That's...not quite what I'm getting it. unfortunately, I don't really know how else to explain it other than prior to VII, technology was a part of the story but not something that had the camera pointed on it just for the sake of showing off technology.::shrug:: not really sure how else to say it.
Except for all the time that it was like I was referring to, like the lengthy sequence with Edgar's castle going under the sand for the first time, or the unveiling of the airships. Or when you'd fight a purely technological enemy and the Epic Boss Music would start playing... The camera was pointed at technology for the technology's sake plenty in VI. Heck even the Magiteck Armor was as much about technology as magic, seeing as one of their best attacks was *missiles*.
I can definitely see that there's more technology in VII, but to me it's nothing but a slight shift in the magic/tech mix that already existed. The main thing that gave me that impression playing the games was that you start in Midgar, the tech city, rather than visiting it later like the Empire in VI. All the key story elements -- Mako energy, the Lifestream, Sephiroth summoning Meteor -- are magic all the way. *shrug* Maybe it crossed some line for you, but for me, VII is still stuffed with magic to satisfy my fantasy desires.
We weren't talking about the current state of government. We were talking about a hypothetical future in which it was accepted and known that the government could spy on everyone whenever they wanted. That's similar to 1984, if not in scale then in kind.
So it's hyperbole. Does that change the point? Does it change the implication? Or is this the "well it's not that bad yet, and as long as it's not that bad it's okay" argument?
The focus, however, was placed on the fact that the Espers were used, rather than why they were used and the results from it. An entire segment of the game takes place in a giant Magitek factory, yet we learn very little about the actual process or the potential technology that can be built from it.
Sure you learned about what the result was -- Humans could learn magic, or you could make a mech or other machines with magic attacks. I mean of course they don't go into the process. Magic esper-eating tanks suck the energy from espers, what more could they say? They don't describe the process of infusing Cloud with magical Jenova cells and mako energy either.
Even the MagitekArmor was like this...we knew, based on the name, that they had to be created using the life force of the espers...but that's it. Were it not for the name, they could just be any other mech.
If not for the name, they could just be any of the other mechs/robots/machines with no reference to being powered by magic at all that were in FFVI. The Empire was a technological city before they came across the Espers and have lots of non-esper-powered technology (that you have to fight). Edgar was a character who did nothing but use non-magical gadgets and had a castle that could dig through sand based on its advanced technology alone. No espers were involved in the use of airships... and so on and so on.
This is the sort of focus on fantasy that I mean, rather than focusing on technology.
I'm really trying to fit what you're saying with my memories of FFVI and FFVII to see what you mean. But all I'm really getting is that you like technology that is explicitly powered by magic, rather than technology that is merely indistinguishable from magic in a world where magic exists.
It's not just VII...I have tried and really wanted to enjoy all of the numbered entries in the series from VII on,
Meh. I haven't played any past VII, since my access to non-Nintendo consoles was based entirely on an old college roommate. So I'm just looking at VII. I can obviously see that there's more technology present in VII, but I don't get what you mean by "focus".
I replayed FF in college, and while it's still a fun game, there definitely are a lot of old RPG characteristics that would qualify as "boring and annoying". The amount of walking in circles fighting random encounters for exp and gold is way beyond what it is in later games in the series. There's only a couple times in IV or VI that I ever (felt I) needed to "grind". That's most of the game in FFI, just like it is in most computer RPGs of that era*. Then there's the annoying interface. Need 99 health potions for the final dungeon? Have fun buying them all one at a time! And then again!
Most of the annoyance was gone by the time of the SNES games, which were much more polished and match later games much more closely. My guess would be they never played VI.
I think you are the only one who cares about the tech vs magic balance so much.;) Both were present to varying degrees in all the games.
I dunno. There's something classic about the NES look. Maybe it's just nostalgia.
Probably.
I was never a big fan of the VGA re-releases Sierra did either, but that's just because I like the parser.
Yeah that's true I didn't like the icon based interface myself. I forgot the remakes switched to it.
But there's something to be said about inspiration coming from limitations. Would Mario look the same if Miyamoto had a full 640x480 to work with?
Technically no, since Mario was given a moustache because they couldn't give him a recognizable mouth.
But the question is does that mean he'd look worse? I doubt it. If Mario-without-moustache is unappealing, then that probably is just nostalgia cus if he'd originally not had one, it'd be Mario-with-facial-hair that would sound weird.
In this case here, I think the original FF1 characters have a lot more, um, character than the rather generic art of the remake.
They're "generic" because it's the same art style that was adopted in FFIV through VI that we're all familiar with, which is really pretty much the same style they were going for in FFI, only with less capability to actually implement it.
I mean you're saying the original characters don't look "generic" compared to the new ones?
Frankly to me the characters look exactly like the original art, just higher res and anti-aliased. Black mage looks like Black Mage, only the FFI version was put through a "make highly pixelated and lose all detail" filter.
Lich looks like what I always wished Lich looked like, rather than a skeleton emerging from some cloud of pink goo? That's I guess is supposed to be robes?
Considering the quality of 3D back in the PS1 days, it was a mistake to move the series to 3D then. I know that it would have eventually happened, I'm just questioning the timing of the move.
Yeah I can see your point there. Games like Castlevania SotN showed what a 2D powerhouse the Playstation was, and a 2D FFVII would have been beautiful. Though some things like the change of perspective to look down the field of battle as Leviathan's gigantic tidal wave towering over the enemies that a moment ago towered over you were pretty awesome and hard to recreate in 2D. On the other hand, that was what introduced the strategic tradeoff between the damage a Summons would do to the enemy vs the time wasted watching the unskippable summon animation for the 1000th time.
I agree VI was the best in the series, but I don't think VII "jumped the shark". It was a good game. Even if they did go to 3D perhaps prematurely.
Oh come on! Didn't you ever have a friend who wore one of those wristwatch calculators? Weren't you amazed by how quickly and easily they could calculate tips or do other feats of mathematical prowess in mere decaseconds by poking at the tiny, tiny buttons?
This would be just like that, but with applications that fit even worse onto a miniscule one-handed interface!
I still have the NES cartridge and a working NES (though without fixing the connector issue by one of various means it's a pain in the ass to use and thus it sits collecting dust). Not everyone who played FF on the NES can say that. I don't have a GBA or a PS, and the later is probably less likely to still work than most people's NES (the curse of optical drives).
Then again I don't have an iPhone either.
But if I did, would I be more likely to play FF on it than to bust out the NES? Yeah. Would I pay for some version of FF that was portable, were I to have a portable gaming device? Yeah. So... it makes sense to me at least, even if there are a lot of people who don't need it.
It doesn't always mean better when graphics are a substitute for gameplay, but the exact same FF gameplay with updated graphics? Yes that's better! It's not like the original developers went with a 16-color palette and pixelated graphics as a stylistic choice. They made it as pretty as they could, and did a good job, but would they rather have had SNES graphics capabilities or more? Do the screenshots look like what they would have gone for, had they been able? Yes and yes.
Other games that were better after a graphical update include Kings Quest I and Heroes Quest (I mean Quest for Glory) when they were updated for VGA from EGA. Super Mario Brothers was improved by its release as part of Super Mario All Stars. Quake was vastly improved by the switch to OpenGL (oh god and how!), and today open-source mods improve it further just by adding shader effects. Star Control II is improved in its Ur Quan Masters form by the simple expedient of anti-aliasing the rotated sprites.
In summary: Same game play, with better graphics that are in the same spirit as the original? Yes please!
Let's not confuse this with a bad cop who breaks both of a man's knees to get a confession, then calls it a "hunch".
That's true, because to be honest, my real hunch was that I'd only have to break one of his knees to get him to say whatever I wanted. I was wrong, I admit it.
No, insurance bargaining down prices is why prices for other are so high. The uninsured being unable to pay their bills is why this doesn't help the insured either.
Give providers the ability to choose their customers - like every other marketplace - and you won't need to pay for somebody else to receive medical produt.
Meaning poor people dying on the streets in front of hospitals, denied treatment.
But you know what the sad thing is? You are paying for someone else to receive medical product if you are paying for insurance. That's what insurance is, no different than socialized medicine -- a large group of people paying into a common pool from which money for medical care is dispersed. But because they aren't people too poor to pay insurance premiums in the first place, because they're your economic equals for whom "pay for your own medical care" is both not a cruel joke and unnecessary, it's okay. It's socialism for elitists and sociopaths. And it's pathetic.
The influence of insurance companies is a big reason why costs for the uninsured are so high; because they cannot take part in the collective bargaining, they get the prices that make up for what hospitals lose to insurance. Yet because the costs are so high and so few can afford it, most uninsured patients simply don't see a doctor until it's an emergency, and they go to ER where they won't be turned away. And ER care is the most expensive kind of care. But since the patient obviously can't pay or they wouldn't have been stuck in that situation to begin with, they default on the medical bills and the cost gets reflected on the insurance providers anyway, but then multiplied by their overhead before turning into you or your employer's insurance premium.
In a way you hit the nail on the head -- few people can afford un-amortized medical costs. It's just that private insurance is a terrible way to do the amortizing.
At least making provisions for everyone to have insurance means everyone benefits from some kind of amortization and collective bargaining. If we can't do any better than that, then at least most people won't have to deal with the joke that is "you're free to pay out of pocket for medical care."
That's all true but I can't act surprised when they name their lander the Phoenix and some people are disappointed when it looks like it isn't going to rise from the dead.:)
Oh. Well, the article doesn't say specifically what they hope to gain from user submissions, but I can guess. I'm sure the astronomers already have some subjects in mind. But the fact is that Mars is really big despite being smaller than earth, and you could probably spend your whole life looking at low-res photos of the surface identifying things you might want to take a closer look at. There's so much of the planet that we simply haven't looked at closely, that it's easy to imagine amateurs poking around for things that look interesting to them could actually yield new discoveries.
Uh, no, they're saying that the 13,000 pictures already taken only represent 1% of the surface of Mars. The point is that it'd take a LOT of pictures to completely image the surface.
I wouldn't mind living surveillance state half as much as I do, if only the government were honest with its citizens about it.
You mean like in 1984, where the government was quite explicitly and openly spying on everyone, and sometimes the spook spying on you would speak directly to you if you weren't being a good enough citizen? Yeah that'd be sooo much better.
No, remember, exposing what the FBI is doing is what destroys America. If you don't want the FBI to illegally spy on terrorists -- and of course that's the only people they spy on, even if the report says the opposite -- then you want terrorists to destroy America. Because you love terrorists. And hate America.
Slashdot Mirror
That's...not quite what I'm getting it. unfortunately, I don't really know how else to explain it other than prior to VII, technology was a part of the story but not something that had the camera pointed on it just for the sake of showing off technology. ::shrug:: not really sure how else to say it.
Except for all the time that it was like I was referring to, like the lengthy sequence with Edgar's castle going under the sand for the first time, or the unveiling of the airships. Or when you'd fight a purely technological enemy and the Epic Boss Music would start playing... The camera was pointed at technology for the technology's sake plenty in VI. Heck even the Magiteck Armor was as much about technology as magic, seeing as one of their best attacks was *missiles*.
I can definitely see that there's more technology in VII, but to me it's nothing but a slight shift in the magic/tech mix that already existed. The main thing that gave me that impression playing the games was that you start in Midgar, the tech city, rather than visiting it later like the Empire in VI. All the key story elements -- Mako energy, the Lifestream, Sephiroth summoning Meteor -- are magic all the way. *shrug* Maybe it crossed some line for you, but for me, VII is still stuffed with magic to satisfy my fantasy desires.
Yeah. That's why nobody liked Symphony of the Night. Oh, wait, it's one of the most beloved games in the Castlevania franchise.
We weren't talking about the current state of government. We were talking about a hypothetical future in which it was accepted and known that the government could spy on everyone whenever they wanted. That's similar to 1984, if not in scale then in kind.
So it's hyperbole. Does that change the point? Does it change the implication? Or is this the "well it's not that bad yet, and as long as it's not that bad it's okay" argument?
The focus, however, was placed on the fact that the Espers were used, rather than why they were used and the results from it. An entire segment of the game takes place in a giant Magitek factory, yet we learn very little about the actual process or the potential technology that can be built from it.
Sure you learned about what the result was -- Humans could learn magic, or you could make a mech or other machines with magic attacks. I mean of course they don't go into the process. Magic esper-eating tanks suck the energy from espers, what more could they say? They don't describe the process of infusing Cloud with magical Jenova cells and mako energy either.
Even the MagitekArmor was like this...we knew, based on the name, that they had to be created using the life force of the espers...but that's it. Were it not for the name, they could just be any other mech.
If not for the name, they could just be any of the other mechs/robots/machines with no reference to being powered by magic at all that were in FFVI. The Empire was a technological city before they came across the Espers and have lots of non-esper-powered technology (that you have to fight). Edgar was a character who did nothing but use non-magical gadgets and had a castle that could dig through sand based on its advanced technology alone. No espers were involved in the use of airships... and so on and so on.
This is the sort of focus on fantasy that I mean, rather than focusing on technology.
I'm really trying to fit what you're saying with my memories of FFVI and FFVII to see what you mean. But all I'm really getting is that you like technology that is explicitly powered by magic, rather than technology that is merely indistinguishable from magic in a world where magic exists.
It's not just VII...I have tried and really wanted to enjoy all of the numbered entries in the series from VII on,
Meh. I haven't played any past VII, since my access to non-Nintendo consoles was based entirely on an old college roommate. So I'm just looking at VII. I can obviously see that there's more technology present in VII, but I don't get what you mean by "focus".
I replayed FF in college, and while it's still a fun game, there definitely are a lot of old RPG characteristics that would qualify as "boring and annoying". The amount of walking in circles fighting random encounters for exp and gold is way beyond what it is in later games in the series. There's only a couple times in IV or VI that I ever (felt I) needed to "grind". That's most of the game in FFI, just like it is in most computer RPGs of that era*. Then there's the annoying interface. Need 99 health potions for the final dungeon? Have fun buying them all one at a time! And then again!
Most of the annoyance was gone by the time of the SNES games, which were much more polished and match later games much more closely. My guess would be they never played VI.
I think you are the only one who cares about the tech vs magic balance so much. ;) Both were present to varying degrees in all the games.
* Now recreated in MMOs. Ah, progress!
And the non-fictional description of a hypothetical future with omnipresent electronic surveillance would be...?
And your point would be...?
I always thought Cecil was a pretty whiny bastard, and that's not to mention the spoony bard. :)
Technology (and angst) played a big role in VI too.
But yeah, there were definitely thematic changes in VII and I can understand being put off by them.
I dunno. There's something classic about the NES look. Maybe it's just nostalgia.
Probably.
I was never a big fan of the VGA re-releases Sierra did either, but that's just because I like the parser.
Yeah that's true I didn't like the icon based interface myself. I forgot the remakes switched to it.
But there's something to be said about inspiration coming from limitations. Would Mario look the same if Miyamoto had a full 640x480 to work with?
Technically no, since Mario was given a moustache because they couldn't give him a recognizable mouth.
But the question is does that mean he'd look worse? I doubt it. If Mario-without-moustache is unappealing, then that probably is just nostalgia cus if he'd originally not had one, it'd be Mario-with-facial-hair that would sound weird.
In this case here, I think the original FF1 characters have a lot more, um, character than the rather generic art of the remake.
They're "generic" because it's the same art style that was adopted in FFIV through VI that we're all familiar with, which is really pretty much the same style they were going for in FFI, only with less capability to actually implement it.
I mean you're saying the original characters don't look "generic" compared to the new ones?
Frankly to me the characters look exactly like the original art, just higher res and anti-aliased. Black mage looks like Black Mage, only the FFI version was put through a "make highly pixelated and lose all detail" filter.
Lich looks like what I always wished Lich looked like, rather than a skeleton emerging from some cloud of pink goo? That's I guess is supposed to be robes?
Oh right, dang.
Considering the quality of 3D back in the PS1 days, it was a mistake to move the series to 3D then. I know that it would have eventually happened, I'm just questioning the timing of the move.
Yeah I can see your point there. Games like Castlevania SotN showed what a 2D powerhouse the Playstation was, and a 2D FFVII would have been beautiful. Though some things like the change of perspective to look down the field of battle as Leviathan's gigantic tidal wave towering over the enemies that a moment ago towered over you were pretty awesome and hard to recreate in 2D. On the other hand, that was what introduced the strategic tradeoff between the damage a Summons would do to the enemy vs the time wasted watching the unskippable summon animation for the 1000th time.
I agree VI was the best in the series, but I don't think VII "jumped the shark". It was a good game. Even if they did go to 3D perhaps prematurely.
Plus they're *way* cheaper to outfit.
Plus Fighters turn into Warriors. Black Belts turn into Ninjas. Aw yeah.
Oh come on! Didn't you ever have a friend who wore one of those wristwatch calculators? Weren't you amazed by how quickly and easily they could calculate tips or do other feats of mathematical prowess in mere decaseconds by poking at the tiny, tiny buttons?
This would be just like that, but with applications that fit even worse onto a miniscule one-handed interface!
On a social analogy, is a thief always a thief, even when he shows remorse and changed his ways?
Let me know when that happens.
Until then, a thief is a thief as long as they remain an unrepentant thief.
He just made himself a powerful enemy, and the elephant never forgets!
I still have the NES cartridge and a working NES (though without fixing the connector issue by one of various means it's a pain in the ass to use and thus it sits collecting dust). Not everyone who played FF on the NES can say that. I don't have a GBA or a PS, and the later is probably less likely to still work than most people's NES (the curse of optical drives).
Then again I don't have an iPhone either.
But if I did, would I be more likely to play FF on it than to bust out the NES? Yeah. Would I pay for some version of FF that was portable, were I to have a portable gaming device? Yeah. So... it makes sense to me at least, even if there are a lot of people who don't need it.
It doesn't always mean better when graphics are a substitute for gameplay, but the exact same FF gameplay with updated graphics? Yes that's better! It's not like the original developers went with a 16-color palette and pixelated graphics as a stylistic choice. They made it as pretty as they could, and did a good job, but would they rather have had SNES graphics capabilities or more? Do the screenshots look like what they would have gone for, had they been able? Yes and yes.
Other games that were better after a graphical update include Kings Quest I and Heroes Quest (I mean Quest for Glory) when they were updated for VGA from EGA. Super Mario Brothers was improved by its release as part of Super Mario All Stars. Quake was vastly improved by the switch to OpenGL (oh god and how!), and today open-source mods improve it further just by adding shader effects. Star Control II is improved in its Ur Quan Masters form by the simple expedient of anti-aliasing the rotated sprites.
In summary: Same game play, with better graphics that are in the same spirit as the original? Yes please!
Let's not confuse this with a bad cop who breaks both of a man's knees to get a confession, then calls it a "hunch".
That's true, because to be honest, my real hunch was that I'd only have to break one of his knees to get him to say whatever I wanted. I was wrong, I admit it.
False, although you did list why it is so high.
No, insurance bargaining down prices is why prices for other are so high. The uninsured being unable to pay their bills is why this doesn't help the insured either.
Give providers the ability to choose their customers - like every other marketplace - and you won't need to pay for somebody else to receive medical produt.
Meaning poor people dying on the streets in front of hospitals, denied treatment.
But you know what the sad thing is? You are paying for someone else to receive medical product if you are paying for insurance. That's what insurance is, no different than socialized medicine -- a large group of people paying into a common pool from which money for medical care is dispersed. But because they aren't people too poor to pay insurance premiums in the first place, because they're your economic equals for whom "pay for your own medical care" is both not a cruel joke and unnecessary, it's okay. It's socialism for elitists and sociopaths. And it's pathetic.
The influence of insurance companies is a big reason why costs for the uninsured are so high; because they cannot take part in the collective bargaining, they get the prices that make up for what hospitals lose to insurance. Yet because the costs are so high and so few can afford it, most uninsured patients simply don't see a doctor until it's an emergency, and they go to ER where they won't be turned away. And ER care is the most expensive kind of care. But since the patient obviously can't pay or they wouldn't have been stuck in that situation to begin with, they default on the medical bills and the cost gets reflected on the insurance providers anyway, but then multiplied by their overhead before turning into you or your employer's insurance premium.
In a way you hit the nail on the head -- few people can afford un-amortized medical costs. It's just that private insurance is a terrible way to do the amortizing.
At least making provisions for everyone to have insurance means everyone benefits from some kind of amortization and collective bargaining. If we can't do any better than that, then at least most people won't have to deal with the joke that is "you're free to pay out of pocket for medical care."
That's all true but I can't act surprised when they name their lander the Phoenix and some people are disappointed when it looks like it isn't going to rise from the dead. :)
Oh. Well, the article doesn't say specifically what they hope to gain from user submissions, but I can guess. I'm sure the astronomers already have some subjects in mind. But the fact is that Mars is really big despite being smaller than earth, and you could probably spend your whole life looking at low-res photos of the surface identifying things you might want to take a closer look at. There's so much of the planet that we simply haven't looked at closely, that it's easy to imagine amateurs poking around for things that look interesting to them could actually yield new discoveries.
Uh, no, they're saying that the 13,000 pictures already taken only represent 1% of the surface of Mars. The point is that it'd take a LOT of pictures to completely image the surface.
I wouldn't mind living surveillance state half as much as I do, if only the government were honest with its citizens about it.
You mean like in 1984, where the government was quite explicitly and openly spying on everyone, and sometimes the spook spying on you would speak directly to you if you weren't being a good enough citizen? Yeah that'd be sooo much better.
The coverup isn't good... but no, it's the crime.
No, remember, exposing what the FBI is doing is what destroys America. If you don't want the FBI to illegally spy on terrorists -- and of course that's the only people they spy on, even if the report says the opposite -- then you want terrorists to destroy America. Because you love terrorists. And hate America.
After beating a dungeon boss in Final Fantasy...
"I just leveled up in my brain!"