Talvieno wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 27, 2018 4:39 pm

If that's "at best science fantasy", then so are Mass Effect, Star Trek, and Firefly.

…I mean, yes.

Cool, so, Portal, Halflife, Halo, Starcraft, EVE Online, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1 (and the rest), Babylon 5, The Matrix, and the Terminator series are all fantasy by this official definition then. Good to know! I'm sure Victor will be pleased to hear that Freelancer is also considered fantasy, as is, likely, Cyberpunk 2077. He's been playing fantasy games all this time! Such a relief that must be. I know he likes to define himself with the fantasy genre, and he was so worried that CB2077 would be "too sci-fi" for him. This can only come as good news.

No, no. Tal, Firefly falls into Science Fiction, it doesnt introduce magical forces of any sorts, just uses things that COULD maybe be science. Artificial Gravity, and Fast (but not specified as FTL) engines.

Mass Effect is definitely Space Magic, and thus SciFa.

Star Trek, it depends on the season, most fall more into SciFi, even with FTL, as it's still plausible.

Portal... is more SciFi, but is close enough that I wouldnt argue against SciFa either. Especially after you include Half-Life.

Halo... is iffy, more SciFi in my own opinion. Nothing TOO fantastic in there.

StarCraft contains Psionics, and thats obviously space magic, thus SciFa.

EVE more SciFi, than SciFa. No Space Magic you see, although the Pod technology is outright magic really.

BSG is SciFi, no space magic, until the new one included some precognition crap.

Stargate is SciFa imo, but I have limited experience with Stargate.

Matrix's first movie is SciFi, the others could be either depending on your view. (if the "real world" was another layer of simulation then it's SciFi, not SciFa, as it was all in a computer)

Terminator is SciFi, as the only thing it includes that MIGHT be magic is Time Travel devices, but those are entirely unexplained in the story, so you can assume either magic, or sufficiently advanced on your own for that. (Although the T-2000 is magic metal )


Basically, the easy way to go, is if it has Space Magic, not just "impossible" technology, it is Science Fantasy.
If you need to dip into magic, its Fantasy.

Star Wars is space wizards having sword fights after all.
Where Star Trek is explorers using near unbelievable tech (although occasionally episodes look more like a wizard did it)

Battlefield Earth's Teleportation is Sufficiently Advanced Technology, but still has the potential to work within science.
Where Mass Effect has an element that magically can reduce mass to negative if electrically charged.
Portal doesn't bother to explain it's portals, so one can call space magic on those.

Morrowjosh should definitely be a future project, but as his next project, I disagree. After 1.0 he should definitely take a well deserved vacation for a few weeks, then come back to do the promised colonies and factions expansions. Which I hope will be significant expansions in gameplay. After those are done, another vacation is probably deserved.

I think jumping right into Morrowjosh is a bad idea, and he should instead focus on creating his company, hiring people with more business and project management experience, bringing on more designers, programmers, artists and so on. These new people should learn how to use his fancy dev tools and figure out how to make a sustainable development pipeline to expand on Limit Theory (especially in regards to narrative experiences one can encounter) and perhaps start new IPs.

However in addition to the regular job positions at a game development company, I would suggest it hire (or at least bring on as contractors/consultants) economists, historians, anthropologists, comedians, folklore storytellers, veterans, athletes, children, authors, ex convicts, sex workers, nurses, teachers, scientists, street performers, and so on. Gathering views from all different walks of life, figuring out what different people find compelling and enjoyable, gaining insights from their diverse knowledge and experiences. It should utilize these people to develop new, risky projects that are small enough that they can afford commercial failure, but can be built upon if they are successful.


I also think that Procedural Reality, though maybe not Josh himself should set up an incubator for individuals or groups from around the world to create their own games on the Phoenix Engine.

I think that after the LT expansions, Josh's time would best be spent doing what he seems to prefer, building more tools to make creating within the Phoenix Engine ever easier and more accessible, while simultaneously making it more efficient and powerful. Getting the power of the Phoenix Engine in the hands of as many people as possible is IMHO the best course of action.

Silverware wrote:Stuff

Personally, I think science fiction vs fantasy is entirely based around how it's handled in-universe. Not out-of-universe, but in-universe. The question is: Is the technology treated like something vague and mysterious, with uncertain roots and/or properties that may take much training or understanding to master? Or is it something that's "down to earth" and treated as normalcy, of which people have a very solid understanding of, complete with research and experiments?

One is a "Fantasy" mindset. The other is that of "Science Fiction". Fantasy is also based around the past, while Science Fiction is based around the future. When these two elements mix - ancient and/or unknown powers mixed with a futuristic setting/technology, or, the opposite - strange forces in the past that are treated very matter-of-factly and have been extensively researched to the point that all it really takes is some basic knowledge of how to use them - then it's "Science Fantasy".

Lord of the Rings doesn't try to explain any of its magic. It just "is". It's supposed to be wild, mysterious and ancient - and it's also set in the past, with solidly medieval technology. Thus, Fantasy. Similarly, Doctor Who never makes any sort of attempt to explain the TARDIS, or, usually, any of the technology they come across - but given that the TARDIS, arguably the centerpiece of the series, is supposed to come from a "highly advanced civilization" I'd classify it as Science Fantasy - very tentatively. Star Wars doesn't really try to explain "the force", or lightsabers, or blasters, or anything else. I mean, in the prequels they sort of tried (midichlorians!) but... they didn't really. Science Fantasy.

Star Trek, while whimsical at times, is solidly science fiction by this definition. Mass Effect is also solidly Science Fiction, because they treat their Element Zero like an actual element that has been critically studied and is well-understood. Stargate, while almost as whimsical as Star Trek, I think also qualifies as solid Science Fiction.

StarCraft, with the psionics, may well be Science Fantasy. So does Warhammer 40k.

EVE, I think, falls very firmly into the category of Science Fiction.

Harry Potter is "Present Fantasy", for lack of a better term. It's a fantasy series set in today's world.

Matrix 1 is science fiction. I don't know what the hell the others were. They hardly made sense to me.

Silverware wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 27, 2018 6:16 pm

Where Mass Effect has an element that magically can reduce mass to negative if electrically charged.
Portal doesn't bother to explain it's portals, so one can call space magic on those.

Mass Effect very solidly explains how Element Zero is supposed to work. There is no "magic" about it - it's not meant to feel magical. It's meant to feel mundane. It's something people deal with in their daily lives. Sure, it's not realistic, but if you say "It's not real, so therefore it's not science fiction" then you'e cutting out a vast amount of science fiction - classical and modern. Your definition of Science Fiction, by the way, ends up labeling a lot of early science fiction as "science fantasy", which I believe makes it fundamentally flawed unless you really plan to rewrite the classification of all those old books, magazines, and stories.
Portal is science fiction. They don't really try to explain the portals, but they act like it's natural technology and there's nothing strange about it. It's normal stuff in-universe, and they're in a science testing facility. It doesn't get much more "science" than that. It's also clearly set in the future or present, which makes it a solid SciFi.

Battlefield Earth is a strange thing. It's set in the future, people have the technology of the past, but there are people with technology of the future, but that technology is treated like it's magic. I don't even know. If I was to guess, it's Science Fiction: Set in the future + the aliens, at least, treating their equipment as science.

A Wrinkle In Time is decidedly Fantasy. Some bits here and there look like they're supposed to be futuristic (especially closer to the end) but everything is very fantastical the whole way through.

Steven Universe is Science Fantasy. They have spaceships and such, but also mystical powers nobody understands. Future tech + magical magic = Science Fantasy.

Steampunk - anything steampunk - is mostly Science Fantasy. It's mostly set in the past (or with past technology) with the addition of things that are decidedly future technology OR things that people aren't really sure how they work (usually in the form of "what makes flying ships fly")

Final Fantasy is decidedly Science Fantasy. I mean, it has "Fantasy" in the name, but people have magical tech and futuristic tech. Science Fantasy. Same as Star Wars.

I... suppose that's a valid viewpoint on the split.
I could accept that as the accepted margin for the forums. :3

I think there should be a distinction made between hardness and… fantasticality? The first being how the work relates to our physics and the second being how the work treats itself. So you could have "hard fantasy" wherin real physics can explain all or nearly all of the mechanics in the work but the culture treats it as magic, or "soft antifantasy" (need a better term for that ) where things work in well-defined ways that are very different from—or even at odds to—real physics. In this way something like Jules Verne's stuff would be hard antifantasy, because things work in very well-defined ways consistent with real physics, while something like Star Trek might be labeled mushy semifantasy—somewhere between hard and soft leaning towards soft, on account of the technobabble and… artistic liberties, and somewhere between fantasy and antifantasy, on account of the mix of well-understood stuff and wonder. EVE takes itself very seriously (it's an MMO game—things have to work in well-defined ways), which puts it firmly on the antifantasy side. There're reasons things work in the way they do. However, it makes quite a lot of divergences from real physics, which grants it a position on the soft side. E.E. Smith's stuff is soft antifantasy, as it has solid explanations for how it breaks physics. Star Wars gets soft fantasy because it doesn't explain a lot and is also weak-physics.

You're looking for this:

The Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness

Star Wars is 1 of 6, Star Trek is 2 of 6, REKT is 3 of 6, Mass Effect is 4 of 6, The Martian is 5 of 6, and a faithful retelling of the moon landing in fiction form is 6/6.

Talvieno wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 27, 2018 10:58 pm

You're looking for this:

The Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness

Star Wars is 1 of 6, Star Trek is 2 of 6, REKT is 3 of 6, Mass Effect is 4 of 6, The Martian is 5 of 6, and a faithful retelling of the moon landing in fiction form is 6/6.

Yes, and
I think the "fantasticality" dimension is of some utility to classification. It says things about the ways in which the story can be written and about the people depicted in it, and can describe the ways in which magic-that-is-technological has to be treated differently from technology-that-is-magical. Magical technology (e.g. most implementations of nanorobotics) is fantastical, but technological magic is not. The two lead to different ways of telling stories. I have a preference for non-fantastical settings—reasoning that it's easier to avoid plot holes and get a story that tells itself when you're on a solid foundation to start with—and it plays a larger role in my choice of reading material than does the hardness.
I would like some better terms for it though. Open to suggestions?

Silverware wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 27, 2018 6:16 pm

Matrix's first movie is SciFi, the others could be either depending on your view. (if the "real world" was another layer of simulation then it's SciFi, not SciFa, as it was all in a computer)

The movies make it pretty clear that the "real world" is indeed another layer of simulation.

Yeah, my original split isn't between hard/soft, as FTL is soft SciFi, but SciFi covers soft through hard.

It's more between Literal Space Magic, and Sufficiently Advanced Technology.


Duck: I don't feel that it was clear, hinted at maybe. (Definitely if you take into account the use of human body temp as power...)

Cathy Newman-style: "So what you're saying is, Josh's next project should be a game that clearly distinguishes between 'science fiction' and 'science fantasy,' then?"

*cough*

Science fantasy, aka futuristic magic, is just the application of Clarketech by entities too dumb to know how it works

However, LT is already SciFa, Morrowjosh w(sh)ould be at least as fantastical as LT.

Silverware wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:57 pm

Duck: I don't feel that it was clear, hinted at maybe. (Definitely if you take into account the use of human body temp as power...)

Neo sees the real world as code towards the end; he manages to stop machines in the real world; he travels between "the Matrix" and "the real world" without being plugged in; and the machines could find the resistance much more easily in the Matrix if they wanted to, but the Architect specifically states that they're allowed to escape, only seconds after saying that humans rejected any Matrix that restricted their freedom of choice.

If you don't think it was clear, you weren't paying attention.

DigitalDuck wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 29, 2018 5:17 am

Silverware wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:57 pm

Duck: I don't feel that it was clear, hinted at maybe. (Definitely if you take into account the use of human body temp as power...)

Neo sees the real world as code towards the end; he manages to stop machines in the real world; he travels between "the Matrix" and "the real world" without being plugged in; and the machines could find the resistance much more easily in the Matrix if they wanted to, but the Architect specifically states that they're allowed to escape, only seconds after saying that humans rejected any Matrix that restricted their freedom of choice.

If you don't think it was clear, you weren't paying attention.

Well I was a kid when I watched them last. :V
(I've since only re-watched the first)