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Master Sifo-Dyas

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17-Mar-2003
Last activity
6-Nov-2018
Posts
564

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Post
#180393
Topic
Slashdot Science Topic: The Secret Cause of Flame Wars
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/180393/action/topic#180393
Time
Mz6 writes "According to recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I've only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study also shows that people think they've correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time. "That's how flame wars get started," says psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago, who conducted the research with Justin Kruger of New York University. "People in our study were convinced they've accurately understood the tone of an e-mail message when in fact their odds are no better than chance," says Epley. The researchers took 30 pairs of undergraduate students and gave each one a list of 20 statements about topics like campus food or the weather. Assuming either a serious or sarcastic tone, one member of each pair e-mailed the statements to his or her partner. The partners then guessed the intended tone and indicated how confident they were in their answers. Those who sent the messages predicted that nearly 80 percent of the time their partners would correctly interpret the tone. In fact the recipients got it right just over 50 percent of the time." [Source: Slashdot.com]

I thought this might be an interesting topic to talk about. Just please do not start a flame war over this.
Post
#177952
Topic
Why is Leia a princess?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/177952/action/topic#177952
Time
Originally posted by: RRS-1980
Now, this brings an interesting thing to mind... didn't you guys noticed how well Luke took the fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi - his mentor - the person he knew from the childhood, a strong link to his home planet - died from the hand of Darth Vader? Instead of saying in anger "this one is for Ben!" when he blasts a TIE Fighter, we hear only cries of joy "Haha! I got one!" (fortunately not "yippie!" or "oops!" ). Well, at least we get a "I can't believe he's gone." and a few sad faces (even C-3PO and R2-D2 seem to look sad).

Ditto for the return from the Death Star trench run - not even one tear is shed for Biggs, his long-time childhood friend, another strong link to his home planet...
Well in the original version of the film, it's not really stressed that they're that close. Besides you don't have much time for wimpering when a bunch of imperial ties are about to blast your arse into oblivion.

C'mon guys, this is an action movie aimed for young generation, not "Schindler's list"! Things come and go fast, ANH is the most "western-like" movie of all SW movies, somewhat closest to old-school classic sci-fi - it was in later movies (e.g. my fav ESB) where everything became more serious, meaningful, mature.
True. My father used to say that about StarWars: "It's just like a western movie in space", boy was I pissed at him back then as a kid.
Post
#174882
Topic
Time to grow up.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/174882/action/topic#174882
Time
DarkFox, in my eyes you're just a self-important dramaqueen. You could just have PMed Jay about the incidents you have noticed, and he would have dealt with them, since they are against the forum rules. You can eat all the chalk you want - your behaviour still reeks of trolldom. Just my two cents on this.
Post
#174386
Topic
Time to grow up.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/174386/action/topic#174386
Time
Uuuuhh... Hello? He may have discussed peacefully. But in the end he walked outta here insulting anyone on this board to be involved in movie piracy.
I don't know about you, but if I get insulted without a reason - I get angry. And only because one person was provoked enough to say the "f" word, you come along and insult all the good people on here again?!
Post
#174163
Topic
Lucas and CGI in the Prequels
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/174163/action/topic#174163
Time
Well it's the best they had back then, it's film history - that's different. It was enough to scare me as a kid, so I'd say it was very well done. Even in stop-motion you can do good or bad. The old King Kong is great, but I would not have been positively surprised by a stop-motion Kong by Peter Jackson (although it might have been an interesting experiment).

Another kind of stop-motion I like are films with 'clay' figures, like "Wallace & Gromit" and "Nightmare before Christmas".
Post
#174156
Topic
Lucas and CGI in the Prequels
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/174156/action/topic#174156
Time
Stop motion looks cool on creatures such as undead skeletons or mechanical creations such as the terminator, but other than that I think stop-motion blows. The "guy in the suit" or animatronics/puppets on the other hand can look very cool if they sport enough detail to suspend disbelief. The big plus for cgi is it's flexibility and that's why George Lucas prefers it whenever possible, imho. In the end that's all he is about - no boundaries for the person trying to tell a story.
Post
#174099
Topic
Time to grow up.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/174099/action/topic#174099
Time
Well, I do hope placing yourself on the high horse of unflawed morality in a public forum that is actively visited by no one else but 'pirates', made you feel better.
I just want to remind you that accusing a whole community of forum users of actively pursuing piracy is not really any better by moral standards. Here in germany you can get sued for false accusations.
Post
#173495
Topic
Lucas and CGI in the Prequels
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/173495/action/topic#173495
Time
It's not cgi itself that I question. I question bad special fx works, be it models and matte paintings or cgi. In the case of the old StarWars movies the special fx are a crucial part of film history - it doesn't matter if they are outdated or not, since they represent the bleeding edge of special fx at that time. It was the best you could get then. If you simply replace them instead of releasing a seperate director's cut while at the same time making the original cut available again, you violate an artists ethical obligation towards culture and society. That's what bothers me the most.

What is clearly obvious is that cgi is far from looking photorealistic, which gives scenes that have a lot of it in them a 'cartoony' or 'computer gamy' touch that can be contra-productive for the atmosphere of the scene/movie. On the other hand, if you look at the prequels there is also non-cgi stuff that was done very badly (Palpatine's make-up or Episode I Yoda anyone?), which proves that the special fx guys need to know their stuff and they need enough time to get it right - some or all of that was certainly not the case in the prequels.

I think it was Zebonka who pointed out that almost any feature film of the past year that heavily relied on cgi doesn't withhold a second closer look - so yeh, there are many rush jobs in terms of special fx out there - it's not the cgi thing itself, imho.
Post
#171704
Topic
StarWars: Empire at War PC game demo out!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/171704/action/topic#171704
Time
Originally posted by: RRS-1980
Thanks for the info, Master Sifo-Dyas. I must say I'm observing this game for some time now, despite me taking recently a brake from Star Wars Some features looked interesting on its website/trailer video. However I'm overly cautious when it comes to strategy games made by Lucasarts (wasted my $ on Forced Commander, Rebellion/Supremacy and Galactic Battlegrounds were playable, but also partially disappointing to me) or recent LEC games in general... so maybe I should try the demo first.

I'd like to make few general comments about strategy games and SW universum.
For example part of my gripes about Rebellion was related to game scope. Knowing few Massive Multiplayer Online Games (e.g.: such as German OGame.de or Polish Kolony.net - which was originally written by my friend on Atari, back in ancient times ) the biggest set of 200 planets to conquer in the galaxy (see "Rebellion") is not big enough for me...
Skyman made an interesting point about balancing: I too find it somewhat silly that Rebel units are almost a mirror copy of Imperial ones. E.g Rebels also have heavy artillery and powerful armor etc. (see "Force Commander" and so on). They just come in different uniform colors
Ideal SW-based strategy game should have gameplay completely different for Rebel and Imperial forces. Both on the strategic (campaign) and tactical (battle) level. Empire should start with zillions of planets, but guarding it would require tons of troops and ships etc., which would make it difficult to react quickly to events (preparing an attack should take a lot of time). Empire would have access to large resources, but e.g. propaganda - maintaining loyality of the controlled planets (see "Rebellion") - would be very expensive, but not very efficient.
On the other hand, Rebellion would start in small numbers, spread across the galaxy, with their resources limited. However they'd be hard to be detected ( = destroyed) and their informational campaigns should have huge impact on planets' morale ("words of freedom spreading like a virus"). Rebels would have no access to the largest of weapons in the space arsenal, but their highly trained and motivated soldiers would have an edge over Imperials by having a chance to act quickly and catch the enemy "with their pants down".
Rebels would also have better (and cheaper!) access to hired informants and saboteurs, maybe they could also sway local pirate bands to their side (but what Admiral Ackbar would say about it? ).
Resource system should include regular convoys of freighters (no need to micromanage - these could be handled by AI - besides, remember the game "Stars!"?). The Empire's war industry and commerce would be dependant on those convoys (such as British Empire 65 years ago ) and Rebellon would have a chance to easily make a decent blow by interdicting Imperial supply lanes (or capturing supply ships!).

...too bad that LEC would probably have no interest in creating such complex and intelligent game (their games are getting simplified in the recent years...). I once imagined this could be made "by SW fans for SW fans", such as other Massive Multiplayer Online Games (see: Star Wars Combine). But I have long lost the will/patience/time to lead such project

I see your point and I'd say that what you describe would probably be the perfect game for any hardcore gaming StarWars fan. Ironically many features were already included in Rebellion. What Lucasarts didn't realize is, that that game didn't flop because it was bad - but because of the fixed resolution at 640x480, forcing the player into a menu clicking orgy.

Some of the things on your wishlist also reminded me of "Millenium 2.2" and "Deuteros" back on my old Commodore Amiga. Would've been great to have some features of this game in there.

I agree that the campaign mode of Empire at War should have included all the features from "Rebellion" (and more). I really miss the political component in the campaign mode. On the other hand when you look at Lucasart's portfolio of recent StarWars strategy games, I'd say we can be very happy with what came around this time.

The demo didn't give enough examples on the differences between the two fractions, yet I doubt we'll going to see anything as powerful as an AT-AT walker (let alone a death star) on rebellion side - although I agree with you when it comes to infantry, which really seems to be identical units with different looks. The rebel artillery is very fragile and has to be guarded by quite an amount of troops - and even then they're bound to break if you don't have a repair station nearby.

I can only say: This will be the first StarWars based RTS game I'll be buying from Lucasfilm since "Rebellion". I consider it as a "New Hope", a first step back "into a larger world". Who knows? Empire at War II might include more of all those dream-features you pointed out. Alas, the current game title will be as close as it can get to the ultimate StarWars strategy game (especially if you put into consideration that Jim Ward is at the helms of Lucasarts).
Post
#171618
Topic
StarWars: Empire at War PC game demo out!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/171618/action/topic#171618
Time
Aaaah, I see. So you prefer games that allow the building of huge bases accompanied by excessive masses of troops.
Can't blame you that you don't like this game a lot then. You might want to check out "C&C: Generals" and "Battle for Middle Earth II" then (Dawn of War is great but may not be your cup of tea (eventhough massive amounts of troops are involved), but since it already landed in the bargain bin you can't do anything wrong with buying and trying it).

Alas, I think nothing will ever be able to top TA, when it comes to your preferrence of rts games.
Post
#171589
Topic
StarWars: Empire at War PC game demo out!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/171589/action/topic#171589
Time
Originally posted by: skyman8081
I found this dissapointing.

It was a blizzard clone in Star Wars wrapping. WAY TOO MUCH micromanaging for my tastes. Your build queue is only 5 units long, and you can only build defensive structures in spots that they provide. The AI is extremely stupid, they just stand there while they get shot. The unit balancing is awful, 5 rebel soldiers taking out an AT-AT, with their guns? Come on!
I haven't played through the sample conquest mission yet, but what I have seen from the tutorials, the amount of micromanagement required to beat the missions can hardly be described as "way too much", in my humble opinion.

Warcraft 3 is the most micro-management intensive game I've ever played and this game doesn't touch that by far. Most units have merely one special ability and you have a global activation button if you group a bunch of identical units, wereas in WC3 you have to activate special abilities for each seperate unit.

The only case I could easily destroy a bunch of imperial AT-STs with a group of infantry was with two heavy weapon squads that fired some sort of photon missiles instead of blaster bolts and even then it took quite a bit.

When it comes down to dumb AI - well, that's symptomatic for the whole genre if you ask me. Either you have games were the units sit there catatonically letting themselves be killed, or you have the other extreme were the units will run head on into any enemy, thus getting lured into too large amounts of resistance and getting destroyed as well if you don't pay attention.

The one thing were I agree with you, is the defensive structure thing. I hope the full game offers more possibilities than the demo. The other things you criticised make it seem to me like you're not a big fan of real time strategy games in general.
Post
#171384
Topic
StarWars: Empire at War PC game demo out!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/171384/action/topic#171384
Time
Originally posted by: Zebonka
They can stick the 750mb download in their ear... though, if I see a copy of the demo in any DVD from a game magazine I'll be sure to check it out. I might be alone in this, but I *really* liked Force Commander (the chincy cutscenes especially). Strategy's fun.
I never played Force Commander, since most gaming magazines gave it a "thumbs down" back then. Yet I suppose there may be parallels to it, I don't know for sure.

What I can say is, that they incorporated quite a chunk of ideas from "StarWars: Rebellion": You need to conquer planets and build structures on them to be able to create troops and ships and you can send spies and saboteurs to infiltrate an enemy system (the political component is missing though - so no more angst riots when you use the death star as the empire, mwuharhar >: ).

The rest is pretty much like your average real time strategy game. You can have battles in space or on a planets surface (you can call in planetary bombardments if you have a fleet in orbit). The space battles take place on a 2 dimensional grid within a 3 dimensional environment - so it's not like in 'real space', but it's still a lot of fun. The atmosphere is pretty dense and I suppose if you liked Force Commander, you'll really enjoy this one.
Post
#171382
Topic
StarWars: Empire at War PC game demo out!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/171382/action/topic#171382
Time
Well, Scruffy. I was able to play the game on full detail levels without any impact on the fluency of the game. I understand your anger about the flash thing, but the system requirements are very moderate for a game that's supposed to be released next month.

Most "kids" these days play World of Warcraft from Blizzard Entertainment - and even that game has very moderate system requirements, plus you have many options to reduce any graphical detail that you deem less important to you to improve the game's performance.

Same with Half-Life 2 and games based on it. You don't need most recent hardware to play it - especially HL2 and WOW really still look good enough on lowest detail levels to be fun to play (owners of an older computer aren't used to better graphics than that anyways). The first Counter-Strike: Source map I had perormance hits on full detail settings, was the one released for it yesterday: cs_militia.

The times were you needed a high end system to play a new pc game are pretty much over (the buzzword is "scalability"), because the difference in quality from a "middle class" system to a "bleeding edge" system doesn't really have that much of an impact on the gameplay experience anymore.

When it comes to the game itself, I played through the five tutorial missions and it was quite a bit of fun. I suggest you try the demo some time round instead of reading biased game magazines.