Necrotic Drift: released

Jewel · Post by **Jewel** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:53 am

Wow, I feel kind of silly now for having even asked about the poltergeist... after I got offline yesterday I spent a little while applying myself and came up with the answer, got out of the mall and all. Yay me! The ending is a little disappointing, however, but I think that's just because I'm a female and my instict is to wish for happiness all around, but some day I will beat that part of me down.

Thanks for the help anyway!

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:59 am

Jewel wrote:Wow, I feel kind of silly now for having even asked about the poltergeist... after I got offline yesterday I spent a little while applying myself and came up with the answer, got out of the mall and all. Yay me! The ending is a little disappointing, however, but I think that's just because I'm a female and my instict is to wish for happiness all around, but some day I will beat that part of me down.

Thanks for the help anyway!

At least you didn't have to ask about the mummy, the fucking Jerry Lewis of the undead.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 8:35 am

Worm wrote:At least you didn't have to ask about the mummy, the fucking Jerry Lewis of the undead.

I don't think this quote will be appearing on the box.

In other news: you will soon be able to buy a screened, full-color, printed hard copy of Necrotic Drift! (Course, if you're one of the two dozen people who worked on it I'll be sending you one for free.) Mixonic finally got DVD inserts going, so we should be taking pre-orders really soon.

$9.99 will get you the game, a DVD case, a B&W copy of "Which Witch?" and a non-weighted 20-sided die. Excelsior!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 9:49 am

Roody_Yogurt wrote:I don't know if it'll stay this way by the time everyone sees this, but this is at least the second day in that ND has roped the #1 spot at the IF Ratings site:

http://www.carouselchain.com/if/statistics.php

with two comments even

The "Quits on launch: <b>1</b>" guy will be by soon enough to fix this.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 3:53 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:
Roody_Yogurt wrote:I don't know if it'll stay this way by the time everyone sees this, but this is at least the second day in that ND has roped the #1 spot at the IF Ratings site:

http://www.carouselchain.com/if/statistics.php

with two comments even
The "Quits on launch: <b>1</b>" guy will be by soon enough to fix this.

Hahah, some pussy started whining about the big (sorry "astronomical") download size. Ah, well, it was nice while it lasted. If only I had developed in Adrift!!

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 4:36 pm

Bah, I'd really like to vote and leave a comment just to insult that guy, but I have too much respect for the IF Ratings site in general.

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:59 pm

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Bah, I'd really like to vote and leave a comment just to insult that guy, but I have too much respect for the IF Ratings site in general.

I don't. EDIT: Ahh hell I already voted so I can't comment. Hell a certain line about a 2800 baud modem and a SMART card would suit that maggot well.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 11:58 am

Ah-ha!!!! This makes it ALL WORTHWHILE!!!

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 12:51 pm

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Bah, I'd really like to vote and leave a comment just to insult that guy, but I have too much respect for the IF Ratings site in general.

Why would you want to "insult that guy" for having a negative opinion of the game? Christ, *I* gave the game a relatively negative review, and I did it to the author's face!

Do you want to "leave a comment just to insult" me, Roody?

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 1:21 pm

pinback wrote:Why would you want to "insult that guy" for having a negative opinion of the game? Christ, *I* gave the game a relatively negative review, and I did it to the author's face!

If the guy just disliked it, nobody cares. Disliking the game? Nobody cares. I went to dinner last month with a guy who said that my first game was like swimming through sewage. And not in the cool way that Andy Dufresne swam through sewage, but more like how alligators and child molesters do.

Disliking the game because the author told you it was a 38MB download and when you downloaded it you found out that it was a 38MB download, even though said author -- in his last game, which was only 6MB -- sent about two dozen copies of the game on CD ALL OVER THE FUCKING WORLD at his OWN COST completely and totally free to anyone who wanted one (before it was available on Feelies) thus proving himself to have actually cared about those people on pay-for-play dial-up... that's not fine.

If you look back to the original announcement, I actually forgot to tell people what genre of game it was. I did not forget to tell them that it was 38MB in size, however. Nobody rapidly clicked the link there only to be surprised at what they found was going on with the thing's size, unless they can't read, in which case they shouldn't be playing text adventures anyway.

Here's what bugs me. Ready? This is me. Ready? Are you ready? This is me. The 10th Anniversary of Inform is this year. 1994-2004. There are, at last count, about four thousand games in the classic Infocom mold in the IF Archive. Hell, I even wrote two of them.

There are, at last count, like five adventures in the Magnetic Scrolls / Knight Orc / Spellcasting 101 mold, and I wrote three of them. Even less, considering that 1893 is not in the archive (if I remember correctly). In a marginalized genre there are actual people out there who are -- what? -- threatened, insulted, terrified by or whatever else a little bit of change. 38 mega bytes!! Oh no! It takes six minutes to download from mirror.ifarchive.org on Broadband. You can read the independently stored manual in that time.

Look, I don't give a shit about myself or what happens to me. The game is good, people like it, I got "two thumbs up" from Underdog and if I may be so bold, it's going to be a top-selling item on Feelies in a few days here as well. I've got thick skin, and in fact appreciate the useful constructive criticism contained in the negative reviews of all my games (that comment on IF Ratings included). The part that angers me is that other people might be inclined to possibly push the genre a little bit in the future by including graphics and sound and this is what they see. Why bother? If people are going to troll your game due to the fact that they have found a way to be the oldest and most extinct dinosaurs within a subset of video game Paleontology then why bother putting something together that tries to advance the scene?

I personally don't need any feedback. I pretty much got it already. You hated it, other people liked it, everyone else was somewhere in between. Someone else making a graphical IF game their first time out would be disenchanted with the whole process if they got savaged for the size of their ware, and that's what I find unacceptable. I'd like to see more games done with an interface like what I picked, if that makes any sense.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 2:28 pm

I didn't hate it. I gave it two and a half stars.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 2:33 pm

pinback wrote:I didn't hate it. I gave it two and a half stars.

If I wanted to make games that generated 2.5 stars (out of five!) reviews, I'd start writing them in BASIC at a clip of three a week.

Anything below 4 on a 5-star scale is WORTHLESS and GARBAGE.

chris · Post by **chris** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:03 pm

pinback wrote:I didn't hate it. I gave it two and a half stars.

I don't play games all that much anymore, but I played ND, and thought it was quite good. A few minor problems, but DEFINITELY better than 2.5/5 stars.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 7:08 pm

Oh, well then I must be wrong. Sorry, Jonsey! FIFTEEN STARS, baby!

Toreoffmywings · Post by **Toreoffmywings** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 6:43 pm

5 star review systems are crap in general. not nearly enough space between "Perfection to the Last Byte" and "Really Very Good."

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:50 pm

Any more precision than that paradoxically invalidates any rating that uses such precision, for two reasons:

1. It's realistic to expect an objective review of "good" or "bad" to convey to the reader whether or not he may find enjoyment in a [book/movie/game], but if you get much more precise than that, too much subjectivity gets into the mix. "I gave it a few more points because I liked so-and-so's voice." Or somesuch.

2. What the hell is the difference between a 78/100 score and a 79/100 score?

Toreoffmywings · Post by **Toreoffmywings** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 12:00 am

Personally, I think a ten point ststem is ideal. I have the same problem with White wolf.

One point in brawl means that you know how to make a fist. You know, thumb outside the fingers? two points makes you a decent fighter. three points later you're a master of That Psycho Bruce Lee Shit (tm)

debaseratwork · Post by **debaseratwork** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:03 pm

You're both right and, hence, both wrong. a 5 star rating system is awful and stupid, as is a four star. Any star or numerical rating system, is in fact, crap, because it's meaningless from person to person. There's the old "is 50% a C or an F" debate, but even beyond that you're still introducing a needless abstraction of what is already an approximations of your feeling on a subject that is, to some degree, beyond precise measurement. Someone like Ebert who has a two-billion review context for his ratings is one thing, but even he gets no end of grief from people who can't comprehend the disconnect between a 3 1/2 star action comedy and a 2/12 star art film.

Opinions on art should be expressed using words, images, and possibly rude gestures. A better "sound bite" for a two and a half star film is "Alright" "Not Bad" or "Definitely Missable" or whatever the hell you think **1/2 is supposed to convey in four keystrokes.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:03 pm

Who, given a four star system, cannot deduce that **1/2 means "slightly above average, but not terribly memorable"?

Who can't figure that out?

d-to-the-baser · Post by **d-to-the-baser** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:51 pm

Well, for Ebert the 2 1/2 to 3* bump is the "recommendation line". A 3* movie is one you should see if you have an interest in the genre, whereas a 2+1/2* movie is one you should avoid unless you just have way to much time on your hands or are unusually predisposed towards the actor/director/concept/genre/character/whatever featured in the film. However, wanting to comport himself as an objective viewer, he claims to be measuring the quality rather than the recommendability of a movie; and that quality is in comparison to other, similar movies. So a 3+1/2* superhero movie is "really good for what it was" while a 2+1/2* art film is "a noble failure". If you don't know that this is how he does things, then you're only going to get the vaguest idea whether anything in the 2-3 star range is worth your time.

Necrotic Drift: released

Yay me

Re: Yay me

Re: Yay me