Gromnir

*snort* is no way in hell Gromnir is spending real money on game beyond subscription just for vanity enhancements. we get 500 or 600 free coins per month, and that is more than enough for us. saw some guy complain that he spent $$$$ to get 2 hypercrates and still no lizard mount... were blaming bio and ea. HA! little too much spirit o' p.t. barnum in the cartel stuff for Gromnir to get involved. HA! Good Fun!

our server is jedi covenant. was in ld 50 guild, but like we said, too much drama... and they were too focused on pvp anyway. when server transfer became available, guild died as virtual everybody went to a pvp server. we has done far less pvp since 2.0. am recalling getting jumped by a naked jugg smash monkey who killed us in 2 hits with us at about 90% health. yeah, it were a bug that got fixed, but that and the 40k health assassins in green mod gear and other nonsense made us think that maybe we would take a break from serious pvp for awhile. our biggest swtor gripe is actual customer service. no doubt customer service for other mmos is just as bad, but the canned and useless responses sets our teeth on edge. Gromnir runs into bug doing czerka dailies that prevents us from getting weekly despite completing all missions. please give us credit for weekly and fix bug.-- submit ticket under bugs category (mistake) 2 days pass blahblahblahblahblablah. bio response is complete unresponsive. is almost as if we got a bot response that scanned ticket for keywords and gave a pre-rendered response. soooo, Gromnir creates another ticket, this time under missions heading 2 days pass blahblahblahblahblahblah. translation: you are screwed. this is a known bug that will be addressed in a future patch. please search the boards for more info. please submit a bug report. ty. sincerely, #$%@&%$# ... bah. 'bout 1/2 of the very limited number o' tickets we submitted has resulted in a satisfactory resolution, and am estimating that average time to get resolution is 4 days. almost always need to submit a second ticket, so probable more like 1/3 of actual total tickets is ending in satisfied Gromnir. *grumble* HA! Good Fun!

sidenote: am not thinking the gameplay of either ps:t or kotor were great. bio developers did manage to get the feel of star wars combat and universe, but gameplay was quite shallow. ps:t is our favorite crpg, but is not 'cause o' gameplay. combat were almost an afterthought in ps:t-- bad afterthought. also, a walk-through of ps:t can be distilled thus: put every attribute point into wisdom and talk to every named npc for win. as much as we like ps:t, it were horribly balanced and Gameplay were no deeper than kotor. HA! Good Fun!

as strange as it may sound, Gromnir actual has a handful o' swtor "toons." am not an mmo guy, but we joined with a friend... a friend who quit 6 months later 'cause his wife wanted to play guild wars. d'oh. we does some pvp and has end-game characters, but doing regular raids for us is tougher because we is a solo player. we were in a guild for a short time and the drama were too... just too whatever. our heals sage is a known quantity on our server, so we is always getting invites, but just can't bring our self to do another guild.am thinking the only way we joins a guild is if it is a small group o' folks we knows quite well. is a busted game in many ways, but we still plays. go figure. HA! Good Fun!

soooo... am not quite sure we see a point. anybody here think it is a good idea to threaten developers o' a game with violence? email harassing o' artist or programmers is a good idea? anyone? am doubting any nutter who is gonna stalk a developer is gonna be dissuaded by a message-board appeal, but you get no argument from us that such behavior is bad. just kinda pointless to say so as all but crazies already agree and the real wackos is not gonna care if poster X observes that death threats is very rude. ... want us all to be nice to developers, is that it? 8 pages o'... whatever? doesn't seem to have an actual purpose. if we tells developers that they is so kewl they fart bose-einstein condensate, they will maybe make a better game? makes an over-the-top happy birthday poem to _________ the programmer maybe sees us get additional info drops? hmmm. seems kinda sketchy. well okie dokie, am guessing we can do our part. *Gromnir spreads arms wide and offers tim cain, and feargus urquhart a manly group hug* all good? HA! Good Fun!

Yes, waaaaay better. BG2? How many people voted? did a quicky search... were a few such polls: which ie game do you want pe to most feel like which crpg do you want pe to most resemble etc. 250 votes were most we saw for any single poll. kotor were never mentioned save as fitting in "other" category along with mass effect and a half-dozen other games. bg1/bg2 were typical lumped together... lord only knows why. big winners were typical bg1/bg2 as clear #1, and ps:t #2 just ahead of the field.. but were not Gameplay polls per se. am not sure if such polls is actual meaningful in any way, but there you have what we were able to see. HA! Good Fun!

what a new fallout game needs is "Great Atomic Power" by the Louvin Brothers. is shocking it ain't been in a previously released fo game... shocking. as for death mechanics... *shrug* got no problem with ordinary death mechanics, but we could see adding owb flavor: every time you dies, the mad scientists does some minor alterations. probable best to keep pure cosmetic, but you could add gameplay aspects too. some special unlock if you die a ridiculous number o' times. little cut-scene where you becomes fankenstein-deathclaw and go rampaging and gets burned to death in a windnmill by a mob of angry ghouls. then reset. HA! Good Fun!

You sound like all RPGs have to have specific features or they have no chance. Which is simply not true. Look at Grimrock or Skyrim/FO3. No companion interaction, no preset history for your PC necessary and still a lot of people had fun with these games many years after the "revolution". Wasteland2 will also have blank party members for you to (role) play. And Arcanum (if we ignore the combat) was loved by many people exactly as it was, even after BG. There is more than one way to do an RPG. @Gromnir: Rulebooks were the rule before context-sensitive help was invented/possible. Whether that information is in the game as tooltips and in-game manual screens or externally as a book there are games that simply need it. Even with the best user interface you can't avoid having to read auxiliary information in games like Civilization or a war game for example. So when codex praises arcanum for needing a book they are probably not refering to the UI descriptions but to the underlying mechanics that are described in the manual. PS: I can't remember to have had any problems with Arcanums UI when I played it. It might be different if a camera is behind my head and I was forced to do it inbetween designing new games. you says you is responding @Gromnir, but that doesn't seem to be the case. we responded to this: "while i enjoy watching the playthroughs of arcanum by sawyer, he would have taken away much more by reading the rulebook (which he didn't do given his issues with the interface). it had great fluff and told how it was envisioned, which is really good, and has pretty much what was lacking from the game itself." we replied thus: "that being said, we agree that one probably gets more outta arcanum by reading rulebook or even game manual than an actual play-through of the pc game. such a reality should be taken as a damning criticism o' arcanum, but folks at codex seem to thinks that gets tim cain bonus points. weird." your response that codexians like complexity such that secondary sources become necessary for game comprehension is not... responsive. *shrug* arcanum plays better from the manual or from rule book than it does on monitor using mouse or keyboard. were a conceptually very ambitious and intriguing project that fell short o' goals and claims of developers. were not polished. were not balanced. were not well-written. were not... *shrug* too many folks laud arcanum for what it aspired to be as 'posed to what it actually was. HA! Good Fun!

josh is the one with the religious motif tattoos. that being said, we agree that one probably gets more outta arcanum by reading rulebook or even game manual than an actual play-through of the pc game. such a reality should be taken as a damning criticism o' arcanum, but folks at codex seem to thinks that gets tim cain bonus points. weird. HA! Good Fun! ps in response to some poster above. arcanum were getting something like an extra +6 months o' qa time that most games do not. am assuming it were sierra that decided at the 11th hour that game would get a simultaneous europe and North America release. game were actual gold, but then release gets halted so game can be translated into polish and german and whatnot. all that extra time did not result in a more polished release

Why does your brain hurt? It seems to have this crazy idea that some consistency in the main canon might have a positive effect for the franchise. That or I have one of those brain eating amoebas. am ambivalent... can't decide if we is more puzzled that such canon exists, or that mc knows and bothered to find out such stuff. HA! Good Fun!

Not no, Yes. Project Eternity is said to be comparable to around the 16th century of our world, technology wise, and for some of the societies. With some differences, because the developers are NOT trying to make an exact realism simulator, as you seem to suggest. http://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/warriorshtm/palooka.htm http://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/warriorshtm/evilclown.htm Never argue with an idiot, he'll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience. Gromnir should take your advice and stop arguing with you, but you is just so darn obtuse that it is cute. start with another quote... just for fun. "bad books on writing and thoughtless English professors solemnly tell beginners to "Write What You Know," which explains why so many mediocre novels are about English professors contemplating adultery." we never claimed that pe was being presented as an exact reality simulator. please find where we said such a thing. we can wait. ... no? no such comment by Gromnir? what we said is that JOSH can seeming get fixated on details such that his design, while having many elements o' admirable authenticity, is often leaving us with otherwise stale or flat content. we referenced honest hearts and iwd2, not pe. tell us what espoused goals o' pe is pretty darn useless (and funny) when we is in a thread that has josh describing his personal philosophies 'bout the super-duper importance o' research and first-hand experience. oh, and lets drop the absurdism. we thinks even josh would dismiss your suggestion that pe, as it uses real-world cultures as basis for some in-game civilizations, would fall within the fuzzy definition o' historical fiction. not exactly shooting for Killer Angels. your wacky stretching exercise has virtual every fantasy novel or game ever made fall into historical fiction genre as most authors borrow elements from real world cultures. no doubt david eddings or lloyd alexander would be surprised to find out they were writers o' historical fiction. but then again, historical fiction bit is a largely nonsensical definition, so maybe an absurdest argument is bestest. good on you for going all unreasonable. ... am gonna take one last stab at where we thinks josh is stumbling. "write what you know" is good/bad advice. have heard it ascribed to Solzhenitsyn or Hemingway... which we s'pose is good advice if you were a big game hunter who were a nurse in the spanish civil war or spent time in soviet gulag and stalin's cancer wards. then again, only quote by Hemingway we can find that is close to our broken axiom is, “From all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive.” is kinda sad that Hemingway's original quote is not greeting card sized and easily recalled. the "write what you know" hobgoblin might never have spawned if Ernie were just a bit more trite. even so, we thinks the write-know advice is good if one focuses on gut-level emotion rather than facts. good writing, like good music or good painting, speaks to us on an emotional level. write what you know is advice to aspiring artists... not historians and journalists. tell a historian or journalist to write what they know seems more than a little silly, yes? pointless advice. josh reads the trite bit o' advice, wrong. am thinking he reads as a historian rather than artist, and so we end up with honest hearts. if Gromnir puts a tree in a story, the goal is not to makes an accurate tree. if we spends any effort on description of tree is 'cause we is trying to get audience to Feel something. josh ain't writing short stories or novels, but am thinking he loses sight o' fact that in this regard, games trees is no different than trees in novels. you is adding 'cause you want players to feel. does combat feel exciting and visceral? does old windmill location evoke dread? does forest makes player feel claustrophobic or trapped? whatever. is emotions you is trying to reach. *shrug* am thinking we has exhausted this topic, but if anybody gots a fresh pov, we is game. HA! Good Fun!

oh. let us see how long you keep silliness going. Gromnir has been posting this way since totsc were being developed, so we bet we outlast you by a bit... but will be fun to watch. *sigh* again with the reply/quote, but in different format. slow learner. oh, and getting worked up 'cause we call your posting "inane" is more than a little amusing, seeing as that were your choice o' description for your response... disappointing but not surprising. ... you make it difficult to respond and stay on-topic. is some insulting and childish language an **** expletive, grammar corrections (HA!) and redundant and pointless claims that we ain't making an argument. not give us much to work with, and will probably get thread pruned. historical fiction genre? well, we guess that were a responsive counter-argument... kinda. yes indeed, there is arguably a sub-genre o' fiction one can call historical fiction. no Pulitzer category or national book award category for historical fiction... is more just a bit a shorthand publishers use to better direct customers, no? that being said, is obsidian making historical fiction? no? kinda a pointless response then, but yeah, we suspect that in the extreme limited scenario in which an author o' a work claims to be creating "historical fiction," we does think some inclusion of "what is or was" is necessary. but please note that by inclusion o' the word "fiction" they is still is not writing about "what is or was." fiction, by definition is writing about that which is imaginary. and for every time you wanna mindlessly repeat "write what you know" as if it is some kinda axiom for authors, we can point to another author who is dismissive o' such nonsense. "creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who uttered the words "write what you know" is confined in a labour camp. please, talented scibblers, write what you don't. the blind guy with the funny little harp composed The Iliad. how much combat do you think he saw?" but again we feels the need to repeat as it keeps getting lost by folks with short attentions spans or those who is intentional obtuse. we is not arguing against research and first-hand knowledge. personal experience may add to flavor o' writing. sadly, some writers/developers get lost in the details, particularly if they genuine believe in the "super-duper" importance of such details. HA! Good Fun! ps please recall what we said 'bout thread prunes. call folks idiot or use **** is kinda like express ticket to prunedoom. doing such stuff is like saying, "you win." we personally find such antics amusing, but mods dont and we would like to keep you on the line a bit longer.

... *add jaw-drop here* interplay were in the business of making money. they had Shareholders. maybe you is thinking of non-profits and not art. a non-profit corporation Cannot issue stock. ea, ubisoft, square... has all made Loads of money off games over the years. and am not sure how you makes xbox parallel to software developers.... but am glad you brought up. ceo o' microsoft is stepping down. since ballmer took over as ceo, microsoft saw estimated net worth go from 600 billion to 300 billion. so no doubt that means all software/tech is a crap shoot and shareholders is stoopid for wanting to see better return than mutual funds. dumb stockholders. you bring up movies, no? Disney made $5.7 billion in profits last year. PROFIT. ... am genuine flabbergasted. HA! Good Fun!

the whole thing were largely inane, and as we said, the wacky reply/quote attempt made it largely nonsensical as you weren't actually responding to us. you realize how absolutely ridiculous it gets if Gromnir were to actual respond to each o' your silly reply/quote responses? not gonna do it. dont want us to respond to inane parts? advice: don't write/post/say inane. duh. back on topic. real world knowledge can be helpful where developer can add details to make more compelling or evocative, but actual real world knowledge necessary is often very small to nil. write what you know? we got a reply: "nothing can be more limiting to the imagination than only writing about what you know" write about what is or was? that is what journalists and/or historians is paid to do. writer of fiction... or developer of a game with a fantasy setting? seriously? HA! Good Fun!

gotta love these nonsensical responses wherein we get replies to snippets. is honest difficult to decipher in quote form. what the heck, we pointed out that 'cause the initial poster were relying on anecdotal, we would use in response... but no doubt your parsing prevented you form realizing. ... *chuckle* your Shakespeare response is classic though. who cares what he had access to? Harold Bloom: mr. Shakespeare's, "Julius Ceasar" was a travesty of a play, filled with historical inaccuracies and outright fabrications. to call any of his dramatic works "histories" is a vulgar misrepresentation. pundit: professor, you do realize that William Shakespeare, a man with only a public school grammar level education wrote his play around 1600? Harold Bloom: really? gosh. well then, i revise my opinion as follows: that Shakespeare chap was clearly the greatest writer of dramatic prose to ever put pen to paper... HA! Good Fun!

keep in mind that we is talking a 1999-2000 pc game. uncle fergie pointed out that planescape did, eventually, make it into the black. and you didnt need to sell 1 million copies back then to be a win. Relative sales numbers for ps:t ended up being better than some is suggesting. however, from point-of-view of the publisher, 1st 2 quarters sales numbers is most important... and a slow trickle over years is not helping. there just ain't much argument in support o' planescape being anything other than a commercial loss for interplay. takes a couple years to break even? that is a failure-- if you coulda' taken development money and put into mutual funds and seen better return over a handful o' years, you is not looking good on quarterly reports. all o' which is kinda off-topic, as we predicted would happen. planescape, whatever its Many flaws, had some admirable storytelling and memorable characters. good writing is not what killed planescape. HA! Good Fun!

For calling out others' straw man arguments, you seem quite prone to them yourself. No one is arguing that settings must be realistic, but rather that an understanding of the causal processes that have shaped the real world can help to create a believable and convincing fictional setting. If nothing else, this is because the real world is the only guide we have to go on when it comes to inventing sensible and internally consistent scenarios. Our psychology is simply inseparable from the world we live in, and even if we actively tried not to base our creations off of reality we would fail miserably. If you don't understand some of the nuance surrounding real world "rules", you may find yourself inadvertently breaking a different rule entirely, and bad things happen when a creator doesn't know which rules govern their creation (especially when you put that creation in someone else's hands). *sigh* bad saur... bad. poster above said, " I can't believe I'm actually seeing people argue that researching a topic before writing about it is a bad thing. " we never claimed that josh or some other poster argued specifically that reality should be a goal (although that happens more than a bit in threads such as these...and note how many times josh refers to "real-world" or "realistic" in video). we did say that he misses forest for trees and gets swallowed up by minutiae and details rather than making evocative. heck, listen to his discussion of character interactions. he wants believable/realistic, but his characters is typically... flat. I'm not going to say anything either way about the quality of characters written by Josh, but I will say that in my opinion really none of the RPGs I have played have had sufficiently interesting or deep characters. However, I do firmly believe that Josh's approach is the right one, and at any rate flat but believable characters are generally better than the usual alternatives (at least in my personal opinion), which consists of hyper-exceptional Ace McBadass's, generic Mary Sue's, and other exaggerated yet cliched archetypes. I guess I can't really speak for most people, but when I think of what- or who- characters should be like to be more compelling, I think of real people. will address this part specific, but only briefly as we is having this argument in another thread a bit further up the board resulting from a linky to http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/08/23/creating-dragon-age-party-members.aspx the vast majority of crpg characters is... cartoonish. apparently, the current scheme for developing crpg characters makes such a result almost inevitable. that being said, obsidian has a core of rather dedicated fans. is not combat mechanics of alpha protocol or kotor2 that got'em their fans neither. obsidian can/has done better. HA! Good Fun!

"Imagine a game with no story. "This is actually impossible to do." ok, we were wrong. you do wanna make absurdest argument. we once joked about the epic struggle depicted in pong, but that were all it were: a joke. "Characters are static at a certain point in the game's code." so what? from the writer's pov, static is much easier to add depth to. the point you miss about the planescape reference is that it had admirable story elements. it had depth. is nothing about the medium that prevents better storytelling elements from reaching at least ps:t levels... obviously. ps:t were well loved by many (enough to make the new planescape kickstarter project better funded than pe btw) and derided by many more. the thing is, good story elements did not necessarily make planescape a bad game. coulda' made combat better. coulda' fixed memory leak and other bugs. coulda' added elves and dwarves and longswords to makes fanbase happy without affecting story or bothering anybody save for chrisA. am not even gonna touch the "perfect ideal" bit. ... 'course now this thread becomes, "Why Ps:T failed" or didn't fail. HA! Good Fun!

For calling out others' straw man arguments, you seem quite prone to them yourself. No one is arguing that settings must be realistic, but rather that an understanding of the causal processes that have shaped the real world can help to create a believable and convincing fictional setting. If nothing else, this is because the real world is the only guide we have to go on when it comes to inventing sensible and internally consistent scenarios. Our psychology is simply inseparable from the world we live in, and even if we actively tried not to base our creations off of reality we would fail miserably. If you don't understand some of the nuance surrounding real world "rules", you may find yourself inadvertently breaking a different rule entirely, and bad things happen when a creator doesn't know which rules govern their creation (especially when you put that creation in someone else's hands). *sigh* bad saur... bad. poster above said, " I can't believe I'm actually seeing people argue that researching a topic before writing about it is a bad thing. " we never claimed that josh or some other poster argued specifically that reality should be a goal (although that happens more than a bit in threads such as these...and note how many times josh refers to "real-world" or "realistic" in video). we did say that he misses forest for trees and gets swallowed up by minutiae and details rather than making evocative. heck, listen to his discussion of character interactions. he wants believable/realistic, but his characters is typically... flat. josh is a knowledgeable guy, and we would be pleased to hear he is handling mechanics or management o' any number o games, but the more involved he seems to get with story and characters, the less we like the project. iwd2? honest hearts? part o' the problem we has with josh seems to be explained in his video. HA! Good Fun!

More than your target audience does. If one takes art and creativity as a form of teaching, even if only in abstract or non-literal terms, then it's important for the teacher to know more than the students. Like Josh said, you need to know a bit about something to have anything meaningful to say about it. If your stance is otherwise that they need not try to be meaningful, simply entertaining, then we'll just have to disagree. Star Wars is popular, sure, but it's not a very meaningful property. And I will personally be more pleased by works that have something to teach me than those that simply find me in common company for liking. 1) "more than your target audience does" is an exceedingly limited threshold. you wanna stick with such a fuzzy and limited goal? fine. clear josh is suggesting more. 2) nuts "if one takes art and creativity as a form of teaching" somebody wanna explain to tale what logic fallacy he is using? *shrug* even if we were to somehow force onto art a universal educational quality, then it necessarily would needs be quite broad. so broad in fact that it would be near meaningless. is haiku and pottery that is accepted by lay-folk and scholars alike as art that perhaps teaches something only so vague as "that is beauty as i have not seen before and my world is a better place now that i have experienced it" removed from tale's notion of art? be dismissive of star wars 'cause o' your knowing of art is, in our estimation, the height of arrogance. 3) josh is correct, and wrong yup, you gotta know a bit about something to say something meaningful 'bout it.... but josh gets hung up on stuff that aint necessarily meaningful to his audience. 'cause we stick the trappings o' the roman legion in a story, it does not mean that our "something meaningful" is the trappings o' the roman legions. and just because you know something, doesn't mean you got something meaningful to say. even more relevant in the present context, just because know a bit (or even alot) doesn't mean you got anything ENTERTAINING to say. we is talking about games-- entertainment media. one o' the best history classes we ever took were a freaking community college course we grabbed over a summer for no other reason than that we were trying to graduate a year quicker. we went to Cal and some other UC schools for undergrad, masters and jd and took history classes at all levels. we had professors who were at the pinnacle o' their profession. we has a hard time remembering most o' their names, and we has a very good memory. nope, the class we recalls most were the one taught us by some guy at a no-name JC in northern california. the guys that, for the most part, bored us to tears such that we slept through their classes and pretty much learned through independent study was Very knowledgeable. my profs, no doubt, knew a bit about history. the fact is that their knowledge didn't give them any special gift for communicating in such a way as to make the subject entertaining should be noteworthy. probable more noteworthy is we bet they all thought they were entertaining. josh gots alot to say... 4) you need not know more than student to teach them something bunk. is some students out there that will grow too old for this bit o' wisdom to be useful: people who know less than you, can teach you important lessons. HA! Good Fun!

if that is all the value you attach to story (hope that isnt the case) then there is only a little bit wrong with your pov. donkey kong had characters too. the relative importance o' gameplay in donkey kong were such that the story justifications were understandably negligible. is a continuum, no? take a similar minimalist "justification" approach to story elements would renders a game like planescape unplayable. *shrug* story elements is indeed having value as a justification, but am not thinking you were trying to make an absurdest argument. perhaps you wish to clarify... or not. HA! Good Fun!

am not recalling where we said, "absolutely all chrisA characters are 1-dimensional caricatures." ravel, and her various incarnations in obsidian games, has been compelling... which is probable why chrisA puts her in every game. (sidenote: ravel part in motb were disappointing, so not all ravel has been good) regardless, the fact that chrisA can do ravel/kreia, but still contends that the hook is most important, is all the more saddening... even if such an approach is reasonable. HA! Good Fun!

feel free to imagine an inserted eye-roll emoticon here if doing so better conveys our mixed derision and exasperation. *sigh* HA! Good Fun! ps unless you wanna get thread chopped, please add something thread-relevant to your posts. is bad form. example: arcanum, in addition to being a snooze-fest with wildly unbalanced combat mechanics, had no memorable characters.

straw man. lose two points and try again. HA! Good Fun!

platitudes and anecdotal evidence? we has used the tired saw regarding knowing before breaking. it is a good guide, but it ain't some kinda rule in and of itself. also, am thinking it is more useful for mechanics than for conceptual in any event. think i gotta have some kinda serious knowledge o' pre-columbian south american cultures to be writing an entertaining fantasy based loose on incan legends? how much do i need to know? how much Rule is there needed to knowing before breaking is ok? with his basic grammar school education, we doubt Shakespeare were doing serious historical investigations to be creating his plays. in point o' fact, we doubts anybody would use Shakes as some kinda model o' historical accuracy. what rules were he breaking? America's greatest author (north, south and central) is arguably Faulkner. am suggesting you maybe take a looksee at his education and how he approached writing process. the most popular sci-fi franchise, by far, is star wars, and there ain't no freaking serious science in that. for every kim stanley robinson you care to name (dan simmons probably don't count as hard sci-fi) there is dozens o' well-loved authors who only gots the most incidental and largely broken knowing of that which they is writing. anecdotal will not get us very far, particularly when it seems clear that the genuine scientists don't got some advantage when crafting popular or good sci-fi. we could do all-day-long the anecdotal thing as you introduced, but am not sure it would be helping. keep in mind we has said that first-hand knowledge o activities and serious scholarship may improve writing where author uses details to makes more evocative. other end of spectrum is just as true, no? ignorance can be breaking suspension o' disbelief. if a writer is so clear lacking knowledge of Real, then anybody with even a bit o' genuine knowledge will be dismissive of the writer's work... though that threshold is hardly fixed. tv cop tasting cocaine or heroin drives us nuts, but you see all the time. just 'cause Gromnir is bothered by such things clearly does not mean that the insanity o' a modern cop tasting possible evidence that amounts to an unknown substance from an unmarked package is wacky enough to ruin suspension o' disbelief for most audience. infusing knowledge/reality to make evocative = good. treating reality as a goal, in-and-of-itself = bad. josh, it seems, frequent misses forest for trees. he wanna get each branch and leaf accurate. can't possibly have birches at such latitude. birch forests can't be near as dark as described. is implausible. and if you do got birches, the forest humus would not nearly be as dark and damp as described. etc. josh spends loads o' effort trying to get flora and fauna o' his forest accurate, thinking that doing so is important. to a certain degree it is... but josh gives disproportionate weight to such stuff. he ends up with a believable forest in which we don't give a darn 'bout what happens. 2 words: honest hearts. HA! Good Fun!