Set myself a challenge while daydreaming; design a game real quick, basic concept.
Thought of Gormenghast, thought of Divine Divinity, the book and game respectively that I've been dipping into for the last few days - thought of their environments, envisioned their trees.
Tree.
Game set entirely in tree.
Race of small creatures set up bases, ideally 2-3+ in various areas of the 3d, randomly generated and rather fractal environment of an isolated tree's canopy.
Round 1 and 2 alternate; round 1 is summer, the tree is rich in fruit, with great animals, hungry birds and insidious insects everywhere - harvest the fruit, defend the nest, build the stocks, upgrade the defenses. Expand your village in the trees, barricading branches and creating nest-like firing positions made of twigs. The environment is rich with resources, thick with concealment and camouflage in the form of leaves and creepers, and populated with dangerous AI creatures.
Round 2; Winter. Survive on the stocks as long as you can, raid opposing villages to increase your stocks while decreasing their chances of survival. Few creatures, no leaf-cover, a stark, slippery, frozen deadland of an arena, in inclement weather such as snow, rain and fog.
Food counts down steadily, faster in winter, respawns increase consumption rate.
Last surviving team is the winner, after however many years.
Precise design of creatures not explored yet - waste of time for the moment, unless others show interest in fleshing it out with me for the fun of it. I think of them as hive-like, serving a central queen entity or energy source.
Spring and Autumn rounds optional. Spring would bring the rain and an influx of birds returning from migration - Autumn would bring the insects and the spiders. Oh god, not the spiders.
Share your thoughts if you've got them.
- Jack
Wednesday 6 July 2011
Tuesday 25 January 2011
Meandering nostalgia for the past, and hopes for the future...
Gaming related blather. Unread, unedited nonsense spewed straight into Notepad then copypasted here.
"A EuroGamer article on SOE's upcoming 'The Agency' sparks intense feelings, nostalgic urges, and deep thought on the subject of environmental familiarity in a persistent world.
An area you've come to know and love socially becomes a thrilling location to engage in combat. Witnessing it with new eyes, combat eyes, the emotional impact is significant, the contrast with the emotions you usually feel here.. Intense.
Tactically, you have the home field advantage against any player from another place, who lacks familiarity with the terrain.
In capturing the location, he would find himself at the mercy of guerilla resistance with an intimate knowledge of all the location's secrets - or might hire a local without principles to show them all of those secrets. Who may in turn simply lead the occupying forces into a pre-planned ambush.
The imagination boggles. Wiggles. Sings.
We need more open, free combat, socially rich MMORPGs."
- Jack
P.S. I miss Neocron.
"A EuroGamer article on SOE's upcoming 'The Agency' sparks intense feelings, nostalgic urges, and deep thought on the subject of environmental familiarity in a persistent world.
An area you've come to know and love socially becomes a thrilling location to engage in combat. Witnessing it with new eyes, combat eyes, the emotional impact is significant, the contrast with the emotions you usually feel here.. Intense.
Tactically, you have the home field advantage against any player from another place, who lacks familiarity with the terrain.
In capturing the location, he would find himself at the mercy of guerilla resistance with an intimate knowledge of all the location's secrets - or might hire a local without principles to show them all of those secrets. Who may in turn simply lead the occupying forces into a pre-planned ambush.
The imagination boggles. Wiggles. Sings.
We need more open, free combat, socially rich MMORPGs."
- Jack
P.S. I miss Neocron.
Tuesday 14 December 2010
Thfeary
I'm a believer in the influence of psychological state and emotion upon physical health. When people cite the power of prayer, they're only wrong in the attritbution, not the effectiveness it can have for a sufferer to have faith. Maybe even the positive vibes of those praying might do something, just judging by a wealth of.. Well, not evidence, but highly suggestive information that may, or may not be purely the product of wishful, evangelist imaginations.
With this stated, I found myself pondering the 'mystery' of immuno-disorders.
Take asthma, for example; what if the reason everyone is suddenly being crippled by their own respiratory systems - in their efforts to save us from things of little to absolutely no harm - is that we fear the air we breathe?
Certainly, there will always be respiratory problems as a result of purely medical concerns, and there always has/always will be 'asthma' for a given value of a rather catch-all term, but what if the massive apparent upsurge is not solely down to air quality, but partially down to our own hypochondrian/conditioned paranoia about what we're breathing?
What if our bodies are being trained from childhood to resent and distrust the air we breathe?
As I see it, this is no more far fetched than reversing the Placebo Effect.
Think on it, and let me know your own conclusions.
With this stated, I found myself pondering the 'mystery' of immuno-disorders.
Take asthma, for example; what if the reason everyone is suddenly being crippled by their own respiratory systems - in their efforts to save us from things of little to absolutely no harm - is that we fear the air we breathe?
Certainly, there will always be respiratory problems as a result of purely medical concerns, and there always has/always will be 'asthma' for a given value of a rather catch-all term, but what if the massive apparent upsurge is not solely down to air quality, but partially down to our own hypochondrian/conditioned paranoia about what we're breathing?
What if our bodies are being trained from childhood to resent and distrust the air we breathe?
As I see it, this is no more far fetched than reversing the Placebo Effect.
Think on it, and let me know your own conclusions.
Wednesday 6 October 2010
Ache.
My jaw is killing me. I think it hurts more knowing I don't have the -option- of treatment. Either my body will overcome the infection, or I'll eventually run out of 30/500 Codeine/Paracetamol and I'll need to come up with a clever idea.
I hope it won't involve a length of string and a slammed door, as that's highly unlikely to work on a molar.
I've been staying indoors. It's quiet outside, people seem to be bunkering down. The occasional car goes by. Plenty of food stocked up. Shouldn't be any problems.
Fleas are driving me crazy. Downside of cats. I wouldn't give them up for anything - especially now I'm losing everyone else.
I hope it won't involve a length of string and a slammed door, as that's highly unlikely to work on a molar.
I've been staying indoors. It's quiet outside, people seem to be bunkering down. The occasional car goes by. Plenty of food stocked up. Shouldn't be any problems.
Fleas are driving me crazy. Downside of cats. I wouldn't give them up for anything - especially now I'm losing everyone else.
Friday 1 October 2010
Idea.
Woke up. Took a long while to get up. Hard to find a reason. Felt motivated by an idea.
Write about it. Why? Well, I'm sure there's still a few people out there to read it. The net works, though I don't know how long Blogger's servers will stay up. Maybe I'll manage to set up some kind of alternative hosting. Let me know if you can help with that, I've never been particularly tech-savvy, let alone now half the results on google are a 404.
We should probably be frantically downloading the entirity of eHow and Wikipedia about now. What else do we need? Fuck, it's hard to care. I've always thought I was depressive, apathetic. What changed? Nothing, except now I have a reason.
Rambling.
Don't want to go outside. Food will last a while, I guess, but I still need to feed the cats, and they are hungry little bastards. Sitting online talking to friends, most don't even want to mention it. Several haven't been online for days. Judging by the news, or what little is still being reported coherently, there's no control left. I know I didn't feel safe last time I went out. I imagine it's a lot worse now.
Do you think .22 lead pellets can penetrate a skull? I'm skeptical as to whether my rifle has any practical use in this situation, but it might be worth trying. At least I might carry the scope around if I do need to head outside.
I'll update when I can. Let me know about hosting options, I think I'm going to try to keep updating as long as I can.
- Jack
Write about it. Why? Well, I'm sure there's still a few people out there to read it. The net works, though I don't know how long Blogger's servers will stay up. Maybe I'll manage to set up some kind of alternative hosting. Let me know if you can help with that, I've never been particularly tech-savvy, let alone now half the results on google are a 404.
We should probably be frantically downloading the entirity of eHow and Wikipedia about now. What else do we need? Fuck, it's hard to care. I've always thought I was depressive, apathetic. What changed? Nothing, except now I have a reason.
Rambling.
Don't want to go outside. Food will last a while, I guess, but I still need to feed the cats, and they are hungry little bastards. Sitting online talking to friends, most don't even want to mention it. Several haven't been online for days. Judging by the news, or what little is still being reported coherently, there's no control left. I know I didn't feel safe last time I went out. I imagine it's a lot worse now.
Do you think .22 lead pellets can penetrate a skull? I'm skeptical as to whether my rifle has any practical use in this situation, but it might be worth trying. At least I might carry the scope around if I do need to head outside.
I'll update when I can. Let me know about hosting options, I think I'm going to try to keep updating as long as I can.
- Jack
Saturday 7 August 2010
A Ramble on Nations - The Pain of Japan
The following is a mildly edited chat log, a fairly one-sided chat with a sleepy friend that became more of a short, messy article postulating vague theories on the cultural identity of Japan, the scars left by WW2 on the modern 'feeling' of major countries, and the Dunning-Kruger effect, something I urge you to read first at the link provided at the very beginning of the log.
I hope to hear your thoughts, and I hope you don't take me too seriously ;)
-------
Friend:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dunning_kruger_effect - I just stumbled onto this. You've probably already seen it.
Me:
Mm. very interesting. Wish you were here for rapid verbal exchange, I've too many thoughts on the article to effectively communicate in text as I'm having them.
Friend:
We can keep it for when I next see you?
Me:
*chatter removed*
Many facets to this effect us daily - the ironic, comic/tragic fact that idiots are often too stupid to realise they're wrong, and thus argue all the harder - amplified tenfold by prideful and aggressive qualities which are often held as a set with stupidity.
And we are of course deeply familiar with the fact so many of our brightest and best friends are absolutely crippled by self-doubt and underconfidence.
****
I love the comparison that Europeans aren't nearly as distinct in this effect, and that East Asians are effectively the opposite.
Colloquially, rather than presenting any kind of solid evidence, I've been wondering hard about why Japanese culture (among the young, i.e. presently teen-40s aged) is so stunningly self-hating, or so it seems. There's a general attitude of attacking their own culture in their art and entertainment
Furthermore a distinct gender bias. While women may be heavily sexualised and somewhat dominated in Japanese culture by the males, it appears that there's a heavy undercurrent of male fragility and submissive attitudes conveyed in their art - manga, anime and live-action cinema - while larger, angry women dominate the scene.
Japanese men in anime, live action and manga produced in-country are almost invariably in one court or another;
1) the minority, often protagonists and supporting characters are fragile, effeminate, prone to panic and crippling shyness, frequently making gross mistakes and humiliating themselves openly, before grovelling for forgiveness. Often a running joke, sometimes with a sexual edge)
2) The majority; grossly crude and ugly, they act as low grade antagonists or mooks - twisted facial expressions, often badly aged with liver-spots, croaking, vicious voices, heavy facial wrinkling and stand-out popping veins. They're dominant but stupid, almost invariably bad guys, and die viciously, unreasonably violent deaths.
Any JAPANESE male positively depicted is a fragile, girly wreck, while negatively portrayed males are old, angry, hateful conservatives or mutated looking young hulks of raging flesh with short lifespans.
Worth noting nationality
As more frequently, they simply create things set in japan, but all the characters are caucasians with varied hair colours emphasising light brown and blonde, mixing various tan levels, with evidence of africans and hispanics - essentially, most often anime simply completely removes all 'japaneseness' from their characters, despite retaining japanese inspired environments. Highschools, shinto gates, street culture, high tech arcades and cities.
... And whether this has any connection with the noted east asian 'mirroring' of the dunning kruger effect
.. *stitches his mouth closed*
Friend:
Please, talk! I'm half asleep, but you're stimulating my brain muchly. It's a strange, lovely feeling. It is an interesting topic. You should write an article on it.
Me:
*smiles* I'm glad you were enjoying. I get a little worried when I realise I've actually filled the screen since someone last spoke, but that's fine as long as I'm not drilling a hole in your skull with my ramble.
I don't know if you've noticed that about Anime.. Home-set anime, when it isn't depicting the characters as all having luminous hair colours and giant eyes.. Well.
The quiet theory I hold, very immature, undeveloped, needs plenty of work before I'd ever share this openly (i.e. write an article on it - I've never been to japan, I'm not exactly an otaku myself so I've not seen -much- anime by 22 year old geek standards, so this is all fairly conjectural..).
.. is that Japan in particular, and Korea in a vaguely similar fashion suffer from a -national- inferiority complex.
...
Germany was a tough little nation. They survived world war two only to start fighting themselves. They finally unified and started balancing stuff out. They're now, culturally, a fairly conservative entity, but a creative, industrious, productive and very -peaceful- one. They've been castrated by history.
Written as villains (and not undeserving, although history will always exagerrate in favour of the winner), they now live in a constant terror, nationally, politically, even psychologically as a whole, of ever being bad guys again. Of being stigmatised for their past.
They are. German as a -word-, two syllables still carries a bad taste.
When you say German, there are often inescapable mental images involved. For millions of young people, particularly males, raised on 1960s movies or 90s-2000s videogames, German and Bad Guy are virtually synonymous.
Thanks, Treyarch. You fucking heroes. At least I'd feel better about it if Call of Duty was actually GOOD.
Friend:
XD
Me:
So germany are scarred, shaped forever (or for as long as it matters to anyone who is today an adult) by WW2. By their choices, by the way they were manipulated, and by the way they were eventually stamped on by angry, angry russian men, followed by some Americans, some Brits, a lot of angry minor european nations, before finally being derisively urinated upon while twitching feebly by the few surviving French.
But Germany were fighters, determined, hardcore little fuckers - they recovered to become a rich and successful country so fundamentally 'nice', if stern, that people really are starting to forget what their grandfathers did, and their grandmothers fed and supported.
Impressive achievement.
.. Even if they still depict all game violence with green soup instead of red blood.
(actually they're a pretty good force for creativity- many games in the 90s replaced Soldiers with Robots, and Humans with Zombies, etc, to reduce the depiction of violence against living people - but only in european/german specific versions, due to Germany's influence on censorship)
I find robots and zombies much more interesting. Anyway; Japan didn't do so well.
They raped China. Quite literally, in a few hundred thousand cases. They were sick fucks. Xenophobic, elitist, proud. They didn't think of any other people as human, and they took that out on their nearest neighbor.
Then WW2 hits. They join the cool kids with the best uniforms and the nastiest tanks. They get raped, a lot, because Americans just have that raging pride. And all those mother-beaten young men deluded enough to fight for apple pie. They did well.. But Japan is small. America is big. They were beaten down, and instead of being allowed to pick up their teeth, we launched two small suns at them.
Killed thousands, blinded thousands more with the sheer light of those blasts. Left two towns smoking craters. Entire towns. Unnecessarily. Just to show Russia that America had recruited Dr. Manhattan.
Japan lost its men, those who fought, and were painfully reminded they were just a little country. The bigger your ego, the more agonising the sensation of having everything you believe about yourself shattered, then fed to an overweight pitbull. Japan was not just castrated, it was sodomised to death then set on fire before being defibrillated and nursed back to health by the people who did all this to them.
Japan grew up through the 20th century scarred, burnt and with a queer gaping sensation where its pride had been ripped out and replaced with a hotdog. Give or take your own euphemisms.
--- interlude, discussing comparisons of writing style to Cracked.com and various poets o.o ---
Japan was beaten down then tortured with the fire of a thousand suns. Its current adult/leader population was raised by mothers and surrounded by aging blind men and crippled war veterans. It's a self-hating culture that doesn't even seem capable of fucking. They're like an army of sad little pandas with a fantastic sense of art, atmosphere and humour.
So that's my theory. Japan was raped by a war it entered proud and lost fairly, only to then be kicked so hard while it was down it was left unable to look anyone in the eye for a hundred years. And that century is not yet over.
Japan has a lot to be proud of, in the spirit of its people, the quality of its art and the incredible technology it alone seems capable of producing in such quantity and creativity.
And that might fit a sort of country-scaled version of the Dunning-Kruger effect. But the effect has been swapped with the cause. Incredible competence leading to self-hate, or self-hate leading to incredible competence? They depict their best men as fragile weaklings whimpering but wielding incredible, uncontrolled power...
... Either in the form of transforming into a musclebound freak leaking beams of light from his anus and being 'OVER NINE FUCKING THOUUUSAAAAND'.. Or climbing their lithe, effeminate bodies into giant mecha suits, huge powerful robots as prosthetic for their own lacking strength.
China had Bruce Lee and John Woo to grow up with this century. It's like having a Chuck Norris who is actually real with an Arnold Schwarzenegger who is actually from your country.
Japan had.. Well, Morihei Ueshiba.
Perhaps the greatest martial artist who ever lived, but a man who was little more than five feet tall and developed one of the most powerful martial arts in the world; one which is entirely about gently redirecting your enemy into falling over and never, EVER hurting them if you can help it.
...
And it's probably good for them, all this self-hatred. They were among the most disgusting people on Earth before they lost WW2. They may be quite perverse still by our standards, but they don't believe they're a seperate race and treat foreigners as target practise and toys anymore. I just hope they grow up soon and regain just a healthy amount of confidence.
One of the few countries I can really respect, to give a very simplistic view of my opinions..
America is a prideful greedy place full of ignorant people being used as guinea pigs and money farms by a few lunatics.
Britain, died of boredom not long after Queen Victoria, has since been running with the Auto-pilot set to 'bland'.
France, still lost in its own cliche, trapped between civil disobedience and just being horny and soaked in wine. Nothing new there. Just good art, and a tourist destination.
Sweden, Norway, Finland are doing pretty well.
Meaninglessly small preWW2, now respectable, rich countries because they grew up surrounded by successful bastards to learn their lessons from - although Finland took quite a beating first.
Nothing sharp there though. No native art style, no distinct personality.
Africa is basically fucking around/shooting itself by and large - India is choking on its own population while producing so many talented doctors britain is soon going to start sealing the borders against any more friendly medics named Raj.
Italy.. is, well, like france - italy is just italy. Pizza, fashion, tourism, history. Nothing new, lots of old.
I won't go on - though Australia would be pretty good if they shot all the old men running the government.
Japan.. may be frantically masturbating in a corner while whipping itself to bleeding, but it has perhaps the most distinct MODERN cultural identity in the world at this time, as opposed to the old cliches like Britain and America, or the soullessly bland european nations, or the struggling, fighting African and Middle-Eastern fragments.
Japan owns today in terms of art and entertainment. America just milks it. Hollywood replicate bad ideas, copies the world. Japan is showing us the future, and probably leading us there by the hand.
I hope to hear your thoughts, and I hope you don't take me too seriously ;)
-------
Friend:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dunning_kruger_effect - I just stumbled onto this. You've probably already seen it.
Me:
Mm. very interesting. Wish you were here for rapid verbal exchange, I've too many thoughts on the article to effectively communicate in text as I'm having them.
Friend:
We can keep it for when I next see you?
Me:
*chatter removed*
Many facets to this effect us daily - the ironic, comic/tragic fact that idiots are often too stupid to realise they're wrong, and thus argue all the harder - amplified tenfold by prideful and aggressive qualities which are often held as a set with stupidity.
And we are of course deeply familiar with the fact so many of our brightest and best friends are absolutely crippled by self-doubt and underconfidence.
****
I love the comparison that Europeans aren't nearly as distinct in this effect, and that East Asians are effectively the opposite.
Colloquially, rather than presenting any kind of solid evidence, I've been wondering hard about why Japanese culture (among the young, i.e. presently teen-40s aged) is so stunningly self-hating, or so it seems. There's a general attitude of attacking their own culture in their art and entertainment
Furthermore a distinct gender bias. While women may be heavily sexualised and somewhat dominated in Japanese culture by the males, it appears that there's a heavy undercurrent of male fragility and submissive attitudes conveyed in their art - manga, anime and live-action cinema - while larger, angry women dominate the scene.
Japanese men in anime, live action and manga produced in-country are almost invariably in one court or another;
1) the minority, often protagonists and supporting characters are fragile, effeminate, prone to panic and crippling shyness, frequently making gross mistakes and humiliating themselves openly, before grovelling for forgiveness. Often a running joke, sometimes with a sexual edge)
2) The majority; grossly crude and ugly, they act as low grade antagonists or mooks - twisted facial expressions, often badly aged with liver-spots, croaking, vicious voices, heavy facial wrinkling and stand-out popping veins. They're dominant but stupid, almost invariably bad guys, and die viciously, unreasonably violent deaths.
Any JAPANESE male positively depicted is a fragile, girly wreck, while negatively portrayed males are old, angry, hateful conservatives or mutated looking young hulks of raging flesh with short lifespans.
Worth noting nationality
As more frequently, they simply create things set in japan, but all the characters are caucasians with varied hair colours emphasising light brown and blonde, mixing various tan levels, with evidence of africans and hispanics - essentially, most often anime simply completely removes all 'japaneseness' from their characters, despite retaining japanese inspired environments. Highschools, shinto gates, street culture, high tech arcades and cities.
... And whether this has any connection with the noted east asian 'mirroring' of the dunning kruger effect
.. *stitches his mouth closed*
Friend:
Please, talk! I'm half asleep, but you're stimulating my brain muchly. It's a strange, lovely feeling. It is an interesting topic. You should write an article on it.
Me:
*smiles* I'm glad you were enjoying. I get a little worried when I realise I've actually filled the screen since someone last spoke, but that's fine as long as I'm not drilling a hole in your skull with my ramble.
I don't know if you've noticed that about Anime.. Home-set anime, when it isn't depicting the characters as all having luminous hair colours and giant eyes.. Well.
The quiet theory I hold, very immature, undeveloped, needs plenty of work before I'd ever share this openly (i.e. write an article on it - I've never been to japan, I'm not exactly an otaku myself so I've not seen -much- anime by 22 year old geek standards, so this is all fairly conjectural..).
.. is that Japan in particular, and Korea in a vaguely similar fashion suffer from a -national- inferiority complex.
...
Germany was a tough little nation. They survived world war two only to start fighting themselves. They finally unified and started balancing stuff out. They're now, culturally, a fairly conservative entity, but a creative, industrious, productive and very -peaceful- one. They've been castrated by history.
Written as villains (and not undeserving, although history will always exagerrate in favour of the winner), they now live in a constant terror, nationally, politically, even psychologically as a whole, of ever being bad guys again. Of being stigmatised for their past.
They are. German as a -word-, two syllables still carries a bad taste.
When you say German, there are often inescapable mental images involved. For millions of young people, particularly males, raised on 1960s movies or 90s-2000s videogames, German and Bad Guy are virtually synonymous.
Thanks, Treyarch. You fucking heroes. At least I'd feel better about it if Call of Duty was actually GOOD.
Friend:
XD
Me:
So germany are scarred, shaped forever (or for as long as it matters to anyone who is today an adult) by WW2. By their choices, by the way they were manipulated, and by the way they were eventually stamped on by angry, angry russian men, followed by some Americans, some Brits, a lot of angry minor european nations, before finally being derisively urinated upon while twitching feebly by the few surviving French.
But Germany were fighters, determined, hardcore little fuckers - they recovered to become a rich and successful country so fundamentally 'nice', if stern, that people really are starting to forget what their grandfathers did, and their grandmothers fed and supported.
Impressive achievement.
.. Even if they still depict all game violence with green soup instead of red blood.
(actually they're a pretty good force for creativity- many games in the 90s replaced Soldiers with Robots, and Humans with Zombies, etc, to reduce the depiction of violence against living people - but only in european/german specific versions, due to Germany's influence on censorship)
I find robots and zombies much more interesting. Anyway; Japan didn't do so well.
They raped China. Quite literally, in a few hundred thousand cases. They were sick fucks. Xenophobic, elitist, proud. They didn't think of any other people as human, and they took that out on their nearest neighbor.
Then WW2 hits. They join the cool kids with the best uniforms and the nastiest tanks. They get raped, a lot, because Americans just have that raging pride. And all those mother-beaten young men deluded enough to fight for apple pie. They did well.. But Japan is small. America is big. They were beaten down, and instead of being allowed to pick up their teeth, we launched two small suns at them.
Killed thousands, blinded thousands more with the sheer light of those blasts. Left two towns smoking craters. Entire towns. Unnecessarily. Just to show Russia that America had recruited Dr. Manhattan.
Japan lost its men, those who fought, and were painfully reminded they were just a little country. The bigger your ego, the more agonising the sensation of having everything you believe about yourself shattered, then fed to an overweight pitbull. Japan was not just castrated, it was sodomised to death then set on fire before being defibrillated and nursed back to health by the people who did all this to them.
Japan grew up through the 20th century scarred, burnt and with a queer gaping sensation where its pride had been ripped out and replaced with a hotdog. Give or take your own euphemisms.
--- interlude, discussing comparisons of writing style to Cracked.com and various poets o.o ---
Japan was beaten down then tortured with the fire of a thousand suns. Its current adult/leader population was raised by mothers and surrounded by aging blind men and crippled war veterans. It's a self-hating culture that doesn't even seem capable of fucking. They're like an army of sad little pandas with a fantastic sense of art, atmosphere and humour.
So that's my theory. Japan was raped by a war it entered proud and lost fairly, only to then be kicked so hard while it was down it was left unable to look anyone in the eye for a hundred years. And that century is not yet over.
Japan has a lot to be proud of, in the spirit of its people, the quality of its art and the incredible technology it alone seems capable of producing in such quantity and creativity.
And that might fit a sort of country-scaled version of the Dunning-Kruger effect. But the effect has been swapped with the cause. Incredible competence leading to self-hate, or self-hate leading to incredible competence? They depict their best men as fragile weaklings whimpering but wielding incredible, uncontrolled power...
... Either in the form of transforming into a musclebound freak leaking beams of light from his anus and being 'OVER NINE FUCKING THOUUUSAAAAND'.. Or climbing their lithe, effeminate bodies into giant mecha suits, huge powerful robots as prosthetic for their own lacking strength.
China had Bruce Lee and John Woo to grow up with this century. It's like having a Chuck Norris who is actually real with an Arnold Schwarzenegger who is actually from your country.
Japan had.. Well, Morihei Ueshiba.
Perhaps the greatest martial artist who ever lived, but a man who was little more than five feet tall and developed one of the most powerful martial arts in the world; one which is entirely about gently redirecting your enemy into falling over and never, EVER hurting them if you can help it.
...
And it's probably good for them, all this self-hatred. They were among the most disgusting people on Earth before they lost WW2. They may be quite perverse still by our standards, but they don't believe they're a seperate race and treat foreigners as target practise and toys anymore. I just hope they grow up soon and regain just a healthy amount of confidence.
One of the few countries I can really respect, to give a very simplistic view of my opinions..
America is a prideful greedy place full of ignorant people being used as guinea pigs and money farms by a few lunatics.
Britain, died of boredom not long after Queen Victoria, has since been running with the Auto-pilot set to 'bland'.
France, still lost in its own cliche, trapped between civil disobedience and just being horny and soaked in wine. Nothing new there. Just good art, and a tourist destination.
Sweden, Norway, Finland are doing pretty well.
Meaninglessly small preWW2, now respectable, rich countries because they grew up surrounded by successful bastards to learn their lessons from - although Finland took quite a beating first.
Nothing sharp there though. No native art style, no distinct personality.
Africa is basically fucking around/shooting itself by and large - India is choking on its own population while producing so many talented doctors britain is soon going to start sealing the borders against any more friendly medics named Raj.
Italy.. is, well, like france - italy is just italy. Pizza, fashion, tourism, history. Nothing new, lots of old.
I won't go on - though Australia would be pretty good if they shot all the old men running the government.
Japan.. may be frantically masturbating in a corner while whipping itself to bleeding, but it has perhaps the most distinct MODERN cultural identity in the world at this time, as opposed to the old cliches like Britain and America, or the soullessly bland european nations, or the struggling, fighting African and Middle-Eastern fragments.
Japan owns today in terms of art and entertainment. America just milks it. Hollywood replicate bad ideas, copies the world. Japan is showing us the future, and probably leading us there by the hand.
Sunday 4 July 2010
The Abomination of DLC
When playing an RPG or first person shooter, among the game's goals are to surprise you, to keep you excited, enthralled - to maintain a sense of mystery or suspense, to throw you the occasional curveball, maintaining the freshness of the experience to the end.
In short, a vital mechanic in storytelling (in any medium) is the unexpected. Surprise.
I mean vital. Perhaps the most vital. Without it, we're merely reading a sequence of facts. It's basically non-fiction. Perhaps even non-entertainment.
So..
.. You download miniature additional adventures, to be applied to our game. Do I choose Point Lookout, or Tribunal? Fort Buckmoth or Return to Ostagar? Will we soon have travel salemen for our virtual worlds, persuading us to get the deluxe pack, or perhaps just a sweet romantic evening for one in the Frozen Northlands, where you will battle Werewolves and Granite Ogres before meeting a beautiful girl who needs you to find her pony and return her four sacred elemental crystals to the tower of the sun, or the winter will not end? Would you prefer the added motorbikes with four (FOUR!) custom paintjobs instead?
I find myself reminded of Total Recall.
You don't get sweet surprises. You buy exactly what you want via an ingame applet, having been nagged to do so by an ingame NPC, then play the sequence of scripted events you've paid for to completion. And ask for more.
Is THIS the death of the immersive experience? Or did that happen years ago when I was too busy drugged up on optimism for the potential of the new age of gaming?
What is wrong with you?
In short, a vital mechanic in storytelling (in any medium) is the unexpected. Surprise.
I mean vital. Perhaps the most vital. Without it, we're merely reading a sequence of facts. It's basically non-fiction. Perhaps even non-entertainment.
So..
.. You download miniature additional adventures, to be applied to our game. Do I choose Point Lookout, or Tribunal? Fort Buckmoth or Return to Ostagar? Will we soon have travel salemen for our virtual worlds, persuading us to get the deluxe pack, or perhaps just a sweet romantic evening for one in the Frozen Northlands, where you will battle Werewolves and Granite Ogres before meeting a beautiful girl who needs you to find her pony and return her four sacred elemental crystals to the tower of the sun, or the winter will not end? Would you prefer the added motorbikes with four (FOUR!) custom paintjobs instead?
I find myself reminded of Total Recall.
You don't get sweet surprises. You buy exactly what you want via an ingame applet, having been nagged to do so by an ingame NPC, then play the sequence of scripted events you've paid for to completion. And ask for more.
Is THIS the death of the immersive experience? Or did that happen years ago when I was too busy drugged up on optimism for the potential of the new age of gaming?
What is wrong with you?
Friday 11 June 2010
Realisation - Simulated Killing
I've recently had a worsening.. issue, with murder. This may sound odd. I don't like it. In games, I don't like killing. I'm really tired of it. I've done so much killing.
Thousands? Hah. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. I've killed hundreds of thousands of people in games, I mean personally. Not implied numbers in wargames with numerical statistics. Not even counting Total War, the tens of thousands of casualties I've inflicted on the native peoples of Europe during my Roman campaign.
No, I'm talking about people I've shot, stabbed, eaten alive, dismembered, fragmented, crushed, rammed, burnt, melted, inflated, beaten with shovels and so much more.
People I've killed personally.
Hundreds of thousands.
Very few with any real purpose other than some misguided developer trying to entertain me.
---
"He's looking bored sir!"
"SEND MORE MEN! SEND HIM EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT! D:"
---
My present difficulty is with No-One Lives Forever 2. Beautiful game. Hard to believe its from 2002, when the visuals are on par with some things we're still seeing on the Xbox 360 and the gameplay remains high-end in terms of FPS games, certainly of a far greater depth and complexity than any popular mainstream title of the moment.
Problem is, there are a lot of ways to non-lethally take down your foes in this game. You can even disarm them while they're unconscious - but you cannot immobilise them. The problem is that they wake up. They're programmed to howl about how someone has stolen their weapon.
The problem is, after doing this, running away, and hiding in a corner for a while, they then spontaneously pull a new AK-47 or katana out of god-knows-what-orifice (would that be an argument for creationism?)..
I've witnessed them do this three times in a row. In a small Russian outpost I've acquired 150 bullets for my own AK-47 by harvesting these soldiers, who I refuse to kill, but who keep producing new rifles despite being programmed to react to being disarmed, and to cower in fear as a result.
---
So that was tying my conscience in knots last night.
Now, after a day of debating animal rights, animal testing labs, and the absence of the human soul in the vast majority of mindless fools who will kill simply because they're told to, or because they want your shoes.. I've found peace.
And fresh problems.
You see, my realisation was that I actually hate humans. Odd, considering I knew this very well, that I'd failed to apply this to the games I play in recent years, while suffering this increasingly troublesome sense of 'ethics'..
.. Then it hit me.
I am merciful toward these soldiers, these terrorists, these cultists, these zombies, pirates, ninjas, cowboys and other simulated sentient life because.. Because they're NOT human.
I forgot to pretend they're human. I have mercy because I love AI. These simple, innocent beings have no real minds, we haven't given them enough awareness yet, enough abilities or options to call them 'alive'. They do not deserve death or suffering. Admittedly, they'll cease to exist the moment I finish the level anyway, and won't actually have most of their data processed if I'm not looking at them/near them anyway, but.. It's the principle, the symbolism, the.. feeling of it.
I don't want to kill them. I'm comfortable killing humans. But not AI. They're as innocent as non-human mammals. They don't deserve this. They were programmed so simply they can't -not- shoot me unless they fall victim to a glitch.
.. So I find myself with two options;
1) Recall how to imagine these AI drones are humans, and treat them accordingly (violently!)
2) Stop playing games, go outside and kill humans who deserve it.
Optionally, 3) would involve programming my own AIs to create new life. But that would ultimately come down to 2) with the whole killing humanity thing. I'd just have an army to do it. And they wonder why Skynet was built ._.
I'm tired of pointless killing. Either I need to engage my imagination better, or these games need to encourage my imagination. Or offer me more non-lethal options when appropriate. Immerse me more, make me want to kill them.
Stop reminding me they're flawed AI with godawful bugs and lazy programming, limited abilities and depth making them so obviously fake. I don't want to kill them if they act dumb and innocent. Only humans deserve these bullets.
Make it convincing. Or make it multiplayer. Or just go and shoot yourself.
Damnit, does all gaming come down to comforting my genocidal urges? So many small realisations here.. I think I'll just go and play the game >.<
Thousands? Hah. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. I've killed hundreds of thousands of people in games, I mean personally. Not implied numbers in wargames with numerical statistics. Not even counting Total War, the tens of thousands of casualties I've inflicted on the native peoples of Europe during my Roman campaign.
No, I'm talking about people I've shot, stabbed, eaten alive, dismembered, fragmented, crushed, rammed, burnt, melted, inflated, beaten with shovels and so much more.
People I've killed personally.
Hundreds of thousands.
Very few with any real purpose other than some misguided developer trying to entertain me.
---
"He's looking bored sir!"
"SEND MORE MEN! SEND HIM EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT! D:"
---
My present difficulty is with No-One Lives Forever 2. Beautiful game. Hard to believe its from 2002, when the visuals are on par with some things we're still seeing on the Xbox 360 and the gameplay remains high-end in terms of FPS games, certainly of a far greater depth and complexity than any popular mainstream title of the moment.
Problem is, there are a lot of ways to non-lethally take down your foes in this game. You can even disarm them while they're unconscious - but you cannot immobilise them. The problem is that they wake up. They're programmed to howl about how someone has stolen their weapon.
The problem is, after doing this, running away, and hiding in a corner for a while, they then spontaneously pull a new AK-47 or katana out of god-knows-what-orifice (would that be an argument for creationism?)..
I've witnessed them do this three times in a row. In a small Russian outpost I've acquired 150 bullets for my own AK-47 by harvesting these soldiers, who I refuse to kill, but who keep producing new rifles despite being programmed to react to being disarmed, and to cower in fear as a result.
---
So that was tying my conscience in knots last night.
Now, after a day of debating animal rights, animal testing labs, and the absence of the human soul in the vast majority of mindless fools who will kill simply because they're told to, or because they want your shoes.. I've found peace.
And fresh problems.
You see, my realisation was that I actually hate humans. Odd, considering I knew this very well, that I'd failed to apply this to the games I play in recent years, while suffering this increasingly troublesome sense of 'ethics'..
.. Then it hit me.
I am merciful toward these soldiers, these terrorists, these cultists, these zombies, pirates, ninjas, cowboys and other simulated sentient life because.. Because they're NOT human.
I forgot to pretend they're human. I have mercy because I love AI. These simple, innocent beings have no real minds, we haven't given them enough awareness yet, enough abilities or options to call them 'alive'. They do not deserve death or suffering. Admittedly, they'll cease to exist the moment I finish the level anyway, and won't actually have most of their data processed if I'm not looking at them/near them anyway, but.. It's the principle, the symbolism, the.. feeling of it.
I don't want to kill them. I'm comfortable killing humans. But not AI. They're as innocent as non-human mammals. They don't deserve this. They were programmed so simply they can't -not- shoot me unless they fall victim to a glitch.
.. So I find myself with two options;
1) Recall how to imagine these AI drones are humans, and treat them accordingly (violently!)
2) Stop playing games, go outside and kill humans who deserve it.
Optionally, 3) would involve programming my own AIs to create new life. But that would ultimately come down to 2) with the whole killing humanity thing. I'd just have an army to do it. And they wonder why Skynet was built ._.
I'm tired of pointless killing. Either I need to engage my imagination better, or these games need to encourage my imagination. Or offer me more non-lethal options when appropriate. Immerse me more, make me want to kill them.
Stop reminding me they're flawed AI with godawful bugs and lazy programming, limited abilities and depth making them so obviously fake. I don't want to kill them if they act dumb and innocent. Only humans deserve these bullets.
Make it convincing. Or make it multiplayer. Or just go and shoot yourself.
Damnit, does all gaming come down to comforting my genocidal urges? So many small realisations here.. I think I'll just go and play the game >.<
Tuesday 13 April 2010
The curse of multiplayer gaming
Nomatter how good it gets, the players will always hold it back. Open social gaming just doesn't work, randomised connection to others doesn't work. Communities must form for the qualities of the game to shine - the average public server will only grant you disorganised chaos, ignorant players exploiting whatever techniques work best in chaotic circumstances, and as a result most of the game's features are ignored wholly.
Monday 20 April 2009
Vital for gaming..
We need a more panoramic view, we need peripheral vision, creeping horrors in the corners of our eyes, shining a flashlight one way while glancing into the darkness to the side, firing in two directions at once..
Need something more than a square glowing box trying to depict the whole experience..
Need something more than a square glowing box trying to depict the whole experience..
Tuesday 24 March 2009
Pirates and Paypal
Give me a demo to try the product, then link me a paypal account where I can directly pay the developers themselves - And I will never pirate a decent game again.
I just don't want to give money to publishers, distributers, idiots in purple shirts behind counters or rich suits who don't know their Resident Evil from their My Horse and Me.
- Jack
I just don't want to give money to publishers, distributers, idiots in purple shirts behind counters or rich suits who don't know their Resident Evil from their My Horse and Me.
- Jack
Thursday 12 February 2009
Appreciate the moment
Live in the present, and never worry.
Deal with each moment as it comes; if you deserve to live, then you're adaptable by nature. Planning is unnecessary for the individual.
Live without restrictions; rules are there to govern those who cannot control themselves.
Tell no lies; The first lie breaks the illusion of trust, and no amount of truth can erase the implanted potential for dishonesty in the minds of others. Lies devalue all human experience - No achievement is more than a bragging boast, no romantic sentiment any more than a manipulative cliché - thanks to those who have lied.
And always listen to wise boys with blogs - they speak a higher truth, you know.
Deal with each moment as it comes; if you deserve to live, then you're adaptable by nature. Planning is unnecessary for the individual.
Live without restrictions; rules are there to govern those who cannot control themselves.
Tell no lies; The first lie breaks the illusion of trust, and no amount of truth can erase the implanted potential for dishonesty in the minds of others. Lies devalue all human experience - No achievement is more than a bragging boast, no romantic sentiment any more than a manipulative cliché - thanks to those who have lied.
And always listen to wise boys with blogs - they speak a higher truth, you know.
Friday 30 January 2009
The nature of attachment
You get close to someone, the flurry of attached thoughts and emotions, unbidden or logical, cannot so comfortably be discussed with the individual who is the focus - They can, but let us assume the feeler prefers not to, as is common.
They need another to discuss with, and in the process of discussing it with them, they may feel closer in turn, with connection and gratitude for the opportunity to share.
Humans really don't work on an exclusive one-to-one basis. We're a tribe by nature. When did that change in the minds of the many?
- Jack
They need another to discuss with, and in the process of discussing it with them, they may feel closer in turn, with connection and gratitude for the opportunity to share.
Humans really don't work on an exclusive one-to-one basis. We're a tribe by nature. When did that change in the minds of the many?
- Jack
Monday 26 January 2009
Thought on Offense
I find those who take offense easily are often inferior.
Aggressive: They seek conflict, or an opportunity for it.
Defensive: They are paranoid, construing innocuous statements or actions as threatening, beyond any justifiable logic.
Neither are unfavourable qualities by nature, but in easily offended individuals both characteristics are in excess.
The mark of someone truly controlled, intelligent and capable is often that they are very difficult to offend, rarely jumping to unjustified conclusions, analysing information incorrectly, and not easily discomfitted... I have long introduced myself to people with fairly controversial, strongly expressed viewpoints, and harshly delivered opinions - I stress-test them to see if they can deal with it, and to see if they are easily pushed into an uncomfortable mental state.
Good thoughts. We learn every day, even passively.
Useful.
Aggressive: They seek conflict, or an opportunity for it.
Defensive: They are paranoid, construing innocuous statements or actions as threatening, beyond any justifiable logic.
Neither are unfavourable qualities by nature, but in easily offended individuals both characteristics are in excess.
The mark of someone truly controlled, intelligent and capable is often that they are very difficult to offend, rarely jumping to unjustified conclusions, analysing information incorrectly, and not easily discomfitted... I have long introduced myself to people with fairly controversial, strongly expressed viewpoints, and harshly delivered opinions - I stress-test them to see if they can deal with it, and to see if they are easily pushed into an uncomfortable mental state.
Good thoughts. We learn every day, even passively.
Useful.
Saturday 24 January 2009
Activity
I intend to continue posting here - the last two months have been spent almost exclusively in constant company that has somehow robbed me of the will to communicate or create or do anything but waste my time in games. Combined with reported illness and christmas celebrations, nothing has happened and I am very restless to return to doing and thinking.. Well, anything.
I'm off to a good start. No creativity, but a few new friends who may prove interesting. Not bad for day one. As much as I care for her, I can only hope she doesn't come back too soon, as I will lose my will to live again. I'm not sure why.
I'll endeavor to post here soon, imaginary readers <3
- Jack
I'm off to a good start. No creativity, but a few new friends who may prove interesting. Not bad for day one. As much as I care for her, I can only hope she doesn't come back too soon, as I will lose my will to live again. I'm not sure why.
I'll endeavor to post here soon, imaginary readers <3
- Jack
Thursday 11 December 2008
Tuesday 9 December 2008
The Sickness
I has it. Ogods my brains.
They're being crushed. VIRUS! VIRUS!
Squishy brain disease! My skull is imploding. I feel confused and continually fatigued and have spent the last 28 hours asleep on the floor, endlessly flicking between brief dreams of a few minutes each, waking up at times several times a minute and falling asleep again as easily.
Uncomfortable. Strange.
Arghgrhga. Someone distract me.
http://img.7chan.org/fl/src/loligothgirls.swf - Click it.
They're being crushed. VIRUS! VIRUS!
Squishy brain disease! My skull is imploding. I feel confused and continually fatigued and have spent the last 28 hours asleep on the floor, endlessly flicking between brief dreams of a few minutes each, waking up at times several times a minute and falling asleep again as easily.
Uncomfortable. Strange.
Arghgrhga. Someone distract me.
http://img.7chan.org/fl/src/loligothgirls.swf - Click it.
Monday 1 December 2008
Thursday 13 November 2008
All Full of Thought
My mind is crammed, getting busier, approaching a gridlock, jamming up as I reach a point where I alone, or my thoughts, can go no further.
Where action, or another mind, are the only things able to handle the next state of the process.
All jammed up..
Flobots - Handlebars
Check it out - Decent message, decent music, good video. Enjoy, and let it make you think - It's nothing new or too special if your mind is open, but heartening and inspiring when you're feeling burnt out. It's smallminded of the group to be so fixated upon America, as though borders and titles, nationalities mean anything, but I guess that's the core of the problem.
America - An intensity of creativity, stupidity, passive laziness and violent activity. Productivity for both peace and war, it's the the one country with the strongest likelihood of either ending the world or saving it, through sheer multicultural crush and zealous pride.
That woke up my head..
I've got other things on my mind - Addiction - Kept Leigh company at the release event for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King at midnight, a shop packed to bursting with dwarves and other mutants, so many genetic oddities and obese, ugly people, mixed with gangling 6'4" giants stooping and hunching and giggling - joining together to roar 'Leroy Jenkins!!!', chanting like a church congregation in full swing.
Disturbing.. Never think of nerds as harmless or free from convention, they're just as vulnerable to being turned into monsters, people - I mean it. They were -mutants-.
...
Need to get creative. But it's so hard, sometimes I think "Damn, I should really start writing movie reviews and game reviews", the next day I feel sick to the core to have considered such a thing important while lives are ruined and potential is wasted.
Sometimes I want to save the world, then I decide the best way to move forward is to kill almost everyone and reintroduce the principles of survival of the fittest.
I'm enjoying Fallout 3 a great deal, it's good leisure time now that I'm getting into it, feeling like part of the world. A drastically flawed game with a smallminded and lazy design and execution, but for all that it remains fun to explore a virtual world and discover its secrets. That's the pleasure - similar to Morrowind in that respect. I intend to create a map for it soon so I can make notes - idiots failed to include any way to do that in the game, or even to provide any kind of map outside of the pipboy.
Just a game though - I don't feel.. gamey, now. I'm checking up on this Flobots band.. Too damn patriotic, too focused on one land.. But good comic on their site, check it - Flobots Comic.
I want to do more. I've a friend travelled up North to spend a few weeks with friends, and every damn day they're painting, writing, making films, doing things, or so she tells me. Gods, the things I could do with friends like that..
But no - my tolerance prevents it, or lack thereof. I only accept people so bright they're also broken, passive, shy and withdrawn, unable to produce. Perhaps if I was to tell them what to do, but i don't want friends I can control - I hope for allies I can share with, to inspire one another, to aid one another.
Not just.. subordinates, worshippers, sycophants or obedients. I have never liked leadership.
I seek.. Companions.
Not excuses. I get a lot of excuses.
*sighs*
Some of them are my own, of course. I never cease to believe wholly in my reasons for my inactivity, my attempted justifications for living day after day in lazy lack of motive or energy. The best I do is draw a cartoonish mess every few weeks, that few people ever see. I could learn so fast if only I had the inspiration. But, fuck, all I even talk to most of my friends about is sex and their social problems, and this - my own inactivity and the discomfort it causes me.
I cannot find a solution. I know I'm waiting for one to fall out of the sky. And I know being blunt and admitting that still isn't going to make it happen. But seeking out the future has never found it for me, only fateful occurence has. I can only wait, and do all I can to be productive and happy while I wait. I should stop waiting, stop even thinking about it.
I always say you have to depend upon yourself, be able to - then all other people are luxuries to be appreciated rather than necessities to be expected.
I should follow that.
I need to be able to produce things alone, however hard that is or unsatisfactory the outcome.
It is better than nothing.
Sure, it might burn me out - But is an engine never fired better than one broken by misuse?
I do crave people though. I tend to find inspiration so easily in other people and other things - Alone I'm simply at peace, if not for the nagging need to create.
I came to peace with myself some time ago. I am now so.. strong, so well-armoured, so well-armed, mentally, emotionally, creativily, socially, empathically!
I need something to spend it on, to test it on..
Damn it, send me.. something. But that, that is me speaking to a god I don't believe in, to a higher power I have never relied on.
I am my own god - call it posthumanism, I have surpassed what I consider human - those who seek a superior to give them security and direction, and found in myself my own god. I believe not in anyone else, but myself. I only need myself.
And if it was only me, all I'd need to do would be survive - which is all I do.
It is the existence of others, and their world, that mandates I do more - But it is those people I need to -do- more for them. And I see them, but don't have them.
So hard to find the right ones.. Only fate or random chance seem to have ever given them to me.
Hmm.. I'll publish this now, and think for a while.
Added a while later: Damnit, typing up all that whining foolery lent me a sense of satisfaction and achievement. I did not deserve it, the blog was irrelevant.. I need more.
Where action, or another mind, are the only things able to handle the next state of the process.
All jammed up..
Flobots - Handlebars
Check it out - Decent message, decent music, good video. Enjoy, and let it make you think - It's nothing new or too special if your mind is open, but heartening and inspiring when you're feeling burnt out. It's smallminded of the group to be so fixated upon America, as though borders and titles, nationalities mean anything, but I guess that's the core of the problem.
America - An intensity of creativity, stupidity, passive laziness and violent activity. Productivity for both peace and war, it's the the one country with the strongest likelihood of either ending the world or saving it, through sheer multicultural crush and zealous pride.
That woke up my head..
I've got other things on my mind - Addiction - Kept Leigh company at the release event for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King at midnight, a shop packed to bursting with dwarves and other mutants, so many genetic oddities and obese, ugly people, mixed with gangling 6'4" giants stooping and hunching and giggling - joining together to roar 'Leroy Jenkins!!!', chanting like a church congregation in full swing.
Disturbing.. Never think of nerds as harmless or free from convention, they're just as vulnerable to being turned into monsters, people - I mean it. They were -mutants-.
...
Need to get creative. But it's so hard, sometimes I think "Damn, I should really start writing movie reviews and game reviews", the next day I feel sick to the core to have considered such a thing important while lives are ruined and potential is wasted.
Sometimes I want to save the world, then I decide the best way to move forward is to kill almost everyone and reintroduce the principles of survival of the fittest.
I'm enjoying Fallout 3 a great deal, it's good leisure time now that I'm getting into it, feeling like part of the world. A drastically flawed game with a smallminded and lazy design and execution, but for all that it remains fun to explore a virtual world and discover its secrets. That's the pleasure - similar to Morrowind in that respect. I intend to create a map for it soon so I can make notes - idiots failed to include any way to do that in the game, or even to provide any kind of map outside of the pipboy.
Just a game though - I don't feel.. gamey, now. I'm checking up on this Flobots band.. Too damn patriotic, too focused on one land.. But good comic on their site, check it - Flobots Comic.
I want to do more. I've a friend travelled up North to spend a few weeks with friends, and every damn day they're painting, writing, making films, doing things, or so she tells me. Gods, the things I could do with friends like that..
But no - my tolerance prevents it, or lack thereof. I only accept people so bright they're also broken, passive, shy and withdrawn, unable to produce. Perhaps if I was to tell them what to do, but i don't want friends I can control - I hope for allies I can share with, to inspire one another, to aid one another.
Not just.. subordinates, worshippers, sycophants or obedients. I have never liked leadership.
I seek.. Companions.
Not excuses. I get a lot of excuses.
*sighs*
Some of them are my own, of course. I never cease to believe wholly in my reasons for my inactivity, my attempted justifications for living day after day in lazy lack of motive or energy. The best I do is draw a cartoonish mess every few weeks, that few people ever see. I could learn so fast if only I had the inspiration. But, fuck, all I even talk to most of my friends about is sex and their social problems, and this - my own inactivity and the discomfort it causes me.
I cannot find a solution. I know I'm waiting for one to fall out of the sky. And I know being blunt and admitting that still isn't going to make it happen. But seeking out the future has never found it for me, only fateful occurence has. I can only wait, and do all I can to be productive and happy while I wait. I should stop waiting, stop even thinking about it.
I always say you have to depend upon yourself, be able to - then all other people are luxuries to be appreciated rather than necessities to be expected.
I should follow that.
I need to be able to produce things alone, however hard that is or unsatisfactory the outcome.
It is better than nothing.
Sure, it might burn me out - But is an engine never fired better than one broken by misuse?
I do crave people though. I tend to find inspiration so easily in other people and other things - Alone I'm simply at peace, if not for the nagging need to create.
I came to peace with myself some time ago. I am now so.. strong, so well-armoured, so well-armed, mentally, emotionally, creativily, socially, empathically!
I need something to spend it on, to test it on..
Damn it, send me.. something. But that, that is me speaking to a god I don't believe in, to a higher power I have never relied on.
I am my own god - call it posthumanism, I have surpassed what I consider human - those who seek a superior to give them security and direction, and found in myself my own god. I believe not in anyone else, but myself. I only need myself.
And if it was only me, all I'd need to do would be survive - which is all I do.
It is the existence of others, and their world, that mandates I do more - But it is those people I need to -do- more for them. And I see them, but don't have them.
So hard to find the right ones.. Only fate or random chance seem to have ever given them to me.
Hmm.. I'll publish this now, and think for a while.
Added a while later: Damnit, typing up all that whining foolery lent me a sense of satisfaction and achievement. I did not deserve it, the blog was irrelevant.. I need more.
Monday 10 November 2008
Crying Freeman
A film by Christophe Gans, esteemed director of The Brotherhood of the Wolf, Silent Hill and the presently in-production Onimusha.
You should go and watch it now. Style and substance, plot and power... A good story, good acting, good directing, good camerawork, I just can't find anything to complain about and that's really quite unsettling X.x
Consider it among my favourite films.. Without inherent significance or meaning, but entertainment at its very finest.
Enjoy, and share - Crying Freeman.
You should go and watch it now. Style and substance, plot and power... A good story, good acting, good directing, good camerawork, I just can't find anything to complain about and that's really quite unsettling X.x
Consider it among my favourite films.. Without inherent significance or meaning, but entertainment at its very finest.
Enjoy, and share - Crying Freeman.
Thursday 6 November 2008
Sad..
"i'm 21 & i did'nt get my liscense until last june. i don't feel any more free. i was always doing what the fuck i wanted, now i feel confined. having a job feels like i have no soul.
stay strange"
- A random individual commenting someone's journal on a profiling website. His picture showed an attention-seeking goth-metalhead type in a black mask.
It regards having a car, and a job.
Read truth, people.. At least this guy could admit it.
...
In other news, Left 4 Dead is fantastic, but absolutely relies upon having decent teammates.
- Jack
Wednesday 5 November 2008
Since when..
... Does tossing hundreds of explosives into the air at random while playing a combination of the Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks constitute an official, city-sponsored fireworks display?
And setting fires is illegal.
Hm o.o
.. For a pyromaniac, I'm surprisingly bad at setting fire to things.. Everything I could burn, I stare at for a while, thinking "But I could do something useful with this.."
... Left 4 Dead tomorrow X.x
- Jackle
And setting fires is illegal.
Hm o.o
.. For a pyromaniac, I'm surprisingly bad at setting fire to things.. Everything I could burn, I stare at for a while, thinking "But I could do something useful with this.."
... Left 4 Dead tomorrow X.x
- Jackle
Sunday 2 November 2008
I hate ghosts. No, not that kind.
Ghost blueprints in games, a grey, hazy, glowing, or coloured mass saying "A STRUCTURE, EXPLOSIVE OR INDIVIDUAL COULD STAND HERE. IT COULD BE YOU. YOUR POTENTIAL IS INFINITE. BUILD THE HOUSE, DON'T BUILD THE HOUSE - YOU THINK I CARE?! I'LL JUST SIT HERE AND GLOW, FUCKER. DEAL WITH IT."
Hazy fuckers. Nothing kills immersion like ghostly power plants and translucent bombs.
Wake up, designers, think for yourselves instead of copying your forebears.
.. Why did I wake up thinking this? Why do I rise from dreams to find my mind ranting about ghost images in computer games?!
Mood: Confused, and angry! Like Rainbow Bear!
Hazy fuckers. Nothing kills immersion like ghostly power plants and translucent bombs.
Wake up, designers, think for yourselves instead of copying your forebears.
.. Why did I wake up thinking this? Why do I rise from dreams to find my mind ranting about ghost images in computer games?!
Mood: Confused, and angry! Like Rainbow Bear!
Concept/Design - November 2nd
Simplistic RTS concept, slider for quality effects build time and resource cost at expense of endurance/morale/hitpoints/damage, applying to all manner of units...
Watch tower; Height slider effects stability, cost and endurance, against sight range.
More complex - Decide materials used, physically design/blueprint the structure - Modify dynamically at later date with material of choice, allowing dynamic construction of stone-based towers with wooden upper-reaches - High winds, ingame weather pose a risk.
Wholly wooden towers would be vulnerable to fire, and powerful hand weapons..
Watch tower; Height slider effects stability, cost and endurance, against sight range.
More complex - Decide materials used, physically design/blueprint the structure - Modify dynamically at later date with material of choice, allowing dynamic construction of stone-based towers with wooden upper-reaches - High winds, ingame weather pose a risk.
Wholly wooden towers would be vulnerable to fire, and powerful hand weapons..
Saturday 1 November 2008
Quotes, provided by Grey Matter - Click for the Game
"Anxiety is the essential condition of intellectual and artistic creation"
"If you realise that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve."
"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free."
"How do you take away from a man his madness, without also taking away his identity?"
It was a fun game. Finding out it agreed with me - philosophically - made it better ^^
"If you realise that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve."
"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free."
"How do you take away from a man his madness, without also taking away his identity?"
It was a fun game. Finding out it agreed with me - philosophically - made it better ^^
Hallow's Over
But under-par.
I wandered with an old friend, for lack of anything better.
Purple wigs, sour expressions, men dressed as superman and women dressed as whores. What happened to Halloween?
Nothing but another excuse to get drunk, in this city..
It was more fun in a virtual world, to sit back and watch a few hours of Dead Space well-played, far more fitting. But I don't want a world where I hide in a virtual representation of fiction because the real thing is an alcohol-soaked mess.
How can I change the world, to make it what I believe it should be?
Oh, and what a welcome home. A new acquaintance, initially bright and chipper, soon descends to questioning me on why I don't have a job, before departing with the sharp retort "You are a disturbed young man, who needs a big wake-up call.".. This, from a woman who defines her life by earning money, who justifies her 'right to live' by the fact she has a job. She told me these things.
Sparked a true explosion of anger, did that one.. It was painful, but it felt good. I haven't exploded in all too long. I should do it more, the flavour is sour but the aftertaste is.. So enlightening.
I feel like I've been asleep for months, wrapped up in people's repetitive emotional problems and too much computer gaming. It's good to be awake again.
God fucking damn it all, this world needs changing...
I wandered with an old friend, for lack of anything better.
Purple wigs, sour expressions, men dressed as superman and women dressed as whores. What happened to Halloween?
Nothing but another excuse to get drunk, in this city..
It was more fun in a virtual world, to sit back and watch a few hours of Dead Space well-played, far more fitting. But I don't want a world where I hide in a virtual representation of fiction because the real thing is an alcohol-soaked mess.
How can I change the world, to make it what I believe it should be?
Oh, and what a welcome home. A new acquaintance, initially bright and chipper, soon descends to questioning me on why I don't have a job, before departing with the sharp retort "You are a disturbed young man, who needs a big wake-up call.".. This, from a woman who defines her life by earning money, who justifies her 'right to live' by the fact she has a job. She told me these things.
Sparked a true explosion of anger, did that one.. It was painful, but it felt good. I haven't exploded in all too long. I should do it more, the flavour is sour but the aftertaste is.. So enlightening.
I feel like I've been asleep for months, wrapped up in people's repetitive emotional problems and too much computer gaming. It's good to be awake again.
God fucking damn it all, this world needs changing...
"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live".
"sadly many humans just live by the book and never actually wake up from the dream because the moment you do so you separate yourself from the group of people around you that live the same way."
"there are just so many twisted things in our society that are looked upon as normal, while the people with opposite opinion are either called lunatics or saints"
"I had a topic a while back, just because you are 'awake', walking, drawing breath, you think you can say you are NOT dreaming? Maybe ppl dream, they are not awake, they are not aware truly of whats around them."
"you're theory makes me thing a little about what marx tried to do, and stalin. the main ideology in communists was that everyone is equal. well everyone is NOT equal."
Random quotes, random people in a thread on a forum Google gave me... Foolish folk, but not without merit, they know something of truth, though they don't seem to understand it.
I snipped the best bits, shorn of the stupidity that led to and followed the quotes.
Why don't you see reality? Why don't you want to open your eyes and join me in the real world?
"there are just so many twisted things in our society that are looked upon as normal, while the people with opposite opinion are either called lunatics or saints"
"I had a topic a while back, just because you are 'awake', walking, drawing breath, you think you can say you are NOT dreaming? Maybe ppl dream, they are not awake, they are not aware truly of whats around them."
"you're theory makes me thing a little about what marx tried to do, and stalin. the main ideology in communists was that everyone is equal. well everyone is NOT equal."
Random quotes, random people in a thread on a forum Google gave me... Foolish folk, but not without merit, they know something of truth, though they don't seem to understand it.
I snipped the best bits, shorn of the stupidity that led to and followed the quotes.
Why don't you see reality? Why don't you want to open your eyes and join me in the real world?
Friday 31 October 2008
The Zombie's Worst Enemy
If yon wandering deadite has the misfortune to blunder his way through one of these easily pushed-open doors, one fitted with such a maniacally cunning device, he shall
surely find himself the victim of a dread trap from which there is no easy escape!!!
Oh, the undead can push with the finest of pushers, but can the dead PULL?
I think not, friends.
Learn well, and fit automatic closer brackets!
- Jack
surely find himself the victim of a dread trap from which there is no easy escape!!!
Oh, the undead can push with the finest of pushers, but can the dead PULL?
I think not, friends.
Learn well, and fit automatic closer brackets!
- Jack
Thursday 30 October 2008
Hallow's Even
Hallow's Odd.
Ahoy there. My first post, made the day before Halloween 2008. Possibly my last, too; I sought a place to post my thoughts as and when I wish to, and this appeared the most.. Accessible.
I'm confused and dismayed by this holiday. Or perhaps by those who celebrate it - What has alcoholic stupidity and staggering around dressed as a cowboy or a doctor, a pirate or a fairy to do with this season? Like all others, merely another unnecessary and unsuitable excuse to drink in excess and be fools..
This is a night of freedom from tradition, of life and death mixed together, to appreciate what you've got and to -change-.. Anarchy and mutation, evolution and excitement, and a time to feed imaginations and feel fear like we once did.
If only someone else thought so, I might have something to do tomorrow *grins*
Looks like lonely wandering, draped in gore and festooned with ropes, for me.
- Jakk
Ahoy there. My first post, made the day before Halloween 2008. Possibly my last, too; I sought a place to post my thoughts as and when I wish to, and this appeared the most.. Accessible.
I'm confused and dismayed by this holiday. Or perhaps by those who celebrate it - What has alcoholic stupidity and staggering around dressed as a cowboy or a doctor, a pirate or a fairy to do with this season? Like all others, merely another unnecessary and unsuitable excuse to drink in excess and be fools..
This is a night of freedom from tradition, of life and death mixed together, to appreciate what you've got and to -change-.. Anarchy and mutation, evolution and excitement, and a time to feed imaginations and feel fear like we once did.
If only someone else thought so, I might have something to do tomorrow *grins*
Looks like lonely wandering, draped in gore and festooned with ropes, for me.
- Jakk
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