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Neal Stephenson Reinventing Computer Swordfighting, Via Kickstarter
New submitter toxygen01 writes "Neal Stephenson, sci-fi writer mostly known for his books Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon, takes on revolutionizing virtual sword fighting with help of crowdfunding. Inspired by the little-known fictional universe of 'Mongoliad,' an interactive book he is collaborating on, his company is trying to develop hardware (low-latency motion controller) and software for realistic medieval sword fighting. From what is promised, it will try to be open for other developers by having API and SDK available for further modding." Very few Kickstarter drives have a steel longsword as one of the rewards for investing.
air doesn't give feedback when struck.
just kinect it, if you're swinging air.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I said that, too, till I realized the recreational uses of motorbikes, boats, etc. are really all just games requiring very expensive proprietary hardware.
When you think about it that way, the question (in my mind) becomes "does it require proprietary hardware that can't be used for other stuff" -- if it has the same flexibility to come up with your own uses (as demonstrated by the kinect (not that that's proprietary to one game), and as I'm sure this will be) as sporting goods, it might be worth it. If it's only good for that game, whether due to true uselessness for any other conceivable activity, or evil lock-down measures, then I'll pass.
We can do boffers in the back yard, and this cannot even rise to that, much maligned, level of realism. At least send old Neal over to the SCA for a few clouts in the head with a rattan and compressed foam 3 pound mace. Even THAT isn't exactly realistic, but it IS as close as you'll ever get.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
There's been a bit of a transition in the use of Kickstarter. Initially the idea was to provide seed funding, to cover expenses for a project that someone wouldn't be able to do otherwise unless they got conventional funding (e.g. grants or angel investors). So, for example, $5k for supplies and a few months' rent to support an art project. Then there were perks just as thank-yous to supporters.
It seems to be slowly transitioning to a pre-order system where the perks are the point, though. Neal Stephenson is a multi-millionaire; he does not actually need this seed funding to pay his rent and expenses. If he wanted, he could self-fund the entire project. So why would he use Kickstarter? My guess is to get early buy-in from potential customers, to validate the idea's appeal, to build buzz, etc. Essentially a business-strategy use of the platform rather than a seed-funding use.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Everyone who bought a Rock Band or Guitar Hero controller disagrees with you.
Play some Steel Battalion and let me know. Better yet, try the controller with Mechwarrior 4 or Freespace 2 and let me know.
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My thought was: how realistic will it be if I do not have to worry about my adversaries really hitting me and killing me?
Also, I am not sure the public wants this degree of realism. A real sword fight (even in training) can be very tiring..
Why can't
The main charactor in Snowcrash, Hiro Protagonist, is known as the best swordfighter in the Metaverse. So, obviously, his interest in swordfighting predates his most recent work. Hiro, besides actually knowing how to use a sword in the real world, also wrote the template sword fighting code for the Metaverse. I guess Neil Stephenson is looking for that "edge". :-)
Besides, a good generalized real-time controller framework will enable many types of gaming besides swordwork...the code should be similar enough to enable things like baseball bats, hockey sticks, and golf clubs.
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What do you have against Kickstarter? It's not fundamentally different from gambling or the stock market? Of course some people are going to use Kickstarter for take-the-money-and-run scams. That's just the nature of the beast. When you gamble sometimes you lose. An excellent reason to only invest in projects run by people you are familiar with and who you feel you can trust to complete the project and not just take the money. And before you complain about the word 'investment' the returns are not monetary. The return on the investment is some kind of creative project getting completed that would not otherwise have been.
I believe that Kickstarter is a new paradigm. People are overly optimistic now. I think as more and more people get burned they will be far more cautious about which projects they choose to invest in. It won't kill the crowdfunding paradigm. It will just remind people not to be so stupid and gullible. And some dishonest people are going to make enough money to move to an island somewhere and never work another day in their life. People hold up liquor stores for a few hundred bucks. A Kickstarter scam is more like robbing a bank. So, yeah, there are going to be scams and they will get more and more sophisticated as time goes on. Caveat emptor.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
As someone who's currently reaping the rewards of both projects I sponsored on Kickstarter, I reject the insinuation that many or most Kickstarter projects are frauds.
There are crooks everywhere. Kickstarter, by making it easier for people to collect money, makes it easier for those people just as much as the legitimate users.
I understand where their position on refunds comes from even if I probably wouldn't be very happy about being in that situation. It's up to local law enforcement to deal with fraudsters, and as long as they've done reasonable due diligence (to the extent that they even can), I wouldn't be more comfortable if they suddenly had more power available to them.
If you want to raise complaints about Kickstarter, why not complain about their policy of blaming the stalked woman for being stalked? Their reaction and their policy is entirely under their control.
Let's say Stephenson is worth $5 million in reasonably liquid assets. Ok, fine, he could clearly afford to fund $500k for a project BUT that is 10% of his total funds. Not a trivial amount. Think about if I asked you to put up 10% of your liquid assets to something that might not make any money, would you be interested in doing so?
Part of actually staying rich, once someone becomes rich, is not just blowing through money. No matter how much you have, you can easily spend it all in a short amount of time on shit if you try.
Goes double if you aren't in something where you have guaranteed income. He's made a lot of money because people liked his books. However maybe he never releases another book that sells well. In that case, his money needs to last. A million dollars is a lot when you are talking a yearly salary, however it is not a lot when you are talking trying to live on it for a long period of time.
There probably is a business aspect to it as well but just understand that a half million dollars is a lot of money to someone with a few million dollars much as a thousand dollars is a lot of money to someone with ten grand. Yes it is money you could spend but it is a significant portion.
A way to stab people in the face over the internet.
*facepalm*
You're one of those guys who railed on for days on end about how people who enjoyed playing Guitar Hero should just go learn to play the guitar, aren't you?
I wish I lived where you do, since it's apparently crawling with fencers, too.
I have no idea how anyone can attack Kickstarter unless they make their money in some competing paradigm (like a game or book publisher) or are just jealous or they are a lawyer hoping to buy a new Porsche this year. Yes. Kickstarter can be used to scam people out of money, and yes, if they had no intention of completing the project then it is a form of fraud. But I don't understand why you blame Kickstarter. It is totally not their fault. No one is forcing anyone to 'contribute' to a project.
If you want to blame someone blame the scammer himself I won't shed any tears for them if they get prosecuted for fraud. Although I do think the state should have to show intent. No point in filling the already fit to burst jails with people who are merely incompetent, but don't realize it. Just because the system runs on the 'honor system' does not mean there is anything wrong with it. Some people really are honest and sincere. It is unfortunate that some people are good at appearing honest and sincere when they are not, but that's the nature of life.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
"People with viable ideas can borrow money."
Perhaps you haven't heard, but there's this liquidity crisis going on right now that makes banks *really* loathe to loan anything to anybody for any reason, least of all for a business venture. Kickstarter is helping a lot of people bridge that funding gap in other ways.
For instance, FIE (Olympic) sport fencing?
It's certainly fairly different than with real sharps (you will be far more fearless obviously) but it can be instructive.
Sport fencing originated as practice for actual swordsmanship---swordsmanship for one-on-one dueling combat, and not large-scale military melee which is completely different. For a game like this, it seems that simulating the 1-on-1 era (say 1600's-1700's with rapiers etc--personal weapons of the wealthy) would be a goal. As point weapons, they were quite sharp and very effective.
If you've actually fenced some, you learn some things pretty quickly. Too many people's idea of combat seems to have been influenced by "theatrical swordplay" on stage & film. In theatrical swordplay, the combatants are too close together and the goal appears to be clanking their weapon against their opponents weapon in synchronized acrobatic fashion, instead of actually trying to hit the opponent.
Things you learn from actually fencing:
a) keep the pointy bit pointed at your opponent, not the air or the ground.
b) don't flail around with your sword arm, you expose target area which a skilled opponent will hit, because he is keeping his pointy bit pointed at you and ready to strike.
c) fencing is 80% legs and timing moving back and forth. Champion fencers win because they have stamina and explosive leg power and the ability to gauge distance appropriately. Sign of a master is one who can play with an opponents timing and distance, getting a rhythm and setting up the opponent's expectation, and then suddently strike explosively with an uncomplicated
d) it's *very* tiring.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if quite a few Kickstarter projects are actually using it as part of their funding, not all of it. It's a lot easier to get backing from a bank if you can go to them and say "we already have £x and n guaranteed customers".
In the case of Neal Stephenson, he and his existing team have already done the initial prototyping and development. What they're funding for is the expansion of the team, continued development, and creation of a final product.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
First, learn that there is no such thing as a broadsword (well... there are the scottish basked hilted broadswords, but they are quite modern to the ones you probably refer to), then you may actually get some credibility discussing this.
The knightly single handed sword is better known as an "arming sword" (they are similar to Viking age blades and Roman Spathas, but with better balance, better steel, and a larger cross guard).
The arming sword could be used with a shield (e.g. a buckler) and there are preserved books from the 13-14th centuries that detail how to fight with them. When armor had improved so much that there where no longer a need for the shield (yeah, full plate armor stops about any edged attack you can think of) the longsword (sometime known as a bastard sword) became popular, which was primarily intended to be used with two hands, but could be wielded with one hand for some moves. For the longsword (which gradually replaced the arming sword), a martial arts tradition that lasted for a couple of hundreds of years arose in Europe, this tradition was documented in fighting books and manuals, sometimes with enormously beautiful illustrations. At the end of the longsword era, the weapon had become mostly used for sports in various sword fighting contests as it was rapidly becoming obsolete with the introduction of gunpowder.
There is a sport known as Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), which is attempting to revive the fighting styles used in medieval Europe for the sword and buckler, messen (single edged german one handed swords), longsword, dagger and hand to hand combat. For the longsword, there are two types of combat that evolved and are being explored, one dealing with how to fight unarmored and one how to fight fully clad in plate.