Hmm, have to disagree there... while I rather liked the two Renshai trilogies, the Bifrost Guardians was pretty crappy. In fact, enough elements turn up in both the Bifrost books and the first Renshai trilogy that I decided it was likely that the author wanted a second go at the cooler concepts in a better work.
I play guitar, piano, sing, and compose and record music. And while I will agree that writing your own may be more rewarding, goddamn but I find Guitar Hero and its kin to be a hell of a lot of fun anyway!
I am, in fact, writing a 2d tile based game, similar to Exile or the early Ultimas, in JS. So far, so good. I may wind up screaming and giving up, but for now I think it's going to be doable.
The thing that is still "theoretical" isn't so much that black holes exist- it's pretty clear that objects with their gravitational influence on the universe exist- but whether they have all the properties that we ascribe to black holes. Most importantly, whether or not they are true singularities. The singularity, if it's there, is truly unobservable, hiding behind its event horizon. An object that is just extremely dense and massive would look identical to us from the outside as an object that is infinitely dense and massive. By current understanding of the nature of the universe and relativistic and QM theories, that level of "extremely" dense is impossible (it has to collapse further into a singularity)... but if those theories someday get revised, we may find that the black holes all over the universe are not actually the mathematically ill-behaved singularities we currently think they are.
The Book of the New Sun is one of those very few stories that I finished and then immediately turned back to page 1 to reread to see what I had missed. Genius.
Of course, the Hyperion Cantos is also a favorite, so people should go read both!
If he was born here, how does he have citizenship of Kenya? If he wasn't born on American soil, how is he qualified to run for President?
I don't know about the first one, but the second has no real bearing on anything. McCain, for instance, was not born on American soil, but rather to two American parents who were in another country at the time of his birth. As such he is an American citizen and qualified to run for president. Similarly Obama, about whom there is absolutely no evidence that he was born anywhere but the US- repeated made up assertions about his birth certificate notwithstanding.
The Force fights were awful. No, I don't mean the lightsaber fights- those were kickass. But any time two people fought each other using just the Force it turned into Telekinesis! Block! Telekinesis back! Block! Telekinesis again!
Maybe I've seen the RPGs too much with their wide variety of force powers, but I was really, really hoping that when Yoda and Dooku had their force battle it was going to be epic. (Note, this was also my exact reaction to the Gandalf/Saruman battle in the movie Fellowship of the Ring.) Instead, in both cases, it was a bunch of telekinesis.
The furry friends aren't Eworks, they're Wookies. You can still see an echo of this in the final film, because the very word "Ewok" is an anagram for "Wookie" (with a couple letters dropped). No one knows why this happened, but it's a safe bet the Wookies would have been way cooler than the Ewoks were. Popular opinion has it that the merchandising for cute teddy bears was more attractive than that of Wookie action figures, but no one knows for sure.
I had heard this story before and always heard it said that, in this pre-CGI era, they just didn't have the casting options to get that many people to play wookies, whereas it was much easier to find people who could play the ewoks.
Arg... this is both. The Trademark issue is over the name, and the Copyright issue is over the identical board. The look of the board, unlike the rules of the game, CAN be copyrighted.
Why is this modded troll? It may not be the most brilliant parody of Carlin's "not a sport" routine, but every line in it is a direct reference to Carlin.
I've developed a habit. Book an early morning flight, pull an all-nighter the night before, and I'll be knocked right the heck out for most of the insufferable experience, be well-rested when I reach my destination, and still have plenty of daylight left to do something productive.
I used to do that. Then I did it once, and while waiting for my flight someone jumped the security line and the Atlanta airport shut down, and I ended up on another flight 32 hours later. Dealing with the huge lines and security and airline clerks and ticket counters and all that on no sleep was miserable.
So now I get a couple hours of sleep so I'm functional, but tired enough to nap on the plane too. But I want to be functional just in case.
Man, I forgot about that thing. I had a friend come over and solve it for me. It was just easier that way.
I love Zork, but that was a pretty awful game. Who wants to have to listen to every conversation in the game 20 times as you play them for every other character?
Ultima IV, for taking that step away from "hack 'n' slash". It wasn't the first, but it was important. Ultima V had the same virtue they gave Zelda 2- a living world, where people had schedules and interacted. They came out the same year, though, so I'm not inclined to take props away from Zelda.:)
Re:This industry is missing Infocom
on
Five That Fell
·
· Score: 1
Suspended. I managed to win suspended, but I've never managed to get a better score than "burned in effigy." Man that was a hard game.
Slashdot Mirror
It is KOTOR III. And IV. And V. And VI...
But it did until the most recent patch, so I expect that upon release Civ V will require a CD.
Hmm, have to disagree there... while I rather liked the two Renshai trilogies, the Bifrost Guardians was pretty crappy. In fact, enough elements turn up in both the Bifrost books and the first Renshai trilogy that I decided it was likely that the author wanted a second go at the cooler concepts in a better work.
Close. Talk TO Iolo and say "spam spam spam humbug" to access the cheat menu. :)
I play guitar, piano, sing, and compose and record music. And while I will agree that writing your own may be more rewarding, goddamn but I find Guitar Hero and its kin to be a hell of a lot of fun anyway!
I'll third the recommendation for White Hat.
I am, in fact, writing a 2d tile based game, similar to Exile or the early Ultimas, in JS. So far, so good. I may wind up screaming and giving up, but for now I think it's going to be doable.
The thing that is still "theoretical" isn't so much that black holes exist- it's pretty clear that objects with their gravitational influence on the universe exist- but whether they have all the properties that we ascribe to black holes. Most importantly, whether or not they are true singularities. The singularity, if it's there, is truly unobservable, hiding behind its event horizon. An object that is just extremely dense and massive would look identical to us from the outside as an object that is infinitely dense and massive. By current understanding of the nature of the universe and relativistic and QM theories, that level of "extremely" dense is impossible (it has to collapse further into a singularity)... but if those theories someday get revised, we may find that the black holes all over the universe are not actually the mathematically ill-behaved singularities we currently think they are.
The Book of the New Sun is one of those very few stories that I finished and then immediately turned back to page 1 to reread to see what I had missed. Genius.
Of course, the Hyperion Cantos is also a favorite, so people should go read both!
If he was born here, how does he have citizenship of Kenya?
If he wasn't born on American soil, how is he qualified to run for President?
I don't know about the first one, but the second has no real bearing on anything. McCain, for instance, was not born on American soil, but rather to two American parents who were in another country at the time of his birth. As such he is an American citizen and qualified to run for president. Similarly Obama, about whom there is absolutely no evidence that he was born anywhere but the US- repeated made up assertions about his birth certificate notwithstanding.
The Force fights were awful. No, I don't mean the lightsaber fights- those were kickass. But any time two people fought each other using just the Force it turned into Telekinesis! Block! Telekinesis back! Block! Telekinesis again!
Maybe I've seen the RPGs too much with their wide variety of force powers, but I was really, really hoping that when Yoda and Dooku had their force battle it was going to be epic. (Note, this was also my exact reaction to the Gandalf/Saruman battle in the movie Fellowship of the Ring.) Instead, in both cases, it was a bunch of telekinesis.
Yup. Luke went from Zen Master to Loser. Thank you, I had forgotten that change, but I totally agree that it is the worst one in the remakes.
The furry friends aren't Eworks, they're Wookies. You can still see an echo of this in the final film, because the very word "Ewok" is an anagram for "Wookie" (with a couple letters dropped). No one knows why this happened, but it's a safe bet the Wookies would have been way cooler than the Ewoks were. Popular opinion has it that the merchandising for cute teddy bears was more attractive than that of Wookie action figures, but no one knows for sure.
I had heard this story before and always heard it said that, in this pre-CGI era, they just didn't have the casting options to get that many people to play wookies, whereas it was much easier to find people who could play the ewoks.
Arg... this is both. The Trademark issue is over the name, and the Copyright issue is over the identical board. The look of the board, unlike the rules of the game, CAN be copyrighted.
Why is this modded troll? It may not be the most brilliant parody of Carlin's "not a sport" routine, but every line in it is a direct reference to Carlin.
However, I recommend against googling "man man", especially if Safe Search is turned off.
I've developed a habit. Book an early morning flight, pull an all-nighter the night before, and I'll be knocked right the heck out for most of the insufferable experience, be well-rested when I reach my destination, and still have plenty of daylight left to do something productive.
I used to do that. Then I did it once, and while waiting for my flight someone jumped the security line and the Atlanta airport shut down, and I ended up on another flight 32 hours later. Dealing with the huge lines and security and airline clerks and ticket counters and all that on no sleep was miserable.
So now I get a couple hours of sleep so I'm functional, but tired enough to nap on the plane too. But I want to be functional just in case.
I have mod points, but since I can't mod this simultaneously off topic and interesting I'll just comment and say that was cool to read.
(1) I would so totally pay to go see that.
(2) Please, please, please don't let Uwe Boll get this idea.
That this was modded Insightful gives me renewed faith in the slashdot community.
Easiest +5 Funny ever.
Man, I forgot about that thing. I had a friend come over and solve it for me. It was just easier that way.
I love Zork, but that was a pretty awful game. Who wants to have to listen to every conversation in the game 20 times as you play them for every other character?
Nor did Ultima VII, which also had a main character die.
Ultima IV, for taking that step away from "hack 'n' slash". It wasn't the first, but it was important. Ultima V had the same virtue they gave Zelda 2- a living world, where people had schedules and interacted. They came out the same year, though, so I'm not inclined to take props away from Zelda. :)
Suspended. I managed to win suspended, but I've never managed to get a better score than "burned in effigy." Man that was a hard game.