Chris

The answer, to me, is that because sometimes, the thing that makes it beautiful and amazing is also what demands it be experienced in a certain way. That said I think there's a big difference between science and fiction in that respect. It's awesome to make science accessible to as many people as possible. Science deals in revealing objective truths (or trying to), so if you can successfully convey those truths, you've succeeded in education.

Why "only"? I don't understand why that's the only avenue. You're basically claiming everything should be accessible to everyone. That's nuts as far as I'm concerned. If that's the case, you basically have to set some kind of minimum accessibility bar. Should we tune all works to have, say, a vocabulary only accessible to...people with a grammar school education? People with a high school education? People with a college education? How do we decide which is right? Should authors not write novels for people who already have a strong understanding of a given theme or subject matter? Should jazz composers have avoided writing any music beyond a certain level of complexity once it would cross some theoretical accessibility boundary? I know a lot of people who find certain David Lynch films to be too alien and off-putting to enjoy. Fuck it. I'm glad David Lynch didn't have those people in mind, or I wouldn't have as many awesome movies to watch. I really don't like the increasingly prevalent notion that everything needs to be accessible. Not everything should just be digestible by everyone, because you're inherently limiting the range of creative expression. If someone wants to write a book that's dense as hell, go for it. A bunch of people probably aren't going to be able to read it, but I'm also not going to be able to run a marathon without a lot of work and I don't begrudge people who are actually capable of doing that because they aren't as lazy as I am. Umberto Eco addressed this; I forget if it was in an interview, or if it was in the appendix at the end of In the Name of the Rose, where he discusses some of his thoughts about writing. He basically says that his books tend to include a fairly long chunk at the beginning that just throws the reader directly into the deep end of his rich, dense, historical fiction, rather than ease them in. He knows that will scare some people off, or be too tangled for them to get through, but he's fine with that; the idea is that if they can't make it through that initial gauntlet, they probably aren't going to enjoy the rest of the book or get much out of it. That's a harsh attitude to have, but whatever. The result is that Eco's books are unlike anything else by any author I've ever read, and part of it is because of his uncompromising attitude. I almost hate to admit it, but my volume of reading had really declined a lot in recent years, and Eco's stuff has completely reenergized my drive to read more fiction again, and I'm pretty sure if it had just been more accessible fiction, it wouldn't have made nearly an impact on me, because it wouldn't have been as unique.

In my case, I first encountered PC games at such a young age that I probably didn't even really have much of a true "reaction" to them, at least not in any conscious sense, since I hadn't yet developed many preconceptions or assumptions about any entertainment or culture. Coming from that background, it does make it particularly interesting to see reactions from people who have already had a lifetime of experiences.

If you can fully dominate any particular theatre, that's probably bad news for the other guy. If your opponent has tons of air and you don't have a bunch of anti-air, then yeah, you're in trouble. This is why it's important to always be scouting so you know what kind of units your opponent is building. The different races also have very different types of air units. In even broader terms, if you haven't kept your opponent from both 1) reaching a really high level of tech, and 2) having the time and money to build a bunch of high-level resultant units, and if you haven't also reached that level and that army size, then he's either out-microing you, or you haven't inhibited his progress enough.

I just can't agree. The story elements of StarCraft II are completely unbearable to me. I really find some of these scenes, like the to be almost embarrassing to watch in their stupidity and awkwardness. I'm sure it sounds like I'm playing it up for the sake of hyperbole, but I'm really not. I can't remember the last time I found a game's story so poor. I do agree that Dawn of War II's story is certainly no better, but the difference is that Dawn of War II really doesn't have that story front and center at all. Blizzard REALLY wants me to know what's happening in its universe, in a way Relic doesn't seem as obsessed with highlighting.

Pretty straightforward. I was out having dinner when my account was shut down. When I got home, I submitted a support request to reinstate it, and by the time I woke up the next morning, it had gone through, so I changed my password and secret question.

Nearly all the names should fit though, even with spaces. Not a big deal, just seemed odd.

Games seem to have this problem more than most things. People don't see inaccessibility in literature to be inherently bad--I mean, it would be super lame if there weren't books that demanded the reader think for himself--but games that don't lay everything out for the player are often criticized for have insufficient messaging or poor design. There's certainly a balance between being too obtuse and holding the player's hand too much, but there does seem to be a broad move toward the notion that the player shouldn't really have to actually figure much out himself.

Did a lot of people remove the spaces from their names, or were they submitted without spaces?

I'm pretty sure Double Fine employs a number of game designers.

No, I've been in this apartment for four years (weird). My lease expired after the first year.

I forget how we did it last time, but yeah that should work. Hopefully the host is allowed to leave the game.

Biomoon: MoonShock Rising

Haha, the guy saying "that wasn't me" wasn't me either. The account has been shut down, so I just have to get it back via Valve.

I know this is a douchey way to respond, but the format of that article is quite possibly the least appealing way they could possibly have presented that information. If it were an audio discussion, I'd consider listening to it, and if they had taken those comments and turned them into an actual piece of writing, I'd consider reading it, but I started trying to read it as is, then scrolled down and saw how long it goes on, and I just can't deal with that much text in a glorified chatlog. I really like RPS, by the way! I just don't like this kind of article.

I don't agree with this whatsoever. The single-player missions are far more varied and well-tuned in my opinion, and the persistent tech and research component adds a dimension I really enjoy. The multiplayer is based on the same gameplay dynamic, but it's not "the same." There are new units, removed units, more race-specific mechanics, better support for various types of queuing, and any number of other things that don't fundamentally change the game but certainly make it much more playable in 2010. Going back to StarCraft 1 would be very difficult for me at this point. Then there's the challenge mode, which has absolutely no point of comparison in the first game, and the mapmaking and modding tools, which will clearly produce a far more diverse level of output than the first game did.

Totally unrelated. I didn't discourage it at all; I think it would be cool to have a visual record. I just don't personally want to deal with the logistics, to be honest. In other forms of entertainment, there's more of an accepted critical apparatus. There's almost no such thing as "criticism" in games the same way there is in music, literature, and film, and to the extent that it does exist, it's not commercially viable enough to make a career out of. Instead we have "game journalism," whatever that even means.

Three? I think it's just me and Steve. Jake is at Telltale and Nick is at Bethesda, and none of the UK Thumbs have any connection to 2K.

It's nothing personal, it really is just based on experience. In the last game, as far as I can recall, the only people who just dropped out were people who weren't yet forum regulars. I think that, basically, if you're invested in hanging around the forums on an ongoing basis, it means you're more likely to stay invested in activities involving the forum. Neptune's pride is a very slow-paced, subdued game, at least at the beginning, and a lot of people underestimate that going in.

I know people on the internet harp on this too often, but that particular treatment of goblins is 100% directly taken from the Warhammer universe. Orcs & Goblins are a combined army in Warhammer but I used to play a Goblin-only army full of all their wacky contraptions and units. One of the big things that really makes me increasingly disinterested in the WarCraft world and story is that they seem to be taking more and more and more of the superficial elements from Warhammer, but none of the interesting subtext. It's just a bunch of STUFF all piled on top of itself, with no unifying tone or theme. I suppose that makes sense for an MMO, because it allows Blizzard to create races and locations that appeal to very different people, but I feel like it should be possible to do that within a more coherent world.

Well, they're also too, right?

Oh shit. If Jake and Sean are in, I'm in.

Welcome, dudes!

An MMO might sell more over its lifetime, but it also costs a lot more and takes a lot longer to make. It seems perfectly reasonable that Runic would want to capitalize on what it learned from making the first game with a new project that they can get out the door in a reasonable amount of time, while planning the MMO in the longer term. Plus, this will give them a live game with which to test their multiplayer infrastructure, without jumping straight into the deep end of running an MMO.

I suspect the game was not a strong commercial success.