Ender's game is being made into a movie. When the movie comes out you can expect licensed games to come out for all the popular platforms. (Or maybe console only.) Penny-Arcade considered than an ominious proposition.
I think the battle room could make a great game, a First/3rd person team shooter. You get ejected into the room and float around in Zero G. You only get to push off walls and what-not.
You'd have the flash suits and the 'stars' and everything from the game. (You could even have a 'hook' mode.)
You could test to see if Ender's strategies really would have worked.:)
As the guy above says about FFXI, "I'll never play any other game again." The promise of a MMORPG makes most other games seem like petty wastes of time.
I've been looking for the right MMO since 1993.
I'm in love with the concept, but hate the games. I love the message boards for these games. I spend hours and hours every day, reading about MMO's , writing about MMO's, arguing/dreaming about MMOs.
However, once I get the chance to play them, they can't keep my interest for even a day, and I look for another game with a message board.
In this contest, I was rooting for Dragon Empires. It's not release, and I haven't had a chance to play Beta.:) I think WoW is good still as well.:)
There's no reason to single this game out as 'untasteful' if you're willing to allow other games. Think about it.
You (condescendingly) ask us to think about the poor Ukrainians as if we were exploiting their pain. Excuse me, the game was written BY a Ukranian development team.
You, (and the person who wrote the article), seemed surprised by the tour of Chernobyl. They have tours of Chernobyl all the time. You get on a bus that's dedicated to the area, (it will never leave) and drive around. That's all they did. It's like someone on a visit to New York riding the ferry past Ellis Island.
VietNam games were not 'taboo' for 30+ years as some sort of respect. Most that time there just wasn't the technology available to make the game. Now that it can be done, it is being done. Look at all the GulfWar games. Look at the Delta Force series, (current events portrayed in a mediocre game engine.) Games are being made all the time.
I wasn't at the press conference, of course, but I'm not even sure the guest speaker was as tasteless as is being portrayed here. He's billed in the article as 'one of the men responsible' as if it were some sort of deliberate action. What if it was presented as "One of the survivors" would you be so shocked and angered?
Anyway, if you feel a need to condemn the video game industry as insensitive to the current events they choose to portray, then by all means, go ahead. You're probably right.
However, if you think this game is somehow worse than the thousands of other games based on real-life events, then sit back down, because you're definitely wrong.
The first mod-chip I heard of was for the PS1. I'm sure there were others, but this was the first for me.
It was cool for one reason. Since they used CD's, you could burn a copy of the game CD and then 'share.'
However, now-a-days, I don't hear of that anymore. (Maybe I travel in the wrong circles, maybe it's become passe', who knows). What I hear instead is...
-- Make the hardware do something special. Like how every electronic contraption can be made to run Linux. They make it really difficult to make anything of your own run on their hardware.
-- Imports. Believe it or not, but the world has shrunk (shrank, shrunken?) in the last 10 years. It's just about as easy to buy something from Japan or Germany as it is to buy it from down the street. They make it really difficult to actually use this product that you own.
-- Backups. Can't tell you much about backups. The peopel saying "kids" might have a point, but I've never actually seen it done.
The point is, the world has changed. I think modchips were one-trick-ponies in the past, but they become more and more legitimate as time passes.
I've been waiting all day to finally get to post this. I hope I haven't missed my window.
PC games are DIFFERENT than Console games. They are different starting at the point someone writes down the concept on a piece of paper. They are difference LONG before you get to the question of what 'platform' they are going to be released on. (Except that it's inherent in the initial concept, what a paradox.)
When you have a successful Console port of a game, such as KOTOR, it's because you were developing two games at the same time. A PC game and a Console game. Some people accomplish it. Most people don't. Most people develop one type of game, (usually console) and then release it for the PC. It doesn't work that way. 90% (fake statistic) of console ports fail. The same goes for PC games that are ported to consoles. It just doesn't work. The players of the two types of games just want different things.
Now, if they made a product where you could write a game, and push the magic button and spit out a PS2 disk, an Xbox disk, and a Gamecube disk, that would be excellent.
Even better, if they had a machine that could spit out a Windows disk, a Mac disk, and a Linux disk, the world could rejoice. PC games work excellently on different types of "Personal Computers" (except that freaky one button Mac mouse). Also, console games work excellently on different types of consoles.
However, a PC game doesn't work on a console, and a console game isn't enjoyed on a PC. There's a paradigm shift there that doesn't automatically transfer.
With excellent game design and supervision you can create a game that's good in both 'paradigms,' However, making an API that allows any Tom Dick and Harry to make their latest brain fart cross-platform isn't going to encourage that kind of effort.
I'm also worried about the "Live" stuff they talked about. We already have "GaySpy Arcade" trying to ruin the way PC gaming works online. If the same kind of thing becomes to inseperably tied to DirectX then online PC gaming could start to really suck.
Were you holding ATITD up as an example of what to do, or an example of what not to do.
It sounded like 'what to do' except ATITD is the most 'sandbox' like of all MMORPGs, which you said was bad.
My problem is that the games lack depth. The games lack detail. The games remove everything that sounds 'boring' and are left with standing around with auto-attack on doing nothing.
I'm asking for too much. MMORPGs can't be what I want them to. I'm just hoping someone will meet me half way.:)
There's this thing called context. There's another thing called 'expediency' or maybe 'need to know.'
I haven't been following WoW much, and the alpha/beta not all all, but I was able to tell from context that a 'push' was specific testing for those character classes. (The new beta is in a push of the 'good' races. Humans Dwarves Taurens, etc, no orcs or goblins.)
Also, exactly what is meant by a 'push' is irrelevant to the point of his article. He could have been extra wordy, or explain to much. Or he could just leave it as 'not important' as it is.
Sure, it's not going to win him any Pulitzers, but his point was to give out information, not entertain anyone with his prose. For what it's worth, he could have just given an outline that was entirely jargon and it would have accomplished his goals.
"Yeah I know the degree says it's from Electronic Arts, as if I got it as a special offer for Pre-ordering Battlefield: Vietnam. But really, it's from an actual University, it's an actual degree. Okay, you're right, it's a Fine Arts degree, and not a tech-degree, but I'm actually a tech-minded person."
This magazine (see link) is offering a bounty for photos. They put up their own Mock-up. I say it looks good, but it needs about a ton more buttons. 2 was insane for the GBA, let alone the generation after.
I say on the face you have a D-pad, on one side, then 4 buttons on the other side. (lay them out somewhat like a cross (PS style) so it can pretend to be another dpad in a pinch.)
Then, have the PDA style buttons on the side...maybe those scroll wheel button thingies, one on each side.
Here's the trick. You SOFTWARE doesn't have to use 100 different buttons. Only use one button if you want. But make your console (or handheld) have as many buttons as you can comfortable fit on just in-case there's ever a need for them.
This is how I feel. There were two things that made me never even concider SW:G.
1. The official site required you to make an account and log in just to look at the RESULTS of the poll on their front page. I can understand logging in to vote, or to post on the forums, or even READ the forums in extreme cases....but to log in just to look at the results of a poll was insane. I wrote to the webmaster saying that I would never go back to his site again. (And only broke that twice that I know of.) (I'll admit, I was being petty, but dangit...I'm allowed to be petty with my own time.:) )
2. The main reason I didn't care to follow SW:G was because it was Star Wars. The bits of information that I did glean sounded good. The artwork was excellent. It seemed like a high-quality product. BUT!! It was Star Wars. There was no way I wanted to spend my time with a million fruit-cake fans. The 'gamer maturity' (that has nothing to do with actual maturity, just with how well you play games and interact in a gaming environment) level was instantly cut by 75% simply because of that license.
Not to mention the message boards. There was ONE!! topic. There were 30 million threads, but ONE topic. "Being a Jedi" There were no other conversations. It was incredible. It was disgusting.
They should make another one. SoE should take the technology, the game systems, the CS departments, ie and make another game. They could use the same code-base, just spend a while making all new artwork and nomeclature, and make a new 'non-Star Wars' mmorpg. They could use the same CS staff, and the same infrastructure.
They should at least make a pretense of doing it as a different company though. Think of the money they'd save in development and maintanence. They'd also have much more freedom of expression on this 'alternate world.'
Anyway... It was specifically Star Wars that chased me away from SW:G....and I LIKE Star Wars.
I quickly scanned the list, and found all my favorites (plus a few that I'd forgotten.) However, you missed Ender's Game by Orson Scott card. It's one of my highest reccomendations. The rest of the series is good too, but become very philosophical, and 'out there.' (series is: Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind,...) Also, I don't know if it counts as sci-fi, but Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglass Adams) is great.
Slashdot Mirror
Ender's game is being made into a movie. When the movie comes out you can expect licensed games to come out for all the popular platforms. (Or maybe console only.) Penny-Arcade considered than an ominious proposition.
:)
I think the battle room could make a great game, a First/3rd person team shooter. You get ejected into the room and float around in Zero G. You only get to push off walls and what-not.
You'd have the flash suits and the 'stars' and everything from the game. (You could even have a 'hook' mode.)
You could test to see if Ender's strategies really would have worked.
WitchBlade. Yancy Butler http://www2.warnerbros.com/web/witchblade/home.jsp
I thought they did a good job of keeping her 'real' and not a 'sexpot' like you said.
As the guy above says about FFXI, "I'll never play any other game again." The promise of a MMORPG makes most other games seem like petty wastes of time.
:) I think WoW is good still as well. :)
I've been looking for the right MMO since 1993.
I'm in love with the concept, but hate the games. I love the message boards for these games. I spend hours and hours every day, reading about MMO's , writing about MMO's, arguing/dreaming about MMOs.
However, once I get the chance to play them, they can't keep my interest for even a day, and I look for another game with a message board.
In this contest, I was rooting for Dragon Empires. It's not release, and I haven't had a chance to play Beta.
Yeah, whatever.
There's no reason to single this game out as 'untasteful' if you're willing to allow other games. Think about it.
You (condescendingly) ask us to think about the poor Ukrainians as if we were exploiting their pain. Excuse me, the game was written BY a Ukranian development team.
You, (and the person who wrote the article), seemed surprised by the tour of Chernobyl. They have tours of Chernobyl all the time. You get on a bus that's dedicated to the area, (it will never leave) and drive around. That's all they did. It's like someone on a visit to New York riding the ferry past Ellis Island.
VietNam games were not 'taboo' for 30+ years as some sort of respect. Most that time there just wasn't the technology available to make the game. Now that it can be done, it is being done. Look at all the GulfWar games. Look at the Delta Force series, (current events portrayed in a mediocre game engine.) Games are being made all the time.
I wasn't at the press conference, of course, but I'm not even sure the guest speaker was as tasteless as is being portrayed here. He's billed in the article as 'one of the men responsible' as if it were some sort of deliberate action. What if it was presented as "One of the survivors" would you be so shocked and angered?
Anyway, if you feel a need to condemn the video game industry as insensitive to the current events they choose to portray, then by all means, go ahead. You're probably right.
However, if you think this game is somehow worse than the thousands of other games based on real-life events, then sit back down, because you're definitely wrong.
Why settle for just a number. Make the name be some sort of function.
My name is John {Today's juvian (sp) date mod 26 mapped onto the alphabet} Smith.
That would surely reak havoc on contracts (but I guess could always be verified by the date field that's always next to the signature line.)
The first mod-chip I heard of was for the PS1. I'm sure there were others, but this was the first for me.
It was cool for one reason. Since they used CD's, you could burn a copy of the game CD and then 'share.'
However, now-a-days, I don't hear of that anymore. (Maybe I travel in the wrong circles, maybe it's become passe', who knows). What I hear instead is...
-- Make the hardware do something special. Like how every electronic contraption can be made to run Linux. They make it really difficult to make anything of your own run on their hardware.
-- Imports. Believe it or not, but the world has shrunk (shrank, shrunken?) in the last 10 years. It's just about as easy to buy something from Japan or Germany as it is to buy it from down the street. They make it really difficult to actually use this product that you own.
-- Backups. Can't tell you much about backups. The peopel saying "kids" might have a point, but I've never actually seen it done.
The point is, the world has changed. I think modchips were one-trick-ponies in the past, but they become more and more legitimate as time passes.
I've been waiting all day to finally get to post this. I hope I haven't missed my window.
PC games are DIFFERENT than Console games. They are different starting at the point someone writes down the concept on a piece of paper. They are difference LONG before you get to the question of what 'platform' they are going to be released on. (Except that it's inherent in the initial concept, what a paradox.)
When you have a successful Console port of a game, such as KOTOR, it's because you were developing two games at the same time. A PC game and a Console game. Some people accomplish it. Most people don't. Most people develop one type of game, (usually console) and then release it for the PC. It doesn't work that way. 90% (fake statistic) of console ports fail. The same goes for PC games that are ported to consoles. It just doesn't work. The players of the two types of games just want different things.
Now, if they made a product where you could write a game, and push the magic button and spit out a PS2 disk, an Xbox disk, and a Gamecube disk, that would be excellent.
Even better, if they had a machine that could spit out a Windows disk, a Mac disk, and a Linux disk, the world could rejoice. PC games work excellently on different types of "Personal Computers" (except that freaky one button Mac mouse). Also, console games work excellently on different types of consoles.
However, a PC game doesn't work on a console, and a console game isn't enjoyed on a PC. There's a paradigm shift there that doesn't automatically transfer.
With excellent game design and supervision you can create a game that's good in both 'paradigms,' However, making an API that allows any Tom Dick and Harry to make their latest brain fart cross-platform isn't going to encourage that kind of effort.
I'm also worried about the "Live" stuff they talked about. We already have "GaySpy Arcade" trying to ruin the way PC gaming works online. If the same kind of thing becomes to inseperably tied to DirectX then online PC gaming could start to really suck.
Were you holding ATITD up as an example of what to do, or an example of what not to do.
:)
It sounded like 'what to do' except ATITD is the most 'sandbox' like of all MMORPGs, which you said was bad.
My problem is that the games lack depth. The games lack detail. The games remove everything that sounds 'boring' and are left with standing around with auto-attack on doing nothing.
I'm asking for too much. MMORPGs can't be what I want them to. I'm just hoping someone will meet me half way.
There's this thing called context. There's another thing called 'expediency' or maybe 'need to know.'
I haven't been following WoW much, and the alpha/beta not all all, but I was able to tell from context that a 'push' was specific testing for those character classes. (The new beta is in a push of the 'good' races. Humans Dwarves Taurens, etc, no orcs or goblins.)
Also, exactly what is meant by a 'push' is irrelevant to the point of his article. He could have been extra wordy, or explain to much. Or he could just leave it as 'not important' as it is.
Sure, it's not going to win him any Pulitzers, but his point was to give out information, not entertain anyone with his prose. For what it's worth, he could have just given an outline that was entirely jargon and it would have accomplished his goals.
"Yeah I know the degree says it's from Electronic Arts, as if I got it as a special offer for Pre-ordering Battlefield: Vietnam. But really, it's from an actual University, it's an actual degree. Okay, you're right, it's a Fine Arts degree, and not a tech-degree, but I'm actually a tech-minded person."
:)
Oh well...good luck.
More mockups
Another from the first place
mockups from Lik-sang
DS Mock-Up / Bounty
This magazine (see link) is offering a bounty for photos. They put up their own Mock-up. I say it looks good, but it needs about a ton more buttons. 2 was insane for the GBA, let alone the generation after.
More buttons.
I say on the face you have a D-pad, on one side, then 4 buttons on the other side. (lay them out somewhat like a cross (PS style) so it can pretend to be another dpad in a pinch.)
Then, have the PDA style buttons on the side...maybe those scroll wheel button thingies, one on each side.
Here's the trick. You SOFTWARE doesn't have to use 100 different buttons. Only use one button if you want. But make your console (or handheld) have as many buttons as you can comfortable fit on just in-case there's ever a need for them.
This is how I feel. There were two things that made me never even concider SW:G.
:) )
1. The official site required you to make an account and log in just to look at the RESULTS of the poll on their front page. I can understand logging in to vote, or to post on the forums, or even READ the forums in extreme cases....but to log in just to look at the results of a poll was insane. I wrote to the webmaster saying that I would never go back to his site again. (And only broke that twice that I know of.) (I'll admit, I was being petty, but dangit...I'm allowed to be petty with my own time.
2. The main reason I didn't care to follow SW:G was because it was Star Wars. The bits of information that I did glean sounded good. The artwork was excellent. It seemed like a high-quality product. BUT!! It was Star Wars. There was no way I wanted to spend my time with a million fruit-cake fans. The 'gamer maturity' (that has nothing to do with actual maturity, just with how well you play games and interact in a gaming environment) level was instantly cut by 75% simply because of that license.
Not to mention the message boards. There was ONE!! topic. There were 30 million threads, but ONE topic. "Being a Jedi" There were no other conversations. It was incredible. It was disgusting.
They should make another one. SoE should take the technology, the game systems, the CS departments, ie and make another game. They could use the same code-base, just spend a while making all new artwork and nomeclature, and make a new 'non-Star Wars' mmorpg. They could use the same CS staff, and the same infrastructure.
They should at least make a pretense of doing it as a different company though. Think of the money they'd save in development and maintanence. They'd also have much more freedom of expression on this 'alternate world.'
Anyway... It was specifically Star Wars that chased me away from SW:G....and I LIKE Star Wars.
I quickly scanned the list, and found all my favorites (plus a few that I'd forgotten.)
However, you missed Ender's Game by Orson Scott card. It's one of my highest reccomendations. The rest of the series is good too, but become very philosophical, and 'out there.'
(series is: Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind,...) Also, I don't know if it counts as sci-fi, but Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglass Adams) is great.