From the Scientific American interview:
"KW: How deep are the waters surrounding Flores?
PB:...We know Stegodon, like elephants, could swim large distances. Elephants are occasionally found five to 10 kilometers out to sea, and Flores is not so far from Komodo, and Komodo is not so far from the other islands in the chain. So you can easily think of elephant relatives swimming across here....The queston is whether [early humans] used watercraft..."
The answer is obvious. Hobbits rode on elephants to the islands.
I went from D&D to AD&D2ed, somehow skipping 1st edition...
In 'normal' D&D it was rather simplistic. Your choices for what to play were basically fighter, thief, cleric, mage, dwarf, elf, halfling. Good for getting new people into roleplaying without 10 different rulebooks.
AD&D opened up the doors to class / race combinations, was a lot more rule-heavy, and let them sell a slew of new books.
I played a good bit of pen-and-paper D&D back in the day. I remember ignoring most of the rules and dice rolls entirely. The biggest rule, was that all the rules were optional. D&D was about having a good time.
In computer games, the rules sometimes get in the way of the fun (see TOEE). Your character is more a collection of numbers than a person. Sure, you could play pen-and-paper like that too, but you would have to be pretty anal.
The beauty of video games is the choices given to the player of a game. This is completely different from any other media. No matter the theme of a movie, it is delivered in an authoritarian fashion. Movies are always the same experience which the viewer has no control over.
While the American culture has a bias towards individualism, not all cultures do. Video games let the people of those cultures make choices they otherwise could not. It lets them experiment with true freedom of choice, morality, forms of government and other themes. In a MUD or MMORPG setting, it lets players see how their actions compare to actions of other international players.
Modern video games allow one to transcend their culture, and act as they desire. When someone is allowed to make choices not normally allowed by their culture, it is truly revolutionary.
Altruism is giving of yourself while expecting nothing in return.
When you act as a good team player in CS, or even a military in RL, you expect something in return. Victory, awards, recognition, pride, etc. Team play happens to be the best way to achieve a selfish result.
It will be interesting to see if a subscription-based FPS will profit. MMORPGs are constantly updated, and are practically designed to addict the player with timesinks and level treadmills. I suspect a MMOFPS will have a harder time retaining players over the long-term.
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Why did they not simply graph the votes that Kerry was present for? In that case, his voting record places Kerry to the left.
From the Scientific American interview: ...We know Stegodon, like elephants, could swim large distances. Elephants are occasionally found five to 10 kilometers out to sea, and Flores is not so far from Komodo, and Komodo is not so far from the other islands in the chain. So you can easily think of elephant relatives swimming across here. ...The queston is whether [early humans] used watercraft..."
"KW: How deep are the waters surrounding Flores?
PB:
The answer is obvious. Hobbits rode on elephants to the islands.
...to screw in a lightbulb?
Obviously there arent enough.
I went from D&D to AD&D2ed, somehow skipping 1st edition...
In 'normal' D&D it was rather simplistic. Your choices for what to play were basically fighter, thief, cleric, mage, dwarf, elf, halfling. Good for getting new people into roleplaying without 10 different rulebooks.
AD&D opened up the doors to class / race combinations, was a lot more rule-heavy, and let them sell a slew of new books.
I played a good bit of pen-and-paper D&D back in the day. I remember ignoring most of the rules and dice rolls entirely. The biggest rule, was that all the rules were optional. D&D was about having a good time.
In computer games, the rules sometimes get in the way of the fun (see TOEE). Your character is more a collection of numbers than a person. Sure, you could play pen-and-paper like that too, but you would have to be pretty anal.
The beauty of video games is the choices given to the player of a game. This is completely different from any other media. No matter the theme of a movie, it is delivered in an authoritarian fashion. Movies are always the same experience which the viewer has no control over.
While the American culture has a bias towards individualism, not all cultures do. Video games let the people of those cultures make choices they otherwise could not. It lets them experiment with true freedom of choice, morality, forms of government and other themes. In a MUD or MMORPG setting, it lets players see how their actions compare to actions of other international players.
Modern video games allow one to transcend their culture, and act as they desire. When someone is allowed to make choices not normally allowed by their culture, it is truly revolutionary.
Do not confuse altruism with team play.
Altruism is giving of yourself while expecting nothing in return.
When you act as a good team player in CS, or even a military in RL, you expect something in return. Victory, awards, recognition, pride, etc. Team play happens to be the best way to achieve a selfish result.
God forbid. Blizzard would never go out on a limb like that.
It will be interesting to see if a subscription-based FPS will profit. MMORPGs are constantly updated, and are practically designed to addict the player with timesinks and level treadmills. I suspect a MMOFPS will have a harder time retaining players over the long-term.