All religions and cultures are the same, and men and women are the same. It would be politically incorrect to suggest that differences might exist, unless those differences are overwhelmingly positive and harmless.
... then they just aren't. What's the big deal? If women largely aren't interested in programming, then they simply aren't. It's not like you can't write software without a balanced group of men and women.
Robin Walker, Design Manager at Valve, co-wrote the original Teamfortress. I think there are a lot of people at Valve who come from a modding background. Iikka Keranen (or Kernen as he's listed on Valve's site, for one reason or another) used to make maps, textures and small mods for Quake and Quake II, and even wrote a lighting program for Quake. He's now a level designer at Valve.
Modding will most likely remain a good way of getting into the industry. I would imagine that some members of the Black Mesa team will get job offers once they release it, if not earlier.
Good? Well, depends on what you compare it to. I don't think 27 euros a month for 512/512 kbits is exactly cutting edge, or cheap. I don't know why it's so expensive... either it's caused by the lack of competition (we've got, what, three or four ISPs?) or it's some sort of infrastructure problem. I hear Koreans get crazy fast lines for less than money than what I pay for my 512/512.
I just don't have the money for bullshit like 45 euros a month for 8M/1M (the actual bill comes every two months, so I have to pay 90 euros at once!), on top of the inane television license (51 euros for three months!). Jesus pissing christ.
I imagine that, eventually, a time traveller from the far, far future will appear with a gold disc of Duke Nukem Forever, to spare us from the long wait ahead.
Turkey is not European. Even if the EU accepts it as a member, I will not consider it to be European. It doesn't share our values, heritage or culture, and it does things like this.
There is not only the choice between safe and non-safe nukes. There is also the choice of no nukes at all. Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually pledged that he would be happy to give up Iran's nuclear ambitions if there was a genuine commitment of all nations with nuclear weapons to disarm. Now, this is a dishonest offer, because he knows that it is not going to happen. But what better way to, literally and figuratively, disarm Iran than taking him up on it? What is the use of nuclear weapons in this world? Who are you going to nuke? "The terrorists"?
It's a dishonest offer because he's an Islamist nutjob who wants to annihilate the Great Satan (also known as Modern Civilization) because of some divine inspiration that he received from the Quran, or from his ass. Nuclear weapons are very much needed in this world, and I don't see how the situation will ever change. If nobody stops Iran from acquiring nuclear capability, then somebody is going to get nuked.
You make it exceedingly difficult to take you seriously when you make a statement like that.
Well, I'm just tired of everyone screaming for innovation, yet nobody ever specifies what that innovation is supposed to be, or what it could be.
I know a bit (really not too much, but a bit) about Crawford's Storytron. He's worked a long, long time on it, but if it works, it'll be extremely big -- it's nothing less than a engine that lets a computer tell stories algorithmically.
In otherwords: ever wondered, in a Final Fantasy game, if your character did something that had not been planned by the game creator? Crawford's idea would be able to handle that.
But how well would it handle it? It would have to work so well that it doesn't feel like it's just generated by the game. It would also rule out voice acting. I prefer handcrafted content as opposed to automatically generated content, and I don't see any massive demand for Crawford's system. I could be wrong, of course.
He does complain a lot. (Lots of other people do too, for that matter.) But his contributing nothing is not so much his fault; to produce games that get sold on the big chain shelves these days, you pretty much have to buy into the system. He does not, which from one perspective dooms him to marginalization, and by another allows him to be principled and insightful.
What can he possibly accomplish by staying on the sidelines? If he wants the industry to change, somebody has to change it. He actually accused the industry of talking instead of doing, and it seems like he's guilty of the same thing. He seems like a respected person, so it shouldn't be impossible for him to start his own development company, should it?
It's easy to cherry pick counter-examples when there are hundreds, if not thousands, of games released every year.
Video games aren't like TV shows or movies, and they shouldn't even be expected to be. However, there are many games that appeal to the so-called general public, and that should be enough. I wasn't trying to cherry pick anything.
Fair points. Maybe it's not the fault of the consumers. But, is the Sierra example relevant anymore? These days, making an FPS is not necessarily very cheap, even if you license an engine. I'm going to guess that it's actually even more expensive than making adventure games. Perhaps adventure games were first shelved by developers, and now nobody just isn't interested?
Is it really a problem? The games seem to sell well enough, so clearly there must be a demand. I know I'd rather play the next Half-Life than some goddamn storytronics bullshit that will probably never see the light of day. What kind of "innovation" do people want? Some whacky game where you control a dishwasher and try to rape kittens on Mars?
If you want to look at this as a problem, then yes, it's clearly the fault of the consumers. People only buy FPS, RTS and MMORPG games, so that's exactly what they're going to get. Developers won't make games that won't sell. I don't know what you mean by the MGS2 outrage, but I can imagine what would have happened if Half-Life 2 would have been radically different from the first game... the fans would have probably been angry. They don't want change, yet at the same time they cry about the lack of innovation.
Chris Crawford seems like a person who contributes nothing, but complains a lot. He also has some very strange ideas about things:
Well basically, new ideas don't go anywhere. So the industry is just rehashing the same stuff over and over.
If new ideas don't go anywhere, what's the point of innovation?
During the 80s there was a lot of experimentation, a lot of new ideas being tried (many of them really bad) but there was at least experimentation. Now we don't see any experimentation whatsoever.
Well gee, let's think about this: during the 80s, the industry was pretty much getting started, and many of the genres we have today didn't even exist. Also, the primitive graphics required developers to come up with a solid gameplay idea. Nowadays you can easily get away with recycling an old idea, but repackacking it with good graphics and sound. Of course, it's not like they didn't recycle ideas in the 80s...
Has anybody noticed that we don't appeal to the general public? Has anybody thought that perhaps it might be a good thing? In fact, the industry has talked about reaching out to a broader audience for decades, but the industry is not willing to do anything about it. As long as you keep recycling the same product you're going to have the same markets.
Sims? World of Warcraft? Second Life? Sports games? Racing games? I should think that they reach out to the "general public" (what does this even mean, exactly?) well enough.
According to Mobygames, he hasn't done anything related to video games for fourteen years, except that storytronics stuff. Also, "innovation" is a retarded buzz word that doesn't mean anything, just like "next gen."
FFVII isn't even the greatest of the final fantasy games- 4,6, and 9 blow it out of the water.
Maybe in your opinion, but your opinion is not fact. I prefer FF7 over any of the previous games, or FF8, which is the last FF I've played (I don't have a PSX/PS2, see). FF6 was good, but it just didn't really grab me like FF7 did. It's not a question of graphics, because I greatly enjoyed Chrono Trigger when I played it for the first time 4-6 years ago, and it's one of my favorite games. I loved FF7's Materia system, while FFV8's magic system felt so awful that I eventually stopped playing entirely.
It's not nostalgia. FFVII was and is an absolutely brilliant game, and I think the last time I played it was a year ago. I'd choose it over Oblivion, any day of the week.
Ah, the wonders of hysterical and misguided political correctness.
I deeply apologize for not seeing ghetto pimps, drug dealers gang gang bangers as "cultural diversity" as many people, including you, would. Black ghetto culture is a shitstain that should be removed from existence.
The game looks like a horribly outdated arena shooter. Just look at the screenshots: wide, undetailed arenas that look like they came from Quake or the first Unreal Tournament. Bad character models too. The pre-rendered trailer makes the game seem far cooler. I was kind of hoping that Shadowrun would more like Deus Ex or System Shock, but I guess that's not the case.
Good riddance indeed. I'm pretty tired of games where you play a criminal, especially if you're playing a ghetto gangsta who listens to a lot of rap music. The Hitman series is cool because it's understated, and doesn't have this "OMG LAWL LIFE OF CRIME CONTROVERSY" vibe to it, and the protagonist is a bald white man in a suit and not a ghetto pimp.
I've been seeing a lot of completely deranged and arbitrary moddings in here. Frankly, the entire system is fucking stupid and meaningless, not to mention cowardly. Of course, according to Slashdot logic you're an anonymous coward when you don't have an anonymous nickname for yourself (am I less anonymous because I have this nickname?), but there's nothing cowardly about modding someone Troll without any explanation or reasoning. If you have nothing to say, then fuck right off.
I looked up the description of an embryo, and I don't understand what the big deal is. It's not even close to a human being. Some religious nutjobs think that as soon as you ejaculate into a woman, a human being has been born. I just don't understand that kind of nonsense.
The problem is that once you get older, and start having more of a full life, you just don't have the time to play a game for several hours, trying to unlock certain things...
Like many other hobbies, gaming is a time consuming hobby that requires time and effort. That's how it has always been. I don't think games should be dumbed down just because someone chose to get a wife and kids and therefore lacks the time to play. If gaming is so important to you, don't get a family. If family is more important, then don't complain. It's your choice. I'm not going to get a family because I like to spend time on my hobbies, whether it's video games, Judo or staring at a wall for six hours.
Personally, I like unlocking and achieving things. It's satisfying. I feel satisfied that I have unlocked everything there is in Resident Evil 4, or that I've finished every mission of Hitman: Blood Money on the highest difficulty while attaining the highest rank. On the other hand, I may also want to play an hour of Counter-Strike where a game lasts about 30 minutes and then everything is reset.
Slashdot Mirror
You won't like this speedrun of Contra III, then. Entire game finished in 17 minutes on Hard more without a single death.
All religions and cultures are the same, and men and women are the same. It would be politically incorrect to suggest that differences might exist, unless those differences are overwhelmingly positive and harmless.
That's what it feels like these days, anyway.
... then they just aren't. What's the big deal? If women largely aren't interested in programming, then they simply aren't. It's not like you can't write software without a balanced group of men and women.
Robin Walker, Design Manager at Valve, co-wrote the original Teamfortress. I think there are a lot of people at Valve who come from a modding background. Iikka Keranen (or Kernen as he's listed on Valve's site, for one reason or another) used to make maps, textures and small mods for Quake and Quake II, and even wrote a lighting program for Quake. He's now a level designer at Valve.
Modding will most likely remain a good way of getting into the industry. I would imagine that some members of the Black Mesa team will get job offers once they release it, if not earlier.
Good? Well, depends on what you compare it to. I don't think 27 euros a month for 512/512 kbits is exactly cutting edge, or cheap. I don't know why it's so expensive... either it's caused by the lack of competition (we've got, what, three or four ISPs?) or it's some sort of infrastructure problem. I hear Koreans get crazy fast lines for less than money than what I pay for my 512/512.
I just don't have the money for bullshit like 45 euros a month for 8M/1M (the actual bill comes every two months, so I have to pay 90 euros at once!), on top of the inane television license (51 euros for three months!). Jesus pissing christ.
I imagine that, eventually, a time traveller from the far, far future will appear with a gold disc of Duke Nukem Forever, to spare us from the long wait ahead.
Turkey is not European. Even if the EU accepts it as a member, I will not consider it to be European. It doesn't share our values, heritage or culture, and it does things like this.
Turkey is not a member of the European Union. It's not even European.
It's a dishonest offer because he's an Islamist nutjob who wants to annihilate the Great Satan (also known as Modern Civilization) because of some divine inspiration that he received from the Quran, or from his ass. Nuclear weapons are very much needed in this world, and I don't see how the situation will ever change. If nobody stops Iran from acquiring nuclear capability, then somebody is going to get nuked.
Well, I'm just tired of everyone screaming for innovation, yet nobody ever specifies what that innovation is supposed to be, or what it could be.
But how well would it handle it? It would have to work so well that it doesn't feel like it's just generated by the game. It would also rule out voice acting. I prefer handcrafted content as opposed to automatically generated content, and I don't see any massive demand for Crawford's system. I could be wrong, of course.
What can he possibly accomplish by staying on the sidelines? If he wants the industry to change, somebody has to change it. He actually accused the industry of talking instead of doing, and it seems like he's guilty of the same thing. He seems like a respected person, so it shouldn't be impossible for him to start his own development company, should it?
Video games aren't like TV shows or movies, and they shouldn't even be expected to be. However, there are many games that appeal to the so-called general public, and that should be enough. I wasn't trying to cherry pick anything.
Fair points. Maybe it's not the fault of the consumers. But, is the Sierra example relevant anymore? These days, making an FPS is not necessarily very cheap, even if you license an engine. I'm going to guess that it's actually even more expensive than making adventure games. Perhaps adventure games were first shelved by developers, and now nobody just isn't interested?
If you want to look at this as a problem, then yes, it's clearly the fault of the consumers. People only buy FPS, RTS and MMORPG games, so that's exactly what they're going to get. Developers won't make games that won't sell. I don't know what you mean by the MGS2 outrage, but I can imagine what would have happened if Half-Life 2 would have been radically different from the first game... the fans would have probably been angry. They don't want change, yet at the same time they cry about the lack of innovation.
Chris Crawford seems like a person who contributes nothing, but complains a lot. He also has some very strange ideas about things:
If new ideas don't go anywhere, what's the point of innovation?
Well gee, let's think about this: during the 80s, the industry was pretty much getting started, and many of the genres we have today didn't even exist. Also, the primitive graphics required developers to come up with a solid gameplay idea. Nowadays you can easily get away with recycling an old idea, but repackacking it with good graphics and sound. Of course, it's not like they didn't recycle ideas in the 80s...
Sims? World of Warcraft? Second Life? Sports games? Racing games? I should think that they reach out to the "general public" (what does this even mean, exactly?) well enough.
According to Mobygames, he hasn't done anything related to video games for fourteen years, except that storytronics stuff. Also, "innovation" is a retarded buzz word that doesn't mean anything, just like "next gen."
I've never cut myself while doing something with the hardware, no matter what case I've been using.
Hmm, true. I don't recall the movie giving any explanation to that.
Self-aware robots shouldn't be made, because we'll eventually end up with things like Space Robots. I'm going to stop using stairs when that happens.
It's never specifically mentioned, but it's in the movie. V.I.K.I. uses the zeroth law as a basis for its behavior.
Maybe in your opinion, but your opinion is not fact. I prefer FF7 over any of the previous games, or FF8, which is the last FF I've played (I don't have a PSX/PS2, see). FF6 was good, but it just didn't really grab me like FF7 did. It's not a question of graphics, because I greatly enjoyed Chrono Trigger when I played it for the first time 4-6 years ago, and it's one of my favorite games. I loved FF7's Materia system, while FFV8's magic system felt so awful that I eventually stopped playing entirely.
It's not nostalgia. FFVII was and is an absolutely brilliant game, and I think the last time I played it was a year ago. I'd choose it over Oblivion, any day of the week.
Ah, the wonders of hysterical and misguided political correctness.
I deeply apologize for not seeing ghetto pimps, drug dealers gang gang bangers as "cultural diversity" as many people, including you, would. Black ghetto culture is a shitstain that should be removed from existence.
The game looks like a horribly outdated arena shooter. Just look at the screenshots: wide, undetailed arenas that look like they came from Quake or the first Unreal Tournament. Bad character models too. The pre-rendered trailer makes the game seem far cooler. I was kind of hoping that Shadowrun would more like Deus Ex or System Shock, but I guess that's not the case.
Good riddance indeed. I'm pretty tired of games where you play a criminal, especially if you're playing a ghetto gangsta who listens to a lot of rap music. The Hitman series is cool because it's understated, and doesn't have this "OMG LAWL LIFE OF CRIME CONTROVERSY" vibe to it, and the protagonist is a bald white man in a suit and not a ghetto pimp.
Excuse me, but why was I modded Troll?
I've been seeing a lot of completely deranged and arbitrary moddings in here. Frankly, the entire system is fucking stupid and meaningless, not to mention cowardly. Of course, according to Slashdot logic you're an anonymous coward when you don't have an anonymous nickname for yourself (am I less anonymous because I have this nickname?), but there's nothing cowardly about modding someone Troll without any explanation or reasoning. If you have nothing to say, then fuck right off.
I looked up the description of an embryo, and I don't understand what the big deal is. It's not even close to a human being. Some religious nutjobs think that as soon as you ejaculate into a woman, a human being has been born. I just don't understand that kind of nonsense.
Like many other hobbies, gaming is a time consuming hobby that requires time and effort. That's how it has always been. I don't think games should be dumbed down just because someone chose to get a wife and kids and therefore lacks the time to play. If gaming is so important to you, don't get a family. If family is more important, then don't complain. It's your choice. I'm not going to get a family because I like to spend time on my hobbies, whether it's video games, Judo or staring at a wall for six hours.
Personally, I like unlocking and achieving things. It's satisfying. I feel satisfied that I have unlocked everything there is in Resident Evil 4, or that I've finished every mission of Hitman: Blood Money on the highest difficulty while attaining the highest rank. On the other hand, I may also want to play an hour of Counter-Strike where a game lasts about 30 minutes and then everything is reset.
I was wondering about the absence of the hilarious take, too. The article wasn't particularly witty or illuminating.