This reminds me of the "Late Night" wars about a decade or so ago (maybe more). Letterman had one. Leno had one. Arsinio had one (whoo whoo whoo). Dennis Miller had one. Chevy Chase had one. There just wasn't enough interest to sustain them all.
Despite the bizarre belief of executives to the contrary, I don't see more than three (probably only one or two) becoming truly long-term. I don't know which since I have never actually shelled out the dough for any of them.
I think the real name of the game is content. A rich world is a good starting line, but to keep your players interested in logging in over and over again, you need an immersive world and an engaging plot, something the ST world has always lacked (oh no a horrible disease/energy field/creature has immobilized all of the crew except for one member who managed to resuce them all. Whew! It's a good thing there was a vulcan/borg/telepath/android on board. Vary situation and rescuer at will).
What about the 9/11 commission? I think it's fair to say that they were quite successful in leaving personal politics aside in attempting to apprehend actual causes for the attacks and recommending proactive solutions to prevent a recurrance of such attacks.
It's worth noting that the Bush administration fought the creation of this commission, as well as the implementation of its recommendations, but I don't feel the commission was particularly biased (Wesley Clark criticized the report's retiscence to condemn the iraq war as an action that made America less safe).
In any case, I do think it's possible to find independent individuals.
"If you're not on the edge you're taking up too much space!"
That might be applicable for surfing, but anyone who has is a chronic early-adopter has been burned by New-Amazing-Technology(tm) time and time again (My father is one of these, he's purchased betamax machines, laserdisc players, Newtons, eBooks, etc.).
Unless there is a truly compelling reason to go with the new, different technology (i.e. it's either this or 56k, or its marginally cheaper), stick with what works.
I would write more, but my Commodore-64 is acting up.
It makes no more sense for a game audio programmer to mimic a string quartet as it does for a flutist to make his instrument sound like a kazoo.
If a string quartet makes the game more entertaining than it makes perfect sense. Computer games are immersive environments, and the goal has been to make them more and more realistic with the (I assume) eventuality that at some point "players" will be unable to distinguish between simulated and actual reality.
I see no reason why game developers should strive to make their games obviously illusory. In fact, most of the gaming community has quite obviously voted with their pocketbooks for realism.
Now, this doesn't mean that I don't think there is room for innovation in game audio, but it's absurd to think we should throw out techniques that have been successful in other media just because it's a computer game.
Having a symphony orchestra kick in as you're avatar is walking along is more cinematic than realistic but again, the point is to entertain. Why shouldn't a game be as compelling and immersive as a film?
Oh, and what's so bad about kazoos anyway? P.D.Q. Bach has done some pretty entertaining work with kazoos. This is often, in fact, the only original aspect of his work. P.D.Q. like the game devlopers, was heavily criticized for his "excessive borrowing".
Copied or not it's entertaining which, after all, is the goal.
Typing fast is all well and good, but the real skill is being able to quickly formulate what you should be typing.
If I'm a hiring manager for a job that uses computers, I'm going to expect that you know how to use a keyboard with a reasonable level of productivity. The only reason I would care about your typing speed is if you're doing data entry (i.e. a task where thinking is totally unnecessary).
The reason isn't because I don't want more complex work done quickly, but because the bottleneck isn't how fast a hypothetical worker can spit words out of their fingertips but the quality of those words. Whether you are writing code (where I'm going to care about ultimate efficiency and syntax and readability, not to mention documentation) or a press release (where I'm going to care about vocabulary, tone and marketing), the work that's happening in an employees head is much more important than the speed at which the keys are clicking.
I'm not sure if someone else has already mentioned this (I admit, I skim), but the book that really thrilled my geeky heart was flatland. I read it when I was 15 and I think my head was swimming in the land of tesseracts for weeks afterwards.
Other geeky books that I enjoyed were Godel Escher Bach, Brief History of Time, HHGTTG, and even the sequals/homages to flatland (spaceland had a fun climax what with the protagonist literally anchoring three-dimentional space together with his body).
This is still an immature market no matter what anyone says. I'm the perfect user for this sort of thing (make my own hours, disposable income, and a geek), but none of these established MMOGs have kicked my can. I did consider Everquest, but it just seemed like the same monster-killing over and over again, with no compelling plot. And you can have all the pretty graphics and explosions in the world, but that doesn't make a good experience (Jonny Mnemonic anyone?)
I think WoW is going to be compelling and profitable and thus, the new standard by which all the others are going to be judged. I know I'm going to try it out.
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of the "Late Night" wars about a decade or so ago (maybe more). Letterman had one. Leno had one. Arsinio had one (whoo whoo whoo). Dennis Miller had one. Chevy Chase had one. There just wasn't enough interest to sustain them all.
Despite the bizarre belief of executives to the contrary, I don't see more than three (probably only one or two) becoming truly long-term. I don't know which since I have never actually shelled out the dough for any of them.
I think the real name of the game is content. A rich world is a good starting line, but to keep your players interested in logging in over and over again, you need an immersive world and an engaging plot, something the ST world has always lacked (oh no a horrible disease/energy field/creature has immobilized all of the crew except for one member who managed to resuce them all. Whew! It's a good thing there was a vulcan/borg/telepath/android on board. Vary situation and rescuer at will).
What about the 9/11 commission? I think it's fair to say that they were quite successful in leaving personal politics aside in attempting to apprehend actual causes for the attacks and recommending proactive solutions to prevent a recurrance of such attacks.
It's worth noting that the Bush administration fought the creation of this commission, as well as the implementation of its recommendations, but I don't feel the commission was particularly biased (Wesley Clark criticized the report's retiscence to condemn the iraq war as an action that made America less safe).
In any case, I do think it's possible to find independent individuals.
"If you're not on the edge you're taking up too much space!"
That might be applicable for surfing, but anyone who has is a chronic early-adopter has been burned by New-Amazing-Technology(tm) time and time again (My father is one of these, he's purchased betamax machines, laserdisc players, Newtons, eBooks, etc.).
Unless there is a truly compelling reason to go with the new, different technology (i.e. it's either this or 56k, or its marginally cheaper), stick with what works.
I would write more, but my Commodore-64 is acting up.
It makes no more sense for a game audio programmer to mimic a string quartet as it does for a flutist to make his instrument sound like a kazoo.
If a string quartet makes the game more entertaining than it makes perfect sense. Computer games are immersive environments, and the goal has been to make them more and more realistic with the (I assume) eventuality that at some point "players" will be unable to distinguish between simulated and actual reality.
I see no reason why game developers should strive to make their games obviously illusory. In fact, most of the gaming community has quite obviously voted with their pocketbooks for realism .
Now, this doesn't mean that I don't think there is room for innovation in game audio, but it's absurd to think we should throw out techniques that have been successful in other media just because it's a computer game.
Having a symphony orchestra kick in as you're avatar is walking along is more cinematic than realistic but again, the point is to entertain. Why shouldn't a game be as compelling and immersive as a film?
Oh, and what's so bad about kazoos anyway? P.D.Q. Bach has done some pretty entertaining work with kazoos. This is often, in fact, the only original aspect of his work. P.D.Q. like the game devlopers, was heavily criticized for his "excessive borrowing".
Copied or not it's entertaining which, after all, is the goal.
Typing fast is all well and good, but the real skill is being able to quickly formulate what you should be typing.
If I'm a hiring manager for a job that uses computers, I'm going to expect that you know how to use a keyboard with a reasonable level of productivity. The only reason I would care about your typing speed is if you're doing data entry (i.e. a task where thinking is totally unnecessary).
The reason isn't because I don't want more complex work done quickly, but because the bottleneck isn't how fast a hypothetical worker can spit words out of their fingertips but the quality of those words. Whether you are writing code (where I'm going to care about ultimate efficiency and syntax and readability, not to mention documentation) or a press release (where I'm going to care about vocabulary, tone and marketing), the work that's happening in an employees head is much more important than the speed at which the keys are clicking.yeah, I've read it...like flatland only moreso ;)
I still enjoyed the original best.
I'm not sure if someone else has already mentioned this (I admit, I skim), but the book that really thrilled my geeky heart was flatland. I read it when I was 15 and I think my head was swimming in the land of tesseracts for weeks afterwards. Other geeky books that I enjoyed were Godel Escher Bach, Brief History of Time, HHGTTG, and even the sequals/homages to flatland (spaceland had a fun climax what with the protagonist literally anchoring three-dimentional space together with his body).
man, that really takes me back. I still remember having a great time playing Wasteland on my Apple 2. Anyone else remember the URABUTLN puzzle?
I think this article was pretty spot-on.
This is still an immature market no matter what anyone says. I'm the perfect user for this sort of thing (make my own hours, disposable income, and a geek), but none of these established MMOGs have kicked my can. I did consider Everquest, but it just seemed like the same monster-killing over and over again, with no compelling plot. And you can have all the pretty graphics and explosions in the world, but that doesn't make a good experience (Jonny Mnemonic anyone?)
I think WoW is going to be compelling and profitable and thus, the new standard by which all the others are going to be judged. I know I'm going to try it out.
Still looking forward to part 2