There's a strong emphasis on how the movie will be based on the rules systems, which seems strange to me. I'm not sure how to visually represent a number system for people - but we'll see.
I'm not sure they mean the actual dice rolling, just the feel of the game. (Although, it would be an interesting device to intersperse the fantasy parts of the movie with a bunch of D&Ders sitting around the kitchen table and (role)playing the movie. If done well, that could be really interesting. Are they creating the fantasy world by playing it? Is it coincidence? Are all the D&D games ever played replicated in an infinite variety of alternate universes? (Yes, I know, lots has been written on that subject.))
The feel of a typical D&D game is different from most other fantasy games, and very different from any fantasy books published before 1980. Think about how magic items are used and how some classes are limited in which ones they can use and even carry. Can you think of a way to realistically portray the initiative system in a movie? (You're surprised - for 10 seconds you do absolutely nothing while this guy runs up to you and hits you and (rolling a 1 for damage) nicks you on the pinky.) (Is it 10 seconds? How long is a round, anyway?)
Things I would like to see portrayed in a movie: 10. Portable hole 9. Hammer of Thunderbolts (with a Gauntlet and Girdle) 8. Sphere of Annihilation 7. Hand and Eye of Vecna 6. Any of the Cthulhu mythos gods from the original 'Deities and Demigods' 5. A 17th level monk falling 1 mile and taking no damage (I meant to do that!) 4. Prismatic Sphere 3. Vecna coming back for his missing parts 2. Breaking a Staff of the Magi in half 1. Two Words: Meteor Swarm
This could be really cool. Take all the best parts from: The Sword and the Sorcerer; Hawk the Slayer; Fineous Fingers; Old Sinbad movies; Dragonslayer; Excalibur; Krull; Willow; (and many others). Mix in some of the latest special effects and you could have a really bitchin' movie.
There are some identification technologies that are easier to implement than others. If you've got your ID number tattooed on your forearm, you can just wave it over the scanner at the grocery store, and they can deduct the money from your account - really only marginally quicker than swiping your credit/debit card. It would come in handy if you forgot your wallet, though.
But the point is that barcode scanning technology is ubiquitous - it's been around for years and is easy to implement. Any true biometric would be much harder to implement and would take years to arrive at the same amount of infrastructure.
Of course, it would be almost absurdly easy to fake a barcode tattoo. I'm sure there's portable barcode scanners. Go someplace where people are baring their barcodes (the beach at last resort), surreptitiously scan in some numbers, then go make yourself a fake tattoo and you're golden.
Makes me wonder what they'll do to make this more tamper-resistant. Special ink? Holographic type? A watermark?
Overall, it doesn't seem like it fills any specific need. Definitely raises some spectres though.
I've got the 'C' version. Some of the examples do have minor errors in them, as arrays in C are 0 based and the original in Pascal was 1 based. But it's not a book about 'C' - it's about algorithms. As such, it's very good and approachable (moreso than Knuth, IMHO.)
Nowhere is a 1 (one) used as a variable - they're all lowercase L. It's unfortunate that the typeface for the examples makes it hard to distinguish l from 1. The (in)correctness of single-letter variable names, I'll let someone else argue, but it allows the examples to take up far less space (and not span lines), so I would maintain it's mostly irrelevant.
There are many other books that are better at data structures, as Sedgewick barely devotes 10 pages to them. For algorithms, in my estimation very few are as good and possibly only 1 better. (Knuth, of course.)
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The feel of a typical D&D game is different from most other fantasy games, and very different from any fantasy books published before 1980. Think about how magic items are used and how some classes are limited in which ones they can use and even carry. Can you think of a way to realistically portray the initiative system in a movie? (You're surprised - for 10 seconds you do absolutely nothing while this guy runs up to you and hits you and (rolling a 1 for damage) nicks you on the pinky.) (Is it 10 seconds? How long is a round, anyway?)
Things I would like to see portrayed in a movie:
10. Portable hole
9. Hammer of Thunderbolts (with a Gauntlet and Girdle)
8. Sphere of Annihilation
7. Hand and Eye of Vecna
6. Any of the Cthulhu mythos gods from the original 'Deities and Demigods'
5. A 17th level monk falling 1 mile and taking no damage (I meant to do that!)
4. Prismatic Sphere
3. Vecna coming back for his missing parts
2. Breaking a Staff of the Magi in half
1. Two Words: Meteor Swarm
This could be really cool. Take all the best parts from: The Sword and the Sorcerer; Hawk the Slayer; Fineous Fingers; Old Sinbad movies; Dragonslayer; Excalibur; Krull; Willow; (and many others). Mix in some of the latest special effects and you could have a really bitchin' movie.
Hope they get a good script.
There are some identification technologies that are easier to implement than others. If you've got your ID number tattooed on your forearm, you can just wave it over the scanner at the grocery store, and they can deduct the money from your account - really only marginally quicker than swiping your credit/debit card. It would come in handy if you forgot your wallet, though.
But the point is that barcode scanning technology is ubiquitous - it's been around for years and is easy to implement. Any true biometric would be much harder to implement and would take years to arrive at the same amount of infrastructure.
Of course, it would be almost absurdly easy to fake a barcode tattoo. I'm sure there's portable barcode scanners. Go someplace where people are baring their barcodes (the beach at last resort), surreptitiously scan in some numbers, then go make yourself a fake tattoo and you're golden.
Makes me wonder what they'll do to make this more tamper-resistant. Special ink? Holographic type? A watermark?
Overall, it doesn't seem like it fills any specific need. Definitely raises some spectres though.
I've got the 'C' version. Some of the examples do have minor errors in them, as arrays in C are 0 based and the original in Pascal was 1 based. But it's not a book about 'C' - it's about algorithms. As such, it's very good and approachable (moreso than Knuth, IMHO.)
Nowhere is a 1 (one) used as a variable - they're all lowercase L. It's unfortunate that the typeface for the examples makes it hard to distinguish l from 1. The (in)correctness of single-letter variable names, I'll let someone else argue, but it allows the examples to take up far less space (and not span lines), so I would maintain it's mostly irrelevant.
There are many other books that are better at data structures, as Sedgewick barely devotes 10 pages to them. For algorithms, in my estimation very few are as good and possibly only 1 better. (Knuth, of course.)