Synergy

Thankfully, these crises seem relatively infrequent, but they may be the necessary impetus for a big step forward. Did I say, "better" somewhere? That's the kind of term, along with "good" and "bad" which I try not to use very often. Crisis. Let's put it this way: Life is up to the challenge. And moreover, it likes the challenge. Whether you do or not. This sentence, unlike the previous, does not use fragments. -S-

This is. -S-

Regarding VCH's inquiries, I do have another thought or two I'd like to add. VCH said, "2. use our unique self awareness and intellectual powers to actually change..."? As has at least been skirted here so far, isn't it this unique awareness we have, which has enabled us to rapidly populate and behave "out of balance" with other Life? And that reality also now being part of our awareness, would it not be the case that we alone as the perpetrators and the only species apparently capable of stopping ourselves should be the ones to use our awareness to make a shift? No one else got us here, so no one else can be expected to make it better for us. An even bigger question can be asked too, which has also been broached here somewhat also: Is it ever possible for life/nature to actually be out of balance? What if being what we call "out of balance" is merely part of a larger over-arching process of evolution as a whole? The history of this planet is one of extinction. Nearly all life ever on this planet is extinct, yet Life itself persists doggedly, and continues to fashion increasingly marvelous products. I'd say everything is right on schedule, and the very crisis we, as one part of life, have created is also the impetus for us to take another step up ultimately. Or, to put it in pop-lyric terms, "to go against nature is part of nature too." There is increasing dialog in the sciences of late around the very notion that crisis itself is one of the most potent agents of evolutionary advance. For instance, with recent shakeups in our ideas of early human ancestry, the suggestion now is that it was not simply dropping from the trees and walking on two feet in the plains of Africa that inspired our brains to start growing so much larger, but the cycles of rapid climate change over scores of thousands of years in that region that inspired the development of a species especially adapted to deal with change and environmental challenge. Us. I now observe the human species to populate the furthest reaches of the planet, from frigid cold to blistering hot. It's a compelling addition to the dialog of our wonderings about where we came from and how life works. So, despite our present engagement of awareness, concerns, and choices to do things differently, I trust that the overall process of life can never be violated. It will always prevail with or without us, and both are entirely possible. It's up to us whether we want to continue being part of the story on this planet. A difference I may have with others in embracing this point, is that I don't believe Life came this far on this planet to bring forth the wonder that is human beings to let us fail ourselves. I think we are going to make it, precisely because we are now facing crisis of our own making and have the means to make choices concerning it. -S- ADDIT: *waves fondly to Slarty*

@Salmon: Your point about expectations might just be an issue of semantics between us. I do have a personal intention, a purpose, in choosing to share words, yes. But, an expectation of what kind of result it needs to create, I choose not to have. Expectation is like prejudice...we're already closed off to the organic in-the-moment possibilities of what can be. I trust that whatever we are each inspired to do in the moment serves its purpose adequately, and we can let it go with that trust. I know that everything affects everything, so anyone who chooses to read another's words cannot help be affected. There's no need for expectation on that count—to have an effect is automatic. If I had a need for anyone to be affected in a particular way, and would be anything other than fine with them not being so affected, then it would become an expectation. Expectation is the biggest killer of relationships. I know I can live most happily with no expectation or requirement at all. It also means I get disappointed a whole lot less. : ) I rarely know who is affected how here. Most people on forums are lurkers. -S-

I'm guessing by the response that Salmon didn't read my comment about derailing topics. I said people vote with their feet. I don't expect anything from anyone when I make a post. The fun of making any attempt to communicate is you don't know what the result is going to be. I wrote a bit in response to one sentence from VCH's post. I got some response from one person, and in good faith, responded to that. What's the problem? No one's expected to do anything in response to anyone's post. If there is no interest in my particular contribution, no one will engage it. Nothing's preventing anyone from engaging any other aspect of VCH's post. I observe that not a lot of other dialog has been generated so far. Guess what? That's not my fault. Not one little bit. Every single person here is doing exactly what they choose—no more and no less. Let's not get so precious and hyper-protective and let's not feel compelled to assign paper scapegoats for a problem that doesn't even exist. -S- P.S. Ephesos, I respect your choice, and agree it's the healthy solution where two people have no workable basis for continuing a debate.

I have no wish or desire to own or derail this sincere subject of inquiry posed by VCH, and I'm not pretending that what I'm talking about is his or anyone else's primary point of interest. It was meant to be one contribution on one small point. I was responding to VCH's comment about changing "the way nature works." I'm suggesting that our present beliefs/assumptions about the way nature works are not the only possible or even likely explanation for how nature is actually working. We're living in the zenith of "survival of the fittest" as our belief in the motivating principle of Life. Now, let's observe something. Under this mindset, we have spawned lifeforms of our own, corporations, which operate as individual creatures clearly driven by belief in this principle, to great deleterious effect to our collective life and all life. The U.S. Supreme Court just ruled to reemphasize this aggregate lifeform to be one lifeform, giving it more individual power than ever. I question the veracity of our assumption—that survival through beating everyone else out really is the underlying principle of life, what drives life, what enables life, what perpetuates life. It's not working well in our own simulation of life through our institutional creations, which behave as individual lifeforms. And yet, we are certain that this is what enabled life to develop over untold eons to arrive at its crowning achievement to date—us. How long will this world last for us with survival of the fittest being permitted to run out its full course in our own corporate creations and actions? Seriously. How long do you think it can or will last at this point? Because a few thousand years is the tiniest blip of time on the scale of the development of life on our world. As to the simplicity vs. complexity issue, let me say it this way. Principles of life are beautifully—even comically—simple. The actual outplay and interplay of these principles is incredibly complex. And both are true at the same time. I believe the originally offensive simplification was that human beings can be seen to be acting like a cancer on the planet at this point. If we look at the similarities between what cancers do in a body, and what we as humans are doing in the body of the world, the resemblence is notable. I'm not for one moment saying humans are bad, are a disease, should be cut out or eradicated. I'm saying our behavior is mimicking cancer's behavior on a global scale. And our behavior at present reflects our dominant belief in survival of the fittest. That belief is proving to be cancerous to all life, I'm arguing. Regarding atoms and particles, etc., I am pointing to the fractal pattern of the organization of all Life (and I consider all material in existence to be part of the ultimate quantum-physical tapestry of Life, "living" or "dead.") The pattern exists in both that which we consider living, as well as inanimate matter itself. I'm pointing to evidence of a principle that underlies the existence of everything. I find great meaning and suggestion in it. True, that is a result of believing everything is here on purpose. I put "atoms" in quotes, because our concept of matter is theoretical, keeps shifting, and gets weirder and more esoteric and complex all the time. I'm "reducing the idea of cooperation" to a basic grand unifying principle that underlies everything. I think it's resounding. And astounding. And that it doesn't get enough attention. I'm obviously not hesitant to be an advocate of it, because I don't like at all the experience that advocacy for survival of the fittest has created for us on this planet for some time now. And let me reiterate that all I seek to do in dialog is propose other possibilities for consideration. There's nothing to prove, but precisely because I believe we are a collective organism on this planet, what you believe and do also affects me and vice-versa. I do have an interest in making some effort to offer that which I believe may contribute to us all becoming more healthy as the corporate lifeform we as humans are on the planet. What happens to my brother happens also to me. This is the concept which flies in the face of what happens to my brother doesn't matter, only what happens to me. But I'm saying that the latter perspective is what is making us behave like what we call animals, a term which is, perhaps, insulting to all other animals. -S- P.S. - Is it actually possible for one person to own or derail a topic here? It's not an individual act, really now, is it? It takes a corporate action, namely, a significant number of people shifting their attention to focus on something they may otherwise claim is beside the point and not of interest to them. And yet they have chosen to give it their interest. I like to say, "People vote with their feet." I'm just sayin'...

And yet, you could not look away. Admit it, I give you pleasure, despite all your protestations. Glad to be of service. -S-

Eph: What's wrong with simplicity? Can we not see the nature of life as being both beautifully simple and exquisitely complex, depending on how you are looking at it? If you find anything comical about the fully zoomed out scale of observation I was making, where things become very grand and simple in statement, that's your choice. "Everything is" could be one such statement. One could say that the statement "God is Love" is a comically simple reduction. But quite a few hundreds of millions of people on the planet would probably take issue with making a mockery of the value of the statement, merely because it's too "simple" and vague. It just represents an all-encapsulating metascale of ultimate principle, like the furthest zoom out on your camera lens. The very point of such statements are the utter simplicity that exists on one level. I suggest our greatest departure from "harmony" with Life occurred when we decided we somehow were separate from nature, from the rest of life, as if a cell of our body rebelled and decided it was not part of us any more. I see the principle of life reflected fractally — whatever scale you observe it on, it repeats. Subatomic particles "cooperate" to form "atoms." Atoms cooperate to form stars. All life is an aggregrate of something lesser that must "get together" in order for it to exist. That, simply, to me is the message of all Life. Life exists through cooperation, not through alienation. I wager I'll use the "h" word where it seems appropriate to me. I'm not sure I understand the hostility, unless you're just expressing irritation that I've contributed a viewpoint to the dialog that you don't agree with or care to see be a part of the discussion. In Thuryl's case, I understand the hostility. -S-

Same difference. Both are products of the imagination with imagined technologies, one archaic, one futuristic. Mine was a science-fiction fantasy. -S-

I don't agree with the premise that the problem is "the way nature works." Life seems well-practiced in maintaining balance in the long haul, even as it ever shifts, adapts, evolves. Everything fills its niche and services a huge web of life outraying from its place in the order of things. So much life depends on so much other life. It's taken the degree of consciousness we have achieved to find ways to grow ourselves out of balance. I think the Matrix made a wry point not far off the truth that in a sense, human beings have become just like a virus on the planet, though even viruses have their place of balance in the web. I'd actually describe human behavior in the greater body of life as a cancer. Growth gone out of control and no longer in harmony with the needs of the body around it. I also think that the nature of nature has a message for us to which we are increasingly paying attention. Despite Darwin and our obsession with fierce competition as the engine of evolution, the argument can be made that the real achievements in the development of life have been accomplished through cooperation, through collaboration. Our bodies are a colony of around 50 trillion cells. Ants, termites, and wasps, which function as an corporate individual through their choice to serve a collective good, make up a very significant percentage of the biomass on earth. Nature IS telling us something about its nature. It took our great big human brains to become the phenomenally successful organisms we have become, to the threat of all others on the planet at present, as we play haphazardly with our new toy. That was only possible through the mind-boggling degree of specialization and collaboration that you and I, as the colony of swarming cells that we each are, have become. The greatest success in nature comes through cooperation, community. It will take better community as a human species for us to get through this current adolescence. We could learn something from the ants. We project. We've projected our own self-centeredness and fear upon nature, just as we have upon everything else. We see ourselves fighting and scrambling to beat out our fellow human, because we are out of harmony with the principle of life itself, and conclude that that is what is to be seen as the example of nature as well. We'd do well to question our unquestioned assumptions. -S-

You all broke my GeekDebate™ meter with this one. -S-

Was anyone else surprised when they heard Jeff's voice in the interview? I was rather expecting him to sound quite laid back and deeper-pitched, but that boy is a bundle of giddy energy! I really enjoyed the interview. Anyone who is passionate about what he loves and does is so much more enjoyable than someone just grinding out Produkt™ they don't love. It's hard to picture Jeff ever being such a person. -S-

I'd like that better too. This is something to consider lobbying for during the next game development. -S-

The ideal game-tester would have to be as magical in ability as some of her/his PC's, I suspect, and so would Jeff, to get it all perfect. One of the difficulties is, that as a game tester, you are expected to be thorough. That means you have done pretty much everything and you have accessed more loot, had more experience, and put on better gear by the same time you reach some of these fights that the typical player may have, and so it's hard to gauge what that gamer's experience might be compared to yours. All I can comment on is how hard it seems on Normal when playing as a completist. I assume it should be pretty easy to me where I am at. If it is not easy, I comment. I guess that it's worth noting that, on average, the trigger point needs to be set lower still for making comment on perceived difficulty during testing. I have a slightly unrelated comment on difficulty settings. I don't really enjoy the higher level difficulty settings so much, because they simply create some universal shifts in stats in the foes one faces. One of them in particular I don't enjoy, and that's the big jump in hit points. I get so bored whittling away forever at a foe with thousands of hit points. My idea of more difficult is: foes that become faster, more clever, harder to hit (which they already do become), and—most impossible of all in this game engine (I assume)—more numerous. I'd rather face more foes than foes with more hit points. I understand why it's difficult to make difficulty more complex with these game engines and limited time and staff, but the veneer is thin and predictable, so that it doesn't feel like a very satisfying challenge to me, just to have to hit something more times to make it die, while otherwise using the same strategy. -S-

They still bother me and haunt my dreams. My apologies for a couple loose ends like this left in the list, but some I left intentionally, just in case someone found a way to get somewhere that we missed. Quite unlikely, but you never know... By the time I'm done with one of these lists and the 3-4 month long beta-testing process that surrounds it, there can be an understandable degree of burnout for me. As soon as I finished A6, I ran off to play SimCity4 for a couple months, and exercise my brain differently. I'm glad people are appreciating the list. I want to emphasize again that Randomizer contributed hugely. He did much of the TU/AL/Dispel Barrier quantifying, for instance, among much else, which has been invaluable. I love the things people can create in collaboration—it's truly a synergy—where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts: thus my love of the word. It's so much more satisfying than just doing everything yourself too. -S-

Huh, I never pictured Jeff at an opera. My guess: the game will involve opening seven (or some number) of doors one by one in some context, slowly unfolding some sort of story or mystery. Kind of like his games already do. You finish x task and the gate opens allowing you into the next zone. This might or might not all occur inside one castle or structure. I sure hope it doesn't happen inside a cave. -S-

I made jpegs of three or four unresolved areas in the game where you are teased with a place you can never get to including this tantalizing switch. Another is in the lower level of the Western reaches near the ogre camp, where you can see across an abyss an area that is unreachable. This kind of thing makes sense in the real world—you can't go everywhere in the wilderness readily, after all, but it drives me crazy in a game where I try hard to do everything possible. -S-

Most excellent, Diki. How close did you get? -S-

I noticed what I thought waa a minor bug remaining in this same area a while back. After finishing everything in this area, on my way OUT past the friendlies, I triggered the initial intro text you should get if you walk into the room. Because I had run past that point in combat mode, it didn't trigger until walking back out much later. It wasn't fatal to my quest like yours, but I'll wager it's related to what is tripping up the game here. -S-

I killed the red one early on during beta testing and recall that they all had respawned after getting the second construct test quest. How odd. -S-

I always stored everything in the Portal Keep. You go through there every time you use a portal, making it the most central location for easy access in the game. I stored things in categorized piles spread out far enough that I'd only see enough items at once to not have to scroll down any in the "on the ground" list. -S-

If you do all or most game quests, sell most things like wands, potions, nearly all food and extra gear, power steal the most valuable items in each town, and don't buy hardly anything besides training (no potions, wands, weapons, armor, or extra spell levels beyond the first six or so cheap spells), there is way more than enough money in this game. I had at least 20K coins left over at the end of the game, and I had bought every useful level of training and even spells for each of my four PC's. This includes saving your herbs to craft dozens of knowledge brews. -S-

It definitely used to. Jeff nixed it? -S-

Alorael, don't forget to link the A6 Items list (and map) when you get a chance. Thanks, -S-

If you don't have the Buried Seal quest from Gladwell, I don't think you should have a dialog option at Fort Remote about the secret tunnels inside the fort, and it would therefore be a bug. EDIT: Wait, if you have that dialog option, did you actually get into the secret tunnel inside the SE part of Fort Remote? If so, you should only be able to do that if Gladwell gave you the Buried Seal quest, and told you how to get in there. Yes, you can kill Gladwell eventually, if you think you're tough enough, but (unless someone knows otherwise) only if you do all of his quests, the last of which eventually draws him away from Patrick's Tower where you can face him without turning the tower hostile. There are, as ever, significant rewards for playing Gladwell's game for the time being. You will also affect the outcome of the game to some degree. I did all of his quests, and I did away him with afterwards. You might want to save your game at that fork too, to see how the game ends if you do not kill him. -S-