Subject: From the Honorable Janissary Robert M. Jacobson
Hello sirs,
Writing this letter comes at a times of great anguishes to my community. We have obtained funds in the amount of US$3,000,000 from the Nigerian government, after the passing of Prince Montebu Wilson, to whom we are the singlest heirs. However, due to political difficulties we are unable to secure the actual cash moneys ourselves. We require your assistance, for which we would thankfully provide a commission of $500,000 for your troubles. In order for this transaction to be completed, we hereby requests that your domain, www.coolinternetstuffthatisgreatandfun.com, be transferred to us immediately. Lack of action will be assumed as an affirmative response after five days.
Do YOU ever read more than a few words into those?
Only when it takes considerable time and/or effort to wait for and/or do the joke. This I attribute to poor design and plot-reliance on the increasingly-lame joke, rather than the lameness of the joke itself. If you're doing the same thing 200 times and it's irritating, that's a part of the game that could use reworking, funny or not.
When games cost $5-50k to make, you can afford to take some big risks. When they're in the hundreds of thousands or millions, comedy is harder to sell to investors.
It's hard enough getting a game to work, not to mention coding "fun" into it. Putting "hilarious" in as well, especially as a core game mechanic, is unfortunately not very high-budget friendly.
Also, many "funny" game concepts probably come and go because there actually is no solid gameplay behind the catchy taglines.
Then again, the film industry has no qualms on spending bank on films along the lines of "Rob Schneider is... A CARROT!"
Re:Some humour from the past I enjoyed...
on
Humor in Games?
·
· Score: 1
That was "Deer Avenger", which was more or less a cartoony 2D shooting gallery. The jokes were funny the first time, and the premise was cool, but in all I'd say it was a missed opportunity that got old fast. It seemed like a rush job, unfortunately.
Games right now are very largely modernist (realist, seeking truth, striving for balance and perfection, using established metanarratives, consistent with known mechanics), as opposed to postmodernist (parody-infused, questioning the flow, aware that they are games, acknowledging their own flaws, incorporating many styles, possibly having random comedic semi-nonsense).
Modernist games are safe bets because you know what is expected... you know what happens in a shooter, and you know more or less what your perfect shooter would have. If, in making a game, you acknowledge that there is no perfect way to make it, I think it opens the door for some fantastic gameplay, but it also looks (and is) extremely dangerous for the corporate suits, who are, after all, footing the dev bill, to stomach.
While it could also validly be argued that most video games are postmodern by their very nature, I think that the modernist-postmodernist distincition I'm suggesting can be made regarding differences between games as well.
Unscripted games are often the funniest, either by design or by accident. For example:
- In the original C&C, using an ion cannon (superweapon) to decimate a lone HumVee that was up to no good. Somehow it was hilarious at the time, especially as this was played over modem and we talked the next day.
- The Worms series, especially #2, where you could crank up the weapon damage to ludicrous levels. The chain reactions are painful when you play alone, but hilarious with a group.
- Majesty, where your valiant knights, the last hope for your kingdom, flee in terror instead of attacking the sorceress queen.
- Roller Coaster Tycoon, launching a water slide raft (with rider) clear across the park.
Everything seems to be so carefully controlled these days... it's far easier to make a game with tried-and-tested, solid, easily-manipulated mechanics than to develop a new kind of play.
Re:Who needs intentional humor
on
Humor in Games?
·
· Score: 1
What you say!!!
Engrish aside, it seems that game corporate boards and QA departments have a certain aversion to the whimsical and random. For something to be inserted into a game as funny, it almost has to go to focus groups any more.
Also, there's so much corporate oversight in games now that comedy is shunned as frivilous in some cases, and as time wasted that could have been spent cranking a few extra frames out of the engine. Everything has to be "realistic" now, and a "holy crap" button on your X-Wing control panel won't go over well. Not to mention that if you do have comedy, it has to go through layers of QA along with everything else, during which things are often toned down. To keep from looking like blatant goof-offs, programmers often just hide their comedy in easter eggs.
Huzzah! Naturally, this technology will be used to create a trapper keeper that recognizes my fingerprints. If anyone else tries to take it, their hands will be jabbed by metal spikes!
4) There are also theories that, after a short period of global warming, the increased area of water will cause an increase in cloud mass, reflecting more of the sun's energy and causing global cooling, plunging the world into another ice age. Why is global warming bad? Because we don't know which potentially harmless or potentially horrific chain reaction might occur, but it most likely will make the world MUCH different than it is now, and when things are MUCH different on a global scale, it's usually not a good thing.
My usual policy with extended service plans is that I'll spend less replacing the occasional item than I'd spend on all the extended warranties, and in the long run I think I've come out ahead. To each his own, I suppose.
I'm most familiar with the term with respect to music, especially as it's now the topic of a semester-long workshop I'm taking. There, it still does have a bit of meaning, though I agree the term has become extremely blurred. I'd say it's partially because we're now trying to define eras of philosophy while we're still in them. The post-structuralist aspects of postmodernism are ones that perhaps I'm more familiar with (and the ones that are most memorable in my personal interpretation of postmodernism)
I think he was trying to curb the original poster's use of "postmodernism" as meaning politically correct, which I wouldn't naturally associate with postmodernism.
Postmodernism has many definitions, and is in a heavy state of flux. Some postmodern ideas include:
- Many things in today's world have become commodified, such as trees, music, people, and time.
- There are no absolutes, including absolute meaning and absolute truth.
- Concepts can only be explained in terms of other concepts, with no concepts having concrete meaning.
- One thing can be viewed in many different ways by different viewers, or by the same viewer simultaneously.
- In the transmission of an idea, the author's original intent is not conveyed intact, but rather it is what is written that now conveys the message, interpreted differently depending on the medium of conveyance, and the myriad of factors involving the reader.
- Postmodern ideas are aware of the existence of postmodernism, and can talk about itself. Postmodernism is also aware of and can make use of things from all eras.
- Heavy use of satire and collage.
If anything, I'd say that ultra-sensitivity in gender issues is a modernist idea, not postmodern. Many people tend to use "postmodernism" because they figure that modernism has been going on quite some time, and we must be "post" that by now.
You're blurring the lines between stealing and pirating. When something is stolen, the original owner is harmed because they are now missing something. When something is pirated, the original owner is harmed because there is one less person to possibly buy a copy of something. They are both wrong, but are not apples to apples.
If nobody wanted to pay for software, I imagine it would fall to academia, hobbyists, and in-house jobs for corporations.
That certainly rings true among the people I know - at least with regards to their home computers. 100% of them run pirated copies of WinXP, pirated photoshop, pirated Office, etc...
Which makes it all the more irritating for horribly disorganized software-purchasing people like me. I legitimately bought and installed Win2k, then a few months later accidentally hosed my installation. Whoops, I misplaced my CD key, and was therefore prevented from using a legitimately purchased piece of software because of a security measure not even directed at people like me. It's enough to drive a person to piracy!
The glamour of being a "rich and famous rock star" is very alluring, as is the promise of having the expensive start-up costs paid. Only later do many groups actually do the numbers.
I enjoyed it as well... it felt halfway between an action movie and a cartoon, which is something different anyways.
The one thing that bugged me was the sound. Of all the elements of the film that they tried to give a 1940's feel, they seemed to gloss over the musical score. Stylistically, it was appropriate, but the recording itself sounded WAY too "2004 clean and accurate." I'd expected and hoped for a bit of campier orchestration and old-style recording quality (not the scratches and hisses, but the balance between instruments). There's a certain zing to older soundtracks, and this opportunity was completely missed in the movie.
Slashdot Mirror
Subject: From the Honorable Janissary Robert M. Jacobson
Hello sirs,
Writing this letter comes at a times of great anguishes to my community. We have obtained funds in the amount of US$3,000,000 from the Nigerian government, after the passing of Prince Montebu Wilson, to whom we are the singlest heirs. However, due to political difficulties we are unable to secure the actual cash moneys ourselves. We require your assistance, for which we would thankfully provide a commission of $500,000 for your troubles. In order for this transaction to be completed, we hereby requests that your domain, www.coolinternetstuffthatisgreatandfun.com, be transferred to us immediately. Lack of action will be assumed as an affirmative response after five days.
Do YOU ever read more than a few words into those?
If I read correctly, I think this rule pertains to TRANSFER requests, which you can make at any time during the year.
Only when it takes considerable time and/or effort to wait for and/or do the joke. This I attribute to poor design and plot-reliance on the increasingly-lame joke, rather than the lameness of the joke itself. If you're doing the same thing 200 times and it's irritating, that's a part of the game that could use reworking, funny or not.
When games cost $5-50k to make, you can afford to take some big risks. When they're in the hundreds of thousands or millions, comedy is harder to sell to investors.
It's hard enough getting a game to work, not to mention coding "fun" into it. Putting "hilarious" in as well, especially as a core game mechanic, is unfortunately not very high-budget friendly.
Also, many "funny" game concepts probably come and go because there actually is no solid gameplay behind the catchy taglines.
Then again, the film industry has no qualms on spending bank on films along the lines of "Rob Schneider is... A CARROT!"
That was "Deer Avenger", which was more or less a cartoony 2D shooting gallery. The jokes were funny the first time, and the premise was cool, but in all I'd say it was a missed opportunity that got old fast. It seemed like a rush job, unfortunately.
/begin philosophical schtuff
/end philosophical schtuff
Games right now are very largely modernist (realist, seeking truth, striving for balance and perfection, using established metanarratives, consistent with known mechanics), as opposed to postmodernist (parody-infused, questioning the flow, aware that they are games, acknowledging their own flaws, incorporating many styles, possibly having random comedic semi-nonsense).
Modernist games are safe bets because you know what is expected... you know what happens in a shooter, and you know more or less what your perfect shooter would have. If, in making a game, you acknowledge that there is no perfect way to make it, I think it opens the door for some fantastic gameplay, but it also looks (and is) extremely dangerous for the corporate suits, who are, after all, footing the dev bill, to stomach.
While it could also validly be argued that most video games are postmodern by their very nature, I think that the modernist-postmodernist distincition I'm suggesting can be made regarding differences between games as well.
Unscripted games are often the funniest, either by design or by accident. For example:
- In the original C&C, using an ion cannon (superweapon) to decimate a lone HumVee that was up to no good. Somehow it was hilarious at the time, especially as this was played over modem and we talked the next day.
- The Worms series, especially #2, where you could crank up the weapon damage to ludicrous levels. The chain reactions are painful when you play alone, but hilarious with a group.
- Majesty, where your valiant knights, the last hope for your kingdom, flee in terror instead of attacking the sorceress queen.
- Roller Coaster Tycoon, launching a water slide raft (with rider) clear across the park.
Everything seems to be so carefully controlled these days... it's far easier to make a game with tried-and-tested, solid, easily-manipulated mechanics than to develop a new kind of play.
What you say!!!
Engrish aside, it seems that game corporate boards and QA departments have a certain aversion to the whimsical and random. For something to be inserted into a game as funny, it almost has to go to focus groups any more.
That's an in-joke, yes, but I really wouldn't call it funny. It's cute.
Also, there's so much corporate oversight in games now that comedy is shunned as frivilous in some cases, and as time wasted that could have been spent cranking a few extra frames out of the engine. Everything has to be "realistic" now, and a "holy crap" button on your X-Wing control panel won't go over well. Not to mention that if you do have comedy, it has to go through layers of QA along with everything else, during which things are often toned down. To keep from looking like blatant goof-offs, programmers often just hide their comedy in easter eggs.
Huzzah! Naturally, this technology will be used to create a trapper keeper that recognizes my fingerprints. If anyone else tries to take it, their hands will be jabbed by metal spikes!
4) There are also theories that, after a short period of global warming, the increased area of water will cause an increase in cloud mass, reflecting more of the sun's energy and causing global cooling, plunging the world into another ice age. Why is global warming bad? Because we don't know which potentially harmless or potentially horrific chain reaction might occur, but it most likely will make the world MUCH different than it is now, and when things are MUCH different on a global scale, it's usually not a good thing.
My usual policy with extended service plans is that I'll spend less replacing the occasional item than I'd spend on all the extended warranties, and in the long run I think I've come out ahead. To each his own, I suppose.
They offer extended warranties on console systems? And people actually pay for that?
I'm most familiar with the term with respect to music, especially as it's now the topic of a semester-long workshop I'm taking. There, it still does have a bit of meaning, though I agree the term has become extremely blurred. I'd say it's partially because we're now trying to define eras of philosophy while we're still in them. The post-structuralist aspects of postmodernism are ones that perhaps I'm more familiar with (and the ones that are most memorable in my personal interpretation of postmodernism)
I think he was trying to curb the original poster's use of "postmodernism" as meaning politically correct, which I wouldn't naturally associate with postmodernism.
Postmodernism has many definitions, and is in a heavy state of flux. Some postmodern ideas include:
- Many things in today's world have become commodified, such as trees, music, people, and time.
- There are no absolutes, including absolute meaning and absolute truth.
- Concepts can only be explained in terms of other concepts, with no concepts having concrete meaning.
- One thing can be viewed in many different ways by different viewers, or by the same viewer simultaneously.
- In the transmission of an idea, the author's original intent is not conveyed intact, but rather it is what is written that now conveys the message, interpreted differently depending on the medium of conveyance, and the myriad of factors involving the reader. - Postmodern ideas are aware of the existence of postmodernism, and can talk about itself. Postmodernism is also aware of and can make use of things from all eras.
- Heavy use of satire and collage.
If anything, I'd say that ultra-sensitivity in gender issues is a modernist idea, not postmodern. Many people tend to use "postmodernism" because they figure that modernism has been going on quite some time, and we must be "post" that by now.
See also: Wikipedia: Postmodernism
What are you talking about? Duke Nukem Forever is taking exactly as long to release as its title declares. I see no outrageous claims there
There's always this alternate spelling, as in Eric Whitacre's "Gawd$illa eats Las Vegas"
You're blurring the lines between stealing and pirating. When something is stolen, the original owner is harmed because they are now missing something. When something is pirated, the original owner is harmed because there is one less person to possibly buy a copy of something. They are both wrong, but are not apples to apples.
If nobody wanted to pay for software, I imagine it would fall to academia, hobbyists, and in-house jobs for corporations.
That certainly rings true among the people I know - at least with regards to their home computers. 100% of them run pirated copies of WinXP, pirated photoshop, pirated Office, etc...
Which makes it all the more irritating for horribly disorganized software-purchasing people like me. I legitimately bought and installed Win2k, then a few months later accidentally hosed my installation. Whoops, I misplaced my CD key, and was therefore prevented from using a legitimately purchased piece of software because of a security measure not even directed at people like me. It's enough to drive a person to piracy!
The glamour of being a "rich and famous rock star" is very alluring, as is the promise of having the expensive start-up costs paid. Only later do many groups actually do the numbers.
They might have trouble delivering it.
Motion picture industry SPAMS linux Australia regarding a PYTHON framework.
Coincidence?
I enjoyed it as well... it felt halfway between an action movie and a cartoon, which is something different anyways.
The one thing that bugged me was the sound. Of all the elements of the film that they tried to give a 1940's feel, they seemed to gloss over the musical score. Stylistically, it was appropriate, but the recording itself sounded WAY too "2004 clean and accurate." I'd expected and hoped for a bit of campier orchestration and old-style recording quality (not the scratches and hisses, but the balance between instruments). There's a certain zing to older soundtracks, and this opportunity was completely missed in the movie.
I think the poster was commenting on the two new Star Warses
/obvious