Scrivener

Oh god. Any hope I had for this project is now gone.

Pick up a copy of Temple of Elemental Evil. It's only about $20 these days. It's a great game (once you get past the two cities and into the actual Temple complex) but still has some bugs. For instance, save often and in different slots - ToEE likes to eat save games. Anyway, despite its problems it's one of, if not *the*, best D&D games ever created.

Looking at the list of upcomming RPGs I can't help but feel a deep kind of sadness. Whenever I hear a promising idea for a new world to explore, my hopes are pretty much always dashed to pieces by one god-damned acronym - MMOG. The problem is that these things really aren't RPGs - they have little to nothing in common with their classic singleplayer forebears (With the possible exception of Asheron's Call). Where is the storytelling - the backstabbing - the plot twists - the memorable characters? No, these games take the grand wonderful worlds from games like Ultima, Elder Scrolls, and Might and Magic - and they couple them with the mindnumbing monotonous treasure-hording, level-treadmilling, and chat-room-trolling present in mass-market consumer trash like AOL, Diablo, and the worst D&D groups. Where have all the RPGs gone? Answer: Germany, Russia, and the Czech Republic. Yup. Virtually every single player RPG experience of the last 5 years has come out of these three countries. Many of which have never made it to US shores and some have not even been translated to english. Sure we got Morrowind, but to longtime Elder Scrolls fans it was an unfinished half-baked product. IMO, Gothic and Arx Fatalis were both shining examples on what Morrowind SHOULD have been - and wasn't. The list of upcomming MMORPGs grows larger by the day. What I find frustrating is that there simply isn't a market there to support them all. So many great ideas never see the light of day - and those that do are never fully realized in the MMO format. Take a look at Cyan's failed Uru experiment... all that hard work can be saved - adapt it into a single player title. I think every single player game can be made better by the inclusion of a basic cooperative mode. You can have all the story, character, and plot development found in a well-written single player experience - and you can play with your friends - for free. This is a plea to all you developers out there - we don't need any more MMORPGs. If you desperately desire a stable income, then make a game good enough to warrant multiple expansions. It worked with the Sims - it can work for you. For those of you who feel as I do and desire a great single player experience here is a small list of games to keep your eyes on: 1) Gothic 3 2) Goldenland 3) Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion (DO IT RIGHT THIS TIME GODDAMMIT!) 4) Knights of the Old Republic 2 5) The Fall 6) Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 7) STALKER (Maybe)

I was getting worried when I heard about this one's limited availability, but my usuall import services panned out after all: I just got my copy of Richard Burns Rally! Boy howdy, when they claim that this is the most realistic rally simulation ever created, you better believe it. This game is NOT for newbs or people who like 'racing games.' RICHARD BURNS RALLY IS NOT A GAME. It's a simulation - and a bloody good one. Since most people have no idea what it feels like to drive a real rally car, the developers were so kind as to include a very thorough rally school training mode. In fact, they won't even let you into the career mode until you've familiarized yourself with the basics. When I first got into the game I was amazed to see that actual rally strategies worked. The terrain and physics are so dead on that you'd swear it was real. Unfortunately for all you casual gamers out there, that means you are going to suck at this game. It dosn't matter if you are the god of Colin Mcrae and it's cartoon-like physics and vehicle handling, because RBR is going to eat you for lunch and leave you as a **** stain in the bottom of a toilet bowl in a public park in the middle of a barrio in south central. So I'll take this opportunity to ®espond some of the ©omplaints I've been reading online: C) It's too hard. R) Well no ****. Maybe you'll have a little more respect for guys like Petter Soldberg and Sabastian Loeb. This isn't some bloody NASCAR race - this is RALLY and it takes practice and skill. If you don't like the realism, go back to playing Colin McRae and try not spill your apple juice and crackers on the way out. C) "Thing is, since we're international playboys here on CVG, we've been rally driving, and it didn't really feel like this. The cars skitter around with a frustrating looseness and never feel as heavy as you would expect." R) You're an international loser. Rally cars used in the WRC and SCCA weigh about 1/3 as much as their retail counterparts. And how many schoolchildren did you plow down as you drove 70 through the 25 zone? C) To a casual gamer the difference between Richard Burns' physics and Colin McRae's isn't really tangible. R) Casual gamers have yet to discover anything not Counterstrike or developed by Blizzard. As far as I'm concerned - those people have no buisness using a computer (Don't get legalistic on me - you guys know who I'm talking about and merely being on this forum exempts you). One thing that noticeably makes Richard Burns superior is that you discover how easy it is to flip a car at high speeds. Yes, in the magical place we call the "real world" vehicles function a little differently than Star Wars Pod Racers do. If you think this makes the games un-fun, then go play some more Need for Speed (and the non-automotive things that implies) on your bloody XBox. Now it never ceased to infuriate me that paid critics bash games that aren't made for the ignorant masses. These are people that would change a 70% to 95% in a heartbeat if they saw zombies, boobies, and aliens in there. Richard Burns Rally wants to be the most hardcore, unforgivingly realistic rally simulation ever produced. Does it succeed? Hella yes. Could it be better? Of course. There is always room for improvement. They have given Rally fans most of the things they've been clamoring for for years. 1) Realistic dynamic weather. 2) Best force feedback support ever included in a game. 3) Excellent audio. 4) Best vehicle physics ever included in an racing simulation. 5) Realistic damage model (If you're a rally fan you'll notice this right away). 6) Locations that actually look geographically real for a change. 7) Physical details on stages that actually perceptibly affect the way you drive. You can even use these things to your advantage. Some things that need improvement: 1) Call for help is just a fancy way of saying "reset car". I expected something a little more realistic. Bystanders can't always save you, and they don't roll you back onto the road either - they merely try to get you unstuck. 2) Takes a lot of tweaking the control settings. My steering wheel and petals were so sensitive at first that a slight tap would spin the wheels. Fortunately there are more tweak options that you'll know what to do with but you have to exit to the main menu to get at the filter options. Filter options need to be on the pause-menu screen for quick testing. 3) I don't want to unlock cars. I want them unlocked and ready to go. This is a stupid stupid stupid element meant to reward idiot console gamers and has no place in a serios simulation. I want my Citroen Xsara right now dammit! Before the Park Service started destroying our deserts by attracting RV families and repaving all the roads, I used to go to Joshua Tree and Death Valley just to drive around at 100mph without worrying about other cars, or pedestrians, or cops. Although those days are long over, I have a very good idea of what rally racing is really like - I garauntee more than those losers at CVG in complaint #2. True Rally fans only need apply. This is the rally game we've been waiting for our whole lives. Gone are bushes that act like brick walls, and gone are the indestructible god-cars of Colin McRae and Rallisport. This is the honest-to-goodness real gritty thing. 9/10

The biggest reason that the Earth 20XX series has always been so great is because of the staggering number of features they pack into the games. Although Moon Project and Lost Souls were'nt much more than huge full priced patches ;[ I know they never cought on because of the learning curve - each faction was so different that you had take the tutorial all over again to learn how to play them properly. That's A-Ok with me though, I'm biggest anti-mass-market activist out there. Let's hope they don't dumb this down like TimeGate dumbed down Kohan 2. P.S. I hope this version adds a campaign co-op mode. These days no game should be without one.

Looks like we're on track to set some kind of record here. With this kind of luck you'll get hit by Jeanne, Karl, Lisa, and Matthew by the end of October.

Silly Europeans

Soback - that's called Psychobable. Experiences like Grizzle's are as old as recorded history. Things like ghosts and goblins are derived from stories of such experiences - not the other way around. Sure he could be making it up - but if he is than he is particularly well versed in verified reports of such encounters. It rings true to me in that it is at least based on a true event. It's important to keep in mind that there is a distinct difference between dreams, halucinations, and something that actually happened. For example it's a lot harder to 'scientise' when such an experience takes place when the person is wide awake in the middle of the day - but in both modern science and religion it is unpopular to give credance to anything dosn't have a popular academically accepted scientific explanation. Popular opinion gets in the way of truth far too often these days. It just dosn't work like that. Remember when the earth was flat and the center of the universe? Claiming anything else was heresy, insanity, or just plain uncouth. Never let politics get in the way of the pursuit of truth - and while it's healthy to question everything - it's important to not write off that which does not fit into your own worldview. You need to be willing to explore things that might seem uncomfortable or unreasonable. This is the very definition of open mindedness. [ 09-07-2004, 02:20 AM: Message edited by: Scrivener ]

Enterprise was quite promising at first - borrowing heavily from the things that made Classic and TNG so great. But last season they really blew it with the whole Al Queda-alien thing (Which ended with a time-travel WW2 Alien Nazi thingamajigger). The ENTIRE SEASON was just one painfully prolongued story that, for all intensive purposes, would have made one really mediocre 2-parter. *sigh*

Severniae, did you read my other posts? I'm always glad to discuss these things in a less public setting. Not that I mind what people think of me (obviously) but talking about my personal experiences always makes me feel very uncomfortable. I can tell you're a natural born skeptic. I am too. But I've seen and experienced things that most people only think happen in movies (one of the reasons I don't openly share most stories). I can't garauntee I will singlehandedly make you a believer - as firsthand experience is often the only way to really do that - but you're welcome to think what you like. If firsthand experience is what you're after, I can help you there. But not before I make sure you are quite aware of the lifelong costs. Ignorance is bliss; It's true. Remember that.

Oh god - is this for real? How could you possibly pull such a thing off without inciting massive global Star Trek fanboi riots? This can only end in disaster.

Phone throwing? Needs more nGage

So I talked to the Sony recruiter today. It'll be about 3 or 4 weeks before they choose someone for the job. After spending a couple days at Best Buy - I really really really really really want this job. Retail sucks. Kids: Don't do retail. It eats away at your soul leaving only a hateful bitter shell of the kind and caring person you once were.

It's the end of the world. I just know it. I have family who live down there. They were only JUST starting to rebuild... now they're flying back to California for another week. Hope there's still a house left to go back to.

Can't wait till Tokyo Marui starts producing XM-8 airsoft guns. I'll be first in line to buy one of those. BTW, does anyone have any information on the militarys vomit gun?

I give up

Lord of the Rings *was* realistic. That's my point. Hero is more like Van Helsing than LOTR, which was presented as almost a history. The magic also wasn't 'magicy' either. It was fantasy presented with an impressive ammount of realism. Now, I'm not saying Hero is a bad movie. I'm just saying 'meh'. It would have earned a 6.5/10 if it weren't for stupid little technical problems. Chief among them were instances of blurry, grey, useless untreated junk footage that just shouldn't have been in the film. Most other instances involved bad cuts where the color and/or audio didn't sync properly. That dropped the score a whole 1.5 points as those are the types of silly things that just shouldn't end up in a feature film. If I presented something for class with those kinds of egregious errors, I would get reamed. Again, I loved the story, and the way the story was told (flashbacks to POVs). However, I am a vocal and unabashed wire-fu hater. There are times where you can have Cirque du Solieil-like "OMG how the heck did they do that" physical feats... and then there are flying people who run and bounce on water... yeeaaahhhh. I didn't dig that stuff when I was 9 and I don't dig it now. BTW, Hero and Emperor are based on the same story.

There was an article somewhere about a month (maybe two) ago - where the devs were saying that at the rate they were quashing bugs in QA they estimated about two weeks until gold. It's true that HL2 has started pre-load on Steam - but it's not the entire game. The preload merely downloads chunks of unuseable assets (such as the disk space hungry art assets) to regulate the release. In any case, I have an inkling that Valve at the very least has one or more completely viable release candidates. However it is quite possible that publisher Sierra is going to simply sit on it until November to maximize their holiday sales (an insane but standard buisness practice as it makes their numbers look more impressive to investors and shareholders). If that's the case, then Valve might just be adding content until Sierra is ready to ship.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: If you like a good formulaic thriller and you like Ben Kingsley, go see it.Formulaic bad. Ben Kingsley good. But by now you all know that I hate just about everything.

Ok - let me elaborate. The fight on the lake (indeed all of the flying fight scenes) looked like people on wires. I can break down exactly how those scenes were accomplished. Most of the water effects on the lake were CG but they looked great. The actors were filmed against a green screen and keyed into the scene of the lake. Technically impressive - but they still look they are suspended from wires. Wirefu just hasn't been honed enough to seem both reasonably believable and fantastic (such as the way Sam Raimi's Spiderman moves). The problem with the arrows is not so much the color matching (which is almost always a serious problem with CG) but the animations. The physics were just plain wrong. Not the flying through the air per se, but the way the characters were interacting with them when Nameless and Flying Snow were defending the building. I think of these movies as essentially the Chinese equivallent of a Steven Sommers films. I have nothing against fantasy, and nothing against art - but I despise sillyness. I think of wirefu on the same level I think of the fake-Neo vs. 100 Smiths sequence in Matrix Reloaded. I know a lot of people try to make this solely a cultural issue, and I assure you that it is not. I am a self-proclaimed fan of Japanese horror. I love how those films seem to break established conventions and aren't restricted by our narrow-minded American limitations on film content. Reviving a previous comparison - if Spiderman can be done believably then movies like Hero can be done so too. Anyway, if you want to see what I'm talking about when I say " Had this been handled with a little more respect to realism then this movie could have been great" then rent get out there and Kaige Chen's "The Emperor and the Assassin." It's an excellent film and a prime example of what I'm talking about.

I'll make this simple - if you liked Crouching Actors Hidden Wires then don't bother reading anything else, go see this right away. But hereÔÇÖs a more detailed breakdown: The concept is great. The story is very fable-like and centers around two characters (The Hero and the Emperor) exchanging different versions of the same story. Had this been handled with a little more respect to realism then this movie could have been great. But then people start flying, running on water, and tossing around lots and lots of poor-CG leaves and arrows. What is with all these 'quick and cheap CG swarms' in movies these days? Can't a film get made that doesn't do this? There's also some very bad footage in there and some shockingly sloppy editing (very likely the result of Miramax rejiggering the original print for us stupid Americans) - this is worth mentioning as it is so bad as to be distracting (this is very unprofessional even for independent filmmakers). Truly inspirational locations and ideas are simply ruined by your typical tall-tale shmuck. Even if one were to suspend disbelief that people could fly, the execution is so bad that it's like watching Cathy Rigby's Peter Pan. Then there's the overdramatic Shakespearean ending, which is typical of this kind of film. Maybe it's more reasonable in its own cultural context but the ultimate resolution seems particularly illogical and forced. Anyway - if your kids don't mind subtitled movies this could be a good family film. It's pretty much a bloodless movie and the fighting is about as intense as Olympic synchronized swimming. The colors choices for each story are very loud and lend the film an almost cartoon-like quality. All in all it's a sterile, forgettable, and relatively kid-friendly diversion (there's one brief scene of sensuality but it's mostly implied and nothing is shown - ie, you've seen worse commercials on on the tely). 5/10 P.S. On the Offense-O-Meter it's about as bad Ninja Turtles. [ 08-29-2004, 01:07 PM: Message edited by: Scrivener ]

Gol, let me know if your dad is ever willing to sell it. I collect that stuff. But as far as your story is concerned, it sounds a lot like some of the native american stories I've heard. Why do you think animal spirits are so prevalent in those cultures? Anyway - most spirits are actually evil. And by evil I mean they hate you (people).

Thank God this one was free. I just attended a free preview screening of Citizen Zero. It wasn't really a bad movie, per se, but if you've seen even one of the commercials for this film then you should have the entire movie figured out before you even step into the theatre. It's not suspenseful, scary, disturbing or even uncomfortable. Also, I can't for the life of me figure out why this got an R rating! There's not much gore (I've seen far worse on the X-Files), not really any swearing that I can remember. It's about as bad as an episode of CSI. Yeah... like I said, there's not really much plot to develop, no new bits of information to discover, and no suspense or drama or... anything. The story is so obvious that the TV spots are sloppily and deliberately designed mislead people into a plot element that the film totally fodges on it's own. It just dosn't work. You will never care about a single character. You will never buy into the weak 'uncertainty' setup they try to build. There is never a sense of urgency or necessity or drama. Not that you ever feel like anyone is in danger anyway. SPOILERS (Not that it matters if you've seene even one commercial): . . . . . . . . The one thing that might have made this film remotely interesting is if you didn't know if the killer is actually Ben Kingsley's Orion or if it's this other guy, this Citizen Zero, he talks about. While some of the characters firmly believe that Orion is the killer (and the director wants you to think so too), the film unravels in such an amateurish and sloppy way that you simply never buy into it. By paying attention the first 5 minutes of the film you should know exactly what is going on, even if you havn't seen one of the god-aweful TV spots. . . . . . . . . END SPOILERS Don't waste your money. This is cable TV material. As talented as Ben Kingsley is, his skills are totally wasted in this boring, predictable, plodding, soulless smuck of a film. It's like The Ring meets Identity, but less interesting and even more predictable. If you're one of those people who just loved those movies, then you might be ok with this one. Still, if you have $10 to burn and haven't seen Collateral yet, go see that one instead. Score: 5/10

I never got a single warning. Ever. That's what stumps me. *shrugs* In other news, I also got banned from the GenMay message boards for 1 week... I posted a risque but funny pic from a russian newscast. I don't think it was THAT bad, especially for genmay. Sheesh. In order to set a personal all time record of 3 in one day, I've banned myself from my own message boards at GameGestapo.com. This beats my previous record of 2 bans set back in the days of AOL hourly charges. Yay for me! *sarcasm* BTW - it wasn't about the developers (Troika), it was about the publisher(Atari). And it's true. I believe SC has similar feelings about certain publishers. [ 08-26-2004, 02:20 AM: Message edited by: Scrivener ]

Here's something new/interesting, I just got this e-mail from Atari: "scrivener, You are being formally notified of banishment from the Atari community for making this post: http://ataricommunity.com/forums/showthrea...116#post5488116 We allow for 15 Total Warning Points and you are now over the limit. This post is classified as Misc. Instant Ban By Admin! The rules and definitions of the above infraction can be found here: http://ataricommunity.com/rules.html Please note that we do not allow for appeals due to the traffic of the board we cannot review each case. Also note that reregistering on the board is not allowed and once we notice you have returned we will remove your access again. We suggest you join a community board for your favorite game that does not maintain as strict of rules. Best Regards, Atari Forums team." So I guess defending a fun but buggy game is a bannable offense? Uh... ok. Read the post yourself and decide whether that's a bannable offense. I can't even contact Grok to find out what the deal is since I can no longer even send private messages. *shrugs* Not like it's a big loss, I've been boycotting Atari products since TOEE was released and I don't see any sign of that letting up any time soon if this is an idication. [ 08-26-2004, 12:39 AM: Message edited by: Scrivener ]