Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: Game Ideas Unlimited

Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: Game Ideas Unlimited - Recent Posts http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/tags/game-ideas-unlimited Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: Game Ideas Unlimited - Recent Posts en-US Thu, 24 May 2012 10:34:50 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/search.php Llarry on "Game Ideas Unlimited: Screen Wrap" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-unlimited-screen-wrap#post-4701 Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:32:26 +0000 Llarry 4701@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I remember this one. One of my favorites. M. J. Young on "Game Ideas Unlimited: Screen Wrap" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-unlimited-screen-wrap#post-4691 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:05:58 +0000 M. J. Young 4691@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I've been recalling to attention, one per week, the Game Ideas Unlimited series which ran here weekly for four years beginning in June, 2001, and even though you can now purchase the first six months of the series <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/gameideasunltd">in printed form</a> I'm going to continue highlighting one article per week. This week we reach the fifth in the series, <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/screen_wrap/">Screen Wrap</a>. This article features not one but two distinct references to Dr. Who, one to an early video game, one Multiverser reference, and several tried and proven methods of confusing your players by bouncing their characters around the map in a completely structured and logical manner that will seem to them totally random until they crack the puzzle. Players in my games should be aware that I use these techniques, when they are appropriate, so it might be worthwhile to bone up on them, as they say. As always, I look forward to comments on the article here in the forum. --M. J. Young M. J. Young on "Game Ideas Unlimited Volume 1 Available" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-unlimited-volume-1-available#post-4628 Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:42:31 +0000 M. J. Young 4628@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I'm announcing the release of Game Ideas Unlimited Volume 1. It is officially available from our new dedicated <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/gameideasunltd">Cafe Press storefront</a> for $18.95. I hope to have copies at UberCon X, which will at least save you shipping and handling (and let you see before you buy), but for those who won't be there or don't want to wait or don't want to have to choose between this great book and something else at the convention or don't want to risk them not being there, they're ready now. I have not yet seen them, but am expecting some to be shipped to me (and hoping to have them in hand in time). I'm a terrible salesman, really, so I'm not going to say more about it. --M. J. Young M. J. Young on "Game Ideas Unlimited: My North Wall" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-unlimited-my-north-wall#post-4613 Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:14:09 +0000 M. J. Young 4613@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I remember writing this one, <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/my_north_wall/">Game Ideas Unlimited: My North Wall</a>. I remember sitting at this desk, staring at that wall, examining each item as I moved from east to west across it. It helps, perhaps, that the wall has not changed that much. The painting is still there. So is the cabinet, and the television. Those are probably the big objects. Nearly all the little ones are gone, including the speaker for the PA system, which found use with 7dB and might again with Collision. The interesting aspect of the article was the exploration of how to get world and adventure ideas from very common objects. The painting is missing from the article. You might have to buy the book to see it. I remember posting to ask Aaron whether it (and the sketch from an upcoming article) were still preserved on the server somewhere that I could restore them, but have not gotten an answer to that yet, so he's probably overlooked it with everything else he has to do. Too bad--looking for the leprechaun was one of the really fun things people liked about this one. However, perhaps we'll get that fixed soon enough. As always, feel free to comment here on what you read there. --M. J. Young M. J. Young on "Game Ideas Unlimited: Transmats" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-unlimited-transmats#post-4523 Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:07:58 +0000 M. J. Young 4523@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I hear what you're saying. Part of my response would be that a world with such technology has already reached the level of the technology explosion--that information is doubling so quickly it is more and more difficult to know everything even in a very narrow field. Thus once such a culture has the ability to do X, it will immediately proceed to do Y, as long as Y is similar enough to X. Your analogy to photoshopping photos is pretty good; but then, I'm not saying that all of these applications are effected the instant the technology is developed, only that they would be developed reasonably quickly thereafter. Yes, it takes a lot of effort to make the changes, but we've also got systems that will facilitate that. The typical photoshopper is trying to paste images together by eye. The matter transmission replicator alteration system progresses in stages, but it has to progress. Let's use Captain Picard's cup of tea. He orders "Earl Grey, Hot". Obviously the computer has already been programmed to know that he wants a specific quantity at a specific temperature, and he wants it in a cup. The question, though, is how much control he has over those settings, and how he gets that control. One answer is that at some point he placed the exact cup of tea, the right quantity, the right temperature, in the replicator, had it dematerialize (or at least read the pattern), and set that to match the command. If he wanted the same tea hotter or cooler, he could not get it unless he inserted another such cup of tea, and gave it a new identifier. If he wanted more or less, this too would require saving a different pattern. However, what we assume is the case is that the system can modify the size of the cup, the quantity of tea, and the temperature--and that comes by modifying the pattern. The modifications in that case are minor, but the system clearly is doing some calculation, determining how much energy is needed to get the target temperature for that quantity of liquid, and how big a container is needed to prevent it from spilling. Now we turn to the broken femur. This is not about a person--not even a doctor--designing the corrected pattern for the femur. It is about the computer scanning the bone as it is in the leg, then comparing it to the model it has of the general parameters of femurs. It can calculate the correct length and diameter of the broken bone from the pieces, and the correct integration of the pieces from the stored pattern. In essence, we're asking the computer to reintegrate the pieces of a puzzle. That should be a simple task. How much more difficult would it be for the computer to, at the same time, read the amount of calcium in that bone, determine whether the break is due to osteoporosis, a weakened bone from which the calcium has been leached over time, and by comparing this to the standards for calcification in bones restore the bone to a fully strengthened state? All of that is relatively simple. The next step is also relatively simple: how difficult would it be to instruct the computer to reinforce the bone with a bit of steel? Whether you want the computer to add thin strips of steel within the bone or put a metal sheath around parts of the outside, the computer can calculate exactly where this would go and how to move or reconfigure surrounding tissue to create the space. You advance through steps, certainly, but they're not terribly difficult steps, and they don't take that long. Probably FDA approval is the piece that causes the most delays. --M. J. Young WilliamTWodium on "Game Ideas Unlimited: Transmats" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-unlimited-transmats#post-4511 Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:02:23 +0000 WilliamTWodium 4511@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I don't know if I'd trust my memory, personality, and train of thought to the molecular level. I like that part of the technology; it makes the botch scenarios more interesting. My quibble is that I highly doubt that pattern modification would be anywhere near as easy as the article makes it sound. To me, this is the difference between recording a digital image with a camera and convincingly modifying that image with a computer. If I recall correctly (I wasn't paying much attention at the time), there was significant lag between those two technologies. Even now, and contrary to popular wisdom, not everything can be done with Photoshop - and as an aside, it takes considerably less expertise to spot a fake than it did to make that fake. While the effects of a digital image being a little "off" are fairly benign, I would want to carefully consider the ramifications of instilling my organic corporeal form with an analogous quality. This isn't to say that in some hi-sci-fi universe they can't or don't do this at the drop of the hat - because of course in some universe they do - but I think there's plenty of room for a scenario with teleporters and flawless replicators which has not yet felt the full impact of the changes you describe, and which might not begin to feel them for several decades to come. M. J. Young on "Game Ideas Unlimited: Transmats" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-unlimited-transmats#post-4493 Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:02:39 +0000 M. J. Young 4493@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Interesting thoughts. Certainly if we used a process that identified substances at the molecular level and then reproduced those molecules as such at the other end, we wouldn't have to destroy nucleii. That might matter in some cases, though. For a machine that used electronic data storage, the charged/discharged state of each molecule might matter to the data storage. Perhaps more significantly, if we are not releasing the subatomic energy of the molecules at the one end, we're going to need to bring in a tremendous amount of energy at the other end to create the matter necessary, or else we're going to have to have systems that are packed with every element and maybe a few necessary compounds, so that these atoms and molecules can be projected to the correct positions. Creating matter is a rather expensive process, in terms of energy, after all. --M. J. Young Llarry on "Game Ideas Unlimited: Transmats" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-unlimited-transmats#post-4488 Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:30:44 +0000 Llarry 4488@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Some interesting thoughts there. I am going to quibble with one (and only one) aspect of it, though -- the nuclear power generation / containment angle. First, I don't see that it is actually required that the dismantling of the prototype would have to continue below the molecular level. When we replicate water molecules, having water as a by-product at the source would even be a benefit, but also there is no further information to be gained by examining 10 protons and electrons and a few (4?) neutrons. Secondly, even if we do split up molecules, we're probably not looking at very much energy, in fact, many molecular breakdowns are even endothermic, that is, it takes more energy to split them up than you can gain back from using the component atoms (see electrolysis of water to create free Hydrogen and Oxygen for example). Now, if we truly need to go subatomic, and break up that nucleus, well then, yes your points do apply, I'm just not convinced we need to. You are correct that most sci-fi overlooks many of the ramifications. Star Trek does acknowledge the use of transporter technology in the replicators/food synthesizers and the holodeck, but that really is just the tip of the iceberg. I recently finished a pair of novellas by James Hogan, reprinted together under the title "Martian Knightlife". I love his older stuff, but his more recent work (like this) has been more uneven and some of his ideas have gotten pretty wacky (I think he may be on his way to joining the tin-foil-hat-brigade...), still some interesting ideas in these. In the first story, which sets up the second, someone has invented a transmat process that actually works better with people than with inanimate objects because you don't need to scan/store/transmit the data for every molecule, just the DNA and a memory map. As well, some of the ramifications of the identity/relationship of the original and end copy are explored. M. J. Young on "Game Ideas Unlimited: Transmats" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-unlimited-transmats#post-4470 Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:56:41 +0000 M. J. Young 4470@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ As long as I'm posting this, I'm going to give a bit of history of the series. It was late in late in 2000, maybe the first weeks of 2001, when I got a message--one of the few worthwhile things that ever reached me through an instant messaging system. (I've since shut them all down, since most of what I get is Spam, and I have several telephones.) There was a fellow known to me, and many others, as Graveyard Greg. He had been involved here, publishing interviews with such luminaries as Robin Laws, Greg Stolze, and somehow listed among them, me. For reasons I have never known, he was no longer working here, but someone had contacted him and given him a budget to create a new gaming web site. He thought that I would be a good writer for such a site, and wanted to know if I would be interested in doing a weekly column at maybe 1500 words a week, for which he would pay me from this budget. I said yes; I offered him the title, Game Ideas Unlimited, and he loved it.  I wrote three columns and e-mailed them to him to show where I was going to take it, and we were all agreed that this was going to happen--and then the person who hired him pulled the plug, announcing that they weren't going to do the web site after all. This is not that unusual. I was promised payment for an article once, Re-educating the Power Gamer, but the site that bought and published it never paid for it, and eventually went under. There are a few sites that make money at this, but it's not an easy thing to do, and even the big ones have been on the edge of bankruptcy more than once. So I had these three articles, a few sketched ideas, and the concept of a series, and nowhere to take it. Then Gaming Outpost announced that it was going to attempt something different, a new subscriber-based model in which there would be special content for those who paid a small monthly fee. They were going to hire five industry professionals to write columns, one for each day of the week. I fired off a note, saying I had this series looking for a home, and would they want it. There was some discussion--they had envisioned thousand word columns, and I had framed it at fifteen hundred, but they liked what they saw and gave me my number. The three articles they saw by way of introduction were the <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/giu_introduction/">Introduction</a> I mentioned two weeks back, <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/an_amusing_dungeon/">An Amusing Dungeon</a> which I presented last week, and this one: <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/transmats/">Game Ideas </a>Unlimited: Transmats. It is a discussion of many of the things I think are inherently suggested by the existence and understanding of matter transmission technology. Some of my forum players are dealing with matter transmission technology in their worlds. This might get them thinking in new directions. In any case, I look forward to your thoughts on it here. --M. J. Young Llarry on "Game Ideas Unlimited: An Amusing Dungeon" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-ltemgtunltemgtlimited-an-amusing-dungeon#post-4433 Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:59:27 +0000 Llarry 4433@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I remember that one, it was one of my favorites. Goes nicely with one of your later columns that talked about rearranging the walls of the dungeon as you go along to confound your players and make sure they don't miss out on any of the fun... M. J. Young on "Game Ideas Unlimited: An Amusing Dungeon" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/game-ideas-ltemgtunltemgtlimited-an-amusing-dungeon#post-4416 Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:33:30 +0000 M. J. Young 4416@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I was going to post this on Friday, but if you've seen my <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/blog/a-few-hours-here-or-therea-few-hours-here-or-there/">Blogless Lepolt entry for today</a> you know what happened to that plan. As I mentioned a week ago, there are many articles in the archives here--near a thousand, according to the automatic article counter, but I'm not certain how many of those are articles as opposed to mislabled reviews, blog posts, or interviews (which don't have a category of their own, so they'll remain articles). I'm only giving you a tour of the two hundred I wrote as part of the Game Ideas Unlimited series. Let me invite you to read <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/an_amusing_dungeon/">Game Ideas Unlimited: An Amusing Dungeon</a>. I don't want to say too much about it, as the first time it ran the promotional blurb gave away one of the kickers. Let's just say that it's about juxtaposing one relatively common setting against another, and making the dissimilar fit in surprising ways. I look forward to thoughts, responses, reactions, and ideas. --M. J. Young M. J. Young on "Article Updating" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/article-updating#post-4292 Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:22:50 +0000 M. J. Young 4292@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ Aaron-- Hit a bit of a surprise. Two of the "first season" Game Ideas Unlimited articles had pictures in them. In the transfer, the pictures seem to have been lost, although the spots for them were retained in the formatting. I'm wondering if the images are still somewhere on the server and I only have to fix the links, or barring that whether I have to upload the images anew (it appears that I do have these on my hard drive). The first article is <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/my_north_wall/">My North Wall</a>, and the link says the image is at <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/images/columns/game_ideas_unlimited/giu004i1.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://gamingoutpost.com/images/columns/game_ideas_unlimited/giu004i1.jpg</a> but there is nothing there. The other is in <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/empiricism/">Empiricism</a>, and shows as <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/images/columns/game_ideas_unlimited/giu010.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://gamingoutpost.com/images/columns/game_ideas_unlimited/giu010.jpg</a> which again is an empty address. I think these were the only two pictures I ever included. If they still exist on the server somewhere, I can fix the links; if they can be uploaded somewhere, tell me where/how and I'll replace them. Thanks. --M. J. Young Aaron Powell on "Article Updating" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/article-updating#post-4277 Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:11:51 +0000 Aaron Powell 4277@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ MJ- First, thank you so much for the help. This will be a huge step toward making GO's huge archive more accessible. <blockquote>Aaron, is there any way that I can create author accounts? </blockquote> Probably. Let me look into it, but my guess is I'll end up granting you administrative access to the article system. <blockquote>Also, is there any way I can delete author accounts? </blockquote> Definitely. Again, my guess is administrative access is the best way to go here. <blockquote>You might remember that back mumble-mumble years ago Ian O'Rourke and I did some "Point/Counterpoint" articles, where we each tackled the same issue in a side-by-side format. In a sense, they are not mine; in a sense they are.</blockquote> I'd just put them under your name and then, at the top of the article in bold or something, put in "Counterpoint by Ian O'Rourke" or something of that sort. If he has a website you can link his name to, that'd be great. But the system doesn't support multiple authors per article, so I don't think there's another option. M. J. Young on "Article Updating" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/article-updating#post-4274 Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:23:44 +0000 M. J. Young 4274@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ This is mostly for Aaron and Eric, but David might also be interested, and I'm not excluding the possibility that others might as well. I have gone through all the titles of articles from the earliest still on the site through the end of December 2002. Aaron, is there any way that I can create author accounts? I could probably track down Seth and get him to create one, but Gareth-Michael Skarka is probably not talking to me, and Gary Gygax is not talking to anyone anymore (O.K., my dark humor probably isn't appreciated), and it would be better for the authors and for the site to show those articles with the authors' names attached. Also, is there any way I can delete author accounts? We've got a lot of writers in the stable whose first name is Viagra, who probably don't have any articles or posts on record, and it would be nice to clean out the dead wood. I was uncertain about two articles. You might remember that back mumble-mumble years ago Ian O'Rourke and I did some "Point/Counterpoint" articles, where we each tackled the same issue in a side-by-side format. In a sense, they are not mine; in a sense they are. I put them under my user name, partly because I don't think Ian has a user name (and if he does, I really don't remember what it was), but I don't particularly want to claim full credit for his work. Since I couldn't create an account, I couldn't make a joint user name one for those articles. Eric, I think I got all of yours, but you should probably browse through all the article indices up through the end of December 2002 and make sure I didn't miss any. Particularly before the World a Week column began, you wrote a few things that weren't easy to spot as yours. David, I saw a couple of things I thought might be yours in those months, but I wasn't sure either whether they were or whether you had a user account, so I didn't pursue it. If anyone else has articles posted that are not showing under their user name, let me know. As an aside, I also cleaned up the links in the quarterly articles of the Game Ideas Unlimited series for those years. For those who don't remember the weekly series, every thirteenth article summarized the previous twelve and linked back to them, but the links went bad when the site was updated. Those should work now. --M. J. Young