Rant: Memory Requirements
Eep²
> > A decade ago, a good game could fit entirely on a single floppy. Now, some
> > of the latest games need 1.2 Gigs (!) of HD space. Why are we getting less
> > bang for the byte? Is this from bad programming style, or is all that memory
> > really necessary?
>
> Most of the increase in required disk space is due to more and much larger
> sound and art files. The larger files are the direct result of the demands
> of magazine reviewers and the majority of consumers for better sound and
> more colors. There is no going back.
Um, no, The larger files are the direct result of games simply becoming more realistic and representative of reality.
> On the positive side, the cost of hard disk space is down to around one
> dollar per gigabyte. You need to head on down to your neighborhood discount
> electronics store and get yourself a 100+ gig hard drive. That should take
> care of your problem for a year or so. :)
It's even less now, actually; I got a 120GB for $80 after rebates at Fry's--and there's a $60 Western Digital 120GB 7200RPM drive at OfficeMax, and $100 unknown brand 160GB 7200RPM (w/8MB cache) drive at CompUSA, both after rebates, in this weekend's newspaper ads.
Hard drives are getting cheaper but they still don't last any longer (~3 years).
john graesser
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED0F9C3...@spam.com...
> Major H wrote:
> Hard drives are getting cheaper but they still don't last any longer (~3
years).
I don't know about the drives you are buying, but I have still running:
20meg 8in Quantum hard drive 25years+
10meg 8in hard drive 15years+
10 meg 5in hard drive 15years+
20 meg lap top hard drive 15years+
1.2 gig WD hard drive 10years+
500 meg lap top hard drive 8 years
10 gig Quantum (boot drive for this comp) 6years
I can only remember 2 drives failing completly, a 5 meg tandon and a 15 meg
tandon that I used back on a RS 4p running cp/m, and that may have been the
drive controller dying since I was running it 24/7 as an RBBS.
To be honest the 10 meg 5 in drive above is now only formatted for 2.5 meg
since there is a bad spot on the second surface, but it still allows that
comp to boot msdos off the hard drive and run WS 5.5.
I guess you get what you pay for.
thanks, John.
Simon Juncal
> Um, no, The larger files are the direct result of games simply
> becoming more realistic and representative of reality.
Do you have _any_ idea of what you're talking about? I mean any
familiarity at all? Say for instance, working knowledge of just how
large an uncompressed bitmap image can be (say something in a format
that has an alpha channel)? Or say, how much space a pre rendered intro
and cut scenes can take up? How about 30 minutes of raw 44khz audio?
What I'm really wondering is just why you contradicted the previous
poster, when your own contribution was basically just a simplistic and
generalized way of saying the SAME thing as said poster.
Derek
> > becoming more realistic and representative of reality.
>
> Do you have _any_ idea of what you're talking about? I mean any
> familiarity at all? Say for instance, working knowledge of just how
> large an uncompressed bitmap image can be (say something in a format
> that has an alpha channel)? Or say, how much space a pre rendered intro
> and cut scenes can take up? How about 30 minutes of raw 44khz audio?
I know how large, which is why i've steered clear of all the video intros,
cut-scenes and the like (I can afford them now, but I still avoid em like
the plague). It turns a game from a small, accessible 6-9 MB download to a
20-50 MB download in no time flat, and will usually be skipped past after
the first viewing anyway.
I'd much rather focus all my resources on the actual GAME the person will
play than extraneous stuff like that, and feel the same about the other
games I play.
Derek
Stormcloud Creations
http://www.stormcloudcreations.com
Eep²
Fuck off, troll.
Eep²
Nowhere did I disagree with Major H about larger data files (sound, graphics, models, terrain, videos, etc) being the reason for increased disk space usage; any idiot can see that. What I AM disagreeing with is his claim that "The larger files are the direct result of the demands of magazine reviewers and the majority of consumers for better sound and more colors." It's just bullshit. The drive to make games more realistic (mostly through 3D but, yes, also with higher-resolution 2D graphics too) is what's caused larger data files (which, duh, have caused increased disk space usage).
Come on...learn to think, people...do I have to explain EVERYTHING to you? Sheesh...I tire of it. I also tire of having to tell you noobs to keep the damn crossposted newsgroups in when you reply.
Gary Heverly wrote:
> Eep², I'm afraid you will need to define "more realistic" and
> "representative of reality". Do you measure it in terms of the historical
> outcome or the ability to suspend belief that you are playing a computer
> game? Even with mere VGA graphics, Panthers in the Shadows can still put
> newer games to shame ... so no cigar for you. If you are referring to the
> eye-candy, then you are partially correct. For games that require the
> immersion (flightsims and FPS), then the additional eye-candy is necessary.
> Many games, however, really don't need it. Now, there is substantial
> evidence to support MajorH's case that much of the increase in disk space is
> the result of larger sound and art files -- especially for games that don't
> need the eye-candy.
>
> For example, the entire Age of Rifles installation (1996) required 64MB;
> the Uncommon Valor installation (2002) requires about 800MB with about 640MB
> for sound and artwork (the game executable is about 2MB). Note that I
> specifically chose games that are not expected to have substantial
> eye-candy. I just wish that game designers could spend more time on
> integrating planning tools into the games and improving the user interface,
> rather than devoting that time to eye-candy that I will never use. Sigh, I
> guess it's time to break out the Monster, Wacht Am Rhein...
>
> "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED0F9C3...@spam.com...
G.I.L.
<snip>
>
> Come on...learn to think, people...do I have to explain EVERYTHING to
> you? Sheesh...I tire of it. I also tire of having to tell you noobs
> to keep the damn crossposted newsgroups in when you reply.
>
appreciate that...
AAMOF people would rather not hear you explain EVERYTHING to them,
especially if they know better than you. And those who prefer to leave out
NGs are usually doing this one a favor.
g
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.478 / Virus Database: 275 - Release Date: 06/05/2003
Simon Juncal
> Good god you're fucking cluelessly dense, Simon. I was disagreeing
> the demands of magazine reviewers and the majority of consumers for
> better sound and more colors."
You're just backsliding now that you realize how stupid your original
statement sounded. If you're AGREEING that larger file sizes are a
result of better graphics and audio, then you did a pretty piss poor job
of communicating it (considering you contradicted someone who had just
stated as much). The phrase "games simply becoming more realistic and
representative of reality" brings to mind physics, and interactivity
with the environment, neither of which have anything to do with larger
bitmaps or higher quality audio. If you're saying that consumers and
reviewers had nothing to do with the evolution towards more eye and ear
candy, you're simply wrong. So you're wrong or incompetent at
communicating your opinion, or both. Don't try to blame ME for that!
Wismerhill
> Good god you're fucking cluelessly dense, Simon. I was disagreeing
> with Major H's comment: "The larger files are the direct result of
> the demands of magazine reviewers and the majority of consumers for
> better sound and more colors."
>
> Fuck off, troll.
>
> Simon Juncal wrote:
>
>> Eep² wrote:
>> > Um, no, The larger files are the direct result of games simply
>> > becoming more realistic and representative of reality.
Ho. And why do you think they want better sound and more colors if not to have
more realistic games ?
--
Wis
Eep²
Simon Juncal
Eep² wrote:
> Yet another densite. <roll eyes>
>
> Nowhere did I disagree with Major H about larger data files (sound,
> graphics, models, terrain, videos, etc) being the reason for
> increased disk space usage; any idiot can see that.
Far as I can tell you're the only idiot that "can see that" you DIDN'T
disagree with him... Unfortunately "Um no" doesn't do a lot to support
or justify an opinion.
> What I AM
> disagreeing with is his claim that "The larger files are the direct
> result of the demands of magazine reviewers and the majority of
> consumers for better sound and more colors." It's just bullshit. The
> drive to make games more realistic (mostly through 3D but, yes, also
> with higher-resolution 2D graphics too) is what's caused larger data
> files (which, duh, have caused increased disk space usage).
Care to expand on just how 3d "mostly" causes larger data files as
opposed to 2d? Again do you have any familiarity with the subject,
beyond this nebulous undefined idea that 3d "mostly" results in larger
data sets?
> Come on...learn to think, people...do I have to explain EVERYTHING to
> you? Sheesh...
If it's such a common problem you face, then perhaps you need to look
inward... Unless you really think that you're smart and everyone else is
stupid?
> I tire of it. I also tire of having to tell you noobs
> to keep the damn crossposted newsgroups in when you reply.
That's funny coming from a top poster, who just set followups to
"fuckoff" in a previous reply.
Simon Juncal
Eep² wrote:
> Um, hello, MAGAZINE REVIEWERS? I don't think so. Who gives a fuck what they think? Puh-leaze!
Reviewers are simply an extension of the consumer... if the consumer
didn't give a crap about eye and ear candy there wouldn't be demand for
newer and better 3d cards, game consoles, computers, HDTV's, DVD's etc.
we would all still be listening to monophonic gramophones, and watching
black and white TV's... All the updated new fangled color TV's "Hi Fi"
systems etc. etc. etc. would have been still born out of lack of
interest. Tapes, CD's, DVD's HDTV's etc. would never have become
mainstream if the consumers didn't want them or the precursor technology
that they evolved from. Supply does not create demand, rather the
reverse is true; this is a fact. Thus you are wrong, and Major H's
statement is right.
Eep²
<adds you to the remaining newsgroup filters>
Away, troll! <flick>
Major H
> think?
Publishers, distributors, marketers, and developers too name a few.
Basically anyone who is working their butt off to maximize sales.
Best regards, Major H.
magnulus
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED261AA...@spam.com...
> My original statement still stands, Simon. Magazine reviewers didn't
influence shit with game developers.
>
Sure they do. Moreover, opinions of a game matter alot more to
publishers, who are footing the bills.
"building an immersive world" is not always the developer's goal.
Actually, I find the whole concept of "an immersive virtual world" quite
frightening. Have you seen "The Matrix" by chance? Do you really want to
live in a dream world, a delusion, devoid of any reality, any contact with
meaning? Do you spend all day playing video games? That's one reason I
think games like "The Sims" can go too far. When you have virtual
dishwashing as a game, or virtual TV watching, as in "The Sims", I think
it's almost time to pinch yourself and try and wake up. Not everything that
is immersive is good.
Developers are artists... they can use the medium for whatever they want.
Realism, impressionism, surrealism... you name it. You are too much stuck
on one idea, Eep.
Simon Juncal
> <adds you to the remaining newsgroup filters>
I'm honored, it's been a long time since I handed someone their ass so
thoroughly in an argument that they felt the need to killfile me lest
they face arguments that they have no answer for. That I did it to one
of the biggest kooks in the csip.games hierarchy inside of three posts
is definitely a personal record.
E. Deirdre Brooks
It's good to know that there's someone who will unequivocally tell you
that you just thoroughly trounced him in a discussion. Of course, it
only works once per person for crEep, although I think he publically
killfiled me two or three times (on different newsgroups). It did take
more than three posts, though.
I wonder if crEep really knows what a troll is, or if he's just using it
because someone called him that.
--
E. D. Brooks | kalima...@attbi.com | US2002021724
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
AeonAdventure | "Why, in my day, we used to fight the Lord of
Terror with nothing but a sharp stick!" -- www.reallifecomics.com
Simon Juncal
E. Deirdre Brooks wrote:
> It's good to know that there's someone who will unequivocally tell you
> that you just thoroughly trounced him in a discussion. Of course, it
> only works once per person for crEep, although I think he publically
> killfiled me two or three times (on different newsgroups). It did take
> more than three posts, though.
I was surprised, most usenet kooks seem to have much thicker skin ;)
Mario Wynands
> My original statement still stands, Simon. Magazine reviewers didn't
influence shit with game developers.
Assuming you are not going to get all literal and say that "magazine
reviewers" are people that review magazines, rather than acknowledging the
obvious intent of the original statement was likely "games reviewers"...
I'm a game developer and game reviewers (both magazine and web based) are
very important to appease. Not only do their opinions influence a wide
consumer base, but publishers also use reviews as a quick gauge of a
development studio's ability. A bad or good review therefore not only
effects the bottom line to a certain extent, but also effects chances of a
studio to continue getting work.
In short, developers are influenced by game reviewers.
Regards
Mario
E. Deirdre Brooks
Eep's thin skin is part of what makes him so amusing.
Boogie With Stu
Mario is exactly right. I'm a developer and while I do not work in
the games industry, we do make software (www.321studios.com) and those
reviews are *very* important. We have seen sales increase
considerably throughout the week a specific positive review came out.
I feel the consumer has become more cautious when buying software, be
it games, business, or productivity. Reviews can really hurt sales.
I don't know if this is true or not, but I have heard stories of game
publishers flying the reviewers to their offices, putting them up in
lush hotels, and taking them "out on the town".
--
Boogie With Stu
Courageous
> Actually, I find the whole concept of "an immersive virtual world" quite
>frightening. Have you seen "The Matrix" by chance? Do you really want to
>live in a dream world, a delusion, devoid of any reality, any contact with
>meaning?
A artifice, a delusion, which replicates with authenticity all human senses
and perception is indistinguishable from reality itself. This observation
isn't merely academic, it speaks to the fundamental nature of our cognition
and perception.
C//
Eep²
Eep²
Eep²
Get over it. :)
Jason E.
> Only low self-esteem putz developers/publishers are worried about what college dropouts (witness a recent PC Gamer article about their editors going BACK to college to actually get degrees and get REAL jobs) think, Mario. TRUE developers who know their shit don't give 2 shits and a piss (or even 1 shit and a piss, 1 shit, or just 1 piss) about what game reviewers think--UH UH.
>
A true game developer? you mean freeware game developers by your
definition?
of course they dont' care about reviewers. their games don't get
reviewed by publications anyway.
People who care to make a living, on the other hand, do care greatly
about how their games are received. Get a job and maybe you'll
understand the value of money.
magnulus
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED30DCA...@spam.com...
> One phrase: ignorance is bliss. How do you know we're not being deceived
by the multiverse right "now"? You don't. I don't. No one does--perhaps not
even the multiverse itself. <shrug>
>
> Get over it. :)
>
Well, as many philosophers have already noted, it is impossible to prove
that we aren't all a brain in a vat (Jonathan Dancy), or brains in vats, or
a single soul being tricked by a demon into believing a lie (Descartes).
But at least we can start somewhere. We know computer games are
absolutely "Not Real" in the sense that I can turn it off, go away, and have
a life outside of a game (BTW, can you?).
I think a good computer game should be like daydreaming- a diversion, not
a substitute for "reality".
Most people, for these purposes, will only require an impression of
reality. In Deus Ex, they don't have to be bothered with the fact that JC
Denton never takes a dump, or that Gordan Freeman in Half-Life can save
every bullet when he reloads an entire clip in 2 SECONDS.
G.I.L.
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED30CF8...@spam.com...
> Only low self-esteem putz developers/publishers are worried about what
college dropouts (witness a recent PC Gamer article about their editors
going BACK to college to actually get degrees and get REAL jobs) think,
Mario. TRUE developers who know their shit don't give 2 shits and a piss (or
even 1 shit and a piss, 1 shit, or just 1 piss) about what game reviewers
think--UH UH.
>
insulting them in the face when they do appear, is not an effective way to
achieve the game goals you aspire. I mean, do you know "true developers"?
Have you met any? Did you ask them how many "pisses" and "shits" they give
the reviewers? Or is this coming from your own virtualy private universe?
g
p.s. BTW, please note how you have directly called Mario "low self-esteem
putz", and "not a true developer". I guess you can forget about asking
"Sidhe" to add crate stacking features to their games...
Major H
> Oh please; anyone can be a magazine reviewer (just read any of the slop in any
> computer gaming magazine for proof). For publishers, distributors, marketers,
> developers, pimps, and hookers to give a shit what MAGAZINE REVIEWERS think is
> just ludicrously silly. That's like movie studios giving a shit what movie
> critics think. Puh-leaze...
Magazine reviews can have an impact on sales therefore they matter.
Best regards, Major H.
tac...@mac.com
http://www.battlefront.com/
magnulus
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED30A93...@spam.com...
> Oh please; anyone can be a magazine reviewer (just read any of the slop in
any computer gaming magazine for proof). For publishers, distributors,
marketers, developers, pimps, and hookers to give a shit what MAGAZINE
REVIEWERS think is just ludicrously silly. That's like movie studios giving
a shit what movie critics think. Puh-leaze...
>
>
I guess you don't know anything about business.
Reviews give exposure, and good exposure is usually better than bad
exposure.
I guess Roger Ebert is just full of hot air and his opinion doesn't
matter? I guess it doesn't matter he probably is more educated and has seen
more movies than you?
Tell me, would you buy a game that got the following reviews:
" Ugly graphics, boring gameplay, crap sound... 1 star"
Oh wait... you do like Tresspasser, I forgot.
Immortalist
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED30DCA...@spam.com...
> One phrase: ignorance is bliss. How do you know we're not being deceived
by the multiverse right "now"? You don't. I don't. No one does--perhaps not
even the multiverse itself. <shrug>
>
> Get over it. :)
>
Famous in the history of science is the argument _ad ignorantium_ given in
criticism of Galileo, when he showed leading astronomers of his time the
mountains and valleys on the moon that could be seen through his telescope.
Some scholars of that age, absolutely convinced that the moon was a perfect
sphere, as theology and Aristotelian science had long taught, argued against
Galileo that, although we see what appear to be mountains and valleys, the
moon is in fact a perfect sphere, because all its apparent irregularities
are filled in by an invisible crystalline substance. And this hypothesis,
which saves the perfection of the heavenly bodies, Galileo could not prove
false!
Appeal to Ignorance: The fallacy of appeal to ignorance is the assertion
that something must be true because it cannot be proven to be false.
According to argument theory, the person making an affirmative claim (a
claim about what is true, good, necessary, useful, etc.) Has the burden to
prove that claim true. The fallacy of appeal to ignorance attempts to
reverse the burden of proof and place it on the person making the negative
claim (that something is not true, good, useful, etc.) Our justice system
has a safeguard against this fallacy built in to it: the presumption of
innocence, or the belief in "innocent until proven guilty). If cases were
tried according to the appeal to ignorance, the guilty person would have to
prove that he or she did not commit a crime, which is, in many cases, a very
difficult thing to do.
I belive that life exists in outer space because nobody has ever been able
to prove that it does not.
Senator Baxter has never given any compelling evidence to prove that he is
not a communist; therefore it is safe to assume that he is.
Nobody has ever been able to prove conclusively that pornography does not
lead to sexual violence. Until they do, we had best regulate its production
and distribution.
Douche?
> Oh please; anyone can be a magazine reviewer (just read any of the slop in any computer gaming magazine for proof). For publishers, distributors, marketers, developers, pimps, and hookers to give a shit what MAGAZINE REVIEWERS think is just ludicrously silly. That's like movie studios giving a shit what movie critics think. Puh-leaze...
Why do studios give movie reviewers advance screenings then, retard? For that
matter, why are game reviewers given betas and free review copies of games?
I will accept "Me Eep. Me stupid." as a response.
Eep²
Eep²
Fuck off, troll.
G.I.L.
g
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED3C04D...@spam.com...
> Because studios are gullible pathetic peon-lemmings who have such low
self-esteem that they will try to please everyone and their grandmother that
their product "is the next big thing@&$#(". <roll eyes>
> > In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action Douche? <e...@tnlc.com> wrote:
> > > Oh please; anyone can be a magazine reviewer (just read any of the
slop in any computer gaming magazine for proof). For publishers,
distributors, marketers, developers, pimps, and hookers to give a shit what
MAGAZINE REVIEWERS think is just ludicrously silly. That's like movie
studios giving a shit what movie critics think. Puh-leaze...
---
Waterhead?
> Because studios are gullible pathetic peon-lemmings who have such low self-esteem that they will try to please everyone and their grandmother that their product "is the next big thing@&$#(". <roll eyes>
"That's like movie studios giving a shit what movie critics think. Puh-leaze"
Poor Eep. You must really like the taste of your foot.
> Fuck off, troll.
Suck it down.
Major H
> Eep ...
> Only for moronic lemming gamers who haven't learned how to achieve independent
> thought yet. <shrug>
Gamers who read reviews have an impact on sales therefore they matter.
Eep²
> My apologies for not being clairvoyant, but without understanding your
> definition of "realism", I was unable to agree or disagree with you. Since
> I now understand that "realism" is immersion within the game (primarily
> through 3D graphics and sound), then please explain to a "densite" what is
> driving the demand for "immersion realism" in games that really don't need
> it (wargames and strategic games ... to stay on-topic within "strategic")?
>
> Before you answer that, I'm curious why you didn't ask MajorH how he came to
> his opinion, instead of dismissing it outright? Perhaps you would have
> understood his experience as a game designer led him to that conclusion.
> From your reply, it seems that you both agree that "the majority of
> consumers are demanding more 'immersion realism' (aka better sound and more
> colors)".
More realistic immersion is hardly limited to better sound and more colors (of which there are not more colors but, simply, more color BIT DEPTH; specifically, 32-bit color which allows smoother gradient transparency over 16-bit color). 3D (textures, map/level data, models, etc) is the main reason games have taken up more disk space since the mid 1990s.
> The difference is perspective.
The difference is relative.
> Your perspective may be that of an FPS/sim gamer (since you cross-posted to
> "action"), whereas MajorH's perspective may be that of a wargamer. I
> believe you'll agree that an FPS gamer relies on visual and aural cues that
> can only enhance play if the 3D "immersion realism" constantly improving.
> Therefore, it is likely that the graphics and sound will increase in size.
> From a wargamer's perspective, being able to distill mountains of data into
> information that can be acted upon is more important than a repeative
> cut-scene or a stereo tank sound. However, to expand the demand for the game
> into the mass-market, game designers are compelled to devote more effort to
> eye-candy since the mass-market consumers want to see the photo-realistic
> graphics or to hear the tank roll by them through their surround sound
> stereo.
Yes, CONSUMERS, not game magazine reviewers.
> The part about the game reviewers placing those same demands on game
> designers ... well, one only needs to read a few wargame reviews or listen
> to a game designer's "war stories" to understand that opinion.
ANYONE can be a "game reviewer" (verbal, written, or whatever) but I have a problem with MAGAZINE (game) reviewers being specifically singled out for contributing in a significant amount to causing games to become more realistic and immersive. Puh-leaze...
> Now to address the issue about the consumption of disk space... again, I
> apologize for not being clairvoyant. Had I known your definition of
> "realism" meant graphic/sound "immersion realism", then it goes without
> saying that the graphic and sound files will increase. However, if your
> definition of "realism" was that the executables and supporting files
> increased in size to support better AI and modeling of physics, then the
> evidence would refute that claim.
Uh, AI and physics takes more disk space too as it gets more and more realistic.
> IMHO, "immersion realism" within wargames
> and strategy games is not photo-realistic graphics and stereo sound, but
> better tools for decision-making. I like SOPs, drag-n-drop objects, ability
> to create notes on the fly, and a few other things that are more appropriate
> in another thread.
So then why are more and more strategy games going 3D then? Because they're getting more and more realistic (visually, aurally, and AIly).
> Finally, since the original poster chose not to cross-post ... and that all
> others before you followed suit ... I felt obliged to follow the group and
> keep it on topic within "strategic". By cross-posting to "action" you
> actually made the thread off-topic in that group (especially since I chose
> to talk specifically about strategy and war games). Nevertheless, given
> your possible perspective, I understand why you did it. BTW, I won't
> cross-post since there doesn't seem to be any interest from the FPS folks
> (although I'm sure that someone will eventually flame you for cross-posting
> to "action").
<yawn> There are c.s.i.p.g.action posters who have already taken part in this discussion. By removing the crosspost to that group, those participants can no longer participate. Duh.
Crossposted newsgroups readded...again.
> "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED1AD0E...@spam.com...
> > Yet another densite. <roll eyes>
> >
> > Nowhere did I disagree with Major H about larger data files (sound,
> graphics, models, terrain, videos, etc) being the reason for increased disk
> space usage; any idiot can see that. What I AM disagreeing with is his claim
> that "The larger files are the direct result of the demands of magazine
> reviewers and the majority of consumers for better sound and more colors."
> It's just bullshit. The drive to make games more realistic (mostly through
> 3D but, yes, also with higher-resolution 2D graphics too) is what's caused
> larger data files (which, duh, have caused increased disk space usage).
> >
> > Come on...learn to think, people...do I have to explain EVERYTHING to you?
> Sheesh...I tire of it. I also tire of having to tell you noobs to keep the
> damn crossposted newsgroups in when you reply.
> >
> > Gary Heverly wrote:
> >
> > > Eep², I'm afraid you will need to define "more realistic" and
> > > "representative of reality". Do you measure it in terms of the
> historical
> > > outcome or the ability to suspend belief that you are playing a computer
> > > game? Even with mere VGA graphics, Panthers in the Shadows can still
> put
> > > newer games to shame ... so no cigar for you. If you are referring to
> the
> > > eye-candy, then you are partially correct. For games that require the
> > > immersion (flightsims and FPS), then the additional eye-candy is
> necessary.
> > > Many games, however, really don't need it. Now, there is substantial
> > > evidence to support MajorH's case that much of the increase in disk
> space is
> > > the result of larger sound and art files -- especially for games that
> don't
> > > need the eye-candy.
> > >
> > > For example, the entire Age of Rifles installation (1996) required
> 64MB;
> > > the Uncommon Valor installation (2002) requires about 800MB with about
> 640MB
> > > for sound and artwork (the game executable is about 2MB). Note that I
> > > specifically chose games that are not expected to have substantial
> > > eye-candy. I just wish that game designers could spend more time on
> > > integrating planning tools into the games and improving the user
> interface,
> > > rather than devoting that time to eye-candy that I will never use.
> Sigh, I
> > > guess it's time to break out the Monster, Wacht Am Rhein...
> > >
> > > "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED0F9C3...@spam.com...
> > > > Major H wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > > A decade ago, a good game could fit entirely on a single floppy.
> Now, some
> > > > > > of the latest games need 1.2 Gigs (!) of HD space. Why are we
> getting less
> > > > > > bang for the byte? Is this from bad programming style, or is all
> that memory
> > > > > > really necessary?
> > > > >
> > > > > Most of the increase in required disk space is due to more and much
> larger
> > > > > sound and art files. The larger files are the direct result of the
> demands
> > > > > of magazine reviewers and the majority of consumers for better sound
> and
> > > > > more colors. There is no going back.
> > > >
> > > > Um, no, The larger files are the direct result of games simply
> becoming
> > > more realistic and representative of reality.
Eep²
Eep²
Learn to pay attention, twat.
"G.I.L." wrote:
> Everybody, please note how Eep contradicts himself. Surprised?
>
Eep²
Learn to read, dork.
Once more and you're filtered...
Major H
> Again, only the mindless peonic lemming ones who haven't learned how to
> achieve independent thought yet.
> Learn to read, dork.
> Once more and you're filtered...
Gamers who read reviews have an impact on sales therefore they matter.
Best regards, Major H.
tac...@mac.com
http://www.battlefront.com/
Mario Wynands
> "Jason E." wrote:
> > Eep² <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:<3ED30CF8...@spam.com>...
> > > Only low self-esteem putz developers/publishers are worried about what
college dropouts (witness a recent PC Gamer article about their editors
going BACK to college to actually get degrees and get REAL jobs) think,
Mario. TRUE developers who know their shit don't give 2 shits and a piss (or
even 1 shit and a piss, 1 shit, or just 1 piss) about what game reviewers
think--UH UH.
> > >
> >
> > A true game developer? you mean freeware game developers by your
> > definition?
> > of course they dont' care about reviewers. their games don't get
> > reviewed by publications anyway.
> > People who care to make a living, on the other hand, do care greatly
> > about how their games are received. Get a job and maybe you'll
> > understand the value of money.
> >
> A true artist (game developer or not) who hasn't sold out doesn't give a
SHIT what people think of his/her work.
>
For the benefit of those of us who are caught up in the corporate end of the
game development industry, could you please name three game developers
operating today who you consider to have not "sold out" and who do not value
what either reviewers or gamers think of their games?
On a personal note, I am passionate about my work, but I am a businessman as
well. If people consistently hate the product we create, then our studio
goes out of business, and I have to return to fixing problems in large
corporates as a consultant (financially rewarding, but ultimately
unsatisfying for me). As a large scale developer, you either listen to your
market which is influenced by high profile consumers such as game reviewers,
or you go out of business - call that greed if you will, I call it common
sense.
Regards
Mario
E. Deirdre Brooks
>
> Everybody, please note how Eep contradicts himself. Surprised?
Making Eep argue himself into a circle is like taking candy from small
children. Sure, you get results, but it's not very challenging and you
just get lots of screaming as a result.
Jim Lascola
> Because studios are gullible pathetic peon-lemmings who have such low self-esteem that they will try to please everyone and their grandmother that their product "is the next big thing@&$#(". <roll eyes>
>
> Fuck off, troll.
>
Only Troll I see is You Pee-Pee
Jim
Jason E.
> Again, only the mindless peonic lemming ones who haven't learned how to achieve independent thought yet.
>
you've got grudge against game reviewers because they all gave your
favorite game (trespasser) a bad review?
Jason E.
> A true artist (game developer or not) who hasn't sold out doesn't give a SHIT what people think of his/her work.
>
what are you, a communist?
game developers are people too - they have to earn money to eat.
First Prophet of Kaos
>I also tire of having to tell you noobs to keep the damn crossposted newsgroups in when you reply.
I tire of having to tell you that it's the *vets* removing the
crossposts, not the noobs.
--
You can't claim the moral highground
By sinking to your enemy's level.
G.I.L.
> Um, where is the contradiction? I'm not "Douche?", idiot. <roll eyes>
>
> Learn to pay attention, twat.
You mean you didn't write:
"That's like movie studios giving a shit what movie critics think.
Puh-leaze..."
AND
"Because studios are gullible pathetic peon-lemmings who have such low
self-esteem that they will try to please everyone and their grandmother that
their product "is the next big thing@&$#("
(You wrote both, it's really easy to detect the elegant style consistency)
You don't see a contradiction there, do you?
Hint1: In the 1st sentence you claim they don't give a shit. In the 2nd you
claim they will try to please everyone.
You still don't see the contradiction?
Hint2: Movie critics are a subset of "everyone and their grandmother".
Hint3: Trying to please someone means you care what he thinks.
HTH.
g
> "G.I.L." wrote:
>
>> Everybody, please note how Eep contradicts himself. Surprised?
>>
>> "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message
>> news:3ED3C04D...@spam.com...
>>> Because studios are gullible pathetic peon-lemmings who have such
>>> low
>> self-esteem that they will try to please everyone and their
>> grandmother that their product "is the next big thing@&$#(". <roll
>> eyes>
>>
>>>> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action Douche? <e...@tnlc.com> wrote:
>>>>> Oh please; anyone can be a magazine reviewer (just read any of the
>> slop in any computer gaming magazine for proof). For publishers,
>> distributors, marketers, developers, pimps, and hookers to give a
>> shit what MAGAZINE REVIEWERS think is just ludicrously silly. That's
>> like movie studios giving a shit what movie critics think.
>> Puh-leaze...
bh
> Um, where is the contradiction? I'm not "Douche?", idiot. <roll eyes>
He wasn't saying you were, twit.
> Learn to pay attention, twat.
Funny. Idiot.
Peter Cowderoy
> Only low self-esteem putz developers/publishers are worried about what
> college dropouts (witness a recent PC Gamer article about their editors
> going BACK to college to actually get degrees and get REAL jobs) think,
> Mario. TRUE developers who know their shit don't give 2 shits and a piss
> (or even 1 shit and a piss, 1 shit, or just 1 piss) about what game
> reviewers think--UH UH.
>
I just pictured Eep standing up on Jerry Springer in a tutu.
Somebody shoot me.
Eep²
Eep²
Eep²
My point is: true artists (whether painters, sculptors, game developers, or movie studios) don't give a shit what other people think of their work. Unfortunately, greed as infiltrated most art trades these centuries (not "days") so true artists are indeed a rare breed.
G.I.L.
> "G.I.L." wrote:
>
>> Eep˛ wrote:
>>> Um, where is the contradiction? I'm not "Douche?", idiot. <roll
>>> eyes>
>>>
>>> Learn to pay attention, twat.
>>
>> You mean you didn't write:
>> "That's like movie studios giving a shit what movie critics think.
>> Puh-leaze..."
>> AND
>> "Because studios are gullible pathetic peon-lemmings who have such
>> low
>> self-esteem that they will try to please everyone and their
>> grandmother that
>> their product "is the next big thing@&$#("
>>
>> (You wrote both, it's really easy to detect the elegant style
>> consistency)
>> You don't see a contradiction there, do you?
>> Hint1: In the 1st sentence you claim they don't give a shit. In the
>> 2nd you
>> claim they will try to please everyone.
>>
>> You still don't see the contradiction?
>> Hint2: Movie critics are a subset of "everyone and their
>> grandmother".
>> Hint3: Trying to please someone means you care what he thinks.
Eep˛ wrote:
> The contradiction is in what Douche wrote. Regardless, obviously, not
> ALL movie studios don't care about what reviewers think.
I agree. Please try to generalize less in the future. Don't say now
"obviously" when it was quite obvious that you actually meant "all movie
studios" in the first place. But I accept this correction. Now it actually
makes sense. Trouble is, you don't know how many do and how many don't.
Clue: most studios care ("their grandmother" et al).
> My point is: true artists (whether painters, sculptors, game
> developers, or movie studios) don't give a shit what other people
> think of their work. Unfortunately, greed as infiltrated most art
> trades these centuries (not "days") so true artists are indeed a rare
> breed.
I'm not sure I agree. Consider the following:
* (this one is a guess): You haven't met any "true artists". You may have
not met artists at all. So you might be guessing here.
* Even "true artists" care enough. If a critic kills them their ego is hurt,
if they are loved, they will most likely use it as leverage.
* Art is a form of communication. You SHOULD care what the other thinks,
because as an artist you're trying to send a message.
* Art critics know about art more than the average person, and sometimes
more than the artists themselves. Sometimes art critics are artists
themselves. The public reads and listens.
* The public pays directly or through taxes for art. The artist should care
and be grateful.
* Even "true artists" according to your definition sometimes keep their word
in the back of the drawer. That's the kind of art they don't wish (but not
"not care") the public to see.
* You define "true artists" by the ability to not care about what other
people think of their work. Can there be a shitty artist who doesn't care?
Couldn't there be an excellent artist who does? That's a lousy criteria for
art judgement. According to you, it's suffice for an artist to just *lie*
about caring in order to make him "true". How would you know he lied?
* Most importantly: *you care* for the games you play. You would like games
to evolve. Why should the "true artist" developers give a 2 pisses about
what you think? hmm? According to you, if they don't, then they are "true
artists". Wee, another contradiction!
g
G.I.L.
Eep² wrote:
> What I do NOT call it is art. Again, a true artist isn't concerned
> with what other people think about his/her work. True artists create
> for the sake of creation and are driven by something FAR deeper than
> petty greed or the desire to please as many people as s/he can (only
> because it will sell his/her art--which is just pathetic and a sign
> of a TRUE sell-out).
>
And you could tell they care... how? An artist has a job (do you pay your
own bills?), it's called "art". It should justify itself. It's the
difference between "love making" and "masturbation". A true artist should
care what the public thinks. It's a romance between the the artist and the
public. There is no such thing as "history will judge". It's the public who
will.
Major H
> Since you're just repeating yourself--and obviously not getting any
> smarter--you're now filtered.
Ooooo .... filtered ... ooooo.
Eep²
I just have a hard time believing immature game magazine reviewers have THAT much power over game publishers/developers. Puh-leaze...who gives a shit what Tom Chick thinks? <roll eyes>
Eep²
Get some balls and actually LEARN how to be an artist/programmer/whatever and be comfortable enough with YOUR abilities that you don't need the external gratified approval of others in order to feel secure in what you do. Lastly, take a basic psychology class to learn more about what low self-esteem is so you're aware of it when you have it.
Oh and stop removing crossposted newsgroups.
Alex wrote:
> On Tue, 27 May 2003 19:41:24 GMT, Eep² <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>
> >Only for moronic lemming gamers who haven't learned how to achieve independent thought yet. <shrug>
>
> It doesn't matter if you respect "lemming gamers" - the fact is that
> they affect sales. There, you were wrong - can't you admit that?
MoronEep
> The contradiction is in what Douche wrote. Regardless, obviously, not ALL movie studios don't care about what reviewers think.
>
But you said they did. You contradicted yourself. Idiot. Douche pointed out
the flaw in your argument and you ignored it because you know you're
wrong. Suck a turd, know-nothing.
Eep²
In short, true artists just don't give a fuck what other people think of them or their work.
You'll never understand this unless you "become" a true artist--but if you're not already, good fucking luck. ;)
"G.I.L." wrote:
> <Top posting corrected>
Stop fucking with it.
Eep²
"G.I.L." wrote:
> <Top posting corrected>
Stop fucking with it, non-true-artist!
G.I.L.
> Fuck the public. Fuck judging. Fuck being judged. Fuck it all. A true
> artist doesn't give a fuck about what the public thinks of his/her
> work.
g
G.I.L.
> You're thinking too hard/much.
Thank you. From you it's a compliment. Thinking is relative and hence cannot
be "too much". YOU learn how to think relatively harder (I can teach you if
you like)! ;)
> A true artist is driven by an internal
> drive (passion, love, need--whatever) to create something--ANYTHING.
> A true artist isn't concerned with how his/her art will affect the
> world or even individual people.
So the fact the game developers consistently ignore your ideas is proof they
are "true artists"? Why are you bitching about their games, then? You know
they'll stay true to their art!
> A true artist is, by nature,
> self-involved, perhaps even a bit (or very) conceited, self-centered,
> and, yes, very self-conscious. True artists are so focused on their
> art that nothing else outside of that focus matters; they get pissed
> at criticism AND praise--especially if it's constantly repeated--if
> their work isn't done--or even when it is. A true artist does nothing
> BUT create things and doesn't have time for chit-chat about such
> petty things as "the meaning" behind his/her work. The work is the
> work--and that's all it is. Any meaning the viewer brings to it is
> their own. Sure, some artists attach meaning to their work, but true
> artists do not.
Name a few please. Try to stick to the living while you're at it.
> True artists don't even name their work; simply "work
> 1" or whatever is sufficient.
Gee, der, have you played "work 1" lately, or are you waiting for it to
reach the bargain bin?
> In short, true artists just don't give a fuck what other people think
> of them or their work.
>
> You'll never understand this unless you "become" a true artist--but
> if you're not already, good fucking luck. ;)
You understand it because you are a "true artist"? Or does the rule of
knowing does not apply to you? (contradiction time again)
g
> "G.I.L." wrote:
>> <Top posting corrected>
>
> Stop fucking with it.
Why are you allowed to fuck with other people's posting and I can't with
yours? (Careful, contradiction city)
Mario Wynands
> What I do NOT call it is art. Again, a true artist isn't concerned with
what other people think about his/her work. True artists create for the sake
of creation and are driven by something FAR deeper than petty greed or the
desire to please as many people as s/he can (only because it will sell
his/her art--which is just pathetic and a sign of a TRUE sell-out).
>
You missed my question. Answering it would help clarify your stance.
For the benefit of those of us who are caught up in the corporate end of the
game development industry, could you please name three game developers
operating today who you consider to have not "sold out" and who do not value
what either reviewers or gamers think of their games?
Or to put it another way, what three developers currently operating today do
you consider "true artists"?
Regards
Mario
Mario Wynands
> My point is: true artists (whether painters, sculptors, game developers,
or movie studios) don't give a shit what other people think of their work.
>
So, what you are saying is as a game developer, I should not listen to
anything you have to say? And that all your comments on all aspects of
gaming and game design are not directed at developers, but at consumers?
Regards
Mario
Gary Heverly
Eeps has no need to clarify his stance, since he knows perfectly what he
means.
You see.... Eeps doesn't live in the real world, he lives in Eeps' world.
Eeps is
always right; those who contradict or disagree, regardless of evidence or
experience, are either idiots or naive children.
There is nothing you or I can say that would change his world.
I do have faith that he will eventually walk out of the fog, although I may
killfile him long before that occurs.
Gary
PS. I reluctantly crosspost from strategic to design and industry because
I'm not certain which group you responded in.
"Mario Wynands" <ma...@sidhe.co.nz> wrote in message
news:bb3ijf$gei$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz...
Brownshirt
<snip>
What's funny about all this is it's obvious, going by how hard he's pushing
the issue, that Eep considers himself a "true artist." I wonder what kind of
statement he's trying to make with that godawful website of his?
Mario Wynands
news:LudBa.761956$OV.695977@rwcrnsc54...
> Mario,
>
> Eeps has no need to clarify his stance, since he knows perfectly what he
> means.
> You see.... Eeps doesn't live in the real world, he lives in Eeps' world.
> Eeps is
> always right; those who contradict or disagree, regardless of evidence or
> experience, are either idiots or naive children.
> There is nothing you or I can say that would change his world.
> I do have faith that he will eventually walk out of the fog, although I
may
> killfile him long before that occurs.
Thanks for the heads up, Gary.
But my point is not to bring Eep "out the the fog". My aim is to keep those
less experienced from wandering in.
Regards
Mario
Jason E.
> Fuck the public. Fuck judging. Fuck being judged. Fuck it all. A true artist doesn't give a fuck about what the public thinks of his/her work.
>
Youre not an artist nor a game developer. if you define art as an
expression of one's self, a game is NOT an art because it's something
that's supposed to be shared and enjoyed by others. but if you define
art as something that's supposed to be shared and not personal, then
your "Fuck the public" statement affects a game's acceptance in a
negative way.
Let me make it clear for you:
1) A game is not supposed to be art. it's supposed to be
entertainment, like Monopoly or Chess.
2) you're an idiot for claiming to know what a "true game developer"
is.
Jason E.
> You're thinking too hard/much. A true artist is driven by an internal dri
> ve (passion, love, need--whatever) to create something--ANYTHING. A true
> artist isn't concerned with how his/her art will affect the world or even
> individual people. A true artist is, by nature, self-involved, perhaps e
> ven a bit (or very) conceited, self-centered, and, yes, very self-conscio
> us. True artists are so focused on their art that nothing else outside of
> that focus matters; they get pissed at criticism AND praise--especially
> if it's constantly repeated--if their work isn't done--or even when it is
> . A true artist does nothing BUT create things and doesn't have time fo
> r chit-chat about such petty things as "the meaning" behind his/her work.
> The work is the work--and that's all it is. Any meaning the viewer bring
> s to it is their own. Sure, some artists attach meaning to their work, bu
> t true artists do not. True artists don't even name their work; simply "w
> ork 1" or whatever is sufficient.
>
> In short, true artists just don't give a fuck what other people think of
> them or their work.
>
> You'll never understand this unless you "become" a true artist--but if yo
> u're not already, good fucking luck. ;)
>
Kudos to G.I.L. for pointing this out
"Most importantly: *you care* for the games you play. You would like g
ames
to evolve. Why should the "true artist" developers give a 2 pisses
abou t
what you think? hmm? According to you, if they don't, then they are
"tr ue
artists". Wee, another contradiction!"
Eep you are not an artist. you're not even a game developer.
Can you even name one game developer who's a true artist by your
standards? it's apparent you don't know anything about this subject.
stop embarrassing yourself.
Gerry Quinn
>Appeal to Ignorance: The fallacy of appeal to ignorance is the assertion
>that something must be true because it cannot be proven to be false.
>According to argument theory, the person making an affirmative claim (a
>claim about what is true, good, necessary, useful, etc.) Has the burden to
>prove that claim true. The fallacy of appeal to ignorance attempts to
>reverse the burden of proof and place it on the person making the negative
>claim (that something is not true, good, useful, etc.) Our justice system
>has a safeguard against this fallacy built in to it: the presumption of
>innocence, or the belief in "innocent until proven guilty). If cases were
>tried according to the appeal to ignorance, the guilty person would have to
>prove that he or she did not commit a crime, which is, in many cases, a very
>difficult thing to do.
Of course the same appeal can be made in the opposite direction and is
equally fallacious:
>Senator Baxter has never given any compelling evidence to prove that he is
>not a communist; therefore it is safe to assume that he is.
Senator Baxter has never been proven to be a communist; therefore it is
safe to trust him with our secrets.
>Nobody has ever been able to prove conclusively that pornography does not
>lead to sexual violence. Until they do, we had best regulate its production
>and distribution.
Nobody has ever been able to prove conclusively that pornography leads
to [an increase in*] sexual violence. Therefore it should be freely
produced and distributed.
In most debates, however, both sides resort to arguments based on
dubious probabilistic assessments, rather than employing the fallacy in
its most naked form, as in the four examples above.
*Clearly some instances of pornography are directly associated with
sexual violence, as for example when it is employed in their production,
as is known to sometimes be the case. I assume the previous poster
refers to "pornography in general" and a putative average increase.
- Gerry Quinn
martin z
> that we aren't all a brain in a vat (Jonathan Dancy), or brains in vats,
or
> a single soul being tricked by a demon into believing a lie (Descartes).
>
> But at least we can start somewhere. We know computer games are
> absolutely "Not Real" in the sense that I can turn it off, go away, and
have
> a life outside of a game (BTW, can you?).
>
> I think a good computer game should be like daydreaming- a diversion,
not
> a substitute for "reality".
>
> Most people, for these purposes, will only require an impression of
> reality. In Deus Ex, they don't have to be bothered with the fact that JC
> Denton never takes a dump, or that Gordan Freeman in Half-Life can save
> every bullet when he reloads an entire clip in 2 SECONDS.
>
The fact is that most gamers have this stupid idea that they want believe
the game they're playing is realistic if they don't think about it to hard.
I really annoys me - CounterStrike has all the realism of an episode of
Xena, but gamers love it because it *feels* realistic. If a game avoids
realism at all with good gameplay or art, gamers ignore it (how many people
have I talked to who didn't like respawning just for realism issues?). The
only exception is if it is set in a recognizable licensed setting (Star
Trek, BattleTech, WarCraft) and they still want some certain fake realism
issues - like how battletech games all pretend to be simulators.
Of course, when you think about it, the only games that actually sport true
realism are the hardcore sims like Rogue Spear or the various EA sports
games. But nobody cares, as long as the game tries to *trick* them into
realism.
Immortalist
"Gerry Quinn" <ger...@indigo.ie> wrote in message
news:UMnBa.15719$pK2....@news.indigo.ie...
True, that is the nature of the "Appeal to Ignorance" or the Appeal to about
anything. Suppose we have two premises and one conclusion that is claimed to
follow from the premises. If an appeal is made to something of substance or
truth or evidence, everything as far as validity is fine, even though
soundness can continue to be questioned as to the truth of such premises.
Fallacies are just the attempt to replace one or more of the premises with
inadequate evidence as an assertion that begs to be defended.
So either way you use non-falsifiable propositions is fallacious, whether
the Senater has or has not been proven to be this or that.
1. Senator X seems to be either a communist or not.
2. Senater X has never been proven to be either communist or not.
therefore: X is a communist
therefore: X is not a communist
therefore : X is a democratic socialist
therefore: X is a Leninist anit-Trotsky pro x-lax?
The assertion of 2. could be used to defend a "might" or "may be"
proposition in a larger argument consisting of many premises.
> >Nobody has ever been able to prove conclusively that pornography does not
> >lead to sexual violence. Until they do, we had best regulate its
production
> >and distribution.
>
> Nobody has ever been able to prove conclusively that pornography leads
> to [an increase in*] sexual violence. Therefore it should be freely
> produced and distributed.
>
1. Nobody has ever been able to prove conclusively that pornography leads to
[an increase in*] sexual violence.
2. Parents have rights as concerns how their children are raised and what
they see.
Therefore: pornography should be freely produced and distributed as long as
it is easily avoidable by some parents and children?
> In most debates, however, both sides resort to arguments based on
> dubious probabilistic assessments, rather than employing the fallacy in
> its most naked form, as in the four examples above.
>
Actually any example is sufficient to show that the truth claims made by one
or more of the premises is based upon inadequate evidence. Senater X may or
may not be a communist but this is not really a basis for conclusions that
supposedly follow from such a statement.
> *Clearly some instances of pornography are directly associated with
> sexual violence, as for example when it is employed in their production,
> as is known to sometimes be the case. I assume the previous poster
> refers to "pornography in general" and a putative average increase.
>
a critical thinker who give the benifit of the doubt and communicates both
sides of an issue! rare, but cool.
> - Gerry Quinn
>
Eep²
> Eep˛ wrote:
> > You're thinking too hard/much.
>
> Thank you. From you it's a compliment. Thinking is relative and hence cannot
> be "too much". YOU learn how to think relatively harder (I can teach you if
> you like)! ;)
Oh please...you couldn't even begin to approach my level of relative thinking, sport. <chuckle>
> > A true artist is driven by an internal
> > drive (passion, love, need--whatever) to create something--ANYTHING.
> > A true artist isn't concerned with how his/her art will affect the
> > world or even individual people.
>
> So the fact the game developers consistently ignore your ideas is proof they
> are "true artists"? Why are you bitching about their games, then? You know
> they'll stay true to their art!
"My" ideas are constantly showing up in games. True game developers know how to evolve their game design without having to be handheld and told how to do it.
> > A true artist is, by nature,
> > self-involved, perhaps even a bit (or very) conceited, self-centered,
> > and, yes, very self-conscious. True artists are so focused on their
> > art that nothing else outside of that focus matters; they get pissed
> > at criticism AND praise--especially if it's constantly repeated--if
> > their work isn't done--or even when it is. A true artist does nothing
> > BUT create things and doesn't have time for chit-chat about such
> > petty things as "the meaning" behind his/her work. The work is the
> > work--and that's all it is. Any meaning the viewer brings to it is
> > their own. Sure, some artists attach meaning to their work, but true
> > artists do not.
>
> Name a few please. Try to stick to the living while you're at it.
I don't have to. Take an art history class or something.
> > True artists don't even name their work; simply "work
> > 1" or whatever is sufficient.
>
> Gee, der, have you played "work 1" lately, or are you waiting for it to
> reach the bargain bin?
Um, it doesn't exist, idiot.
> > In short, true artists just don't give a fuck what other people think
> > of them or their work.
> >
> > You'll never understand this unless you "become" a true artist--but
> > if you're not already, good fucking luck. ;)
>
> You understand it because you are a "true artist"? Or does the rule of
> knowing does not apply to you? (contradiction time again)
I consider myself an artist, yes. I haven't sold out so, yes, I would consider myself a "true" artist too. <shrug>
> > "G.I.L." wrote:
> >> <Top posting corrected>
> >
> > Stop fucking with it.
>
> Why are you allowed to fuck with other people's posting and I can't with
> yours? (Careful, contradiction city)
Because I add to the discussion by adding more newsgroups. Duh.
Eep²
I don't think it's even possible to BE a true artist (game developer) in the current industry...
Eep²
Eep²
Nathan Mates
Jason E. <jaye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Eep you are not an artist. you're not even a game developer.
>Can you even name one game developer who's a true artist by your
>standards? it's apparent you don't know anything about this subject.
>stop embarrassing yourself.
To borrow a running joke from slashdot, the rules for a game
devleoper are simple:
1) See what Eep demands
2) Do the opposite
3) Profit!
:)
Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates - personal webpage http://www.visi.com/~nathan/
# Programmer at Pandemic Studios -- http://www.pandemicstudios.com/
# NOT speaking for Pandemic Studios. "Care not what the neighbors
# think. What are the facts, and to how many decimal places?" -R.A. Heinlein
Eep²
G.I.L.
> I'm not trying to make ANY statement with my website, Brownshit. My
> website is for informative purposes only, really, but, of course,
> it's my style; I like low-contrast dark colors--if you don't, simply
> override them in your web browser. <shrug>
Part of being "informative" is "easy access". Wasting the readers' time by
making them override your color settings will most likely deter most people
away. Is your philosophy "make it harder on everyone by forcing them to
customize everything"?
g
G.I.L.
> I don't really consider any game developer that I know of to be "true
> artists" at this time. Wil Wright used to be before he sold out to
> EA. Sid Meier once was but sold out LONG ago. Maybe Warren Buffet(?),
> but he's more of a suit than an artist--at least he's continuing the
> Thief series! Perhaps Carnack or Romero, but I suspect not. That's
> all I can think of right now. Unfortunately, the game industry has
> changed (more corporate, more focused on profit, etc) since these (at
> least the older) guys started out.
>
> I don't think it's even possible to BE a true artist (game developer)
> in the current industry...
If you don't believe there can be any in the game business then why did you
start talking about "true artists" in the first place then?
g
> Mario Wynands wrote:
>
>> "Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message
>> news:3ED5053D...@spam.com...
>>> What I do NOT call it is art. Again, a true artist isn't concerned
>>> with
>> what other people think about his/her work. True artists create for
>> the sake
>> of creation and are driven by something FAR deeper than petty greed
>> or the
>> desire to please as many people as s/he can (only because it will
>> sell
>> his/her art--which is just pathetic and a sign of a TRUE sell-out).
>>>
>>
>> You missed my question. Answering it would help clarify your stance.
>>
>> For the benefit of those of us who are caught up in the corporate
>> end of the
>> game development industry, could you please name three game
>> developers
>> operating today who you consider to have not "sold out" and who do
>> not value
>> what either reviewers or gamers think of their games?
>>
>> Or to put it another way, what three developers currently operating
>> today do
>> you consider "true artists"?
Immortalist
"Eep²" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message news:3ED65616...@spam.com...
> Uh, Rogue Spear is a hardcore sim? That's funny. Most Rogue Spear game
levels are weofully uninteractive (shooting most objects has no effect, for
example). I haven't played Black Hawk Down yet but from what I've read it
isn't that much more interactive than previous Tom Clancy Rainbow Six (Rogue
Spear et al) games.
>
Chapter 13: GOD GAMES
- Populous II; an State of the Art God Game Where You Create a World & Let
It Go
Populous II is a state-of-the-art computer god game. You play god. A son of
Zeus to be exact. Through the portal of the computer screen you spy down
upon a patch of Earth where the tiny figures of men scurry about farming,
building, and wandering around. With a shimmering blue hand (the hand of
god) you can reach down and touch the land, transforming it. You can either
gradually level mountains or gradually build up valleys. In both cases, you
try to create flat farmland for people. Except for the power to deliver a
spectrum of disasters such as earthquakes, tidal waves, and tornadoes, your
direct influence over the people of your world is limited to this geological
hand.
Good farmland makes happy people. You can see them prosper and bustle about.
They build farmhouses first; then as their numbers increase, they build
red-tile roofed town houses, and if things continue to bode well, eventually
they construct complex walled cities, whitewashed and gleaming in the
Mediterranean sun. The more the little beings prosper, the more they worship
you, and the more manna (power) you, the god, accumulate.
Here's your problem, though. Elsewhere in the greater landscape other sons
of Zeus are contesting for immortality. These gods can be played by other
humans, or by the game's own AI agent. The other gods will rain the seven
plagues on your populace, wiping out your base of support and worship. They
can send a crashing blue tidal wave which not only drowns your citizenry but
submerges their farmland, endangering your own divine existence. No people,
no worship, no god.
Of course, you can do the same-if you have enough manna in store. Using your
destructive powers consumes manna by the barrelful. Besides, there are other
ways to defeat your enemies and gain manna without sending a zigzagging
crack through an area, a crack which swallows groaning people as they fall
in. You can devise Pan figures that roam the countryside luring newcomers to
your religion with magic flutes. Or you can erect a "Papal Magnet," a
granite ankh monument which acts as a shrine, attracting worshipers and
pilgrims.
Meanwhile your own citizens are dodging fire storms from your scheming
half-brothers. And after those minor-league gods are through trashing one of
your countries, you've got to decide whether to rebuild it or go after their
populations with your arsenal. You could use a tornado which sucks up houses
and people alike and visibly tosses them across the land. Or a biblical
column of fire which scorches the earth into barrenness (until a god
restores it by sowing healing wildflowers). Or, you can send burning flows
of lava from a well-placed volcano.
I got an expert tour of this world from a metagod's point of view on a visit
to the office of Electronic Arts, the game's publisher, where I was taken
through the paces of god powers. Jeff Haas is one of the developers of the
game. You could call Haas a supergod who created the other gods. He pointed
to a gathering dark mass of clouds over one village that suddenly erupted
into a shower of lightning. The bolts shimmied down to Earth. When a white
bolt struck a person, the figure fried to a blackened crisp. Haas chortled
in delight at the exquisitely rendered graphic but caught my raised eyebrow.
"Yes," he admitted sheepishly, "the point of the game is destruction-total
slash and burn."
"There are a few positive things you can do as a god," Haas volunteered,
"but not many. Making trees is one of them. Trees always make people happy.
And you can bless the land with wildflowers. But mostly it's destroy or be
destroyed." Aristotle might have understood. In his day, gods were entities
to be feared. God as a buddy, or even an ally, is hopelessly modern. You
kept out of the gods' way, appeased them when needed, and prayed that your
god would vanquish the other gods. The world was dangerous and capricious.
"Let me put it this way," Haas says, "you definitely do not want to be one
of the people in this world." You bet. It's godhood for me.
- SimCity; Adjust/Set Loose, Herding/Second Self, Adaptive Technology,
Simulation/Theory
To win Populous, you've got to think like a god. You cannot live many small
individual lives and succeed. Nor can you manipulate every individual
simultaneously and hope to remain sane. Control must be surrendered to a
populous mob. Individuals of Populous land, who are no more than a few bits
of code, have a certain amount of autonomy and anonymity. Their pandemonium
must be harnessed collectively in an intelligent way. That's your job.
As god, you have only indirect control. You can offer incentives, play with
global events, make calculated tradeoffs, and hope that you get the mix
right so that your underlings follow you. Cause and effect in this game is
coevolutionarily fuzzy; changing one thing always changes many things, often
in the direction you wanted least. All management is done laterally.
Software stores sell other god games: Railroad Tycoon, A-Train, Utopia,
Moonbase. They all enable you, the neo-god, to entice citizens to create a
self-sustaining empire. In the game Power Monger you are one of four godlike
kings hoping to rule supreme over a large region of a planet. The population
below, which numbers in the hundreds, is not faceless. Each citizen has a
name, an occupation, and a biography. As deity, your job is to urge the
citizenry to explore the land, mine ore, make plows, or hammer them into
swords. All you can do is adjust the society's parameters and then set the
beings loose. It's hard for a god to guess what will emerge. If your folks
manage to rule over the most land, you win.
In the brief annals of classic god games, the game of Civilization ranks
pretty high. Here the goal is to steer your bottom-up population through the
evolution of culture. You can't tell them how to build a car, but you can
set them up so that they can make the "discoveries" needed to build one. If
they invent a wheel, then they can make chariots. If they acquire masonry
skills, then they can make arithmetic. Electricity needs metallurgy and
magnetism; corporations first require banking skills.
This is a new way of steering. Pushing too hard can backfire. The denizens
in Civilization might revolt at any time, and occasionally they do. All the
while you are racing against other cultures being tweaked by your opponent.
Lopsided contests are quite common. I once heard an avid Civilization player
boast that he overran the other society with stealth bombers while they were
still working on chariots.
It's only just a game, but Populous embodies the subtle shift in our
interactions with all computers and machines. Artifacts no longer have to be
inert homogeneous lumps. They can be liquid, adaptable, slippery webs. These
collectivist machines run on myriad tiny agents interacting in ways we can't
fathom, generating results we can only indirectly control. Getting a
favorable end result is a challenge in coordination. It feels like herding
sheep, managing an orchard, or raising kids.
In the development of computers, games come first, work later. Kids who
become comfortable relating to machines as if they behave organically, later
expect the same from machines at work when they are older. MIT psychologist
Sherry Turkle describes the readiness of children to perceive complicated
devices as organic as an affinity for a "second self"-a projection of
themselves onto their machines. Toy worlds certainly encourage that
personification.
SimEarth, yet another god game, bills itself, somewhat tongue in cheek, as
"the ultimate experience in planet management." An acquaintance of mine told
a story of making a long car trip with three 10-12-year-old boys in the back
seat, the trio equipped with a laptop computer running SimEarth. He drove
while eavesdropping on the boys' conversation. He gathered that the boys had
decided their goal was to evolve intelligent snakes. The kids:
"Do you think we can start the reptiles now?"
"Oh shoot. The mammals are taking over."
"We better add more sunlight."
"How can we make the snakes smarter?"
SimEarth has no narrative or fixed goals-a nonstarter for many adults. Kids,
on the other hand, fall into the game without hesitation or instruction. "We
are as gods, and might as well get good at it," declared Stewart Brand in
1968, who had personal computers (a term he later coined) and other
vivisystems in mind when he said it.
Stripped of all secondary motives, all addictions are one: to make a world
of our own. I can't imagine anything more addictive then being a god. A
hundred years from now nothing will keep us away from artificial cosmos
cartridges we can purchase and pop it into a world machine to watch
creatures come alive and interact on their own accord. Godhood is
irresistible. The hemorrhaging expense of yet another hero will not keep us
away. World-makers could charge us anything they want for a daily fix of a
few hours immersed in the interactive saga of our characters' lives, and to
keep our world going we will pay it. Organized crime will make billions of
dollars peddling crude artificial calamities-first class hurricanes or high
priced tornadoes-to addicts compelled to buy. Over time, god-customers will
evolve fairly sturdy and endearing populations, which they will be eager to
test with yet another fully rendered natural disaster. For the poor there
will surely be underground exchanges of generic mutant beings and pilfered
scenarios. The headlong high of substituting for Jehovah, and the genuine,
overwhelming, sheer love for one's private world, will suck in any and all
who near it.
Because simulated worlds behave-in a tiny but measurable way-similarly to
worlds of living organisms, the ones that survive will grow in complexity
and value. The organic ambiance of distributed, parallel world-games is not
mere anthropomorphism, despite the second self projected upon them.
SimEarth was meant to model Lovelock's and Margulis's Gaia hypothesis, which
it succeeded in doing to a remarkable degree. Fairly serious changes in the
simulated Earth's atmosphere and geology are compensated by convoluted
feedback loops in the system itself. For instance, overheating the planet
increases biomass production, which reduces CO2 levels, which cools the
planet.
Scientists debate whether the evidence of self-correcting cohesion seen in
the Earth's global geochemistry qualify Earth as a large organism (Gaia), or
merely a large vivisystem. Applying the same test to SimEarth we get a more
certain answer: SimEarth, the game, is not an organism. But it is a step in
the direction of the organic. By playing SimEarth and other god games we can
get a feel of what it will be like to parry with autonomous vivisystems.
In SimEarth, a mind-boggling web of factors impinge on each other, making it
impossible to sort out what does what. Players sometimes complain that
SimEarth appears to run without regard to human control. It's as if the game
has its own agenda and you are just watching.
Johnny Wilson, a gaming expert and author of a SimEarth handbook, says that
the only way to derail Gaia (SimEarth) is to launch a cataclysmic alteration
such as titling the axis of the Earth to horizontal. He says there is an
"envelope" of limits within which the SimEarth system will always bounce
back; one must bump the system beyond that envelope to crash it. As long as
SimEarth runs inside the envelope, it follows its own beat; outside of it,
it follows no beat. As a comparison, Wilson points out that SimCity,
SimEarth's older sister, "is much more satisfying as a game, because you get
more instant and clear feedback on changes, and because you feel like you
are more in control."
Unlike SimEarth, SimCity is the paramount example of an underling- driven
god game. This award-winning simulation of a city is so convincing that
professional urban planners use it to demonstrate the dynamics of real
cities, which are also driven by underlings. SimCity succeeds, I believe,
because it is based on the swarm, the same foundation that all vivisystems
are based on: a collective of richly linked, autonomous, localized agents
working in parallel. In SimCity a working city bubbles up from a swarm of
hundreds of ignorant Sims (or Simpletons) doing their simple-minded tasks.
SimCity obeys the usual tail-swallowing logic of god games. Sims won't take
up residence in your city unless there are factories, but factories generate
pollution which drives away residents. Roads help commuters but also raise
taxes, which drive down your ratings as a mayor, which you need to survive
politically. The maze of interrelated factors required to construct a
sustainable SimCity can unfold along the lines of the following fairly
typical account from a heavy SimCity-using friend of mine: "In one city
which I built up over many Sim-years I had a 93 percent approval in the
public opinion polls. Things were going great! I had a nice balance of
tax-producing commerce and citizen-retaining beauty. To lessen pollution in
my great metropolis I ordered a nuclear power plant built. Unfortunately I
inadvertently placed it in my airport's flight path. One day a plane crashed
into the generators, causing a meltdown. This set fire to the town. But
since I hadn't built enough fire stations in the vicinity (way too costly),
the fires spread and eventually burnt down the whole city. I'm rebuilding
now, differently."
Will Wright, the author of SimCity and coauthor of SimEarth, is thirtyish,
bookish, and certainly one of the most innovative programmers working today.
Because Sim games are so hard to control, he likes to call them Software
Toys. You diddle with them, explore, try out fantasies, and learn. You don't
win, any more than you might win at gardening. Wright sees his robust
simulation toys as the initial baby steps toward a full march of "adaptive
technologies." These technologies are not designed, improved upon, or
adjusted by the creator; rather, they-on their own accord-adapt, learn, and
evolve. It shifts a bit of power from the user to the used.
The origins of SimCity trace Will's own path to this vision. In 1985 Will
wrote what he calls "a really, and I mean really, stupid video game"
entitled Raid on Bungling Bay. It was a typical shoot-'em-up starring a
helicopter that bombed everything in sight.
"To create this game I had to draw all these islands that the helicopter
would go bomb," recalls Will. Normally the artist/author modeled the
complete fantasy in minute pixelated detail, but Will got bored. "Instead,"
Will says, "I wrote a separate program, a little utility, that would let me
go around and build these islands real quick. I also wrote some code that
could automatically put roads on the islands."
By engaging his land-making or road-making module the program would-on its
own!-fill in land or roads in the simulated world. Will remembers,
"Eventually I finished the shoot-'em-up game part, but for some reason I
kept going back to the darn thing and making the building utilities more and
more fancy. I wanted to automate the road function. I made it so that when
you added each connecting piece of island, the road parts on them would
connect up automatically to form a continuous road. Then I wanted to put
down buildings automatically, so I built a little menu choice for buildings.
"I started asking myself, why am I doing this since the game is finished?
The answer was that I found that I had a lot more fun building the islands
than I had destroying them. Pretty soon I realized that I was fascinated by
bringing a city to life. At first I just wanted to do a traffic simulation.
But then I realized that traffic didn't make a lot of sense unless you had
places where the people drove to...and that led layer upon layer to a whole
city; SimCity."
A player building a SimCity recapitulates Will Wright's sequence in
inventing it. First, he makes the lower geographical foundation of land and
water which support the road traffic and telephone infrastructure which
support residential homes which support the Sims which support the mayor.
To get a feel for the dynamics of a city, Wright studied a simulation of an
average city done in the 1960s at MIT by Jay Forrester. Forrester summarized
city life into quantitative relations rendered as mathematical equations.
They were almost rules of thumb: it takes so many residents to support one
firefighter; or, you need so many parking spaces for each car. Forrester
published his findings as Urban Dynamics, a book which influenced many
aspiring computer modelers. Forrester's own computer simulation was entirely
numerical with no visual interface. He ran the simulation and got a stack of
printouts on lined paper.
Will Wright put flesh onto Jay Forrester's equations, and gave them a
decentralized, bottom-up existence. Cities assembled themselves (according
to the laws and theories of the god Will Wright) on the computer screen. In
essence, SimCity is an urban theory provided with a user interface. In the
same sense, a dollhouse is a theory of the household. A novel is theory told
as story. A flight simulator is an interactive theory of aviation. Simulated
life is a theory of biology left to fend for itself.
A theory abstracts the complicated pattern of real things into the facsimile
pattern-a model, or a simulation. If done well, the miniature captures some
integrity of the larger whole. Einstein, working at the peak of human
talent, reduced the complexity of the cosmos to five symbols. His theory, or
simulation, works. If done well, an abstraction becomes a creation.
There are many reasons to create. But what we create is always a world. I
believe we may be unable to create anything less. We can create hurriedly,
in fragments, in thumbnail sketches, and streams of consciousness, but
always we are filling in an unfinished world of our own. Of course we
sometimes doodle, literally and metaphorically. But we immediately see this
for what it is: theory-free gibberish, and model-less nonsense. In essence,
every creative act is no more or less than the reenactment of the Creation.
- VR, Age of Simulations & Their History, Hyperreality; The Map as Another
Territory
A few years ago, right before my eyes, a man with matted hair created an
artificial world, a simulation of swaying fernlike arches rising off of an
arabesque floor of maroon tiles and a tall red chimney going nowhere in
particular. This world had no material form. It was a nether world that only
two hours earlier had been a daydream in the man's imagination. Now it was a
daydream circulating on a pair of Silicon Graphics computers.
The man donned magical goggles and climbed into his simulacra. I climbed in
after him.
As far as I know, this descent into a man's daydream in the summer of 1989
was the first time a human created an instant fantasy and let others crawl
in to share it.
The man was Jaron Lanier, a round guy with a mop of rastafarian dreadlocks
and a funny giggle, who always reminds me of Big Bird. He was nonchalant
about entering and exiting a dreamland and talked about the travel like
someone who had been exploring "the other side" for years. The walls of
Jaron's company's office displayed fossils of past experimental magic
goggles and gloves. The usual computer hardware and software paraphernalia
littered the rest of the lab: soldering irons, floppy disks, soda cans, and
in this case, ripped body suits woven with wires and bejeweled with
connector plugs.
Jaron's hi-tech method of generating visitable worlds had been pioneered
years earlier by institutional researchers including NASA. Scores of people
had already entered into disembodied imaginary worlds. Research worlds. But
Jaron devised a low-rent system that worked even better than the university
setups, and he built wildly unscientific "crazy worlds" on the fly. And
Jaron coined a catchy name for the result: "virtual reality."
To participate in a virtual reality, a visitor suits up into a uniform that
is wired to monitor major body movements. The costume includes a face mask
that can signal the movement of the head. Inside the mask are two tiny color
video monitors which deliver the participant a vision of stereoscopic
realism. From behind the mask it appears to the visitor that he inhabits a
3-D virtual reality.
The general concept of a computer-generated reality is probably familiar to
most readers because in the years following Jaron's demonstrations, the
prospect of everyday virtual reality (VR) became a regular staple of
magazine and TV news features. The surreal aspect was always emphasized.
Eventually the Wall Street Journal headlined virtual reality as "An
Electronic LSD."
I must confess that "drugs" were exactly my first thought watching Jaron
disappear into his world. Here's a 29-year-old company founder wearing an
electrified scuba mask. While I and other friends watch soberly, Jaron rolls
slowly on the floor, mouth agape. He writhes into a new position, one arm
pushing against the air, grasping nothing. Like a man possessed in slo-mo,
he bends from one contortion to another as he explores hidden aspects of his
newly minted universe. He carefully crawls across the carpet, stopping every
so often to inspect some unseen wonder in the air before him. Watching him
is eerie. His maneuvers follow a distant, internal logic, a separate
reality. Occasionally, Jaron disturbs the quiet with a yelp of delight.
"Hey, the chalk pedestals are hollow! You can go up inside them and see the
bottom of the rubies!" he squeals. Jaron himself had created the pedestals
topped with red gems, but when he imagined them he hadn't bothered to
consider their bottoms. A whole world is too complex to hold in one's head.
But a simulation can play out those complexities. Again and again, Jaron
reported back details in the world that he, the god, had not foreseen.
Jaron's virtual world was like other simulations; the only way to predict
what would happen was to run it.
Simulations are not new. Nor is visiting them. Toy worlds are a very early
human invention, perhaps even a sign of humanity's emergence, since toys and
games in a burial site are recognized by archaeologists as evidence of human
culture. Certainly the urge to create toys arises very early in individual
development. Children immerse themselves in their own artificial worlds of
miniatures. Dolls and choo-choo trains properly belong to the microcosms of
simulation. So does much of the great art in our culture: Persian
miniatures, painterly landscape realism, Japanese tea gardens, and perhaps
all novels and theater. Tiny worlds.
But now in the computer age-the age of simulations-we are making tiny worlds
in larger bandwidths, with more interaction, and with deeper embodiment.
We've come from inert figurines to SimCity. Some simulations, like
Disneyland, are no longer so tiny.
Anything at all, in fact, is a candidate for a simulation when it is given
energy, possible behaviors, and room to grow. We live in a culture that is
rapidly animating a million objects into simulations by electrifying them
with smartness. A telephone switchboard becomes a simulated operator voice,
a car becomes a tiger in a commercial, fake trees and robotic alligators
become a simulated jungle in an amusement park. We don't even blink anymore.
In the early 1970s the Italian novelist Umberto Eco drove around America
visiting as many low-brow roadside attractions as he could get to. Eco was a
semiotician-a decipherer of unnoticed signs. He found America trafficking in
subtle messages about simulations and degrees of reality. The national icon,
Coca-Cola, as an example, advertised itself as "the real thing." Wax museums
were Eco's favorite text. The more kitsch-laden they were with altarlike
velvet drapes and soft narrations, the better. Eco found wax museums to be
populated with exquisite copies of real people (Brigitte Bardot in a bikini)
and exquisite fakes of fictional characters (Ben Hur in a chariot race).
Both history and fantasy were sculptured in equally realistic and neurotic
detail so that there was no boundary between the real and faked. Tableau
artists spared no effort in rendering an unreal character in supreme
realism. Mirrors reflected one period room's figures into another time
period to further blur the distinction of real and not. Between San
Francisco and Los Angeles, Eco was able to visit seven wax versions of
Leonardo's Last Supper. Each you'll-never-be-the-same-afterwards waxwork
tried to outdo the other in degree of faithful realism to a fictionalized
painting.
Eco wrote that he was on a "journey into hyperreality, in search of
instances where the American imagination demands the real thing and, to
attain it, must fabricate the absolute fake." The reality of the absolute
fake Eco called hyperreality. In hyperreality, as Eco puts it, "absolute
unreality is offered as real presence."
A perfect simulation and a computer toy world are works of hyperreality.
They fake so wholly that as a whole they have a reality.
French pop-philosopher Jean Baudrillard opens his small book, Simulations
(1983), with these two tightly wound paragraphs:
If we were able to take as the finest allegory of simulation the Borges tale
where the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends
up exactly covering the territory (but where the decline of the Empire sees
this map become frayed and finally ruined, a few threads still discernible
in the deserts...) then this fable has come full circle for us...
Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or
the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential
being, or a substance. It is the generation of models of a real without
origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map,
nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the
territory-PRECESSION OF SIMULACRA-it is the map that engenders the territory
and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose
shreds are slowly rotting across the map. It is the real, and not the map,
whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer of
the Empire, but our own. The desert of the real itself.
In the desert of the real, we are busy building paradises of the hyperreal.
It is the model (the map) that we prefer. Steven Levy, author of Artificial
Life (1991), a book that celebrates the advent of simulations so rich that
we can only declare them alive, rephrases Baudrillard's point this way: "The
map is not the territory, but a map is a territory."
However, the territory of the simulacra is blank. The absolute fake is so
obvious that it is still invisible to us. We have no taxonomy yet to
differentiate subtle types of simulations. Take simulacra's long list of
indistinct synonyms: fake, phony, counterfeit, replication, artificial,
second grade, phantom, image, reproduction, deception, camouflage, pretense,
imitation, false appearance, pretended, effigy, an enactment, shadow, shade,
insincerity, a mask, disguise, substitute, surrogate, feign, parody, a copy,
something bluffed, a sham, a lie. The word simulacra is a word loaded with
heavy karma.
The Greek Epicureans, a school of radical philosophers who figured out there
must be atoms, had an unusual theory of vision. They believed every object
gave off an "idol" (eidola). The same concept came to be called simulacra in
Latin. Lucretius, a Roman Epicurean, says you can think of simulacra as
"images of things, a sort of outer skin perpetually peeled off the surfaces
of objects and flying about this way and that through the air."
These simulacra were physical, but ethereal, things. Invisible simulacra
emanated from an object and impinged upon the eye causing vision. A thing's
reflection assembled in a mirror demonstrated the existence of simulacra;
how else could there be two of them, and one so diaphanous? Simulacra, the
Epicureans believed, could enter into people's senses through their pores
while they slept, thus conveying the idols (images) carried in dreams. Art
and paintings captured the idols radiated by the original subject, just as
flypaper might catch bugs.
A simulacra then was a derived entity, second to the original, a parallel
image-or to use modern words, a virtual reality.
In the Roman vernacular simulacrum came to mean a statue or image that was
animated by a ghost or spirit. Thus its Greek predecessor, the term idol,
crept into the English language in 1382, when the first English Bible needed
a word to describe the hyperreality of animated, and sometimes talking,
statues that were presented as gods.
Some of these ancient temple automatons were quite elaborate. They had
moving heads and limbs, and tubes to channel voices from behind them.
Ancient people were far more sophisticated than we often give them credit
for. No one mistook the idols for the real god they represented. But no one
ignored the idol's presence, either. The idol really moved and said things;
it had its own behavior. The idols were neither real nor faked-they were
real idols. In Eco's terms, they were hyperreal, just as Murphy Brown, a
virtual character on TV, is treated as kind of real.
We post-modern urbanites spend a huge portion of our day immersed in
hyperrealities: phone conversations, TV viewing, computer screens, radio
worlds. We value them highly. Try to have a dinner conversation without
referencing something you saw or heard via the media! Simulacra have become
the terrain we live in. In most ways we care to measure, the hyperreal is
real for us. We enter and leave hyperreality with ease.
Take, for instance, a hyperreality that Jaron Lanier built months after his
first instant world. Not long after he was done, I immersed myself in his
world of idols and simulacra. This artificial reality included a circle of
railway track about a block in diameter and a locomotive about chest high.
The ground was pink, the train light gray. Other blocky figures lay about
like so many dropped toys. The shape of the choo-choo train and toys were
aggregations of polygons-no graceful curves. Colors were uniform and bright.
When I turned my head, the scene shifted in a stuttered way. Shadows were
stark. The sky was an empty dark blue with no hint of distance or space. I
had the impression of being a toon in Toontown.
A gloved hand-roughly rendered in tiny polygonal blocks-floated in front of
me. It was my hand. I flexed the disembodied thing. When I mentally willed
the hand into a point, I began to fly in the direction of my finger. I flew
over to the small train engine and sat on it or above it, I couldn't tell. I
reached out my floating hand and yanked a lever on the train. The train
began to circle and I could watch the pink landscape go by. At some point I
hopped off the train near an inverted top hat. I stood and watched the train
chug around the loop of track without me. I bent to grab the top hat and the
instant I touched it, it turned into a white rabbit.
I heard someone outside the world laugh, a heavenly chuckle. That was the
god's little joke.
The disappearance of the top hat was real, in a hyperreality way. The trainy
thing really started and eventually really stopped. It was really going
around in circles. When I flew I really transposed a distance of some sort.
To anyone watching me on the outside, I was a guy stiffly gyrating in a
carpeted office in the same odd way that Jaron did. But inside, hyperreal
events really happened. Anyone else visiting could corroborate; there was
consensual evidence. In the parallel world of the simulacra, they were real.
- Transmission of Models, Audience Derives Content from the Model, Books/TV,
Compression
Hand wringing about the reality of simulations would be an appropriate
academic exercise for French and Italian philosophers, if simulacra didn't
turn out to be so useful.
In the Entertainment & Information Systems Group at the MIT Media Lab, Andy
Lippman is developing an approach to television transmission that "lets the
audience drive." A major objective of the Media Lab's research is to allow
the consumer to personalize the presentation of information. Lippman
invented a scheme to deliver video in an ultracompact form which can then be
unpacked in a thousand different ways. He does this by transmitting not a
staid image but a simulacra.
In the demo that he shows, Lippman's group took an early episode of "I Love
Lucy" and extracted a visual model of Lucy's living room from the footage.
Lucy's living room becomes a virtual living room on a hard disk. Any part or
view of it can be displayed on cue. Lippman then used a computer to remove
Lucy's moving image from the background scenes. When he wants to transmit
the entire episode, he sends two kinds of data: the background as a virtual
model and the film of Lucy moving. The viewer's computer reassembles Lucy's
character moving against a background produced by the model. Thus Lippman
can broadcast the living room set data only once in a single burst-not
continuously as is normal-updating only when the scene or light shifts. Says
Lippman, "Conceivably, we might choose to store all of the background sets
from a TV serial at the front of a single optical disk, while the action and
camera motion instructions needed to reconstitute 25 episodes could fit on
the remaining tracks."
Nicholas Negroponte, director of the Media Lab, speaks of this method as
"transmission of models rather than content, so content is something the
receiver derives from the model." He extrapolates from the simple "I Love
Lucy" experiment to a future when entire scenes, figures and all, are
modeled into simulacra to be transmitted. Rather than broadcast a
two-dimensional picture of a ball, send a simulacra of the ball. The
broadcasting machine says "Here is a simulacra of a ball: shiny blue, with a
dimension of 50 centimeters, moving at this velocity and direction." The
receiving machines says, "Umm yes, a simulacra of a bouncing ball. Oh, I see
it," and displays the hopping blue ball as a moving hologram. Now the home
viewer can visually examine the ball from any perspective he wants.
As a commercial example, Negroponte suggests broadcasting a holographic
image of a football game into living rooms. Rather than merely sending the
data for the game's two-dimensional image, the sports station transmits a
simulacra of the game; the stadium, players, and plays are abstracted into a
model which can be compressed for transmission. The receiving machine in the
home unpacks the model into visual form. The couch potato with a six-pack
sees a dynamic mirage of the players as they rush, pass, and punt in 3-D. He
chooses the angle he wants to watch it from. His kids can horse around by
watching the game from the ball's point of view.
Besides being able to "break the tyranny of video as prepackaged frames,"
the purpose of transmitting simulacra is primarily data compression.
Real-time holography requires astronomical amounts of bits. Using all the
smart processing tricks in the foreseeable future, a state-of-the-art
supercomputer would spend hours computing a few seconds of a real-time
holograph the size of a TV console. The ball game would be over before you
saw the last of the amazing (and terrifying in three dimensions) opening
flying logos.
What better way to compress a complication than to model it, mail it, and
let the recipient supply the intelligent details? Transmitting a simulacra
is not a step down from transmitting reality. It is a step up from
transmitting data.
The military is keen on simulacra as well.
- Embedded Training, Model of Iraq War Harder than Real War, Ender's Game
Reality Switch
In an unnamed stretch of desert, in the spring of 1991, Captain H. R.
McMaster of the U.S. 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment paced over the quiet
battlefield. Hardly a month had passed since he had last been there. The
rocky sand was quiet and still now. Iraqi tanks lay in twisted wrecks just
as he had left them a few weeks ago, although now they no longer burned like
an inferno. Thank God he and his troops had all survived; the Iraqis had not
done as well. A month ago neither side knew they were engaged in the pivotal
battle of the Desert Storm war. Things moved fast; thirty days after their
fateful skirmish, historians already had a name for it: The Battle of 73
Easting.
Now Captain McMaster was at this desolate site again. He had reconvened at
the behest of some crazy analysts back in the States. The Pentagon wanted
all troop officers gathered at the battlefield while the U.S. still
controlled the territory, and while their memories were fresh. The Army was
going to recreate the entire 73 Easting battle as a fully three-dimensional
simulated reality which any future cadet could enter and relive. "A living
history book," they called it. A simulacra of war.
On the plains of Iraq, the real soldiers sketched out the month-old battle.
They walked off the action as best their feverish memories of the day could
remind them. A few soldiers supplied diaries to reconstruct their actions. A
couple even consulted personal tape recordings taken during the chaos.
Tracks in the sand gave the simulators precise traces of movement. A black
box in each tank, programmed to track three satellites, confirmed the exact
position on the ground to eight digits. Every missile shot left a thin wire
trail which lay undisturbed in the sand. Headquarters had a tape recording
of radio voice communications from the field. Sequenced overhead photos from
satellite cameras gave the big view. Soldiers paced the sun-baked ground in
hot arguments sorting out who shot whom. A digital map of the terrain was
captured by lasers and radar. When the Pentagon left, they had all the
information they needed to recreate history's most documented battle.
Back at the Simulation Center, a department at the Institute for Defense
Analysis in Alexandria, Virginia, technicians spent nine months digesting
this overdose of information and compiling a synthetic reality from a
thousand fragments. A few months into the project, they had the actual
desert troops, then stationed in Germany, review a preliminary version of
the recreation. The simulacra were sufficiently fleshed out that the
soldiers could sit in tank simulators and enter the virtual battle. They
reported corrections of the simulated event to the techies, who modified the
model. Just about one year after the confrontation, following the final
review by Captain McMaster, the recreated Battle of 73 Easting premiered for
the military brass. McMaster laconically understates that the simulacra give
"a very realistic sensation of being in a vehicle in that battle." Every
vehicle and soldier's movements, gun fire, and fall were captured in
facsimile. A four-star general, who was far from the battlefield but close
to the human consequences of war, entered the virtual battle and came out
with the hair on his arm on end. What did he see?
A panoramic view on three 50-inch TV screens at the resolution of a very
good video game. The sky is jet black with oil-fire smoke. A floor of ashen
gray desert, wet from rain earlier, recedes to the black horizon. Steel blue
hulks of demolished tanks spew tongues of yellow-orange fire which lean and
drift in the steady wind. Over 300 vehicles-tanks, jeeps, fuelers, water
trucks, even two Iraqi Chevy pickups-roam the landscape. Late in the day a
wicked forty-knot Shamal sandstorm kicks up, cutting visibility to a yellow
haze of 1,000 meters. Individual infantry soldiers march on the screen.
Likewise hundreds of Iraqi soldiers who scramble from their muddy spider
holes to hop into their tanks when they realize the shelling is not a
precision air attack. Helicopters show up for about six minutes, but the
blowing sand shoos them away. Fixed-wing aircraft are deep into another
battle behind Iraqi lines.
To enter the battle, the general can pick any vehicle and see what that
driver would see. As in the real battle, a low hill might hide a tank. Views
are blocked, important things hidden, nothing is clear, everything is
happening at once. But in the virtual world you can mount every soldier's
dream of a flying carpet and zoom around high above the action. Go up far
enough and you get a maplike God's-eye point of view. The truly demented can
enter the simulation sitting astride a missile madly arching toward its
target.
It's just a three-dimensional movie right now. But here's the next step:
allow future cadets to take on the Republican Guard by unleashing what-ifs
into the simulation. What if the Iraqis had infrared night vision? What if
their missiles had twice the range? What if they weren't out of their tanks
at first? Would you still win?
Without the ability to what-if, The Battle of 73 Easting simulation is a
very expensive and fanatical documentary. But animated with the tiniest
liberty to run in unplanned directions, the simulation takes on a soul and
becomes a powerful teacher. It becomes something real in itself. It is no
longer just the Battle of 73 Easting. Tuned to different values, equipped
with different powers, the model war begins in the same place with the same
formation, but quickly runs into its own future. The cadets immersed in the
simulation are fighting a hyperreal war, a war only they know about and
which only they can fight. The alternative battles they wage are as real as
the simulated 73 Easting battle is real, or perhaps even realer, because
these battles have unknown endings, much as real life does.
On an everyday basis, the U.S. military thrusts troops into the realm of the
hyperreal. At a dozen U.S. Army bases around the world, top-gun tank and
aircraft pilots compete in simulated AirLand battles, woven together by a
military system called SIMNET, the same window through which the four-star
general entered the recreated 73 Easting Battle. In the words of National
Defense columnist Douglas Nelms, SIMNET "transports crews of land and aerial
vehicles from planet Earth to a surrogate world where they can do battle
without the constraints of safety, cost, environmental impact or
geographical boundaries." The first place the SIMNET warriors explore is
their backyard. At Fort Knox, Tennessee, 80 crews of M1 tank simulators
drive through an amazing virtual reconstruction of Fort Knox's outdoor
wargaming arena. Every tree, every building, every creek, every telephone
pole, every dip in the land for hundreds of square miles is digitized and
represented inside the three-dimensional land of the SIMNET model. The
virtual space is huge enough to easily get lost in. One day the troops may
ride their greasy real tanks over the real course, and the next day they may
traverse the same terrain in facsimile. Only the simulation doesn't smell
like burning diesel. When the troops master Fort Knox they can beam
themselves to another location by choosing from the computer's menu. Up
comes one of two dozen other immaculately rendered places: Fort Irwin's
famous National Training Grounds, parts of rural Germany, hundreds of
thousands of empty square miles of the oil-rich Gulf States, and (why not?)
downtown Moscow.
Standard M1 tanks are the most common entity in the virtual land of SIMNET.
Seen from the outside, an M1 simulator never moves: it's a big fiberglass
box about the shape of an oversize dumpster that is bolted to the floor. A
crew of four men squat, sit, and recline at their cramped stations. The
inside is molded in plastic to resemble the gadget-filled interior of the
M1. The men twirl hundreds of facsimile dials and switches and peer into
monitors. When the pilot puts a tank simulator into gear, it rumbles,
groans, and shakes much like the ride in a real tank.
Eight or more of these fiberglass boxes are electronically linked in the
drab Fort Knox warehouse. One M1 can play against the other M1s in
SIMNET-land. Long-haul telephone lines link the other 300 existing simulator
boxes worldwide into one network, so that 300 vehicles can be hurling
through the same virtual battle, even though some of the crew may be at Fort
Irwin, California, and others in Graffenvere, Germany.
To boost the realism of SIMNET, military hackers devised vehicles steered by
artificial intelligence which are loosely herded by one computer operator.
Launching these "semi-automated forces" onto the virtual battlefield, the
army can get a bigger, more realistic engagement of forces beyond the 300
simulator boxes built. Says Neale Cosby, who runs the Simulation Center, "We
once had a thousand entities on SIMNET at the same time. One guy at a
console can throw out 17 semi-automated vehicles, or a company of tanks. "
Cosby explains the practical virtues of semi-automated forces: "Let's say
you are the captain of a national guard unit. You're in charge of an armory
of 100 guys coming in on Saturday morning. You want to run your company in a
defensive posture, and you want to be attacked by a battalion of 500 people.
Well, where are you going to get 500 people Saturday morning in downtown San
Diego? So the idea is you can call up SIMNET and have three other guys, each
operating a couple of consoles, run those forces against you. You send a
message: tonight at 2100 meet us on the Panama database and be ready to go.
You could be talking to guys in Germany, Panama, Kansas, and California, and
we'd all meet on the same piece of virtual map-sheet. The thing about
semi-automated vehicles is that you wouldn't know if they were real or
Memorex."
He obviously meant you wouldn't know if they were real simulations or fake
simulations (the hyperreal), a modern distinction the military is only now
coming to appreciate. The slippery fuzz between the real, the faked, and the
hyperreally faked can be used to some advantage in war. U.S. Forces in the
Gulf War overturned popular opinion of the relative expertise of both sides.
Conventional wisdom said Iraq's forces were older, experienced, and battle
hardened; the U.S.'s were young, inexperienced, and couch potatoes with joy
sticks. Conventional wisdom was right; only about 1 out of 15 U.S. pilots
had previous combat experience; most were fresh out of flight school. Yet
the lopsided victory of the U.S. could not be accounted for merely by the
absence of gumption from Iraq. Military insiders point to simulation
training. A retired colonel asked one commander of the Battle of 73 Easting,
"How do you account for your dramatic success, when not a single officer or
man in your entire outfit ever had combat experience, and yet you beat
Republican Guards who were operating on their own combat training maneuver
grounds?" The troop leader answered, "But we were experienced. We had fought
such engagements six times before in complete battle simulations at the
National Training Center and in Germany. It was no different than practice."
Participants of the Battle of 73 Easting were not unique. Ninety percent of
the U.S. Air Force units in Desert Storm, and 80 percent of the leaders of
the ground forces had intensive training in battle simulations beforehand.
The National Training Center (NTC) polished a soldier's SIMNET experience
with another level of simulation. NTC, a Rhode Island-size blank spot on the
map in the western deserts of California, uses a $100 million hi-tech laser
and radio network to simulate battle with real tanks in a real desert. Cocky
U.S. veterans dress in Russian uniforms, fight to Russian rules, and
occasionally communicate in Russian as they play the home team opposing
force (Opfor). They have a reputation of being unbeatable. But not only did
U.S. trainees play against mock Iraqi forces drilled in Soviet tactics, but
in some cases they simulated specific battle tactics until "they were second
nature." For instance, the attack program for the awesome air blitz against
Baghdad's targets had been rehearsed in simulated detail for months by U.S.
pilots. As a result, only one out of 600 allied aircraft failed to return
that first night. Colonel Paul Kern, the commander of a Gulf infantry
brigade, told the electrical engineer's journal IEEE Spectrum, "Almost every
commander I talked to said the combat situations they found in Iraq were not
as hard as what they'd encounter at NTC."
What the military is groping towards is "embedded training"-training
simulation so real it is indistinguishable from actual combat. It is no leap
of faith for the gunner of a modern tank, or a modern jetfighter, to imagine
gaining more combat experience in SIMNET simulators than in an Iraqi war. A
real tank gunner in a real tank reclines in a tiny windowless burrow tucked
into the bowels of a multimillion-dollar steel capsule. He is surrounded by
electronics and dials and LED readouts. His only portal to the outside
battlefield is on the tiny TV monitor in front of his face which he can
swivel like a periscope with his hands. His only link to the rest of his
crew is through a headset. For all practical purposes a real gunner in a
real tank operates a simulation. For all he knows, the numbers on his dials
and the picture on his screen, even the image of the explosion his missiles
generate, could be fantasized by a computer. What difference does it make
for his job whether the one-inch-tall tanks on his monitor are "real" or
not?
For a combatant of the Battle of 73 Easting, simulations came as a trinity.
The soldier fought the battle first as a simulation, secondly for real via
the simulation of monitors and sensors, and thirdly in the recreated
simulation for history. Perhaps someday he wouldn't really be able to tell
the difference between them.
That worrisome notion came up once at a NATO-sponsored conference on
"Embedded Training," convened to examine this problem. As Michael Moshell,
of the Institute for Simulation and Training, recalls, someone read the
punch line of a memorable 1985 science fiction novel called Ender's Game,
written by Orson Scott Card. Card originally wrote Ender's Game inside the
virtual space of the GEnie teleconferencing system, for an audience who
appreciated the hyperreal aspects of online life. In this tale, young boys
are trained from childhood to be generals. They play nonstop tactical and
strategic games in a zero-gravity space station. Their military training
culminates as serious computer war games. Eventually, the most brilliant
player and born leader, Ender, supervises a group of teammates in a massive
and complex video war game against his adult mentor. Unbeknownst to them the
mentor switches the inputs so that the Nintendo kids in reality are
commanding galactic star ships (full of real people) fending off real
hostile aliens invading the solar system. The kids win by blowing up the
aliens' planet. Later they are told the truth: That wasn't just practice.
A reality switch could be made at other points, too. If there is little
difference between simulated tank practice and real war, why not use
simulated practice to fight a real war? If you can drive a tank through
simulated Iraq from a plastic box connected in Kansas, why not drive a tank
through real Iraq from the same safe place? That dream, which meshes so
nicely with the Pentagon number-one mandate to lessen U.S. casualties,
flitters all across the military these days. Prototype passengerless roving
jeeps driven by "telepresent" operators back at the base already zip down
real roads. These robo-soldiers keep "humans in the loop" but out of harm's
way as the Army prefers. Unmanned but human-piloted aircraft played an
immense part in the recent Gulf war. Imagine a very big model airplane
loaded with video cameras and computers. These remotely guided planes,
steered from bases in Saudi Arabia, served as spy platforms or command
relays hovering directly over hostile territory. At the back end, a human
leaned into a simulation.
The military's forward vision is big but slow. The power of cheap smart
chips is ballooning faster than the Pentagon can think ahead. As far as I
can discern, as of 1992, military simulations and war games are only
marginally advanced over commercial versions for the public.
- Consensual Simulacra, Teamwork, CA Aspect vs Pixel Resolution, Simulate
then Build
Jordan Weisman and buddy Ross Babcock were naval cadets at the Merchant
Marine Academy, and deep into dungeons-and-dragons fantasy games. Once on a
naval tour they got a peek at a supertanker bridge simulator, a wall of
monitors that could fake the color details of a passage through 50 different
harbors around the world. They were dying to play. Sorry, this is not a toy,
the brass told them. Yes it is, they knew. So they decided to build their
own. A simulated world that would let others into their secret of fantasy
worlds. They'd use plywood, Radio Shack electronic parts, some homegrown
software. And, they would charge admission.
Weisman and Babcock launched BattleTech in 1990. Funded by their lucrative
success in the role-playing game business, and based on one of their game's
premises, the $2.5 million center runs seven days a week in a mall on the
North Pier in downtown Chicago. (With new investment from Tim Disney, Walt's
grandson, other centers are opening up around the country.) "Just follow the
noise," the attendant on the phone says when I asked for directions. Rowdy
teenagers linger at the Star Trek-styled storefront where T-shirts stamped
"No Guts, No Galaxy" hang for sale.
BattleTech bears an uncanny resemblance to SIMNET: a set of twelve cramped
boxes bolted to a concrete floor linked in an electronic network. Each box
is detailed with futuristic nonsense of the outside ("Beware of Blast") and
inside stuffed with glorious "switchology"-knobs, meters, flashing lights-a
sliding seat, two computer screens, a microphone by which to communicate
with teammates, and a few working controls. You steer with foot pedals (as
on a tank), you accelerate with a throttle, and you fire with a joystick. At
the whistle, the game flickers to life. You are immersed in a red-sand
desert world chasing other legged tanks (à la Return of the Jedi) and being
chased in return. The rules are war simple: it's kill or be killed. Driving
through the red desert world is cool. The other "mechs," as they are called,
dashing about madly in this simulated world are steered by 11 other
customers crouched in adjacent boxes. Half are supposed to be on your side,
but in the booming mayhem its hard to tell who's who. I see on my readout
that my teammates (whom I've not really met) are Doughboy, Ratman, and
Genghis. Apparently I'm just "Kevin" on their monitors since I neglected to
supply a "handle" before setting off. We are all novices dying early. I am a
journalist doing research. Who are they?
Predominantly unmarried males in their twenties, according to a Michigan
State University study on fanatical users of the game. The report surveys
veterans who have played at least 200 games (at $6 a pop!). Some masters
live and work at BattleTech Center calling it "home." I talked to several
who've played over a thousand games. Masters of BattleTech claim that it
took them about 5 games merely to get used to driving the mech and firing
basic weapons, and about 50 games to master cooperating with others.
Team-playing is the whole point. Masters see BattleTech primarily as a
social contract. To a man (and every master but one is male) they believe
that wherever new networked virtual worlds would emerge, special communities
of people would come to live in them. When asked what compels them to return
to the BattleTech simulated world, the masters mention "the other people,"
"being able to find competent foes," "fame and glory," "compatible
teammates."
The survey queried 47 maniacal players and asked them what BattleTech should
change; only two replied that the management should work on "improving
reality." Rather the majority wanted lower costs, less crashable software,
more of the same ("more mechs, more terrain, more missiles"). Most of all,
they wanted more players inside the simulation.
This is the call of the Net. Keep adding players. The more they are
connected, the more valuable my connection becomes. It is revealing that
these obsessive game players realize they get more "reality" by increasing
the fullness of the network than they get by increasing the visual
resolution of the environment. Reality is first coevolutionary dynamics,
only secondly is it six million pixels.
More is different. Keep adding grains of sand to the first grain and you'll
get a dune, which is altogether different than a single grain. Keep adding
players to the Net and you get...what?...something very different...a
distributed being, a virtual world, a hive mind, a networked community.
While the behemoth size of the military quells innovation, its gigantic
scale allows the military to attempt the grand-which nimble commercial
entrepreneurs cannot. DARPA, the highly regarded creative research and
development branch of the defense department, has drawn up an ambitious next
step beyond SIMNET. DARPA would like a 21st century style of simulation.
When Col. Jack Thorpe from DARPA gives military briefings promoting this new
kind of simulation, he throws up a couple of slides on the overhead
projector. One says, Simulation: a Strategic U.S. Technology. Another
proclaims,
Simulate Before You Build!
Simulate Before You Buy!
Simulate Before You Fight!
Thorpe is trying to sell the top brass and the military industrialists the
key idea that they can get better weapons per buck applying simulation at
every point in the process. By designing technology via simulations, testing
them via simulated action before committing money for them, and then
training users and officers via simulations before actually unwrapping the
hardware, they gain a strategic advantage.
"Simulate Before you Build" is already happening to a degree. Northrop built
the B-2 stealth bomber without paper. It was simulated in a computer
instead. Some industrial experts call the B-2 "the most complex system ever
to be simulated." The entire project was designed as a computer simulacra so
intricate and precise that Northrop didn't bother fabricating a mechanical
mock-up before actually building the billion-dollar plane. Normally a system
consisting of 30,000 parts entails redesigning 50 percent of the parts
during the course of actual construction. Northrop's "simulate-first"
approach reduced that number of refitted parts to 3 percent.
Boeing explored the idea of a hypothetical tilting-rotor aircraft, called
the VS-X, by constructing it in virtual reality first. Once built as a
simulacra, Boeing sent more than 100 of its engineers and staff inside the
simulated aircraft to evaluate it. As one small example of the advantage of
simulated building, Boeing's engineers discovered that a critical pressure
gauge in the maintenance hatch was obscured from view no matter how hard the
crew tried to look at it. So the hatch was redesigned before building,
saving millions.
The elaborate platform for this pervasive simulation is code-named ADST, an
awkward acronym that stands for Advanced Distributed Simulation Technology.
The key word is "Distributed." Col. Thorpe's distributed simulation
technology is nothing less than visionary: a seamless distributed
military/industrial complex. A seamless distributed army. A seamless
distributed war hyperreality. Imagine a thin film of optical fibers spanning
the globe opening a portal to real-time, broadband, multiuser, 3-D
simulation. Any soldier who wants to plug into a hyperreal battle, or any
defense manufacturer who wants to test a possible product in a virtual
reality, need only jack into the great international superhighway-in-the-sky
known as Internet. Ten thousand decentralized simulators linked into a
single virtual world. Thousands of different kinds of simulators-virtual
jeeps, simulated ships, Marines with head-mounts, and shadow forces
generated by artificial intelligences-are all summed together into one
seamless consensual simulacra.
- Distributed Presence, Teams Transform Mobs into Armies, Rambo
Individualists/Soldiers
Armies win and mobs lose. And the lone Rambo always dies. The most important
thing the military knows more about than anyone else is in how to make teams
work. Teams are what transform mobs into armies and Rambos into soldiers.
Col. Thorpe rightly proclaims that distributed intelligence-not
firepower-wins wars. Other visionaries say the same about the future of
corporations. "The next breakthrough won't be in the individual interface
but in the team interface," says John Seely Brown, the research director of
Xerox's PARC.
If Col. Thorpe has his way, the four divisions of the U.S. military and
hundreds of industrial contractors become a single interconnected
superorganism. The immediate step to this world of distributed intelligence
and distributed presence is an engineering protocol developed by a
consortium of defense simulation centers in Orlando, Florida. Known as the
DSI (Distributed Simulation Internet) protocol, this standard permits
independent bits of simulation (a tank here, a building there) to be
interleaved into a unified simulation when sent over the existing Internet.
In effect, a scene emerges in this virtual space as sufficient parts of it
are supplied from afar and assembled in the marvelous decentralized way of
swarms. The entire hyperreality of a 10,000-piece battle scene is
distributed across many computers through the optic fibers of Internet. The
outfit supplying detailed virtual mountains may not supply surging rivers or
creeks and may not know whether creeks are flowing down its mountains at
all.
Distributed intelligence is the way to go. Students on the Internet (which
was developed by DARPA but now is global and demilitarized) can't wait. They
see the promise of distributed simulations and have begun making their own
versions in quiet corners of the Net.
- MUDs; Real Fake Hyperreal, On Job Learning, Parallel Distributed
Platform/Superorganism
David spends twelve hours a day as a swashbuckling explorer in a
subterranean world of dungeons and elves. He plays a character called Lotsu.
He should be in class getting A grades. Instead he has succumbed to the
latest fad sweeping college campuses: total immersion into multiuser fantasy
games.
Multiuser fantasy games are electronic adventures run on a large network fed
by university and personal computers. Players commonly spend four or five
hours a day logged into fantasy worlds based on Star Trek, the Hobbit, or
Anne McCaffrey's popular novels about dragon-riders and wizards.
Students like David use school computers, or their own personal machine, to
log onto the Internet. This mega-network, now collectively funded by
governments, universities, and private corporations around the world,
subsidizes all ordinary passengers traveling across it. Colleges freely
issue Internet accounts to any student wanting to do "research." By logging
on from a dorm in Boston, a student can "drive" to any participating
computer in the world, link up for free and stay connected for as long as he
or she wishes.
What can one do with such virtual travel, besides downloading papers on
genetic algorithms? If 100 other students were to suddenly show up in the
same virtual place, it might be pretty cool. You could: throw a party,
devise pranks, role-play, scheme, and plot to build a better world. All at
the same time. The only thing you'd need is a multiuser place to meet. A
place to swarm online.
In 1978, Roy Trubshaw wrote an electronic role-playing game similar to
Dungeons and Dragons while he was in his final undergraduate year at Essex
College in England. The following year, his classmate Richard Bartle took
over the game, expanding the number of potential players and their options
for action. Trubshaw and Bartle called the game MUD, for Multi-User
Dungeons, and put it onto the Internet.
MUD is very much like the classic game ZORK, or any of the hundreds of
text-based adventure video games that have flourished on personal computers
since day one. The computer screen says: "You are in a cold, damp dungeon
lit by a flickering torch. There is a skull on the stone floor. One hallway
leads to the north, the other south. There is a grate on the grimy floor."
Your job is to explore the room and its objects and eventually discover
treasures hidden in the labyrinth of other rooms connected to it. You'll
probably need to find a small collection of treasures and clues along the
way in order to win the motherlode booty, which is usually to break a spell,
or become a wizard, or kill the dragon, or escape the dungeon.
You explore by typing something like: "Look skull." The computer replies:
"The skull says, 'Beware of the rat.'" You type: "Look grate" and the
computer replies: "This way lies Death." You type: "Go north," and you exit
through the tunnel on your way into the unknown in the next room.
MUD and its many improved offspring (known generically as MUDs, MUSEs,
TinyMUDs, etc.) are very similar to classic 1970s-style adventure games but
with two powerful improvements. First, MUDs can handle up to 100 other human
players immersed in the dungeon along with you. This is the distributed,
parallel characteristic of MUDs. The others can be playing alongside you as
jolly partners, or against you as wicked adversaries, or above you as
capricious gods creating miracles and spells.
Secondly, and most significantly, the other players (and yourself) can be at
work adding rooms, modifying passages, or inventing new and magical objects.
You say to yourself, "What this place needs is a tower where a bearded elf
can enslave the unwary." So you make one. In short, the players invent the
world as they live in it. The game is to create a cooler world than you had
yesterday.
MUDs then become a parallel, distributed platform for a consensual
superorganism to emerge. Someone tinkers up a virtual holodeck for the heck
of it. Later, someone else adds a captain's bridge and maybe an engine room.
Next thing you know you have built the Starship Enterprise in text. Over the
course of months, several hundred other players (who should be doing
calculus homework) jack in and build a fleet of rooms and devices until you
wind up with fully staffed Klingon battleships, Vulcan planets, and the
interconnected galaxies of a StarTrek MUD. (Such a place exists on the
Internet.) You can log on at any time, 24 hours a day, greet fellow members
of the crew-all in role-playing characters-to collectively obey orders
broadcast by the captain, and battle enemy ships built and managed by a
different set of players.
The more hours one spends exploring and hacking the MUD-world, the more
status one earns from the rulers overseeing that world. A player who assists
newcomers, or who takes on janitorial chores in keeping the database going,
can earn increasing rank and power, such as being able to teleport for free
or being exempt from certain everyday laws. Ultimately every MUDer dreams of
achieving local god or wizard status. Some become better gods than others.
Ideally, gods promote fair play, keep the system going, and help those
"below." But stories of abusive and deranged gods are legendary on the
Internet.
Real-life events are recapitulated within MUDs and TinyMUDs. Players will
hold funerals and wakes for characters who die. There have been TinyWeddings
for virtual and real people. The slipperiness between real life and virtual
life is one of MUD's chief attractions, particularly for teenage kids who
are wrestling with their identity.
On a MUD, you define who you are. As you enter a room, others read your
description: "Judi enters. She is a tall, dark-haired Vulcan woman, with
small pointed ears, and a lovely reddish tinge to her skin. She walks with a
gymnast's bounce. Her green eyes seem to flirt." The author may be petite
female with a bad case of acne, or she may be a bearded male masquerading as
a women. So many female-presenting characters are actually males pretending
at this point that most savvy MUDers now assume all players to be male
unless proven otherwise. This has led to a weird prejudice against true
female players who are subject to the harassment of "proving" their gender.
Most players live out virtual life with more than one character, as if they
are trying out various facets of their persona. "MUDs are a workshop for the
concept of identity," says Amy Bruckman, a MIT researcher who studies the
sociological aspects of MUDs and TinyMUDs. "Many players notice that they
are somehow different on the net than off, and this leads them to reflect on
who they are in real life." Flirting, infatuation, romance, and even TinySex
are as ubiquitous in MUD worlds as on real campuses. Only the characters
vary.
Sherry Turkle, who calls the computer an occasion for a "second self" goes
further. She says, "On a MUD, the self is multiplied and decentralized." It
is no coincidence that a multiple, decentralized structure is the emerging
model for understanding real-life, healthy human selves.
Pranks are also rampant. One demented player devised an invisible "spud"
that, when accidentally picked up by another player we'll call Visitor,
would remove Visitor's limbs. Others in the room would read: "Visitor rolls
about on the floor, twitching excitedly." The gods were summoned to fix
player Visitor. But as soon as they "looked" at him, they too got spudded,
so that everyone would read, "Wizard rolls about on the floor, twitching
excitedly." Ordinary objects can be booby-trapped to do almost anything. A
favorite pastime is to manufacture a neat object and get others to copy it
without knowing its true powers. For example, when you innocently inspect a
"Home Sweet Home" cross-stitch hanging on someone's wall, it might instantly
and forcibly teleport you home (while it flashes "There is no place like
home").
Since most MUDers are 20-year-old males, violence often permeates these
worlds. Elaborate slash-'n'-hack universes repel all but the most thick
skinned. But one experimental world running at MIT outlaws all killing and
has gathered a huge following of elementary and high school kids. The world,
Cyberion City, is modeled on a cylindrical space station. On any one day
about 500 kids beam up into Cyberion City to roam or build without ceasing.
So far the kids have built 50,000 objects, characters, and rooms. There's a
mall with multiplex cinema (and text movies written by kids), a city hall,
science museum, a Wizard of Oz theme park, a CB radio network, acres of
housing suburbs, and a tour bus. A robot real estate agent roams around
making deals with anyone who wants to buy a house.
There is deliberately no map of Cyberion City. To explore is the thrill. Not
to be told how things work is the teacher. You are expected to do what the
kids do: ask another kid. As Barry Kort, the real-life administrator of the
project, says, "One of the charms of entering an unfamiliar environment and
culture such as Cyberion City is that it tends to put adults and children
back on an equal footing. Some adults would say it reverses the balance of
power." The main architects of Cyberion City are 15 years old, or younger.
The sheer bustle and intricacy of the land they have built is intimidating
to the lone, over-educated immigrant trying to get somewhere, or build
anything. As San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll exclaimed on his
first visit, "The psychological size of the place, all those rooms, and the
'puppets' flitting about, makes it seem like being dropped into downtown
Tokyo with a Tootsie Roll and a screwdriver." To survive is the only task.
Kids get lost, then find their way, then they get lost in another sense and
never leave. The continuous telecommunication traffic due to nonstop MUDing
can cripple a computer center. The college of Amherst outlawed all MUDing
from its campus. Australia, linked to the rest of the world by a limited
number of precious satellite datalines, banned all international MUDs from
the continent. Student-constructed virtual worlds were crowding out bank
note updates and calls from Aunt Sheila. Other institutions are sure to
follow the ban on unlimited virtual worlds.
Until now, every MUD going (and there are about 200 of them) has been
written by fanatical students in their spare time with no one's approval. A
couple of pseudo-MUDs have a large following on commercial online services.
These almost-MUDs, such as Federation 2, Gemstone, and ImagiNation's
Yserbius permit multiusers but give them only limited power to alter their
worlds. Xerox PARC is nurturing an experimental MUD running on its company
computer. This trial, code-named the Jupiter Project, explores MUDs as a
possible environment in which to run a business. An experimental
Scandinavian system and a start-up called the Multiplayer Network (running a
game called Kingdom of Drakkar) both boast a prototype visual MUD. The dawn
of commercial profit-making MUDs in not far away.
Children of the 22nd century will marvel at Nintendo games of the 1990s and
wonder why anyone bothered to play a simulation where only one person could
enter. It's sort of like having one telephone in the world and no one to
talk to.
The future of MUDs, then, converges upon the future of SIMNET, the future of
SimCity, and the future of virtual reality. Somewhere in that mix is the
ultimate god game. I imagine it as a vast world set into motion with a few
well-chosen rules. It is populated by myriad autonomous critters and other
creatures who are mere simulacra of distant human players. Characters unfold
over time. Tangles grow.
Eventually the simulated world quickens with palpable energy as the
interrelations deepen and the entities alter and shape their world. The
participants-real, fake, and hyperreal-coevolve the system into a game
different than it began. Then, the god himself dons a pair of magic goggles,
suits up, and descends into his creation.
The god who lowered himself into his own creation is an old theme. Stanislaw
Lem once wrote a great science-fiction classic about a tyrant who kept his
world in a box. But another version predates it by millennia.
- Analogy of God Creating Life & Life Creating Life, Must Surrender Power to
Mob Below
As Moses tells the story, on the sixth day of creation, that is at the
eleventh hour of a particularly frantic creative bout, the god kneaded some
clayey earth and in an almost playful gesture, crafted a tiny model to dwell
in his new world. This god, Yahweh, was an unspeakably mighty inventor who
built his universe merely by thinking aloud. He had been able to do the rest
of his creation in his head, but this part required some fiddling. The final
hand-tuned model-a blinking, dazed thing, a "man" as Yahweh called him-was
to be a bit more than the other creatures the almighty made that week.
This one was to be a model in imitation of the great Yahweh himself. In some
cybernetic way the man was to be a simulacra of Yahweh.
As Yahweh was a creator, this model would also create in simulation of
Yahweh's creativity. As Yahweh had free will and loved, this model was to
have free will and love in reflection of Yahweh. So Yahweh endowed the model
the same type of true creativity he himself possessed.
Free will and creativity meant an open-ended world with no limits. Anything
could be imagined, anything could be done. This meant that the man-thing
could be creatively hateful as well as creatively loving (although Yahweh
attempted to encode heuristics in the model to help it decide).
Now Yahweh himself was outside of time, beyond space and form, and unlimited
in scope-ultimate software. So making a model of himself that could operate
in bounded material, limited in scale, and constrained by time was not a
cinch. By definition, the model wasn't perfect.
To continue where Moses left off, Yahweh's man-thing has been around in
creation for millennia, long enough to pick up the patterns of birth, being,
and becoming. A few bold man-things have had a recurring dream: to do as
Yahweh did and make a model of themselves-a simulacra that will spring from
their own hands and in its turn create novelty freely as Yahweh and
man-things can.
So by now some of Yahweh's creatures have begun to gather minerals from the
earth to build their own model creatures. Like Yahweh, they have given their
created model a name. But in the cursed babel of man-things, it has many
designations: automata, robot, golem, droid, homunculus, simulacra.
The simulacra they have built so far vary. Some species, such as computer
viruses, are more spirit than flesh. Others species of simulacra exist on
another plane of being-virtual space. And some simulacra, like the kind
marching forward in SIMNET, are terrifying hybrids between the real and the
hyperreal.
The rest of the man-things are perplexed by the dream of the model builders.
Some of the curious bystanders cheer: how wonderful to reenact Yahweh's
incomparable creation! Others are worried; there goes our humanity. It's a
good question. Will creating our own simulacra complete Yahweh's genesis in
an act of true flattery? Or does it commence mankind's demise in the most
foolish audacity?
Is the work of the model-making-its-own-model a sacrament or a blasphemy?
One thing the man-creatures know for sure: making models of themselves is no
cinch.
The other thing the man-things should know is that their models won't be
perfect, either. Nor will these imperfect creations be under godly control.
To succeed at all in creating a creative creature, the creators have to turn
over control to the created, just as Yahweh relinquished control to them.
To be a god, at least to be a creative one, one must relinquish control and
embrace uncertainty. Absolute control is absolutely boring. To birth the
new, the unexpected, the truly novel-that is, to be genuinely surprised-one
must surrender the seat of power to the mob below.
The great irony of god games is that letting go is the only way to win.
13: GOD GAMES
- Electronic godhood
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch13-a.html
- Theories with an interface
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch13-b.html
- A god descends into his polygonal creation
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch13-c.html
- The transmission of simulacra
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch13-d.html
- Memorex warfare
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch13-e.html
- Seamless distributed armies
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch13-f.html
- A 10,000 piece hyperreality
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch13-g.html
- The consensual ascii superorganism
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch13-h.html
- Letting go to win
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/ch13-i.html
Kevin Kelly was recently granted his 15 seconds of second-hand Hollywood
fame. This short edited video clip from The Matrix Revisted (the making of
the Matrix) has Keanu Reeves recounting how each actor had to read Out of
Control (and 2 other books) before they could open the original script.
Watch the video clip via modem, cable, or dsl.
http://www.kk.org/
Eep²
Eep²
Thinking: attempt it.
"G.I.L." wrote:
> Eep² wrote:
> > I don't really consider any game developer that I know of to be "true
> > artists" at this time. Wil Wright used to be before he sold out to
> > EA. Sid Meier once was but sold out LONG ago. Maybe Warren Buffet(?),
> > but he's more of a suit than an artist--at least he's continuing the
> > Thief series! Perhaps Carnack or Romero, but I suspect not. That's
> > all I can think of right now. Unfortunately, the game industry has
> > changed (more corporate, more focused on profit, etc) since these (at
> > least the older) guys started out.
> >
> > I don't think it's even possible to BE a true artist (game developer)
> > in the current industry...
>
> If you don't believe there can be any in the game business then why did you
> start talking about "true artists" in the first place then?
>
G.I.L.
> *I* don't have a problem with reading my website. <shrug>
Do you expect yourself to be the only one who does?
Gotta admit, for a person who is NUMERO UNO in criticizing everything around
him, you sure don't know how to take criticism yourself, do you?
g
---
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.478 / Virus Database: 275 - Release Date: 07/05/2003
Eep²
I consider myself an artist, but not a game developer.
Games are merely interactive art.
You're an idiot for not being able to think. Come back when you've achieved independent thought, champ. Run along...
Eep²
Anyway, I've already answered most of your troll questions in another reply in this thread so run along and go find them if you want.
Learn how to quote correctly, noob.
Oh and suck filter, troll. <flick>
G.I.L.
> Duh, because there is the possibility some are out there (and,
> certainly, that existing developers CAN become true artists if they
> so choose).
You haven't met any, and you don't know any. I betcha you can't even find
one from history. There you go, you can pick up even dead "true artists"
from any sort of art you like. Let's examine them and see if they fit your
standards.
But you know what? I think you don't know what art is, you don't know what
it means, and you can't even give an example of what you mean. (note: an
imaginary "Work 1" is not an example, neither is "doesn't give 2 pisses and
shits")
> Thinking: attempt it.
You are hallucinating, and a heck of a job doing so.
g
---
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.478 / Virus Database: 275 - Release Date: 07/05/2003
Jim Lascola
> You're thinking too hard/much. A true artist is driven by an internal dri
> individual people. A true artist is, by nature, self-involved, perhaps e
> ven a bit (or very) conceited, self-centered, and, yes, very self-conscio
> us. True artists are so focused on their art that nothing else outside of
> that focus matters; they get pissed at criticism AND praise--especially
>
Wow Eeep
Your Word Wrap was accidently turned "ON" making it possible for all
to "ACTUALLY" read one of your posts for a Change
Jim
Mario Wynands
I believe you are missing my point, and failed to answer my question.
1. You are saying that game developers shouldn't listen to anyone and should
make games the way they want to make them.
2. You have made numerous posts to this newsgroups (being c.g.d.d and also
others) with suggestions, comments, and complaints regarding various games
and game design issues.
If you want game developers not to listen anyone outside of their team, and
yet you make numerous comments about games and game design...
who is your intended audience for all your numerous posts?
Regards
Mario
Mario Wynands
> I consider myself an artist, yes. I haven't sold out so, yes, I would
consider myself a "true" artist too. <shrug>
>
I'm not sure I understand the context you are making this statement under.
Are you a graphic designer, musician or even a carpenter? Certainly sounds
like you aren't career oriented given your abhorrence of corporate 'greed',
so do you have more a Boehmian (sp?) lifestyle, going where ever the wind
takes you?
Regards
Mario
Jason E.
> Everything is an expression of some self and is art/artistic in one
> way or another, Jason. Take that aesthetics junior college course
> (assuming you're even old enough to BE in college yet). <chuckle>
>
"Everything is an expression of some self and is art/artistic in one way
or another"?
That's a very naive statement. Clearly you've never had a job in your
life.
> I consider myself an artist, but not a game developer.
>
You're not an artist. You're just an unemployed gamer who has no life.
You don't know the first thing about art or game development.
> Games are merely interactive art.
>
Games are entertainment. We make what's fun for the public, not for
ourselves. (but in turn it's profitable to us) It's one of the first
things you have to understand as a game developer.
Jason E.
> I'm not embarassing myself at all, actually. <shrug> You (and MANY
> others) simply can't grasp my level of thought...yet (if ever).
> Perhaps when you've evolved...
>
your level of thought? hahahaha
> Anyway, I've already answered most of your troll questions in another
> reply in this thread so run along and go find them if you want.
>
No you didn't. you simply stated "look it up yourself" for many of the
questions asked. Again I dare you to name a "true game developer" by
your standards
> Learn how to quote correctly, noob.
>
> Oh and suck filter, troll. <flick>
>
oh please, we all know that you don't know how filter anyone.
Robert Tweed
news:Xns938B49022202...@66.185.95.104...
>
> > Games are merely interactive art.
>
> Games are entertainment. We make what's fun for the public, not for
> ourselves. (but in turn it's profitable to us) It's one of the first
> things you have to understand as a game developer.
Much as it pains me, and much as it should not be misconstrued to reinforce
the specious notion that Eep has any idea what he's talking about, I do
agree with him on this one point. A game does not have to be art, but that
does not mean that no game is art.
When I develop games for clients, I would not class those games as any form
of art. Any artistic expression that I may put into the game is likely to be
thoroughly destroyed by the conficting desires of the client.
However, when it comes to personal projects, I always have a very clear
vision of what the game will contain and *why* it will contain it. For
example, a game concept that I started working on recently includes the
following central gameplay principle (the central character is a samurai):
- in order to be sucessful the player will need to react quickly and commit
to each action without regard for the possibility that the character may be
killed. In each situation, it will seem likely that the required action will
result in death. If the player hesitates in such a situation, death or
injury is inevitable. In fact, the player must generally do the opposite of
what their cautious instincts tell them to do, or they will be of no use.
Why am I so concerned with such a principle? Because this refelects the
ideas presented by Yamamoto Tsunetomo in Hagakure: the way of the Samurai
lies in death, one must live as if his body is already dead. When presented
with a dangerous situation, a samurai should rush headlong into it with joy.
"the way" is all about having a permanent mindset of considering only the
present and not worrying about getting killed and other such irrelevant
distractions from serving the master.
I want this sentiment to influence the game mechanics so as to capture the
essence of the way of the samurai in the gameplay. I want to reward the
player who has focused their mind on the way of the samurai and punish those
who have not.
I'm still toying with this concept - I'll probably have the game culminate
with the player comitting seppuku, just to reinforce the idea that death is
the inevitable conclusion of their life and should be embraced rather than
just accepted. Of course, this must be a consious effort on the part of the
player, although the game will be constantly leading them in that direction.
As this example hopefully illustrates, the game mechanics themselves can be
an artistic expression. I am not even considering the related questions of
whether things like level design are also art, which of course they are in
many cases.
- Robert
Vince
> "Jason E." wrote in message
> >
> > [snipped]
> I'm still toying with this concept - I'll probably have the game culminate
> with the player comitting seppuku,
Makes the sequel a bit tricky.
Jason E.
news:bb6saq$6ffkk$1...@ID-99544.news.dfncis.de:
You bring up very interesting points, and your idea of bringing Samurai
mindset into game mechanics sounds unique. I won't deny that a game can
be art, but in my opinion it shouldn't necessarily be one. I have a very
different idea of what constitutes as a game, and strictly in my opinion,
artistic expression doesn't have any place in what makes or breaks a
game.
I strongly believe that a game's purpose is to provide the players with
entertainment. To me, a successful game is one that provides what the
public decides to be fun. Is artisic content what an average consumer
looks for when he/she purchases a game? Not really, I'd assume. They
just want a fun way to spend their spare time. Artistic expression as
the chief selling point of a game would be a good example of appealing to
the wrong crowd.
Not to say art doesn't have any place in games at all (your Samurai
concept is a good example) - I admit a game is a canvas with endless
borders, so to speak, and there's no reason why game developers can't put
their own artistic touches into it as long as the game doesn't forget its
primary goal.
G.I.L.
Well, there is a school of thought that art should be entertaining as well.
Not enteraining as in "happy joy", but worth the time wasted on its
inspection. A book should make you cry or happy or angry or disgusted, but
it mustn't leave you indifferent. That's "entertainment" too!
> I strongly believe that a game's purpose is to provide the players with
> entertainment. To me, a successful game is one that provides what the
> public decides to be fun. Is artisic content what an average consumer
> looks for when he/she purchases a game? Not really, I'd assume. They
> just want a fun way to spend their spare time. Artistic expression as
> the chief selling point of a game would be a good example of appealing to
> the wrong crowd.
Entertainment is not a goal but a means. It can be a means to overcome
personal issues, an educational tool, or a time passer.
> Not to say art doesn't have any place in games at all (your Samurai
> concept is a good example) - I admit a game is a canvas with endless
> borders, so to speak, and there's no reason why game developers can't put
> their own artistic touches into it as long as the game doesn't forget its
> primary goal.
See my above comment.
g
---
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Pip.
Tom painted portraits of the very wealthy, sold well and made a fair living
for his wife and two daughters.
Tom also painted lots of landscapes, that noboby wanted particularly, but he
kept painting them, because he liked doing them.
Teach me.
Was Tom an artist, or was he a plumber, electrician, 'game-developer', or
table-waitress, in your eyes?
Tell me also.
If I had asked Tom the following question, what do you think would have been
his response?
"Tom, are you a 'true' artist?"
G.I.L.
"Pip." <art...@yourdoor.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bb7bbn$a58$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
I think he would have said: "Fuck of, twat!". That's the style of the only
"true artist" I know...
;)