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  • Video games are a waste of life

    From Pr. Mandrake@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 11 14:25:51 2022
    I had this argument once. My position at the time is that it is like an act
    of creation that grows and grows with each save. That was back when I
    was playing Might & Magic 5, which I went on to complete. Another time, someone doubted that a game could give me familiarity with projectile
    weapons. I had heard of AR-15s long before they showed up in the news.
    It helped me gauge the importance of them showing up in massacres.

    But usually you just sit there and simmer, mumbling under your breath,
    video games are bad. Have at me. I can hold my own. You don't place
    them as a part of reality. Go play Antichamber.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Creon@21:1/5 to Mandrake" on Tue Dec 13 06:02:40 2022
    In <7a391c28-cbf9-4285-8b5f-543079d139f4n@googlegroups.com>, "Pr.
    Mandrake" <niodoru@hotmail.com> wrote:

    I had this argument once. My position at the time is that it is like an
    act of creation that grows and grows with each save. That was back when
    I was playing Might & Magic 5, which I went on to complete. Another
    time, someone doubted that a game could give me familiarity with
    projectile weapons. I had heard of AR-15s long before they showed up in
    the news.
    It helped me gauge the importance of them showing up in massacres.

    But usually you just sit there and simmer, mumbling under your breath,
    video games are bad. Have at me. I can hold my own. You don't place
    them as a part of reality. Go play Antichamber.

    i prefer EDO, which is an MMO. The Thargoids are invading the bubble
    using large subluminal projectiles colloquially known as "stargoids".

    And when they arrive in a system, all hell breaks loose. And now there's a background sim run by AI to track the thargoid's progress in the human- thargoid war. Frontier Developments is making a bold move, and I for one
    like it.

    Anyway: So far, no sign of any Guardians. That may be a good
    thing. On the other hand, the Guardian-Thargoid war left the Thargoids in retreat over a million years ago, so naturally it would be nice
    to see what kind of weaponry the Guardians have developed
    over the last million years. Probably something to counteract the
    [SPOILER REDACTED] of the [SPOILER REDACTED] in the
    center of a maelstrom.

    Finally, to respond to the subject line:
    Are novels a "waste of life"?
    Are movies a "waste of life"?
    Are amusement park "imagineered" rides a "waste of life"?

    Video games are interactive fiction, where the mind is
    engaged[*] at a level exceeding that of just watching
    a movie.

    [*] and in the boring parts of a game, people watch youtube anyway lol

    --
    -Creon

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Pr. Mandrake@21:1/5 to Creon on Mon Jan 16 13:30:23 2023
    On Tuesday, December 13, 2022 at 12:02:42 AM UTC-6, Creon wrote:

    Video games are interactive fiction, where the mind is
    engaged[*] at a level exceeding that of just watching
    a movie.

    In some games, getting to the middle game is almost like getting old.
    Wherever you go, you don't want to fall down and break a hip. An error
    later in the game usually costs more.

    [*] and in the boring parts of a game, people watch youtube anyway lol

    I'm fairly reluctant at looking up secrets. I bought Limbo for a friend and I. He finished it about two weeks after he got it. I still haven't finished it. Evidently he looked at youtube quite often. It's not wrong though. Better
    to finish a game than be stuck in it for years. However, Limbo's not really
    my cup of tea. As a Catholic, it's probably a sin to play it.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Pr. Mandrake@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jan 29 18:08:05 2023
    Video games are interactive fiction, where the mind is
    engaged[*] at a level exceeding that of just watching
    a movie.

    Getting to the mid game of all these new titles is that the
    environment grows into yours. The environment is here
    in my apartment.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Pr. Mandrake@21:1/5 to Pr. Mandrake on Thu Mar 9 03:48:44 2023
    On Monday, January 16, 2023 at 3:30:24 PM UTC-6, Pr. Mandrake wrote:
    On Tuesday, December 13, 2022 at 12:02:42 AM UTC-6, Creon wrote:

    Video games are interactive fiction, where the mind is
    engaged[*] at a level exceeding that of just watching
    a movie.
    In some games, getting to the middle game is almost like getting old. Wherever you go, you don't want to fall down and break a hip. An error
    later in the game usually costs more.

    This was from one of my failed Wizardry 7 parties. They had pointy
    sticks, but not much wizardry (hindsight is 20/20). I got some advice
    about starting party. Now I find it difficult to get my ranger's shock
    rod out of my mind. it's 2d4 and he often hits twice. It's basically an upgraded awl pike, with a bonus 1/8 chance of draining the target's
    stamina. He stands in the back row with his enormous hit points and
    polearms the front two rows. I think you get the idea.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From nikolai kingsley@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jun 16 19:31:47 2023
    thinking fondly about that game I started writing a while ago. based on Keila Jedrik's original position as Senior Liaitor in Frank Herbert's "The Dosadi Experiment". very simple loop of resource allocation, production and a random possibility of an
    attack from the Rim. it could expand into an entire city-wide strategy game, but I can't remember where the original was. possibly one of the old mainframes at FIT.

    --
    is there a point to this story, Dad?

    I like stories

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From nikolai kingsley@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jun 17 17:07:30 2023
    "a while ago" being around 1988.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From entwickeln14@21:1/5 to nikolai kingsley on Tue Jun 20 18:35:04 2023
    On Saturday, June 17, 2023 at 8:07:31 PM UTC-4, nikolai kingsley wrote:
    "a while ago" being around 1988.

    Hello.
    What's new?

    e

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From vallor@21:1/5 to All on Thu Jun 22 21:08:44 2023
    On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 18:35:04 -0700 (PDT), entwickeln14 wrote:

    On Saturday, June 17, 2023 at 8:07:31 PM UTC-4, nikolai kingsley wrote:
    "a while ago" being around 1988.

    Hello.
    What's new?

    e

    hi

    In 8th grade, I wrote a game on the Commodore PET. You
    would maneuver your avatar (an asterisk) through a landscape
    of constantly-changing random blocks appearing and disappearing.

    Kind of a funky maze game. Would have been around 1981.

    --
    -v

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From entwickeln14@21:1/5 to vallor on Thu Jun 22 15:13:18 2023
    On Thursday, June 22, 2023 at 5:08:46 PM UTC-4, vallor wrote:

    In 8th grade, I wrote a game on the Commodore PET. You
    would maneuver your avatar (an asterisk) through a landscape
    of constantly-changing random blocks appearing and disappearing.

    Kind of a funky maze game. Would have been around 1981.

    Brian, is that you?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From vallor@21:1/5 to All on Thu Jun 22 22:48:10 2023
    On Thu, 22 Jun 2023 15:13:18 -0700 (PDT), entwickeln14 wrote:

    On Thursday, June 22, 2023 at 5:08:46 PM UTC-4, vallor wrote:

    In 8th grade, I wrote a game on the Commodore PET. You
    would maneuver your avatar (an asterisk) through a landscape
    of constantly-changing random blocks appearing and disappearing.

    Kind of a funky maze game. Would have been around 1981.

    Brian, is that you?

    No...

    Who is Brian?

    --
    -v

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From nikolai kingsley@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jun 23 03:47:01 2023
    In 8th grade, I wrote a game on the Commodore PET. You
    would maneuver your avatar (an asterisk) through a landscape
    of constantly-changing random blocks appearing and disappearing.


    coding games on eight-bit computers was a Thing for people of our generation, roughly. fond memories of hand coding 6502 machine code to move sections of a map onto screen memory.

    --
    poke 54272, 0

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From entwickeln14@21:1/5 to vallor on Fri Jun 23 12:17:54 2023
    On Thursday, June 22, 2023 at 6:48:12 PM UTC-4, vallor wrote:
    On Thu, 22 Jun 2023 15:13:18 -0700 (PDT), entwickeln14 wrote:

    On Thursday, June 22, 2023 at 5:08:46 PM UTC-4, vallor wrote:

    In 8th grade, I wrote a game on the Commodore PET. You
    would maneuver your avatar (an asterisk) through a landscape
    of constantly-changing random blocks appearing and disappearing.

    Kind of a funky maze game. Would have been around 1981.

    Brian, is that you?
    No...

    Who is Brian?

    Brian was in the class ahead of me in high school. He did pretty much the same thing you describe above. It was fun to play with.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From vallor@21:1/5 to nikolai kingsley on Sat Jun 24 07:47:23 2023
    On Fri, 23 Jun 2023 03:47:01 -0700 (PDT), nikolai kingsley wrote:

    In 8th grade, I wrote a game on the Commodore PET. You would maneuver
    your avatar (an asterisk) through a landscape of constantly-changing
    random blocks appearing and disappearing.


    coding games on eight-bit computers was a Thing for people of our
    generation, roughly. fond memories of hand coding 6502 machine code to
    move sections of a map onto screen memory.

    I did it all with BASIC, though there was peek-ing and poke-ing
    going on, too for the display. It used the numeric keypad
    for movement, so I could use the number as an array index for
    x-offset and y-offset values, something I figured out to
    replace a very slow if-then-else.

    But this was all over 40 years ago...no classes, just "here's the
    manual, have at it." (I think us kids showed the teachers more than they showed us.)

    That was middle school though. High school, we had a network of
    Apple ][+'s on a Corvus hard drive, a whopping 20MB. And a computer
    class, where we learned Pascal...but that gave us access to the lab, where
    we could play with something called "graForth"...

    And there I was, with my dutiful white hat, reading the
    book "Beneath Apple DOS" to figure out how to mitigate
    a security flaw with the Corvus DOS: one could type
    "CATALOG V100", and be instantly transported to the volume
    of user 100. I patched it to immediately reboot if someone went
    outside of their own volume. This started a bit of an
    arms race. Hey, we were kids back then.

    --
    -v

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From entwickeln14@21:1/5 to vallor on Sat Jun 24 07:14:04 2023
    On Saturday, June 24, 2023 at 3:47:25 AM UTC-4, vallor wrote:

    outside of their own volume. This started a bit of an
    arms race. Hey, we were kids back then.

    Heh.
    Pleased to meet you.
    *bows*

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From vallor@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 1 10:33:42 2023
    On Sat, 24 Jun 2023 07:14:04 -0700 (PDT), entwickeln14 wrote:

    On Saturday, June 24, 2023 at 3:47:25 AM UTC-4, vallor wrote:

    outside of their own volume. This started a bit of an arms race. Hey,
    we were kids back then.

    Heh.
    Pleased to meet you.
    *bows*

    Oh, don't bow to me. This world needs more
    egalitarianism.

    The truth of the matter is that I was totally,
    geekily, and neuro-divergently, fascinated
    by the _Beneath Apple DOS_ book. It included
    instructions on how to patch the RWTS routine
    (read/write a track and sector) to plug one's
    own subroutine into the OS. It also had, iirc, a completely
    commented disassembly of DOS 3.3.

    Knowledge is power, and that book was chock full of it.

    By then I knew enough 6502 to do annoying things with the
    speaker (location $C030), which couldn't be toggled
    very fast in BASIC...but 6502 machine language
    could make a high-pitched "mosquito buzz" come out of
    the speaker. (We had fun with that.)

    I still remember the opcode for JMP
    was 4C...

    obtalkbizarre:
    Wonder if I would use the service, if there
    was a way to free memory used up by
    trivia. Some examples to consider are obsolete
    opcodes, speaker memory locations, and John Denver lyrics.

    --
    -v

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)