understand it ?
Trust me, even just the basics of drawing characters and baby-level phrase structure will take you some time, and not everyone can do it. I have buddies who couldn't learn Chinese but were at ease with German, which I fucking don't get a t all. Go figure.

> MAME isn't about playing the games anyway.