Am I the only one who finds it strange that the pages with the N. Korean constutition repeatedly praise a single individual? As screwed up as the United States is right now, (I liked the days with a Democratic president and a Republican Congress, government was so busy bitching at each other they left me and the American people alone.:) At least my constution begins with "We the People...." not "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the socialist motherland of Juche which has applied the idea and leadership of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung." This makes me happy I am in a first world industrialized nation.
Welcome to life pal, get used to it. Yes this movie is entertainment, but to claim that it should not have grey areas is a disservice to people like me who have been bitching for more intelligent plots in movies for years. Of course we can all live simple lives believing in "black and white" or "right and wrong" theories such as:
1. File traders are thieves who should go to jail indefinity for supporting terrorism.
2. Open source software is created and supported by immature and antisocial guys who still have acne and have no girlfriend to speak of while actively supporting and contributing to the "black hat" hacker community.
3. Computer game developers are people who are trying to make money off of destroying our children's morality by ensuring our children are desensitized to violence and are actively encouraged to kill in real life like they do in all video games, because all video games are extremely violent in nature. Come on, my kid* was running after his neighbor with a hammer because he saw Kirby use a hammer in "Kirby's Dreamland 3." Mind you this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I should not have given my kid* a hammer in the first place.
*Kid does not actually exist. (Thank God!:)
4. Computer gamers are guys who are completely antisocial, also have an acne problem, and of course no girlfriend. They are the direct cause of all violence in our society and should be psychologically treated and take up more healthy pursuits such as football** or other sports which has absolutely no violent content despite terminology coming from warfare such as "Long Bomb" and "Blitz."
** I have absolutely nothing against football, but this happened to be the perfect example for what I was trying to say above. I am attempting to point out that "acceptable entertainment" can also be inherently violent.
Ok I have shown 4 examples of what happens when you take all the grey areas out of a group of people and lump them all into 1 category. Obviously, this is not how the real world works, nor should it be.
So you are going to ask me, What the hell does this have to do with "The Matrix?" Simple, Neo and his colleagues are born or "grown" into an environment where they are given 3 options: fight, die, or become a battery. Although they may or may not be pissed about the decisions human beings made nearly 200 years earlier, they are still stuck with a war and the fact that they have to fight or die. So yes, Neo is a hero to humans, which is good...for humans. In my humble opinion claiming that humanity in "The Matrix" is evil for destroying robots is just as ludicrous as claiming that the United States is evil since slavery was legal 200 years ago. Both are not good, both are not evil, both are grey.
Why have things this complicated in a movie? Call me a bigot, but having been told several times that I have an IQ greater than 150 tends to make me bored with plots as thin as "Glitter" or "Crossroads." Even though I enjoy Star Trek for example, I consider it weak fodder compared to a lot of the anime I download/buy when I can. I am not even going to compare the best American television has to offer to the likes of say a Kurosawa film. Again this is just my opinion, it is not uniformly right or uniformly wrong. It works for me and is again universally "grey."
I have one acronym for you people saying that nanobots are unstoppable: EMP
Nanobots short out like everything else electronic. Frankly this would be one of the easiest devices to destroy.
Point taken. Id's past is not exactly the rosiest. I agree that between the rumor of Mr. Steed having lost a third of the Q3 levels, Activision insisting on a release date for Quake 2 (resulting in it not having multiplayer levels or even a stable executable), and the whole non-delivery of what the original Quake was supposed to be, this makes a VERY plausible argument, and one that has no counterpoint, that despite Id's best efforts, they might still only deliver yet another great engine with tired gameplay.
However, I must politely disagree with the concept that few played (and still play) the original Quake, Quake 2, and/or Quake 3. I, and most friends of mine, did not get into mods, with the counter-exception of Q2 CTF, until the Quake 3 era. I obsessed over Q1 Deathmatch for nearly a year. I do agree that Quake 1 single player was severely lacking, but it made up for this in amazingly fun multiplayer deathmatch. Quake 2 held a similar position for me, The only "mod" I played was CTF, which came packaged with Quake 2, and I did not know it was even a mod. Hell, I didn't know what a mod was back then. Quake 3 changed a lot for me in this regard. Not only did I start playing Weapons Factory Arena, but I eventually joined Wirehead Studios (The mod team responsible for Generations arena). Even after this, I still play a lot of vanilla Q3. I don't have any further numbers to prove my point. But, I also assume you have not actually asked a room full of FPS players the very question you suggested. I would think with all the Deathmatch servers that All Seeing Eye polls, somebody has to be playing baseq3. Why else would anybody put up servers?
I also think labeling anything "the best" is highly subjective and not reinforceable. What one person could describe as amazing, another could describe as horrifying (in a bad way) beyond belief. Although I don't believe this, I could say that Half Life is merely a plotless and mindless game of survival, and that the original Doom is an epic tale consumed with the irony of a player saving the human race at the cost of his own humanity, which he loses by killing countless enemies. Don't get me wrong, I love Half Life. It is, and will continue to be, a great game. But this analogy does point out that different opinions on a subject do not necessarily imply right and wrong, especially when such arbitrary things as gameplay and aesthetics are debated.
I am just saying once again that Doom III has a lot of potential to escape the so-called "curse" of Id releasing an amazing game engine with lackluster gameplay. This potential is realized by Id hiring people who are specialists in their field. Yes this includes Fred Nilsson (the animator from Shrek), Trent Reznor for sound, as well as a designer (Graeme Devine) and writer (Matthew Costello) from the 7th Guest. I have a feeling that Id REALLY wants this to be done right without all of the mistakes they've made in the past. Does this mean that Doom 3 will be "the best" when it comes out? Saying yes to that question is just as bigoted as claiming anything else being "the best." However anybody claiming it WILL follow the same routine that all the other Id games have followed in the past is just as bigoted a decision in my humble opinion.
I completely agree with your analysis of the situation. Yes we as gamers need to have innovations in gameplay, not "kill everything, flip the switch...but prettier this time" games of yore. Judging from what I have seen at E3, I am guessing Doom III might actually deliver on the promise of a moving storyline and, although not brand new, at least an evolution in how we perceive the FPS genre. I say this again though: I will not make a final conclusion until I play the game, I just am a little disturbed by what seems to be a knee-jerk whiplash effect on Id for attempting to release another game. Maybe its gameplay will be revolutionary, maybe it won't. I am guessing it will, but until I have the game in hand, I won't know.
You do bring up a good point with the gameplay issue in general. I hope your prediction of innovation getting a second wind in this industry does happen. I am scared that it won't though, at least not yet. This recession has affected us all, even those in the gaming industry. This became obvious at E3 when even though everything looked like the giant party that was E3 2001, all the games this year seemed clones of other games. Metriod Prime was described by a Nintendo rep as a "Halo killer," Bloodrayne looked to be a much more violent Lara Croft clone, and Konami is re-releasing MGS2. For God's sake, even the US ARMY is releasing a counterstrike clone! Simply put, game publishers do not want to risk putting money in ventures that might fail. They prefer a guaranteed moderate return to investing in something that has either the potential to flop or become the most popular game ever.
Does Doom III follow the same pattern? To a certain degree, yes, but I do not expect this game to be the same tired Id FPS that most people expect to be released. Look at Warcraft III. Although it holds the title of its predecessors, aside from the expected Orcs and Humans, the game has been completely changed and will not play like Warcraft II. It seems to be more focused on building smaller groups of units with "Heros" who will level up in a RPG like manner. I expect Doom III to do something similar, it is much more comparable to Silent Hill than Quake or Doom. Yes it appears to have the stereotypical Id trademarks of a solid game engine and amazing graphics. Our simple forms of pattern recognition should not force us to draw conclusions at such an early date with less than all the facts. With the little bits and pieces of game footage, and info on who Id has hired, we can make an inconclusive guess as to whether we will have solid gameplay in our hands or not. I think we will, I hope we will, but I don't know if we will.
I am sorry, I did not clarify that proberly, Id hired the writer who formerly worked on 7th Guest and 11th Hour, Id DID NOT publish those games. The point I was trying to stress is that Id is for the first time attempting to create a game with plot. I wish them luck.
OK, here is my humble opinion on this whole mess. Firstly, from what the Id guys said, The E3 Doom III footage was a demonstration of actual gameplay, YES you heard correctly. If you don't believe me, here is the proof. (This is assuming that you consider Gamespy a believable news source, If not, that's cool and I have no other real proof, but I am sidetracking...) Secondly the Doom III Legacy video is NOT what was shown inside the booth. Most of you already know this, but just in case... I and some of my friends asked if we could get video of the closed demo but they were not allowing it, (hence the whole wait in line for 3 trillion hours. It looks like they wanted control of the viewers and what intellectual property they captured on film.) Yes, as far as I can tell it is nowhere near done, (the console said version 0.01) yes, the engine technology is amazing, yes, the gameplay seems to be much more focused on surviving and making slow, calculated, fear driven moves. I would liken the gameplay I saw more to a combination FPS/Silent Hill style game than the old school "shoot the 10,000 creatures and flip a switch" system of Doom II and Doom. It looks like you as the player will have to occasionally hide and run from the enemy rather than haul out the BFG and let all die. I saw demons break out of walls behind you and from pipes in front of you. The player seemed more able to interact with his/her environment in a realistic way. This does A LOT for improving suspension of disbelief within the game. The rules you have come to expect to hold true from all FPS games, (hiding in corners where nobody will attack you from behind, inanimate objects always face one direction and can NEVER tip over) may not always apply anymore. Simply put, hiding in a corner is not going to save your sorry a-- now marine! The lighting engine goes a LONG way to enhance your perspective of where everything is. If you see a large daemon shaped shadow on the ground, it is probably a good idea to hide at this point, especially if the demon has not seen you yet. (As evidenced by it eating your head.:)
My concern is simply this, I have seen A LOT of Id bashing these past few weeks since E3. Frankly, the PA guys aren't helping much with the whole "I wish they would make a game out of the engine sometime" attitude. They have that opinion, and although I tend to disagree with it, they are entitled to it. I am more concerned with the HORDES of end users who take this idea and treat it as biblical law rather than thinking on their own. I agree Id does not have a truly working full game out yet. H-ll, I am sure they are nowhere near done, but just because the graphics are amazing and it is an Id release, does not necessarily mean that this game will be plotless. Doom III is the first Id game I can think of where a WRITER (from 7th Guest and 11th Hour) was hired for the team.
I have a theory regarding successful companies and end users opinions regarding them. It seems fashionable to hold successful, established companies in low regard. While us readers of Slashdot bash Micro$oft, we at least have A LOT of material to work with. (I think of the hundreds of security loopholes, system crashes, and restarts over the past few years I had to deal with.:) Id, however, has consistently released stable, fun, modable, and groundbreaking CROSS PLATFORM products that I and several thousand people have consistently enjoyed. So why does everybody want a groundbreaking, reliable, fun, and modable cross platform game RIGHT NOW?! Please, give the Id people some time to breathe. Note, I did not say praise Id for they are infallible, just don't bash them with less than all the facts.
In closing, I would say that this demo deserved the award it got, does this mean the game will rule all when it is released? Not necessarily, I only saw less than 7 minutes of gameplay. When comparing this to the 29 hours I spent on RTCW, this seems trite indeed. However, this demo did give me a glimpse into the future of gaming technologies, something I hold dear to my heart. I want to know that through this recession, through this war on terrorism, through the Colombine tragedy, and in this post dot com world, that somebody has the ability to be creative, talented, and gutsy enough to push the envelope and change the industry for the better. Did Id give me a great game? We will find out when it is released. Did Id give me hope for a bright future for games? I would say a resounding yes.
Slashdot Mirror
doh! too slow..... :(
First post! W00t!
Am I the only one who finds it strange that the pages with the N. Korean constutition repeatedly praise a single individual? As screwed up as the United States is right now, (I liked the days with a Democratic president and a Republican Congress, government was so busy bitching at each other they left me and the American people alone. :) At least my constution begins with "We the People...." not "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the socialist motherland of Juche which has applied the idea and leadership of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung." This makes me happy I am in a first world industrialized nation.
Has anybody thought about sicking the BSA on the RIAA? Could lead to interesting results........
Wow! I really can't argue with that! :P
Welcome to life pal, get used to it. Yes this movie is entertainment, but to claim that it should not have grey areas is a disservice to people like me who have been bitching for more intelligent plots in movies for years. Of course we can all live simple lives believing in "black and white" or "right and wrong" theories such as:
:)
1. File traders are thieves who should go to jail indefinity for supporting terrorism.
2. Open source software is created and supported by immature and antisocial guys who still have acne and have no girlfriend to speak of while actively supporting and contributing to the "black hat" hacker community.
3. Computer game developers are people who are trying to make money off of destroying our children's morality by ensuring our children are desensitized to violence and are actively encouraged to kill in real life like they do in all video games, because all video games are extremely violent in nature. Come on, my kid* was running after his neighbor with a hammer because he saw Kirby use a hammer in "Kirby's Dreamland 3." Mind you this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I should not have given my kid* a hammer in the first place.
*Kid does not actually exist. (Thank God!
4. Computer gamers are guys who are completely antisocial, also have an acne problem, and of course no girlfriend. They are the direct cause of all violence in our society and should be psychologically treated and take up more healthy pursuits such as football** or other sports which has absolutely no violent content despite terminology coming from warfare such as "Long Bomb" and "Blitz."
** I have absolutely nothing against football, but this happened to be the perfect example for what I was trying to say above. I am attempting to point out that "acceptable entertainment" can also be inherently violent.
Ok I have shown 4 examples of what happens when you take all the grey areas out of a group of people and lump them all into 1 category. Obviously, this is not how the real world works, nor should it be.
So you are going to ask me, What the hell does this have to do with "The Matrix?" Simple, Neo and his colleagues are born or "grown" into an environment where they are given 3 options: fight, die, or become a battery. Although they may or may not be pissed about the decisions human beings made nearly 200 years earlier, they are still stuck with a war and the fact that they have to fight or die. So yes, Neo is a hero to humans, which is good...for humans. In my humble opinion claiming that humanity in "The Matrix" is evil for destroying robots is just as ludicrous as claiming that the United States is evil since slavery was legal 200 years ago. Both are not good, both are not evil, both are grey.
Why have things this complicated in a movie? Call me a bigot, but having been told several times that I have an IQ greater than 150 tends to make me bored with plots as thin as "Glitter" or "Crossroads." Even though I enjoy Star Trek for example, I consider it weak fodder compared to a lot of the anime I download/buy when I can. I am not even going to compare the best American television has to offer to the likes of say a Kurosawa film. Again this is just my opinion, it is not uniformly right or uniformly wrong. It works for me and is again universally "grey."
I have one acronym for you people saying that nanobots are unstoppable:
EMP
Nanobots short out like everything else electronic. Frankly this would be one of the easiest devices to destroy.
Point taken. Id's past is not exactly the rosiest. I agree that between the rumor of Mr. Steed having lost a third of the Q3 levels, Activision insisting on a release date for Quake 2 (resulting in it not having multiplayer levels or even a stable executable), and the whole non-delivery of what the original Quake was supposed to be, this makes a VERY plausible argument, and one that has no counterpoint, that despite Id's best efforts, they might still only deliver yet another great engine with tired gameplay.
However, I must politely disagree with the concept that few played (and still play) the original Quake, Quake 2, and/or Quake 3. I, and most friends of mine, did not get into mods, with the counter-exception of Q2 CTF, until the Quake 3 era. I obsessed over Q1 Deathmatch for nearly a year. I do agree that Quake 1 single player was severely lacking, but it made up for this in amazingly fun multiplayer deathmatch. Quake 2 held a similar position for me, The only "mod" I played was CTF, which came packaged with Quake 2, and I did not know it was even a mod. Hell, I didn't know what a mod was back then. Quake 3 changed a lot for me in this regard. Not only did I start playing Weapons Factory Arena, but I eventually joined Wirehead Studios (The mod team responsible for Generations arena). Even after this, I still play a lot of vanilla Q3. I don't have any further numbers to prove my point. But, I also assume you have not actually asked a room full of FPS players the very question you suggested. I would think with all the Deathmatch servers that All Seeing Eye polls, somebody has to be playing baseq3. Why else would anybody put up servers?
I also think labeling anything "the best" is highly subjective and not reinforceable. What one person could describe as amazing, another could describe as horrifying (in a bad way) beyond belief. Although I don't believe this, I could say that Half Life is merely a plotless and mindless game of survival, and that the original Doom is an epic tale consumed with the irony of a player saving the human race at the cost of his own humanity, which he loses by killing countless enemies. Don't get me wrong, I love Half Life. It is, and will continue to be, a great game. But this analogy does point out that different opinions on a subject do not necessarily imply right and wrong, especially when such arbitrary things as gameplay and aesthetics are debated.
I am just saying once again that Doom III has a lot of potential to escape the so-called "curse" of Id releasing an amazing game engine with lackluster gameplay. This potential is realized by Id hiring people who are specialists in their field. Yes this includes Fred Nilsson (the animator from Shrek), Trent Reznor for sound, as well as a designer (Graeme Devine) and writer (Matthew Costello) from the 7th Guest. I have a feeling that Id REALLY wants this to be done right without all of the mistakes they've made in the past. Does this mean that Doom 3 will be "the best" when it comes out? Saying yes to that question is just as bigoted as claiming anything else being "the best." However anybody claiming it WILL follow the same routine that all the other Id games have followed in the past is just as bigoted a decision in my humble opinion.
I completely agree with your analysis of the situation. Yes we as gamers need to have innovations in gameplay, not "kill everything, flip the switch...but prettier this time" games of yore. Judging from what I have seen at E3, I am guessing Doom III might actually deliver on the promise of a moving storyline and, although not brand new, at least an evolution in how we perceive the FPS genre. I say this again though: I will not make a final conclusion until I play the game, I just am a little disturbed by what seems to be a knee-jerk whiplash effect on Id for attempting to release another game. Maybe its gameplay will be revolutionary, maybe it won't. I am guessing it will, but until I have the game in hand, I won't know.
You do bring up a good point with the gameplay issue in general. I hope your prediction of innovation getting a second wind in this industry does happen. I am scared that it won't though, at least not yet. This recession has affected us all, even those in the gaming industry. This became obvious at E3 when even though everything looked like the giant party that was E3 2001, all the games this year seemed clones of other games. Metriod Prime was described by a Nintendo rep as a "Halo killer," Bloodrayne looked to be a much more violent Lara Croft clone, and Konami is re-releasing MGS2. For God's sake, even the US ARMY is releasing a counterstrike clone! Simply put, game publishers do not want to risk putting money in ventures that might fail. They prefer a guaranteed moderate return to investing in something that has either the potential to flop or become the most popular game ever.
Does Doom III follow the same pattern? To a certain degree, yes, but I do not expect this game to be the same tired Id FPS that most people expect to be released. Look at Warcraft III. Although it holds the title of its predecessors, aside from the expected Orcs and Humans, the game has been completely changed and will not play like Warcraft II. It seems to be more focused on building smaller groups of units with "Heros" who will level up in a RPG like manner. I expect Doom III to do something similar, it is much more comparable to Silent Hill than Quake or Doom. Yes it appears to have the stereotypical Id trademarks of a solid game engine and amazing graphics. Our simple forms of pattern recognition should not force us to draw conclusions at such an early date with less than all the facts. With the little bits and pieces of game footage, and info on who Id has hired, we can make an inconclusive guess as to whether we will have solid gameplay in our hands or not. I think we will, I hope we will, but I don't know if we will.
I am sorry, I did not clarify that proberly, Id hired the writer who formerly worked on 7th Guest and 11th Hour, Id DID NOT publish those games. The point I was trying to stress is that Id is for the first time attempting to create a game with plot. I wish them luck.
OK, here is my humble opinion on this whole mess. Firstly, from what the Id guys said, The E3 Doom III footage was a demonstration of actual gameplay, YES you heard correctly. If you don't believe me, here is the proof. (This is assuming that you consider Gamespy a believable news source, If not, that's cool and I have no other real proof, but I am sidetracking...) Secondly the Doom III Legacy video is NOT what was shown inside the booth. Most of you already know this, but just in case... I and some of my friends asked if we could get video of the closed demo but they were not allowing it, (hence the whole wait in line for 3 trillion hours. It looks like they wanted control of the viewers and what intellectual property they captured on film.) Yes, as far as I can tell it is nowhere near done, (the console said version 0.01) yes, the engine technology is amazing, yes, the gameplay seems to be much more focused on surviving and making slow, calculated, fear driven moves. I would liken the gameplay I saw more to a combination FPS/Silent Hill style game than the old school "shoot the 10,000 creatures and flip a switch" system of Doom II and Doom. It looks like you as the player will have to occasionally hide and run from the enemy rather than haul out the BFG and let all die. I saw demons break out of walls behind you and from pipes in front of you. The player seemed more able to interact with his/her environment in a realistic way. This does A LOT for improving suspension of disbelief within the game. The rules you have come to expect to hold true from all FPS games, (hiding in corners where nobody will attack you from behind, inanimate objects always face one direction and can NEVER tip over) may not always apply anymore. Simply put, hiding in a corner is not going to save your sorry a-- now marine! The lighting engine goes a LONG way to enhance your perspective of where everything is. If you see a large daemon shaped shadow on the ground, it is probably a good idea to hide at this point, especially if the demon has not seen you yet. (As evidenced by it eating your head. :)
:) Id, however, has consistently released stable, fun, modable, and groundbreaking CROSS PLATFORM products that I and several thousand people have consistently enjoyed. So why does everybody want a groundbreaking, reliable, fun, and modable cross platform game RIGHT NOW?! Please, give the Id people some time to breathe. Note, I did not say praise Id for they are infallible, just don't bash them with less than all the facts.
My concern is simply this, I have seen A LOT of Id bashing these past few weeks since E3. Frankly, the PA guys aren't helping much with the whole "I wish they would make a game out of the engine sometime" attitude. They have that opinion, and although I tend to disagree with it, they are entitled to it. I am more concerned with the HORDES of end users who take this idea and treat it as biblical law rather than thinking on their own. I agree Id does not have a truly working full game out yet. H-ll, I am sure they are nowhere near done, but just because the graphics are amazing and it is an Id release, does not necessarily mean that this game will be plotless. Doom III is the first Id game I can think of where a WRITER (from 7th Guest and 11th Hour) was hired for the team.
I have a theory regarding successful companies and end users opinions regarding them. It seems fashionable to hold successful, established companies in low regard. While us readers of Slashdot bash Micro$oft, we at least have A LOT of material to work with. (I think of the hundreds of security loopholes, system crashes, and restarts over the past few years I had to deal with.
In closing, I would say that this demo deserved the award it got, does this mean the game will rule all when it is released? Not necessarily, I only saw less than 7 minutes of gameplay. When comparing this to the 29 hours I spent on RTCW, this seems trite indeed. However, this demo did give me a glimpse into the future of gaming technologies, something I hold dear to my heart. I want to know that through this recession, through this war on terrorism, through the Colombine tragedy, and in this post dot com world, that somebody has the ability to be creative, talented, and gutsy enough to push the envelope and change the industry for the better. Did Id give me a great game? We will find out when it is released. Did Id give me hope for a bright future for games? I would say a resounding yes.