[quote=“Al3xand3r”]I guess we will repeat Panzer’s history and become the Ancients after all 
Either way Kadamose, how exactly does panzer qualify to your expectations if your standards are this high up and every other game sucks cos we don’t have that standard yet?[/quote]
Panzer qualifies because not only was it a innovative game that was enjoyed from beginning to end, but it also portrayed an inevitable future, that we, ourselves, will face at one point.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]Oh and to add that he’s contradicting himself.
First he wants EVERYONE to be the same and think the same and think things the same but then he wants to create catgirls…doesn’t that show he wishes for variety which is the one thing the first point was basically against?
Unless he just wants variety in “toys” but everyone other human to be the same as to not judge him and his views… Still if everyone thought the same there wouldn’t be any variety in anything created either. The variety in humans is what creates variety in the stories we create as well. A society like the one you envision would in the end turn against your very expectations Kadamose.
[/quote]
How is this a contradiction, exactly? In my previous post, I was refering to thought processes…not physical appearance. And yes, I’m a perverted male with a catgirl fetish. Big deal.
Just so you know, it was man who created ‘God’, not the other way around. The concept of ‘God’ was created as another means to control the masses through fear. Therefore, you shouldn’t be thanking anyone, especially since it WILL happen.
If you are going to reply reply to all of it not just the things that you like.
Anyway on to your points.
If catgirls were created and they too were thinking the same way you do unfortunally they wouldn’t think you are cool, they’d think themselves are cool and so they’d get it on with each other not with you. Sad isn’t it?
About God now, okay, it was a figure of speech but anyway, how can you be so certain that YOU are right in all of this? How can you be so certain that God doesn’t exist and how can you be so certain that what you are talking about WILL happen? Are YOU God? Perfect and know it all? No you aren’t because you don’t think God exists so even according to your beliefs you CANNOT know if God exists or not unless you were it. And if you were it you wouldn’t exist according to what you said so you wouldn’t be here to say all this. Fun.
WHY do you believe YOUR truth is THE truth and everyone else in here is wrong? You accepted every person sees a different truth and yet you still believe all you say is the “right” way (since again according to your beliefs there is a “right” way)?
And back to the original points you were making:
With your standards about storytelling how the hell does Panzer Dragoon Saga even come anywhere near CLOSE to what you wish for and you love it while you hate all other games mentioned here? That’s another contradition in itself.
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]If you are going to reply reply to all of it not just the things that you like.
Anyway on to your points.
If catgirls were created and they too were thinking the same way you do unfortunally they wouldn’t think you are cool, they’d think themselves are cool and so they’d get it on with each other not with you. Sad isn’t it?
[/quote]
Well, at least they’d be nice eye candy…compared to their Neanderthal counterparts, it would be a big improvement.
I absolutely love philosophical debates. Who is to say that this reality is not a fake, and what I perceive is really nothing more than an illusion? That would mean that even though I exist, everything that I interact with is fabricated. Therefore, in that sense, I’m fabricating my own reality and everything that I think of eventually manifests into reality, itself. That would make me the god of my own universe, would it not? But since I said the biblical god does not exist…and I proclaim myself as a god, I shouldn’t exist either…and yet, I exist…or at least, I think I do. Then, of course, it could be that I am a fabrication, as well.
See? Isn’t philosophy great?
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]
And back to the original points you were making:
With your standards about storytelling how the hell does Panzer Dragoon Saga even come anywhere near CLOSE to what you wish for and you love it while you hate all other games mentioned here? That’s another contradition in itself.[/quote]
Panzer Dragoon Saga is an absolute masterpiece. If such a thing could be duplicated, it would have been done by now…and yet, do you see any other game out there that is as unique or as good at storytelling as PDS is? I didn’t think so. Though the technology its on is somewhat primitive, the concepts are what initially gave me such high standards in gaming to begin with. PDS has no equal.
Nice philosophical statement however you did nothing to reply to what I asked did you? This is the third time I will ask this.
You accepted every person sees the “truth” different, what makes you so confident that “your” truth is “the” truth?
About no game matching PDS, have you played every single game out there? I guess you really missed everything Abadd has said too, right? You keep stumbling on points that Abadd or Lance have made before without having said anything against them…
Besides, just cos a game isn’t as good as PDS in storytelling does that mean they shouldn’t be created? Take Metal Slug for example, it’s got no storyline whatsoever and yet it’s one of the most fun games ever to pass say 15 minutes - half an hour with… Are you saying this form of entertainment shouldn’t exist and ppl should get either RPGs or nothing? Games are NEVER going to be just about storytelling but again all this has been addressed by Lance and Abadd…
I’m going to stop replying now cos I;m leading this discussion in circles since my debating skill isn’t anywhere near Abadd’s or Lance’s…sad aren’t I? It seems they have replied to all you have to say as well and saying anything more would be just repeating their words and like I said I don’t want to lead this discussion in circles anymore…
Well I thought you were doing a good job, Alex. Anyway, I’ve only just got back online and SegaTecToy made a point earlier that I wanted to address:
I actually agree with this quite completely. When I was criticising games a little earlier on, I was just focusing on the average quality of narrative in a novel, in contrast to the avarage quality of narrative in a game.
Now I honestly think that the narrative in any given game is likely to be much simpler and less thought-provoking than the narrative of any given novel, but then that’s a necessary side effect of these two things being very different mediums. A game is concerned with so many additional things of its own: gameplay, visual style, music, etc.
When a game’s plot is taken out of context, and it is compared to a purely narrative work (such as a novel), the game’s plot will understandably find it hard to compete. This is because the novel is entirely focused upon the narrative: the game is not.
A novel is all narrative. Beyond what a good game’s storyline will provide, a good novel will usually concern itself with much more complex narrative devices, cultural metaphors, social/historical commentary, and uniquely, some sort of abstract message or meaning that the author wished to impart. (Not all do, but it’s a pretty safe bet to say that a good author wrote a given book because they wanted to draw your attention to a concept.)
What a good novel’s narrative usually has that a good game’s storyline does not is this sense of the abstract. A game’s plot is usually much more straightforward and functional: it fulfills its role, it tells the story of the quest, it has its twists and turns. But a game’s storyline rarely feels to me as if it has so much meaning below the surface: there are few messages that it does not state literally. But then a game is an interactive fusion of several art forms, and other aspects of a good game certainly make up for any lack of narrative depth.
And of course, there are exceptions. Our very own PD series, for example, can be read as a poignant metaphor for the dangers of playing god with advanced technology. That’s a worthwhile abstract message if ever I saw one.
Anyway, Kadamose: you can’t proclaim to predict the future with that level of accuracy and honestly expect others to take you completely seriously. There is simply no way that you could know that mankind is going to reach that technological level in 2012 or any year. A level of technological advancement is such a ridiculously abstract thing: it is not quantitative. How “advanced” we are is an abstract concept, and it progresses in stops and starts: not to the tune of any simple mathematical formula.
It clearly cannot be accurately predicted, just as the future cannot be predicted. Unless of course one were to have complete knowledge of the universe and everything in it, and everything that had ever been in it on which to base these predictions: which realistically we cannot. We’re only human, and none of us have anything approaching such omnipotent knowledge. We can all be mistaken about things and about the nature of things.
At the end of the day, you have to accept that you are not infallible. I’m not perfect, you’re not perfect, no-one here is: and we should stop wishing we could be perfect and just get on with the real world that definitely does exist here and now. It isn’t going to wait around forever.
As an author (and a published one, however minor my credits) I’d just like to throw in my two cents.
There are different mediums of storytelling, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. I have seen wonderful stories done in the serial TV format that I know could just not be done in a novel, not to the same effect. The long hard dungeons defeated in an RPG cannot be fully replicated in prose either (the fanfics that try are often defeated if they try to follow the video game logic too closely). But on the other hand, there are novels that simply cannot be translated to being a video game. Try getting the depth of All Quiet on the Western Front into a video game. It may be a book about war, but the instant someone turns that into a first-person shooter all meaning in that story will be lost.
The story must fit the medium. For some stories it may be a movie, for others it’s a video game, and for more it’s a book. People often complain about adaptations from one to the other (comics to movies and books to movies most often), but the change is often because the story does not completely suit the medium other than the one it originated in, either for length, content, or other reasons.
So if someone only likes a particular medium, fine. It’s telling the stories they want to hear. Before all of this our storytelling was oral after all, and that’s yet another medium. Ever read the Iliad? Ever read a novelization of the Iliad? Not quite the same thing and they’re both on paper.
But… I would like to address Kadamose’s purported flaw in books in that they can be interpreted differently. He’s entitled to his opinion, of course, but part of the beauty of prose that I see is that many readers can each come up with their own conclusion, even if they’re entirely different from the author’s. Look at how much debate we have on these forums because we all see Panzer Dragoon differently.
I have had people read my work and give me feedback on what they saw or interpreted and it’s lovely when they connect things that I never considered. I am a storyteller and I tell my audience a story. If they derive enjoyment from my work, even though it does not align itself with my original vision, my job is done. In fact, if it stirs them to think beyond my words and on to something new, that’s even better.
Rune Lai and Lance have both good points. I would like to say that games are the sublimation of many arts. Movies, novels and musics are all combined in a way, in great games like PDS and Skies of Arcadia, to mention two real good ones, that it’s impossible to compare to anything else.
Sure, there are novels, musics and movies that are far superior than any game because this is one art that is still in its infancy and seriously limited by the resources and technology available to players and developers today.
About kadamose posts, I have to say that I hope, in my lifetime, to see a world where our limitations are severely reduced. I would like to live in a world where the distance between my dreams and needs and the reality is minimal or, maybe, non-existant. If this will lead to our demise as it did to the Ancients I don’t know, but I think that the prize compensates the risk. 
Excellently put, Rune. I agree entirely with what you said about the suitability of different storylines for different mediums, and I probably should have brought that into my own argument a little more… but yes, a game definitely needs a tailored narrative. And different genres of games need different kinds of narratives too, as would different genres of films or novels or poems.
My original point to Kadamose was coming from there - regarding the fact that Zelda: The Wind Waker may not have a deeply serious epic storyline, but then it isn’t really meant to have one. As with many action-adventure games, the sheer interactive gameplay experience of a Zelda game has always been foregrounded before the plot. (Although there is certainly a plot there, reinforcing everything).
Now of course that’s a serious flaw only if someone is seriously looking for an epic narrative, and if they are relatively unconcerned with the other gameplay highlights that such a game has to offer. And as you say, that’s fine: it’s only personal preference. As I’ve gone to great lengths to remind everyone in this thread, different views and preferences are a fundamental feature of humankind.
[BTW, I know exactly what you mean about things like The Illiad - surely that’s one of the oldest conversions to a different medium. I’m personally more familiar with the different versions of The Odyssey, but then similar things apply :)]
SegaTecToy: I should probably point out that my argument above was only considering the game’s storyline entirely out of context of gameplay, graphics, music, etc… which of course, it never is in reality. That was really just a theoretical argument to justify what I said earlier, because I thought people might have believed that I was saying a good novel is superior to a good game full stop. It isn’t: as you said, they are clearly different (and equally valid) mediums for the expression of an idea.
And as you also said, the “game” is still a reasonably young medium: it doesn’t have hundreds, thousands of years of background to look back upon. Some of the arts that the game is composed of do, but games as a whole are often intellectually overlooked regardless, which is quite sad. Fortunately this is changing - a bit slowly, but the constant advances in technology do seem to be enticing more and more serious artists to the gaming medium.
Remember that, going back to the ancient “original” video games (all the way back to Pong and its friends) there was never really much scope for art within the game itself: it was a pretty functional thing, like chess or card games - a fun thing that existed almost purely as game mechanics. It’s the technological advances that have allowed other kinds of artists to contribute to games; and the game is still undergoing this metamorphosis, from simply “game” to interactive “experience”.
As games become more and more intellectually respected, the standard of artistry can only get better - and that can only be a good thing.
Ofcourse we’d all like to see our limitations reduced and all the story telling mediums to keep evolving but that won’t happen for the reason kadamose gave (everyone will think the same way and see things the same way), that’s something totally irrelative that would actually HURT storytelling in every way and WILL not happen due to human nature like Lance elaborated on his post about that.
That’s what atleast I was against, technology will keep evolving as always but humans will remain humans, individuality shall remain for in a world without individuality storytelling would not have a place.
Oh and I don’t know what you would do but even if I had the power I would NEVER play God and create life forms for my own pleasure… when it’s all done in a computer game or in a virtual reality system it’s different, no matter how advanced the AI is, it’s still not alive, it’s just algorithms making it act and react, if it gives you a sad face it’s not cos it actually hurts, it’s because it’s programmed to do the sad face… Real life is different…
Anyone read the book or watched the movie The Island Of Doctor Moreau? That should be a lesson to anyone with such ambitions… Unless ofcourse there’s any sicko that is fascinated at the prospect of being able to do such things, if that’s the case then I sure am glad there is individuallity and such persons existence doesn’t mean everyone is like that though 
Not to get into a philosophical debate, but are the chemical reactions in a human brain that create our emotions any different than lines of code? It’s walking a fine line. If the program is self-aware, regardless of whether or not it was merely programmed to be so, isn’t it, too, sentient in a way? Where is the line drawn? The movie “AI” really, to me, addressed this point beautifully (until the stupid ending that Spielberg tacked onto it…).
As for storytelling mediums, it’s very encouraging to see this level of thought going into debates like this. It’s something that I constantly think about and constantly devote my time to. The key, imo at least, to developing the interactive medium (I avoid using the word “game” in this kind of debate, just because of the stigma attached to it) as a valid storytelling medium solely rests on the shoulders of storytellers understanding how to use the unique qualities of that medium.
Filmmakers are close to mastering that medium. With movies like Memento showing how visual storytelling can be bent and twisted out of shape to provide new ways of viewing a story, to even TV shows like 24 really taking advantage of the episodic nature of that medium.
It’s time for games to step up. Ico was an excellent, excellent step in the right direction. I hope to see more games of that nature in the near future.
I doubt I’ll live to see real self aware AI… Honestly I doubt it will actually be done, ever, maybe we’ll get to a point where it will SEEM that it is but for real? Seriously I think that can’t happen…
Either way, like I said I wouldn’t play God and create life forms for my own pleasure, if real self aware AI was possible then it would be considered a life form imo so I wouldn’t do it in that aspect either
I haven’t watched AI 
I wonder if you created a machine that could truly learn, if eventually, it could teach itself to become self-aware. Interesting.
I mean, it would constantly be learning, so it’d be just building upon a knowledge base, growing more and more advanced… I wonder if it would reach a point where it had so much knowledge that it began to understand “deeper” meanings in things like books. Soon, it’d be learning to laugh, cry, and find Sarah Connor.
Well said Abbad. After all, we are only eletrochemical machines with extremely complex algorithms embedded in our brains in form of sinapses and neurochemical comunications.
If there is a God out there and if we have souls this turn into the same debate. Einstein (I think it was him) said that math was the language used by God to create the universe. So our soul are mathematical beings and a true AI will be that too. So in the end there won’t be any diference between them and us in the most fundamental form possible.
Why do we have to create them?
a) It can be done so someone will do it;
**b)**We need them to understand and evolve our own essence. To have only one sample of complete sentience is not enough to understand the phenomenon. If, someday, we found sentient aliens in another world this will help this understanding too;
**c)**Why not?
And it all started as a question about PDO sales like SRF said some posts above!
Welcome to the debate central! Some great philosophical fun!