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All set (early too). I will embark on my journey tomorrow  (welll, very very early the day after tomorrow to be exact), and on arrival, having failed to spot you in or around the Arrival Hall, I will call Petteri or Sinatrena and complain about my lack of royal welcoming. That is all.

It's good then that I intend to kill you at Mittens and I can tell you this now, in Greece, where such retarded laws of trying intention do not exist.

Better get ready.

I decided to read the first page of this thread instead of only the second one. Basically Onway sums it up: You seem to have problems, and they don't belong here. I don't think it's anything really drastic, you're just a teenager with teenager issues. Probably.

But yes, let's make something of this. Give us context on some of the more outrageous ones.

And unlike what Domino may have heard, they did not detonate anything.

Eeeer... Does that make them less evil? Just asking...

I don't know about EEEEEVIIIIIIL. But the fact is that they didn't hurt anybody and were apprehended before going through with their plan. This makes them possibly guilty of nothing more than planning, Farlander.

song by Tears for Fears, covered by Gary Jules for Donny Darko soundtrack. Original more hilarious, but also better.

this enables the originator to decide whether or not to start asking these people for  help

Yes, this is a bad idea. Depersonalizing and automating a procedure that should be very hands-on (:asking for HELP) why? This isn't the classifieds.

[Gabriel Knight is the kind of game people who don't like bad words should steer away from?]

there are adults who might rather play a game without swearing for example.

Even if you, as an adult don't like crass language, the moment you see it in-game you're free to turn it off, delete it, if you've got absolutely zero tolerance for it. Will a single bad word spoil your day?


This -largely american- desease of being pre-emptively shielded from 'objectionable content' just makes no sense for me. This isn't some product you bought and which doesn't meet your standards and therefore you're sad for the money you spent. This is free games on the internet.

And generally, being shielded in advance... example of why this is not a good idea:

In Gabriel Knight, on the first murder scene, one of the two forensic people goes 'What kind of sick fuck would do that?' or something to that extent. As far as I remember that's one of the only times that word is mentioned in that game. Would you say it would require any sort of warning? And also, more importantly, would you say that Gabriel Knight is the kind of game people who don't like bad words should steer away from? It being one of the absolute pinnacles of the adventure game genre and all...

MEANING overrides CONTENT.

I'd tell people to not play GK if they don't like adventure games on the whole. It'd tell people to not play GK if they don't like thriller storytelling on the whole. But I wouldn't tell someone to not play GK because it contains naughty words.

Yeah, if you think someone should deserve money for their freeware ags game, then donate to him.

Dan: If you wish to discuss something with me, first you need to approach me as a human being and not as the butt of your juvenile insults. I can easily mock you and humiliate you in return, but you don't see me doing so because I am not in this thread to attack anyone. That you see me take your bullshit without complaining should let you know that I have some tolerance for THIS IS THE INTERNET LOL people. But my tolerance is not unlimited.

Captain Binky: yes, I am against those sprites in the database as well. Thankfully they are small and extremely incomprehensible.

When did I ever say you should compromise?

Making games that people want to play is usually mutually exclusive with making games without compromising. Bending to theoretical generic-gamer whims is what the big boys have to do. We don't.

If you have something to say than you want people to hear it. And having something to say is what matters

Well I am sorry to say, but if there's any communicational bent to the 'entertainment' you're putting out there, if you have something, anything to say, even if you don't know exactly what it is yourself, you're making art! Woo! Enjoy being like everybody else!

Because you're 'partaking in this discussion to exchange views on the subject' (as you said it yourself). Which implies that you should care about what the others are saying.

You misunderstand. I care about what people have to say on the topic. Not about their conceited ideas about how people like what they do as opposed to them not liking the art the rest of us do. If you wanna talk about yourself, find someone else to do this with.

(By the way, why did you remove my smiley in your quote? - I put it there for a reason, so you - or anyone else - wouldn't fall over it the way you did. Apparently it didn't help).

It was  taken out because when I select stuff to copy-paste, the browser doesn't lift smileys.

If you resort to a single smiley to carry the demeanor of what otherwise seems like a very insulting and arrogant statement like 'I don't make art. What I make people actually like' then don't be surprized when people call you on such bullshit regardless.

I was trying to make you show that you could think outside of the box you're currently in.

Don't patronize me. This presupposes you're outside all the little boxes looking at us struggling around our preconceptions. What makes you think I haven't at one time considered or even endorsed a lot of the ideas I am in opposition to now? Behave more like a person interested in opinions and less like a person here to guide us through the entangled forests of confusion into the pure, signular light in whose glory you seem to effortlessly bask.

I understand your point of view well enough.

Ps. I still think a system where people are in a simple way informed about the general atmosphere of the game a good idea.

Yea, how about the combined effect of a few screenshots, a plot synopsis and some bits of dialogue and stuff like oh, EVERYONE IS ALREADY DOING? Again, what earlwood said.



Ratings hold special social charges, special significance, and you should better realize that. They were devised by idiots to protect idiots from feeling like idiots. I don't see any need of them in the amateur community.

Primate vessage coming your way soon, Eneran

WARNING: BAD CODE

WARNING: INTERNET BATTLE

Do you mind?

No.

Helm - are you this vehemently opposed to the ratings here at AGS?

No because an abstract 1-10 scale doesn't make moral judgements nor does it fragment 'potentially offensive' sequence from meaning. It's just an average of how the general public felt the game stood up to their expectations of play. Therefore,  useful on that level.

And the rest of us can avoid wasting time on boring games without sex, violence and drugs...

See, is it about this? Is it just a bit of harmless fun just to see what we can rate in our games? If you're going to make a statement, make it properly, you don't need anyone else to condone a whole semi-formal rating system for you to do it. Are you only hardcore if there's a sticker on the game making you hardcore?

Just because we're not professionals doesn't mean our games have to of a lower standard. It just means that we have to work a little harder on it.

Where did you get lower standard from what I said? We are not professionals, we are something else. Aping what the professionals do might not be the best idea if we're to take advantage of the unique apportunities available only to us.

You mean we should be making games people want to play? - Last time I checked that was excactly what 'the big boys' try to do.

First of all, you're mistaken. There's a whole lotta difference between designing something that'll be very playable, and designing something that will sell well. If for example, you put a busty 20 year old female as a protagonist, you've immediately made your game more sellable, but not more playable. This is very basic, I don't want to make a big deal out of this, as it's off-topic, but you're wrong. Sure, being very playable will probably make you sell a few pieces more, but then again, a huge PR campaign and careful target-marketing will do you much better. Guess what the big boys are doing?

And no, I don't mean make games that people want to play. I mean make games that fit our individual visions without compromise. Just make what YOU'D like to play, and there'll be people to like them.

but I happen to be proud of the fact that I don't make art.

keep on rocking with your bad self.

I'm not making art no. I'm better than that...people actually like what I do.

Who are you and why are you telling me this as if I care?

and I feel personally affected by that negativeness.

Sorry, let me slap this WARNING: MAY EXTRUDE NEGATIVE AURA sticker on me. It's ok! I drew it myself!

I would like you to humor me

More talking to me as if we're engaged in some sort of personal discussion me and you. I don't know you, did I perhaps by accident talk about something you said in this thread previously? Seriously, do we know each other? I am partaking in this discussion to exchange views on the subject, not to convince you personally of anything.

Anyway...I think a rating system is a good thing. I agree with Alynn and CaptainBinky. And if nothing else, it will add a sense of professionalism to the game.

This is exactly the sort of "professionalism" we need to steer in opposite of, in terms both of concept and ambition. We are not professionals. We should be filling the niche that professionals are not. It's one thing to make boxes for your games because boxes are awesome, one thing to found 'design studios' where only one or two people are making the game (come on, we've all done it) and quite, quite another to adopt self-imposed rating systems just so we seem more like the big boys.

Have people forgotten how ratings in art originally came to be? They were imposed by idiots!

Generalization (i.e "there is sex in this" "there is violence in this") is the death of art. I can put Citizen Kane, or the Oddysey in terms of ratings, who does this help?  Art lives in the particulars between the cracks of signifiers like that.

But we're not making art. We're making adventure games, right?

Hate the fuckin' darkies

What earlwood said, really.

'd rather let them know up front before they just say, oh this sounds interesting, they down load it, and suddenly the tenticle penis alien is raping the schoolgirl and they say "I didn't want to play this!!!"

Why?

If you make a game that's for adults, what's the problem with saying "it's for adults"?

Because it's condescending? Who is an adult? I saw Videodrome when I was 15. And it scarred me, I thought 'that is too much! This movie is too much! I LOVE THIS MOVIE'. People should make up their own minds if they want to play something or not without such warnings. Robbing art of it's bite is such a wrong thing to do. And if it's the issue with someone being a minor, don't do the parenting in place of the parents.

I wasn't making a comedic point. Most of the ratings discussed in this thread amount to 'knife' or 'big boobs' as I see it.

The credibility someone automatically has and should try to retain when they're presenting their art with honesty and conviction.