random n00b
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Posts posted by random n00b
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A pity you missed the extra time, it was pretty good, up until the point when players started to fall all over the place with pains and aches, and then started fighting.
And Shevchenko not coming out for the penalties was pretty stupid, even more after Drogba got himself red-carded.
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Also, lol Crynaldo.
End of Thread.
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Lol Drogba.
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I agree with Uncle Ben.I agree with Sand. With great power comes great responsibility.I agree with you, not Sand. he'd like to see tough sentencing for people who yawn without putting their hand in front of their mouths.
Anyway, it's unlawful to apply different penalties to different people given equal offenses. There are aggravating circumstances, but that's about as far as law can go, without risking arbitrary application.
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nevermind
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Try and refrain from replying to this with some snappy comment - since you make a distinction between "art" and "mere entertainment", what criterions must be met for something to be in one field and not the other?Well, for me "art" has automatically higher starting point scores wise than mere entertainment - it doesn't mean that entertainment product can't easily overcome "art" but it has to be quite top-notch stuff if the "art" thingie is good.Just wondering, since I would not have it easy categorising creative works like that.
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Wrong.
It gets a 10/10
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Lol!No. The only person responsible for someone commiting suicide is the one who does it. That's why it's called 'taking one's OWN life'.
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Search around...Fix for Intel chipsets: Link -
How's your video drivers? If that's not it, maybe it's caused by the Catalyst graphics suite forcing that aspect.
Ask the brainiacs at Skeeter's Junkyard if you still can't fix it. Chances are they'll be able to help better.
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Aw, man. Just when it was starting to get good.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled hating.
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You'll always be the only one in my heart.And I thought I was the only one
Big words make head hurt? Me understand. Me no talk silly things no more, OK? OK. Friends now?I can't believe random_n00b has started something like thatTake your scientiphilia where sun doesn't shine, genius
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As far as I know, as long as your game is in English, the US patch should work. Localized (Italian, German, Spanish) versions have different patches, but that shouldn't be an issue for you.
Edit: Also, I think that in case of a version conflict the installer will find that the version you are trying to install the patch to isn't compatible, and will abort the patching.
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Is it me or are you just trolling for the sake of it?Is it me or does n00b just love to argue for the sake of it?
Why, thank you. Pleasing my fanbase is of paramount importance.That has always been his way. -
The approach I'm taking is merely an empirical one. It's the same that has allowed to make breakthroughs in neuroscience, psychology, and relativistic quantum mechanics. Again, I have yet to see something that could lead me to belive that such an approach is inadequate when dealing with the products of human creativity.The approach I am advocating is 'rational' as well. I am not advocating that 'art just can't be understood, leave it alone'. I am not arguing against taking a 'rational' or 'systematic' approach at all. Can I make self any clearer, I wonder? I'll try. I do not have a problem with analysing art, games, etc., in a logical manner: I am saying that I believe your specific method of analysis ill-suited to this particular subject, though it might be for objects normally associated with mathematics and the 'sciences' as we have come to know of it post-18th century. The approach of modern-era science with its desire to create clearly defined taxonomies of independent, atomised variables is not the only 'rational' or 'logical' approach - the 'human sciences' of our era alone show us many others, as do the likes of Condillac (or was it before Condillac? Gah) in the previous centuries.Also, I don't see where you get the impression that this approach fails to take into consideration that complex systems have different properties than their forming elements. This phenomenon is known as emergent properties and is well documented, in a (unsurprisingly) rather systematic way.
That is only true if the "variables" that govern the reassembly you are talking about are random. If those variables and the rules they are bound to are understood, that is not so much the case anymore.Again, I never said it's 'unfathomable'. Of course it's, uh, 'fathomable'. Just not in the way you suggest: mechanically taking apart particular characteristics of a media product, defining them in that decontextualised/atomised state then assembling them together with different variables - that is unlikely to produce an overall experience that one would say was 'faithful' to the original, IMO. Of course, we can agree to disagree, but I would hate for you to think that I was simply saying, "Oh no, we can't find this out, at all".
That's where the creative lead comes in and says what works, what doesn't, and what needs improvement. Again, I suppose he is not making this stuff up as he goes, he has a very concrete idea of what he's attempting to achieve, and that idea didn't just appear to him like that. It's the product of thinking, working and experience. His (innate?) quality as a designer and most importantly, his experience in the field are the variables that will determine whether or not he will be able to produce the "particular experience" he's after. This does not preclude the fact that cognitive mechanisms that determine a person's reactions to certain stimuli can't be studied and catalogued, and this data used later.Absolutely not. I can see where you get this impression, because the gaping hole in my first post was an alternative suggestion - if I think your approach doesn't get us to the heart of the matter, then what does? Very simple version - a media product is often more than the 'sum of its parts'. If we understand 'parts' as things such as 'bright colour palette', 'a disposition towards certain chords' or 'a wikipedia dialogue system', then just a sum of such parts are not guaranteed to successfully produce a particular experience.
Again, emergent properties. The fact that the neurological mechanisms, that rule how we react to a particular musical structure or an arrangement of colours, are less understood than the properties of a silicon structure does not mean they are less manipulable.I would suggest that atomisation is the problem: we want to look at how the product is contextualised, defined and absorbed as a whole by real people - how certain disparate elements, such as the accent of Morte and the colour-tone of the Mortuary and whatnot, came together in the player's mind to create several overarching themes or 'feel'. There is nothing mystical about any of this, though it is a good deal less certain than the properties of rocks. But a media product is more than the mechanical assembly of certain tropes, because what is just as important as the nature of these tropes, is how they are put together, and how they are presented and consumed by the player, as a whole.
Monkeys cannot recreate Fallout because they are stuck in an entirely different cognitive level. In their case it's an insurmountable physiological barrier. I don't see what this adds to the conversation aside from comic relief, since the converse statement "that's why people can't recreate Fallout" is strictly false, thus proving it's just a strawman.That's why monkeys cannot recreate Fallout.
Eh, but it is. That's what they did with FO2, and it was the perfect sequel (and still, some say it's not entirely "faithful"!). Arguably, all it featured was a different plot.Equally, I am fighting the argument that (a) it is an uncreative, mechanical and pointless work to try and 'recapture' the 'experience' of the original Fallouts, because all it takes is a taxonomic definition and re-assembly of tropes,
Yes, an "overall experience" that nobody can quite explain, but that will be called upon when the time comes around to bash FO3.and by extension suggesting that (b) the 'hardcore fans' real gripe with Bethesda is not that they are taking particular key tropes and trashing them, but that the overall impression that develops from these independent tropes is very different. (for example, quite a few of NMA, which we love to lampoon so much, would be quite happy with a first-person real-time Fallout if it recaptured the overall experience).I have a feeling that if, instead of Bethesda, it was the original team that had secured the rights to the Fallout franchise, most of those proposed changes wouldn't draw so much flak. So the importance of "recreating the experience" is tangential at most, when one's own preconceptions and confirmation bias get in the way. Emotion overriding reason, I'd say.
I think I already addressed how holism and reductionism aren't necessarily opposite or incompatible. I am focusing on the impression I get that you are implying that complex systems have different properties simply because they do as opposed to that being the result of complex interactions between simpler parts that can be studied, categorised, and harnessed. There's no reason whatsoever to think that's not the case.I am simply saying that I respectfully disagree with your approach towards analysing these works, and that I believe a more holistic and contextual approach, coming less from 'what parts is this work made out of' and more from 'how have people understood this work as a whole' might work better. -
Yes. This contradicts what I said, how? A monkey's cognitive faculties are not at human levels (regardless of how folks think of Todd), and therefore you have built a strawman that invalidates your point.Linkin Park's level of popular success in the early years of this decade was nothing short of phenomenal. Their music in this period was actually very simple and formulaic: it could be reduced to a sum of elements such as throaty male screaming, repetitive but unrelenting rap, simple and powerful electric guitar chords, a single ballad melody resounding through the entire composition, a strict intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus formula (with exactly tabulated systems of bridges in relation to the choruses), etc. If we took these elements separately, defined them 'scientifically', then fed them to a 'blind monkey', would the monkey, as you say, random noob, produce something that succeeds at the level of Linkin Park - no, rather, music that sounds like, and is 'as good as', Linkin Park? I don't think so.Conversely, if you analise and categorise the elements (as you have done) that make up LP's music, chances are that people will be able to reproduce their style rather faithfully, as proven by the many groups in that genre now. The success of said groups is of little consequence, due to factors of marketing and novelty. Again, rarely are musicologists asked when records labels choose which groups are to be the new cash cows and which are to be forgotten.
No. No, no, no. What you are describing is simply the creative process. The same creative process involved in designing AMD's latest chip, for instance. No, a monkey wouldn't be able to do it, nor would I. It takes training, intelligence, and a good dose of effort. The same with game design.A media product is never simply a sum of its parts: in that very summation, something that is created is more than that. This is something that you can't explain if you try to import a purely mathematical / scientific mind to something so fluid, and try to 'define' what 'Fallout is', what the core of 'Fallout' is. NMA have been doing that for years, but you look at them arguing over the latest concept art and many of them still disagree with each other. That doesn't mean that 'what Fallout is' doesn't exist: it simply means that it is the wrong approach altogether to try and reduce it down to isolated essences which can be mathematically reconstructed. It's quite simply the wrong model to use.Is it wrong to apply a rational approach to this, why? Because you and Krez say so? Oh, well. It too was wrong to apply a rational approach to mental disease back in the 18th century as well, when schizophrenia was considered to be caused by "bad spirits", and the "soul" was believed to reside in the heart (one of the three, we supposedly possessed, at least). That is, until some crazy guy came along and thought that mental disease was caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, and therefore, chemistry could provide solutions to those imbalances. W0wsers!
If a long-winded exposition on the postulates governing the unfathomability of art could convince me that something that's man-made can't be made subject to analytical thought, I wouldn't even have bothered to begin with.
The thing is, you are trying to steer the discussion into the realm of the mystical (where, conveniently, debunking your assertions would be impossible), while all evidence leads to the conclusion that there's nothing unmeasurable or metaphysical involved. Only a lack of formal education, as I said before.
Art is, and always has been just another consumer product. And there's nothing "prehistoric" about mysticism. It's the natural tendency of man to ascribe otherworldly qualities to that which isn't quite understood:Of course art, music, etc. can be analysed and explained. But all (good) analysis of art, for example, always relates any exploration of a single essence or component back to that whole which is more than the sum of its parts: that which is evident in the work of art itself. Same with Fallout. Now, the fact that it's ab it of 1+1=3? doesn't mean that the study of art or other media is considered to be mystical: that dichotomy between a 'scientific' taxonomy and a 'prehistoric' mysticity is entirely unfounded in this case, because that implies that everything has a scientific-mathematical order with which it is composed, and with enough study, enough technology, enough tools, one can dissect anything to find these independent, atomised elements which follow the general logics of science. That is inverse logic because we are taking the scientific model and applying it to Jack and Joe, and when it doesn't seem to fit, we say "it's just not very clear yet, let's keep going". Art can be demystified, explained, analysed, deconstructed: but because of the nature of art, the way to do it is not to try and define clear, independent, atomised characteristics and say art is the mathematical sum of these parts. That simply flies in the face of art as we experience it, just to satisfy a scientific model. Art and other media have to be analysed in a way that is conscious of this 'more than the sum, etc' and the fact that experience of art and media is always holistic in regards to who consumes it and how. -
Is it? One of the best examples that illustrate the principle of "being greater than the sum of its parts" is music. A symphony is indeed greater than random notes thrown together, but that doesn't mean it's not possible to explain how this is so. So, no. The concept of "greater than the sum of its parts" does not entail unfathomability.Haha, I'm pretty sure the definition of "greater than the sum of its parts" is that you can't define it fully in terms of other things, so what you're asking is kind of illogical.
Yes. That's known as polish and solid design. Both are very real notions.Fallout was a delicate balance of various concepts and mechanics - it's that balance and choice of concepts/mechanics to use that is the 'soul', I guess.
And just because a notion is widely held, it doesn't mean it's true. Art majors can give very detailed and concrete accounts of their field of work, as the study of art has been systematised. Musicology wouldn't exist, if music couldn't be analysed and explained, either. Just because you can't capture and explain it, doesn't mean *nobody* can.That said, I doubt I'm the only one who feels art is more than the sum of its parts, and I believe that's actually a fairly widely held notion. But just because humans find it hard to capture the essence of something or explain it fully by referencing its parts doesn't mean it is divinely determined.With art it happens just like with technology. Both can appear mystical and magical, unless one has received formal education. Then the magic seems to fade a bit.
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Right. So, please define what the "soul" of Fallout is, so the discussion can progress. Unless it was a matter of Divine Revelation for the original team, there must be some comprehensible aspect to it, that so far, nobody has been able to quite place their finger on. This doesn't seem to conflict with the fact that folks here are certain that Beth will fail to capture that.I completely disagree. Anything remotely artistic like computer games certainly has a 'soul'; something that makes the game bigger than the sum of its parts.Creating decent computer games is formulaic; creating awesome ones is anything but.
Funny.
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So? You don't need to be excessively creative to make a game that your regular NMA denizen would consider a "true" Fallout sequel. Isometric + SPECIAL + turn based + dialog trees = Fallout.
Right?
What are we arguing about, again, then?
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Fair enough. But that's a different example I think, and not fully extensible to games. Games are self-contained and don't need to share key plot elements and/or characters with other installments of a saga, which is not necessarily true for books, movies, or TV shows, where continuity is usually necessary because plot elements are left open (often as a means of keeping the audience interested in a sequel). In this regard, FO was independent from FO2, and those two will not be affected by FO3, since all they have in common is the setting.Err, I'm not saying FO3 will make FO1 and 2 suck. I'm saying that it will potentially destroy the uniqueness and atmosphere of the series, I guess. It's like with a TV series how people say "it sucks now" - adding more and more seasons can ruin a show. I'm hoping for new seasons of Burn Notice, but at the same time, I think season one was pretty damn ace, and I don't want to see something less than that.Hades, yes. I know the Fallout franchise belongs to you. Tiax rules all, and stuff.
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Yeah. It's a well known Natural Law that Beth's games must suck. I read it on Science somewhere.
Champion's League final
in Way Off-Topic
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I'm surprised Josh hasn't commented on this yet.
Um. I don't remember pro footballers crying so much say, ten years ago. So, yeah. Definitely a fad.
Refs answer to no-one and 99% of their decisions are final (100% in-game). That and the FIFA refusal to adopt new technologies to reduce human error ensures that we'll have dive artists for years to come.