Humodour

Everything is Alvin's fault. Ok, who are you talking to at the company? A little crate told me.

I think he meant fist-fighting or fisticuffs. Which makes it all the more hilarious.

Because it's really important to make decisions about what the game sounds like based on one preview that hasn't even come out yet. Yeah.

Hahahaha. Oh this is beyond ace.

Tigranes: so are you saying it makes sense to believe in science, but choose not to believe certain theories in it, like evolution or the big-bang, in favour of intelligent design? I'm not sure I could have given a better example of doublethink if I tried.

moar liek failings of u

*cries* You... just... don't... get... it...

One minute you're telling me I'm being too philosophical/formal about determinism and the next your quoting a philosophical definition of determinism to back-up your 'point'. Look, I'll just stop here, because we're going in circles: - Determinism as used in science, philosophy, and everyday usage is a reference to sufficient cause (unless it explicitly states it is something less rigorous, such as environmental determinism); sufficient cause is predictive. - I can accept an alternate less rigorous definition of determinism as being something like "one things leads to another in the universe/natural world" but I don't see the point because it's not a definition I've seen in use, since it is just a synonym of causality (when in fact determinism is a specific case of causality; they aren't the same in typical usage).

But science isn't limited by human perception, is it? Isn't science just the underlying laws of the universe waiting to be discovered? So humans or not, science explains the universe? Krookie: Because it could. That is the real answer. 1 in nonillion planets over 9.4 billion years undergo a vast array chaotic and random processes over and over again, some with more equilibrium systems than others. To be honest I'd be surprised if a proto-cell didn't emerge with such large numbers applied repeatedly to the chances of various steps in its formation. It's a very similar question to "Why do animals reproduce?" or "Why do animals evolve/change?". Because they can; because the world around them is not static, and they must change with it or perish - if they can change with it, they will. Thus is the case of the first proto-cell. Essentially it formed because it was possible, and possible as you approach infinity in terms of the number of tries becomes certainty.

You're going to have a very very hard time justifying this statement. Even if one considers Deus Ex an RPG, it is a giant stretch to label it typical. I did this earlier in the thread when listing why I felt it was an RPG. I listed all the 'typical' RPG traits that came to mind, and Deus Ex had them. Perhaps you'd be better off attempting to justify why it isn't a typical RPG? Don't say "because it's first person".

Haha. Certainly I am far more willing to accept a conception of God that simply created the RULES by which the universe is governed and gave it a start value (BIG BANG WEEE). Even so, platonic conceptions of mathematics are fraught with their own problems. I believe the platonists were none too happy about Goedel's theorems.

13.4 years actually. And life is between 3.5 and 4.4 billion years old. Let's say 4 billion. That means it took the universe 9.4 billion years to produce life on at least one planet. Considering the observable universe (the part of the universe it will ever be possible for humans to infer about, due to light being slower than universe's expansion) is at least one millionth the size of the entire universe (based on density at the edge of this observable universe), and our observable universe has about 10^24 planets, a rough estimate for the number of planets in the entire universe is 10^30 or so. So it took 9.4 billion years for the universe to produce life on at least one of a nonillion planets. Doesn't seem far fetched to me. * a nonillion is 1 million billion billion

Again, stop doing that. Stop confusing the definition with the extension of the philosophy. When I say "basic concept of determinism" I mean only what is explicitly stated by that definition. Not everything covered by the philosophy that definition associates itself with. What you're referring to are not basic in the least. They're just common. de

My point is, as I said at the start of the thread, people shouldn't be so quick to claim information, processing, patterns or complexity are due to God. Too often people resort to God of Gaps when science can answer the question if you have a little patience and an ability to see things holistically. What Turing machine argument are you talking about? Nothing I said about Turing machines is refutable to my knowledge; thus is the nature of mathematics - a theorem is forever true, and I was careful only to state things about CAs which HAVE been proven. Just read about the Chinese Room thought experiment. Why on earth are you bringing this up? I never made any claims about the human brain as a CA. Not to mention if I were to make such claims I would claim it is a quantum or probabilistic CA (which certainly fits the definition of the brain more closely than any classical CA) and thus avoid the Chinese Room problem altogether. Why are you intuitively claiming I am wrong? Many (most) cellular automata rulesets are universal Turing machines and thus can be converted to any and all possible neural nets (this one's a basic tenent of neural nets and CAs). Further, it is possible to simulate any system in classical mechanics with a cellular automata; any limitation to what a cellular automata simulation of a physical system can do are also limitations to what a real physical system can do (based off those rules). Obviously because our world is governed by classical mechanics only approximately, this isn't as strong a bond (certainly not deterministic). I'm not arguing anything am I? Stop reading into my post things that aren't there. I didn't say anything about human consciousness, so why on earth are you claiming I am arguing something about it? Far out man. Quantum universal Turing machines have been defined thoroughly and proved rigorously. They are for use in quantum computation and quantum algorithms, but I imagine they'd also be useful for some simple quantum mechanics closed systems. Anything a classical universal Turing machine can do, so too can probabilistic and quantum Turing machines (and faster). Classical mechanics is a set of rules about how to govern the universe. It is a type of cellular automata. One cannot use CAs to try and figure out the universe, however, because it is an open system (and quantum mechanics isn't complete). What you can do is determine the bounds of a system (close it) and simulate from there assuming classical mechanics. This has been used to solve and help with various problems in physics (e.g. the cellular automata of setting cement, which is an extremely hard to predict process without recourse to CAs). I'm not making a case for anything. If you read the thread title you'll understand the purpose of this thread: to elucidate why gaps in knowledge, complex unknowns seemingly impossible for anybody but god to have created, don't imply God. I am giving reasoning against "only God can design complexity"; I am not denying or confirming the existence of God, but pointing out things typically thought to require recourse to God, when in fact they can be explained through recourse to science which is always, given sufficient evidence, a far stronger rationale (principally because of the existence of evidence). The blurb about CAs was to help show how if those two specific examples of CAs in nature of exist, then by the nature of CAs it's possible many other phenomena may also be less divine than previously thought. Well, you could always read the title.

I only used the word tone because it's used in the article. I do fully expect the actual words to be different depending on what style you chose. Errr what I mean by tone is that the character may use different words but the dialogue outcomes don't actually change; that's the only method available to ensure you can change tone absolutely whenever you please. Obviously this is a nonsense approach for an RPG, so I think it is: I'm still not sure about the break-points though. To me it doesn't seem like this article is saying that at all. I'm still under the impression that you'll be using one style until you specify to use another, rather than choosing for each response. I guess we'll know more when the full article surfaces, or when info gets released through more channels. I mean that the dialogue will be governed by bifurcation paths at set points (at which time a tone change occurs, regardless of when you selected the tone change), not one linear path just with different words. I think that's a safe presumption to make right? So that tells us that each dialogue tree will have at most 3^n possible outcomes, where n is the number of times you fork and assuming each tone fork is different in its effective outcome (unlikely to always be the case). Although in practice this probably isn't true given the fact that a fork for one tone at one point doesn't imply a fork for another tone at that point. (Man I need to stop using 'assume'. Assuming makes an ass out of you and me. Princes assume the crown; nutjobs presume it's aliens.)

I was going to say that, but then I realised I think that almost every time Visc says something outlandish, and it's not possible that he tops himself each time. I then reconciled this knowledge by accepting my fallibility as a human, and that memories fade, so in fact I am capable of being astounded equally much each time I read said material.

Possibly true for the conscious brain, but not the sub-conscious brain. An interesting idea. Not really that un-intuitive, either. Given memory storage and the always-on nature of the subconscious brain perhaps waking up is like moving the mouse on the computer when it has gone into power-save mode/standby/hibernation; it jump starts the conscious brain and uploads all necessary information for this session. Supported by the fact that sleep isn't used to reinforce knowledge/memories, but rather to purge the brain's 'RAM' for fresh use upon waking up (also why a 90 minute nap in mid-afternoon increases learning efficiency and retention).

A small piece in the case for Science of Gaps instead of God of gaps: Pretty complex hey? How could science possibly explain that? Well, while not actually trying to, it accidentally did: It turns out the pattern on the Conus textiles is just a rule 30 cellular automata; the pigments interact according to rule 30 of cellular automata theory. Did you know plants open and close their stomata in a way that looks like either a brain or intelligent being is controlling each single pore to fully maximise oxygen intake and minimise water vapour loss? I believe the complexity of such an optimisation problem is beyond the capacity of even the human brain, yet plants manage it somehow. Is it god? No, it's a cellular automata system. The rules are actually fairly complex, unlike for the Conus textiles, but it basically amounts to every single stomata being linked to every other stomata (through neighbouring stomata) in a domino effect fashion. The cellular automaton quickly and easily solves the optimisation problem posed. Sound like an unlikely explanation? It's not; it's been verified. Not to mention cellular automata have been shown to be very good at solving optimisation problems before; they can be converted to neural networks. Both neural networks and cellular automata are universal Turing machines; any computer created, and algorithm or programming language created, can be replicated by a cellular automaton. Any universe defined by classical mechanics is a deterministic cellular automaton. Further, universal Turing machines (classical type) are a subset of quantum universal Turing machines, as classical mechanics is a subset of quantum mechanics (and indeed classical mechanics is equivalent to a classical universal Turing machine, and the same for quantum mechanics). In fact the simple Game of Life is an example of a universal Turing machine cellular automaton. It's also fun: http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/ Set it to fast and tiny, then throw a bunch of dense clusters of dots on the grid and press start.

j'et adore

If it's only based on tone, then you could change on the fly. However this also means that you're saying the same thing regardless of tone. Because I doubt that's the case, I imagine you'll have set break-points where your tone can change (like any RPG). More complex than the above, but offers more choice and immersion. Also more familiar to RPG fans (since it's exactly the same method Fallout, BG, etc use, excepting labels instead of sentences; the overall dialogue trees are identical in structure, though with perhaps less branching needed due to the illusion of increased choice, as in DX).

Conversation sounds fine; that's essentially what most games do anyway... though hopefully we get to actually see what the first few sentences of each response actually are; both Bloodlines and Deus Ex allowed that (and they're both more like the system described than your typical RPG is). I don't tend to chose an option if it is simply labelled 'brutish' or 'intimidation', yet I may choose it without a second thought if instead of a label I actually got to read what would be said (at least initially). So hopefully if this system doesn't show us what will be said, it at least allows us to change our tone to something else before any unintentional damage is done. EDIT: I mean it's all in the naming. 'Professional' and 'brash' give negative connotations, and not in the 'good' form of "oh I'm a mean thug die die die" but more in the form of "I'm unemotional and boring" and "I'm immature", respectively; not things people want to role-play. Over-analysis? Considering how people subconsciously judge, no.

Seems far-fetched to me. Causality doesn't imply predictability (determinism). Causality implies "if I do this, something will happen". It makes no assertions about what will happen. There's nothing about predictability in there. Simply that everything that is is causally determined. HEY! What does causality mean again? Don't confuse the basic concept of determinism with the philosophy of determinists. Um, ok... that was a rather vehement response to my post. The 'basic concept of determinism' is predictive determinism (also known as: scientific determinism, causal determinism and classical determinism). In fact, the definition you quoted is for predictive determinism. Just because it doesn't say the word 'predictive' doesn't mean it isn't predictive. If you'll continue to read the wikipedia article you took that quote from you'll notice that it explicitly states that this form of determinism is predictive. Any system which is governed solely by sufficient cause (not necessary cause or probabilistic cause) is both predictive (given an omniscient being) and deterministic (you know it is predictive, but you can't predict it, due to complexity). What you said is you agree with determinism, then in a new sentence you said causality is inviolate. The implicit meaning there is that you agree with determinism because you agree with causality. Yet causality doesn't imply determinism, and in fact it seems causality doesn't always hold (e.g. decay of an isotope).

Icewind Dale has it for each character. Number of kills, % of kills, experience.... I think all the IE had those stats as does TOEE. Not saying I am in favor of them, just providing information Ah yes! I knew I'd seen them in RPGs before. Fallout also had it as enemies killed, but that was extremely innocuous. I guess the reason the IE games didn't bother me was because they too were very innocuous. It's only when it pops up in my face at the end of every level/mission that it bugs me.

mkreku: Your points would be valid and the best choice in some circumstances. E.g. you have no time limit, your employees don't get bored of doing the same thing over and over again, and your writers don't run out of quest ideas and unique ways to write dialogue for a character. But let's be reasonable here: I don't know any game company that doesn't have strict deadlines, and I don't know any writer who can pump out good stuff day after day without starting to repeat himself in some way. Given the resources available, development studios cannot logically produce a game that is not only wide in scope, but also consistently deep for that entire scope. Most people recognise this, which is why we don't feel Oblivion is Obsidian's style, and why we feel that Oblivion SHOULDN'T be Obsidian's style. On the other hand, what SHOULD be Obsidian's style is the illusion of choice and the illusion of scope, combined with appropriate amounts of real choice and scope. Methods for achieving this include: focusing on a few specific areas in a world, ensuring that said areas are deeply detailed, immersive and non-linear, then somehow making it appear as though there is much more to the world. Bloodlines does this by implying the other areas aren't important to your character, whilst fallout does this by arbitrarily restricting the map and only showing key settlements. Another method used to imply non-linearity and choice is to unveil areas in a fairly linear fashion, but at a speed much faster than the player can reasonably explore/understand the previous area(s), up to a certain point, such as half-way through the plot (so they have time to catch up and don't get too overwhelmed). Slightly overwhelming the player in this way can make a fairly linear game seem like so much more to the player. E.g. Torment and Bloodlines. In Torment, the first half of the plot is really quite linear, however to get from any point a to point b in the plot often opens up access to one area for the plot and 2 more areas in general. Essentially it boils down to most players spending 2/3 to 3/4 of their time in the first half of the game, then only once they're satisfied do they move on. In this way the player feels like the scope is large and the choices many; they certainly don't feel like the world has been arbitrarily limited in scope. However, since much of the story is still yet to come, by the end of the game they also feel satisfied that the game had a sufficiently deep story and atmosphere. Smart game design can often do more than exhaustive game design.