If Nintendo or Apple did this, it would be called genius.
Oh hell no. If Nintendo or Apple did this, I would say "Fuck you, Nintendo" or "Fuck you, Apple".
Show me the Nintendo or Apple advertisement that pretends not to be an advertisement, and you have a point. No, "The Wizard" doesn't count. Until then, this is simple: Sony hired someone to astroturf for them, and thus I say "Fuck you, Sony".
Astroturfing is not new, but it's always despicable. Like the phone makers that paid models to hang out in bars flaunting their technology. If Apple paid people to hang out in bars showing off iPods, then they'd be just as bad. So far as I know they don't. Sony is engaging in the same practice, which is to make it appear as though someone likes their product because they truly like it, when in reality they are paid boku bucks to pretend they like it. That's simply rotten.
I don't consider the DM client to be a part of the toolset. I'm referring to the editor.
I don't care. It is the combination of the DM client and the content creation tools that make NWN unique, whether you group them together under the term "toolset" or not. It is the combination that has NWN put up on a pedastal.
Uh, that's exactly what the NWN editor does (not all games are controlled by a DM).
True, but DM controlled games are the best games and are the games that aren't surpassed by other CRPGs simply because no other CRPGs have a similar mechanism. Like I keep saying, it's the combination of the module editors and the DM client that creates something unique.
Nobody has a made a mod like that, but it could be done.
Exactly, just like it's possible for someone to make another RPG with a DM client, but nobody has. If somebody did make that mod, it might be very good. However that mod does not exist. Ergo I would not expect a review of Half Life 2 to talk about it. If it came as a built-in part of the game, I would certainly expect a review to talk about it.
If you want to directly compare NWN with Half-Life, could you make a flight simulator with NWN? An RTS? An FPS? Racing game? NWN's editing capabilities are very restricted compared to what you can do with most FPS games.
I'm well aware of the flexibility of FPS modding. However neither the RTS, Racing game, or flight simulator come on the HL2 game disk. The DM client comes with NWN. You don't have to write a mod for an FPS engine to get the Dungeon-Mastering capability. NWN is much more limited in terms of total flexibility, but for the task for which it is designed it not only does it well it does it like no other game or game mod in existence.
He didn't say religion was the source of all evil, just whatever it touches collapses in a flurry of slurry, which is true. He also didn't say reason is the only thing that could bring people together, just that it could, which is also true, Mr Strawman O'Troll.
Okay, Captain Lack of Reading Comprehension, I'll have to quote him for you.
"Yes, and the reason why is simple: religion is un-reason (and often anti-reason). Therefore, it obliterates the only common grounds that humans can find among each other."
Anti-reason obliterates reason, the only common ground humans can find. He was very clear, to anyone who understands the difference between "a" and "only". Is that you?
"In a world of reason, there are facts, evidence, and proof, with which we can (in principle) persuade each other to converge on a single, objective knowledge... and hence, there is no need to kill each other."
In a world of reason, one without the anti-reason of religion, there is no need to kill each other. He isn't saying religion is the source of evil, he is saying reason by itself does not give people a reason to kill. It is that claim which I was refuting.
But if it makes you feel better to toss around the word "strawman", feel free. Or you could have read and understood the conversation taking place, but that's more effort and idiot trolls aren't about effort.
I've never understood this line of thinking. Nobody reviewed Half-Life 2 by saying "the singleplayer campaign sucks, but Valve Hammer Editor is awesome, so I'm giving this 10/10." NWN's editing tools are absolutely no different from the editing tools of other games, yet they're always granted a special status for some reason.
Well, since you missed the entirety of what my post was about, the reason NWN's tools are different is because they not only let you create your own "maps" just like every other toolset, you are then able to direct those maps in real-time for the people playing them. That's a huge difference that very few games -- certainly none of the ones mentioned in this review or your post -- allow.
Other toolsets let you make a map that others can play in the same way they play the built-in maps, as set-in-stone creations that can only do what the map-maker originally allowed.
NWN's tools lets you be a Dungeon Master who can create your own campaigns, manage them in real time, and modify them to suit unexpected player behavior allowing for true creativity and role-playing -- not the computer version of "RP" meaning "kill stuff for exp to gain levels", but actual taking-on-a-persona role-playing. Just like a real table-top Dungeon Master with a home-made adventure module.
Does Half-Life's tools let you do that? I thought not.
Putting the toolset on a pedestal makes even less sense for NWN2 because it was strongly hyped for its supposedly awesome singleplayer campaign.
Yeah, because the single-player campaign of the original was cited as a major weak point. That doesn't mean I give a fuck any more now than I did then. NWN is not special as a single player game, and neither is NWN2 as this review makes amply clear. However as a game which allows a table-top-like experience it is absolutely unique and completely ignoring that which makes the game unique in a review is what doesn't make any sense.
Electrons, photons, and protons are all merely models to explain in tangible terms what the **** is going on down there, so I become skeptical when these terms are utilized to explain/demonstrate quantum mechanics.
Um, okay, we don't know everything about these particles, but all of those things are real things very much like we describe them -- we can count electrons, photons, and protons, and in the latter case we know they are comprised of smaller things called "quarks" that when combined correctly behave very much like the little ball we call the "proton". That's as real as anything. Quantum mechanics describes the behavior of electrons, so I'm confused as to why you would be skeptical that electrons are used to explain quantum mechanics. The topics are rather intricately linked.
I'm quite certain that there are layers upon layers beyond what we know, but at this time we don't know of any way to go deeper than the electron. Hence you're basically asking for something to be described in terms of knowledge that doesn't exist yet, which is impossible.
I only played NWN for a total of about 8 hours before giving up on it. It felt way too claustrophobic with the top-down viewing camera.
There was a command you could enter in the game's console to free up the camera so you weren't restricted to a minimum 45 degree angle. It didn't take too long (but longer than you would think, given how obvious it is) that they made this the default behavior with a patch. It's funny because the game actually has a pretty long view distance that allows for some nice scenic views, you just couldn't tell with the stupid original camera behavior.
The expansion packs, which were released after the patch that fixed the camera, made pretty good use of this fact as well. It was designed assuming you could look, you know, straight ahead to see dangers coming up.
If NWN2 lost this behavior, I just have to say they are morons.
Mmm, well, okay, you can compare them, if you talk strictly about the single-player built-in campaigns, in which case NWN is a mediocre wanna-be at best.
The thing that makes NWN head-and-shoulders superior to Baldur's Gate is the toolset and, more importantly, the Dungeon Master Client.
NWN is special because it gives you the ability to re-live the table top experience as best as possible by having an actual human being in control of the game world. NPCs can be directly role-played by the DM, just like they would be if you were sitting around a card table instead of spread out across the Net. If the players want to exhibit some burst of ingenuity, they can and the DM can make things proceed in a reasonable fashion.
Baldur's Gate is great, and so are many other computer RPGS, but they are all fundamentally limited by what the programmers allowed you to do. NWN is different -- with a DM, you can do things the makers of the game or module never imagined you doing, and the DM can tell you what the result is. Although this was also limited by the tools, which was the most obvious place for the game to be improved.
Which is why this review is basically useless to me. All it tells me is that played as a single-player CRPG like Oblivion, it's a neat implementation of 3.5 D&D rules, but basically "meh" both in content and in presentation. Okay, but so what? NWN 1 was a pretty bad single-player RPG, the original campaign was terrible, but it was on the basis of the tools and the DM client that the game became an awesome, unique experience in gaming. Since the toolset is barely touched upon and the DM client mentioned not at all, this review doesn't cover the things I actually care about in determining whether or not this is a good game.
Oh well. I don't think it runs on Linux either, so no skin off my back regardless.
In a world of reason, there are facts, evidence, and proof, with which we can (in principle) persuade each other to converge on a single, objective knowledge... and hence, there is no need to kill each other.
Heh. Yeah. Because there's no way two people using facts and evidence would come to the conclusion that they have an unreconcileable conflict of interest and they won't get what they want unless they kill the other.
No King has ever decided that, based on pure reason, that it is better for him to invade a neighboring country, slay or enslave the populace, and steal their resources and land for himself.
It's religious conviction, anti-reason, that motivates organized criminals to kill snitches.
Okay, sarcasm over. I will fully accept the ills that relgions have caused, though I think you'll find that it is generally only as it is used as a mechanism to control the masses. The one doing the controlling usually has very practical, very rational, and completely brutal reasons behind the manipulation. The people are often driven to war by appealing to their religion, but the leaders seek war as they seek power and wealth and resources, like every war ever.
Frankly I reject your initial premise, that reason is the only common ground humans can find. Art, music, simple human empathy, are all based on emotion and are at least as effective at bringing people together.
The original authors (the real ones - you know the jews whose 'spiritual' inheritance christians claim a part of) of the vast majority of those literary works (the OT) would disagree with that interpretation to say the very least. Quote the NT to them all you want - they don't believe it is the 'word of god' in the way you do, and they wrote all the parts that christians interpret as validating the divine nature of jesus.
Um, what?
The "original authors" of the OT were dead and gone long before Jesus was born or the NT written, so you can't claim they accepted or rejected anything. You're using the modern meaning of Judaism -- someone who follows the God of Abraham but does not accept the teachings of Jesus -- and transfering it back in time to the authors of the OT, long before that definition had any meaning at all. Your claim only makes sense if you are granting ancestral authority to those Jews who were alive at the time of these events and rejected the NT, remaining practitioners of Judaism. Well Jesus and his follewers were all Jewish, racially and religiously, and thus they all have equal claim to ancestral ties with Abraham. It was the acceptance/non-acceptance of Jesus and the NT that caused the split in religions of Judaism and Christianity. So saying modern Jews don't accept the NT is as insightful as saying that Christians don't accept the Koran, and saying the authors of the OT reject the NT makes as much sense as saying that the Disciples rejected Mohammed.
And, for the open minded parent poster above, the christian 'bible' clearly states that homosexuality is an abomination (Lev. 18:22), for which you get to go to hell (Rom. 1:26-28). Don't get me wrong, I applaud such open mindedness, but if you're a christian who believes that every word in the English christian bible was explicitly arranged by god, its pretty hard to reconcile open mindedness about such issues with the 'word of god'.
The argument for open-mindedness comes largely from the words of Jesus himself. I'll grant this is just my interpretation, but when Paul says something is an abomination and you will go to hell, and Jesus says we are all sinners and judge not lest you be judged yourself as only God has that authority, and accused anyone who would try to punish those who sin as hypocrites, I'm going with Jesus.
With what? The traditional economy goes something like: I have something, which you want, and you have something which I want. We trade. This non-concept of "economy of sharing" goes like: I have something, which you want, and I am morally obligated to give it to you, by virtue of the fact that I have it. Where is it in my interest to do so, if I do not accept your premise that I am somehow inherently obligated to?
Is this post from 1997, arriving here on/. today due to some strange space-time anomaly?
Your non-concept is indeed that, not the concept. The real "economy of sharing" concept goes like: You make what you have available to others. Others do the same for you. You have access to a vast wealth of resources, and you contribute to that vast wealth by sharing what you have. Someone may take what you have shared, improve it or combine it with other shared resources, and then share the result, giving you back something more than what you gave.
Back in the day when the only people participating in the software "economy of sharing" were students, acamedics, and professionals working in their spare time it was easy to treat it like a hippy commune, something that may be a nice utopia for them but couldn't possibly work in the real world where dollars are all that matter.
Fast forward to today, when many companies have a large investment in free software technologies and have gained tremendously from doing so, and the question "Where is it in my interest to share?" seems hopelessly outdated and out of touch.
I used to believe this was possible, but now I consider it a foregone conclusion: Free software, the "economy of sharing", is going to flourish and dominate in the world of software for entirely practical and self-interested reasons.
Do you think those companies want to miss their sales forecasts, and get punished in the stock market for doing so? Of course not.
Spot on with the stock market comment. Plus we all saw pictures of the lines for the PS3 release. If Sony could have sold a PS3 at $600 to every one of those people instead of the first half dozen, do you think they wouldn't have? PS3 is a strategic tool for Sony for pushing Blu Ray, and the strength of that push is dependent entirely on the number of PS3 sold. So they would limit the number they sold, keeping it unclear whether their strategy would pay off or backfire? It makes no sense. Some nonsensical "perceived demand" is irrelevent compared to actual consoles in the market as far as directing the future of the market. Which does a better job of encouraging sales via word of mouth: "I wanted a PS3 but there wasn't one to buy", or "I got a PS3, check out how cool it is, you can get one too".
Same goes for Nintendo. If you're trying to expand beyond the traditional gamer demographic, then you damn well better be able to sell to people who aren't willing to wait in line for it!
There's much hype and fanfare, then I'm only able to actually produce 500,000 units. The Sales numbers at this point no longer mean anything. You can only have a valid comparison if there is a steady supply of all three models. Come on folks THINK.
Actually, they do mean something, just not that much about market acceptance. Since these consoles sold out, we can use the sales numbers as production numbers. And from that standpoint, there are really two interesting pieces of information: Not really a surprise given all the warnings, but Sony was able to make only half of their grossly down-sized forecasts. This means producing the PS3 is even more difficult than was thought, or the blue lasers are in even shorter supply than thought, and may even indicate that the longer term supply will be limited. In some ways more surprising is that Nintendo was unable to reach their manufacturing target for launch. I would naively assume that they should have minimal problems, but that apparently isn't the case. Maybe the remote is a trickier beast than thought? Supplies of extra remotes have been short for those who were able to buy a console.
I realize that these sales figures may not be complete. I doubt that means Sony really sold twice as many consoles.
An interesting catch: All these companies depend on IBM. Apple dropped IBM largely because they didn't seem ready or willing to develop and produce mainstream chips on a schedule that suited Apple. Are they partly responsible for the shortage of PS3 and Wii? I have no data to back that up at all; it's just idle speculation.
The next time you watch a swordfight in a movie, watch where the swords are being swung. Most of the time, if the opponent just dropped their sword to the floor, the attacking swing would miss completely. In hollywood, they swing the swords at the other swords - blade to blade - instead of trying to actually hit the other guy.
A very noteable exception -- or maybe not since it isn't Hollywood but what you're saying is common of action movies from everywhere -- being The Seven Samurai. Everyone who uses a sword in that movie uses it to kill, and as a result most sword fights are one or two strokes long. While lacking the acrobatic beauty of a good ten-minute lightsaber duel, it did have a gritty reality that just felt right.
more like a book than a true "what a guy on the scene would see" documentary style.
Which is interesting, because one of the strengths of books is that they aren't limited by what can be presented visually and what looks interesting that way.
For example, I've read several sci-fi novels (Stephen Donaldson's Gap series being a favorite) that depict space combat occuring at realistic ranges -- ranges where even using light-speed weaponry it takes several minutes to reach the target. In a novel, the tension of having to wait minutes to know if you scored a hit works whereas in a movie it would be boring as hell.
Ever watched E.R. with a doctor? This is hardly a computer geek specific trait.
There's nothing unusual about someone with knowledge in a specialized field finding the Hollywood portrayal of that field amusing. Because they are, 95% of the time, wrong and 50% of the time they're wrong enough for it to be funny to the person who knows better.
"I know this! This is UNIX!" is funny as shit. Okay, it's not funny at all to non-computer-geeks, but neither are the Hollywood gaffs that doctors, lawyers, auto mechanics, and ninja assassins find amusing to people not in those fields.
3. No matter how many people "came up" with the idea, it does not matter. The patent definition of obviousness is not the human definition. It might seem obvious to place a button in such a location, but did anyone file a patent or design such an item before them? If not, then was it really that obvious for someone to do it?
It sounds like you're saying the patent office definition of "obvious" is "there exists prior art in the form of a patent or design". I'm no patent lawyer, but I know that isn't true.
My advisor was rejected on a patent he filed for his idea to use low-order address bits to do the row select in a computer data cache and high-order bits to do column muxing, so you had more time before the high-order bits were needed from the TLB when using a physically indexed cache. He did his research beforehand, and found no patent nor published design that used this idea. It was rejected due to "obviousness". While both he and I agreed that it was a rather obvious idea, that was by the "human" definition of obvious. Whatever definition the patent office used, it seemed closer to the "human" definition than what you are implying.
Anyway, placing a trigger at the location at which anyone holding the controller would have their index finger is definitely "really that obvious". "Hey, we need another button on our controller." "How about put one where the player's finger will be?" "Genius!"
Whether that means the patent is or should be invalid, I can't say.
The above is also the reason that I'm not registered with any political party and get annoyed when someone thinks I am criticizing a politician because of their political persuasion. The truth is, both major parties in this country disgust me almost equally.
It's the truth. And the thing about assumed political affiliation -- I hate that with a passion. In the past I've been called a "Republican attack dog" for criticizing Bill Clinton and a "Democrat stooge" for criticizing George W. in the same thread. It just boggled my mind.
By the way, I'll let you in on a secret: When somebody says "You are only saying that because of your party affiliation!", they are actually telling you how they think and where their words come from. Watch them -- the ones who say that are always the ones whose egos are joined at the hip to whatever political group they support.
Me, I look at individuals and what they say, not whatever granfaloon they say they're part of. You could probably describe my views generally as being liberal, but I'm not dumb enough to think I'll agree with someone just because they use the same word to describe their values. Just like I'm a Christian but I don't automatically trust anyone who claims to be one too.
In fact they gave each customer a glove, and asked you to specify if you were right or left handed. I thought that was extra amusing. I never saw the glove, but I imagined that it was white and covered in rhinestones.
But the real solution would have been to put a freely turnable section on the top of the joystick's... stick. That way the top remains static to your palm instead of turning around, which would the major blister-former.
That's a good idea, actually. Probably would have cost more than the glove.:)
and TP does an exceptional job at that, it's a shame that it doesn't get as good of reviews as a truly revolutionary game... seeing as though it's purpose is to be evolutionary.
I agree with your observations, but I repeat that I see nothing wrong with a Revolutionary game getting better reviews than one that is merely Evolutionary, even if Evolutionary is all the latter game was aiming for.
Besides, at 11th place on the all time list with a score of 95.6%, 0.1% lower than the revolutionary Mario 64, it isn't as though TWP got significantly worse reviews. For about a week, it was at #2 on the all-time list. It just ended up with a few more 9s and 8s than OoT did once more reviews came in.
You can call us "heretics" all you like. But we have just as much right to define the Zelda canon as you do! And we say the holy CD-i titles are just as sacred as the rest!
Oh I will gladly call you a heretic, ye who worships false works of blasphemy against His Holiness Miyamoto -- who designeth forever and ever. As far as your right to define Zelda canon, me and my mob of Deku Stick and Red Candle wielding faithful disagree. Let the lynching begin. Mario be praised!
The classic controller won't work for GC games? That's lame. Especially because like you say it is essentially an analog of the GC controller -- except with the face buttons done right, and the left analog controller done wrong (yes, the place where the Dual Shock puts the left analog stick is WRONG, an artifact of its PS1 heritage).
I do have to wonder why you've got a bunch of GC games you want to play, but no GC controller. I guess if you were buying a Wii and never owned a GC it would make sense to pick up some GC games from the bargain bin. So yeah, that's pretty lame. At least I still have my Wavebird.
Nintendo is generally responsive to this kind of thing, even if they could be excused for not thinking it was actually their fault (do makers of baseball equipment get sued when someone lets go of a bat and it hits something?).
Back when Mario Party 1 came out, and there were the analog stick spinning games, Nintendo received many complaints from players getting blisters in the middle of their palm, since the fastest way to spin the stick was to put your palm on it and move your hand in circles. I myself got one and wore out a glove besides but it never occured to me to blame nintendo. Nintendo, under pressure (and maybe a lawsuit) from customers, decided to give out gloves to anyone who wanted one and removed the spinning games from future titles.
Also considering their commitment to making astoundingly durable machines, I'm surprised that the straps weren't sturdy enough in the first place. That is a pretty serious oversight.
Unfortunately, it's holding at 11th best game at GameRankings.com, when OoT has always remained #1... strangely, however, almost everyone who pits it against OoT agrees that it is a far superior game, so I don't know how they get off with that.
Gamerankings goes off of review scores, and the majority of reviews for OoT were shortly after it came out. So at the time it came out OoT got better reviews than TWP is getting today.
I think this is perfectly legitimate. OoT is a great game even by todays standards, but when it came out it was truly groundbreaking, and it defined 3D adventure gaming for that and subsequent generations up to and including TWP. It makes perfect sense that reviewers of the day were absolutely blown away by it, even if the same people would today say that TWP is the better game. This may be true (still no Wii or TWP to say so myself), but TWP is also quite clearly not the groundbreaking title OoT was way back in 1998. So reviewers in 1998 were not only responding to how great OoT was, but also the fact that you'd never played anything like it before. Reviewers in 2006 are giving TWP high rankings for being awesome, but it gets no extra credit for being unique. It's the games that revolutionize gaming that deserve recognition as the best ever, in my opinion, and thus the fact that gamerankings ranks games based on their perception at the time of release is ideal.
Most of us got over the "but it looks like it's for little kids" bullshit, the artistic style was the least of my worries (as well as most other people who finally played it, that I've talked with), but the "huge boring ocean" does really cut into the enjoyment factor quite a bit
Since I'm an adult who loves animation, I loved the style since it's is basically a perfect interactive cartoon.
The "huge boring ocean", though, was terrible. It was in fact big and boring, it added little to the game, even just changing directions was a chore. The game would have been better without the triforce scavenger hunt, even though the result would have been noticeably shorter. On my second play through the game, I stopped at the point where I had to get the triforce simply because I couldn't bear to do it, even though the payoff would is the best end-of-game fight with Ganon in the entire series.
But barring all that and major changes like actually finishing the game -- I wish they had at least tweaked the visual style for the water, simply because you spend so much time staring at it! While superficially matching the rest of the style, it was actually the worst place to use it just because solid blue with white triangle waves is so boring compared to the dynamic shadows of the rest of the game. Look at something like Mario Sunshine, which combined cartoony characters with very well-done water. I think that would have worked very well in WW, and maybe made the sailing slightly less boring.
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If Nintendo or Apple did this, it would be called genius.
Oh hell no. If Nintendo or Apple did this, I would say "Fuck you, Nintendo" or "Fuck you, Apple".
Show me the Nintendo or Apple advertisement that pretends not to be an advertisement, and you have a point. No, "The Wizard" doesn't count. Until then, this is simple: Sony hired someone to astroturf for them, and thus I say "Fuck you, Sony".
Astroturfing is not new, but it's always despicable. Like the phone makers that paid models to hang out in bars flaunting their technology. If Apple paid people to hang out in bars showing off iPods, then they'd be just as bad. So far as I know they don't. Sony is engaging in the same practice, which is to make it appear as though someone likes their product because they truly like it, when in reality they are paid boku bucks to pretend they like it. That's simply rotten.
I don't consider the DM client to be a part of the toolset. I'm referring to the editor.
I don't care. It is the combination of the DM client and the content creation tools that make NWN unique, whether you group them together under the term "toolset" or not. It is the combination that has NWN put up on a pedastal.
Uh, that's exactly what the NWN editor does (not all games are controlled by a DM).
True, but DM controlled games are the best games and are the games that aren't surpassed by other CRPGs simply because no other CRPGs have a similar mechanism. Like I keep saying, it's the combination of the module editors and the DM client that creates something unique.
Nobody has a made a mod like that, but it could be done.
Exactly, just like it's possible for someone to make another RPG with a DM client, but nobody has. If somebody did make that mod, it might be very good. However that mod does not exist. Ergo I would not expect a review of Half Life 2 to talk about it. If it came as a built-in part of the game, I would certainly expect a review to talk about it.
If you want to directly compare NWN with Half-Life, could you make a flight simulator with NWN? An RTS? An FPS? Racing game? NWN's editing capabilities are very restricted compared to what you can do with most FPS games.
I'm well aware of the flexibility of FPS modding. However neither the RTS, Racing game, or flight simulator come on the HL2 game disk. The DM client comes with NWN. You don't have to write a mod for an FPS engine to get the Dungeon-Mastering capability. NWN is much more limited in terms of total flexibility, but for the task for which it is designed it not only does it well it does it like no other game or game mod in existence.
He didn't say religion was the source of all evil, just whatever it touches collapses in a flurry of slurry, which is true. He also didn't say reason is the only thing that could bring people together, just that it could, which is also true, Mr Strawman O'Troll.
Okay, Captain Lack of Reading Comprehension, I'll have to quote him for you.
"Yes, and the reason why is simple: religion is un-reason (and often anti-reason). Therefore, it obliterates the only common grounds that humans can find among each other."
Anti-reason obliterates reason, the only common ground humans can find. He was very clear, to anyone who understands the difference between "a" and "only". Is that you?
"In a world of reason, there are facts, evidence, and proof, with which we can (in principle) persuade each other to converge on a single, objective knowledge... and hence, there is no need to kill each other."
In a world of reason, one without the anti-reason of religion, there is no need to kill each other. He isn't saying religion is the source of evil, he is saying reason by itself does not give people a reason to kill. It is that claim which I was refuting.
But if it makes you feel better to toss around the word "strawman", feel free. Or you could have read and understood the conversation taking place, but that's more effort and idiot trolls aren't about effort.
I've never understood this line of thinking. Nobody reviewed Half-Life 2 by saying "the singleplayer campaign sucks, but Valve Hammer Editor is awesome, so I'm giving this 10/10." NWN's editing tools are absolutely no different from the editing tools of other games, yet they're always granted a special status for some reason.
Well, since you missed the entirety of what my post was about, the reason NWN's tools are different is because they not only let you create your own "maps" just like every other toolset, you are then able to direct those maps in real-time for the people playing them. That's a huge difference that very few games -- certainly none of the ones mentioned in this review or your post -- allow.
Other toolsets let you make a map that others can play in the same way they play the built-in maps, as set-in-stone creations that can only do what the map-maker originally allowed.
NWN's tools lets you be a Dungeon Master who can create your own campaigns, manage them in real time, and modify them to suit unexpected player behavior allowing for true creativity and role-playing -- not the computer version of "RP" meaning "kill stuff for exp to gain levels", but actual taking-on-a-persona role-playing. Just like a real table-top Dungeon Master with a home-made adventure module.
Does Half-Life's tools let you do that? I thought not.
Putting the toolset on a pedestal makes even less sense for NWN2 because it was strongly hyped for its supposedly awesome singleplayer campaign.
Yeah, because the single-player campaign of the original was cited as a major weak point. That doesn't mean I give a fuck any more now than I did then. NWN is not special as a single player game, and neither is NWN2 as this review makes amply clear. However as a game which allows a table-top-like experience it is absolutely unique and completely ignoring that which makes the game unique in a review is what doesn't make any sense.
Electrons, photons, and protons are all merely models to explain in tangible terms what the **** is going on down there, so I become skeptical when these terms are utilized to explain/demonstrate quantum mechanics.
Um, okay, we don't know everything about these particles, but all of those things are real things very much like we describe them -- we can count electrons, photons, and protons, and in the latter case we know they are comprised of smaller things called "quarks" that when combined correctly behave very much like the little ball we call the "proton". That's as real as anything. Quantum mechanics describes the behavior of electrons, so I'm confused as to why you would be skeptical that electrons are used to explain quantum mechanics. The topics are rather intricately linked.
I'm quite certain that there are layers upon layers beyond what we know, but at this time we don't know of any way to go deeper than the electron. Hence you're basically asking for something to be described in terms of knowledge that doesn't exist yet, which is impossible.
I only played NWN for a total of about 8 hours before giving up on it. It felt way too claustrophobic with the top-down viewing camera.
There was a command you could enter in the game's console to free up the camera so you weren't restricted to a minimum 45 degree angle. It didn't take too long (but longer than you would think, given how obvious it is) that they made this the default behavior with a patch. It's funny because the game actually has a pretty long view distance that allows for some nice scenic views, you just couldn't tell with the stupid original camera behavior.
The expansion packs, which were released after the patch that fixed the camera, made pretty good use of this fact as well. It was designed assuming you could look, you know, straight ahead to see dangers coming up.
If NWN2 lost this behavior, I just have to say they are morons.
Mmm, well, okay, you can compare them, if you talk strictly about the single-player built-in campaigns, in which case NWN is a mediocre wanna-be at best.
The thing that makes NWN head-and-shoulders superior to Baldur's Gate is the toolset and, more importantly, the Dungeon Master Client.
NWN is special because it gives you the ability to re-live the table top experience as best as possible by having an actual human being in control of the game world. NPCs can be directly role-played by the DM, just like they would be if you were sitting around a card table instead of spread out across the Net. If the players want to exhibit some burst of ingenuity, they can and the DM can make things proceed in a reasonable fashion.
Baldur's Gate is great, and so are many other computer RPGS, but they are all fundamentally limited by what the programmers allowed you to do. NWN is different -- with a DM, you can do things the makers of the game or module never imagined you doing, and the DM can tell you what the result is. Although this was also limited by the tools, which was the most obvious place for the game to be improved.
Which is why this review is basically useless to me. All it tells me is that played as a single-player CRPG like Oblivion, it's a neat implementation of 3.5 D&D rules, but basically "meh" both in content and in presentation. Okay, but so what? NWN 1 was a pretty bad single-player RPG, the original campaign was terrible, but it was on the basis of the tools and the DM client that the game became an awesome, unique experience in gaming. Since the toolset is barely touched upon and the DM client mentioned not at all, this review doesn't cover the things I actually care about in determining whether or not this is a good game.
Oh well. I don't think it runs on Linux either, so no skin off my back regardless.
In a world of reason, there are facts, evidence, and proof, with which we can (in principle) persuade each other to converge on a single, objective knowledge... and hence, there is no need to kill each other.
Heh. Yeah. Because there's no way two people using facts and evidence would come to the conclusion that they have an unreconcileable conflict of interest and they won't get what they want unless they kill the other.
No King has ever decided that, based on pure reason, that it is better for him to invade a neighboring country, slay or enslave the populace, and steal their resources and land for himself.
It's religious conviction, anti-reason, that motivates organized criminals to kill snitches.
Okay, sarcasm over. I will fully accept the ills that relgions have caused, though I think you'll find that it is generally only as it is used as a mechanism to control the masses. The one doing the controlling usually has very practical, very rational, and completely brutal reasons behind the manipulation. The people are often driven to war by appealing to their religion, but the leaders seek war as they seek power and wealth and resources, like every war ever.
Frankly I reject your initial premise, that reason is the only common ground humans can find. Art, music, simple human empathy, are all based on emotion and are at least as effective at bringing people together.
The original authors (the real ones - you know the jews whose 'spiritual' inheritance christians claim a part of) of the vast majority of those literary works (the OT) would disagree with that interpretation to say the very least. Quote the NT to them all you want - they don't believe it is the 'word of god' in the way you do, and they wrote all the parts that christians interpret as validating the divine nature of jesus.
Um, what?
The "original authors" of the OT were dead and gone long before Jesus was born or the NT written, so you can't claim they accepted or rejected anything. You're using the modern meaning of Judaism -- someone who follows the God of Abraham but does not accept the teachings of Jesus -- and transfering it back in time to the authors of the OT, long before that definition had any meaning at all. Your claim only makes sense if you are granting ancestral authority to those Jews who were alive at the time of these events and rejected the NT, remaining practitioners of Judaism. Well Jesus and his follewers were all Jewish, racially and religiously, and thus they all have equal claim to ancestral ties with Abraham. It was the acceptance/non-acceptance of Jesus and the NT that caused the split in religions of Judaism and Christianity. So saying modern Jews don't accept the NT is as insightful as saying that Christians don't accept the Koran, and saying the authors of the OT reject the NT makes as much sense as saying that the Disciples rejected Mohammed.
And, for the open minded parent poster above, the christian 'bible' clearly states that homosexuality is an abomination (Lev. 18:22), for which you get to go to hell (Rom. 1:26-28). Don't get me wrong, I applaud such open mindedness, but if you're a christian who believes that every word in the English christian bible was explicitly arranged by god, its pretty hard to reconcile open mindedness about such issues with the 'word of god'.
The argument for open-mindedness comes largely from the words of Jesus himself. I'll grant this is just my interpretation, but when Paul says something is an abomination and you will go to hell, and Jesus says we are all sinners and judge not lest you be judged yourself as only God has that authority, and accused anyone who would try to punish those who sin as hypocrites, I'm going with Jesus.
With what? The traditional economy goes something like: I have something, which you want, and you have something which I want. We trade. This non-concept of "economy of sharing" goes like: I have something, which you want, and I am morally obligated to give it to you, by virtue of the fact that I have it. Where is it in my interest to do so, if I do not accept your premise that I am somehow inherently obligated to?
/. today due to some strange space-time anomaly?
Is this post from 1997, arriving here on
Your non-concept is indeed that, not the concept. The real "economy of sharing" concept goes like: You make what you have available to others. Others do the same for you. You have access to a vast wealth of resources, and you contribute to that vast wealth by sharing what you have. Someone may take what you have shared, improve it or combine it with other shared resources, and then share the result, giving you back something more than what you gave.
Back in the day when the only people participating in the software "economy of sharing" were students, acamedics, and professionals working in their spare time it was easy to treat it like a hippy commune, something that may be a nice utopia for them but couldn't possibly work in the real world where dollars are all that matter.
Fast forward to today, when many companies have a large investment in free software technologies and have gained tremendously from doing so, and the question "Where is it in my interest to share?" seems hopelessly outdated and out of touch.
I used to believe this was possible, but now I consider it a foregone conclusion: Free software, the "economy of sharing", is going to flourish and dominate in the world of software for entirely practical and self-interested reasons.
Do you think those companies want to miss their sales forecasts, and get punished in the stock market for doing so? Of course not.
Spot on with the stock market comment. Plus we all saw pictures of the lines for the PS3 release. If Sony could have sold a PS3 at $600 to every one of those people instead of the first half dozen, do you think they wouldn't have? PS3 is a strategic tool for Sony for pushing Blu Ray, and the strength of that push is dependent entirely on the number of PS3 sold. So they would limit the number they sold, keeping it unclear whether their strategy would pay off or backfire? It makes no sense. Some nonsensical "perceived demand" is irrelevent compared to actual consoles in the market as far as directing the future of the market. Which does a better job of encouraging sales via word of mouth: "I wanted a PS3 but there wasn't one to buy", or "I got a PS3, check out how cool it is, you can get one too".
Same goes for Nintendo. If you're trying to expand beyond the traditional gamer demographic, then you damn well better be able to sell to people who aren't willing to wait in line for it!
There's much hype and fanfare, then I'm only able to actually produce 500,000 units. The Sales numbers at this point no longer mean anything. You can only have a valid comparison if there is a steady supply of all three models. Come on folks THINK.
Actually, they do mean something, just not that much about market acceptance. Since these consoles sold out, we can use the sales numbers as production numbers. And from that standpoint, there are really two interesting pieces of information: Not really a surprise given all the warnings, but Sony was able to make only half of their grossly down-sized forecasts. This means producing the PS3 is even more difficult than was thought, or the blue lasers are in even shorter supply than thought, and may even indicate that the longer term supply will be limited. In some ways more surprising is that Nintendo was unable to reach their manufacturing target for launch. I would naively assume that they should have minimal problems, but that apparently isn't the case. Maybe the remote is a trickier beast than thought? Supplies of extra remotes have been short for those who were able to buy a console.
I realize that these sales figures may not be complete. I doubt that means Sony really sold twice as many consoles.
An interesting catch: All these companies depend on IBM. Apple dropped IBM largely because they didn't seem ready or willing to develop and produce mainstream chips on a schedule that suited Apple. Are they partly responsible for the shortage of PS3 and Wii? I have no data to back that up at all; it's just idle speculation.
The next time you watch a swordfight in a movie, watch where the swords are being swung. Most of the time, if the opponent just dropped their sword to the floor, the attacking swing would miss completely. In hollywood, they swing the swords at the other swords - blade to blade - instead of trying to actually hit the other guy.
A very noteable exception -- or maybe not since it isn't Hollywood but what you're saying is common of action movies from everywhere -- being The Seven Samurai. Everyone who uses a sword in that movie uses it to kill, and as a result most sword fights are one or two strokes long. While lacking the acrobatic beauty of a good ten-minute lightsaber duel, it did have a gritty reality that just felt right.
more like a book than a true "what a guy on the scene would see" documentary style.
Which is interesting, because one of the strengths of books is that they aren't limited by what can be presented visually and what looks interesting that way.
For example, I've read several sci-fi novels (Stephen Donaldson's Gap series being a favorite) that depict space combat occuring at realistic ranges -- ranges where even using light-speed weaponry it takes several minutes to reach the target. In a novel, the tension of having to wait minutes to know if you scored a hit works whereas in a movie it would be boring as hell.
Ever watched E.R. with a doctor? This is hardly a computer geek specific trait.
There's nothing unusual about someone with knowledge in a specialized field finding the Hollywood portrayal of that field amusing. Because they are, 95% of the time, wrong and 50% of the time they're wrong enough for it to be funny to the person who knows better.
"I know this! This is UNIX!" is funny as shit. Okay, it's not funny at all to non-computer-geeks, but neither are the Hollywood gaffs that doctors, lawyers, auto mechanics, and ninja assassins find amusing to people not in those fields.
3. No matter how many people "came up" with the idea, it does not matter. The patent definition of obviousness is not the human definition. It might seem obvious to place a button in such a location, but did anyone file a patent or design such an item before them? If not, then was it really that obvious for someone to do it?
It sounds like you're saying the patent office definition of "obvious" is "there exists prior art in the form of a patent or design". I'm no patent lawyer, but I know that isn't true.
My advisor was rejected on a patent he filed for his idea to use low-order address bits to do the row select in a computer data cache and high-order bits to do column muxing, so you had more time before the high-order bits were needed from the TLB when using a physically indexed cache. He did his research beforehand, and found no patent nor published design that used this idea. It was rejected due to "obviousness". While both he and I agreed that it was a rather obvious idea, that was by the "human" definition of obvious. Whatever definition the patent office used, it seemed closer to the "human" definition than what you are implying.
Anyway, placing a trigger at the location at which anyone holding the controller would have their index finger is definitely "really that obvious". "Hey, we need another button on our controller." "How about put one where the player's finger will be?" "Genius!"
Whether that means the patent is or should be invalid, I can't say.
The above is also the reason that I'm not registered with any political party and get annoyed when someone thinks I am criticizing a politician because of their political persuasion. The truth is, both major parties in this country disgust me almost equally.
It's the truth. And the thing about assumed political affiliation -- I hate that with a passion. In the past I've been called a "Republican attack dog" for criticizing Bill Clinton and a "Democrat stooge" for criticizing George W. in the same thread. It just boggled my mind.
By the way, I'll let you in on a secret: When somebody says "You are only saying that because of your party affiliation!", they are actually telling you how they think and where their words come from. Watch them -- the ones who say that are always the ones whose egos are joined at the hip to whatever political group they support.
Me, I look at individuals and what they say, not whatever granfaloon they say they're part of. You could probably describe my views generally as being liberal, but I'm not dumb enough to think I'll agree with someone just because they use the same word to describe their values. Just like I'm a Christian but I don't automatically trust anyone who claims to be one too.
gloves? that's funny as hell :)
:)
In fact they gave each customer a glove, and asked you to specify if you were right or left handed. I thought that was extra amusing. I never saw the glove, but I imagined that it was white and covered in rhinestones.
But the real solution would have been to put a freely turnable section on the top of the joystick's... stick. That way the top remains static to your palm instead of turning around, which would the major blister-former.
That's a good idea, actually. Probably would have cost more than the glove.
and TP does an exceptional job at that, it's a shame that it doesn't get as good of reviews as a truly revolutionary game... seeing as though it's purpose is to be evolutionary.
I agree with your observations, but I repeat that I see nothing wrong with a Revolutionary game getting better reviews than one that is merely Evolutionary, even if Evolutionary is all the latter game was aiming for.
Besides, at 11th place on the all time list with a score of 95.6%, 0.1% lower than the revolutionary Mario 64, it isn't as though TWP got significantly worse reviews. For about a week, it was at #2 on the all-time list. It just ended up with a few more 9s and 8s than OoT did once more reviews came in.
You can call us "heretics" all you like. But we have just as much right to define the Zelda canon as you do! And we say the holy CD-i titles are just as sacred as the rest!
Oh I will gladly call you a heretic, ye who worships false works of blasphemy against His Holiness Miyamoto -- who designeth forever and ever. As far as your right to define Zelda canon, me and my mob of Deku Stick and Red Candle wielding faithful disagree. Let the lynching begin. Mario be praised!
The classic controller won't work for GC games? That's lame. Especially because like you say it is essentially an analog of the GC controller -- except with the face buttons done right, and the left analog controller done wrong (yes, the place where the Dual Shock puts the left analog stick is WRONG, an artifact of its PS1 heritage).
I do have to wonder why you've got a bunch of GC games you want to play, but no GC controller. I guess if you were buying a Wii and never owned a GC it would make sense to pick up some GC games from the bargain bin. So yeah, that's pretty lame. At least I still have my Wavebird.
Nintendo is generally responsive to this kind of thing, even if they could be excused for not thinking it was actually their fault (do makers of baseball equipment get sued when someone lets go of a bat and it hits something?).
Back when Mario Party 1 came out, and there were the analog stick spinning games, Nintendo received many complaints from players getting blisters in the middle of their palm, since the fastest way to spin the stick was to put your palm on it and move your hand in circles. I myself got one and wore out a glove besides but it never occured to me to blame nintendo. Nintendo, under pressure (and maybe a lawsuit) from customers, decided to give out gloves to anyone who wanted one and removed the spinning games from future titles.
Also considering their commitment to making astoundingly durable machines, I'm surprised that the straps weren't sturdy enough in the first place. That is a pretty serious oversight.
There was no such thing as the CD-i, and obviously then there could not have been such a thing as CD-i Zelda games.
Stop spreading your evil lies, heretic!
You're just as dangerous as those sinners who claim that the Wachowskis made not just one, but two sequels to The Matrix. Burn the lot of ya, I say!
Oh, forgot to reply to this:
Unfortunately, it's holding at 11th best game at GameRankings.com, when OoT has always remained #1... strangely, however, almost everyone who pits it against OoT agrees that it is a far superior game, so I don't know how they get off with that.
Gamerankings goes off of review scores, and the majority of reviews for OoT were shortly after it came out. So at the time it came out OoT got better reviews than TWP is getting today.
I think this is perfectly legitimate. OoT is a great game even by todays standards, but when it came out it was truly groundbreaking, and it defined 3D adventure gaming for that and subsequent generations up to and including TWP. It makes perfect sense that reviewers of the day were absolutely blown away by it, even if the same people would today say that TWP is the better game. This may be true (still no Wii or TWP to say so myself), but TWP is also quite clearly not the groundbreaking title OoT was way back in 1998. So reviewers in 1998 were not only responding to how great OoT was, but also the fact that you'd never played anything like it before. Reviewers in 2006 are giving TWP high rankings for being awesome, but it gets no extra credit for being unique. It's the games that revolutionize gaming that deserve recognition as the best ever, in my opinion, and thus the fact that gamerankings ranks games based on their perception at the time of release is ideal.
Most of us got over the "but it looks like it's for little kids" bullshit, the artistic style was the least of my worries (as well as most other people who finally played it, that I've talked with), but the "huge boring ocean" does really cut into the enjoyment factor quite a bit
Since I'm an adult who loves animation, I loved the style since it's is basically a perfect interactive cartoon.
The "huge boring ocean", though, was terrible. It was in fact big and boring, it added little to the game, even just changing directions was a chore. The game would have been better without the triforce scavenger hunt, even though the result would have been noticeably shorter. On my second play through the game, I stopped at the point where I had to get the triforce simply because I couldn't bear to do it, even though the payoff would is the best end-of-game fight with Ganon in the entire series.
But barring all that and major changes like actually finishing the game -- I wish they had at least tweaked the visual style for the water, simply because you spend so much time staring at it! While superficially matching the rest of the style, it was actually the worst place to use it just because solid blue with white triangle waves is so boring compared to the dynamic shadows of the rest of the game. Look at something like Mario Sunshine, which combined cartoony characters with very well-done water. I think that would have worked very well in WW, and maybe made the sailing slightly less boring.