#stupid encounter unlocked previous similar interactions

[meanderfall]

i wish customers understood what a joke actually was.

if your "joke" gets in the way of me doing my job, then i'm not going to find it funny. if your "messing around" just confuses me on what you actually want then it's not actually a joke. you're just annoying.

[ciathyzareposts]

Star Control II: Summary and Rating

For the box art, the developers seem to be paying homage to L. Ron Hubbard.

           Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters

United States

Toys for Bob (developer); Accolade (publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS, 1994 for the 3DO console; later fan ports to other platforms

Date Started: 23 March 2019

Date Finished: 14 May 2019

Total Hours: 47 Difficulty: Moderate (3/5) Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

       Summary:

Star Control II takes the ship-by-ship action combat of the original Star Control and places it solidly within an adventure game of epic proportions. In a galaxy of more than 500 stars and 3,000 planets, a captain must build alliances, find artifacts, mine minerals, and coerce information from alien races so that he can ultimately throw off the yoke of the Ur-Quan Hierarchy and free Earth and its allies from slavery. Gameplay comes with a lot of lore and plot-twists, but every so often it reveals its origins and requires the player to defeat enemy ships with selects from his own armada, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities. Although the sense of an open world and a nonlinear plot both end up being somewhat illusory, the game is still fun and memorable.

****

         In the comments for my winning entry, several readers have offered descriptions and text that occurs when you try some of the game’s alternate strategies, such as surrendering to the Ur-Quan, provoking the Orz, or selling your own crewmembers to the Druuge. Most of them are either dead-ends or offer such harsh consequences that you’d best not do them in the first place.

One thing I was curious to check out is what happens if you wait out the game’s time limit. The Melnorme originally told me that the Earth would be destroyed in January or February of 2159, but my actions in the game managed to delay the apocalypse by almost two years. As I sat in hyperspace and watched, nothing much happened until November 2159, when the Supox and Utwig returned to their original systems, much diminished. 

           No one remains but the Ur-Quan.

          Around the end of 2159, the Kor-Ah won the civil war and started to circle the galaxy, destroying each sentient race in turn. Some of their ships reached Earth in April, but they weren’t here to destroy Earth just yet. I fought a few dreadnoughts and the horde moved on. The Arilou, Umgah, and Zoq-Fot-Pik were all gone by June 2160, the Supox and Utwig a month later. By October 2160, the Ur-Quan fleet had reached the “southern” end of the galaxy and destroyed the Yehat. Finally, in November, I received a broadcast from the Ur-Quan notifying me of Earth’s destruction, and the game was over. My ship was parked right next to Earth at the time, and I was hoping I’d see a bunch of dreadnoughts approaching it, but alas, it wasn’t quite that detailed.

              The “bad” ending, unless you’re a big Ur-Quan fan.

           If I hadn’t cheated a bit during the game by reloading when an expedition proved a waste of time, I probably would have run into issues with the time limit. Watching the slow destruction of every race, along with the intelligence that they possessed, would have been mildly horrifying. But apparently you can still win the game at any time during this process, with nothing altered in the endgame sequence.

I confess that the last bit bothers me a little because it’s indicative of the approach taken by the game as a whole. When I started playing Star Control II, it gave the impression of an open-world game with multiple narrative possibilities. But it turns out you have to follow a few paths in a relatively specific order, and most of the choices turn out to be illusory. Oh, it certainly does better than the typical RPG of the period, I hasten to add. It was just a bit disappointing to find that open exploration isn’t really rewarded. If you’re lucky enough to stumble upon a key location amidst all the planets in the vast galaxy, you probably won’t be able to do anything because you haven’t bought an important piece of information from the Melnorme first.

I have similarly mixed feelings about the game’s approach to the alien races and racial characterizations. On the one hand, I enjoyed the variety. When you’re making a game (as opposed to shooting a film or television show), you have the freedom to make some interesting races without worrying about the CGI budget. I appreciated that there were no “bumpy forehead” aliens except perhaps for the Syreen.

            I could have done with less of this.

          I also don’t fault the game for broad characterizations. It’s a longstanding trope of science fiction and fantasy to paint races with a broad brush: the wise elves, the logical Vulcans, the proud Klingons, the evil orcs, and so forth. You rarely have time to explore the detailed characteristics of an entire culture. It’s perfectly acceptable that Star Control II decided to highlight one major attribute of each race, such as cowardice, depression, loneliness, and greed. When it did go into more detail, such as in the case of the Ur-Quan and the Syreen, the detail was generally good, and it was rewarding to unlock those stories. I also appreciated the consistency of characterization. The Spathi locking themselves under their own slave shield amused me to no end because it was perfectly in keeping with the Spathi personality–and, in hindsight, 100% foreseeable. 

But I also felt there were too many moments of outright goofiness and parody among the racial interactions. The Orz, the Pkunk, the VUX, the Umgah, and the Utwig mostly just exhausted my patience. I couldn’t help but think how the same races with similar characteristics might be handled with less silliness. We don’t have to look very far to find an example. Starflight and Starflight II had some of the same broad racial characterizations, but rarely crossed the line into outright slapstick. I felt the stories and plot twists of those games were much better, too.

Nonetheless, I understand why Star Control II is regarded as the better game: it’s all about the combat. I wasn’t any good at it, but I can see why people like it. Until I played it, I wouldn’t have thought that a single choice–what ship to pilot–could have so many tactical implications. There are 14 ships that can join the New Alliance and 13 potential enemy ships, resulting in 182 potential battle combinations, and each has completely different tactical considerations. (With the Super Melee application, you can fight any of the ships against any of the others, for 625 possible combinations.) Slowly mastering the strengths of your ships and learning the weaknesses of the enemy ships is a huge and rewarding part of gameplay. Later in the game, when you have to fight multiple ships in a row, there are strategic implications for what ships you send into combat first and which you reserve for later in the battle.

             The typical outcome of my combats.

           Still, the nature of combat, plus the lack of “character development,” really makes this a non-RPG, which means it might not do so well on the GIMLET as an RPG. I played it as an exception. I don’t want to hear any future comments along the lines of, “Well, you played Star Control II, so to be consistent, you should also play This Game.” The point of exceptions is that I don’t have to be consistent with them.

As to the GIMLET:

1. Game World. Star Control II manages to check most of the boxes in this category. It has a rich, detailed backstory, an open world, a clear place for the character and his quest, and an evolving game state that responds to the player’s actions. (I particularly like how the starmap continually updates to show the dispositions of the various races.) The plot and its twists are original and interesting. The only fault I can find is that there isn’t much to see or do in the open universe. I wish the creators had seeded more planets with optional encounters and finds, perhaps replacing the system but which you purchase all your technology upgrades from the Melnorme. Score: 8.

2. Character Creation and Development. Alas, there is none of either except for the ability to name your own captain. Even if you regard the ship as a “character,” it doesn’t get innately better so much as it gains better equipment. Score: 0.

3. NPC Interaction. Another strong point. I’ve given my thoughts about the NPC personalities, but I should add that even goofy personalities are better than we get from the typical RPG of the period, which is no personality (or even NPCs) at all. I wish there had been more honest variety in dialogue options instead of one that’s obvious, two that are stupid, and one that’s evil. The Starflight games did a better job giving the player real “options” when talking to different alien races even though they came in the form of “stances” rather than specific dialogue choices. 

I should also note that most NPCs aren’t individuals but rather representatives of their races who somehow know the previous conversations the player has had with other representatives. But the game otherwise hits most of the criteria for a high score hear, including a plot that advances based on NPC interaction. Score: 7.

             My thoughts exactly.

              4. Encounters and Foes. The game has an original slate of foes (ships) that require you to learn their individual strengths and weaknesses. There are otherwise no real “encounters” in the game that aren’t also NPC dialogues. Score: 6.

5. Magic and Combat. I can’t give a high score here because my scale is about RPG-style combat and the various tactics and strategies that draw from attributes, skills, and the player’s intelligence rather than his dexterity. Still, as I discussed above, the choice of ship and the way you plot long combats create some important tactical and strategic decisions. I just wish combat has always been about ship versus ship. The planets, which show up suddenly as you switch screens, were unwelcome guests. Score: 3.

           The asteroids, on the other hand, I didn’t mind so much.

         6. Equipment. All of the “equipment” in the game is ship-related rather than character-related, and it all applies to the flagship, which a good player arguably does not rely on. I wish there had been opportunities to upgrade the other ships in the fleet. It would have been tough to offer meaningful options with so many of them, but even just generic attack or defense improvements would have been nice. Beyond that, it’s fun to figure out how to best make use of the limited modular space on the flagship, particularly as new options come along regularly. Score: 3.

7. Economy. There are really two economies in the game: the “resource unit” economy that lets you build a fleet and equip your flagship, and the Melnorme “information” economy that depends on bio data and Rainbow World identifications. I found both rewarding enough for about two-thirds of the game. Score: 7.

8. Quests. The game has one main quest with a few options (though, as I mentioned before, a lot of the options are illusory) and side-quests. There’s only one ending. Score: 4.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Inputs. I don’t have many complaints in this category. The graphics are perfectly fine for the scope and nature of the game; the sound effects are fun and evocative throughout; and it’s hard to complain about the interface of a game that supports both joystick and keyboard inputs and lets you customize the keyboard. I had problems in combat despite these advantages, but I don’t think I can blame the game.

I do have one major issue, or several related issues, that fits into this category. The dialogue is delivered one line at a time in a huge font. You can hit the SPACE bar after each bit of dialogue to see a transcription in a smaller font that you can barely read. Either way, if you don’t make your own transcriptions or screen shots (which must have been tough for an era player), the dialogue is lost once you leave the screen. In most cases, you can’t prompt the NPC to speak the same lines again, and there’s no databank in which to retrieve it as there was in Star Control II. Thankfully, I took copious screenshots, but they’re a cumbersome way to review previous dialogue and I think the game should have offered a better system. Score: 6.

             This text is better than nothing, but it’s still not very easy to read.

          10. Gameplay. I give half-credit for non-linearity. The game is more linear than it seems when you start, but you still have a lot of choices about the order of your activities. I also give half-credit for replayability. As I mentioned earlier, many of the “options” seem illusory, and a replaying player might find himself swiftly on familiar paths, but there is at least some variety for a replay. The hourly total is just about right for this content, and while I had difficulty in combat, I still managed to win with an acceptable number of reloads, so I can’t fault the difficulty. Score: 7.

That gives us a final score of 51, surprisingly close to the 53 I gave both Starflight and Starflight II, which had actual characters and character development. But reviewing those games, I’m reminded how awful combat was, and how many issues I had with the interface. I’m thus comfortable with the rating. 

              The ad makes it seem like the game’s enemies are the Umgah.

          There are plenty of players, however, who would consider a 51 an insult. Star Control II still continues to make “best games ever” lists compiled by various publications. In a March 1993 preview in Computer Gaming World, Stanley Trevena liked the game enough to put it on his “top ten list of all time.” “It is not often,” he says, “that such a perfect balance is struck between role-playing, adventure, and action/arcade.” In the November 1993 issue, they gave it “Game of the Year” in the adventure category (or, at least, it tied with Eric the Unready). Dragon gave it 5 out of 5 stars. It’s rare to find an English review out of the 90s, though for some reason European reviews tended to put it lower, in the 70s.

The 3DO version from 1994 has some significant differences from the DOS version. It has an animated, narrated introduction and cut scenes plus voiced dialogue for the conversations. (My understanding is that the open-source Ur-Quan Masters would use some of this voiced dialogue but re-record others.) Some readers encouraged me to play this version specifically because of the voices. I’m not sure I would have liked it better. There’s really just too much dialogue overall. Some of the voices are good: I appreciate the Vaderesque bass of the Ur-Quan, the lispy enthusiasm of the Pik, and the weird Scottish accent the creators gave to the Yehat. For some reason, they decided the Shofixti was a bad English translator of a 1970s Japanese kung-fu movie; the Orz, Spathi, and Utwig are just annoying; and the Umgah is the stuff of nightmares. The Talking Pet is the worst, with some ridiculous southern “Joe Sixpack” accent. I was also disappointed by the Syreen, who sounds like Doris Day rather than . . . well, honestly, I’m not sure what would have done justice to the Syreen. How do you blend a fierce Amazonian and a seductive vixen in a single voice?

Star Control II left a satisfying number of mysteries, such as the fate of the Precursors and why they seemed (to the Slylandro) to be nervously searching for something. We never learned about the Rainbow Worlds or why they (apparently) form an arrow pointing to the “northeast” of the galaxy. We never learned what the Orz did to the Androsynth, what the Orz really are, and how they relate to the Arilou. I was disappointed that we never found out why the Ur-Quan destroyed historical structures of humanity, including some places we weren’t even aware of. I was disappointed to find that most of these questions are unanswered in Star Control 3 (1996), although we do apparently learn that the Precursors genetically modified themselves so they would have the intelligence of cows, thus protecting themselves from a race that periodically harvests the energies of sentient races. I think the creators missed an opportunity by not making the Precursors actual cows. There could have been a Gary Larson tie-in and everything.

           The creepy cover to the game’s sequel.

          The direction of Star Control 3 reveals some of the background drama between developer Toys for Bob (authors Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford) and publisher Accolade. According to Reiche and Ford, Accolade gave the developer such a limited budget that they had to essentially work for free for half a year to create a quality game. Accolade would not increase the budget for the sequel, so the original creators refused to develop it, and the job went to Legend Entertainment instead.

In 2002, authors Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford made the source code available for free, and some fans used it to create The Ur-Quan Masters for Windows, with multiple releases starting in 2005. It has since been ported to multiple additional platforms. The effort also led to the creation of the Ultronomicon, a Star Control II wiki.

The Star Control trademark passed to Infogrames when it purchased Accolade in 1999; Infogrames soon rebranded itself as Atari. When Atari filed for bankruptcy in 2013, its assets were sold. Stardock Corporation managed to acquire the Star Control license and produce Star Control: Origins (2018). Set 26 years before the original Star Control, the game would seem to retcon when Earth first encountered alien life. During development, Stardock claimed to be in contact with Reiche and Ford, and were developing the game along their vision, although they couldn’t technically participate because of their Activation contract. If this relationship was ever friendly and cooperative, it soon became otherwise when Reiche and Ford announced they would be creating Star Control: Ghosts of the Precursors and Stardock started selling the first three Star Control games on Steam. Both parties counter-sued each other for copyright and intellectual property violations, and Steam removed the Star Control titles (including Origins, at least temporarily) after receiving DCMA takedown notices from Reiche and Ford. As far as I can tell, the litigation is still ongoing.

            Combat in Origins has improved graphics but seems to adhere to original principles.

        Toys for Bob still lives as a subsidiary of Activision, and Reiche and Ford still continue to direct the development of its games. I don’t think we’ll see them again, however, as none of their titles are RPGs. (For more on Reiche and Ford, see Jimmy Maher’s excellent coverage of Star Control II from this past December. My favorite part is when Reiche gets fired from TSR for questioning the purchase of a Porsche as an executive’s company car.)

I am often dismissive of calls for remakes, usually considering them to be the products of dull, dilettante gamers who can’t handle any graphics more than 5 years old. But I would like to see, if not a remake, a modern game that has the basic approach of Star Control II (and, for that matter, Starflight)–perhaps even one that realizes it better by offering truly alternate plot paths. We have plenty of games (although, in my opinion, not enough) that allow us to explore open worlds; have any so far allowed us to explore an open universe? Perhaps that’s what we’ll get from Bethesda’s forthcoming Starfield.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/star-control-ii-summary-and-rating/

[r-29-blog]

What is writing?

What is writing? In what ways can we describe what writing is? Is it something different than just words on a page? Let us begin by asking where writing appears. Writing has existed in multiple forms. It was not a commodity as it has now become. Writing at one point was solely meant as a luxurious form in which writing was really something much different than we have right now. Writing is a commodity. In 2017 writing appears everywhere. We cannot say where it was not and where it was. Writing surrounds us. We walk down the street and it faces us. Writing has become the sole means by which we communicate. It demarcates all that we do, all that we see. How did people interact without writing? Is it because writing became mandated that we have the thoughts that we do? Is it because writing itself was only there for a few types of people? What does it mean now that the majority of people can actually write? What does writing mean for people who have been brought up in such different worlds? What does writing even mean?

 Is advertising the main drive for writing? In order for the new types of consumers to know what to buy, we had to instill some form of writing system in order to indicate what it is that we would want. How do we communicate in previous times? How was language taught? How was language known in the way in what it was? We often forget that people did not all write. People often did not have language in a certain sense. What did language mean in earlier times? Why was language the way it was in the time that it did exist? How is that language managed to get to this point? These are all questions that we ask ourselves when we feel nothing. These are questions we ask ourselves when we feel pointless. These are all questions. What more is there to ask of ourselves? What more is there to be? What can we see?

  We walk down the street and encounter writing on glass windows. We see it all around us. We cannot seem to escape writing. It is right here. It follows my thoughts and it exists as a thought. How did people exist without writing?

Writing appears in books, on computer screens. Writing appears in the newspapers and on facebook articles. How is it that the world is in such utter chaos when everything seems to be going according to plan? What is facebook? What is it even meant for? Writing is Facebook.com. How will we see its ruins on the floor? Will it be some distasteful representation of my generation? Is it merely the landscape of the now that we have. How is it that we believe we have everything? Did the previous generation ever imagine anything as revolutionary as facebook.com?

 Let us think together and find out where writing exists. I wake up every morning at seven-thirty in the morning. Depending on the season it is either bright outside or it is dark outside. There is never an in-between. There are sometimes spring morning when it is not bright out. These often occur when it is raining. However, I will no longer speak of generalities. I look to speak only of particulars. So I will try to recall my previous morning. I woke up at nine-thirty am. It was bright outside. I sleep next to my partner. If one were to face the foot of my bed, you could see that I sleep on the right-hand side while my partner sleeps on the left. There is no real reason for this. My politics are not on the right. I simply sleep on the right-side. However, since I sleep on the right side and there is no desk to my right, then I must carefully reach over my partner’s sleeping body in order to grab my cellphone. My hand reaches over and grabs the rose gold Apple iPhone 6S with 16gb of data—although there’s usually only 12gb of useable data. I normally keep my phone with the screen facing the table. So before I grab the phone, I gently sit up and look for my phone. Oh there it is. I can see the sleek rose gold Apple iPhone and Apple™’s notorious brand logo. It is an apple (surprising) with a slight bite taken out of it. All of these brands seem to always be off, but in the best way possible. Nothing can be finished. If it was a finished apple then we would no longer be able to want the apple. We always want an apple without its wholeness so that we can complain about how much we hate the logo. I guarantee you that if that apple was full, you’d have people complaining that the apple did not look realistic. Either that or you would have the abject poor infatuated with it. You can often tell a person’s social class by what they wear. Often times people assume that those who were many symbols on their shirts are the wealthiest in fact this is never true. All of these bright neon colors do nothing but signify the idiocy in them. Although I find them quite lovely. You see these bright colors, these symbols and you know exactly what kind of person that you are attempting to speak with. You see a small burgundy seagull etched on a shirt’s left breast and you immediately know that you will no longer want to talk to them. They often reek of too much cologne. They wear Rainbows sandals with their loose-fitting jeans. These people are the vapidest, the most degenerate simpletons to ever inhabit our planet. I cannot believe I must allow myself to even stand near their repugnant scent. They simply yell and laugh.

 I grab my phone. I bring it back with me as I lie back down. Finally I get to return to the cyber world. Finally I can reconnect and see who I have bothered. I push the home screen. My phone lights up. It says 8:23 AM. Right below this, it gives me the date. I put my finger on the home button in order to unlock my phone. Normally if my phone weren’t a stupid piece of shit, it would open after it recognized that my thumbprint had not changed. These new iPhones have the capability to open themselves without even putting in your password. You no longer have to waste that half-second of your swiping the screen left, say no, and then enter your code. However, when your stupid piece of shit phone no longer recognizes who you are—which is quite sad since it is the only device or person capable of recognizing you these days—and you have to input your code. So you see the three by three lines of numbers ranging from one to nine. You first hit 3. You wait a bit, no more than a tenth of a second. You then 2. You wait a little longer. This time you wait two tenths of a second. My god it is an intense two thirds of a second. You remember the light, the times when you were a child when your mother would pick you up from school and take you to the Burger King. But then you remember that Burger King is absolute garbage. They try to compensate by offering 10 pieces of their chicken ngugets for $1.29. You’re not going to fall for that though. You know the truth. Those are not really chicken nuggets. They’re just some processed byproduct that the imbecile at the packing factory forgot to extract. It is something incredibly stupid. Why would anyone try to sell you something that wasn’t what it was advertised to be? It’s almost as if that would be something illegal and the company could get fined a large sum of money. What a crazy idea!

 I hit the number two, followed by the number seven.

 Finally my phone opens and I am brought to the home screen. It is glorious because I was the one to design what screen I could put in the background. Even though I do not care to have anything serious there, I always put my phone background as something that would intrigue a certain kind of person. I always do that quite honestly. I have a picture of a relatively obscure phenomenon that I hope someone else would notice so that I know that it would be okay to speak to them. I believe that people who are interested in similar things to me are more willing to have a conversation with me rather than the everyday people that I run in to as I am about to walk down the street. So I look at the top of my phone to remember what time it is. It is eight twenty-four in the morning. I look at all of my applications and try to see what I should look at first. I should remind you that everyone has a particular makeup of their applications. Some have uneven lines filled with uncategorized applications scattered throughout three different windows. However, I am not one of those people. I keep my applications well organized in two separate rows. I like to ensure that I can see my background, because why else would I have a background? It would make no sense if I simply had a background and I covered it with a bunch of needless applications that I do not have to think about. Instead, I have very organized rows. I only have two different selections since I do not like to actually have too many applications. I separate my applications in terms of how often I use them. I obviously keep my Messages in the far-left corner so that when I open my phone I can immediately see whether someone had sent me a text message. That morning, there were no red circles in its top-right corner. I was not surprised. I normally do not receive messages aside from my partner, who would probably not message me unless there was an issue between us. However, I do not like to give personal accounts. There are more pressing matters that we must address.

 I categorize my applications into applications that I use and that I do not use. The ones that I do not use are further categorized into applications that I can delete and applications that I cannot delete. For some reason, Apple iPhones always have applications that must remain on your phone. It is always a hassle because it just wastes your data since you have no interest in using those applications.

 I continue looking at my phone for another 30 minutes.