Hate replying to my own post to correct what I've said but...WC4 was actually moderately successful despite the huge budget, and these days is considered the pinnacle of the series and sort of a culmination of the Blair character by Hamill.
That said WC4 wasn't really a role-playing game, although there was an element of that right through the game that had you choose dialogue to determine which video sequences you'd be shown and ultimately the ending to the entire plot.
I admit that I'm a little nostalgic for FMVs in games, but probably because I was young and more of an avid Win95/PSX gamer at the time. These days FMVs aren't favoured, and it appears to me that many game developers are striving to make their sequences more like an FMV in terms of characters appearing human (mimicking Avatar). But why do that when you could just shoot traditional film anyhow? Or abstain from all the expense and focus on the plot, writing, and development?
There was some character driven content in Chrono Trigger but broadly speaking you are right. But I can't think of any games from the 16-bit era that acheived this end.
One of the first games I remember that attempted character driven plotting was PC game Wing Commander IV from 1995, which had full motion video sequence shot on actual sets with no bluescreen. That worked alright but the massive cost of the sets, actors and development (circa $12 million dollars) made the game unsuccessful but a notable turning point: The plot was nothing too special, but the portrayals by Malcolm McDowell and Hamill made the story.
Funnily enough, Hamill was given dialogue that to me (an adult too young to have experienced the first Star Wars trilogy first hand) was overall superior to his lines from any of the Star Wars films. With that game we had a decent tale told, but the outlandish budget made it a massive risk for Origin Systems. Fortunately it paid off.
In the context of this topic I suppose you can take stock from the events around Wing Commander IV. FMVs are generally pricy and were used mainly in the 1990s, but actors who do only voice can lend plenty of character to who/what they portray without FMVs being necessary. Any animated game or film (recent Toy Story being an example) attests to that.
That's entirely correct; however we're not talking about the situation with big titles in 1995 here, we're talking about the present day which is different by a long shot.
I don't understand why we divorce the concept of a blockbuster (in the financially well-performing sense) title and the potential success of a title which constitutes a 'modest' budget in 2010:
I think you'd find what qualifies as modest now would certainly be in the realms of Chrono Trigger's production budget and given technological and operational advances over 15 years would look more advanced anyhow. Your 'Dream Team' could be assembled from gifted artists and story writers, and the emphasis could be on a unique appearance rather than being a juggernaut graphics-wise. I've no doubt that with a relatively small team, this hypothetical game would have enough money left for a decent marketing campaign.
The Wii has shown us that big markets can thrive with games that have 'primitive' graphics. The reasons why this principle cannot be taken up by developers in the RPG market in earnest across the board are complex, but to me add up to a sobering reflection on the pigheaded mentality of gaming houses in this age of disproportionate budgets.
Did you enjoy Dragon Age before or after the bugs that were not fixed until late February; close to four months after release in a patch which itself caused further issues?
My beef with DA is that it lacked a convincing villain. We had a big bunch of orc-like Darkspawn, led by an infested dragon who periodically rose up to take over the world. The motives therein were not addressed at all; apparently motives were revealed in the expansion but since I never bought that having heard mixed reviews about...the plot.
None of the richness of the Jon Irenicus character; he was just one elf with prodigious talent who had been treated appallingly by his own people and as such became evil and sought revenge. But he felt a lot more intriguing and threatening than the thousands of darkspawn. His dialogue was a major driving point for Shadows of Amn - far more compelling than the grunts of darkspawn and the mighty roar of its Old God dragon.
Don't get me wrong, DA was a good RPG. I got over 100 hours out of it; but it never got me thinking like Shadows of Amn. You're entitled to your opinion, but you have to admit that there's an argument that DA's plot was inferior to Baldur's Gate 2's.
Also BG2's budget was small in comparison to DA's; true it was big budget at the time. But the time was 2000; a decade ago when things hadn't got quite as out of proportion in spending/graphical terms as they are today in 2010.
I agree with most of what you say; I remember suffering through Dragon Age's RAM-eating problems in which over time it would consume increasing RAM...before loading times ended up around 10-20 minutes on even the most powerful rigs. That this wasn't patched for months was pretty awful, and left a lot of customers wondering why this hadn't been ironed out during pre-release playtesting.
Economically yes they don't 'need' to abandon their cash cows at the top-end. Survival is likely if they remain there. But for reasons we've both elaborated on it would be better for gamers as a whole if they at minimum experimented with modest budgeting and graphics and bring out some new games.
I applied the term 'need' in the sense of that it would be for the good of the RPG genre. For RPGs on any platform to improve the need is for less focus on filmlike production and multimillion dollar budgets, and more on what has always made RPGs what they are; storyline, character-driven dialogue and novel elements unique to each game: I've already outlined reasons this would be beneficial, as did you in your fine post.
If by the future you mean Bioware's future then you may well be right. But since Bioware is one company among many, and other RPGs with less flash and more moderate graphics like The Witcher (once it got its bugs fixed and was expanded) beat the epically-styled stalwart Dragon Age in plot and gameplay terms...I do not think Bioware's pigheadedness (should it stand) will be all that much of a loss. This is my opinion; but in the Witcher with Geralt I saw more appeal than with any of DA's characters.
There's obviously a comprimise between a small Chrono Trigger type production and the massive budget, overelaborate epics. It will be economic conditions that play the biggest part rather than the voices of individual gamers; people have whined about gameplay getting sacrificed over graphics for a long time.
Doing away with the compulsion of graphics-focused games only needs to occur with one gaming house and for them to then attain success with a modestly budgeted title. Though the fixation on polygons is pretty entrenched, there is a hope that some will jettison that outlook and embark on making quality content.
The indie games do hark back to about twenty years ago, often having a single, original concept that keeps one interested or even addicted for a time. It may be that indie developers play a part in reversing the 'progression' towards lifelike graphics with their own titles.
Bridge Commander felt like playing an above-average plot arc during one of the later TNG or DS9 seasons; the staff on board for the writing fits with this concept. A notable exception was that you as the commander never went on away missions - navigating an area on a planet was never implemented.
The gaming did become repititive; hitting the underside of a few Cardassian Galors with torpedos became less a novel strategy and more routine humdrum. I did get about 30-40 hours out of it which isn't bad for a game. I guess we have to remember that Trek games haven't had as much of an illustrious history as Star Wars has.
Bugs are expected with any modern game; it's not of matter of if but rather how many. I guess the point in my original post was that ST:O is just another average MMOG - yes it isn't awful or unplayable or ends up with a life cycle of under 12 months...but it isn't a classic that redefines anything profoundly for the genre.
This is the broad opinion of most player reviews I've perused as well as gaming reviewers; and whilst the gaming press are shameless when it comes to being on the take to express views disproportionate to reality on this title I think they got it about right:
Unless you are fond of grinding, and what MMORPGs have generally played like for the past decade or so, you may find that ST:O gets 'a bit boring in the long run' as well after the novelty of the Trek franchise wears off. Unless that is you are a big fan who sees merit in the plots of quests, and if that is the case then kudos to that crowd for being dedicated trekkers.
Bioware needs to jump ship from the cinematic epic and graphics shell game and take stock of the history behind RPG gaming.
If the Indie gaming scene is anything to go by, funds and personnel do not a great game make. Why don't Bioware practice what they preach and make a low-budget series, with the chief emphasis on hiring talented personnel with experience playing the finest RPGs of the past twenty years. It sure beats hiring expensive singers for your musical score, scores of artists and programmers, not to mention the marketing bill which inevitably follows big budget titles.
Gaming ought to, to some extent, go back to its roots by abandoning the constant, unending improvement of graphical quality to the neglect of gameplay. I started gaming as a kid in 1991 and have more memories from the 1991-1997 time bracket than 2005-2010. The only outstanding memory of Mass Effect I have is of Shephard emerging, alive and well, after a boss battle with a soaring musical score playing and stoical gaze on the part of the character - I wasn't awed or impressed, but amused as it outcome was obvious even before the tension of "Where's Shephard gone?!" played out for a minute.
On the contrary, Chrono Trigger, a simple RPG with graphics not much beyond classic Link to the Past, has so many memories with its 16-bit score and pixelated graphics. The budget and levels of personnel are dwarfed by these cinematic titles out today. I could ramble on about more titles as example but I believe most readers browsing games.slashdot can fathom a few personally.
All I've heard about this MMORPG is its mediocrity. Whether it be its mixed reviews, low scores from players across all the review sites - or simply the fact that Star Trek Online does little to actually expand the frontiers of MMOGs; the glaring fact is that STO is just a forgettable game that is too entrenched in tried-and-tested formula to merit excitement. The grinding crutch that most games of the genre rely upon to retain players is very much intact in STO. I guess for diehard fans who make up much of the game's audience it can provide a great experience in the Trek universe, and there were clearly some competant artists employed to recreate Trek in this fashion.
However whereas EVE which is unique among MMOGs int that actually carving out an adventure or saga of one's own which can (albeit rarely) become something significant for many and even 'make history' as it were...STO just doesn't offer that. A friend of mine who partook in the beta lamented the lack of ease in gathering people together for activity, and as you'd expect from something so generic the philosophical and wondrous elements of finer episodes of Trek are mostly absent too.
If one is looking to experience life in the Trek universe then - as is true with many well-established franchises - one can look to past consoles and eras for Trek themed games: I don't mean pedestrian FPSs like Voyager Elite Force, but earlier with consoles such as the Amiga or early Windows titles: Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity and the 25th Anneversary edition (for fans of the original 1960s show). Oh yeah, more recent is Bridge Commander which I personally enjoyed for a good long while back in 2003.
Primarily it's these two that stood out in the 1990s era, but there are more worth playing: This page is a good point of reference. Acquiring the titles on PC whether emulated or not is not too much trouble in many cases with the titles mentioned.
What previous commenters have been saying is true; there's relatively little by way of gaming on the Java platform despite its long prolificacy compared to HTML 5. HTML 5 is obviously still emergent; it could be over a decade until all its potential for gaming is realized. I was actually thinking of this the other week...a HTML 5 short RPG game of say, 3-5 hours worth of character-driven plotted content. It'd be novel to say the least and could be with us soon.
Another thing that's got me wondering is how Flash-based game sites such as Newgrounds.com are going to adapt if (when?) Flash becomes less relevant for the Internet wholesale. I think the idea of Java being expanded to fit the myriad creations of that site's community is less than realistic in the face of the progression of HTML 5. One thing that Flash has over HTML is a program which simplifies the whole shebang of making an animation without having to write much code (Actionscript). Though it is pretty awful in this day and age, almost 30 years after the C64, for people to consider Actionscript's (a mostly Flash-native language) advantagious to their own productive capacity when it comes to games it nevertheless is a factor in Flash remaining at the top of the games market for so long.
Looking at it that way, were people interested in creating games to switch over to HTML5 they'd obviously have a lot of skill to apply in other areas which are discussed regularly on Slashdot. Actionscript doesn't offer this, and is inferior as a result.
I know that making sweeping generalizations isn't wise, a lot of the time.
If you're so right, how come so many politicians have found themselves in scandal over support for certain vested interests?
What about the upper civil service both in the UK and US, which constantly holds meetings behind closed doors in order to consolidate their own power and incomes? Military-industrial complex has probably done quite a bit of beneficial hobnobbing with politicians; it has mostly led to beneficial outcomes...can't see anyone running for the hills when that lot's in trouble.
I could do you a nice list of things in business and in the public sector which quietly request assistance on matters, and get it.
Before we get excited at the prospect of this guy winning against Facebook, it's worth reminding ourselves that Zuckerberg - founder/owner of Facebook - is heavily ingratiated with a number of high profile political figures.
An example would be a video chat he held with UK Prime Minister David Cameron just a few days ago, the courteousness all too apparant. I can't remember a firm being seriously damaged through the legal system so soon after establishing itself as a ubiquitous and accepted tool by the establishment. The hoohah over the panic button they're now putting in to 'protect the children' is proof that Zuckerberg's cavalier attitude towards privacy will stand, and that we can expect more of the same from Facebook in coming years.
The most feasible way for Facebook to become less influential would not be financial woes through lawsuits...it would have to be another exodus of the same flavour that led to Myspace's relatively irrelevant/musically inclined position. But pride does come before a fall though, and arrogance is certainly something young Zuck isn't short of.
Virtually all people won't really notice anything regards 64-bit's transition. I also believe the RAM-limiting elements of x86 were the primary reason for the weighty promotion behind the 64 bit architecture in home computing.
But I also recall 2001 and people mentioning the 'huge' 4GB limit; nobody knew quite when it would be met. However by 2003-4 it was becoming clear that random access capacity growth wouldn't be slowing for a long time. That it took about 8 years since XP's October 2001 release for high-end gaming PCs to outclass the boundaries of Windows x86 is pretty decent when you observe past MS OSs and the duration they have for the 'average' consumer (ie. person who goes to Best Buy or PC World for hardware and support) .
Sycraft-fu, I've been looking for a post of yours in an appropriate topic. I wanted to apologize for this post of mine which was made a few days ago. I'd had a pretty crap day and felt pessimistic enough to author what was a pisspoor, meaningless comment as you rightly noted.
Samzenpus himself rarely writes comments in his own Idle posts. Also I don't think I've actually seen anybody on Slashdot write a passionate defence of his postings since Idle was created, infact the majority of people who talk about him do so in a critical or disapproving tone. Many people just block Idle altogether.
Based on this, whoever modded my original post 'flamebait' isn't thinking straight...because even if it was intended as such (it wasn't) nobody would rise to the 'bait' and flame me in defence of an editor who many would agree is Slashdot's worst.
Hey samzenpus, since many of your Idle submissions put you roughly on the level of primate intelligence relative to most other Slashdot editors (except kdawson who is roughly as clever as a dolphin) - why don't you sign up as pack leader for the Taliban monkeys?
Firstly your small, spry body complete with ridged forehead and prolific chest/back hair would allow you to blend in with many other monkeys. Imagine how awesome your blog would be until a drone riddled your platoon of chimps - you, the lone survivor sprinted off screeching about how anti-USA you'd be as you posted Idle submissions in future.
Your experience in dealing with your own tick infestations, penchant for inane screeching as you watch humorous videogame parody videos, and brilliant moral boosting communacative skills make you prime(ate) material.
One of the most obvious things about the development of 64-bit architecture is how woefully behind its 32-bit counterpart just a few years ago. I had a spare rig which I put XP 64 on in around spring of 2007. The low level of development together with the fact that powerful machines did not often have more than 4GB back then meant little incentive for devs to put time in 64-bit. I couldn't even find hardware drivers, and this led my disgruntled self to format that particular rig, whilst telling myself to research this stuff in future.
I believe Microsoft deserves some cred, along with certain hardware firms like AMD/Intel, with bringing 64 bit to the fore. Not to mention the PS3 and some Macs being of that architecture too. Ironically Microsoft's most stunted OS since the much maligned Windows ME was the first one that could run 64 bit convincingly despite a laundry list of flaws that haunted the entire life cycle of that particular product. Windows 7 is in some ways like XP was to ME a whole 9 years ago.
Whilst it's great for RAM purposes, and thus demanding things like gaming which will soon require 6GB or more for popular titles there are drawbacks. A file in 64 bit takes up more memory, mainly due to alignment padding. Thus one needs a fairly good set of chips to cache efficiently in future years as the levels of memory inevitably increase. However with the amount of progress going on I daresay all but the most budget hardware solutions will tackle drawbacks very well.
That the figure is now 50% compared to about a fifth of that not long ago is indicative that 64-bit has finally become established in the mainstream.
An earlier post speculated that this clothing is basically useless except to environmentalist types who brag about how their clothes are ultra-green. Nevermind that the non-existant aesthetic would put off most people you encounter; plus its obvious that wearing papery material means that you cannot stay in the rain for long, have to be careful removing and putting on the garment, and can't count on it lasting for long in the face of ordinary wear and tear. All in all, worse even than the thinnest of thin cotton shirts you get from markets and shops like Primark.
Papyrus, the ancient world's precursor to paper, is as the summary states similar to this stuff. Oh and if you chose to wear papyrus you'd be just as green since it is predominantly the pith from the papyrus plant which isn't remotely threatened as a species. It made its appearance in Egypt over three thousand years back but never saw wide use in clothing due to tried and tested plant fiber proving infinitely better.
With the regression of freedoms in the western world (Anglosphere especially) , we can draw parallels with situations that've arose in our own countries. Truth be told, when authority is sufficiently potent it will attempt to sweep anything that suggests shortcomings on its part firmly under the carpet. In the end people are less informed, and in this case when we've a health matter it's obviously counter to the well-being of the population at large to suppress stories like this one. AIDS is a big problem in China; not nearly the same level as it is in sub-saharan Africa, but nevertheless it is a large public health concern on around the same level as the US or parts of Europe.
It's news because of how much we ourselves have shifted in that direction, under guise of 'stopping the terrorists' or 'protecting the children' or any other stock reason that gets trotted out every time something oppressive gets on the statute. Unlike the past where authoritarian soceity spawned from power-hungry people after a revolution, our journey in that direction is an evolutionary process; a softly, softly approach.
I've spoken with individuals from China over the years; they know perfectly well how corrupt and rotten the whole Communist party is from the honchos in Beijing to the district governors, to petty civil servants. The whole system is infested with crooks and sanctimonious hypocrites; it actually makes the British or US government seem rather decent in comparison. But even though many Chinese are aware of this, it doesn't alleviate the fact they're denied knowledge which could well help in the battle with HIV. That some person under an assumption of their own moral superiority would deny people knowledge about something like this and send some thugs over to pester the creator of the work is pretty appalling.
That post was mine by the way (Robotron23) - for the second time either Slashdot 2.0 or myself has checked the Anonymous posting box.
To make this post worthwhile...we'd probably have to attach some sort of legislation when asteroid mining becomes feasible. Something along the lines of a scientific analysis, due to the massive wealth of historical information these bodies hold on the early history of our solar system. I once heard a theory that the asteroid belt was actually once a planet...but Jupiter's gravity pulled it into fragments. Evidence of such an event would be valuable in a scientific capacity.
It's pretty sad when topics like this come along and the discussion on Slashdot is so minimal; I grew up on Heinlein, Clarke, PKD, Foundation series and all those greats; topics like ESA's analysis of 21 Lutetia are prime news for nerds. Long after Apple or Microsoft or anything else we talk about so much are dead and gone...all these things will still be up there, as will all the mystery.
I share your amazement, and the notion you mentioned can be extended to everyday matters too.
A friend of mine had to get permission for use of an image from a fellow in Arizona recently, she being in Britain (as am I). The fellow granted permission the same afternoon, which for some reason got me thinking about all the headache the Internet takes away with communication. That same thing would have taken closer to two weeks pre-Internet, and the time and cost would be higher.
Hubble's images are just the same; some are vivid and beautiful, and even more have merit for science and astronomy. Hubble has in the past been focused on certain phenomena and has photographed them continuously over hours or days; if this counts of observance (albeit infrequently updated), then it's all the more amazing because we're talking distances of light years, not millions of kilometres. This distance was impossible even 30 or 40 years ago.
The only thing I personally find dismaying about all this amazing progress is the sheer ignorance of the majority towards it. An ordinary person might remark on it all from time to time ('It's great the stuff we have nowadays.") but few have a geniunely appreciative interest or a will to somehow contribute. The men responsible for all this stuff have always been and will be for the foreseeable future, a minescule minority.
I spotted a post on Slashdot a couple of weeks ago which pointed out a couple of advantages of exploring the asteroid belt as a rich source of minerals and possible mining. On this strength of that brief but well worded comment I did some research myself and right now I'm currently reading the only book I could find that seemed accessible enough to a person with limited knowledge of space mining and the possibilities therein: (Mining the Sky by John S. Lewi). This as opposed to planets or moons which carry with them an atmosphere. Most of the prime candidates there possess thick atmospheres that carry a massive burden of cost for any robotic or manned mission to bring back much of anything for purposes of study or (looking further ahead) economic purposes.
Asteroids by definition lack atmosphere, being in layman's terms large rocks with a pretty huge size variance. Anyone who has read Greg Bear's Eon will be able to appreciate the magnitude of some of the bigger asteroids. With present-day technology, were the funding and the will present we could in two or three decades time extract dozens of kilos of material from an asteroid and, though risk would be a factor, ferry all of that back to Earth. That's hundreds of kilos of precious material if an initial group of say ten were launched. However speaking realistically giving the sheer amount of difficulty space has had in recent decades, plus other projects eating up chunks of NASA/ESA/Roscosmos/JAXA budget, we're looking at much lower amounts. That we have publicly funded projects as opposed to privately spearheaded initiatives in the present day doesn't help; space agencies do not seek to maximize monetary profit.
A small asteroid typically contains trillions of dollars in valuable metals. It doesn't take a genius to infer that investment in research leading to the mining of these bodies could make a profit. The return on capital employed (ROCE) would be unusually long...and that risk understandably puts off a lot of potential investment - it needs to be done on a fairly impressive scale, proven and reported by mass media for the ROCE ratio to improve. Valuable metals that have steady demand or even rising demand in some cases especially with China, India and Brazil developing as they are, could receive supplies from relatively cheap, unmanned drills. If prices of say...platinum and titanium keep rising and the private sector begins to take the helm from the clumsy, bungled pork-heavy governments I daresay asteroid mining would appear economically feasible to private enterprise in a generation.
Finally; the technology developed for mining asteroids would - just like lots of other space tech - have applications on Earth too. It'd be diverse to the point where we can't envision with accuracy all the technology could come of this kind of venture that would benefit humanity wholesale.
According to Steam's playtime count, I clocked up 106 hours on Dragon Age. Upon hearing the mixed reviews for its expansion (Awakening) I refrained from getting it. As it was informally billed as a successor to the classic Baldur's Gate series I was pretty enthusiastic like a lot of folks who had experience with Shadows of Amn.
The fact remains that it has only been 9 months since DA released, and the expansion was out 5 months; having not played it I can only echo the commenest gripes of other players which was the relatively short length compared to Dragon Age vanilla (circa 10-15 hours), coupled with a somewhat stilted villain and overall plotline. The characters, most of which are new, haven't endeared themselves as much as the original set featured in DA. My experience with DA was good...but I never saw a villain with the depth or intensity of Irenicus, instead having a faceless entity of orc-like creatures named Darkspawn, with a corrupted Dragon at the helm. The motives of the evil horde were not touched upon much at all in DA...and whilst the characters were a varied bunch I never felt all that engaged thanks to the cropping up of cliches.
It was a surprise to me when I came across a much less promoted and much more obscure title in the Steam summer sales just a week or so ago. The Witcher expanded edition pulled me in much faster than Dragon Age, with its unusual story steeped in Polish myths - it sure beat DA's rather Lord of the Rings feel that has been done to death not just on the silver screen but to a great extent in gaming too. Despite being inferior in graphics terms to Dragon Age, I found the protagonist pretty refreshing in the same way I liked Clint Eastwood in his most iconic westerns; the medieval world is darker and so suspends disbelief better than the gleaming spires of fantasy I saw in DA. It was less than $10 in the sale too, and offers a very large amount of gameplay. It's even further from Baldur's Gate than DA was, but for what it was it felt much more impressive.
So after Bioware's content-light expansion, the announcement of a sequel so soon makes me more skeptical than excited. DA was good, but not ground-breaking as most of the perenially bribed gaming press were saying.
Like any other gamer geek I hope it turns out brilliant, but just like every experienced gamer I've been let down by hyped franchise so many times. With smaller development houses bringing out quality, I start to wonder if there's much point paying all that much attention to the bigger ones with massive capital behind them.
For this aircraft's maiden flight, there should be an online vote in which a song is selected to accompany its sun-powered ascendency to the skies. I will submit an adaptation of the Katrina in the Waves timeless classic 'Walking on Sunshine':
'Flying on Sunshine'
I used to think when you made me I'd crash for sure And I just cant wait till the day when you charge me a little more Now everytime I go for the horizon, gotta hold myself down Cos I just wait till you touch me when rising around
I'm flying on sunshine! Whoa-oh! I'm flying on sunshine! Whoa-oh! I'm flying on sunshine! Whoa-oh! and don't I charge good!
Hey, alright now! Don't I charge good! Hey yeh!
I used to think maybe you warmed me, now I know that its true but I don't want to spend all my life, basking in you now I don't want u there for the weekend not everyday , no no no I said baby I just want to go back to my hangar and I wanna stay
Woah Yeah! I'm flying on sunshine , wooah I'm flying on sunshine, woooah I'm flying on sunshine, woooah and don't it feel good!!
Hey , alright now and don't it feel good!! hey yeh,oh yeh Sun! Take it away!
(The sun's rap solo)
Baby I know I brighten your day, with my rays, Just like I do most peoples' holidays But one thing I know, and I think you know too Is that me, the sun; I'm real good for you
Shining; blinding; setting; risin' I give it to you just how you like it plane! So if you takin' off today, just remember to look for me in the sky, or else you in trouble like this poetry.
Slashdot Mirror
Hate replying to my own post to correct what I've said but...WC4 was actually moderately successful despite the huge budget, and these days is considered the pinnacle of the series and sort of a culmination of the Blair character by Hamill.
That said WC4 wasn't really a role-playing game, although there was an element of that right through the game that had you choose dialogue to determine which video sequences you'd be shown and ultimately the ending to the entire plot.
I admit that I'm a little nostalgic for FMVs in games, but probably because I was young and more of an avid Win95/PSX gamer at the time. These days FMVs aren't favoured, and it appears to me that many game developers are striving to make their sequences more like an FMV in terms of characters appearing human (mimicking Avatar). But why do that when you could just shoot traditional film anyhow? Or abstain from all the expense and focus on the plot, writing, and development?
There was some character driven content in Chrono Trigger but broadly speaking you are right. But I can't think of any games from the 16-bit era that acheived this end.
One of the first games I remember that attempted character driven plotting was PC game Wing Commander IV from 1995, which had full motion video sequence shot on actual sets with no bluescreen. That worked alright but the massive cost of the sets, actors and development (circa $12 million dollars) made the game unsuccessful but a notable turning point: The plot was nothing too special, but the portrayals by Malcolm McDowell and Hamill made the story.
Funnily enough, Hamill was given dialogue that to me (an adult too young to have experienced the first Star Wars trilogy first hand) was overall superior to his lines from any of the Star Wars films. With that game we had a decent tale told, but the outlandish budget made it a massive risk for Origin Systems. Fortunately it paid off.
In the context of this topic I suppose you can take stock from the events around Wing Commander IV. FMVs are generally pricy and were used mainly in the 1990s, but actors who do only voice can lend plenty of character to who/what they portray without FMVs being necessary. Any animated game or film (recent Toy Story being an example) attests to that.
That's entirely correct; however we're not talking about the situation with big titles in 1995 here, we're talking about the present day which is different by a long shot.
I don't understand why we divorce the concept of a blockbuster (in the financially well-performing sense) title and the potential success of a title which constitutes a 'modest' budget in 2010:
I think you'd find what qualifies as modest now would certainly be in the realms of Chrono Trigger's production budget and given technological and operational advances over 15 years would look more advanced anyhow. Your 'Dream Team' could be assembled from gifted artists and story writers, and the emphasis could be on a unique appearance rather than being a juggernaut graphics-wise. I've no doubt that with a relatively small team, this hypothetical game would have enough money left for a decent marketing campaign.
The Wii has shown us that big markets can thrive with games that have 'primitive' graphics. The reasons why this principle cannot be taken up by developers in the RPG market in earnest across the board are complex, but to me add up to a sobering reflection on the pigheaded mentality of gaming houses in this age of disproportionate budgets.
Did you enjoy Dragon Age before or after the bugs that were not fixed until late February; close to four months after release in a patch which itself caused further issues?
My beef with DA is that it lacked a convincing villain. We had a big bunch of orc-like Darkspawn, led by an infested dragon who periodically rose up to take over the world. The motives therein were not addressed at all; apparently motives were revealed in the expansion but since I never bought that having heard mixed reviews about...the plot.
None of the richness of the Jon Irenicus character; he was just one elf with prodigious talent who had been treated appallingly by his own people and as such became evil and sought revenge. But he felt a lot more intriguing and threatening than the thousands of darkspawn. His dialogue was a major driving point for Shadows of Amn - far more compelling than the grunts of darkspawn and the mighty roar of its Old God dragon.
Don't get me wrong, DA was a good RPG. I got over 100 hours out of it; but it never got me thinking like Shadows of Amn. You're entitled to your opinion, but you have to admit that there's an argument that DA's plot was inferior to Baldur's Gate 2's.
Also BG2's budget was small in comparison to DA's; true it was big budget at the time. But the time was 2000; a decade ago when things hadn't got quite as out of proportion in spending/graphical terms as they are today in 2010.
I agree with most of what you say; I remember suffering through Dragon Age's RAM-eating problems in which over time it would consume increasing RAM...before loading times ended up around 10-20 minutes on even the most powerful rigs. That this wasn't patched for months was pretty awful, and left a lot of customers wondering why this hadn't been ironed out during pre-release playtesting.
Economically yes they don't 'need' to abandon their cash cows at the top-end. Survival is likely if they remain there. But for reasons we've both elaborated on it would be better for gamers as a whole if they at minimum experimented with modest budgeting and graphics and bring out some new games.
I applied the term 'need' in the sense of that it would be for the good of the RPG genre. For RPGs on any platform to improve the need is for less focus on filmlike production and multimillion dollar budgets, and more on what has always made RPGs what they are; storyline, character-driven dialogue and novel elements unique to each game: I've already outlined reasons this would be beneficial, as did you in your fine post.
If by the future you mean Bioware's future then you may well be right. But since Bioware is one company among many, and other RPGs with less flash and more moderate graphics like The Witcher (once it got its bugs fixed and was expanded) beat the epically-styled stalwart Dragon Age in plot and gameplay terms...I do not think Bioware's pigheadedness (should it stand) will be all that much of a loss. This is my opinion; but in the Witcher with Geralt I saw more appeal than with any of DA's characters.
There's obviously a comprimise between a small Chrono Trigger type production and the massive budget, overelaborate epics. It will be economic conditions that play the biggest part rather than the voices of individual gamers; people have whined about gameplay getting sacrificed over graphics for a long time.
Doing away with the compulsion of graphics-focused games only needs to occur with one gaming house and for them to then attain success with a modestly budgeted title. Though the fixation on polygons is pretty entrenched, there is a hope that some will jettison that outlook and embark on making quality content.
The indie games do hark back to about twenty years ago, often having a single, original concept that keeps one interested or even addicted for a time. It may be that indie developers play a part in reversing the 'progression' towards lifelike graphics with their own titles.
Bridge Commander felt like playing an above-average plot arc during one of the later TNG or DS9 seasons; the staff on board for the writing fits with this concept. A notable exception was that you as the commander never went on away missions - navigating an area on a planet was never implemented.
The gaming did become repititive; hitting the underside of a few Cardassian Galors with torpedos became less a novel strategy and more routine humdrum. I did get about 30-40 hours out of it which isn't bad for a game. I guess we have to remember that Trek games haven't had as much of an illustrious history as Star Wars has.
Bugs are expected with any modern game; it's not of matter of if but rather how many. I guess the point in my original post was that ST:O is just another average MMOG - yes it isn't awful or unplayable or ends up with a life cycle of under 12 months...but it isn't a classic that redefines anything profoundly for the genre.
This is the broad opinion of most player reviews I've perused as well as gaming reviewers; and whilst the gaming press are shameless when it comes to being on the take to express views disproportionate to reality on this title I think they got it about right:
Unless you are fond of grinding, and what MMORPGs have generally played like for the past decade or so, you may find that ST:O gets 'a bit boring in the long run' as well after the novelty of the Trek franchise wears off. Unless that is you are a big fan who sees merit in the plots of quests, and if that is the case then kudos to that crowd for being dedicated trekkers.
Bioware needs to jump ship from the cinematic epic and graphics shell game and take stock of the history behind RPG gaming.
If the Indie gaming scene is anything to go by, funds and personnel do not a great game make. Why don't Bioware practice what they preach and make a low-budget series, with the chief emphasis on hiring talented personnel with experience playing the finest RPGs of the past twenty years. It sure beats hiring expensive singers for your musical score, scores of artists and programmers, not to mention the marketing bill which inevitably follows big budget titles.
Gaming ought to, to some extent, go back to its roots by abandoning the constant, unending improvement of graphical quality to the neglect of gameplay. I started gaming as a kid in 1991 and have more memories from the 1991-1997 time bracket than 2005-2010. The only outstanding memory of Mass Effect I have is of Shephard emerging, alive and well, after a boss battle with a soaring musical score playing and stoical gaze on the part of the character - I wasn't awed or impressed, but amused as it outcome was obvious even before the tension of "Where's Shephard gone?!" played out for a minute.
On the contrary, Chrono Trigger, a simple RPG with graphics not much beyond classic Link to the Past, has so many memories with its 16-bit score and pixelated graphics. The budget and levels of personnel are dwarfed by these cinematic titles out today. I could ramble on about more titles as example but I believe most readers browsing games.slashdot can fathom a few personally.
All I've heard about this MMORPG is its mediocrity. Whether it be its mixed reviews, low scores from players across all the review sites - or simply the fact that Star Trek Online does little to actually expand the frontiers of MMOGs; the glaring fact is that STO is just a forgettable game that is too entrenched in tried-and-tested formula to merit excitement. The grinding crutch that most games of the genre rely upon to retain players is very much intact in STO. I guess for diehard fans who make up much of the game's audience it can provide a great experience in the Trek universe, and there were clearly some competant artists employed to recreate Trek in this fashion.
However whereas EVE which is unique among MMOGs int that actually carving out an adventure or saga of one's own which can (albeit rarely) become something significant for many and even 'make history' as it were...STO just doesn't offer that. A friend of mine who partook in the beta lamented the lack of ease in gathering people together for activity, and as you'd expect from something so generic the philosophical and wondrous elements of finer episodes of Trek are mostly absent too.
If one is looking to experience life in the Trek universe then - as is true with many well-established franchises - one can look to past consoles and eras for Trek themed games: I don't mean pedestrian FPSs like Voyager Elite Force, but earlier with consoles such as the Amiga or early Windows titles: Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity and the 25th Anneversary edition (for fans of the original 1960s show). Oh yeah, more recent is Bridge Commander which I personally enjoyed for a good long while back in 2003.
Primarily it's these two that stood out in the 1990s era, but there are more worth playing: This page is a good point of reference. Acquiring the titles on PC whether emulated or not is not too much trouble in many cases with the titles mentioned.
What previous commenters have been saying is true; there's relatively little by way of gaming on the Java platform despite its long prolificacy compared to HTML 5. HTML 5 is obviously still emergent; it could be over a decade until all its potential for gaming is realized. I was actually thinking of this the other week...a HTML 5 short RPG game of say, 3-5 hours worth of character-driven plotted content. It'd be novel to say the least and could be with us soon.
Another thing that's got me wondering is how Flash-based game sites such as Newgrounds.com are going to adapt if (when?) Flash becomes less relevant for the Internet wholesale. I think the idea of Java being expanded to fit the myriad creations of that site's community is less than realistic in the face of the progression of HTML 5. One thing that Flash has over HTML is a program which simplifies the whole shebang of making an animation without having to write much code (Actionscript). Though it is pretty awful in this day and age, almost 30 years after the C64, for people to consider Actionscript's (a mostly Flash-native language) advantagious to their own productive capacity when it comes to games it nevertheless is a factor in Flash remaining at the top of the games market for so long.
Looking at it that way, were people interested in creating games to switch over to HTML5 they'd obviously have a lot of skill to apply in other areas which are discussed regularly on Slashdot. Actionscript doesn't offer this, and is inferior as a result.
I know that making sweeping generalizations isn't wise, a lot of the time.
If you're so right, how come so many politicians have found themselves in scandal over support for certain vested interests?
What about the upper civil service both in the UK and US, which constantly holds meetings behind closed doors in order to consolidate their own power and incomes? Military-industrial complex has probably done quite a bit of beneficial hobnobbing with politicians; it has mostly led to beneficial outcomes...can't see anyone running for the hills when that lot's in trouble.
I could do you a nice list of things in business and in the public sector which quietly request assistance on matters, and get it.
Before we get excited at the prospect of this guy winning against Facebook, it's worth reminding ourselves that Zuckerberg - founder/owner of Facebook - is heavily ingratiated with a number of high profile political figures.
An example would be a video chat he held with UK Prime Minister David Cameron just a few days ago, the courteousness all too apparant. I can't remember a firm being seriously damaged through the legal system so soon after establishing itself as a ubiquitous and accepted tool by the establishment. The hoohah over the panic button they're now putting in to 'protect the children' is proof that Zuckerberg's cavalier attitude towards privacy will stand, and that we can expect more of the same from Facebook in coming years.
The most feasible way for Facebook to become less influential would not be financial woes through lawsuits...it would have to be another exodus of the same flavour that led to Myspace's relatively irrelevant/musically inclined position. But pride does come before a fall though, and arrogance is certainly something young Zuck isn't short of.
Virtually all people won't really notice anything regards 64-bit's transition. I also believe the RAM-limiting elements of x86 were the primary reason for the weighty promotion behind the 64 bit architecture in home computing.
But I also recall 2001 and people mentioning the 'huge' 4GB limit; nobody knew quite when it would be met. However by 2003-4 it was becoming clear that random access capacity growth wouldn't be slowing for a long time. That it took about 8 years since XP's October 2001 release for high-end gaming PCs to outclass the boundaries of Windows x86 is pretty decent when you observe past MS OSs and the duration they have for the 'average' consumer (ie. person who goes to Best Buy or PC World for hardware and support) .
Sycraft-fu, I've been looking for a post of yours in an appropriate topic. I wanted to apologize for this post of mine which was made a few days ago. I'd had a pretty crap day and felt pessimistic enough to author what was a pisspoor, meaningless comment as you rightly noted.
This being modded 'flamebait' is a bit silly.
Samzenpus himself rarely writes comments in his own Idle posts. Also I don't think I've actually seen anybody on Slashdot write a passionate defence of his postings since Idle was created, infact the majority of people who talk about him do so in a critical or disapproving tone. Many people just block Idle altogether.
Based on this, whoever modded my original post 'flamebait' isn't thinking straight...because even if it was intended as such (it wasn't) nobody would rise to the 'bait' and flame me in defence of an editor who many would agree is Slashdot's worst.
Hey samzenpus, since many of your Idle submissions put you roughly on the level of primate intelligence relative to most other Slashdot editors (except kdawson who is roughly as clever as a dolphin) - why don't you sign up as pack leader for the Taliban monkeys?
Firstly your small, spry body complete with ridged forehead and prolific chest/back hair would allow you to blend in with many other monkeys. Imagine how awesome your blog would be until a drone riddled your platoon of chimps - you, the lone survivor sprinted off screeching about how anti-USA you'd be as you posted Idle submissions in future.
Your experience in dealing with your own tick infestations, penchant for inane screeching as you watch humorous videogame parody videos, and brilliant moral boosting communacative skills make you prime(ate) material.
One of the most obvious things about the development of 64-bit architecture is how woefully behind its 32-bit counterpart just a few years ago. I had a spare rig which I put XP 64 on in around spring of 2007. The low level of development together with the fact that powerful machines did not often have more than 4GB back then meant little incentive for devs to put time in 64-bit. I couldn't even find hardware drivers, and this led my disgruntled self to format that particular rig, whilst telling myself to research this stuff in future.
I believe Microsoft deserves some cred, along with certain hardware firms like AMD/Intel, with bringing 64 bit to the fore. Not to mention the PS3 and some Macs being of that architecture too. Ironically Microsoft's most stunted OS since the much maligned Windows ME was the first one that could run 64 bit convincingly despite a laundry list of flaws that haunted the entire life cycle of that particular product. Windows 7 is in some ways like XP was to ME a whole 9 years ago.
Whilst it's great for RAM purposes, and thus demanding things like gaming which will soon require 6GB or more for popular titles there are drawbacks. A file in 64 bit takes up more memory, mainly due to alignment padding. Thus one needs a fairly good set of chips to cache efficiently in future years as the levels of memory inevitably increase. However with the amount of progress going on I daresay all but the most budget hardware solutions will tackle drawbacks very well.
That the figure is now 50% compared to about a fifth of that not long ago is indicative that 64-bit has finally become established in the mainstream.
An earlier post speculated that this clothing is basically useless except to environmentalist types who brag about how their clothes are ultra-green. Nevermind that the non-existant aesthetic would put off most people you encounter; plus its obvious that wearing papery material means that you cannot stay in the rain for long, have to be careful removing and putting on the garment, and can't count on it lasting for long in the face of ordinary wear and tear. All in all, worse even than the thinnest of thin cotton shirts you get from markets and shops like Primark.
Papyrus, the ancient world's precursor to paper, is as the summary states similar to this stuff. Oh and if you chose to wear papyrus you'd be just as green since it is predominantly the pith from the papyrus plant which isn't remotely threatened as a species. It made its appearance in Egypt over three thousand years back but never saw wide use in clothing due to tried and tested plant fiber proving infinitely better.
I think you're totally wrong.
With the regression of freedoms in the western world (Anglosphere especially) , we can draw parallels with situations that've arose in our own countries. Truth be told, when authority is sufficiently potent it will attempt to sweep anything that suggests shortcomings on its part firmly under the carpet. In the end people are less informed, and in this case when we've a health matter it's obviously counter to the well-being of the population at large to suppress stories like this one. AIDS is a big problem in China; not nearly the same level as it is in sub-saharan Africa, but nevertheless it is a large public health concern on around the same level as the US or parts of Europe.
It's news because of how much we ourselves have shifted in that direction, under guise of 'stopping the terrorists' or 'protecting the children' or any other stock reason that gets trotted out every time something oppressive gets on the statute. Unlike the past where authoritarian soceity spawned from power-hungry people after a revolution, our journey in that direction is an evolutionary process; a softly, softly approach.
I've spoken with individuals from China over the years; they know perfectly well how corrupt and rotten the whole Communist party is from the honchos in Beijing to the district governors, to petty civil servants. The whole system is infested with crooks and sanctimonious hypocrites; it actually makes the British or US government seem rather decent in comparison. But even though many Chinese are aware of this, it doesn't alleviate the fact they're denied knowledge which could well help in the battle with HIV. That some person under an assumption of their own moral superiority would deny people knowledge about something like this and send some thugs over to pester the creator of the work is pretty appalling.
That post was mine by the way (Robotron23) - for the second time either Slashdot 2.0 or myself has checked the Anonymous posting box.
To make this post worthwhile...we'd probably have to attach some sort of legislation when asteroid mining becomes feasible. Something along the lines of a scientific analysis, due to the massive wealth of historical information these bodies hold on the early history of our solar system. I once heard a theory that the asteroid belt was actually once a planet...but Jupiter's gravity pulled it into fragments. Evidence of such an event would be valuable in a scientific capacity.
It's pretty sad when topics like this come along and the discussion on Slashdot is so minimal; I grew up on Heinlein, Clarke, PKD, Foundation series and all those greats; topics like ESA's analysis of 21 Lutetia are prime news for nerds. Long after Apple or Microsoft or anything else we talk about so much are dead and gone...all these things will still be up there, as will all the mystery.
I share your amazement, and the notion you mentioned can be extended to everyday matters too.
A friend of mine had to get permission for use of an image from a fellow in Arizona recently, she being in Britain (as am I). The fellow granted permission the same afternoon, which for some reason got me thinking about all the headache the Internet takes away with communication. That same thing would have taken closer to two weeks pre-Internet, and the time and cost would be higher.
Hubble's images are just the same; some are vivid and beautiful, and even more have merit for science and astronomy. Hubble has in the past been focused on certain phenomena and has photographed them continuously over hours or days; if this counts of observance (albeit infrequently updated), then it's all the more amazing because we're talking distances of light years, not millions of kilometres. This distance was impossible even 30 or 40 years ago.
The only thing I personally find dismaying about all this amazing progress is the sheer ignorance of the majority towards it. An ordinary person might remark on it all from time to time ('It's great the stuff we have nowadays.") but few have a geniunely appreciative interest or a will to somehow contribute. The men responsible for all this stuff have always been and will be for the foreseeable future, a minescule minority.
I spotted a post on Slashdot a couple of weeks ago which pointed out a couple of advantages of exploring the asteroid belt as a rich source of minerals and possible mining. On this strength of that brief but well worded comment I did some research myself and right now I'm currently reading the only book I could find that seemed accessible enough to a person with limited knowledge of space mining and the possibilities therein: (Mining the Sky by John S. Lewi). This as opposed to planets or moons which carry with them an atmosphere. Most of the prime candidates there possess thick atmospheres that carry a massive burden of cost for any robotic or manned mission to bring back much of anything for purposes of study or (looking further ahead) economic purposes.
Asteroids by definition lack atmosphere, being in layman's terms large rocks with a pretty huge size variance. Anyone who has read Greg Bear's Eon will be able to appreciate the magnitude of some of the bigger asteroids. With present-day technology, were the funding and the will present we could in two or three decades time extract dozens of kilos of material from an asteroid and, though risk would be a factor, ferry all of that back to Earth. That's hundreds of kilos of precious material if an initial group of say ten were launched. However speaking realistically giving the sheer amount of difficulty space has had in recent decades, plus other projects eating up chunks of NASA/ESA/Roscosmos/JAXA budget, we're looking at much lower amounts. That we have publicly funded projects as opposed to privately spearheaded initiatives in the present day doesn't help; space agencies do not seek to maximize monetary profit.
A small asteroid typically contains trillions of dollars in valuable metals. It doesn't take a genius to infer that investment in research leading to the mining of these bodies could make a profit. The return on capital employed (ROCE) would be unusually long...and that risk understandably puts off a lot of potential investment - it needs to be done on a fairly impressive scale, proven and reported by mass media for the ROCE ratio to improve. Valuable metals that have steady demand or even rising demand in some cases especially with China, India and Brazil developing as they are, could receive supplies from relatively cheap, unmanned drills. If prices of say...platinum and titanium keep rising and the private sector begins to take the helm from the clumsy, bungled pork-heavy governments I daresay asteroid mining would appear economically feasible to private enterprise in a generation.
Finally; the technology developed for mining asteroids would - just like lots of other space tech - have applications on Earth too. It'd be diverse to the point where we can't envision with accuracy all the technology could come of this kind of venture that would benefit humanity wholesale.
According to Steam's playtime count, I clocked up 106 hours on Dragon Age. Upon hearing the mixed reviews for its expansion (Awakening) I refrained from getting it. As it was informally billed as a successor to the classic Baldur's Gate series I was pretty enthusiastic like a lot of folks who had experience with Shadows of Amn.
The fact remains that it has only been 9 months since DA released, and the expansion was out 5 months; having not played it I can only echo the commenest gripes of other players which was the relatively short length compared to Dragon Age vanilla (circa 10-15 hours), coupled with a somewhat stilted villain and overall plotline. The characters, most of which are new, haven't endeared themselves as much as the original set featured in DA. My experience with DA was good...but I never saw a villain with the depth or intensity of Irenicus, instead having a faceless entity of orc-like creatures named Darkspawn, with a corrupted Dragon at the helm. The motives of the evil horde were not touched upon much at all in DA...and whilst the characters were a varied bunch I never felt all that engaged thanks to the cropping up of cliches.
It was a surprise to me when I came across a much less promoted and much more obscure title in the Steam summer sales just a week or so ago. The Witcher expanded edition pulled me in much faster than Dragon Age, with its unusual story steeped in Polish myths - it sure beat DA's rather Lord of the Rings feel that has been done to death not just on the silver screen but to a great extent in gaming too. Despite being inferior in graphics terms to Dragon Age, I found the protagonist pretty refreshing in the same way I liked Clint Eastwood in his most iconic westerns; the medieval world is darker and so suspends disbelief better than the gleaming spires of fantasy I saw in DA. It was less than $10 in the sale too, and offers a very large amount of gameplay. It's even further from Baldur's Gate than DA was, but for what it was it felt much more impressive.
So after Bioware's content-light expansion, the announcement of a sequel so soon makes me more skeptical than excited. DA was good, but not ground-breaking as most of the perenially bribed gaming press were saying.
Like any other gamer geek I hope it turns out brilliant, but just like every experienced gamer I've been let down by hyped franchise so many times. With smaller development houses bringing out quality, I start to wonder if there's much point paying all that much attention to the bigger ones with massive capital behind them.
Countdown to lengthy posts which refute and condemn the use of IQ in recruiting and/or in general...
In 5...4...
I've got the melody, intro, outtro and everything else memorized for that song...except the lyrics.
For this aircraft's maiden flight, there should be an online vote in which a song is selected to accompany its sun-powered ascendency to the skies. I will submit an adaptation of the Katrina in the Waves timeless classic 'Walking on Sunshine':
'Flying on Sunshine'
I used to think when you made me I'd crash for sure
And I just cant wait till the day when you charge me a little more
Now everytime I go for the horizon, gotta hold myself down
Cos I just wait till you touch me when rising around
I'm flying on sunshine! Whoa-oh!
I'm flying on sunshine! Whoa-oh!
I'm flying on sunshine! Whoa-oh!
and don't I charge good!
Hey, alright now!
Don't I charge good!
Hey yeh!
I used to think maybe you warmed me, now I know that its true
but I don't want to spend all my life, basking in you
now I don't want u there for the weekend
not everyday , no no no
I said baby I just want to go back to my hangar and I wanna stay
Woah Yeah!
I'm flying on sunshine , wooah
I'm flying on sunshine, woooah
I'm flying on sunshine, woooah
and don't it feel good!!
Hey , alright now ,oh yeh
and don't it feel good!!
hey yeh
Sun! Take it away!
(The sun's rap solo)
Baby I know I brighten your day, with my rays,
Just like I do most peoples' holidays
But one thing I know, and I think you know too
Is that me, the sun; I'm real good for you
Shining; blinding; setting; risin'
I give it to you just how you like it plane!
So if you takin' off today, just remember to look
for me in the sky, or else you in trouble like this poetry.