Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Oh, [chat] is a place on Earth.
Posts
It absolutely can be done, I think, if the designer can force themselves to abandon the grognard obsession with tweaking numbers and having discrete particular control over the constituent elements of their empire.
The key to doing a more dramatic, narrative game (that still works within set rules) is to focus on character and motivation and events, rather than logistics, equipment and industry. It would have to be about the politics of empires, about the players assuming the forceful personalities (not roleplaying but making decisions that create dramatic, compelling events) of imperial leaders, about negotiation and treachery that is more meaningful than "this is the optimum opportunity for me to take a supply territory in England" or whatever.
Right now I'm sort of rolling an idea for a game around in my head, where one player is a horrible alien monstrosity on a derelict ship, hunting (and being hunted by) small teams of humans controlled by other players, all of which have secret objectives that differ and create an Alien-movie-ish narrative of desperation and betrayal, ideally. The alien player has secret movement represented by a separate board for the vents. I think I would actually call it "it's in the vents" or something goofy like that. I like the idea of a quick, but still well-designed game that is willing to sacrifice perfect balance for the sake of a compelling narrative experience, without getting bogged down in heavy simulation-style mechanics like so many "ameritrash" games do.
For example, I love vidya and the like but I don't go around wearing camo utilikilts, sporting a terrible neckbeard, and monopolizing gamestop employee's time asking them what-if krillian and cloud sephiroth fought who would win questions.
I fucking haaaaate sports. I fucking haaaate most things honestly. But I wear my business casual gear and when people are talking about sports, I've made sure I've read the top headlines on cnn for sports so I know that some football player blew his brains and and I can tsk and say "such a shame, he was really good with those cleats."
And then I go post on the forums and decry the unfairness of anyone other than bruce wayne wearing the caped crusader's cowl and then receive my verbal punishment for it.
The point is, I keep my crazy inside.
Where it belongs.
Fuck you for posting a whomp that I just actually enjoyed
"Green" oil.
Is there any way you can write up what you have into some form of mostly bullshit, then point out to your supervisor that it's his fucking fault that you've wasted four years of your life on this, so he had better make goddamn sure you've got something to show for it?
I'm guessing you don't have much leverage for that.
...
...
I'M NOT A PART OF YOUR SYSTEM
YOU TRIED TO GIVE ME AN IDENTITY
I THREW THAT SHIT ON THE GROUND
^_^
Gooey, I think he meant to type 'Thank you' but his autocorrect is on the fritz or something.
It is pretty tough sometimes, but if you're doing it every night, the odd exception from external sources isn't really a bother. It's sitting up at 10:30 thinking about problems and planning tomorrow when no one is asking you and no one cares if you do it that will wear you down over time. In most cases the stress you put on yourself contributes to burnout more dramatically than the occasional pressure from outside.
The act of setting aside work is relaxing, and taking the step of imposing that mental discipline on yourself can be very good for your outlook in general. If your boss is hounding you 3 nights a week with stuff like that, it's definitely time to schedule a short meeting and respectfully discuss work/life balance with him.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE GROUND
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Oh snap! Then you probably remember how fun things were when CA was deregulated ("government regulations are a cage, maaaannnn!"), and the electricity market was then promptly manipulated by corrupt Texas-based companies in order to completely fuck you out of power?
So I'm saying "more of that." This is supposed to be one of the hottest summers on record, ever. Which would make for a disturbing trend, seeing as how LAST summer was already the hottest one on record.
Somehow this is Al Gore's fault.
Apparently, this was NOT an acceptable answer
Also, that was Texas' fault. California should have sued them.
wut
You explore a randomly generated world, expand by taking new territory, exploit (ok, I don't recall special resource tiles), and could easily win by exterminating your opposition.
I was personally only mildly affected by some brownouts, if memory serves. But I know some people who got hit by it really hard. Pretty sure my folk's pocket books suffered over the whole ordeal.
God what at clusterfuck that whole thing was.
I have an image burned in my head of why California got no sympathy from me at all during those blackouts...I remember watching the news report one evening during them, and the news anchor lady was reading a story about how terrible the blackouts were while behind her the SF skyline was lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.
Really, SF? How about you turn off the damned lights in your office buildings when you leave. Maybe that would help a bit!!
This is kind of based on a weird supposition that there's some hobby out there that's better for you than the hobbies you have now.
I mean, you have your hobbies because you enjoy them, end of discussion, right?
I've kind of had a similar crisis before but I realized it was based on wanting to be a person I wasn't. I mean, could I be that person? Perhaps, but why should I? Why attempt to fit into some ideal mold you've made for yourself of who you can be when there's not much wrong with who you are.
I think we get sold "lifestyles" and we try to make ourselves into archetypes, but you can just take what you want from life. You can like video games and not be socially defunct. You can enjoy indie music and not ride a fixie. I realized I wasn't picking character classes, life is more of a tech tree.
I think you *just* missed an earlier post going into that. But yes, many, many things are Texas' fault. Texas is the reason.
I am now locating my discs for AC and am going to play when I should be coding
And when they do, it usually takes me a few seconds to realize who they are. "Oh, hey, Than, this is Bob." "Bob?" "Bob from work...?" "Work...? Oh, right! I have a job!"
Seriously, my bus drops me off at my apartment, and I'm basically the guy from Memento.
i'm sure this is just 16 year old angst and a desire to be an individual, maaaaaan
but that is the situation basically
for example, when i'm at my therapist i fucking despise (and am slightly phobic of) the idea of me saying something that matches the DSM and him thinking 'ah yes, a case of ____'
fitting a profile makes me feel insignificant!
but i guess we're all insignificant
i dunno, this shit is depressing
What does your adviser say?
if by "Texas" you mean "Enron", okay.
I post this clip every time someone mentions Alpha Centauri.
I hope no one thinks like this. Then again, I did just learn about Wanda Brown's shenanigans via the Daily Show.
You don't have to define yourself by what you do. Time investment in something = / = identity.
And that's OK.
Lets hug and heavy pet it out bro
as a transexual sissyboy gamer,