Messages

I'm not an economist either, but I don't think you have your facts straight. Fractional reserve banking doesn't mean I deposit $1000 and the bank loans out a percentage of that deposit. It means that the bank loans significantly MORE than my deposit. Commercial banks extend credit that EXCEEDS their reserves, and that's where extra money enters the system. EDIT: It seems like I didn't have my facts straight!

I'm no expert (EDIT: demonstrably), but I did happen to be reading  a book by Adair Turner about this today. These things aren't secrets, there are books about them all over the place!

If the US central bank is controlled by the government, then why isn't the money held in surplus used immediately to service the government debt?

One big reason, which you mentioned, is that Governments/Central Banks printing money can lead to disastrous hyperinflation. Look at Zimbabwe or Weimar Germany.

More pertinently, why is the debt there in the first place? Again, if the central bank is controlled by the government, why does the government effectively pay interest to itself and perpetuate the debt? Who's running the show?

I don't know about the US, but in the UK the Central Bank is largely independent and mainly responsible for making adjustments to the wider economy by setting interest rates. The debt is there because governments borrow, for instance by selling government bonds, which are treated as 'risk-free' investments because the government is very unlikely to default. Government debt is particularly troublesome now (post-2008) because (according to a graph I saw in that book) the enormous private-sector debt built up before the crash has effectively been shifted onto government in order to get the economy moving again.

Who's running the show? No one, we are adrift on a vast ocean. That's partly why government debt exists - governments do not have a free hand to do whatever they want (except in conspiracy theories).

If most of the money across the world is digital (and costs next to nothing to create) then why is there this disproportionate debt attached to the money in its creation?

Because the money is created AS credit. Because debts and debt derivatives are valuable in modern, complex financial markets. A commercial bank can make a loan, and then the debt itself can be sold, sliced, repackaged and bet against. It possible for this liquidity to benefit the real economy by (for instance) making it easier to invest in new businesses. It's also possible for banks and other financial organisations to make (and lose) a lot of money trading derivatives back and forth without adding any value to the economy as a whole. It's also possible that this could crash economies across the western world (See 2008).

I think an example of an actual, real conspiracy might be useful for comparison:

After 27 years, a jury concluded that the 96 fans who died in the Hillsborough disaster were unlawfully killed.

The police were responsible for both the crush, and the subsequent lack of medical attention which lead to the 96 deaths. The police, in concert with the media and politicians put out a story blaming Liverpool fans for the disaster, inventing tales of 'drunken yobs' urinating on and looting from bodies. It's taken years for the families of the dead to be vindicated. Most of the people responsible for the cover-up are probably beyond prosecution now, but the establishment has finally acknowledged the truth.

That's what a real conspiracy looks like: Shabby, shameful and ultimately unsuccessful. Real conspiracies don't require secret elites, shadow governments, Zionists, lizards or holograms. Just venal people protecting their own interests.

I got a couple of free steam keys for (non-adventure) games I don't fancy at EGX Rezzed last week. If you are interested:

DEMENTIUM 2:

Spoiler

?856Q-87LT3-QN4YP
Where ? = James Kirk's middle initial.

[close]

INCITEMENT 3: Gone to Radiant!

Black Dahlia was the best traditional FMV I remember playing, with Ripper being the most entertainingly bad. There's nothing stopping you from making an FMV game in AGS, it's just hard to get good actors, directed well, nicely photographed in front of a well lit greenscreen.

[Steam]

I don't want to bang on about it, but Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet is currently 15% off on Steam and other stores.

RPS says "It's funny, daft, and the look is incessantly fantastic... And it's got Tom Baker in it. I had a thoroughly lovely time."
Just Adventure think "The puzzles are as perfect as possible."
(More press cuttings...)

The only way to find out if they are lying is to play the game yourself. I'll allow myself to introduce it properly, via the medium of internet video:

[embed=640,360]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcLiCFBgwpQ[/embed]

After watching this, I recommend you watch it again, hilariously dubbed into German.

Hi Babar! Yes, it is possible that other stores will appear later. You can get a Steam code now, and if you change your mind at a later date and prefer a download email: support[at]application-systems[dot]de. There's a bit more info on this in the latest KS update.

Hope you like it!

EDIT: Whoops! Well, you can always email me or ASH if you have any problems.

HOORAY! I did actually find this on YouTube a few years ago, but never updated my post. It wasn't ANYWHERE back in 2005. When I discovered it, what I found amazing was how many of the comments were saying "I've been searching for this for years!".

Thanks clarkee22! Nice to meet a fellow fan of The Little Mole.

Thanks for spotting that Amélie!

Nelly's Steam Page is now live, as are the English and German trailers. Watch / Sehen:

[embed=640,360]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3STGk5fIY8[/embed]  [embed=640,360]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLXCphx0GlU[/embed]

As well as meeting John Walker, I spoke to Patrick Hickey Jr. for the Examiner, and you can read the interview here: Examiner Exclusive: Inside 'Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet' And there's also a detailed preview on Cliqist by Serena Nelson.

I hope this isn't too spammy, but if you're feeling generous, you could join Nelly's Thunderclap to help promote the launch on March 22nd. We're launching on the same day as Day of the Tentacle Remastered, so we need all the support we can get!

Click here to join Nelly's Thunderclap

I remember when that first came on the news. My first thought was "the parents did it"

There's a reason we think like this. It makes it easier on us, because we don't have to empathise with parents who've lost a daughter. If they did it, they're not victims, they're guilty. How convenient! It's the same with so many half-baked conspiracy theories - sorry cases of 'alternative knowledge'. They are like superstitions, ways of achieving a sense that we can understand and maybe control confusing reality. They also reveal our paranoias and prejudices. How far do you have to walk down any of these avenues before a Zionist cabal pops up? Not far.

I don't know what happened to Madeleine McCann, or exactly what happened at the Boston Bombings, 7/7 or 9/11. It's interesting to speculate about 9/11, and that's because it means we don't have to think about all the people who burned to death.

If I refer to "do-cracy", I could name these people:

- CW
- Gilbert (Dave and/or Janet)
- gurok
- monkey0506
- sonneveld

I really think it isn't helpful to volunteer on other people's behalf. That's just applying pressure to people who haven't asked for it and it's not going to make a project leader emerge from the chaos. If no one wants the job, no one want it.

The best we can do is give people the opportunity to volunteer their services, and see if we can make it work. On reflection, a successful Kickstarter would probably also bring in offers of help. But they'd be as varied and conflicting as the opinions in this thread, so it wouldn't lead anywhere without strong project leadership.

I remember about 10 years ago we elected a king of AGS. There was a flag and everything. Maybe it's time for us to seriously consider:

The AGS Elections?

We could run them at the same time as the AGS awards. That might empower a team of 3-4 enthusiasts to make decisions, without unfairly thrusting responsibility onto people like CW.

[Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy!]

Hello!

If you happen to have fond memories of Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! you might like to know...

Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet launches on March 22nd.

If you hated Spoonbeaks Ahoy! then this probably isn't for you.

[embed=640,360]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCyfiYNetlQ[/embed]

If you feel like helping us out, you could share this Press Release Trailer with influential associates. I'm thinking World leaders, Business Gurus, Games Journalists etc.

The game offers full voice acting in both English and German, with an incredible cast including the legendary Tom Baker (Doctor Who, Little Britain) and Thomas Reiner (Raumpatrouille Orion, Futurama). It also offers text localisation in French, Spanish and Italian. It also has a wonderful score composed by the forum's own Nikolas Sideris.

Read the Press Release

Character Info & Voice Acting Samples

For AGSers with an interest in development - I have archived my Captain's Log Updates which were previously only available to Kickstarter Backers. They chart changes the project has undergone in development, graphical and technical, including my reluctant transition from AGS to Unity.

If $50,000 is a moderate estimate of what would be needed, it's not an utterly ridiculous target for a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign.

We shouldn't just look around the AGS forums and see who is prepared to chip in. A modern AGS would appeal to more people - all the artists, writers and coders who drop in here because they like adventure games, but then decide that the engine is too retro for them. And some gamers, who want to see Dave and others keep developing great adventure games without the aesthetic and technical limitations AGS imposes.

The project wouldn't necessarily have to be led by the main coder. It could be one person or a committee, but someone would need to set out a clear vision for the project. (Although it's well meaning, I don't think it's fair to start volunteering other people.)

Perhaps it would be better to ask what people can volunteer besides money and see what resources AGS has at its disposal. As I mentioned before, I'd volunteer to help when it comes to fundraising.

[raise]

CW is right about many things, and this is one of them. We're not asking how much money we have (at the moment, it's just all of us throwing in our 2 cents - geddit!). We're asking how much money we could raise.

You can't raise money for a fuzzy cause. You can't raise money to see if we could maybe find someone to look at possibly updating or maybe rewriting...or ...

If the AGS community were going to raise some money, and I think we could, we'd need a very clear set of goals. We'd also need the enthusiastic support of people like CW and Dave Gilbert who have done such good work on and with the engine. But we couldn't start raising money and then wait for a project leader to materialise.

No offense, but are you serious? AGS can already do that...

While I think crowdfunding for AGS is a very good idea, this demonstrates the limits of crowdsourcing. It's all too easy for us to bat around contradictory opinions and ideas which might not even be relevant to the current state AGS. Without formal project leaders who feel empowered to make decisive choices it's going to be hard to select ideas and make progress.

EDIT: I thought I should add something positive to this! In the interest of progress, I'd volunteer to work on any crowdfunding campaign for AGS.

I think there's the scope for a crowdfunding campaign to create a next-generation version of AGS. As CW says, the great things about AGS is all conceptual. It's about how easy AGS makes it to design adventure games that just work like adventure games should work. The actual code could do with being replaced wholesale.

I would definitely contribute to a modern, open-source, user-friendly 2-D adventure game engine. And I'd be up for helping put together a Kickstarter campaign for it. But for this to work we'd need to find the right coder first, and find the money second.

Toonstruck is the best example I can think of. (I also played the vacuuming mother AGS game, but am ashamed to say I've forgotten the name too!)

I think a multiple choice verb coin sometimes works, especially when the verbs are context-dependent. But I can't think of a situation where I'd want 'Walk' to be a verb I have to select from a GUI, rather than just clicking on the ground.

I quite like the Telltale approach to this sort of thing. The choices you make won't necessarily have an influence on what happens, but they do influence to way in which those things happen. So the player is responsible for their choices in a moral sense, but most of the time they don't really control the outcome of a situation. Kind of like real life.

I suppose that's harder to do in the case of a binary right/wrong question. Perhaps the telltale-ish approach would be to have an option which results in maximum trust (help + information) doubtful trust (help) and mistrust (refusing help in such a way that the player is able to achieve the goal alone, or forcing the player to earn their trust through a further task).

I agree that the keep-asking-until-you-get-it-right approach doesn't suit a realistic game. But perhaps those kind of dialogue options aren't very realistic either? If someone asked me "Why should I trust you?" I wouldn't say, "I'm friends with Sally" unless I knew for certain that they were too. I certainly wouldn't choose a name at random or make up a name.

Thanks to Tom, Rebecca and Mark. This year's AdventureX was excellent. The venue was great, and the focused one-room setup worked brilliantly. Thanks to the Adventure Treff team too!

(Glad you liked your rewards, Mark!)