Fiction out there. It's space opera, damned good space opera. The humor and flavor is in the characters, not the special effects budget. If you pick up Santiago, the Widowmaker series, hell, just about any of his books you could make a good episode from each chapter.
Alastair Reynolds would get better ratings for far-future stuff. I'm not sure the TV community is ready for 'humans are pretty useless, but we keep them around for fun'.
Ok, I hope not to be modded troll for this, but probably will be.
I have played a lot of FP shooters. The innovation from one generation to the next in terms of graphics and stability has been wonderful, brilliant, and lacking in magic.
What is missing, and what could make the next big FPS is gameplay. Anyone who wants to do it right needs to sit down, play with 3-5 friends some Renier Knizia board games http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/2/reiner-knizia
as an education is what gameplay could be, compared to what it is. Don't call me a crank if you have not played Modern Art, Tigris and Euphrates, and Through the Desert.
I mean seriously, dragging a person into orbit, life support systems, food, etc. Thats a major waste of time and effort. Want to invest, invest in the people who call BS and put unmanned, fairly smart computer-controlled ships in orbit for profit. The rest is just for tourists.
Clark? Arthur C Clark? The guy who was afraid of cars and traveled on a bicycle? And is most famous for being so stupid he could not define the difference between magic and technology?
Not disagreeing with you about Asimov here, he was no Robert Forward.
And even engineering has a very small glamor:effort ratio.
Here's the giant problem. The cutting edge of science is wildly exciting. Are kids in school going to be doing anything cutting edge? No. In order to get there, you better have a PHD, preferably more than one.
Play baseball, and you can be a child prodigy. You can kick ass doing something people already care about through hard work and lots of practice. Work hard at science and what do you get? Unless you are postgrad, nothing. And that's not nothing in terms of fame, we could fake that and come up with all sorts of ideas, compititions, games. But you get nothing in terms of doing something new and interesting and relevant. Who cares if you can map a genome, it's been done. And unless you are the best of the best, a degree in most sciences is a ticket to grunt work of the most boring sort.
So the question really is, how can you make knowledge more popular than superstition and ignorance? Abstract knowledge... that will likely never be used by an individual after their schooling ends.
Ya, where are the level/skill/grind free MMORPGs? Is it impossible to have fun playing a game unless there are lowbies wandering around to gank?
Do we need to see our character get a little tougher over and over until they finally are 'done' and we can start playing?
RTS, first person shooters, and many other games don't have that, or it's very limited. There's no reason at all someone could not make an rpg game that's fun without levels/skill increases. It's all about content then.
heh, thanks for the flame. Saying you have not read much at all makes it mean very little and supports my point.
Too stupid to get it, lol. It's infintile, like the essay of a student (perhaps like yourself?) who has had a basic philosophy class and thinks they know the secrets of the universe.
actually, everything he has written. As I said, he's an entertaining author much like Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, and other small-minded buffoons. And there were far too few of those when I was growing up for me to pass them by. I used to hunt down old analogue magazines just to read the good old stuff.
Speaking of authors of whom I've read every word, Rodger Zelazny needs a hell of a lot more movie time. 9 princes in amber, jack of shadows, changeling trilogy, and damn near all of his scifi stories (man, This Immortal! Lord of Light!)... wow, if there is a more unexploited scifi moneymaker than him I'd be shocked.
I know, he's an entertaining writer. But his ideas are about as interesting as the ramblings of a stoned college freshman-philosophy major.
Is the sort of drunken, glassy-eyed speculation presented to us in his movies, the Matrix, Gattica, etc really the best that can sold in a movie? What about some of John Barne's work, or Ian M Banks, or Robert Forward, or Vernor Vinge, or Neil Stephenson... where thoughtful authors weave fantastic tales?
I came into this thread to bash the awful, awful books that RJ spewed out, but it looks like it's been done for me.
So, to be productive, here are some of the really good fantasy books from the last couple years:
The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series: Greg Keyes (Best fantasy series... ever? And he finished writing it!) The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (sequel is all right, but the first is the best) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (this guy's first book, and he writes too slow! but considering the book, that must be a good thing)
Perhaps someone will read one and decide to base a game/show on damn good content, instead of coffee table weights.
What killed tanking for me was none of the above. It was the lack of other tanks. Oh, look, Botched logged on, hey, can you switch to your tank? Can you tank a heroic? Can you tank Kara/ZA/etc?
Always in demand, too much demand. I had to switch specs *AND* vendor my tanking gear before the harassment stopped.
Fixed in WOTLK, with the talent
Touched By The Light:
Increase your spell power by 30% of your stamina.
And also a lot of others. I was in the same boat with my pally, I did Botanica more than 50 times looking for my starter-shoulders before I just gave up (got the mantle of abhrams from kara). But with the above talent, pally tanks dont have to worry about spell power much at all, and you can just wear warrior gear. And since you can get set pieces from the new heroic badge rewards... should not be bad at all.
Like what, my cell phone? Why do I need that connected to my computer? I wouldn't be stuck dead with a blackberry/iphone or other overpriced status symbols.
I don't think I'm alone (well, maybe I am here on/.) in not liking or wanting a cloud of devices. I surf the net, play games, do word processing. None of which I have any desire to do remotely. Cloud computing might seem cool, but if it's primary selling point is to sync mp3s and email with your devices, it's unnecessary for most people. And its a security nightmare.
On the flip side, people buy the games their computer can run. WoW(DVD) is a game that runs on old computers. Age of Conan(Blu-ray) has better graphics and requires a cutting edge computer. AoC fails, WoW goes on holding the market.
If your target demographic is the 5% of geeks who have to have the most cutting edge gear... good fucking luck.
That would cause an uproar though, and they know it. Going back on what they have promised since they released the game would be crazy from a business standpoint, they would loose a massive portion of their playerbase.
I get a happy feeling inside whenever I see reports like '50,000 accounts banned for gold buying'. They really are not testing the water, this goes right along with their policy of only giving out cosmetic stuff for money.
"This shows Blizzard has lost their scruples about abusing this business model."
Not really, though that was my gut reaction at first. Pretty much all the game has turned into 'things to do at the level cap'. And there is a lot of stuff to do. A new player joining a server is going to be pretty much ignored until they reach 70, no one does the old content anymore. And there's no harm in giving an old player a speed-leveling alt.
Giving them end-game items would be unbalancing. But this is cosmetic.
Slashdot Mirror
Fiction out there. It's space opera, damned good space opera. The humor and flavor is in the characters, not the special effects budget. If you pick up Santiago, the Widowmaker series, hell, just about any of his books you could make a good episode from each chapter.
We all know you post here!
Alastair Reynolds would get better ratings for far-future stuff. I'm not sure the TV community is ready for 'humans are pretty useless, but we keep them around for fun'.
Vila: "Where are all the good guys?" Blake: "You may be looking at them." Avon: "What a depressing thought." And the best ending a show could ask for!
Ok, I hope not to be modded troll for this, but probably will be.
I have played a lot of FP shooters. The innovation from one generation to the next in terms of graphics and stability has been wonderful, brilliant, and lacking in magic.
What is missing, and what could make the next big FPS is gameplay. Anyone who wants to do it right needs to sit down, play with 3-5 friends some Renier Knizia board games
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/2/reiner-knizia
as an education is what gameplay could be, compared to what it is. Don't call me a crank if you have not played Modern Art, Tigris and Euphrates, and Through the Desert.
I mean seriously, dragging a person into orbit, life support systems, food, etc. Thats a major waste of time and effort. Want to invest, invest in the people who call BS and put unmanned, fairly smart computer-controlled ships in orbit for profit. The rest is just for tourists.
ooo, ooo, have you seen the dune TV series? Sooo good, I think they are on netflix. Many many hours, but very pleasing.
Clark? Arthur C Clark? The guy who was afraid of cars and traveled on a bicycle? And is most famous for being so stupid he could not define the difference between magic and technology? Not disagreeing with you about Asimov here, he was no Robert Forward.
Que Father Ted "My Lovely... horse!"
To be a rigger?
And even engineering has a very small glamor:effort ratio. Here's the giant problem. The cutting edge of science is wildly exciting. Are kids in school going to be doing anything cutting edge? No. In order to get there, you better have a PHD, preferably more than one. Play baseball, and you can be a child prodigy. You can kick ass doing something people already care about through hard work and lots of practice. Work hard at science and what do you get? Unless you are postgrad, nothing. And that's not nothing in terms of fame, we could fake that and come up with all sorts of ideas, compititions, games. But you get nothing in terms of doing something new and interesting and relevant. Who cares if you can map a genome, it's been done. And unless you are the best of the best, a degree in most sciences is a ticket to grunt work of the most boring sort. So the question really is, how can you make knowledge more popular than superstition and ignorance? Abstract knowledge... that will likely never be used by an individual after their schooling ends.
Ya, where are the level/skill/grind free MMORPGs? Is it impossible to have fun playing a game unless there are lowbies wandering around to gank? Do we need to see our character get a little tougher over and over until they finally are 'done' and we can start playing? RTS, first person shooters, and many other games don't have that, or it's very limited. There's no reason at all someone could not make an rpg game that's fun without levels/skill increases. It's all about content then.
heh, thanks for the flame. Saying you have not read much at all makes it mean very little and supports my point. Too stupid to get it, lol. It's infintile, like the essay of a student (perhaps like yourself?) who has had a basic philosophy class and thinks they know the secrets of the universe.
I'm not a big Robert Forward fan, but try Dragon's Egg and the sequel (Dragon's Egg first) and you might see what I see in him.
actually, everything he has written. As I said, he's an entertaining author much like Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, and other small-minded buffoons. And there were far too few of those when I was growing up for me to pass them by. I used to hunt down old analogue magazines just to read the good old stuff. Speaking of authors of whom I've read every word, Rodger Zelazny needs a hell of a lot more movie time. 9 princes in amber, jack of shadows, changeling trilogy, and damn near all of his scifi stories (man, This Immortal! Lord of Light!) ... wow, if there is a more unexploited scifi moneymaker than him I'd be shocked.
I know, he's an entertaining writer. But his ideas are about as interesting as the ramblings of a stoned college freshman-philosophy major. Is the sort of drunken, glassy-eyed speculation presented to us in his movies, the Matrix, Gattica, etc really the best that can sold in a movie? What about some of John Barne's work, or Ian M Banks, or Robert Forward, or Vernor Vinge, or Neil Stephenson... where thoughtful authors weave fantastic tales?
Dominions, dominions 2, dominions 3 Master of magic was my favorite game in the world for quite a while. But Dominions is just so much better.
I came into this thread to bash the awful, awful books that RJ spewed out, but it looks like it's been done for me.
So, to be productive, here are some of the really good fantasy books from the last couple years:
The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series: Greg Keyes (Best fantasy series... ever? And he finished writing it!)
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (sequel is all right, but the first is the best)
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (this guy's first book, and he writes too slow! but considering the book, that must be a good thing)
Perhaps someone will read one and decide to base a game/show on damn good content, instead of coffee table weights.
What killed tanking for me was none of the above. It was the lack of other tanks. Oh, look, Botched logged on, hey, can you switch to your tank? Can you tank a heroic? Can you tank Kara/ZA/etc? Always in demand, too much demand. I had to switch specs *AND* vendor my tanking gear before the harassment stopped.
Fixed in WOTLK, with the talent Touched By The Light: Increase your spell power by 30% of your stamina. And also a lot of others. I was in the same boat with my pally, I did Botanica more than 50 times looking for my starter-shoulders before I just gave up (got the mantle of abhrams from kara). But with the above talent, pally tanks dont have to worry about spell power much at all, and you can just wear warrior gear. And since you can get set pieces from the new heroic badge rewards... should not be bad at all.
Scorpion tank :) It had good loot, law rockets.
Best game ever.
All my personal devices?
/.) in not liking or wanting a cloud of devices. I surf the net, play games, do word processing. None of which I have any desire to do remotely. Cloud computing might seem cool, but if it's primary selling point is to sync mp3s and email with your devices, it's unnecessary for most people. And its a security nightmare.
Like what, my cell phone? Why do I need that connected to my computer? I wouldn't be stuck dead with a blackberry/iphone or other overpriced status symbols.
I don't think I'm alone (well, maybe I am here on
On the flip side, people buy the games their computer can run. WoW(DVD) is a game that runs on old computers. Age of Conan(Blu-ray) has better graphics and requires a cutting edge computer. AoC fails, WoW goes on holding the market. If your target demographic is the 5% of geeks who have to have the most cutting edge gear... good fucking luck.
That would cause an uproar though, and they know it. Going back on what they have promised since they released the game would be crazy from a business standpoint, they would loose a massive portion of their playerbase. I get a happy feeling inside whenever I see reports like '50,000 accounts banned for gold buying'. They really are not testing the water, this goes right along with their policy of only giving out cosmetic stuff for money.
"This shows Blizzard has lost their scruples about abusing this business model." Not really, though that was my gut reaction at first. Pretty much all the game has turned into 'things to do at the level cap'. And there is a lot of stuff to do. A new player joining a server is going to be pretty much ignored until they reach 70, no one does the old content anymore. And there's no harm in giving an old player a speed-leveling alt. Giving them end-game items would be unbalancing. But this is cosmetic.