Traveller5 was the RPG book I backed. Traveller seriously needs to be implemented as a CRPG. It's a huge, detailed universe with a distinctive technohistory ready-made for science fiction storytelling; it has systems already designed for creating star systems, starships and other vehicles and object...

There should be a way to store/bookmark locations so you can find them again later (maybe just lots of markers on the map and clicking one could show you a small thumbail of what you saw when you were there?) You go to your bookmark list, select a location and activate it. I like this. Actually, wh...

It's the rather excellent movie whose director should dang well have already made the sequel instead of fiddling about with that Elysium thing, isn't it?

*cough*

Maybe this is just semantics, so I won't hit it too hard, but... why are we even talking about an "end game" at all? "End game" implies there's an end to the game. But what if I prefer that my game not end? What if I happen to like all the game to be end game, so that I don't feel that there's some ...

The System Shock factor also matters to me. It was one of the things that kicked me over the edge into writing up this little article. (Along with the gaming journalism weirdness.) System Shock, along with Ultima Underworld and Thief and culminating in Deus Ex, represented what I believe was a criti...

I'm really not sure what to make of this, but it ties into so many fascinating things that it feels like it's worth a mention here. Rather than a wall of text, maybe the best way to sum up the recent strangeness is as follows: Arkane, headed by Raphael Colantonio, wants to make games like the ones L...

Hmm. 15 for me so far, all successfully funded: 12 regular computer games, 1 visual novel game, 1 tabletop RPG book, and one movie. I almost wish I hadn't backed two of the computer games (which I won't name), as their developers have turned out to take the "we're not going to show or tell you much ...

For a simulation, yes, the huge majority of worlds are probably dead and thus single-biome. For a game, and a game with a science fiction setting, however, it's not unreasonable to think that a good percentage of the places you could visit would have life, and therefore varied biomes. Nothing but de...

Single-biome is relatively easier to implement. Sadly, that does matter when you're making a very complex game -- there's only so much time and money.

Given my druthers, of course I'd prefer to have some worlds with diversity. But my druthers don't pay Josh's electricity bill.

So we know that all coarse data needs to be resolvable at any time, since observation causes collapse. How this will work is still up for discussion ~ I'm not terribly keen on the idea of the player being able to collapse all coarse simulations around the universe just by opening his asset panel. M...

I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it this week, between some family heath stuff and a late night at the day job. (Yes, I see the irony in that latter event, thank you so much, life.) I suspect next week will be quieter. All we need now is for Valve to announce Half-Life 3 and the next podcast, much li...

No dead sea bottoms, though.

That would just be rude.

I'm also eagerly awaiting the third installment of Geralt's adventures. I very much enjoyed the first game, and liked the second even though it felt too console-ified for me. To have that plus open-world... yes. Do want. :) And then there's that Cyberpunk 2077. I don't know that anything can do toda...

TanC, I've felt pretty much the same way since the NGE was imposed on Star Wars Galaxies. But between EverQuest Next (and EQN Landmark), and the description of Civ Online, not to mention the very positive reception among MMO developers of the feedback systems that Riot have been testing in League of...

Agreed!