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This sort of thing is best done using giant wings of fire.

Too many bioscientists are not a problem if we can come up with a sufficiently high matching hunchback population. http://project-apollo.net/mos/

Actually it could be built for a lot less in my opinion. Much of the cost of these things is just lifting stuff up there,

A sufficient quantity of guncotton and the exigent development of a large-bore cannon could resolve this issue post-haste.

-- Jules Verne, 1865

Orbital cannons are still perfectly safe, if a rather low-budget way of getting into space.

Nahh... Probably something more along the lines of this...

To quote A Miracle of Science, "If you can't disguise the needle, make the haystack bigger."

To quote A Miracle of Science, "If you can't disguise the needle, make the haystack bigger."

Much better list: http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html

Memes can turn into a serious problem for society. Fortunately our future Martian overlords know just how to deal with it, as witnessed here. This is why it is imperative that we visit Mars and set up colonies there...

A great strength of webcomics is diversity. No matter how strange your tastes, there's probably someone writing a comic for you. Why not show off some of the variety? There's so much range, from a comic where one of the protagonists is part of a hive mind to comics with stick figures and nerdy jokes. Achewood alone can't show all that.

Oh yeah, because we really want to encourage that meme

FFXII sucked. I've played a total of like nine hours into it and got bored with it to the point I really don't plan on playing it again. The gambit system will literally play the game for you, leaving you free to run between cutscenes. The boss battles devolve into manually potion-spamming but otherwise letting the AI run free.

The story is practically incoherent, even this far into it. The characters are rebelling against the Empire because of the Last Rule of Politics. (Kingdoms are good. Empires are evil.) I have really no idea what anyone's motivation is - it seems to generically be "the Empire is evil." Which is evil because they said so, with no real evidence. (In fact, all evidence so far shows that said kingdom is better off under Imperial rule than it ever was under the old kingdom.)

The license grid is insanely lame and seems to be designed to force you to buy a strategy guide. The main problem with it is that it doesn't say what a given slot does until you've got something unlocked next to it. This makes guiding advancement essentially impossible. A license that has nothing next to it may say something like "Shields" but won't offer any idea of which shields it allows. So you wind up having to guess which "Shields" you need to move towards to use your new shiny shield. Likewise, any advancing towards specific abilities is impossible.

Unless, of course, you already know what's on the grid, by buying the strategy guide. (Or looking it up online...)

Likewise, the most powerful weapon in the game can only be obtained if you don't open certain chests. Problem: most chests are randomly generated, are actually called "treasures" and there's no indication that these magic chests are any different from any other randomly generated chest. They're also strategically placed so that it's impossible to miss them while progressing through the game. They're literally placed at key points that you have to travel through.

This "random chest generation" scheme also means that some of the best equipment has a very small (less than 1% in some cases) chance of being generated, and only after building a very long "chain" (killing the same monster family over and over and over and over again).

Personally, I enjoyed FFX far more than FFXII. FFXII really has no Final Fantasy "feel" to it, and despite being set in Ivalice, has no FF Tactics feel to it.

The Grand List of Console RPG Cliches. Parents being dead? That's number six.

*nod* I can't speak fairly for games 8-12 in the series, not having played much of them, but the trend seems the same.

Square seems to be locked into a niche that's worked very well for them, so that innovation comes slowly to them in that series, even though they try different things in off-series games like Chrono Trigger and Dirge of Cerberus. Minor tweaks plus top-of-the-line graphics keep a certain group of gamers happy with the main series.

As I try to learn game design, a lot of my thinking goes back to Final Fantasy I and the other early console RPGs, so the series is a good starting point for coming up with new ideas. "What if the game world was really open-ended? What if the battle system didn't use hit points?" New gameplay mechanics like those are where independent developers should focus their efforts.

I wonder why it is that I like the characters but not the plots in Final Fantasy. It might have something to do with them being "reactive," with the characters always trying to Save the World from a lunatic villain, but that doesn't explain why I liked Chrono Trigger's plot too. Or maybe it's the limited way you interact with the world and NPCs, but that doesn't explain games like Disgaea.

Oh, and it's worth pointing out the Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés.

In that sense they are full of what in copyright is referred to as "scenes a faire," or components that are common to a particular type of work.

I wonder if this counts?

Game reviews do matter - its called word of mouth. Terms such as "clickfest", "pushover" and "tedious" are negative aspects of a game that you should avoid.

If you want a list of things that a good review should look for, all you have to do is find lists of Cliches and reviews that make note of them. There are similar lists for strategy and action games - but common components among all such lists involve being railroaded through events outside of the players control (e.g. is captured by 3 units after taking out 2000 soldiers), or events that are obvious enough to be traps but the player is forced to go through them to advance the plot.

# All The Time In The World (Rinoa Rule)
Unless there's a running countdown clock right there on the screen, you have as long as you want to complete any task -- such as, say, rescuing a friend who's hanging by one hand from a slippery cliff edge thousands of feet in the air -- no matter how incredibly urgent it is. Dawdle or hurry as you will, you'll always make it just in the nick of time.

http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html

I read this web comic http://project-apollo.net/mos/index.html
One of the main characters comes from Mars and the folks on Mars developed a group mind. The way it works sounds similiar to this, but on a much larger scale and seemlessly for any request. Say you wanted to cook supper and looked in your cabinet and couldn't think of anything. You'd briefly access the group mind, which would instantly send your supplies, about how long your want to cook it for, your personnal favoriate dishes, and your personnal cooking skill level to 400 top chiefs who all spend less than a minute looking at the data and sending back a dish that you could make within 15-20 minutes. The group mind would store all the recipes for future use.

I don't want to think about quickly solving problem, but I wouldn't mind handling the occasional request that is well within my abilities that takes less than 5-10 minutes of my time.

In the one extreme, you have the japanimation crowd who've come from the manga/anime world and like to be a part of a story.

I like to be a part of a story too. I like a few console RPGs because they have a strong story, but the "part of" is rather lacking.

Take FF7, my first exposure to CRPGs for instance. Second time through the game, I tried treating Yuffie like dirt at every opportunity:
Yuffie:"Oh, so you can't sleep either huh.... Thanks for helping me before. I have this feeling that you...care...for me?"
Me: "What!? Hell no, what gave you that idea?"
Yuffie: "Oh Cloud, you are such a joker, *tee hee*!"

But even so they fall in love and become a couple towards the end.

Also, after playing a few I recognized the plots and characters are just as sterotype as in western RPGs, or maybe even more so.

I REALLY like games that manage to have a engaging story AND give you meaningful choices - Deus Ex, Planescape:Torment, KOTOR2...

They're perfectly safe.

How does it score at the real important list?

My favorites:

http://www.unicornjelly.com/
http://cheston.com/pbf/archive.html
http://www.project-apollo.net/mos/mos000.html

I have to say this is one of the reasons I'm glad that the Xbox and PS2 had somewhat different markets where they excelled: there are different kinds of gamers with different tastes. It's great that there's a console that had what you wanted. As for me, since I dig those Japanese games, the PS2 is what I have and I've never touched the XBox. All my American RPGs are on the PC.

Though I will let you know, I've always thought that people who played J-RPGs for the story or characters are nuts. I agree with you, so much of the time they're all the same. There are exceptions (SMT from Atlus, arguably Xenogears, some NIS games), but even those are debatable. To me, the whole point of playing these games is all about the battle system and the progression systems. FFVII had a confused and meandering plot that eventually just drops itself and finishes, but what made it fun was the materia system. What keeps me playing Final Fantasy games are the different systems in place like materia, sphere grids, or a job system. The battle system was pretty simple, but the character progression was fun.

On the other hand, Shin Megami Tensei and Digital Devil Saga from Atlus both had very fast-paced battles, yet even still most average battles required some thought, care, and strategy. Games like that are nice, the only older RPG I can think of where you could get your butt kicked no matter how powerful you thought you were was Chrono Trigger.

So just so you know, even people who love J-RPGs have the same complaints as you. Heck, that's what makes the list of role-playing cliches funny. But in spite of their shortcomings, they can be a lot of fun.

It's what Enterprise *should* have been.

That would have been exciting. "Going where no man has gone before."

Ensign: So where are we going Captain?
Captain: To the Klingon home world.
Ensign: But that's 20 light years away, it'll take us 40 years just to get there!
Captain: You're right Ensign. And we only have 7 years before we're canned. Alright. We'll go to Jupiter station.
Ensign: Oh boy, that'll only take us several months!


Don't think that would have worked somehow.

For those that don't want to shill out $10 (plus shipping and handling) US for a comic they might or might not like (unfortunately the preview didn't really tell you much) here are a bunch of sci-fi comics that don't rely on a fad (and are free too) that you might enjoy:
* Storm Corps
* A Miracle of Science
* Kismet: Hunter's Moon
* Mozhaets
* Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life (WARNING: Humour)
* Twilight Agency
* Freefall (WARNING: Humour! But it is hard sci-fi. Confused how humour could mix with hard sci-fi? Read it and find out).
* Where Am I Now?

This guy seems like more of a Mad Scientist than an inventor to me.

And here's a link for the more traditional geeks... Order of the Stick (I also read this little sci fi epic among the multitudes of comics out there.)

Here's the Grand List of Console RPG Cliches: http://www.project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html

You're thinking of The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés. Some highlights: "No! My beloved peasant village!" The hero's home town, city, slum, or planet will usually be annihilated in a spectacular fashion before the end of the game, and often before the end of the opening scene. "Silly Squall, bringing a sword to a gunfight..." No matter what timeframe the game is set in -- past, present, or future -- the main hero and his antagonist will both use a sword for a weapon. (Therefore, you can identify your antagonist pretty easily right from the start of the game just by looking for the other guy who uses a sword.) These swords will be far more powerful than any gun and often capable of distance attacks. Bed Bed Bed A good night's sleep will cure all wounds, diseases, and disabilities, up to and including death in battle. Short Attention Span Principle All bookshelves contain exactly one book, which only has enough text on it to fill up half a page. Golden Chocobo Principle There will be at least one supremely ultimate improvement for your weapon or some way to make your trusted steed capable of going anywhere and doing anything, requiring hours and hours of hard work to acquire. Once you do achieve this, you will use it once, and it will be completely useless for the rest of the game.

Take a gasoline powered leaf blower. Scale it up so that it makes a lot of wind. Now build about five of these and attach them to a car-sized vehicle.

If you bring one of those home, I don't want to be your next-door neighbor.

To be fair, Moller is proposing an engine that would be more efficient (and thus quieter) than the cheap two-stroke engine in a leaf blower. But he still needs a boat-load of thrust per engine to lift the car, its fuel, and its passengers and their luggage, plus extra power to handle engine failure.

The last time I looked at Moller's web site (years ago) it said something hand-wavy about active noise cancellation. It sounded good at the time but now I'm dubious; moving as much air as this thing will move, how can you ever get it really quiet? (And how much will the noise cancellation gear weigh?) Noise cancellation works great if you are sitting in a predictable spot, but how can you cancel the noise of the flying car for all listeners in all directions?

I'd love flying cars, with safe autopilots please, but I think that unless someone invents antigravity they won't be practical.

On Earth, anyway... A Miracle of Science showed flying cars inside the domed cities of Luna. With one-sixth the gravity of Earth, flying cars might be more reasonable.

P.S. I'd like to plug A Miracle of Science. It's a nifty hard-science SF story that nonetheless has a sense of wonder. It's one of my favorite web comics.

steveha

Take a gasoline powered leaf blower. Scale it up so that it makes a lot of wind. Now build about five of these and attach them to a car-sized vehicle.

If you bring one of those home, I don't want to be your next-door neighbor.

To be fair, Moller is proposing an engine that would be more efficient (and thus quieter) than the cheap two-stroke engine in a leaf blower. But he still needs a boat-load of thrust per engine to lift the car, its fuel, and its passengers and their luggage, plus extra power to handle engine failure.

The last time I looked at Moller's web site (years ago) it said something hand-wavy about active noise cancellation. It sounded good at the time but now I'm dubious; moving as much air as this thing will move, how can you ever get it really quiet? (And how much will the noise cancellation gear weigh?) Noise cancellation works great if you are sitting in a predictable spot, but how can you cancel the noise of the flying car for all listeners in all directions?

I'd love flying cars, with safe autopilots please, but I think that unless someone invents antigravity they won't be practical.

On Earth, anyway... A Miracle of Science showed flying cars inside the domed cities of Luna. With one-sixth the gravity of Earth, flying cars might be more reasonable.

P.S. I'd like to plug A Miracle of Science. It's a nifty hard-science SF story that nonetheless has a sense of wonder. It's one of my favorite web comics.

steveha

GTA is fabulous in that in manages to blur the distinction between genres, something that many have tried but few have succeeded.

I will not consider this game a True success until it covers at least 100 of the RPG Cliches!

The 'every 14 year old is the chosen one' is a classic one though.

Grand List of Console RPG Cliches

"The biggest problem with rpgs, really, is the advancement of the action-rpg (Zelda being the primary example of this). There are generally so many more action-rpgs made these days, it's easy to get confused as to what a real traditional rpg is."

The biggest problem with RPGs are the constant, unfettered flow of cliche after cliche after cliche; reliance on random battles as a means of stretching out gameplay; lack of character freedom; and the fact that most companies put the same games out again and again.

Final Fantasy is the worst series in regard to lack of freedom -- the first let you pick any party you wanted, with any name, and develop them how you liked; current ones require you play as a set group of characters through a set story line -- even the battles are on rails, thanks to the boring summons that look cool the first (or second) time, but past that are merely a cinema to watch and make the random battles that much agonizingly longer.

Zelda is a great example of how you can have a good game with only battles you choose, and still have 30-40 hours of gameplay, lots of side quests, and a good story. How is that reducing RPGs? It's not. You play the role of Link (or some succesor), and enjoy the story and mechanics. The boss battles are fun, and the game in enjoyable. It's also not super hard like Halo on Legendary -- people of every age and gender seem to be able to get into it equally, rather than the stereotype of only the while male 18-31.

Also, considering that there were 10-15 "traditional" RPGs out this year, compared to the action RPGS (5-8), I don't think the release schedule's diluting it either.

You say it's not an RPG unless it has random battles. So, by that logic, Grandia and Grandia 2 aren't RPGs. Sounds like someone secretly likes Final Fantasy to the exclusion of all else.

If Squaresoft actually went and made a new Final Fantasy game with generic characters. People you could name, who didn't have preset names of paths. Like the Light Warriors of FF1. No preset names, no preset paths -- only what you did with them.

Another Final Fantasy game that has the exact same gameplay with the exact same hundreds of cliche plot points and done-it-before gameplay makes me yawn.