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Pyrian

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Everything posted by Pyrian

  1. Pyrian

    Sin 2 :)

    Of course. But, if that's so (and I have no reason to think otherwise) that renders creation an artifact of this universe alone. If it's not true, than other universes can "create", perhaps even creating this one, but the original paradox is just as valid for them as it is for this one in the simple case. My brain has no difficulty whatsoever in grasping a place with no time. Yours, however, is repeatedly proving to be incapable of the concept. To elaborate, a place with no time has no change, no creation, and no destruction; complete stasis. This isn't a profound observation, it follows directly from definition. You could get around this by positing a "something" that is non-static and non-time. Thing is, this doesn't change the paradox in any way - this "something" still requires itself as a prerequisite for its own creation. Err... No. I'm simply saying that time itself - the framework as a whole, rather than portions thereof - cannot be (or have been) created, since creation is itself a function of time. Put another way, the creation of time requires time. You're not getting it. Creation requires time. Period. By definition, of all things. You're literally arguing with the definition of a word. Anyway, to address your point, the only way an entity can "create" without an external time is by having its own internal time, since creation requires time. Thus, a "time-bearing" entity that exists without having been created which then "went on" (in an entirely internal sense) to create an external universe is, of course, completely in accordance with everything I've said, and therefore isn't an objection to it at all. In fact, we could go on and posit that this mysterious entity creates the universe internally to itself (thus not requiring multiple times). From there we can suggest that this entity IS the universe, whereupon we arrive at my original point. In short, you're trying to use circular logic. Morphing time doesn't change the terms - they're too simple. You can rearrange the meaning, function, or rules of time in any way you please - but action/change/creation must be able to occur for action/change/creation to be able to occur. That's all I'm positing, BTW. My argument is A=A. That's what you're arguing against, and it makes you look pretty silly, frankly. Conception and creation are temporal concepts. There's no way around that - if you remove time from creation, it's no longer creation at all, it's something else. Happening is a temporal concept, by definition, and I am 100% comfortable in asserting that nothing happens without time. That's not profound; that's what time means. You might as well try to prove that black equals white and get run over at the next zebra crossing.
  2. Pyrian

    Sin 2 :)

    Right. And that model precludes its own "creation", since the act of creation is itself an internal "illusion" of the model. (You can, as oDDity pointed out, posit an external substitute, but that doesn't really help anything since it immediately suffers the same problem.) Remember that "why" is largely a causal question itself. Having proven to my own satisfaction that there is at least one thing that simply is and has no (and can have no) additional explanation, I am satisfied that things simply are. Yeah, the Big Bang is frankly a much simpler explanation than positing the self-creation of a sentient being. Sentient beings are far too complex for that sort of thing, IMO. I find humanity so entirely inclined towards being asinine that in the absence of religion I'd probably make one up just to keep my society from shredding itself uselessly. I've always felt an odd kinship to Jesus, Buddha, etc. in this regard. I think they were people who saw things the way I do, and tried to do something about it.
  3. Pyrian

    Sin 2 :)

    That makes no difference in the argument, only where it's applied. It just layers another dimension of time onto it, since to create from another 'verse there'd have to be a time or time equivalent in that 'verse (remember: creation is temporal), which in turn would have to either exist independently or been created in turn, resulting in the identical paradox. I find that sort of layering to be silly so I don't generally engage in it. The only real alternative is utter stasis, of course, which precludes the possibility of creation. Any alternative which somehow does not preclude creation suffers from the same existential issue and might as well be called a "type of time" rather than being truly substantively different (even if the implementation details are significantly changed).
  4. Pyrian

    Sin 2 :)

    I'm actually of the opinion that there cannot be a "penultimate" creator: Time exists. Creation is a temporal act. Creation can only occur within the framework of time existing. Therefore, the framework of time itself cannot have been subject to being created. Since something exists without having been created, then it cannot be true that everything was created. Anyway, the argument depends on a particular variety of understandings of time and might not be correct, I suppose, if time is fundamentally misunderstood in a big way. (But if time is fundamentally misunderstood in a big way, then the meaning of "creation" itself is also fundamentally misunderstood, so...)
  5. Hey, cool, that's almost exactly what I do (though I'm more on the development side now).
  6. That depends a lot on whether the other denizens of the darkness need light to detect an intruder - scent, bat-sonar, undead with darkvision are all appropriate for such an environment, indeed, more appropriate than Benny stumbling about blind.
  7. So, wait, am I the ONLY person here who uses their browser in a window instead of full screen? My screen res varies from 1024x768 to 1600x1200 (depending on whether I'm home or at work), but I don't maximise my browser, and I don't want to, either.
  8. Could we make it less wide?
  9. I downloaded it from Steam and never had a problem.
  10. Thief has epic space battles? :lol: J/k.
  11. They may reside in the same memory, but are still individually rendered. Mind, saving memory is still quite useful...
  12. Their target market isn't people, it's companies, and companies are far less likely to take the risk of pirating, and generally better equipped to handle legitimate costs of production (heck, the cubicle might've cost more than that, nevermind the office space, or the computer it's running on, a computer purchased for the primary purpose of running that and related apps).
  13. They do that every year; have been for a long time. The programs are clever, but invariably simply variants on the old "Eliza" trick. Fooling a handful of people isn't profound.
  14. Obscurus, your last set of responses to me made it painfully clear that you're arguing for the sake of arguing and not actually responding to the points being brought up - many of your responses were complete non-sequitors, and all of them ignored the central arguments. This is a waste of time.
  15. Doesn't compute. You can't have it all ways, fella. I love autosaves. They add convenience. Pay attention. I'm objecting to limits on the meta-game, not added features. That's great, but has so little to do with the topic at hand that I don't think it's particularly relevant. Making saving less convenient does nothing for my health, and means I get to have less fun playing the game. Excuse me if I'm not excited. I walk a lot, but I still like having a car. Nonsense. Those people aren't going to be bothered to play your idea of a game at all. The people you're punishing are the people who just want to play with as little trouble from the interface as possible. The people you're punishing are the people who want to play the game without having to think about saves. Planning a game design around nothing going wrong isn't realistic. There's always something (how many people were claimed by the trap-door under the Pagan's area in Auldale? "Hmm, looks dark, I'll jump down and take a look... Ooops, water..."). I am having fun, and I'm wondering what your problem is and why you and oDDity are so determined to interfere with other people's fun? That's exactly what you've constantly said you want to do - change the out-of-game interface to make the game more challenging to make largely imaginary people change their behavior to the way you want them to behave (which won't often work, BTW, never does). No. Saving is an out-of-game-world function. That's not profound. Dunno why you don't get it. All out-of-game-world functions and interfaces should be as convenient as possible. That should be obvious. You don't show much evidence of it. There are a few quicksave/quickload addicts, but I don't think they're anywhere near the majority. And on top of that, they're not going to change their tune because you restrict their fix - they'll simply find a way around or play a different game. You're not going to get any "converts" that way at all.
  16. Because I can't just up and leave whenever I feel like, or run out of time, or real life otherwise intrudes. It's deliberately inconvenient. You should know by now that that's one of the primary charges that's been leveled against your approach almost constantly throughout this thread. It forces me to think about saves when I'd rather not think about them at all, since it's clearly a game mechanic and not part of the immersion of the game world. It further reduces convenience in situations where the program, the computer, or the game character dies. Note the use of the word "convenience". This is intentional. Re-doing Thief levels isn't as much fun as doing them the first time - even tetris has random factors! You're not promoting more real gameplay, or more real challenge - you're punishing people with drudgery and inconvenience. That's not a good idea when the core goal is fun. Nonsense. You're deliberately making the out-of-game-world interface more restricting and therefore more challenging, in a way that has nothing whatsoever to do with what's going on in the in-game-world. No, they don't change the in-game challenge AT ALL. It's a purely meta-game construct, no matter how you look at it. And it's use is utterly optional.
  17. Obscurus, you're missing a very basic point, here: It's not those of us arguing with you whose experience is "ruined" by quicksaves. I don't abuse quicksaves, at all - quite the contrary. I prefer to play all the way through without ever having to re-load unless I outright die (the only times I died in T:DS were when I fell into water ), and, get this, I can do this all by my little self without any need for someone to restrict when and where I can stop and/or save. So, for me, and frankly most gamers, what you're proposing is nothing but a lessening of convenience. The "problem" you have is with people (you?) who have no self-control and feel somehow addicted to the quicksave AND quickload and abuse them to make the experience easier. You have this weird notion that this describes "everyone". It doesn't. People like to play games, not endlessly re-do one section to save a bullet or a few points of health. The problem I have is that your "solution" (not yours, Domarius!) is targeted at a rather small subset of people (who really just need a sense of perspective) but instead hits everyone. Anyway, I repeat, challenge me with the in-game world and not with the out-of-game interface.
  18. A rather long while, I suspect... What I'd like to see are allies that take well-defined verbal orders. That technology exists, though I'm not sure the processor power could reasonably be spared for it yet.
  19. Domarius, you can emphasize "optional" all you like, but the fact is that oDDity and obscurus are arguing for mandatory save restrictions, and a lot of what's been flying around have been directed at them. I'm all for more options. Heck, I like auto-save points (e.g. FarCry), ironically for the reason that I tend to forget to quick-save (I play to survive - without reloading - as first priority, because that's more immersive for me). On linearity... There's a lot of "types" of linearity if you want to break it down, and the issue with save points is where to place them in a game that isn't strictly linear in any - i.e. at least one - sense. For example, the objectives of the City may be decidedly linear, but in several places traversing the City is anything but. If you make a location-based save point, it effectively destroys that non-linearity unless you put them all over the place so they don't get missed (otherwise the player has to go around finding the save-point or miss out) which itself misses the point. If you make it objective based, it throws a wrench into the gameplay of someone who wants to frolic in the City, pick-pocketing or whatever. ODDity, the reason quick-save is the default is because it provides the greatest level of player convenience. That's not a minor thing; taking it out to make things more difficult is squarely akin to, say, switching the mouse and keyboard so that the keyboard looks and the mouse controls movement. More challenging? Yes. Fun? Maybe for a few people. But it's still firmly in the camp of designer-induced annoyance, and should be optional at best. People in general (not you) want to be challenged by the game world, not by the game interface.
  20. I suggest that if you die playing a character, that character is now dead and you don't get to play that game anymore - no restoring saves or anything. That'd make people be a lot more careful. Seriously, you guys put way too much emphasis on saving. We've heard a bunch of "solutions" to people CHOOSING to save "too much", and by-and-large these solutions are basically horrible abrogations of immersion. I don't want to be thinking "hmm, I've got just a few saves, should I save now or later?" I don't want to be thinking "damn, that was hard, I'd better find a save-point." A save-counter would be okay, but please don't ruin the experience for the rest of us just because YOU have no self-control or perspective. If you're going around restoring constantly rather than just when you die, you really ought to consider playing on an easier difficulty level, because obviously whatever you've got it set to is too tough for you to handle. I save a fair amount if I've been dying a lot, and otherwise rather rarely, and basically never restore unless I die. That whole "restoring to save ammo" is someone else's crutch and I don't want to have to wear it.
  21. I agree that this is nice-to-have, maybe-somebody'll-patch-it-in-later sort of stuff. That being said, you could probably do a very good job by making a finite number of hit locations (2-4 per limb), and a break/remove animation for each relevant one. Once broken, clipping would be minor.
  22. I like savepoints because I tend to forget to save and then get annoyed when I realize I have to go back two hours because I missed a jump or some such.
  23. They are. You're the one whom the point sailed over. To whit: Nobody claimed you were. However, if any wooden floor can potentially be creaky, then all wooden floors must be treated as potentially creaky until proven otherwise. In a level with a lot of wooden floors, this is tedious, even if none of them are creaky. No, that wouldn't be fun. But, if the mapmaker wants to cover the entire map with creaky spots, thats his choice. No one is gonna like the map, but oh well. I hope no map maker makes a map with wood floors commonplace AND creaky floors on all of them.And in this instance you can actually hear the whooshing sound as the point completely escapes you.
  24. Some examples of when realism sucks: 1) Long travel times. I love to go hiking, but doing it in a computer game which can't possibly render nature in all its glory just doesn't do it for me after a few minutes. Realism would involve hours or even days. 2) Death. Realism would mean you install the game, play from the start for a while, and then when you die, you're done. No re-loading a past save-game, no more playing as Garrett (he's dead), no more playing that game at all. 3) Effectively impossible problems. This mission can't actually BE completed, for whatever reason. 4) Too easy problems AKA drudge work. Haggling over every item in a bag full of loot; carving elemental crystals into arrowheads; eating, sleeping, bathroom, and so forth. Heck, the thief universe is relatively forgiving in this aspect.
  25. Even chopping someone's head clean off may leave their corpse twitching or even thrashing on the ground. It's possible to muffle a sap - although that also makes it less effective(!). Still, BJ'ing someone with a loud smack and having them crash down to the ground in full armor, their sword ringing against the flagstones, with another guard two feet away who didn't hear a thing was always kind of silly. I'd just as soon the game rewarded ghosting as much as possible and made the "clear the level" style of play less plausible and certainly less of the path of least resistance.
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