Azarkon

I have a need for good fantasy strategy games at the moment. Warcraft III was an utter failure (in the RTS front; the custom map front is great) in my eyes and most modern RTS games are either historical, modern, or futuristic. Not that I can't enjoy a good fight between tanks and marines, but it gets really old after the 12th game with the same theme, not to mention missing some of the core features I miss from fantasy games (namely a good, gameplay-centric unit advancement / magic system). In the same vein, I thirst for a game that would take the basic idea of the Homeworld series and take them to the next level. Relic's Dawn of War was more or less a good game, but it came nowhere close to being as fresh as their original Homeworld was. Where have all the great space operas gone? I'm talking the ones where different races of the galaxy collided in battle and gigantic capitol ships lit the night sky with their massive cannons while fighters and frigates danced about each other like fire flies. Where you could build your own dreadnoughts and launch them into the dead of space as a last desperate strike against your victorious enemies. Where things like bombing tech for planetary bombardment and death rays for capturing ships had not yet become "too complicated." Oh, the nostalgia! Anyhow, here's to the hope that we get away from the "realistic modern warfare" trend the strategy (and action) genre has made cliche as of late. I think that dozens and dozens of CS and AoE-clones really make a dent on the idea that "you could never have too much of a good thing".

Be thankful of that. It's the only reason single-player games still exist

There has been enough of a lapse in HOMM's popularity after HOMM III that even hardcore fans have waned in their fanaticism. Enough so that they could once again be excited by the prospect of a new HOMM, at any case, since it's been so long since the series saw anything of interest. The same maybe said for Fallout, but for the persistence of strong Fallout communities like NMA. The great communities of the HOMM series, like H3Trio, AstralWizard, and the like, have all gone the way of the dinosaurs. Besides, one of the greatest HOMM III mods - in the Wake of Gods - was made by Russians. I daresay that there may just be a bit of hope in them to recapture the glory of HOMM II/III.

A loaded question. Answer yes, and you are branded a gambler, a luck dependent, a gamer who substitutes for skill the roll of the dice. Answer no, and you are a determinist, a predictaramas, a person who cannot appreciate chaos and who cannot adapt to the unknown. Do I like randomness? Of course! Of course not. I appreciate the uncertainty that lies in Schrodinger's box, but too much of it and my choices become meaningless. Perceived order makes me think that I've some skills of observance, but too much of that and action becomes meaningless - as I'd already know the results. Balance, in all things ideological, is best.

I can't stand Guild Wars for some reason. Many of my friends play it, and they would really like to see me playing it too. But each time I try, I find that I'm bored out of my mind. Everything seems just so pointless: no community (outside of your friends), no real competition (except for PvP), no real economy, boring combat (PvE), and certainly no real incentive to become level 20 so that you can beat on Koreans/Americans/etc. Guild Wars, for me, is Morrowind with better graphics and the possibility of playing with friends. I went about 3 hours in Morrowind before abandoning the game out of boredom. Guild Wars lasted longer, but still can't compare to Everquest, which took up ~6 years of my time. But I suppose six years of EQ have a tendency to jade you. Still, I find Diablo II more interesting than Guild Wars, and I've played that game for a year or so after it came out too.

I've always seen the essence of games being a hobbyist's enterprise. The modern trend of mass entertainment may saturate the market, but my own interests lie more with the fringe games, the community of mod-makers, and the indie innovators/enthusiasts. I hate to say something like "the good old days" with respect to the time when people who made games did it for the love of the game, so I won't. Instead, I'll point out that the equivalent of those old small-scale game developers (sometimes as few as a company of one) today is the mod community. They share the passion of the greatest game developers out there (albeit lacking in experience), with none of the corporate and economic fetters. Sure, they ain't gonna produce you a polished, casual, user-friendly, and bug-free game, but that's only really a problem for the average joes who look to gaming as just another way to relax for an hour after a day's work. For the more serious hobbyists, who thrived in the days when games were scarce, difficult to install, and even more difficult to actually play, they're often the only source of true excitement (aside from a few notable companies who strive to make great games despite the odds). And it is in this area that I place my hopes for the future of gaming - that companies would embrace the idea of modding (some already do, thankfully) and release their game for the masses, but their tools for the enthusiasts. Technology will inevitably improve the tools of the trade, so as long as gaming exists as a hobby, true innovation will not die. Perhaps the days of the single-man developer has passed, but the days of the single-man mod creator is yet to come (or here, if you prefer).

Exactly what's so exciting about next-gen games. Less artists, more programmers :D Kidding. The reality, though, is that procedural graphics is *likely* the way of the future in terms of large-scale games. I don't mean the death of personalized graphics - far from it. You'll still have your hand-crafted NPC's with unique skins/models, your uniquely stylish weapons, whatever. The difference, though, is that the *art* itself will be easier to produce. No more artists spending weeks perfecting a temple that's only "up to par". Imagine, instead, the ability to translate your idea of the scene into the computer in 1/5th - 1/10th of the time, which leaves room for both better details and more (longer?) gameplay. It's happening with animation. It will happen with games. Not that I've anything against slow-and-steady handcrafted art. It's just that, in today's consumers' eyes, the baseline of a game is having "decent" graphics. The bar will only rise with time, and we can imagine that in order to produce a game in the coming decades, you would either need to hire teams of hundreds of artists (thus making mass appeal and corporate dominance even *more* prevalent, not to mention the management ability to distribute work over such a large crowd), or discover new technology that would allow you to create better art at ten times the speed through a combination of procedural modification of previous or base models. and better production architecture Personally, I'm thinking the latter will come true sooner than the former.

True revolutions in a industry often take you by surprise. If you could've seen it coming, it wouldn't be revolution, merely evolution, or possibly "devolution". But a revolution is not needed for innovation to show. A revolution is simply a innovation that has captured the imagination of the devouring masses - that has proven itself a commercial boombox. The rest of the innovations are there, below the surface of the mass-produced "pop" games, usually coming from less-known developers, or at least the less-known titles of better known developers. They're almost never from the industrial giants - but that's to be expected, because industrial giants are, as they say, trapped by their own success. I could provide you with a list of titles that I consider innovative as of late, but that, I think, is a stillbirth enterprise. For innovation is not exactly easy to judge objectively unless you've played every game in every genre on every platform, and have the same criteria for measuring innovation in games. Each of us, I presume, have different experiences with when and how we approached gaming, as well as to what games we've played. What one might consider innovation, then, another might consider contrived, and I do not see the point of getting into such an argument. So I'll just say this: if you limit yourself to commercial, media-hyped titles from successful, trusted companies, the gaming industry will undoubtedly prove much more stagnant than it really is. That's not to say that commercially successful companies will never innovate (take Spore, for instance, from EA), but it is to say that they are less willing to innovate, given that thousands of people's jobs are at stake not to mention many times more shareholders. The more weight one bears on one's back, the less risk prone one tend to be - that's not a fault of the gaming industry, it's human nature. Innovation is the stuff of explorers, and so only through exploration can you discover it. I'll leave it at that.

Unfortunately, storylines do not tend to work very well in MMORPGs. They can work up to a certain point - ie WoW and FFXI both *have* storylines that you follow, so to speak - but ultimately the point of playing a MMORPG is not a pre-crafted story. If it were, there'd be no point to have MMORPGs - single player RPGs *will* do better. (and herein is a good reason why single player RPGs will not disappear simply b/c of MMORPGs, as some doomsayers have heralded in the golden age of EQ and WoW) The three overlapping factors that define a MMORPG are, I think, community, interaction (game play), and immersion. A pre-crafted story falls only as a sub-category under immersion, and is only a small aspect of world building. The other categories, community and interaction, are of foremost importance to a successful MMORPG. Without a community, a MMORPG is simply a boring hack 'n slash grind or "quest machine": to the on-looker, such a game will never seem fun and will always seem pointless. It's the community that gives meaning to the activities within a MMORPG, and successful community building requires game design that encourages interaction between people (not necessarily FORCED GROUPING, as is often the solution devs turn to) and the formation of friendships and organizations (guilds). A game that succeeded wildly at community building is Everquest. A game that had all the other elements more or less right (except, possibly, immersion), but failed at community building, is World of Warcraft. Interaction means gameplay in a MMORPG, and the two terms are interchangeable. Interaction is where the game mechanics lie, and it's interaction that, along with immersion, "wows" the beginning MMORPG player. Interaction includes things like combat, diplomacy, trade, exploration, treasure hunting/item gathering, trade skilling, PvP, and, ultimately, affecting the world. Most MMORPGs at the moment sell themselves via interaction, because interaction is the area in which traditional games have typically improved themselves on predecessors (community and immersion are more nebulous in terms of a "feature" list). The problem with a focus on interaction, however, is the tendency to simply add on or fix problems of previous MMORPG game mechanics - for instance, FFXI, WoW, and most current fantasy-based MMORPGs are more or less derivative of Everquest, as Everquest was derivative of MUDs. This doesn't leave much room for a complete overhaul of the system, which certain MMO's have tried (ie A Tale in the Desert), but have failed due to the popularity of the current system. One obvious avenue of expansion in the interaction sub-category is dynamism: the ability for players to change the world dynamically, and to define their own world within the game, so to speak. Some MMORPGs are beginning to attempt a bit of this, though as far as game design goes, it's pioneer territory and thus slow to evolve. The final aspect of a MMORPG is immersion. Immersion is, simply put, the ability of the game world to suck you in. Here, the idea is little different than traditional single player RPGs, and is thus a point of commonality between the two genres. Everything from character creation and graphics to world design and lore fall into this category, and suffice to say a good community and set of game mechanics are endemic to a immersive world. There is certainly alot of room for expansion in this category, as neither MMORPGs nor CRPGs in general have attained the kind of immersion we imagine fitting of virtual worlds. Where is the future of MMORPGs? In my current outlook, two genres will emerge. One will be the virtual world simulation, which will stress realism in immersion (not necessarily realism as in the real world, but realism as in full-body presence), interaction, and community to the point of becoming virtual worlds ala the Matrix, minus the evil robots using humans as energy batteries part (instead, we'll have corporations using customers as money batteries, but I digress). The other will be the massive multiplayer online GAME, and will stress the interaction aspect of MMO games, placing gameplay on a pedestal and designing for the sake of "fun and games." Either way, the thing to understand about MMORPGs and MMOGs in general is that they differ from traditional games in only one significant technological way, and that is the ability to place MASSIVE amounts of people in the same interactive world. Successful MMOGs, ie games that will define the genre and determine its future direction, are games that can take advantage of the tens of thousands of players in the same world idea, especially the inevitable relationships that form between human beings congregated together. Utilize any other method, and I would think that you'd be defeating the very essence of a MMORPG, and might as well have been working in another genre.

Thanks I'm hardly new, though, and have been lurking and occasionally posting since the board began (was a member of the old BIS boards; ah, the memories).

Agreed. Sex-in-video-games by itself certainly doesn't sell as well as an old-fashioned good game, since the former's clientele consists of essentially porn lovers, while the latter has a much larger pbase. However, I think there should be a distinction between the games that really do not need sex appeal (ie board games, strategy games, horror games) and those that really do. Character-based games (ie RP/Adventure/Fighting Games) float or sink with the "attractiveness" of their characters. Now that attractiveness *need* not be physical, but it generally is. That's not to say you can't sell a game without attractive characters, but you'd be penalizing yourself for doing so - enough that most companies opt for the route of lesser resistance. The situation is exacerbated in online games. While there are those who could care less how their characters look like, there's a increasing number of gamers who take a pivotal interest in it. Take WoW for example: Alliance numbers commonly vastly outnumber Horde. While the ease of playing Alliance maybe cited as one factor, it also cannot be denied that the number of "Night Elve females", compared to Troll/Orc females, paint a very different picture as to the dominating factors. I think this is a trend that we'll see deepened in the coming years, as we move closer to more "realistic" representations of virtual worlds. When it comes to characters, attractiveness in a NPC is a plus (or a necessity for games trying to sell their romances), but attractiveness in a PC, in a online world, might very well be a defining factor of how well it sells.

I found certain points of the article worth noting:

Almost every form of legal censorship is extreme, by necessity. Thoughtful censorship occurs at the social and economic levels with what is actually being created and released, and what is economically feasible. I am always fearful of general censorship laws, and laws involving censorship are always overly general.

I would rather not see games, or any medium of entertainment, for that matter, become a vehicle for social engineering. That is all.

That's exactly the reason why the universities exist and why the opinions of students and professors must exist to balance the general populace. The older you become, the more conservative you tend to be - this is not a rule, but it's true enough to be significant. Conservatives are necessary: they maintain order in a society that would otherwise change arbitrarily whenever a new ideology comes along. However, a society can become stagnant and, eventually, decadent through the lack of change. That's where the educated youth comei in: as a force of change. Many societal changes in the past years have been made by either students or intellectuals - the average American did not just stand up and demand change unless it affected them personally (ie, the economy). They were coaxed into it when such-and-such movement became too powerful to ignore. What I dislike about your argument, Eldar, is that you originally implied that the public's dismissal of student arguments is a result of said arguments being blatantly incorrect in addition to failures of rhetoric. As you explained later, it's a far cry difference between the public's ability to be convinced by an argument and its actual truth value. But there are more factors in the equation than mere skill of rhetoric: You use the word rhetoric to stand for, seemingly, EVERYTHING that factors into the ability of a man to convince the public that he is the right person for the presidency except for, it seems, military force. From my point of view, that's a misuse of the word. Rhetoric means: "The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively." It does not mean being the son of an ex-President. It does not mean having a background of military service. It does not mean being chosen (for whatever reason) the candidate of the rising Republican party. It does not mean being a symbol for conservative and religious values, or running at a time of crisis and confusion for the Democratic party. If you say to me that Bush won because he had better rhetoric skills than Kerry, my interpretation is that you're claiming that Bush was a better speaker, or at least a more effective manipulator of the medium of language. He is neither. At best, you can argue that Bush's rhetoric consisted of his ability to speak like the average joe and that this won him the presidency. That's a debatable point. But beyond that, there are many reasons why Bush won, and many more why he stayed in office (I hardly think that 9/11 and the state of war were irrelevant factors to the people's desire to throw their support behind the president in a time of crisis, do you?), none of which has to do with his ability to use language or sway a crowd.

Yeah, but skill in rhetoric implies something beyond the ability to repeat keywords, which is essentially what Bush did in most of his talks, when he's not inventing new words and making grammatical mistakes, that is. Course, we all love to make fun of Bush, but one should definitely keep in mind that there are probably thousands of people whose rhetoric skills are far beyond that of Bush and whose political ambition is no less, but who would've never had a chance to compete for the position of presidency. Instead of the golden-tongues that might theoretically rule a democratic system, we get a bumbling keyword repeater who just happens to be the son of a politically powerful family. Coincidence? I think not. America has most definitely leaned closer to an oligarchy as of late.

Correct. I had almost forgotten about that. Certainly, those in the known would not be completely victim to this (presumably, those in the media should be well versed in world history; however, I do think that a degree of both denial and ignorance exists with regards to this topic). But it can't be stressed enough the importance of the Japanese denial - they know that WW2 happened, that Japan lost, that the US dropped the bombs on Japan, but that's about it. Japan's war crimes are, I believe, not part of normal schooling (just as the more heinous crimes committed by the US in the past are not mentioned in normal schooling here), nor the admittance that Japan was invariably in the wrong. Now, people in Japan with connections to the outside world must sooner or later face this accusation. And with their advanced internet culture, they must understand as well what the outside world thinks. However, what other people think and what you believe are two different things. The most dangerous combination for the common Japanese person, I think, lies in assuming that Japan was "wrongfully" accursed by the outside world and that what everyone else says is in fact a injustice, a indignity that must one day be repaid. I think so too, and I also think that bitterness is often the attitude of older generations, both in Japan and every else in the world where one generation may have had to carry the burden of historical defeats/shames/wrongs. These things have a way of filtering down across the generations, to the point where the hatred between many Chinese and Japanese are alive today even though the actual events of Japanese incursion occured some 80-90 years ago or more, and should not be alive in the memories of any significant living population. That maybe true, but Thailand isn't a first world country, and as such any comparisons between its culture and other first world countries must inevitably be taken with a grain of salt. It's customary to assume, at least in the US, that things like child prostitution exist in Thailand because of its impoverishment and lack of education, rather than any basic perversity inherent in its culture. The same argument can't be made for Japan, because Japan is most definitely a first world country that has no real excuse, in terms of economics, for its sexual practices. At least, that's one counter-argument. I'm not convinced that Japan is some sort of freakshow either, though I do think that its situation, in terms of world politics, perspectives, and conflicts, is very unique and might play a large part in the creation of its open culture. Compare Japan to China, for instance, where porn is still more or less banned...

That's how democracy dies. Does it really matter what came first, the chicken or the egg? Political jadedness or powerlessness? Cynicism or the inability to effect change? All are attributes of a failing system, and it won't be long before this all culminates as all political/economic problems culminate: in one big collapse, preferrably brought on by war. The students must not be heard because they have failing arguments. How do we know that the arguments are failing? Because they're not being heard. Nice argument. Really convincing there . Wonder where you were when they burned people at the stake for saying the earth revolved around the sun. EDIT: One last note. Modern democracy is dependent on skill in rhetoric? Then how the hell did Bush get elected?

You're talking two different topics here. Democracy is not the same as freedom of speech. Yes, freedom of speech is often an attribute of democracy, but it does not equate a democratic system. Being able to speak is not the same as being heard. You could be allowed to speak in a tyrannical dictatorship, but if anyone who tries to act on the speech is executed, I doubt your speech will have much weight or would make much of a difference. This applies to both actual speech and political speech - ie voting. If the government controls the avenue of how you may vote, you're really just making the choice between two different oligarchies. Sure, there's always the third candidate option, but with the political culture as stratified as it has become, most people have simply given up on ever really affecting anything beyond which party rules. It's not at all short-sighted. Students denoucning the very democracy that supporsts their education is what keeps said democracy healthy and progressive. If the youth did not take the opportunity to do so, then I'd worry that there is something wrong with the system in its control of information. Though, in truth, students don't really have much power, at least not in my university experience in what is supposedly one of the top liberal campuses in the US (UC Berkeley). The days of university activism have passed and student protests have become enough of a cliche that the nation is just happy to ignore them nowadays.

As long as there is government, there will be people who strive to, and inevitably succeed in, controlling the keystones of power. There will always be government. It doesn't matter if we're talking true secret ballot, president by lottery, or utopian communism. Inevitably there are holes in the system. Inevitably there will be those who can and will exploit the holes for personal gain. Inevitably, then, there will be a political elite who controls the reins of power. It's not necessarily one oligarchy - could be several factions vying for dominance, actually, but that's still nowhere close to true democracy. I remember one of the letters Thomas Jefferson wrote concerning the goal of the Constitution, in which he touted that the system's true purpose was to, in fact, distinguish the "natural born leaders" from the rest (men were not born equal, he argued; rather, by pure biological nature, there are those endowed with more natural leadership than others, and those are the ones that should rule). It's not so much that he was after democracy, you see, but a better selection process for an oligarchy. Europe's decadency was a result of its heritage-descent process, which made no obligations to select the "best" leaders, simply the ones born under those who ruled before. Jefferson's idea was that America's system was better because it allowed for those who really had the qualities of leadership to rise instead of some son of kings. Of course, the person had to also *want* to be a leader - and therein lay the political elitism inherent in the system.

Your idea is good. But here's some food for thought: How do you know when a player character is stressed or afraid? For instance, the developer might argue that a human character standing before a dragon should be afraid. But what if my background for my PC is that he grew up amongst dragons, or that he simply doesn't fear them? Would make no sense to get a fear reaction then. Same for stress. Fatigue I can see being based on some stamina meter you can determine. Now, of course, if you're simply talking about psychological effects due to spells/effects and/or forced plot points, then sure. But otherwise, it seems that there'd be a problem trying to force a emotion on the player, unless there's a very solid system behind the whole thing that can be tweaked to the player's liking at character creation. Adding depth - not a bad idea - but not a simple one, either.

Some would argue that all taboos (incest, homosexuality, pedophilia, etc.) are a result of fundamental biological processes built into our brains that ensure the diversity and thus survival of the human species. I think there are some truths to this. But I also think that it's a bit naive to conjure the name of "natural biology" as some kind of sacred argument, unless said person is willing to condemn ALL the things humans have done that go up against "natural biology." In fact, I think it'd be reasonable to say that one reason why the world is what it is today is due to mankind's defiance towards its instinctual nature. From this respect, it's not an issue that taboos exist - nor is it a problem that some choose to ignore them.

You are more courageous than I was, Kaftan, in choosing to go to a school for games than a "normal" school. Though in all fairness, I'm still not sure whether being a game developer is a worthwhile pursuit, given the industry's stagnancy these days. But maybe you can help change that :D

Is porn the expression of an obsessively pent-up sexuality, or an overly exposed one? Is the attraction to animated "hentai" merely a function of cultural appreciation for anime, or is it the symptom of the desire for idealized and artificial people? Is a pop culture defined by cuteness, sexuality, and violence the normal outgrowth of a peaceful society, or is it only the surface of forcibly suppressed militarism? Is Japan "just another weird foreign country" (as us Americans might see 90% of the world), or is it a nation whose psychology has been fundamentally damaged? May I inject a bit of mind tickle on the subject? Not so much an intellectual debate, more of a speculative one. Much of the Japanese aesthetics I have been exposed to remind me of a paper I once read concerning the aesthetics of post-WWI/WWII society. The paper can be found here: http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html. In particular, I am referring to this concluding passage: Besides the obvious link with historical Fascism, one might argue that the aesthetics of the so-called "first-world" are little different than Japan's, save only for the aversion to sexual perversity. After all, Japan isn't the only country producing art that might be characterized as "self-alienating" - Hollywood is just as guilty, and becoming increasingly so with its love of apocalyptic cinema (ie everything from ID4 to the recently debuted The Day After Tomorrow, to the upcoming War of Worlds). To this end, one might question whether the equation of Japan with sexual perversity is not merely the byproduct of an absence of "Protestant ethics", and whether the US would not have ended the same way had it not have its persistent alliance to Christian morals (which, btw, we all seem to take for granted in being disturbed by Japan's so-called "perversity"). We might conjure up the aesthetics of historic Japan in support of these views. We might point out that modern hentai had its roots in the "erotic" art produced ages ago in Japan. We would, however, run into the problems of Western "erotic" art produced along the same lines, around the same periods of time. Erotic torture and bondage, after all, were popular even during the Medieval times. And then again, the US had always believed that it had stood on the side of "righteousness", that its participation in the numerous wars of the world have always been a crusade for the sake of democracy and God. Japan, having lost WW2, does not have the luxury of such beliefs, and must instead deal with the problem of its own ugliness, its alliance with what is considered the "Axis of Evil." Some, it is true, believe that Japan has long left behind its former self, that in reclaiming its image as a productive first-world society, its people have already gotten over that stage of Japanese history. Some wounds, however, take longer than others to heal. Particularly ones opened by the blast of the only atomic bombs ever dropped on major human cities. The only comparison we can make in this case would be with Germany and Italy. My sources tell me that the Germans in Berlin are almost obsessed with the idea of peace. Though that itself maybe a symptom of deeper issues, is a similar trend followed by Japan? Apparently not, given the resurgence of militarism among the political right as of late, and the escalation of tensions between Japan and China. How do you navigate the social dynamics of a culture that has always prided itself on its military honor, a "warrior" society in every sense of the word, but which has been deprived of exactly that? How do you express the shame of defeat and powerlessness, of being an "occupied" country and a antagonist in world politics, through art? And then there's the matter of modern Japanese society, with its aging population, its obsessive work mentality, and its traditional code of manners that would mark a Japanese anywhere else in the world, but which for that reason makes it that much easier to feel "at home" in Japan. What, if anything, lurks below the surface of a society that by no means can be considered "healthy" in its expectations for the amount of work required for (especially) a male, and which has such a wide abundance of distractions in the form of its often escapist aesthetics? Is the latter the result of the former, as pop psychology might inform us, or is it something more complicated than that? Is the "disturbing" (as we might see it) trend of fanservice in the form of female submissiveness to the point of enslavement, as is common in Japanese pop culture (particularly anime), merely the psychological defense mechanism of an exhausted patriarchy unable to stem the tides of feminism, as we would proclaim based on Western patterns? Or is it something else beyond that? How do you account for, after all, the twisting together of cuteness-violence and cuteness-sexuality that seems to most Westerners a most unlikely and disturbing combination, until we examine our own aesthetics to find hints of the same? (ie any film with "cuddly", yet evil, children) Before we look, we must first realize that our eyes are mirrors. Most of us do not look to see the "truth", if it exists, but to see ourselves mirrored in the eyes of other people, in the cultures of other nations. A lack of understanding is not unusual, but to be expected, as no man can look through another man's eyes. But in judging others, I wonder if we're not really in the business of trying to judge ourselves? After all, most people could care less what happened to a starving child in some third world country, yet identify a pedophile in America and the whole country will turn against him, screaming for his judgment. What makes a victim of nature any less significant than a victim of sexual perversity? Why are we so quick to deal out punishment, but so hesitant to hand out aid? It's human nature - that's the obvious answer. But what are the implications of that nature? The answer to that question, I think, has alot to do with a understanding of Japan and its cultural mentality. After all, was Japan not at the receiving end of a judgment and a punishment that resonates even to this day? And are not its cultural expressions a subject of judgment even now? Judgments are mirrors of those who judge and we, who are "righteously" disturbed by Japan's perversity, have only to ask ourselves what they're mirroring in us. But even beyond that, we must ask what is mirrored in the eyes of they who live in the mirror. When the average Japanese "joe" looks at his country's history how is he supposed to judge? Is he supposed to say that his people were evil doers who have now turned to the light? Is he supposed to say that his country is filled with perverts? Of course not? And we wonder, we really do, what sort of mirror is created, when one looks inwards and judges himself. Will he ignore the past, and be doomed to repeat its mistakes? Will he condemn it, and attempt to move beyond its indignity? Or will he embrace it, and become that which the world has judged him to be: "And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determin

Developing games in Lisp for teh win " Seriously though, it's best not to worry about language choice, since the underlying foundations are more or less the same. It is true that knowledge of a language can only help you, but ideally a good programmer should be able to pick up a language in a week or two. Programming is less about learning the language than it is about developing a structured way of approaching problems. The ace programmers differ from the average ones not by how familiar they are with C++ syntax, but by how much more effectively they can formulate pseudo-code solutions to the problem because once you have the underlying pseudo-code, transferring that code to any language is simply grunt work.