J.E. Sawyer

Even video games with good writing are usually banal and puerile in their content. The exploration of themes in games is typically shallow and any didactic purpose the writers attempt to achieve is usually aimed very low. When an eleven year-old already inherently comprehends and accepts the lesson you are trying to impart, you know you're not dropping the bucket too deep into the well. A converse problem is that the themes being explored are so far outside of a player's daily concerns that they simply do not care. A lot of game developers are really concerned about games not being taken "seriously". It's always been my opinion that if you have to ask for someone to take you seriously, you are not worthy of serious attention. If people find your content to be meritous, merit will be given. My concern about the lack of mature themes in games is personal. I think most games have uninteresting stories that explore irrelevant or trite subjects and they are really boring as a result. I don't care about pitting technology against nature; it's a trite theme. If it hadn't been explored in dozens of games already, it might be interesting. I don't care about focusing on high-level concepts like the "nature" of good and evil; it's far removed from anything I deal with on a daily basis and it is usually discussed in an explicit, heavily didactic manner. Why doesn't anyone make a game about poverty? Why doesn't anyone make a game about capitalism and the rights of laborers under it? Why doesn't anyone make a game about racism? It's frustrating, because these are issues that are of direct, daily importance to a huge number of people. These subjects are either never broached or are explored through proxies that defuse the seriousness of what is being discussed. E.g. elves and dwarves might express shallow "fantasy" racism against each other, but you're probably never going to see two humans with different skin colors express racism toward each other in a serious exchange. In rare cases, you might see the exploration of a subject like corporations vs. laborers or the religious vs. the non-religious, but the opposition is usually segregated into a "right" side and a "wrong" side. E.g. the religious turn out to be the bag guys, the laborers turn out to be the good guys. It's not an exploration of a theme as much as it is an exposition of the author's biases through various stand-'em-up-and-knock-'em-down characters. Exploration isn't really exploration when you're being led by the nose to a preselected destination. I understand why game developers don't try to delve any deeper, though. Games are still considered escapist entertainment. While many media manage to have a wide spectrum of titles with varying themes and treatments, games are still very focused on pumping the player up and giving him or her a sense of tension followed by relief, accomplishment, and satisfaction. Things work out, the bad people get killed, and though one or two decent people might have been thrown into the grinder, it was all for a good cause -- and you know what that cause is. People don't want to talk about things like poverty or racism or the pros and cons of a capitalist society -- because they suck. If these subjects had issues that were easy to solve, they wouldn't even be issues. They are problems that provoke dread, anxiety, confusion, anger, and a lot of other negative feelings. People don't want to escape to these things because then it's not an escape at all. But they are real issues, and they are relevant. That's why they are serious, why they are topics of merit. I don't know if there are a enough people who are interested in playing games about such things to justify creating products to fill such a need. I have a low opinion of my fellow citizens of the world, so probably not. But I really wish there were.

We are not playing a game on a tabletop with a live GM to arbitrate things. That is what I think many "hardcore" RPGers refuse to accept, and why they continue to cling to the idea that all actions must be devoid of player skill for a game to be an RPG. I also think that distinction isn't even really true, as experienced RPGers meta-game constantly, even when their characters "shouldn't" have the ability to analyze or know certain aspects of their statistics, properties of items, aspects of enemies they are dealing with, etc. Player skill is an enormous part of hardcore RPGs, but the skill set required in a D&D CRPG is much different than the skill set required to play Pikmin or Jade Empire or Katamari Damacy. If all data were filtered through the character's mental statistics, you wouldn't see stats for a quarter of the things you use in RPGs. Spell damage, attacks per round, weapon critical hit multipliers -- all of these things are clearly defined so the player can use his or her skill to direct the actions of the character. With combat, often the "die rolling game" works out reasonably well, especially when controlling a party. The player can make moment to moment choices over the course of a long combat that can "course correct" if he or she gets off to a bad start. With something like stealth or lockpicking, the ability to do that is usually absent. There's no "game" to the action other than the character building aspect and the choice of the player to click a button and watch the results. Are you talking about a "theoretical" person, or a real group of people who have honestly complained about this? Because it's pretty damned easy to hide in Oblivion unless you have a nervous disorder and/or the inability to distinguish light from shadow. We're not talking about Ninja Gaiden levels of timing. Sure, the mythic Venn diagram of these two groups isn't a picture of two perfectly overlapping circles, but I question the implied assertion that there are a bunch of CRPG fans who enjoy playing a "stats only" stealth character more than a "stats plus action" stealth character. That is, people who say, "Man, I hate having to look at light and darkness and how fast I'm moving when I'm using stealth." Even in a game like Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, I would argue that it would be more enjoyable to use lightmaps (which exist everywhere on the IE maps) to heavily influence your chance of staying in stealth than to rely on the straight stat + die roll system. It gives the player something to interact with in the environment, and turns stealth into a game instead of relegating it to shoving points into a character every hour or two. In such a mythical IE or Neverwinter Engine implementation, what undue demands are placed on the player? You can let them click exactly where he or she wants to click, look at the map from an overhead view, pause the game to issue commands, etc. The resolution is still a blend of character skill and player skill and there's no demand for manual dexterity or crackerjack timing. I've never written that I thought how Oblivion handled character interaction was well done. In this thread specifically, I've stated that I think it was very poorly done and I think that Bethesda should make Fallout 3's character interaction mechanics much better. I play a lot of RPGs, and I thought Oblivion was pretty fun. I don't think they abandoned the genre, but I do think there are things they should do differently to reinforce player choice, specifically when building characters (selecting types of bonuses) and when interacting with the world (checking actions and providing deep feedback). I also think they should examine some of their mechanics for suitability on different platforms. E.g. lockpicking on the PC was a frustrating mechanic regardless of character skill unless you mashed auto-attempt, which was a cop out. I think that any sort of "character and player" blend should be engaging but relatively straightforward on the player side of the equation, which many of Oblivion's mechanics were. For example, melee combat in Oblivion is really basic and doesn't even come close to the complexity or timing demanded by a true action game like DMC, Ninja Gaiden, or God of War.

How many of them are relevant to the state of the modern CRPG? And of those, how many of them use something other than randomized numbers + skill bonuses vs. a static difficulty to resolve actions? It doesn't matter if you have one character or six characters; you're still resolving an action using a randomized number modified by points that you put in your character over a process of hours or even days. There is nothing "in the moment" about the event, no puzzle to solve other than deciding to attempt the task or not. Either way, "a" character has to undertake the stealth action. The high-level tactical gameplay involved doesn't give the stealth game aspect a free pass to use a randomized mechanic. And in Commandos, it was a more direct stealth experience. You saw sound ripples from your characters, saw vision cones from the enemies. You had to time your movements and take actions based on these elements. Despite the view, this still has a lot more in common with Splinter Cell and Thief than it does with Baldur's Gate or Fallout, where click button = roll dice to hide. Garret is nowhere near as capable of taking out guys once they are alert as Sam Fisher is, but you can still slaughter pretty much anyone and everyone on a level if you use a modicum of planning and attack from stealth. The article itself is interesting, I guess, but they do not illuminate how they arrived at their data. I assume they use data mining software, but exactly what constitues a "unit" of any given action is unclear, as are the composition of the groups they used to derive their results. It's also interesting that although attacking is higher for Splinter Cell than it is for Thief, stealth is higher for Splinter Cell than it is for Thief. I'm also not sure how some of the categories differ from the others. "Attacking" vs. "Use of Weapons" vs. "Warfare". Do these things overlap, or are they exclusive? You use your weapons in Splinter Cell and Thief a lot, but it's often not to attack people. I would assume that "Warfare" means all-out combat against all enemies on a map, which would explain why Splinter Cell has a much higher rating than Thief. Garret usually can't kill three aware guys, but it's not a problem for Sam. In contrast, you can attack unaware individuals and kill them with effectively equal ease in each series. In any case, Thief is not a game that punishes fighting characters, and you can certainly alert and/or kill characters and continue playing the game. Again, Thief, Splinter Cell, Oblivion, and Commandos all have much more in common in their stealth components than any of them have in common with traditional tabletop RPGs or CRPGs. You have no control over the stats of the character at the time you encounter any given challenge. By the time you become aware that your characters have insufficient statistics to perform a task, you have no recourse. If it's a flat check, you cannot complete the task. If it's randomized, you just have to keep clicking a button. If it's randomized and you only get one chance, you have to reload and keep clicking a button. In none of these case is fun had at that moment when the event is taking place. I still see absolutely no fun in the action itself. By comparison, games like Oblivion, Bloodlines, or Deus Ex that blend statistical elements on the character with more direct control over the character's participation in the action allow both the character and the player to be involved and relevant when completing the task. One of the key challenges with such systems is finding a good baseline for low skill characters. For example, Bloodlines had pretty infuriating firearms because the character's base skill felt terrible. Oblivion's archery felt decent at low level, and much better as your Marksmanship improved. The main point of my original entry was that RPG titles with mechanics like Oblivion's are probably going to be more common in the future. Yes, I'm paying attention to what people like. Well over a million of them liked Oblivion a lot. That doesn't mean that Oblivion made no mistakes, but they did enough right that a lot of people enjoyed it. I think Oblivion's lack of character reaction was one of its weakest points, and I very much hope that is changed in Fallout 3. In Fallout, you could see characters react to your reputation pretty easily and you could track regional reputations on your character sheet. It didn't always make a difference, but it made enough of a difference that it was important in the game.

fixd 4 u

They can only maximize their tactics if they have the ability to directly influence the outcome. Most D&D skill checks don't really allow for much of that. Take picking a lock on a door. You can raise your Dex with a potion or spell, or you can use masterwork lockpicks, but there's really nothing else you can do to change the fact that the major component determining success or failure is a randomized number between 1 and 20. Why? Do you think that the environments in "stealth action" games like Splinter Cell aren't interactive puzzles? There are many levels in Oblivion that are stealth-oriented, but stealth can potentially be used anywhere. It's just that some are set up specifically as a stealth puzzle environment. You can certainly be discovered and still continue the game in Thief. In fact, you can kill pretty much anyone/everyone in most levels if you want. You can also selectively take people out of you want to. As long as you hide the bodies well, you're good to go. The Thief designers developed an extensive perception system so that AI was not omniscient and did not automatically detect cries for help from allies. And just like Sam Fisher can select his load-out at the beginning of each mission with a stealth or assault load in mind, so too could Garret in the very first Thief. My point is that when you have a GM, a GM can adapt to whatever goofy stuff you try to do. This is why tabletop experiences can be fun in spite of the fact that you're just rolling dice to simulate everything. A computer simulates exactly what it is made to simulate. Truly "randomized" simultations that are based on a number give terrible feedback and give the player less control over influencing the outcome of any given contest. For example, Hitman: Contracts used this wavy-gravy mechanic for seeing through disguises where it was "kinda sorta" based on proximity, but sometimes guys would see through your disguise from across the room and other times you could walk right next to them with no problem. It was literally a randomized chance, and the solution wasn't to behave differently, but to reload and try walking past the dude again, which is pretty lame. In Hitman: Blood Money, there was very clear feedback about what sorts of actions provoked suspicion and could break your disguise. In addition to this, being reckless on previous levels could raise your notoriety. This could cause you to more easily raise suspicion, but it was a multiplier, not some sort of random chance or value. There was a very specific action > response mechanic. If you played like a careless, bloodthirsty psycho, it became very difficult for you to go anywhere without people catching on quickly. If instead it was something like, "There is a 2% chance that every time you come within 10' of a character that he or she will recognize you as the notorious Agent 47!" that would be lame and terrible.

You can kill everyone on sight and still complete the game. It's just (often) harder.

The first horrible thing. Fantasy role-playing games are unique among computer games in one thing: they are fundamentally about starting out weak and learning to be strong. And that learning process generally involves a lot of tedium. Fallout, Deus Ex, and System Shock are also like this.

Not all of those, but we were working on implementing flying (which was really hovering, but could be done across chasms), jumping, and climbing. They weren't particularly great implementations, but oh well. The big things we were working on for rules were data management and encapsulating effects in larger effect trees. Sounds pretty boring, I know, but it would have allowed for really a lot of flexibility for spells and abilities.

From my perspective, I don't really even understand why global warming/climate change has to be validated. Do people honestly think we aren't consuming resources and producing waste at a rate that provokes some thought? What "bad stuff" could come out of increasing efficiency and reducing waste? Our population is only getting bigger, globally. There's a finite number of resources and a certain amount of waste that comes from us going about our lives. Why not look at this stuff now and figure out ways to curtail it when we aren't standing in the midst of a crisis?

It's the difference between probability as a computed mechanic and probability as an abstraction. You can reduce likelihood in any endeavor down to a statistical analysis of probability, but that's quite different from using as the actual mechanic of determining success or failure. The mechanics are what makes the application of stealth in a level a game as opposed to random trial and error or a flat check to see if you have enough points in a skill. Especially in games where you can reload, trial and error and flat stat checks are pretty lame. The former can often be surmounted by reloading (e.g. trying to disintegrate a dragon) and the latter often cannot be surmounted at all; it's checking against choices you made hours or days ago (how many points you put into X skill) with no recourse. In a tabletop setting, such mechanics are totally fine. There is a DM present to moderate the situation and (unless you have a memory-eraser) no way to reload.

I have written before about the strange position occupied by RPGs in modern computer gaming (PC or otherwise). In summary: tabletop RPGs and most of their CRPG kin were born out of mechanics necessitated by the realities of playing a game with dice, paper, and pencils. Everything was either uncontested expression on behalf of the player or a simulated contest governed by probability. Modern PCs and consoles can now, with a fair amount of accuracy, simulate movement, lighting, perception, and virtually any type of physical activity in the world or through mini-games. It leaves "probability simulation" RPGs, or perhaps all RPGs, in an odd place. When one plays Thief, Splinter Cell, or Oblivion, stealth is governed by the player's ability to move from shadow to shadow while avoiding the vision and proximity of bad guys in real time. There may be a numerical value (such as Chameleon in Oblivion) that modifies the ability of creatures to perceive the character, but the fundamental mechanic is still something that feels more player-driven than character-driven. Many people (myself included) feel that this is more engaging and generally rewarding than clicking a "stealth" button and letting probability take over as D&D games like the Infinity Engine and NWN titles do. The former rewards moment-to-moment player ability and quick decision making. The latter rewards character building choices, ones which often took place far from where the abilities are used. Many gamers may reasonably say, "But RPGs are about character building, not player skill." Though I think one can make a fair case that some form of player skill is always heavily involved in any RPG, it does leave traditional CRPGs in a strange place. The fact that they are often referred to as "traditional" makes them seem like antiquated throwbacks. And though I was somewhat annoyed by an early review of Neverwinter Nights 2 that focused heavily on comparing its thick D&D mechanics to Oblivion's relatively straightforward, "player + character" systems, I can't say I was all that surprised by the outcry. I return to the idea that games like D&D, like GURPS, like H

Atari uses Test Track Pro for bug management, which is a stand-alone app, not a web-based front-end for a database. We used to use Mantis (web interface) for bug-tracking, but that left us with two bug lists: one for internal QA and another for Atari QA. We switched over to TTP so that both teams would be entering bugs into the same database and moving through the same workflow. We don't typically get bugs by reading forms; that's what the e-mail address is for. Messages sent to that address are filtered and manually entered into TTP to go through the pipeline.

Doubtful. But if not the critics, at least those criticisms. I'm not that enthusiastic about the concept, specificially. I do appreciate that they aren't just adding on Generic New Fantasy Place.

This thread reminds me of a very good film. http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0119657/

Considering the amount of energy consumed by any of the plasma or laser weapons in the Fallout games, I'm not sure this particular point is something that needs to be harped on. While aircraft do take a large amount of energy to power, something like a laser Gatling gun (in itself kind of a "what?" device) would realistically dwarf that with a single burst. Recent projects like the Shiva and Nova lasers required an obscene amount of energy and long periods of capacitor charging. We're talking "power a few city blocks for a day or three" levels. Shiva could still cause brown-outs when fired even after charging. Anyway, while it's questionable that the BoS would have used fuel in such a way, I think they are one of the groups most likely to secure energy sources in the wasteland. There are certainly SECs and MFCs floating around for those who can find them.

Corruption and disorganization are part of it. It doesn't help that their northern neighbor is an agricultural juggernaut. Well, that's fine because Cruz Bustamante is terrible. It is worth noting that if we do want to use a guest worker program, such programs will need reform to prevent a repeat of the abusive bracero programs of the 1940s-60s.

Okay, let me just propose an alternative and see what people think of it. 1) We establish work-visa programs for Mexicans and Central Americans to do temporary or seasonal work in the U.S. Put them in the system, track them through the system. We adjust the number of visas available on a yearly basis at our discretion. 2) Instead of building a wall, we use human beings in helicopters and off-road vehicles employing FLIR sensor equipment to locate illegals. This general idea worked pretty well when we tried it previously. In my mind, this allows us to maintain access to a workforce as we need it and it allows us to control our border with intelligence instead of a physical obstacle. I have very little faith that a physical wall will really do us much good.

They cannot be replaced at the rates they are paid. They also cannot necessarily be replaced by a resident workforce because legal residents are reticent to take many of these jobs (construction being a good exception). The effect on a consumer would only be noticed slightly, but the economies of scale would have a larger effect on employers. I think we need a better work-visa program for Mexican labor, not a huge fence. Poor people live in slums and commit crime, whether they are legal or illegal residents. Also, Spanish still uses the Roman alphabet and in many places (like SoCal) many things have Spanish names. Places like Koreatown in Los Angeles or Garden Grove in Orange County have signs in Korean and Vietnamese, respectively. Those are for mostly legal immigrants. What's your opinion on that? Mexicans have their own culture, often referred to as "Mexican".

Guess again. Social Security for illegal aliens That's a great article that talks about illegals becoming legals and receiving SS benefits. In the article, it even says, "To get Social Security benefits, you do have to be legally in the United States. This agreement does not address in any way immigration, immigration laws or override current law," he said, adding that a 2004 law, the Social Security Protection Act, prevents illegal aliens from getting benefits. It is also legislation that hasn't passed and hopefully will not. I don't think that people who don't pay into SS should benefit from it. Of course, I also think that SS is a doomed program. Long-term health of society is most important, period. If we need to establish special work-visa programs to transition out of the current illegal employment situation, I'm fine with that. I just think that trying to solve the problem by walling off hundreds of miles of the border between the U.S. and Mexico is a) not going to "fix" the issue in way that guarantees stability for our markets that use illegal labor and b) insular and xenophobic in a time when that no longer flies. Writes the man on an island. No non-illegals want to do these jobs. People have advertised for things like field workers and day laborers at minimum wage prices and only Mexicans (usually illegals) apply. You should really know better than to take what is probably the most contentious historical issue ever and chalk the source of the problems up to language. Since Walsingham's in on the fun, let's talk about the specific role of Brittania in the collapse of the Roman Empire. This was an island where most of the natives/migrated tribes beat the crap out of each other constantly. The Romans came in, set up shop, and they did force many people to use Latin, only keeping "work words". Things like the revolt of Boudica and the disappearance of the ninth legion at York (Jorvik/Eboracum) didn't happen because the langauge was different. They happened because the Roman governors were cruel to the tribes and could not subdue them. The overall collapse of Roman Britain was not helped by repeated rebellions from its governors in Londinium. It's really a testament to the incompetence of Roman leadership in the area that they couldn't adequately conquer a island populated by people who could not stop fighting each other. Anyway, look at Great Britain now. It's a nation that was built by tribes from all over Western Europe. Angles, Saxons, Normans, and even earlier Celts. Only two centuries ago, you could have found people speaking Welsh, Manx, Cornish, Breton, and Scottish Gaelic in the country. English itself is a Germanic language heavily influenced by Old French, Latin, and Celt languages. "Multiculturalism" seemed to work out reasonably well for them. But let's look at other countries. Is Switzerland doomed to fall apart? They speak four languages there. In France, about half a million people in the south still speak Occitan. Will Wales collapse into their old riotous ways if Welsh continues to make a comeback? Belgium? Belgium is an entirely artificial country, and they still manage to get by. Illegals are paid well below minimum wage. Also, our minimum wage is rising to above $7 by 2009. Combine this with the general fact that virtually no legal residents of areas like SoCal (for instance) want to do these jobs and you have a recipe for collapse. I think this is especially dangerous in SoCal's construction industry, a sector that is already softening.

They do not contribute to the tax base, but they reduce the cost of goods and services across the state dramatically. A large portion of the goods and services purchased by Californians (for example) have a lower cost because illegal Mexican labor is involved. And illegals don't pull from SS, so why should it matter that they don't put money into it? Giving driver's licenses to illegals is sort of tricky. We can either accept that they are going to drive (licensed or not, insured or not) and have no paper trail to them and no way to inform them of our traffic laws, or we can license them, track them, and at least require them to go through our basic driver's education requirements.

Humans create law to serve society's best interests. It is not in our best interest (in my opinion) to enforce illegal immigration laws aggressively. Similarly, it is not in our best interest to enforce speeding laws aggressively. It's certainly not in law enforcement's best interests to do so, as it would cause everyone to slow down so much that their revenue streams would be significantly hampered. This is why (for example), San Diego police have yearly "traffic months" where they swat down speeders non-stop all day long along the 5, 805, 15, and 163 freeways. They let up after that month because everyone has slowed down; they no longer gain the revenue that they desire. Laws have no volition of their own. They exist and operate because we collectively choose to keep them around. National borders are arbitrarily defined. Place of birth is not chosen. Minimum wage laws are arbitrary. People who legally immigrate to the U.S. cannot fill the same role as illegal laborers. Documented residents must be accounted for, which means that they have to go through the same tax, insurance, etc. systems as all other citizens. People who immigrate legally are almost assuredly not attempting to gain the same jobs as illegal laborers (basic manual labor). Saying that legal immigration is "best all around for everyone" ignores the plain economic facts about illegal immigration -- especially in areas like SoCal. The United States has three times the arable land as Canada, and subsidized agriculture is one of the country's strong points. Our food is abundant, cheap, and we have enough of a surplus that we have a net export (the last time I checked, France is the only other nation that can claim this). If every laborer working in fields gained an hourly wage of 7+ USD by 2009, you can bet that agricultural advantage would weaken severely. Why should the U.S. aggressively enforce laws that weaken one its own major industries (not to mention sundry other support labor groups)?

Nah. I'd rather have the infrastructure of Southern California not completely collapse in the unlikely event that the fence would actually be constructed. All of the illegal labor that employers rely on would have to be replaced by legal labor at legal rates, often with some measure of legal insurance coverage. I'm also not entirely confident that the children of Orange, Los Angeles, and San Diego counties are really eager to go work at the car wash, in the fields, and all of the other places that are currently run heavily with illegal Mexican labor. No outsourcing woes that corporate/industrial sectors of SoCal face are significantly affected by illegal Mexicans. Unless you count contracting/construction, but that's going to be dead in a few years anyway. I guess we could have all those guys keep building walls along our borders. I'd rather have the money for a wall go to money for intelligence. Knowing what's happening is more important (and effective) than creating a wall.

Those sorts of encounters can be fine, or even richly satisfying, as long as they are resolved briskly. Fallout's combat system didn't allow the rapid resolution of any battle featuring 25+ characters, regardless of the power imbalance. In contrast, Darklands allowed you to mop the floor with mobs in less than a minute. Which is an argument I did not make. I argued that companions are an imporant part of Fallout. Saying that they aren't is like saying that skiing or rocket jumping aren't important to Tribes or Quake, respectively. In all three cases, player reactions made a relatively small feature into something very important. Yes, and pushing forward in IWD2 is not as enjoyable as poking around off the beaten path and experimenting like you can in Fallout. But that poking around is dangerous because what you find might be impossible difficult -- or it might be trivially easy. Who knows?

Couldn't avoid the "watermark". http://diogenes-lamp.info/alienshooter.wmv

I completely disagree. The fact that I can poke around in the world at my own pace, facing challenges as I see fit is one of the best elements of both games. What's key is that the challenges at those locations do not dynamically scale and I am not prevented from exploring the world in the way that I want. What was intended and what players enjoyed are two different things. Clearly the original Fallout devs didn't expect people like the companions that much, but players sure did. I'm neutral on it, since I'm pretty "companioned" out. The differences don't have to be huge, and there don't have to be hundreds of them. And a little choice in how things get wrapped up would be nice. I enjoyed the Dark Brotherhood plotline, but I don't think it would have been crazy to allow that plotline to wrap up in two different ways, depending on player input. Great, so let's go back to that.