If at one point you considered "patriotism" a virtue, I'd say Slashdot has done you some good. Following authroity figures blindly is never a virtue.
OTOH don't just swap one jaundiced veiw of the world for another. Slashdot in general has one foot in the conspiracy theory camp and the other in undergraduate politics. (What Abbie Hoffman called "The Infantile Left.")
What you read here is hardly Gospel. Its highly biased and, frankly, not even always honest with itself. (Slashdot has a tendancy to confuse freedom with a view that an best be summed up as one-way socialism. What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine.)
All this having been said, the only "truth" you are ever goign to find is one you build yourself from ALL the soruces of information. Read them all,but read them all critically and always ask yourself "what is the motivation behind this statement."
Once, a long time ago, there was a shining realm where peace and tranquility were guarded over by benevolent rulers.
No I'm not referring to Camelot, I'm referring to The Total Entertainment Network. It was a subscription service ($20.00 a month) for playing games online. It was run in a 1 million dollar fail-safe machine room by people who were experts on the net. It had a security system that was tested and approved by Dan Farmer (the author of Satan)( and during its three year history though there were many, many runs NOONE ever broke into it.
Alas, the public decided that free and half-assed was a better deal and TEN died from the market pressure as you culd not run a system of that sophistication and quality on the dribble of money advertising brings in.
So, as I strated out by saying. The Diablo players got what they wanted and what they paid for. They'll get no sympathy from me.
Which, btw noone has mentioned yet, is that 3D map editor is tile based. Building a 3D environment is as easy as using an old 2D editor was.. you just slap down pre-built world-peices.
This IMO is also the msot significant thign abotu this game as it is going to empower a LARGE number of arm-chair game designers who a renot 3D whizzes to nbonetheless make modules.
No, NWN did not let people create and swap dungeons. You are thinking of "Unlimited adventures" which was a non-online RPG toll making kit buitl from the same code base-- the old "Gold Box Engine."
NWN was a fixed world. There were some limited sysop commands for creating items and I think monsters on the fly and for moving things around the world, but that was about it (I never sysop'd soI might have missed a few sysop abiltiies. Proabably they coudl edit char sheets, too.)
The rference to the old Unlimtied Advetnures thtough IS a good one. NWN2 is probably most like a modern 3D version of UA with the ability to "Lan Play" witha real-time judge both locally and over the net.
It will be a very different game for many reasons:
(Pardon me while I use terminology that makes itr easier for me... I'm going to clal Bioware's upcoming game NWN2).
(1) NWN was turn based in combat, which leads to invoveld strategy. NWN2 is real-time combat which precludes that level of strategic thinking and detail.
(2) NWN held up to 500 people in the world at once in a commercially maintaiend persistant environment. You could go online and find your friends fairly easily. NWN2 has a designed maximum of 64 players and fans run the servers ala Quake (including tport gates that log you out of one sevre and into another.). Although there are some fan-dreams out there to bring up servers full time and somehow link them together in such a way as to provide a persistant "massively multiplayer" world environment, the hard scaling limits that are inherent in designing for a maximum of 64 players will probably preclude this.
I'm not saying it isn't a grat lookign rpoduct, it is. But the original poster is right, it won't be the same experience as NWN was.
Isn't it confusing calling it NWN? When i heard this proejct orignally annoucend it was NWN2 and I stil think of it that way.
NWN was (arguably the first) massivley mutli-player RPG and was hosted on AOL (Thats for everyone else, I assume you know this Marc.) It is, in teh end, the REASON this product is called NWN-anything.
I find over-loading the name more then a bit troublesome in trying to dicsuss the history of this game-area with anyone. Maybe I'm alone in thiss
You can pay for net services by veiwing ads or you can pay for them out of your own wallet, but any net service that can't turn a profit is going to vanish.
Okay,
I'll first reiterate that i think its MUCH better then the worthless movie.
That having been said, even with the drecrease in the cost of CGI in recent yearts, the clearly did not have the budget to do this the way we'd all like to see.
6 hours just isn't enough to tell a story of this depth and complexity. The plot "feels" greatly accelerated and jumps at tiems for no well motivated reason.
And there were a numerb fo desert shots tonight where they tried to save money by using a static backdrop for the sansd that just didn't work.
Al lthat said I'm STILL enjoying this. There is a lot thats good about this production. I like the actors and the director's visual sense, and the interiors are rather stunning.
All in all, after two nights, I give it an 8 out 10 for a valient and reasonable effort.
But there is still room for someone to do the 20 hour epic and do it right.
I DO agree that the mentats were downplayed and thats unfortunate. Harkonnen's mentat at least got some exposure, but didn't Atriedes have one too who was important? (Its been quite awhile since I read the book.)
That having been said I still think this is already much better then the movie and I'm enjoying it.
In general I liked the costuming over-all. It visually made the point, at least to me, that the emperial characters were all to one degree or another a spoiled, decadent over-caste.
I'm truely sorry for those that don't like the production. I'm really looking forward to going home and firing up the ol idiot box tonight. I wish I could share that feeling with those who aren't.
6pm... when I watched, and then two more back to back showings following.
Re:Ornithopters? Atreides ones were more like flie
on
On The Dune Miniseries
·
· Score: 2
I agree on the ornithopters although I'll go futher and say that NONE were ornithopters. By definition, Ornithopters flap.
They're also slow which is probably why they went with the jet-fly-- so they could do a nifty high speed chase scene. Ah well, a small quibble in my book.
Yes I also really liked the blocky, early CGI sheilds in the movie. About the only thing, other then Sting, that I did like in the movie.
In re The Voice, both effects seem inappropriate but necessary to me. I don't see The Voice as making you sound either like a frog (the movie version or like you are standing in an echo chanber (the mini series.) The problm is, its really a mental power that I don't see as "sounding" like anything, but they need to do something to flag it so I find both equally annoying/acceptable.
At least (so far) they haven't turned it into a sonic version of scanner's blowing up heads like I recall they did in the movie (was a long time ago though so my memory may be fuzzy.)
My biggest complaint with the Voice scenes so far is that noone who didn't read the book will have a clue what was going on.
The movie was produced by Dino DeLaurentiss and showed it. Everything he does looks like a Comic Book. (His other credits include Barbarella and Flash Gordon, which at least work as comics.)
I have to see I found this Harkonen far more sinister and threatening because he *wasn't* played over the top. Again, he was a real villian not a comic villian.
Hurt as Leto was a bit wooden, but I felt that was appropriate as it helped establish the wall between him and Paul.
All in all, the only thing I can think of that I missed from the disaster that was the movie was Sting as Feyd, but I'm holding judgement on the series' Feyd until he gets to do more.
All in all I think this is a much much better adaption then the movie was. The one defense of the movie is that Dune really CAN'T be told in tow hours. That having been said, the mvoie wasted a hell of a lot of tiem on trivialities and then skipped 95% of the story wiotha quick voice over.
And the Sandworm riding scene at the end with Italian surf music in the background was just awful. No two ways about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah! Lets just pirate the movie and watch it at home!
>>> Sarcasm mdoe off
If at one point you considered "patriotism" a virtue, I'd say Slashdot has done you some good. Following authroity figures blindly is never a virtue.
,but read them all critically and always ask yourself "what is the motivation behind this statement."
OTOH don't just swap one jaundiced veiw of the world for another. Slashdot in general has one foot in the conspiracy theory camp and the other in undergraduate politics. (What Abbie Hoffman called "The Infantile Left.")
What you read here is hardly Gospel. Its highly biased and, frankly, not even always honest with itself. (Slashdot has a tendancy to confuse freedom with a view that an best be summed up as one-way socialism. What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine.)
All this having been said, the only "truth" you are ever goign to find is one you build yourself from ALL the soruces of information. Read them all
Welcome to world as it is.
We used to laugh at the Soviet equitpment for still usinbg tubes.
:)
Tube baed equiptment is 100% immune to EMP, so maybe they were right after all
There was just too much going on in different little isolated corners. Any history that purports to be definitive is probably wrong.
Once, a long time ago, there was a shining realm where peace and tranquility were guarded over by benevolent rulers.
No I'm not referring to Camelot, I'm referring to The Total Entertainment Network. It was a subscription service ($20.00 a month) for playing games online. It was run in a 1 million dollar fail-safe machine room by people who were experts on the net. It had a security system that was tested and approved by Dan Farmer (the author of Satan)( and during its three year history though there were many, many runs NOONE ever broke into it.
Alas, the public decided that free and half-assed was a better deal and TEN died from the market pressure as you culd not run a system of that sophistication and quality on the dribble of money advertising brings in.
So, as I strated out by saying. The Diablo players got what they wanted and what they paid for. They'll get no sympathy from me.
Which, btw noone has mentioned yet, is that 3D map editor is tile based. Building a 3D environment is as easy as using an old 2D editor was.. you just slap down pre-built world-peices.
:)
This IMO is also the msot significant thign abotu this game as it is going to empower a LARGE number of arm-chair game designers who a renot 3D whizzes to nbonetheless make modules.
A brilliant idea, guys
You are correct. See the post above from one of the actual developers.
Umm...
What about NetRPG? WebRPG? GRIP? Chat rooms with dice bots?
Lots of people have tried over the years to bring table-top on-line. This is arguably the fanciest attempt to date.
No, NWN did not let people create and swap dungeons. You are thinking of "Unlimited adventures" which was a non-online RPG toll making kit buitl from the same code base-- the old "Gold Box Engine."
NWN was a fixed world. There were some limited sysop commands for creating items and I think monsters on the fly and for moving things around the world, but that was about it (I never sysop'd soI might have missed a few sysop abiltiies. Proabably they coudl edit char sheets, too.)
The rference to the old Unlimtied Advetnures thtough IS a good one. NWN2 is probably most like a modern 3D version of UA with the ability to "Lan Play" witha real-time judge both locally and over the net.
It will be a very different game for many reasons:
(Pardon me while I use terminology that makes itr easier for me... I'm going to clal Bioware's upcoming game NWN2).
(1) NWN was turn based in combat, which leads to invoveld strategy. NWN2 is real-time combat which precludes that level of strategic thinking and detail.
(2) NWN held up to 500 people in the world at once in a commercially maintaiend persistant environment. You could go online and find your friends fairly easily. NWN2 has a designed maximum of 64 players and fans run the servers ala Quake (including tport gates that log you out of one sevre and into another.). Although there are some fan-dreams out there to bring up servers full time and somehow link them together in such a way as to provide a persistant "massively multiplayer" world environment, the hard scaling limits that are inherent in designing for a maximum of 64 players will probably preclude this.
I'm not saying it isn't a grat lookign rpoduct, it is. But the original poster is right, it won't be the same experience as NWN was.
Isn't it confusing calling it NWN? When i heard this proejct orignally annoucend it was NWN2 and I stil think of it that way.
NWN was (arguably the first) massivley mutli-player RPG and was hosted on AOL (Thats for everyone else, I assume you know this Marc.) It is, in teh end, the REASON this product is called NWN-anything.
I find over-loading the name more then a bit troublesome in trying to dicsuss the history of this game-area with anyone. Maybe I'm alone in thiss
I think he meant the trailer, not the movie.
Buying hot cruise missles would be both cheaper and more effective.
Due to the anonymous nature of the new they must rely on self-reporting.
If this study actually has a methodology that can create results that mean something, that woudl be bigger news then their supposed results.
This isn't a detroit car folks, so cut the ISS builders some slack. Guess what--- space exploration is DANGEROUS.
The first Jet Planes didn't win any safety awards, either.
Guess what guys...
Being ad supported means having Ads!
You can pay for net services by veiwing ads or you can pay for them out of your own wallet, but any net service that can't turn a profit is going to vanish.
www.pogo.com
Okay,
I'll first reiterate that i think its MUCH better then the worthless movie.
That having been said, even with the drecrease in the cost of CGI in recent yearts, the clearly did not have the budget to do this the way we'd all like to see.
6 hours just isn't enough to tell a story of this depth and complexity. The plot "feels" greatly accelerated and jumps at tiems for no well motivated reason.
And there were a numerb fo desert shots tonight where they tried to save money by using a static backdrop for the sansd that just didn't work.
Al lthat said I'm STILL enjoying this. There is a lot thats good about this production. I like the actors and the director's visual sense, and the interiors are rather stunning.
All in all, after two nights, I give it an 8 out 10 for a valient and reasonable effort.
But there is still room for someone to do the 20 hour epic and do it right.
I DO agree that the mentats were downplayed and thats unfortunate. Harkonnen's mentat at least got some exposure, but didn't Atriedes have one too who was important? (Its been quite awhile since I read the book.)
That having been said I still think this is already much better then the movie and I'm enjoying it.
How's that for a controversial subject line?
In general I liked the costuming over-all. It visually made the point, at least to me, that the emperial characters were all to one degree or another a spoiled, decadent over-caste.
I'm truely sorry for those that don't like the production. I'm really looking forward to going home and firing up the ol idiot box tonight. I wish I could share that feeling with those who aren't.
6pm... when I watched, and then two more back to back showings following.
I agree on the ornithopters although I'll go futher and say that NONE were ornithopters. By definition, Ornithopters flap.
They're also slow which is probably why they went with the jet-fly-- so they could do a nifty high speed chase scene. Ah well, a small quibble in my book.
Yes I also really liked the blocky, early CGI sheilds in the movie. About the only thing, other then Sting, that I did like in the movie.
In re The Voice, both effects seem inappropriate but necessary to me. I don't see The Voice as making you sound either like a frog (the movie version or like you are standing in an echo chanber (the mini series.) The problm is, its really a mental power that I don't see as "sounding" like anything, but they need to do something to flag it so I find both equally annoying/acceptable.
At least (so far) they haven't turned it into a sonic version of scanner's blowing up heads like I recall they did in the movie (was a long time ago though so my memory may be fuzzy.)
My biggest complaint with the Voice scenes so far is that noone who didn't read the book will have a clue what was going on.
The movie was produced by Dino DeLaurentiss and showed it. Everything he does looks like a Comic Book. (His other credits include Barbarella and Flash Gordon, which at least work as comics.)
I have to see I found this Harkonen far more sinister and threatening because he *wasn't* played over the top. Again, he was a real villian not a comic villian.
Hurt as Leto was a bit wooden, but I felt that was appropriate as it helped establish the wall between him and Paul.
All in all, the only thing I can think of that I missed from the disaster that was the movie was Sting as Feyd, but I'm holding judgement on the series' Feyd until he gets to do more.
All in all I think this is a much much better adaption then the movie was. The one defense of the movie is that Dune really CAN'T be told in tow hours. That having been said, the mvoie wasted a hell of a lot of tiem on trivialities and then skipped 95% of the story wiotha quick voice over.
And the Sandworm riding scene at the end with Italian surf music in the background was just awful. No two ways about it.
Thats what I did so I could get all these nifty channels. :)
H3y dewd,
Kewl, but it aint just spanish. What abt 3nglish?
JK