25 Oct, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 121st comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
It's too bad that loving what you do entails denigrating and insulting everything else… :shrug:


Oh come on. Saying "this is among the most complex and socially meaningful programming you can do" isn't denigrating or insulting anything, no more than saying that "brain surgery is fucking hard but changes lives in ways no other medicine can" is denigrating or insulting to practitioners of general medicine, and more than saying that "painting requires more dexterity and artistic vision" is denigrating to people who just like to draw comics.

Games ARE the ultimate art form because they include ALL other arts. They're not better than any given art; they're the combination of arts. If you think painting is the best artform ever, then you have to admit that combining incredible painting with incredible music is a greater whole. Simple as that. There is no art created by man not used by games.

Until gaming, movies were quite honestly the ultimate art form. Simple matter of compilation. Whatever art you had, you could make a move that included it. Games are just the next step – they are movies that include art forms a movie never could due to the lack of interactivity.

Games are the most difficult programming there is (depending on the specific of the game, of course – Tetris is by no means difficult) because whatever it is you do in other areas of programming, games do too. It's insane how much work goes into a game. And no single programmer can do it all. It's not just a time constraint, but a knowledge constraint. Writing a physics engine that can perform at adequate levels requires such a deep understand of physics, low-level computer architecture, general programming/algorithms, and physical science that you just flat out can't write a good physics engine without specializing in physics for years. The same goes for the graphics components or AI components of a game. We have to have people who understand large-scale super-scalar architectures to handle MMO servers. We have to have people who understand compilers, computer architecture at the lowest levels, and VM technology to deal with in-game scripting languages and tool optimization. We have to have human-computer interaction specialists to design good controls and UIs – games can't get by with a "good enough" user interface, as anything less than perfect easily ruins the entire game. Hardware and driver development is critical to the people who design the consoles and work on console titles.

I'm not qualified to work on any of those things other than the core architecture (that part that invovles little to no "real math"), so don't go thinking that I think of myself of better than everyone else because I'm a game programmer – I'm just a single cog in a giant machine, and a cog that any other skilled programmer could replace with a little training. ;) I'm not a better cog than anyone else, but the machine I'm a part of is definitely larger and more impressive than any other.

Quote
u don't have to explain elanthis to davidhaley


Crap, I must be new here.
25 Oct, 2009, Sandi wrote in the 122nd comment:
Votes: 0
I think you need to sit gazing at a Salvidor Dali while the English Concert plays Vivaldi on period instruments in the same room.

But beyond the limitations of your medium, the games you are producing are cheap and disposable. And, there's a reason why. When you produce something that might become a family heirloom, passed between generations, then you might call yourself an 'artisan'. And merely that.
25 Oct, 2009, Mudder wrote in the 123rd comment:
Votes: 0
…The thing is, everyone is going to have their own idea on what IS the best. That is the entire concept of art. Very few things are agreed on by the majority to be a masterpiece. While anything can be considered art, it truly depends on the audience.

Some look at classic paintings and think it looks like a pre-school drawing. Others see beauty. It's so subjective it's not even funny. So while this discussion could go for pages longer, just like the political discussions it won't ever end with anyone converting to either side. The best anyone could hope for is an agreement that everyone respects the opinions of others. (In this case it's actually possible, not so much with politics)

elanthis has obviously found something he is passionate about and truly loves/enjoys. I am happy for him. I myself am still searching for a career that I have such enthusiasm for. I have not found it yet.
25 Oct, 2009, Dean wrote in the 124th comment:
Votes: 0
Sandi said:
I think you need to sit gazing at a Salvidor Dali while the English Concert plays Vivaldi on period instruments in the same room.

But beyond the limitations of your medium, the games you are producing are cheap and disposable. And, there's a reason why. When you produce something that might become a family heirloom, passed between generations, then you might call yourself an 'artisan'. And merely that.


While games might not become family heirlooms (there is no real reason to actually say they can't or wouldn't though it's more likely to be a console tbh), there are still games some of us like to play despite being 10+ years old. And the only barrier to being able to play them in the future is the hardware that they are on.
25 Oct, 2009, Confuto wrote in the 125th comment:
Votes: 0
elanthis said:
Until gaming, movies were quite honestly the ultimate art form. Simple matter of compilation. Whatever art you had, you could make a move that included it. Games are just the next step – they are movies that include art forms a movie never could due to the lack of interactivity.

Yes, and before movies, picture books were the ultimate art form because they included pictures and words! Whatever words and pictures you had, you could make a picture book that included them! Get real. The determination of artistic value doesn't follow mathematical rules.

elanthis said:
Writing a physics engine that can perform at adequate levels requires such a deep understand of physics, low-level computer architecture, general programming/algorithms, and physical science that you just flat out can't write a good physics engine without specializing in physics for years. The same goes for the graphics components or AI components of a game. We have to have people who understand large-scale super-scalar architectures to handle MMO servers. We have to have people who understand compilers, computer architecture at the lowest levels, and VM technology to deal with in-game scripting languages and tool optimization. We have to have human-computer interaction specialists to design good controls and UIs – games can't get by with a "good enough" user interface, as anything less than perfect easily ruins the entire game.

eyYDgyGPj..."> eyYDgyGPj..." type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350">
25 Oct, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 126th comment:
Votes: 0
elanthis said:
Games are the most difficult programming there is (depending on the specific of the game, of course – Tetris is by no means difficult) because whatever it is you do in other areas of programming, games do too. It's insane how much work goes into a game. And no single programmer can do it all. It's not just a time constraint, but a knowledge constraint.

It's the exactly the same in other software industries. Seriously, I know you love the games industry, but they really aren't "special" (sorry).

However, note the emphasis in the above quote - that no single programmer can do it all. That doesn't hold true for muds, and IMO is one of the biggest advantages a mud developer has.
25 Oct, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 127th comment:
Votes: 0
One problem I have with the "don't model it if nobody is watching", is that it means NPC's can't evolve, nor can they progress the plot via their own (AI and random-number driven) mechanisms.

Sure, you can argue that whatever they do doesn't matter if the players aren't around, but I reject that. It might be true in your typical reset-button game, where the world state never really changes, but if you've moved beyond that and have conditions change over time, you DO want things to keep rolling.

Can you shortcut the AI actions and just use statistical models for things that aren't being observed? Of course. That's what we do now, because developing good AI and having it run on thousands of objects is expensive. Running it on dozens, and letting the dice roll does achieve almost the same thing.

That's not to say it's impossible to go the other route and actually write full AI's for every NPC in the game. Apparently CPU is no longer an issue, so having a few thousand bots communicating with each other and some parent AI's should be a fun exercise, no?

At the end of the day, it only matters that the players perceive that the game world moves along without them, and that they should log in to try and make things go the way THEY WANT. If the world never changes, there's no reason for them to show up today, they can always drop by next week and grind some more.
25 Oct, 2009, Erok wrote in the 128th comment:
Votes: 0
elanthis said:
It saddens me deeply that Perforce is still the tool of choice in the corporate world and that the only tool even making noticeable inroads against it is Subversion.

Really? In my 15+ years (embedded software - networking industry) ClearCase has been the preferred tool, and works very well IMO. I've ran across each of PerForce and CVS just once in this time. PerForce was decent, CVS was lacking and should not be used on large projects with multiple streams of active development.
25 Oct, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 129th comment:
Votes: 0
elanthis said:
Games are the most difficult programming there is (depending on the specific of the game, of course – Tetris is by no means difficult) because whatever it is you do in other areas of programming, games do too. It's insane how much work goes into a game. And no single programmer can do it all. It's not just a time constraint, but a knowledge constraint.

This is the kind of comment that I was reacting to, because it shows that you haven't really seen much development elsewhere, or have only seen particularly poor examples of it. I'm not bothered by you saying that games combine all art forms ("ultimate art form" is a little lulzy, but ok) but the above statement is just plain silly. You're basically saying that game programmers do everything that every other programmer does, but do it better, faster, etc. You later rectified this to say you're just one cog in a machine that does it better than everyone else, but again I question the kind of things you've seen in other areas. And then there is the fine point that Sandi made:
Sandi said:
But beyond the limitations of your medium, the games you are producing are cheap and disposable. And, there's a reason why. When you produce something that might become a family heirloom, passed between generations, then you might call yourself an 'artisan'. And merely that.

There are certainly a few games that have become very famous and will go down several generations – ironically, one of them you toss aside as simplistic – but as she says many are disposable and hardly make a dent in the larger scheme of things.
Oh well. Elanthis, you're certainly welcome to hang out on your self-designated pedestal if it floats your boat. :smile:

quixadhal said:
One problem I have with the "don't model it if nobody is watching", is that it means NPC's can't evolve, nor can they progress the plot via their own (AI and random-number driven) mechanisms.

It's not that complicated, really. Either this "evolution" will be visible to players or it will not. If it is, that's fine and dandy. If it's not, don't bother. I would be inclined to argue that you can achieve a lot of the same without some micro-process oriented AI.
25 Oct, 2009, Sandi wrote in the 130th comment:
Votes: 0
Mudder said:
…The thing is, everyone is going to have their own idea on what IS the best. That is the entire concept of art. Very few things are agreed on by the majority to be a masterpiece. While anything can be considered art, it truly depends on the audience.

Well, my point was just the opposite. The majority hasn't experienced Art and thus their opinions are of no value.


Mudder said:
elanthis has obviously found something he is passionate about and truly loves/enjoys. I am happy for him. I myself am still searching for a career that I have such enthusiasm for. I have not found it yet.

But passion is fleeting. To truly love what you do, that is a blessing.

There is a common thread here. Great art is that which has stood the test of time. The same is true for great games. Chess, bridge, go… these are games that have been around a while and people devote their lives to them. People play them again and again… and isn't that what we want for our MUDs?
120.0/130