jay pettitt

The UK too. We're loving it in fact. It means we can look at you and your woes rather than notice that our own economies are shot - in the UK for example, you can't get a job if you're on the young side and/or on the old side. Obviously being old and/or young is your own bloody fault and you people should try and squeeze a bit of "business reality" into your dizzy heads next to the kitten videos and why the hell should an economy think the people in it are worthwhile anyway. Especially when we've got a ready supply of people who are neither a bit too young or a bit too old growing on trees out the back. By the way, would you like to buy a novelty item - for some reason they're not selling well (I blame the old/young people for not buying enough, bunch of state scroungers the lot of 'em) - so, err, 10% off to you. The UK had a relatively tiny Govt debt before the 2008 crisis (though we don't have the Euro, obviously - but I doubt it makes much difference). We still got hit very, very hard indeed. We now have quite a big debt (I think it's actually about average now as these things go - but there's political mileage in saying it's really huge - by the way, we need to take your pension off you), but that's because we stepped up and took out one hell of a mighty big loan so we could help our friends the banks out.

I kind of wonder if it isn't all that complicated, and that many of the facets are unnecessary, unhelpful facets that don't have much to do with the price of fish, but are added by people who want the air time, but aren't quite decent enough to realise that they've got nothing of merit to contribute. Obviously it's going to be quite a bit complicated, but I think some of the bewilderment that the likes of you and I feel are down to the BBC and the newspapers etc etc doing a piss poor job at sticking facts and actual useful knowledge and thoughtfulness under our noses instead of the old red corner Vs blue corner one two. Frankly, the silly man/woman combo in the vid I linked to have about as much business talking about economics on a flagship news programme as I do. Which is to say not much. I'd much rather listen to two economists who even if they disagree, aren't actually out to get each other, debate the relative merits of looking at the situation this way or that.

That's a lot of money right there. Obviously the EU has a lot of money, so perhaps it's not so bad relatively, but it's a lot of money. Do you think it'll be the banks paying back the loan, or will it be paid back by everybody else losing their jobs and services through contraction of the private and public sectors? Only that's what seems to count as 'growth' policies here in the UK. Talking of the UK, Mr Osborne (who I note is looking increasingly tubby these days) has come out blaming all the UKs woes entirely on the Euro (perish the thought his policies might just be a bit shit). Which is a bit rich. Rich probably not being the most appropriate word (at least for most of us). Mayhaps we should sort our own house out first Mr Osbourne... So, something I do notice with the tiny bit a economics that I think I know, it seems pretty clear that most people you hear talk publicly haven't got a clue. What you end up with is a situation a bit like where the BBC got it's knuckles rapped recently for the way it presents scientific issues like climate change - it presents a false balance. You get an economist (or a climate scientist), and plonk them on screen 1 to 1 against an idiot (or worse, just put two idiots up against each other) and expect that the audience will somehow become informed individuals on the important technical issues of the day, instead of just becoming confused. The other thing, is that quite often the people who are leading the public discourse on economics are people who maybe know a bit about finance instead, which really isn't the same thing. It's a bit like the difference between English Literature and English Language. Anyways, let the bastards get on with it. I'm off down the allotment. As someone pre-convinced (with some justification perhaps) that Mr Osbourne is ideologically bent on breaking at least the publicly owned parts of the UK economy, and that he lacks the sense to realise that he doesn't know what to do with the other bits either I'm rather tempted to like Mr Krugman (who can be seen below being pitted against two idiots by the BBC) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-AKruzmkk&feature=player_embedded

I'm going to send the Euro a get-well-soon card in the morning. Hopefully that'll cheer it up. If nothing else, it's a useful diversion from having to notice the double-dip depression of Great British Pounds and ounces.

Not sure that Thief is the right analogy here, if ever a game was unashamedly gamey, it was Thief. Granted, tactical shooter fans would love a back to basics tactical shooter worth their while. But even if I weren't personally sick to death of violent imagery, I'd still struggle with the idea that a self endulgent gun and gun stuff simulator somehow equalled tense tactical gameplay. The balancing you need comes from the fact that sitting at a desk wiggling a mouse and typing WASDWASD over and over has got absolutely nothing in common with the human experience. It's not just a matter of aesthetics - it's a simple practicality if your goal is to communicate human experiences via a medium unable to otherwise capture said experiences. Still, here's hoping I'm wrong, it gets funded and Ground Branch really is the awesome thing you want it to be.

It's easy to get paralysed by the enormity of this kind of stuff - so I'm enjoying Earth, The Operator's Manual on PBS, which spends as much time detailing fixes as problems. Richard Alley is quickly becoming my favourite science guy.

Sorry bub, I be the wrong demographic for knowing people who'd like that. The tension that comes from tactical gameplay I could get my head around to liking (especially if there was a narrative to make use of it), but they didn't mention or demo any such gameplay in that kickstarter vid once. That's probably my biggest beef with it. It's just men dribbling over guns and gun stuff. As far as I can tell that's a recipe for zero gameplay, tactical or otherwise. I do remember Infiltration for Unreal Tournament back in the day. It started out pretty entertaining in a hide 'n' seek sort of way (thinking man's stuff) - it was genuinely decent, but ended up an unplayable mess as they tried to make it increasingly "realistic". Realism in games is great for creating a believable atmosphere - but it can be terrible for gameplay. You need to balance those things. There ain't be no balance on show in the Ground Branch Kickstarter. And I'm not into guns enough to want to chance it. Again, I'm probably sounding way too down on this - but I'm suffering a really heavy dose of violence as entertainment fatigue.

Keep in mind that E3 is E3 and a garish festival of everything that makes gaming an embarrassment - so there's no atmosphere, politics, narrative, detail or depth on show here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V6PgQMZziY http://www.g4tv.com/videos/58810/dis...gameplay-demo/ <- really lousy quality, see Dema's post below for better

Reverse psychology for the win \o/ I think indi-development is awesome and Kickstarter awesome for indi-development, but I'm just not someone who obsesses about guns or men shooting men simulators - so I kinda don't get the appeal of this. Stick some gun nerdiness in an interesting fictional setting and I might think it does nice things to make the fictional setting seem believable and immersive. But gun-wanking for the sake of gun-wanking is a big turn off for me - sorry. --edit-- still, it seems as though lots of other people who fantasise about shooting people for a hobby seem to want this happen - so there's hope for you yet. --edity edit-- Perhaps if gaming wasn't already so boreishly and thoughtlessly violent all the friggin time then I might be less dismissive of this - but as things are it's just - meh

--edit-- actually, I don't really have any advice, but... I'd have thought that a console would be better for an occasional games machine than trying to get a laptop that does it all. Laptops that do it all tend to fail by being big and clumsy and more trouble to carry than they're worth and thus are no good as laptops.

Slashy, slashy, splish splash. Aside from the tiresome, borish Modern Warfare esque body count, the marketing for this thing seems helluva confused. If they've got the awesome game that they're hinting at, then it'd be a damn shame if it didn't sell because they can't decide what direction they want to pitch it. However, the death and brutal killing that is quicktime exploding rats (don't click on the rat trap) is remarkably entertaining.

Could you not put your helmet inside some kind of protective box? It's going to get banged if you're just standing there holding it. @AluHaste Snatch! I can't understand why bikers have started calling it a lid either. It's almost as though... Oh I don't know.

Clearly the best case scenario is when the mission and the player have a shared vocab and are speaking the same gameplay language. Mission authors probably need to be conscious of this and consider making sure players are up to speed as being part of their craft. That's perhaps especially acute as we can't guarantee that players are long standing thief fans, or have even played much Dark Mod before. Any TDM mission could be a player's first. Which is a bit of an arse, come to think of it. Anyway, while I don't particularly mind that some vines are climbable and some ain't - I don't think it actually benefits TDM in any way having that sort of inconsistency. If it was accepted that big, substantial looking vines should be climbable and it was widely adopted as a kind of de-facto standard by mappers, then I don't think it would do any harm. Mayhaps it falls to the Training Mission and the up-comming in-house campaign to establish some basic norms.

I tell you what. Slightly related, I do expect doors to be doors. I think if TDM authors started getting in the habit of making non-doors identifiable from the real thing by maybe the absence of a door handle it would help with my anger management issues.

Semi seriously, I'm pleasantly surprised that it hasn't been an actual problem. I don't think that I've been irked by climbables being inconsistent between missions. The likes of 'Return to the City' did a good job of making climbable vines look like they might be a way up to somewhere interesting and worth trying. That was sufficient. But it's an interesting point - how a game builds up a vocabulary and how that intermingles with player expectations. It's a bit like sinks and basins. I always check them for water arrows because a couple of missions from the original Thief games had them there. But it doesn't bother me if they're not. Yet some things I do expect to be consistent. If a ladder wasn't climbable it would probably make me grumpy for the rest of the day. Sotha's trellis idea maybe has some merit. I can't remember how the vines are in the training mission - but that should probably be the standard - if there is such a thing as standard in TDM. Mostly when I play I think that big, expansive vines that look like they go somewhere are worth trying. That seems to be enough. The worst thing, I think, would be climbables that don't go anywhere. Once I embark on a climb - I do expect some kind of possibility for progress given sufficient derring-do or a shiny reward. --edit-- Actually, I say I've never found it a problem, but I was irked by a climbing section during 'In Remembrance of Him' which required a heroic leap to a drain pipe - but it never occurred to me that the drain pipe would be a thing you could heroically leap to - so I guess drain pipes aren't in my TDM vocabulary of climbable things.

Oooh, I like the idea of wine arrows. Shoot them at guards to inebriate them.

It's a good rhetorical question... Perhaps TDM should introduce special climbing gloves that glow when you approach a climbable surface.

If there's a problem with readables being too long, it might be because there's no incentive to read them. And that might be because there is too often no story. If you present player with an interesting problem to solve (find something that has been lost / break a curse / defeat a cunning security device / Save the Cat) - other than plod mechanically through the mission and leave again - it's possible that player will warm to the idea of reading through a few paragraphs of text. Which is too say, I think perhaps that a mission with good story elements shouldn't be obviously solvable without paying attention to some pieces of story. Anyhoo - I linked to these a little while ago, which I thought were quite nice and aimed at 12 year olds I think - which is about my intellectual level.

Though it is frighteningly close to the topic of the thread that was deleted, so perhaps I shouldn't jest.

I was renditioned once for attending a knitting circle.

I've no idea what you're talking about. But this creepy hand thing is creepy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAsg_xNzhcQ

See, I actually think Mr Errant Signal is wrong. Obviously home PCs and PlayStations aren't great conversationalists, but Mr Signal forgets, I think, that there are two parties involved. And while computers might be rigid, Players' brains are more than squidgy enough to make up for it. If computers can't actually hold down a convincing conversation, lie about it. Tell the player that a convincing conversation happened, player will fill in the gaps.

I'd have thought the obvious as day reason for welcoming our new googlebot overlords is that someone googeling for something will be able to find it which will make them happy. Whether they lurk or become members hardly matters does it? P.S - I think that's a bit over the top Rich. I find a Faraday Cage sufficient.

No, that makes sense Sotha. I guess the concern that I have is that when people have tried to introduce that kind of interact within the narrative and the mission/map/level in a sandboxy sort of way I've never found it very satisfying. It always seems to be that you get 3 not particularly great experiences, rather than 1 detailed and lush experience - even if that lush experience isn't necessarily my own choice. I'm really liking what I've heard about Dishonored so far, but my heart actually sank a little when they said you can take different approaches to solving missions. Also, when you introduce freedom then you've got to allow for the fact that players like me are going to be awkward and have my own ideas about how to do things - like hide Laddie under the bed - and then get tetchy if the game doesn't cater for that, or if it does and the Assassins don't bother to check under the bed. That's not to say that I don't like the idea, but making it awesome is something else. One of the things I remember System Shock 2 doing (and I'm never sure if these are objective rather than subjective memories) is that it did a really good job at giving the illusion of free choice - but it was all sleight of hand - the thing was virtually running on rails. I really don't mind being lied to like that.

It sounds interesting, but I'm slightly confused as to what you think interactive fiction is. Hell if I know either - so I looked it up on Wikipedia, but I'm guessing you're talking about something slightly different. Are you thinking pretty much ditching having a traditional TDM game in the mix (in the sense that TDM is fancy pacman) and having an interactive machinima running on the engine... I've just played through Amnesia... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTlWBtz62Z0 ...I'd quite like to to take editor for a whirl (but not until my beginners competition FM is complete of course) because it looks delightfully easy, like lego almost. Amnesia is just begging for that kind of thing. They even call the fan made stuff custom stories - though I've not tried any of them yet. It'll be interesting to see what Pinchbeck does with A Machine for Pigs too.