I too have spent a lot of time thinking on this exact same concept (though I wouldn't tie the series to one ship, as they should be able to call upon or take whatever they need). But there's no chance in Hell of it ever happening. The Star Trek series is now run by people afraid of offending anyone at all.
The closest thing I can think of for them to do with Enterprise is to have them screw up. I can't remember seeing even one morally ambiguous situation from this series, and it's boring me to death. That episode where the Enterprise crew helped some fuel farmers or something run off Klingon bullies, with absolutely no one getting hurt despite booby traps and phaser/disruptor fire? It was so limp. It was essentially 'bullies are bad'. Well, no shit.
The Enterprise crew needs to screw up terribly. Someone should die because of them. They should go somewhere with all their self-righteous crap and totally screw up another civilization because they don't understand, and they can't learn to understand in 44 minutes.
The Next Generation wasn't controversial, but it had some morally ambiguous moments, like when Picard left a planet to suffer from withdrawal symptoms because the Prime Directive said not to and he figured they would be better off in the end. Enterprise needs something like this, because I never get the sense that the crew is getting the shocks that would challenge them to really think and mature as characters. And frankly, if there are characters that are going nowhere (like Harry Kim from Voyager, I haven't been able to sit through enough episodes of Enterprise for an example from that) kill them off and try bringing in something new. Is there anyone that doesn't think killing off Tasha Yar and increasing the profile of Worf was good?
Posting to Slashdot means you'll probably get lots of new listings, but they'll also be pretty skewed to some niche audiences. I just took a quick look at the list of most popular authors, and it's pretty apparent.
Still, you do need to build up quickly to attract other people to enter submissions, I suppose. Just as long as you don't alienate people who don't like the stuff that slashdotters do...
Surely, all the space sim videogames have taught us that space mining inevitably leads to corporations/nations fighting wars over dwindling resources in the year 2xxx, where mercenaries and pirates prosper.
Cool. I'm gonna start saving up for shield/laser upgrades now.
Frankly, I'm amazed that EVERY company in the movie business doesn't also produce games, as there's a lot of overlap between the two media. Sure, a lot of big-budget films (usually targetted at kids) end up with movie tie-in games, but I mean why not take some of the stories that are pitched and spend the money on making a game *instead of* a movie? It's going to be the same-or-lower risk, and potentially much greater profits.
Except that there isn't nearly the prestige or glamour associated with Video Games. While some celebrities are showing up at parties thrown by game companies, by and large, you don't meet too many of those famous directors and movie stars while you're making a videogame.
Also, while movies and videogames seem to share common elements, they are entirely different mediums. Videogames are NOT movies with the occasional button press, or the good ones aren't. This lesson has been painfully learned by many companies including some from the movie industry. It takes a very different type of mindset to allow someone to create their own story than to just show a story from one very focussed point of view.
I'm not suggesting you injure your child, but simply to have the option of using pain as negative reinforcement. Recognize the difference.
If I remember correctly from my human behaviour classes, negative reinforcement actually means removing something that is bad for the person. Positive reinforcement is adding something that will benefit the person. The point is that reinforcement is about making the person feel better (thus reinforcing the behaviour).
The term you're looking for is punishment which is to discourage the behaviour by adding something they dislike (positive punishment e.g. adding pain) or taking away something they do like (negative punishment e.g. removing tv privileges).
The difference is that reinforcement encourages behaviour, while punishment discourages it. While you may discourage a behaviour, what are you doing to encourage a better behaviour in its stead? If nothing, then the behaviour that takes its place might not be any better and possibly worse.
This is only if you believe in behavourism though, which is the school of thought you're using.
The idea of dying slowly from lung cancer in a couple of decades is a difficult thing to imagine. It's pretty hard to imagine yourself weak and frail and dying. Copying restrictions have a much more immediate effect. They run counter to our learned desire for 'convenience'. 'Hmm this cigarette is probably taking another hour off of my life. Oh well.' as opposed to 'Why the fsck won't this cd play on my pc? I've wasted a fscking hour trying to rip an mp3 from this damn thing.'
It's a nuisance, and people react much more to the small things they can immediately feel the effect of than the larger things they need to think about.
I completely agree. I like this quote:
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -- C.S. Lewis
If you feel the need to prove that you are mature, then you probably aren't. I found this bit about Pikmin from the article interesting:
"It was an amazing game," says Lorne Lanning, creator of the Oddworld series. "But it was about cute little carrots." He's quick to add that he finds Miyamoto's games inspiring as a designer. "But I don't play them for the same reason I don't watch Powerpuff Girls."
This from the guy who made games where farting was a form of communication?
Exactly. The percentage of older PC gamers is higher because of the high cost of the higher level PCs that are required to play the current games at decent levels of detail. New generations of videocards come out on a 6 month schedule and cost twice as much as any of the current consoles, while not necessarily offering better graphics unless the rest of your system is tooled up as well. Plus, because of the development cycles of games, even the newest games don't use most of the "exciting new features" that they advertise the cards with.
I'm not down on PC gaming (I love it myself), but from the point of view of a teenager or a parent buying for their kids, a $200 console that plays games immediately and without problems vs. PCs that cost $2000 and needs upgrading and subscription costs for online games (though consoles do this now too)? Pretty soon PCs will be almost exclusively for the adults, though you'd never know it from all the "l337" 12 year olds playing online.
Slashdot Mirror
I too have spent a lot of time thinking on this exact same concept (though I wouldn't tie the series to one ship, as they should be able to call upon or take whatever they need). But there's no chance in Hell of it ever happening. The Star Trek series is now run by people afraid of offending anyone at all.
The closest thing I can think of for them to do with Enterprise is to have them screw up. I can't remember seeing even one morally ambiguous situation from this series, and it's boring me to death. That episode where the Enterprise crew helped some fuel farmers or something run off Klingon bullies, with absolutely no one getting hurt despite booby traps and phaser/disruptor fire? It was so limp. It was essentially 'bullies are bad'. Well, no shit.
The Enterprise crew needs to screw up terribly. Someone should die because of them. They should go somewhere with all their self-righteous crap and totally screw up another civilization because they don't understand, and they can't learn to understand in 44 minutes.
The Next Generation wasn't controversial, but it had some morally ambiguous moments, like when Picard left a planet to suffer from withdrawal symptoms because the Prime Directive said not to and he figured they would be better off in the end. Enterprise needs something like this, because I never get the sense that the crew is getting the shocks that would challenge them to really think and mature as characters. And frankly, if there are characters that are going nowhere (like Harry Kim from Voyager, I haven't been able to sit through enough episodes of Enterprise for an example from that) kill them off and try bringing in something new. Is there anyone that doesn't think killing off Tasha Yar and increasing the profile of Worf was good?
Posting to Slashdot means you'll probably get lots of new listings, but they'll also be pretty skewed to some niche audiences. I just took a quick look at the list of most popular authors, and it's pretty apparent. Still, you do need to build up quickly to attract other people to enter submissions, I suppose. Just as long as you don't alienate people who don't like the stuff that slashdotters do...
Surely, all the space sim videogames have taught us that space mining inevitably leads to corporations/nations fighting wars over dwindling resources in the year 2xxx, where mercenaries and pirates prosper.
Cool. I'm gonna start saving up for shield/laser upgrades now.
Frankly, I'm amazed that EVERY company in the movie business doesn't also produce games, as there's a lot of overlap between the two media. Sure, a lot of big-budget films (usually targetted at kids) end up with movie tie-in games, but I mean why not take some of the stories that are pitched and spend the money on making a game *instead of* a movie? It's going to be the same-or-lower risk, and potentially much greater profits.
Except that there isn't nearly the prestige or glamour associated with Video Games. While some celebrities are showing up at parties thrown by game companies, by and large, you don't meet too many of those famous directors and movie stars while you're making a videogame.
Also, while movies and videogames seem to share common elements, they are entirely different mediums. Videogames are NOT movies with the occasional button press, or the good ones aren't. This lesson has been painfully learned by many companies including some from the movie industry. It takes a very different type of mindset to allow someone to create their own story than to just show a story from one very focussed point of view.
I'm not suggesting you injure your child, but simply to have the option of using pain as negative reinforcement. Recognize the difference.
If I remember correctly from my human behaviour classes, negative reinforcement actually means removing something that is bad for the person. Positive reinforcement is adding something that will benefit the person. The point is that reinforcement is about making the person feel better (thus reinforcing the behaviour).
The term you're looking for is punishment which is to discourage the behaviour by adding something they dislike (positive punishment e.g. adding pain) or taking away something they do like (negative punishment e.g. removing tv privileges).
The difference is that reinforcement encourages behaviour, while punishment discourages it. While you may discourage a behaviour, what are you doing to encourage a better behaviour in its stead? If nothing, then the behaviour that takes its place might not be any better and possibly worse.
This is only if you believe in behavourism though, which is the school of thought you're using.
The idea of dying slowly from lung cancer in a couple of decades is a difficult thing to imagine. It's pretty hard to imagine yourself weak and frail and dying. Copying restrictions have a much more immediate effect. They run counter to our learned desire for 'convenience'.
'Hmm this cigarette is probably taking another hour off of my life. Oh well.' as opposed to 'Why the fsck won't this cd play on my pc? I've wasted a fscking hour trying to rip an mp3 from this damn thing.'
It's a nuisance, and people react much more to the small things they can immediately feel the effect of than the larger things they need to think about.
I completely agree. I like this quote: "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -- C.S. Lewis If you feel the need to prove that you are mature, then you probably aren't. I found this bit about Pikmin from the article interesting: "It was an amazing game," says Lorne Lanning, creator of the Oddworld series. "But it was about cute little carrots." He's quick to add that he finds Miyamoto's games inspiring as a designer. "But I don't play them for the same reason I don't watch Powerpuff Girls." This from the guy who made games where farting was a form of communication?
Exactly. The percentage of older PC gamers is higher because of the high cost of the higher level PCs that are required to play the current games at decent levels of detail. New generations of videocards come out on a 6 month schedule and cost twice as much as any of the current consoles, while not necessarily offering better graphics unless the rest of your system is tooled up as well. Plus, because of the development cycles of games, even the newest games don't use most of the "exciting new features" that they advertise the cards with. I'm not down on PC gaming (I love it myself), but from the point of view of a teenager or a parent buying for their kids, a $200 console that plays games immediately and without problems vs. PCs that cost $2000 and needs upgrading and subscription costs for online games (though consoles do this now too)? Pretty soon PCs will be almost exclusively for the adults, though you'd never know it from all the "l337" 12 year olds playing online.