Posted on 05/23/2006 12:30:46 PM PDT by Borges
Ha! If you only knew.......... (big grin).
Actually one of the fun aspects of doing all the things I did at/for GDW (I was a Jane-of-all-trades and did a lot of different tasks there) was to receive the new manuscripts from the game designers. They were clearly VERY bright people but each one of them would have their misspelling quirks and/or grammatical idiosyncracies, so it was a fun challenge to look over their writings and correct any flaws (allthewhile trying to "read" 90+ game "manuals but not for gamer enjoyment - every hr. or so, I would have to "come up for air" and go get a Pepsi or take a quick walk through campustown just to get a 2nd wind and clear "rubble" from my brain!).
I don't envy that job. I do RPG writing and editing now as a second occupation and it can be time consuming work for little pay.
I just really don't want to know the details of this. lol!
Never went in too much for strategic boardgames; most of the ones I own had a tie in to one of the Role Playing Games (Imperium, for example). I did get a lot of their tactical board games and tabletop miniatures games, but again these were tied into one of the role playing systems -- Sky Galleons of Mars, Ironclads & Ether Flyers, Soldier's Companion, Triplanetary (long since lost), Snapshot, Striker, Striker II, Mayday, Azhanti High Lightning, Last Battle, and I know I have a couple of more stashed away somewhere.
I used to play Traveler and D&D. Also a really obscure game called "SPACE QUEST". BTW, this is not the "Space Quest" everyone sees today.
This was similar to Traveler, however, the game was far more complex in the ship design & operation, the physics of spaceflight, and it even went so far as to include Spectral and Luminosity Classes, orbital mechanics, civilization levels and types, planetary atmospheres, flora and fauna, etc. Took days to set up a ship, crew, and the nearby stars. Prob why it never took off. I wonder how many people have this RPG book on a shelf somewhere. Not many I would bet. They only printed it once and it was a limited run at the time.
However, computer gaming was getting its legs at the same time. My first computer game was a game called Adventure that we would play late at night on the IBM-360 mainframes. Then Zork came out for the Commodore and Atari and all bets were off.
BOOM! Computer gaming became huge. Eventually overtaking paper RPGs.
Now with the ease of the Internet, graphics, and the speed of personal computers, RPGs have come into their own on the PC. (Everquest is but one early example).
Also the face of the chat room is changing. These are virtual worlds with physics, textures, walls, lawns, forests, bushes, libraries, rooms, (whole towns), etc. that you can walk thru using the avatar of choice and seeing out of your avatar’s eyes other avatars walking thru this same virtual word and being able to congregate and chat. BTW, brick looks like brick; add marble, cement, flora and fauna, wood, lakes, waterfalls, pools, metal, etc. These look real.
There are whole websites devoted to nothing but textures to build a world/community to add to the existing ones out there already. I know of one, I have access too, that would take you months to explore all the different places. There are Castles, gardens, forests, towns, homes, etc. Even one person made a New York street complete with cabs, noise, and high-rises you could get into (Including riding the elevators). You could take cruise on a cruise ship, swim, ride wave riders, etc. Snow would fall, there was night and day, the moon phases would change. I even walked by a lake where I could see the stars reflected in the water. How cool is that.
I remember being in one of these “worlds” where we were just a bunch of avatars standing around in front of a bar and grill on a cobblestone street. It was like really being there. However, the folks I was casually chatting with were from all over the world. Mostly from the USA, Canada, Britain, France, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and Spain. A few were from South America, Asia, Eastern Europe and the like, but that was not often. It was kind of strange walking down a realistic looking street with a group of folks chatting away, knowing in the back of your head, these were people sitting at computers from all over the world.
Add VR headsets, and you could almost forget you were in a virtual world as apposed to the physical one.
Some people took this to the extreme as well. I saw marriages, fights, cliques, families, occupations, virtual money, property bought and sold, all in this "cyberspace".
This is not just a fad either. It is growing FAST. Even the US Army has gotten involved. They are using the VR software from one of these online communities to set up virtual combat simulations for training.
The "Matrix" is not as far off as you may think. BTW, I am not talking a war with machines, but the virtual logging into a world that looks and acts like the "real" one.
I will never even visit such a website for a casual glance around. If I were to get hooked (and I easily could) it would consume far too much time. This website is addictive enough. I wouldn't want to get absorbed by something like you're describing.
Lol. Gor is to SciFi as is Gwar is to music.
Ping to 227.
It can get absorbing. Believe me. :-)
However, for the elderly, shut-ins, bedridden, hospitalized, etc. it can be a godsend! I knew one person wheelchair bound by Spina Bifida who in the VR world was just like everyone else. Walk, talk, play, run, dance, explore, etc.
Star Trek, the Menagerie.
Spot on! Isn't it a wonder just how much they "got it right" on so many things? In some ways, I think Star Trek drove some of our advancements. People would say "now that is cool"! "Lets make it happen".
IMHO, SiFi in general has changed the world far more than "the classics" ever dreamed of doing.
Me for one.
First using dice/paper (we had a regular group that met weekly) and then on the computer/game consoles. :-)
Now that you mention it, I don't know of a remote that would stand up to a box-spring with two adults and a giant mutant Boston terrier sleeping on it.
But it does look like that, doesn't it?
Another FReeper told me that between the remote control and Salty's huge grin, it looks like he's been watchin' dirty movies!
The first time it happens to you, it's a gripping drama. The fourth or fifth time, it's "Screw this game!"
My dream job is working for a game design company. I'd be the person that they bring a disc to and say, "Here's the game. Play it and write the manual."
LOL! You reminded me of a line from an old Eddie Murphy HBO special, wherein he discusses Captain Kirk's libido and his own suspicions about the Orion slave girls. The actual quote is a bit too salty for FR. :-)
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