Mile Zero
no matter where you go, there you are
Mile Zero is the personal website of Thomas Wilburn. All statements and opinions here are my own, and do not represent the views or policies of my employers at Congressional Quarterly, Ars Technica, or other publications.
It's that time again: tax time at the Bank. Which, as an international organization, doesn't pay taxes and doesn't withhold my Social Security or Medicare. No, I get to pay those personally using the Self-Employment schedule. And TurboTax, perhaps reasonably assuming that most of its customers are not employees of international organizations, doesn't like to fill out the Schedule SE without accompanying business income.
The long and the short of it is that I'm paying for the software to submit quickly and without a printer, since I'm going to have to fill out the forms manually anyway. It's probably still worth the $35 anyway, but what a pain. They don't tell you when you sign the contract to basically kiss an extra grand goodbye for added taxes.
00:00 x Thomas x /bank/experience/hr x link x 0 comments
A while back Corvus had a round table on "home" in games, which was a really good topic. I didn't write about it, because I'm still on the whole "I can't quit you" self-loathing-toward-writing-about-games kick, but it was a good topic. A week or so later, I guess, Corvus gets a DS and posts his Animal Crossing friend code in my DS networking thread. Being a good neighbor, I extended the invitation to him, as with several other people, to drop in on my town if I ever leave the damn thing open long enough.
But I'm not entirely comfortable with that. Not with Corvus specifically. I'm a little nervous about anyone visiting Lexingtn, because I don't feel like it's very impressive. I wouldn't say it's home exactly--one day I will write about how Animal Crossing reinforces several weird capitalist biases as well as being really funny from my newly acquired development perspective--but it's a personal "space." I don't have time to jazz it up or pay off my next house loan or plant flowers--and games like Animal Crossing, and to some extent ranked online games like Metroid Prime: Hunters, turn time almost directly into value. In a way, the grind has come to my previously untainted portable action gaming experience.
On the other hand, this guilt is tremendously amusing--I have no problems whatsoever with my self-esteem, I dig my job (both B-SPAN and my freelance work), and I love my music (although server logs would indicate that I'm the only one). And here I feel bad that I don't have time, with all of that other business, to sell coconuts to a raccoon in order to buy low-resolution Nintendo memorabilia?
Weird.
11:39 x Thomas x /gaming/roundtable x link x 1 comment
For fans of Electroplankton, check out the Yamaha Tenori, developed by creator Toshio Iwai. It's a combination of synth, looper, beatbox, and music toy, all in a multi-touch interface. Looks very, very cool, and probably a lot of fun.
14:51 x Thomas x /music/tools/digital/tenori x link x 1 comment
UPS has finally admitted that they lost or destroyed the Cort bass that I sent off for repair. They've sent me the paperwork for my loss claim. This means a "windfall" insurance payment, I guess. It's not actually free money, more like a return, but it's kind of nice anyway.
Maybe I'll order that Rickenbacker now after all...
00:00 x Thomas x /music/tools/bass x link x 0 comments
Musical Sketchpad, Session Three
This song has a bit of history. Back when I was in an actual band, the division of labor usually meant that the guitarist would come up with a riff, then I would change the structure and write lyrics/bassline to match. But there were a few songs, including this one, that I wrote myself. Since those are mine (all mine!), I'm working on resurrecting them for my pretentious solo project. I think this one, which was one of our better numbers, works pretty well in its new format.
Back then it was called Voodoo Doll, and the lyrics fit the theme. Why so many voodoo songs? Well, when I was in high school, it was kind of a fascination of mine. I was reading a lot of William Gibson back then, and listening to a lot of blues. I also really like the loaded imagery that it helps create. Since I've already got a song on the topic now, I'll probably either change the lyrics or the name, so that it's less obvious.
I'll record and post another sketchpad with my other Mile Zero song later this week. It's one that wasn't ever a hit when we played it, but hopefully with a new bassline and some arrangement work, it might get a new lease on life.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/recording/sketchpad x link x 1 comment
Musical Sketchpad, Session Two
This is a rough version of my Electroplankton composition, so the organizer can have a sample. It uses Rec-Rec extensively, and also a little bit of Lumiloop. I had a version that included Tracy, but ran out of time while doing the actual recording. Also it starts with a bit of a sampled in-joke, which probably can't be included in the final for copyright reasons. It needs more movement, I think, but I like it. I really used Cubase's automation tools, which made a big difference.
So it's a blues song about Lovecraft's The Shadow over Innsmouth. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
00:00 x Thomas x /music/recording/sketchpad x link x 0 comments
As of yesterday, the deadline for my next Escapist piece is two months away. If I start saying I'm going to hit the phones now, I'll probably get around to it next month and have plenty of good sources by the time I sit down to write. The topic is the concerns, advantages, and unique problems faced by companies that try to enter the Chinese game and software market--particularly considering the country's notoriously lax attitude toward intellectual property. Every computer I saw while I was there was running pirated copies of the OS and most of the software, and copies were sold openly at the malls and small stores I went into. I'm interested in the historical reasons for this, how companies (like Blizzard, for example) are dealing with it, and what the government intends to do (if anything) to address it.
I'm also curious, given events in recent months, about the ethics of dealing in the market: since Google and other search engines have begun censoring their searches for the market at the request of the PRC, how does that tie into entertainment software? Are there protest games? Communists are funny about what they ban. I probably don't have room to touch on this in depth, but it might make a good spin-off article if I gather enough research.
Right now my source to-do list looks something like this: Blizzard, EA, possibly Nintendo (has been fanatical about piracy for years), the Chinese embassy, my old Mandarin teacher, and whatever academic/think tank experts I can hunt down (given that it's DC, should be easy--the Brookings Institute can be pretty accomodating, and a couple of universities here should have someone on hand).
OBLIGATORY HATE-FILLED SNARK: Of course, I understand Chris Crawford has declared that gaming is dead while at this year's GDC. Since he's not a complete crackpot or anything, I have contingency plans in case the collapse happens before my deadline.
15:52 x Thomas x /gaming/media/online x link x 1 comment
In the last few days, the Washington Post introduced a dumb-as-a-brick conservative blogger, who garnered a real following around the Left side of the political blogs for such gems as his fandom of the movie Red Dawn. It was then discovered that said blogger, Ben Domenech (originally of RedState.com), had a real history of plagiarism while he was at William and Mary. In the furor, Domenech resigned from the position (although I think it's more likely that the Post asked him to step down).
Now he's blaming his college editors (cut and pasted from redstate.com):
In one instance, I have been accused me of passing off P.J. O'Rourke's writing as my own in a column for the paper. But the truth is that I had met P.J. at a Republican event and asked his permission to do a college-specific version of his classic piece on partying. He granted permission, the piece was cleared with my editors at the paper, and it ran as inspired by O.Rourke.s original.
My critics have also accused me of plagiarism in multiple movie reviews for the college paper. I once caught an editor at the paper inserting a line from The New Yorker (which I read) into my copy and protested. When that editor was promoted, I resigned. Before that, insertions had been routinely made in my copy, which I did not question. I did not even at that time read the publications from which I am now alleged to have lifted material. When these insertions were made, I assumed, like most disgruntled writers would, that they were unnecessary but legitimate editorial additions.
I hope she doesn't mind my saying this (and if you do, babe, let me know and I'll remove it), but Belle was one of the Flat Hat's editors at the time (correction: she was a writer that year, and an editor the next)--and she would never have condoned plagiarism by her writers. I also know several of her friends who edited the paper, and although they sometimes make me jealous with their skill, they leave no doubt that they really care about the writing they do. The idea that they inserted chunks of Salon articles and New Yorker reviews into Domenech's work is simply unthinkable.
This isn't about politics. It's about integrity.
00:00 x Thomas x /politics/wingnuts/domenech x link x 0 comments
Near the end of the Galactica miniseries, Commander Adama gives a speech to rally the troops, since the loss of a couple thousand people more after all of interstellar civilization gets nuked tends to be depressing. It's a good effort by Ed Olmos, especially considering that he apparently improvised about half of it, but it comes across feeling a bit like a standard sci-fi series premiere. And that's what it basically is.
I'm noticing these things after picking up the season one DVDs and watching the miniseries again. What stands out is that it doesn't really feel like Galactica. The basics are there--complicated interpersonal relationships, byzantine power struggles, characters with tragic weaknesses--but at the same time they are toned down in favor of more standard plot elements. There's a lot of technobabble in the three hours, considering this is a show that consciously avoids that kind of thing. What struck me the most is how clean and young everyone looks. The grime and constant stress of the actual show isn't present yet.
So what we're left with is a miniseries that's not bad, certainly very good by Sci Fi Channel standards. It seems like it might turn into a good, but not great, post-Star Trek series. Then it's followed by "33," which was suddenly leaps and bounds above that level, ratcheting up the tension and the premise--and I don't think the quality ever dropped until season 2.5. I'm a little amazed that I actually stuck around after the premiere, frankly. But looking back, it's such a great metaphor for the story arc across seasons one and two--an optimistic, hopeful beginning that then drops its characters into the machine and observes the changes that result. Watching (as I did, since I started late) the entire two-season arc in only 4 months only accentuates the experience.
I'm glad that the box set comes with the miniseries. But if you haven't seen Galactica and you'd like to give it a shot, don't see it as mandatory to spend three hours on it. If the premiere doesn't get to you right away or you don't have the time for it, try the first episode instead. It's the best show on TV. I don't think you'll regret it.
00:00 x Thomas x /movies/television/galactica x link x 0 comments
'Scuse me while I kiss this guy
I own one Springsteen album, which I never listen to and which I think I borrowed from my parents. So I never actually knew the title of the song "Tenth Avenue Freezeout" until it came up on Pandora just now. I've been trying to figure out the lyrics to the chorus for years whenever it came on the radio: always thought it was something like "tent devil in the freeze eye." Good to know the Boss wasn't making occult references after all.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/artists/springsteen x link x 0 comments
"People who do not have the necessary writting skills should be replaced."
00:00 x Thomas x /random/comedy_and_tragedy x link x 0 comments
Have you checked out our podcasts yet?
This month, one presentation really stood out for me: the final session of the Global Issues Seminar Series. The series has been a great introduction to lots of different development issues, but this last session focuses inward on the World Bank itself. If you've ever been curious as to what the Bank actually does, this video should answer your questions. It includes an overview by Maya Brahmam, who runs the Speakers Bureau; a short talk about corruption and sustainability by David Theis, who I knew in EXT but now works for the department of Institutional Integrity; and a candid outsider's viewpoint by Manish Bapna of the Bank Information Center. The latter may be my favorite, because Bapna pulls no punches about the Bank and its leadership, and I'm always really proud to have those kinds of critical presentations on B-SPAN.
Next month is the annual Spring Meetings, which means everything goes crazy. April is the busiest month for everything at the Bank, and B-SPAN is no exception. Assuming nobody else cancels, we have a ton of interesting material in the pipeline. The downside, of course, is that I have a lot more work to do, and it's not all fun to write.
00:00 x Thomas x /bank/events/bspan x link x 0 comments
The preview is here (scroll down). If you had a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters all free-associating from the works of Hemingway, I don't think you could come up with a better title than Snakes On A Plane, starring Sam L. Jackson.
22:32 x Thomas x /movies/previews x link x 1 comment
According to David Icke, both of my state's Senators are space lizards bent on drinking the blood of mankind. How does your state score?
Why yes, it is a kind of a slow day, why do you ask?
10:07 x Thomas x /politics/wingnuts/davidicke x link x 1 comment
I'm working on a draft to be submitted to various outlets, should my superiors here at the Bank allow it, about the One Laptop Per Child program. Suffice to say that I think it, like the quote attributed to Marie Antoinette, is a grave and harmful misunderstanding of the development process. I'll put my draft up here if it turns out that no-one will take it, but in the meantime the following two links provide a pretty good overview of the problems involved.
First, there's a series of blog posts by NGO head Lee Felsenstein, a computer pioneer who now works in developing infrastructure. Start here and then work forward through the posts using the menu at the top. He lays out problems with the hardware and the shady implementation so far--like the constantly shifting specs for these machines. He also pitches a telecenter as a better solution, which I would endorse--although at this point it would be best to disclose that I work closely with GDLN, the Bank-funded initiative for distributed learning, which does implement some of these solutions.
Second, an article linked from the Fonly Institute blog comments, from a Peruvian professor. It talks about the humanitarian and prioritization aspects of this project, which to me are even more convincing. But then, consider that these laptops won't be given to host governments. They're to be sold, with a minimum commitment of 1 million units--$100 million dollars on machines that may or may not have any positive effect at all. Perhaps the motive here is more profit than altruism. Nick Negroponte is one of the original dot-com investors, after all. And there are far more proven ways to help people with $100 million.
Finally, I will only say that the phrase "capacity development" should be ringing alarm bells all over this project. It is almost as if it were specifically designed not to build any useful capacity for developing countries. As far as I'm concerned, that's the most dangerous aspect of the plan--that it entails tremendous expense at the expense of other initiatives, both in monetary and opportunity costs.
00:00 x Thomas x /bank/analysis/development/technology x link x 1 comment
I'm not so sure about this plan
Bumper sticker on a gold Toyota this morning:
Keep America beautiful
Import Lithuanians
13:06 x Thomas x /random/comedy_and_tragedy x link x 1 comment
I'm working on a couple of podcasts, trying to catch up for when we launch the series to the whole Bank. At that point, they have to be flawless and on time, the 1st and 15th each month. The current episode is going to be on Energy, and it features a keynote speech by Wolfowitz at the Bank's Energy Week 2006. He notes that, according to the World Health Organization, 1.6 million people die each year from cooking indoors with hazardous solid fuels, just because they don't have electricity or other (relatively) clean energy sources.
Development is really a chain reaction on so many levels, isn't it? They don't have electricity, so just cooking becomes poisonous. It's amazing how many ways being poor can kill you.
00:00 x Thomas x /bank/experience/personal x link x 0 comments
The text above "Bar-B-Quing with my Honey" reads "Stay in School."
18:44 x Thomas x /dc/photos x link x 1 comment
I've been asked to contribute to an Electroplankton-based musical compilation. They're fine with letting me sample my bass, and I can do anything in "studio" that I need to do. Most of the other pieces are apparently going to be very electronica in nature, so I'll probably stand out--this is my chance to put my money where my mouth is with all of those guides and see if I can actually make some music with it. It'll be distributed by torrent--I'll put up more info when I've got it. This post is partially to motivate myself, because I've been putting it off.
You may remember that my Composing series kind of ground to a halt, after I wrecked the microphone input. I have tools now to get better access to the guts of the DS, but I'd rather not use them, and the headsets I brought back from France are basically useless. As far as I can tell, they actually connect both mike contacts to the same wire, which leads to a nasty high-pitched hum. However, someone drew my attention to the fact that the iPod third generation wired remote has almost the exact same connector, albeit with more sleeve contacts on the 3.5mm plug. Unfortunately, Apple sells its remote for the mind-boggling $40, so it's a bit hard for me to get one for experimentation. If anyone has one and can just verify for me that the plug does indeed fit, I'll see if I can score one off eBay.
00:00 x Thomas x /gaming/society/art x link x 1 comment
This "research," I do not think it means what you think it means
Your college professors always warned you that sources on the Internet should be treated carefully. Jonah Goldberg didn't listen (via Sadly, No!):
Does that Geico car insurance ad (...but there is good news: I saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico) play across the entire country? I know it does in the East. Is it in the Midwest or California? As the response to this kind of bleg is bound to be overwhelming. Send answers to JonahResearch@aol.com. And please don't send any answers after, 11:00 AM. Thanks.
Set the scene: Goldberg works for the National Review Online, and occasionally writes for other parts of the right-wing political apparatus. This means that his job consists in its entirety of writing talking points for a gullible Internet audience, making pop culture references in NRO's abominable blog The Corner, and contributing a few hundred words to a syndicated column--a task that does not, apparently, require much in the way of copy editing. This is, I have to assume, a pretty easy life.
And while it is easy to be snotty about it when Goldberg screws up (as above) the history of Upton Sinclair or the ecosystems of the Great Plains, he can at least justify these errors and their accompanying bleg (don't get me started on the word) for information by the slight difficulty of the work involved. It's hard to read those thick, scholarly books, right Jonah? It can't be easy to actually go to a library and ask someone in the reference section for help.
But as someone who actually enjoys the process of interview and research that goes into writing, and who does have to face a copy editor for accuracy from time to time, this Geico thing of Jonah's really gets to me. Because even if it weren't fairly obvious that this is a national campaign, and even if he couldn't Google the answer, the process for figuring out such an inconsequential factoid is really very simple:
10:25 x Thomas x /politics/wingnuts/national_review x link x 1 comment
Now the last time I tried this whole capsule review schtick, the trolls emerged, and I guess that was a little bit awesome. But in an effort to prevent further bloodshed, and to appease those who say that I'm too pessimistic, today's capsule reviews are all songs off my Favorites list in Pandora. I'm eliminating the songs that we've all heard, and only one song per artist. You can find my favorites, including radio station links and audio samples, here.
00:00 x Thomas x /music/capsule x link x 0 comments
For my own future reference: Dr. Richard Lewontin of Harvard on race as a social construct.
Actually, after looking over Lewontin's Wikipedia entry, I may have found a new hero.
10:29 x Thomas x /science/biology/genetics x link x 1 comment
...And a helpful talking falcon!
Dear people who make or write about games,
When you have a roleplaying game, set in a bizarrely clean and well-decorated medieval kingdom, and a lone boy must gather a group of charming misfits before saving the world from a heartless evil character of some kind or another, nine times out of ten this is not a workable plot. It is a cliche, a terrible tragedy of melodrama, and I am just a bit tired of being told that I can look past it.
Look, I read terrible science fiction and fantasy. It's comfort food--not good for me, or even particularly tasty, just filling and familiar. But I recognize it for what it is. I'm not trying to convince anyone that the output of, say, Mercedes Lackey, is a work of art--in fact, given half a chance, I'd probably try to talk you out of reading the kinds of pulp I browse on a regular basis.
So let's not have any more talk about how Magical Sword of Phantastic Phire: My Kingdom for a Plot Device is a "charming, well-executed" wrapping for plots that were threadbare when Adventure hit the shelves. A typical Japanese-style RPG is going to eat at least 20 hours to complete. You could read at least three formulaic paperbacks in that time, maybe pick up a little vocabulary or a nice turn of phrase, and help keep a struggling writer afloat.
Believe me, I'm all about keeping struggling writers afloat...
07:04 x Thomas x /gaming/design/story x link x 1 comment
The Communist Party Never Stops
00:00 x Thomas x /random/comedy_and_tragedy x link x 0 comments
Let's say, just for the sake of argument and why not, that the ethical concerns that I toss, like an idiot jester, from hand to hand actually mattered. That they impacted the greater shared world beyond. I realize that even thinking such a thing is to set foot on the slippery slope of my doom, where comic books, video games, and death metal convince unpopular teenagers to do drugs and shoot themselves in the face. But let's accept it as a postulate for just a second, and then laugh at it.
(From Warren Ellis' now-defunct Die Puny Humans) People who are primed with thoughts of superheroes are less likely to help others.
(Yes, I know, we all post it once every four months. It's still funny.) Superman is a Dick.
The question has been raised (and I paraphrase) "So why don't you shut up and do something about it?" And I'll be frank: good point. I have only a few weak excuses, namely, that I have no interest in being a game designer. I probably wouldn't mind being a comic book writer, but I doubt I would be very good at it. When I grow up, I just want to be a journalist, or a lumberjack, and I'm working very hard at the former. In the meantime, I like to bitch about culture, because that fits neatly into my schedule between the editing and writing and audio work that I love, and that I get paid to do.
However, this is not to denigrate the argument of "So what have you done lately?" I think it's a very good one. What have I done lately? I could think about that all day, especially if someone wanted to order pizza and watch The Relic while I thought about it. So yes, in case we want to address that weakness to my longwinded insistence on filling as much server space with self-centered text as possible, I got no game at all.
14:39 x Thomas x /gaming/design/story x link x 1 comment
Big news in superhero games lately. Jim Lee of DC fame intends to create a massively-multiplayer competitor to City of Heroes--I don't know who he is, but I'm assured that he's important. There's a trailer for the next-gen Superman Returns license--although it's prerendered, so it's about as revealing as fundamentalist fashion ("Becky's elbows were clearly visible, that slut"). But I remember reading somewhere that they're planning on playing up the invulnerability that makes Superman a pretty boring character. Instead of protecting yourself, the real goal is to protect as many lives in Metropolis as possible. It's an interesting take. It'd be amusing if they made you do that while you were trying to hold down your reporting gig at the Daily Planet.
But you know what? When it all comes down to it, you're still just fighting off big angry monsters, and scaring the occasional mugger or carjacker. I hate to keep referencing Warren Ellis, but he's really beat this theme into the ground: superheroes are, frankly, useless. They don't change the status quo. They can't do anything that would actually affect the living standard of the citizens, because they're too busy making sure that said citizens aren't flattened by the Villain o' the Week. Superman doesn't feed the hungry or clothe the poor. Spiderman's a great guy, but he doesn't take out corrupt politicians. Even the X-Men--they're fighting for mutant rights, obvious stand-in for the civil rights movement, but they largely restrict their advocacy to beating up on Bad People with Guns.
Note: perhaps this is not entirely true. I'm not a devout comics reader, so if Aquaman #258 had the Justice League starting a chain of shelters for battered women, I wouldn't know. But I'm making a point. SILENCE.
One of the nice running gags from the Batman animated series is that you saw Bruce Wayne going to charity events all the time. They sold the millionaire playboy/philanthropist angle at every opportunity--and we never saw Bruce do any kind of actual work. I like to think that Batman, being a down-to-earth kind of superhero, was trying to attack the crime from its results and its causes. But it also makes you wonder--Batman's a superhero because he trained his body and his mind, but he's really a superhero because he's rich (See an estate tax post where I contradict myself at Philanthropica). Would anyone else like to see a Batman simulation where you have to play cutthroat exploitation capitalist in order to afford gas for the Batmobile? Where you have to beat down the poor so you can afford to save them from the Joker? Does Bruce Wayne ever lie awake at night, wondering which of the workers he just laid off is going to find a magical ring in the dumpster and use it to massacre hundreds? Other writers have touched on this, of course, but it's still a valid question.
Ethics in video games are largely the same as ethics in comic books, which is why theoretically they work very well together. Stop that crime! Kill that villain! Follow that car! In part, this is because gaming began as a medium with limited available expression, and that established a tradition of flat objectives even as the simulation aspect became more complicated. It also has roots in its perspective, which generally focuses on one character. Everything else in the world exists to help or harm a single protagonist or small group of protagonists. As Lance Mannion pointed out (although discussing movies instead of comics or games), these characters are heroes because they're standing where a hero is supposed to stand. People are trying to kill them or hurt them, and they fight back. (See Creating the Innocent Killer, re: Ender's game, for similar thoughts)
I'm not trying to say that this is causing some sort of grave ethical crisis. Our youth are not being corrupted. Grand Theft Auto should not necessarily have an internal debate on welfare underlying its criminal methodology (although.... no, never mind). What I am saying is that we need context. More specifically, we need a perspective.
I refuse to be ashamed to admit that I've been watching Project Runway, Bravo's fashion designer competition. One of the constant themes that the judges harp on is perspective--have a perspective, say something with the clothes you make. And in the end, you see their point, because the designers who do have a strong point of view on how clothing should feel and what it should mean are the ones that consistently make the most interesting designs. Their clothes exist in a context. They hold opinions.
When is the last time that you could really give me a perspective for a game, that wasn't limited to an internal view of its system? What does it have to say about who we are? Take this article from the Escapist by Patrick Dugan. I'm not trying to pick on Patrick here, because he was under no obligation to address any of this in his article, which was completely unrelated to my cynical viciousness, and he seems like a nice kid. I'm just using it as a convenient example, because it struck me. Patrick is discussing challenge, which is fair enough, and he mentions a few artifacts that don't fall under the typical conception of challenge (or even "games," but that's another discussion entirely). He mentions September 12th, an interactive and explicitly political display about Bush's now-legendary War on Terror.
Now, again, I'm not complaining about the article. Patrick set out to write about challenge, and he does it, and I think he makes some good points about the systems of the games themselves. But I remember reading that part and thinking, wait a minute: you've got this game that aims to undermine existing justifications for military action against terrorism, and what we're discussing is whether or not it's challenging? Back up the train a minute, because I want to spend some more time on its message. Is it effective? How do people react when they realize what it's doing?? Forget about the game-as-a-system, amateur designer perspective. What does September 12th mean? What could we learn from it, not as gamers, but as people? You can't understand it from a four-color comics perspective. Whether you agree with what the artist is saying or not, it's asking you to consider something about your reaction to the perceived threat.
All of this is really a long way of explaining part of what I find so frustrating about games lately. I see a lot of focus on discussing the mechanics of these games, and not whether they (like the Project Runway kids) have a strong point of view. Trying to create dynamic, open worlds for generated storytelling, that's all very well and good, but it doesn't give the designer a lot of room to say anything because they're trying to say everything. The opposite end is the safe route, the comic-book morals of glorified vengeance against attackers and aggressors.
I want to play something with an opinion.
11:22 x Thomas x /gaming/design/story x link x 1 comment
Apparently I am now listed on gameblogs.org, a couple months after I filled out the form, and at the point when I have basically cut my writing about gaming down to the absolute minimum. This doesn't really surprise me at all. Thanks anyway.
00:00 x Thomas x /meta/announce/changes x link x 0 comments
P.S. In addition to the post below, I would like a pony.
Sincerely,
Thomas
19:45 x Thomas x /gaming/design/story x link x 1 comment
James Wolcott likes V for Vendetta. It's hard to predict how the movie will turn out--the Wachowskis have shown that for every subtle or gripping directorial choice (most of The Matrix or Bound), they can also make one that's clumsy or overindulgent (the first ten minutes of Bound or the last two movies of The Matrix). V has, compared to Moore's other works and to its advantage, a much more over-the-top Hollywood plot. It's less likely to be sabotaged than the literate references of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
12:57 x Thomas x /movies/commentary/others x link x 1 comment
