Vadrosaul
-
Posts
701 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Vadrosaul
-
-
I'm currently finishing up the Earthsea series (halfway through the last one). She's such a good story teller, I just enjoy each page
Have you read her early scifi 'Left Hand of Darkness'? I was thinking of getting that, and I've herd good things about Le Guin's style in the genre.
-
I recently read Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End.
It's a science fiction tale, set in the near future. Its setting is primarily in the area of San Diego. People wear internet-wired clothing and contact lenses, allowing them to SMS with their thoughts and see messages in front of their eyes...and to also see programmed overlays on reality. Cameras are everywhere, so privacy is hard to come by, for the most part, out in public. The Internet is woven into people's lives, and a good part of how people think and live is based upon information analysis services that they can provide, or use.
Despite these changes in the fabric of society, people still think and function "normally", which is a sign of good characterization on the part of the author. However, for governments, the information free-for-all means they are running a pitched battle against folks getting their hands on WMD...which they do in part based upon advanced information analysis services. One has the sense that the War on Terror is in full swing...and that it's a matter of time before something slips.
Into this environment awakens a world-renowned poet, asleep for many years with Alzheimer's. He has to make piece with the changes in the world, in his family (he's been out of it for a long time), and in himself. And, in the middle of all this, he finds himself drawn into a conspiracy which could affect world politics (though he doesn't know it)...pulled in with the promise of the return of something he treasures greatly, and has lost.
Though perhaps not as awe-inspiring as A Fire Upon The Deep, Vinge has created a glimpse of a world not far from where we are today...and it leaves us thinking a lot of questions about which way our society is heading. The characters all come across as believable, and the plot is self-consistent and realistic. So, for me, I found it enjoyable, and read it cover-to-cover in one go, on a flight from Seoul to Vancouver.
-
To see if any guard has made you and is waiting in sniper ambush without sticking your head out and becoming arrow fodder.Why botter changing the laws of physics creating a portable mirror thing when you can just lean to a corner.Besides, a guard (in an ideal world) could spot the light reflected on the mirror and see you anyway..Best use is in diffuse lighting conditions, but I see your point.
-
Sounds like all jobs just about!
I think that was his point.
-
I'm not afraid of them, but bored by them, since they're invariably shit, and always will be. Writing a storyline for a game is extremely easy, anyone could write the sort of derivative, predictable stories you find in any major game title.
What's the point in a game where the outcome is already set up in advance because the story is already written, and all your given is a few alternative routes to get there.
Plot and story do not utilise the potential of the gaming medium at all, but simply stagnate it, locking it to older mediums which are actually designed for storytelling.
The same argument can be applied to professional wrestling. They try to be a soap opera, but compared to actual soap operas their storylines are absolute low-brow garbage. Yet fanatics of it still reference examples of good story's against examples of bad story's.
For better or worse, stories are a staple of that medium as well as games, and the best you can do is either numb your expectations, analyze them within a vacuum, or look for the very few that stick to what their medium does best. Thief was a high standard to compare to, since it had a different playstyle, premise and atmosphere.........elements that a good game needs to make of paramount quality before even gauging how a story would factor into it.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t need much of a plot to play Thief levels or FM’s. The impetus to steal to make ends-meet, or because I simply am good at it, or because the place in question is a great challenge that will stroke my ego is enough for me. Some of the better FM’s & OM’s had dynamic situations cropping up during burgling, but that’s narrative level design and not story.
-
That's the problem with games, the plot has to be stupid just so you can manufacture gameplay from it.
It wouldn't be much use the if the boss and his minions were so clever and on the case that you couldn't beat them.
That's obviously true, but since when have game story's been held up to the standards of great novels or movies? Each form of expression has its own self-contained standards for every major element. When creators have to 'fit' a narrative into a form of medium, obviously a lot is going to be pared down and/or lost in translation. Pointing that out and deriding it is just preaching to the choir of the observant.
Some books should be games, some games should be movies, some movies should be books, and many shouldn't be any of the above.
-
Yeah, the only thing you can hope for is someone with a sensible long term goal that drives them to make something that is both commercially successful AND critically acclaimed by reviewers and fans alike.
Or for someone who banks his coffers from a commercially successful venture, and uses that to fund their magnum opus of critical acclaim, likely to fail commercially but the risk won't take them into the negative. I'm waiting for Ken Levine to show his true colors in that regard, since Bioshock (or System Shock console-lite) sold well.
-
The ego factor. No matter how dangerous, how ridiculous the setup, scoring the loot is too enticing for such a character to think practically about his chances.
-
Maybe the question should be asking what visual themes, what settings, what gameplay styles are TDM all about.
-
IIRC my days tweaking Doom 3, there was another value called lightscale that could be adjusted in a autoexec cfg file. What difference does it make to TDM when adjusting that? Is there going to be a slider for lightscale?
-
Well, I didn't expect anyone to be arrogant enough to define someone's personality based on a task which takes 5 seconds to do.
It's either that or he's so incredibly obtuse and doesn't realize the group of people he works with all have geek cards. Take a look at any of the team members and I'm sure most have filled out at least two bits of info on their profile back when they registered years ago.
-
We already had the scouting orb, and I don't know if you guys are implementing it, cuz my gut feeling is that it rarely got used in T2MA.
-
-
What age are you anyway, I always thought you were 30-ish, so you must have been late to college.
god_is_my_goldfish
Eh...Meh...Bah (artist)
23 years old
Gender Not Set
Location Unknown
Born Mar-21-1985
Not very board savvy, are you.
-
Something like a follow-up to the reception of Thief's Den is enough. Or even just copying & pasting Komag's post. For those of us pimping your mod to prospective development helpers, it isn't good having the last update over 2 months old, even if it was a major Alpha release. The fact is the date is the first thing they notice under 'News', and you have to combat the perception of the propensity of user mods being forgotten.
-
Making a game technically difficult does not stop it from being dumb trash.
It's simply inevitable, since the sort of autistics who are addicted to these games become so good at them, they have to be made more and more technically demanding.
It's still just dumb pretend-to-kill-stuff rubbish though.
That's pretty much why I took to Thief. Not just the fact that the best way to play is not to kill anyone, but because the playing field the game presented was realistic and initially difficult enough without artificially or unrealistically ramping up the game's variables & stats. Obviously after the initial love affair we came to realize how toned down the AI was, even on Expert. Tis why I hope that TDM will provide mappers with some default values for "hyperactive paranoid bloodthirsty coked-up" AI guard variable settings.
-
Thanks Dad! I was so very ignorant of the birds & bees of the Dark Mod team dynamics, but now my eyes are wide open
-
You guys have a development forum us lowly members don't see. I'm sure it gets used like a chat.
Oh the horror stories we here
-
Space 4X games are addicting and huge time sinks, so I gave you all 10's but commented on how much of a bastard you are for ruining my life
-
Over half of my dreams involve flying or telekinesis like opening doors before I approach them or pulling a small item into my hands, which might indicate I'm on some level aware it's a dream, but I never care it's a dream, because I continue doing the same mindless things.
No, assuming a fantastical role or having superhuman characteristics is not necessarily indicative of lucid dreaming. It is merely the subconcious applying your inherent creativity to your dream. That would be common among the type of people who visit TDM (sci-fi/fantasy aficionado's).
No one should go overboard with lucid dreaming. It is not a superior form of dreaming in any sense. Losing yourself within a role your subconcious has assigned you in a dream is just as interesting as realizing your in a dream and thus exerting influential control of its elements, especially if you have the personality of a douché.
-
It pretty much implies he's an arse.Don't know how that excludes him from being an arse -
They've done about six patches, laboriously fixing the translations errors and quest bugs. Plus there is a fuckton of good simple mods done by the fandom.
-
Anyway, here is the vid. Sorry in advance if it makes your ears bleed.
The musical performance is excellent, it's the camera work that's making me nauseous
"Fucking Matt Damon" is a related video??
-
Happy BDay New Horizon!
I want my Western BBQ Burger, dang it!
in Off-Topic
Posted
This one may be a joke, but I have an aunt who works at emergency dispatch and there is occassional nonsensical abuse of the phone service akin to this. Though in my aunt's case dispatchers, once they identify abuse of the service, are nowhere near as accomodating as this lady on the video. They'd tear into the caller for the abuse and threaten criminal charges.