[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.

[coder at ibm.net]

On 09/11/97 at 01:42 PM, cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA (Chris Gray)
said: >[JC:]

>:<<I strongly agree, and for the same reasons.	I have an annual budget of
>:near zero for games, yet my annual software budget is many $hundred.  The
>:last game I actually went out and bought was a second hand copy of 
>:SinCity over two years ago.  That was the first game I'd bought in almost 
>:5 years=.  Of course this places me outside of the game manufacturer's 
>:target market/demographics -- but I find it more interesting that I'm 
>:being joined.  I must wonder (hope?) if that motion will become general.>>

>I'm sort-of in the same boat. Not owning a DOS/Windows machine shuts me
>out of most of the new games...

I have a DOS machine, I just never boot DOS.  I find that most DOS games
run perfectly well in DOS sessions under OS/2.  The windows stuff I'm
don't bother with.

>There is another interest in new games for some of us, however, and that
>is simply viewing the results of other's work, and seeing what the state
>of the art can produce. For this kind of please, you are unlikely to
>actually finish or "win" the game - you are only viewing the technology,
>so little immersion is ocurring.

This I do do a lot of -- usually by standing behond other players, or
watching demos.  I'm interested in their basic ideas much more than the
games themselves.  

At work today one of the other contractors had a CD based car driving game
(drive around, run over pedestrians and cows, kill the other cars by
running into them).  The game itself was mind numbingly unoriginal and
monotonous.  However their handling of camera positions was fascinating if
only for their occassional strokes of brilliance and general utter
ineptitude.  When doing basic maneuvers, turns spins, side spins, etc, the
camera would fly about like a deseased bomber, losing any chance the
player had of controlling the exact motion of his car.  However when
operating at speed, or attempting more daring and less rotational
maneuvers, their handling of camera position was utterly brilliant.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...