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Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith I think he's suggesting that large game companies could do better by making multiple smaller, possibly less expensive, games rather than allocating a vast majority of their resources on releasing a high profile title every few years, especially when that cash cow flops. And I'm suggesting: many do, and many of the ones that don't do really well. As they say, you can't argue with success. And they are sucesseor than he is.

Originally Posted By: Cthulhu I wonder how many games use the Unreal Engine... billions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games

Originally Posted By: Master Ackrovan I can see what he's saying about reusing the game engine of a game and adding features. He's not the only one doing it, so I disagree that he's starting some sort of trend, or at the start of a new way to make games, or whatever he was getting at. Gears of War, Modern Warfare, and the Halo series for instance have been hugely successful, and their engines have more or less remained the same, with a few added features and some fixes. Yeah, tons of assets are reused, and tons of engines are licensed out to other people, so I don't know where he's getting this idea from. Yeah, a lot of the most expensive games out there will write custom engines for themselves, but there are people out there who specialize in coding engines. And when you need to heavily customize anyway, it's easily worth it to just have these guys write you a new one... It's really not that much of an extra investment for a huge project. Quote: I don't really understand the comment about making shorter games with the same engine though. As long as we're talking big names here, $60 means I want $60 worth of content, not shorter games because people are too lazy to play through the whole game, and then complain that the game is somehow responsible. He's said this a bunch of times and it never makes any sense to me, either. Quote: Jeff is being dumb comparing his 3 manned (well, womanned by majority) crew to companies with dozens and dozens of coders and programmers. Yeah... don't know why he does this a lot too... If someone gave him a ten million dollar budget, and hundreds of employees, he'd do things very differently than he does now regardless of what he claims is "good" design. And he claims that their strategies aren't good, and that his "And I'm supposed to be ashamed of my business model? Pish!" Well, your business model doesn't make you hundreds of millions in the first few days of a game's release, so.... And many of the big developers now started out as three people making games for fun, and quickly grew gigantic because people loved what they did, so I don't really get why he makes claims like this (and he does, frequently). I mean, it's one thing to say "this is how I like doing it" or "doing other things are outside my skill-set" or whatever, that's fine. But it does annoy me when he acts like this is a better model than people who have been more successful than him have used... particularly when he does it without justification (other than justifying based on him doing it).

It's his time-parity conjugated deathday. Also, I've always preferred to combine my fictions into one and celebrate Elrond Hubbard day.

Cartoon #1 Click to reveal.. "Inspecting the Democratic Curiosity Shop" (copy/pasted from the website I got it from which discusses it at length) Originally Posted By: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/PUCK/182a.html [...] Each of the objects found throughout the Democratic Curiosity Shop are associated with different elements of Southern/Democratic culture; if general categories were constructed for them, one group would pertain to slavery and another to the Confederacy as a political and military system. (There are also a handful of stereotypical cracks at the South as a regional culture, like the stuffed alligator and the banjo in the upper-center area of the image.) [...] Cartoon #2 Click to reveal.. Originally Posted By: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/PUCK/part3.html#gallery The dapper Conkling was a perennial target: in "The Only Baby", by Keppler's first assistant artist James A. Wales, the New York Senator can be seen with Pennsylvania spoilsman Don Cameron as nursemaids. The matronly indulgence of these two plain-jane nannies is a funny enough picture in itself, but the image is also a commentary on the relationships between prominent Republican presidential contenders and the powerful GOP managers. Roscoe and Don ignore James G. Blaine, John Sherman, and others who sought the 1880 nomination because of their infatuation with baby Ulysses; in addition, the cartoon implies that as long as they keep on feeding the baby his "3rd Term Pap" he will come to recognize their authority over him. The message about the internal affairs of the Republican Party is thus conveyed to the viewer in a familiar gender-bending context. I'll leave it to you to figure out what #3 and #4 mean .

That's correct enough, but I think it's a little of a misleading description. It seems to imply things out of equilibrium are just things that look like things which are in equilibrium, but changing, and that's definitely not true (well, it is in some cases, but not generically). For example, if you do something like calculate the characteristic temperature of a process like a spark jumping from your finger to a door handle, you get an insanely gigantic number (IIRC; I don't feel like calculating this since it's almost bed-time!). This happens not because the temperature was actually that high, but because there was no well-defined temperature while this process was taking place. I would really describe an equilibrium (at least, nontechnically) as a system that's "well-described by averages" (e.g., temperature, average concentration, average velocity, etc) and where deviations are "well-described by random differences." Which is almost exactly what SoT said. So, in other words, the average is doing something reasonable--usually staying the same or changing slowly, and the "exact" value is (roughly) bounded by the average plus some typical fluctuation size. Like you said, thinking about time scales is nice, too, but it's not really needed for a definition of equilibrium. Although to understand any particular equilibrium it is . Although, to clarify, by "time scale" SoT really means in the usual physicist way for this to include "distance scale" in cases where time isn't what you're interested in (or X scale when X is what you're interested in). So, e.g., you don't notice very long ocean waves on your small boat, but they'll break your supertanker in half . This is as technical as I'm willing to get right before bed. And, for those interested, first thermodynamics (and statistical mechanics) as SOT mentioned, and then, non-equilibrium thermodynamics is the topic to look at to understand this kind of stuff the best. Although equilibria appear all over physics, statistical mechanics stuff is when you typically have to be the most careful about what they mean.

Originally Posted By: jecowa So, in this pic the US government is trying to get the terrorists, but the terrorists keep hiding in their holes? But still, you have a lot to learn in terms of making your cartoons overly convoluted and nonsensical: I DARE you to figure out what these mean without looking them up!

Well, more than a few percent (more like tens of percent). But this is a self-regulating thing since fires remove oxygen from the atmosphere, so if it's easier to start fires it's easier to remove oxygen. So you expect to see an equilibrium concentration about what we see.

Mighty Eyjafjallajökull's awakening as viewed from the Legendary Pass of Fimmvörðuháls!

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity On the plus side, one of the more astounding things I learned when I taught astronomy was that the atmosphere comes from volcanoes. Something has to provide fresh gases, after all: the earth's escape velocity is not infinite, so our atmosphere is actually slowly but steadily leaking away into space. After billions of years there would be too little left to support life, except that the accumulated outgassing by volcanism over billions of years is enough to keep us comfortably pumped up. Once the earth's core cools and volcanoes stop, nothing will restock the atmosphere and it will slowly go away. This is thought to be why there's so little atmosphere on Mars. Mars is about half the diameter of Earth, so has quite a lot less mass, a lower escape velocity, so it loses air quicker. But it has also cooled faster, because it was a little hot potato instead of a big one, so volcanism stopped a billion years ago or so on Mars, and its atmosphere has leaked away in the time since. Without atmosphere, there's no greenhouse effect, and so since Mars is also farther from the Sun than Earth, Mars is cold. If only Mars were somewhat bigger, it might still have volcanoes, air, and warmth. And it probably did have all those a billion years ago. Well, it initially comes from here, yeah, but other chemical, geological, and biological processes change the composition explaining our lack of a rich sulfur dioxide atmosphere . In fact, if you look at the Earth's very early history, before life, the atmosphere was pretty terrible. But early life radically changed the atmosphere in an alarmingly short time to an oxygen rich one. Our first atmosphere was Hydrogen and Helium, but that would've evaporated due to the solar wind pretty quickly, especially since very early on the Earth didn't have a magnetic field. Later on, volcanoes produced a Venus like atmosphere, including, CO2, S2, SO2, CH4, Cl2, NH3, N2, and H2O! But no oxygen. Almost all of the Early oxygen was produced by early cyanobacteria. They also reduced some of the nitrogen compounds, I think. Other bacteria and chemical/geological processes removed most of the rest of the bad stuff. But life appears to be the interesting thing that caused the big difference! So life may be one reason why Venus is still like early Earth. So if you dumped huge amounts of bacteria onto Venus you may terraform it in a few billion years! (Well, a bit too late for much interesting to evolve, considering how long our solar system has left, but still.)

I keep seeing the book on my bookshelf by L. O'RAIFEARTAIGH and thinking of this thread. One day, he will awaken from his Eternal Slumber and the Monster Group will Devour us all...

If only that hadn't been suggested seriously by other people! I prefer the nuclear winter option. It has the added bonus of getting rid of the people I don't like.

Yeah, the more long-term solution is obviously not volcanoes, but nuclear winter. Go Futurama!

All flights to and from the UK have been canceled, due to the Mighty Eyjafjallajökull's threat to devour any aircraft approaching it! Many are warned to stay in the safety of the indoors! Even the Great US Military's operations have been easily halted by the Mighty Eyjafjallajökull's Awakening! Scholars warn that the effects of the Mighty Eyjafjallajökull may be felt for decades, and may even cool the Earth itself! If Its activities increase, the Earth may be plunged into Eternal Darkness and Winter!

Snow Crash is a cyberpunk distopian world, where corporations have replaced states, as small corporate city-states. Wikipedia has a plot overview that isn't too bad. Just don't read anything after the plot overview section since it contains spoilers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash Although wikipedia doesn't really emphasize that the setting is more than a little satirical, and, particularly since there's other stuff out there that's serious and even more over-the-top, some people unfortunately take the anti-corporation messages a little too seriously... [Again: "he's black on the right side!"]

Originally Posted By: RCCCL There are always Anthologies, like 'The Years Best Science Fiction' and it's like. Oh, yeah, I know there are a number of collections like this of the classic sci-fi stories that are really excellent, so I'd imagine there'd be something similar for fantasy. Originally Posted By: JSMany Great suggestions! I'll start with 1984 by Orwell although it seems more intelligent than I was hoping for. I don't know that the word "intelligent" is what I would use to describe 1984... I mean, it's just a fancier version of the standard ham-handed "It is obvious to the most simpleminded that Lokai is of an inferior breed... Lokai is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right side." Not that that makes it uninteresting, but hardly intelligent. Besides, 1984 took place 25 years ago . If you want your dystopian future, I recommend Snow Crash, which has a much more amusing, satirical dystopia than 1984.

Originally Posted By: Dantius Originally Posted By: Cthulhu Ender's game for Science Fiction and its sequels, which deal more heavily on philosophical topics Oh god no. You've GOT to be kidding me. When I want my neofacist fundamentalist jingoistic xenophobic propaganda, I'll go read Mein Kampf, thank you very much. I have no idea why Ender's anything is even still in the scifi canon, much less as popular as it inexplicably is. Don't read it. Ever. Eh? It's been a while since I've read it but I'm pretty sure it's a bit of a stretch to say that this book is any worse than most other sci-fi in terms of that kinda stuff. Some of his later books in the series are crazy, though, but not Ender's Game.

I'm always correct, and that is what's important after all .

This isn't about getting mad and punching holes in a wall (which is already stupid) it's about not acting like an adult and taking responsibility for stupidly punching holes in the wall. Quote: Anyway I've punched couple of holes in the wall few years back and just covered it up with posters and now that my lease is up for renew, there is a chance my landlord might find out about it. And then asks if he should tell the manager? I'm sorry, but that's just stupid, childish, and selfish.

Preferably stone walls.

Eyjafjallajökull has awakened from its nearly two centuries of slumber deep beneath the Earth's crust, under the Fimmvörðuháls mountain pass! Thousands are stranded across all of Europe due to Her huge clouds of ash! Thousands of earthquakes have been detected! Eruptions of fire have been seen erupting from huge cracks in the very Earth itself!

Yes because no one else has ever had any problems like that before! It's not like literally every person on the planet has had something like that happen before or anything. Here's my advice: start acting like a damned adult and take some responsibility for your actions. Don't act like a little kid and ask how you can cover up your stupidity. Tell your manager and pay for it to get fixed. If you get evicted, you deserve it, if you didn't, consider yourself lucky and learn not to act like a 5 year old.

I really don't think a 3d game would work at all... not on the kind of budget he uses, not with the number of people who he employs, and not with his specific skills... I think going away from the trying-to-be-realistic 3d way, and moving more towards a stylized art style would be much better. I mean, compare the trying-to-be-realistic stuff in Avernum 6 or Geneforge with their more stylized fantasy stuff. One is pretty clearly better looking than the other. Not to mention since he never ever changes graphics, we could end up being stuck with a low-poly weird looking shaper graphic for the next 10 years of his games... And more stylized 2d graphics would age *much* better. For example, you can find graphics like that in games made 15 years ago that still look great today, but I dare you to find a still-great-looking 3D game from 1995! Edit: Compare, for example: Monkey Island 3 (1997) Monkey Island 4 (2000) Which looks nicer? Now, obviously there was a team of professional artists involved, yeah, but remember--there was a team of artists on both! But the one from 3 years earlier still looks less dated today. (And the nice parts of the second one are sprites, not 3D, so they still had to have an artist who could draw nice looking 2D stuff.) Not to mention there's a large increase in technical sophistication in getting a 3D engine to work nicely, and to have art assets work together to make things that look anywhere reasonable, from playing with 2D sprites! (As anyone who's tried doing serious modding with any 3D engine knows, or who's tried to write a basic 3D engine.)

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel I won't deny that one could see sexual subtexts in some of those. But it's not an inherent property of them; it's something that some people tack on. So you're telling me that Booberella isn't inherently sexy?

Yes! But holy crap, I did not know Boltzmann had such wide shoulders!