I always thought of Aliens not unlike feline predators. Conserving energy while stalking prey until they get close and then go for the kill in a burst of speed. Unless you invade their privacy sphere of course, in which case the get all agitated and unreasonable.

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There was great imagery alluding to that in that scene with Ripley's cat in the first movie.

Yeah, but the question is: How are they gonna pack those feline properties into the gameplay? The animation alone won't do it if you just can slaughter it like a little pig (Kotor-style).

So, I guess that since Carl Lewis probably doesn't go everywhere in a sprint, this must mean he can't run whatsoever. Uh... okay.

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Your example is flawed. Carl Lewis is one individual, and since I've seen him run I know he can. What you were actually saying (and I was responding to) would be more "Since I know some humans can move like Carl Lewis, all humans must have that ability".

 

All I know is that the aliens in Aliens 3 and Resurrection are fast. That still doesn't mean that the all aliens are, the ones in the first two movies could still be slow.

 

The only point I was making is that you could find support for both slow and fast aliens in the movies. I see it more as variations exists within the species. So there are some aliens who move at blistering speeds and some that don't. Much like there are some humans that are Carl Lewis and some that can't walk at all.

 

Note thar I have no preference either way. I don't know overly much about the setting and don't have much invested in it emotionally. I trust that the developers will do what they think is best for the game, and I hope they'll be right.

I'm not convinced that having greater-than-normal attention paid to obscure and arcane knowledge about the setting poisons the game.

 

A complaint that Josh would try too hard to get some obscure fact about Aliens right seems just as absurd as a complaint that Star Trek didn't try hard enough to get the andorians correct. One shows a fixation on detail that is unreasonable, and the other shows an unwillingness to invest in a setting in the first place, or at least a belief that the setting isn't worth getting into. That Josh knows the formal names of Predators doesn't indicate that he's going to overdo it.

 

I certainly expect Sawyer to know what he's doing when he oversees an Alien game, and that entails getting intimately acquainted with the setting. Are we going to demand that of him and then recoil when he shows that he knows something relatively obscure and unimportant? It's not like he's going to come on the forums and spill everything important and central and relevant to the game, but that he bothered to dig into the material enough to know unimportant formal names and titles is in no way indicative of an approach to making the game that makes such things important. If anything, it shows that he's acquainted with those concepts that will best serve the game, because if he knows the arcana, he probably knows the important stuff pretty well too.

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People who don't pay attention to details won't see them. Hence, it won't bother them one bit.

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If I understand Gromnir aright, that's not his beef: he's more concerned with a surfeit of design effort going into needless minuti

Well I sincerely hope the game goes back to the Alien/Aliens timeframe. There were thousands of Alien eggs in the doughnut ship, who says they were all destroyed in the explosion. Some might have been smuggled out before the Marines showed up or have survived the blast. If the game takes place on a remote research station, outpost or space station cargoship etc, dodging the incineration of Ripley and her last remaining invitro queen should be a small matter.

 

If the game picks up after Alien resurrection they are stuck with doing 'Aliens earth war', and with the gene-muppet from space that passed for an Alien queen in that movie.

 

Picture this; you are a dock hand at a remote space station and you are asked to go check out why noone has picked up the shipment from LV4-26 yet. The shipment is supposedly military and very hush hush, and yet it's just sitting there like noone owns it.

Edited December 25, 200619 yr by Gorgon

Obviously. Still, portraiting aliens as slow animals is against canon, as it is proven in both 3 and rez. You can dodge canon, but you can't go against it.

 

On the other hand, since they're portrayed as slow in Alien and Aliens, portraying them as fast would also go against canon. So basically the designers in this case can go either way they want, because they can find support for both versions in the movies.

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+1 to that...

 

It's the job of an author to decide how they want to envision xenomorphs within the boundaries of what was depicted in movies 1, 2, 3, 4.

 

I am not a big fan of constantly mutating or shapeshifting xenomorphs. I think they move the stage from Sci-Fi, where science is supposed to rule, to Horror/Fantasy, where anything applies.

If I understand Gromnir aright, that's not his beef: he's more concerned with a surfeit of design effort going into needless minuti

Gromnir is just talking out of his arse.

I am not a big fan of constantly mutating or shapeshifting xenomorphs.

 

Are there any such creatures in the four films? The slow aliens came from humans, the fast aliens came a from a cow/dog and a queen that came from a not-quite-human Ripley clone. There is nothing contradictory, no constant mutating or shapeshifting.

 

I think they move the stage from Sci-Fi, where science is supposed to rule, to Horror/Fantasy, where anything applies.

 

Well, Alien is scfi/horror, and the creature from the films is very much a fantasy creation for the sake of horror, with little relevance to science.

Alien was basically the first time that showing the actual monster in a monster movie wasen't a letdown in comparison to the buildup.

Edited December 25, 200619 yr by Gorgon

I think they move the stage from Sci-Fi, where science is supposed to rule, to Horror/Fantasy, where anything applies.

 

Well, Alien is scfi/horror, and the creature from the films is very much a fantasy creation for the sake of horror, with little relevance to science.

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And Sci-Fi is fantasy, as long as it remains fiction.

No, the difference is the adherence to realism that is needed to create a believable sci fi setting.

Since The Pilot mentioned "Xenomorph," when exactly did it get its name?

 

 

When Ripley is giving her debriefing about what happened to the Nostromo, one of the people in the room comments about how it was a species never recorded.  Yet, when they are on the Sulaco, Lt. Gorman says that "We think a Xenomorph may be involved."

 

It sounded like they already had a term called "Xenomorph" and then just applied it to this new unknown alien, like it was a classification.

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It's just a generic term, like "ET", isn't it?

 

Human physiology can be described using "ectomorph" (tall and thin), "mesomorph", (normal) and "endomorph" (short and stocky), for example.

xeno-

n combining form

1 relating to a foreigner or foreigners: xenophobia.

2 other; different in origin: xenograft.

 

ORIGIN

from Greek xenos 'stranger', (adjective) 'strange'.

 

-morph

n combining form denoting something having a specified form or character: endomorph.

 

DERIVATIVES

-morphic combining form.

 

ORIGIN

from Greek morphe 'form'.

 

Since The Pilot mentioned "Xenomorph," when exactly did it get its name?

 

When Ripley is giving her debriefing about what happened to the Nostromo, one of the people in the room comments about how it was a species never recorded.  Yet, when they are on the Sulaco, Lt. Gorman says that "We think a Xenomorph may be involved."

 

It sounded like they already had a term called "Xenomorph" and then just applied it to this new unknown alien, like it was a classification.

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Stolen from wiki: "The name is derived from the Greek word for "alien form", and was used by a character in the film Aliens as a euphemism to indicate any nonterrestrial lifeform."

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Dang, beaten to it.

 

In later movies, I think the term was used to identify the species itself. I think it was a misinterpretation of Aliens, but I guess it's now canon.

Yep. Apparently the name stuck...

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If humans didn't find any other (significant) "bugs" for a long time, then it is entirely possible that the name would be attributed to the specific from the general.

Your example is flawed. Carl Lewis is one individual, and since I've seen him run I know he can. What you were actually saying (and I was responding to) would be more "Since I know some humans can move like Carl Lewis, all humans must have that ability".

And unless they are suffering from some kind of physical disability, they most certainly can.

 

 

All I know is that the aliens in Aliens 3 and Resurrection are fast. That still doesn't mean that the all aliens are, the ones in the first two movies could still be slow.

And they could also be fast, as it's shown in the scene where Dallas is killed. I can't paraphrase but I remember that when Lambert is tracking the bug down, she remarks on how fast it was coming towards Dallas. Interestingly enough, the alien isn't actually seen in that scene, which reinforces the hypothesis that not making them appear fast was just a technical limitation more than anything else.

 

 

So there are some aliens who move at blistering speeds and some that don't.

Show an example of an alien that can't move faster than a human being (save for the queen, maybe), as opposed to one that just doesn't all the time. In this case, the burden of proof is against you.

 

 

Note thar I have no preference either way. I don't know overly much about the setting and don't have much invested in it emotionally. I trust that the developers will do what they think is best for the game, and I hope they'll be right.

We are in agreement.

No, the difference is the adherence to realism that is needed to create a believable sci fi setting.

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is it reality?

no.

then it's something unrealistic?

yes.

 

ergo: fantasy (and I don't speak of the 'genre')

^_^

 

http://www.oafe.net/poe/alien.php

Sci Fi depends on believable pseudo science to maintain suspention of disbelief. Alien is not star wars territory, the setting is realistic and grim, can't be compared with hurling fireballs, resurrecting the dead or dual wielding katanas. Hence realism is a better bechmark for what needs to be achieved than fantasy.

Edited December 25, 200619 yr by Gorgon

Sci Fi depends on believable pseudo science to maintain suspention of disbelief. Alien is not star wars territory, the setting is realistic and grim, can't be compared with hurling fireballs, resurrecting the dead and dual wielding katanas.

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The amount of unrealistic content isn't the same, but it isn't real as however you look at it,

thus it's fantasy, just like D&D, White Wolf games, Star Wars, or Bugs Bunny

 

 

 

Dude, I hope they work the engine from the ground up because frankly, I'd have been embarrassed to be sat on an engine that does on top end machines 30fps and release a game thinking that was ok. (Obviously it's a tough job, but still...)

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Jason Keeney and I agree that 30 fps is the minimum acceptable framerate for this game.

 

The other day he even suggested crashing builds if they drop below 20 fps during development. :cool:

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So it's a brand new engine, then?

The 'unrealistic content' has to be presented as though completely plausible, this is not the case with fantasy.

 

It is the realism and the vulnerability of the protagonist that creates the backdrop for the horror and psychological drama.

 

Edit for spelling.

Edited December 25, 200619 yr by Gorgon

The 'unrealistic content' has to be presented as though completely plausible, this is not the case with fantasy.

 

It is the realism and the vounerability of the protagonist that creates the backdrop for the horror and psychological drama.

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what's 'vounerability'?

vulnerablilty.

Edited December 25, 200619 yr by Gorgon

So it's a brand new engine, then?

I can tell you it's certainly not the engine used for NWN2.

vulnerablilty.

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well, horror and psychological drama doesn't need realism, so this explanation fails.

 

(just remember Ravenloft, if nothing else)

So it's a brand new engine, then?

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I can tell you it's certainly not the engine used for NWN2.

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That's good to hear.

 

That thing was a resource sucker.