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Jake

GDC 2010! The Idle Thumbs Conf Grenade 2010: Phaedrus 2010

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that actually was how I meant it. Vanaman is so dreamy.......

definitely sounds like it :mock::)

Also, Stalker is far cry 2 2010. I await many episodes of talking about stalker.

yeah, i was thinking the same thing today!

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You guys talk about poop so much.

Between Will Wright's talk at the end of GDC and us going back to Chris' to record the episode, a bunch of folks got together for drinks and food and things and there was way too much horrible discussion of that sort of thing. Basically an entire unpublishable episode of idle thumbs was had in that sandwich shop, entirely themed around horrible industry stories involving feces/bathrooms and other horrible body themed things. It was horrible/excellent. So you could say we got most of it out of our system before sitting down to record.

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AHHH!! You got me!

Dang it Chris, I was turning it up as you faded the end out to hear the background remarks more clearly when you blasted me with the conf grenade action reporter theme at full volume. You totally meant to do that, ow ow. I am seared.

Re: the whole "Is WoW at all representative of evolution" thing... Without getting TOO far into arguing semantics, the only place I think evolution as a concept is represented in WoW is the way the raiding community influences itself. Supply and demand get created by the class and skill tree mechanics, and people in that part of the community create and shape their characters to fill niches with the demands of their peers in mind. Interestingly, Blizzard appears to have been making a deliberate effort to take the edge OUT of that "ecosystem of roles" as they tweak things to make raiding more accessible. Hooray theme parks...

Evolution requires interaction of some sort, and I don't feel like the inevitable growth of a character on it's own qualifies unless it affects and/or is affected by something else.

Basically, evolution without interaction is just growth.

Also, now I'll need even more courage to send in my crappy reader mail question I've been thinking about... ah, well.

Also, also, you guys were getting VERY close to the Super Mario World "Athletic Theme" with your whistling. Never QUITE there, just close!

zC7ILAUyeGg

Edited by Xeneth

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Also, also, you guys were getting VERY close to the Super Mario World "Athletic Theme" with your whistling. Never QUITE there, just close!

5OUP_Z3iZPs

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I loved the fade out at the end. Made the whole thing sound like a wholesome family show where you all learned a lesson. Ahh.

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The game had a lot of complexity that you basically had to interface with all of it to be effective.

I really don't think that's the case with Civilization 4 at all. If you play on Warlord or below you can let the ai handle city management and workers while you deal with unit/building production. The way I always tell people to learn the game is to do just that and as they feel they have competency with those things then they should add one aspect of city management or workers.

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Re: the whole "Is WoW at all representative of evolution" thing... Without getting TOO far into arguing semantics, the only place I think evolution as a concept is represented in WoW is the way the raiding community influences itself. Supply and demand get created by the class and skill tree mechanics, and people in that part of the community create and shape their characters to fill niches with the demands of their peers in mind. Interestingly, Blizzard appears to have been making a deliberate effort to take the edge OUT of that "ecosystem of roles" as they tweak things to make raiding more accessible. Hooray theme parks...

Evolution requires interaction of some sort, and I don't feel like the inevitable growth of a character on it's own qualifies unless it affects and/or is affected by something else.

Basically, evolution without interaction is just growth.

I was thinking something similar during the cast. Without having played WoW, I can imagine that there are pressures that exert themselves onto the player, making the player adapt to fill a need, be it raid members or enemies fought. Because decisions are willingly made, instead of arising through genetic mutation, this is closer to unnatural selection than natural selection, but a broader definition of evolution could be applied to it. The unfortunate problem with making games "about" evolution, is that to get a pure simulation of evolution (which is to say evolution by natural selection), the player wouldn't be allowed to participate in any way and would have to just be a spectator as generation after generation of increasingly complex AI developed.

Also, this is probably what everyone else thought during the "Royal we" discussion.

RoyalWii.jpg

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I'm not sure I quoted Soren Johnson too accurately during the cast, but in reference to evolution and WoW, Soren specifically used the example of build trees. He started with a base Paladin and showed that over time, choices are made to become increasingly more specialized, where you've got upwards of eight different combined specs, from healer to tank and everywhere in between. He compared these specs to Darwin's finches and to then argue that WoW, in some ways, was more ABOUT evolution than Spore, despite Spore's theme (or "creative wrapper). I agreed with him at the time, and I think I still do. You guys have made the (intelligent) point that evolution is about natural selection, whereas your WoW spec is a conscious choice. I think it *could* (and that's a big could) be argued that perhaps a Paladin (or Druid or Hunter or whoever) makes the choices they do in WoW based on what will help them thrive moment to moment in the game. While some players certainly set out with the idea "I'm going to become a resto druid," it's not difficult to imagine the player who, based on the fact that they solo or that all of their friends are mages, start to make less conscious choices about their specialization and simply evolve into whatever makes the most sense for the types of situations they generally find themselves in during the game.

Of course, you still have to click the little box to say "yeah, one point in feral please." So there's that. It's a loose connection, but I think if you look past the fine details, Soren makes a good point. It should also be said that this was about 90 seconds of a 60 minute talk, the whole of which is well worth tracking down on the GDC Vault if you're into such things.

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I'm not sure I quoted Soren Johnson too accurately during the cast, but in reference to evolution and WoW, Soren specifically used the example of build trees. He started with a base Paladin and showed that over time, choices are made to become increasingly more specialized, where you've got upwards of eight different combined specs, from healer to tank and everywhere in between. He compared these specs to Darwin's finches and to then argue that WoW, in some ways, was more ABOUT evolution than Spore, despite Spore's theme (or "creative wrapper). I agreed with him at the time, and I think I still do. You guys have made the (intelligent) point that evolution is about natural selection, whereas your WoW spec is a conscious choice. I think it *could* (and that's a big could) be argued that perhaps a Paladin (or Druid or Hunter or whoever) makes the choices they do in WoW based on what will help them thrive moment to moment in the game. While some players certainly set out with the idea "I'm going to become a resto druid," it's not difficult to imagine the player who, based on the fact that they solo or that all of their friends are mages, start to make less conscious choices about their specialization and simply evolve into whatever makes the most sense for the types of situations they generally find themselves in during the game.

Of course, you still have to click the little box to say "yeah, one point in feral please." So there's that. It's a loose connection, but I think if you look past the fine details, Soren makes a good point. It should also be said that this was about 90 seconds of a 60 minute talk, the whole of which is well worth tracking down on the GDC Vault if you're into such things.

I would agree that WoW more closely resembles a model of evolution than Spore, which essentially takes a Creationist path to species origins (starkly contrasting Wil Wright's own beliefs), but, as I said before, a pure evolution sim would be boring as hell.

Ugh, I'm too much of an evolution nerd and, in general, spend too much time thinking about it. Unfortunately a window was opened for me to ramble about it, which is probably not the best for the forums.

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Between Will Wright's talk at the end of GDC and us going back to Chris' to record the episode, a bunch of folks got together for drinks and food and things and there was way too much horrible discussion of that sort of thing. Basically an entire unpublishable episode of idle thumbs was had in that sandwich shop, entirely themed around horrible industry stories involving feces/bathrooms and other horrible body themed things. It was horrible/excellent. So you could say we got most of it out of our system before sitting down to record.

So wait, you got most of the poop out of your collective systems, which includes "Two hot scoops"?

Aaaah, I'll get my coat.:getmecoat

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When I heard Phaedrus I instantly thought of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (its in the metaphysics section). Since I didn't hear the talk I am not sure if Phaedrus is worth associating with W. Wright and his talk's theme.

Is there anyone who has read the book by Pirsig and attended the W. Wright talk to verify a connection?

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The book was mentioned at the start of Wright's lecture so the connection was intended. I am personally only 20 pages into that book though (I happen to be reading it at the moment) so I don't know how his talk relates to it.

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The book was mentioned at the start of Wright's lecture so the connection was intended. I am personally only 20 pages into that book though (I happen to be reading it at the moment) so I don't know how his talk relates to it.

It is a great read. I have picked up the book about 4 or 5 times. Each time I get a little further into it. It is the kind of book that means more and more to you as you experience life. I think the next time I pick it up I might be able to finish it.

I would be interested in your thoughts as you read the book. You can't really toss around the name Phaedrus without drawing an analogy to "his" role in the book.

Happy Reading! I might pick it back up myself.

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maybe the WoW evolution thing is meant to reference its development process where Blizzard makes random changes until people stop complaining. hahaha

I'll shut up now.

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by the way, if you needed another reason why Jeff Gone Game Gold Gate Fold Gold Game Jeff Jeff is the man, he is dating 21 year old Tania Raymonde, who plays Alex Rousseau (Ben's daughter) on Lost.

tania-raymonde-jeff-goldblum-lost-8207077-485-550.jpg

nUFQhqfNWD8

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You all love poop, but this episode also contained some pretty interesting discussions :tup:

Famous, I thought you were a great fit. Hopefully Thumbs will invite you back some day. Who knows, when we reach episode fifty of The Idle Thumbs Podcast and Steve leaves for a community manager job in Maryland maybe you could replace him as the third guy?

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Hey, could someone explain to Joe Six Pack here what you guys mean by games that have asymmetry/symmetry? Is this common industry lingo? I've never heard the terms used before.

I also picked up on "bark" being used a few times, is that common vernacular for NPC responses, or just a phrase you guys settled on during this episode?

Very good episode by the way. I especially loved the WoW story e-mail, that made me very happy.

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a symmetrical game would be civilization 4, the ai and the player are using the same set of rules to achieve the same goal. half-life is asymmetrical, the ai is operating on an entirely different set of rules from the player. if my understanding is misinformed, let me know.

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As much as I like Goldblum, my life just got a little sadder, deadron, thanks.

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Sweet, ya read my Pax East question. So Jake, is there going to be a Telltale booth or are will you just we wondering around the madness with the rest of us?

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I have an example of random selection in wow, albeit of a simplified sort. I played a Druid and was happy playing as a Balance type (spell caster, dps), but at a certain point I picked up a random loot drop off a boss that was an amazing healers chest piece. I soon after respecced and ended up finishing my days in wow as a resto-druid, thanks to that 'random' occurrence.

Great cast blast fellas. I encourage all email writers to batter and deep fry their emails in idle thumb reference minutiae, it makes me happy to hear grumpy scoops groan.

There's an 8-bit l4d?

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Great 'cast again, that WoW e-mail was touching.

Not sending a photo in the e-mail was a rookie mistake. In any case, Stan Rogers:

StanRogers2.jpg

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