Holidays are so blaaaaaah after three months...

[phrasemuffin]

... in which I attempt a somewhat interesting post. HA!

But it is true that the holidays are far too long for us university types. At least a fair chunk of the people I know, including myself, think so. I would much rather it be a month or so shorter and have that extra time distributed into the mid-semester breaks. 'Twould make the year much more bearable.

When I went to see Juno with Cyn, we also went to stake out the site of her then soon-to-be-had interview. She wanted to make sure she could find it easily and not be late on the day, and it turned out to be quite well hidden to be honest. The next day she had her interview and I'm pretty certain she now has a job. WOOT! I find this to be fantastic.

Also that day, Cyn gave me a present; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, The God of Small Things by Arhundati Roy, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carol (whom I always want to call C.S. Lewis). I had, for the longest time, thought that it was The Portrait of Dorian Gray, not the Picture, but apparently I was mistaken. Wilde's tale, being one I have craved to unravel since seeing The League of Extrodinary Gentleman, is the one I have started with. I somewhat regret this, though, as the writing is a little High Brow for my tastes (I know; I can practically hear the "pffft"s as you read, though perhaps it is possible my words don't have the same hauty, toffey air in your minds as they do in mine) as it is nigh incomprehensible when they argue. I fear I may require an Oldde to Modern English translator, or perhaps earplugs to prevent the words leaking from my head-space before I have a chance to properly absorb their meaning. In any case, I half wish I were reading Alice, or Small Things whose story is still a complete mystery to me.

The oddest thing to have come from reading The Picture is that I have found so many good quotes that could be easily worked into a Facebook status or two. The best thing is all of the BLATANT SUBTEXT! I'm not sure if it's because I knew Wilde was gay when I started reading, or whether it's because it really is that blatant, but by the stones of these walls that book is filled to the brim and overflowing with unspoken gay buttsex subtext. Then again, it could just be me as I tend to find innuendo everything, and hear potential dirty jokes lining every conversation. However, while that may make me more attuned to the subtext, I think it really is there, though it is more of a romantic subtext than a homoerotic, sexually charged subtext.

Has anyone else read The Picture of Dorian Gray? Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?

Does anyone ever really know what I'm talking about? Probably not.

In other news, fanboying over Spore consumed my weekend. Mainly with videos on YouTube and various gaming review sites, as well as the articles. I cannot wait until it is released!! And I really hope the Creature Editor they're thinking of releasing early will be a free download or a relatively cheap buy - that's pretty much the whole reason I want the game. You see, Spore is a game of evolution; it takes you rather, you take it from the cellular level to the galactic level, evolving a single-celled organism into a creature of your own design. There are limitations; you only have a set number of appendages and whatnot to collect and play with to create your creature, but that number is somewhere around 46, I believe, and each appendage has something like 9/up to 9 different forms. All the creature's motions and behavioural thingies and... well, everything , is done procedurally* because there are so many different combinations and variations and possibilities that it would be near impossible to have all of them pre-configured.

Perhaps my favourite article of all was this:
"People who got a chance to play Spore and design their own creatures, at this year's "last E3 as we know it", were also lucky enough to receive a surprising gift recently. As it turns out, Electronic Arts sent them (or at least some of them) real-life Spore figurines, replicating the actual creatures they designed at E3! And what's more, serveral reports are already hinting that this could be turned into a full-fledged service after the game's release, and that players will be able to have their Spore creatures made into a three-dimensional reality... for a fee, of course."

OH MY GOD I MIGHT FINALLY HAVE PHYSICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF MY CREATURE CREATIONS!!!

Ok, I think that's enough for today. More at some point in the future-place.


*Basically, as you create your new and unique creature (unless you're stealing it from someone else), Spore will give it a walk that suits its body, a way of grabbing things (if it has hands), assign it stats and all the rest. And it's not just your creture, it's the environment as well. Everything is done on the fly, which probably means the software is a lot smaller, which is probably how they're able to fit 500,000 planets and stars and star systems and two types of nebula into the game (each of which is also procedurally created). Such an awesome concept.

Comments

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

I've been idly interested in Spore since I first heard of it. That said...

Mind, it isn't a game about evolution. It's a game about Intelligent Design. Think about it for a moment.

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

So you aren't a fan, then? The "Media Onslaught X" is a little much to handle, especially when one has known about the game for multiple years now, but I can't help my fandom. The creation aspect is just far too enticing for someone like me. I get that some people feel that the procedural aspect is a cop out - why fill our game with, you know, stuff when we can get the buyers to do all the hard work, but it really isn't the case. It isn't a scam, it's half the point of the game.

And you are right; it isn't about evolution. It does however involve the evolution of your species. Will Wright said himself that the game is pro-Intelligent Design, so I'm not going to quibble about that, in fact I agree. And you'll notice that I didn't say it was about evolution: "You see, Spore is a game of evolution; it takes you rather, you take it from the cellular level to the galactic level, evolving a single-celled organism into a creature of your own design." You should also note that my want for the game comes from the design aspect: I admitted that the Creature Editor was the main reason I wanted the game, and I half squeed over the possibility of getting my hands on physical incarnations of my creations, my designs. But you have to admit that while, yes, you do have control, essentially what you are doing as Intelligent Designer is advancing your creature through stages of development. You are evolving them.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

I haven't endured any Media Onslaught- I just thought the PA comic was funny, that's all. I dig creative aspects, and the idea of starting with a prokaryote and moving up the ladder strikes me as a fun idea. If that was all the game was, I'd be super keen.

It certainly does not involve the evolution of the species. For one thing, the creature must change from one species (the singe-cellular critter) into another (the galactic-spanning thing), and go through others on the way. So not only is it not 'a species' singular, but evolution doesn't work like that. You are developing a creature of your own design, starting from a very basic phenotype and moving along, altering things as you go. At no point is evolution involved, unless the game creates environments and Creature adapts to said environment as it goes along... and why am I suspicious that that is not the case?

So the game is using 'evolution' as a scientific buzzword akin to adding 'quantum' in front of everything in bad science fiction.

I wasn't aware that Wright said the game was pro-ID. Having heard that I am seriously tempted to boycott the game. That pseudo-scientific movement gets enough money and press from its own vile adherents that I see no reason why I should support it. Yeuck. Bad science, no money for you!

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

Ah ok. I thought that you were siding with them, not just pointing me to amusing comic goodness.

Actually, it sort of does, at least according to my two possible understandings of your understanding of evolution. Once you reach the third stage, you are no longer changing your creature. At the third stage, you start developing their social skills, tools, housing, etc - as a species they are evolving socially etc. There are no "genetic" changes or anything of the sort.

In terms of the game as a whole, I still think it involves evolution. Yes, you are forcing it with your hand, but I see no difference between creating an end and allowing the game to skip the intermediary points of development, and working your way, step by step by painfully slow step as you discover the wheel and what colour to paint it and how people relate to the wheel, towards your end. Apart from skipping all the pain and time, that is.

Ok, so my technical jargon is not down pat. I am no scientist, and claim no authority over their terms. When I say evolution, I mean development from State A to State B. I don't understand why you say that developing from a sing-celled organism to a galactic-spanning organism is not evolution - isn't that what we did? Didn't we evolve from single-celled organisms? Didn't we go through all the stages present in the game (though not to the extent of the galactic stage)? Isn't that what evolution is?

Lkewise, with "species". Perhaps I should have used a different word, but I don't know how to refer to a creature and all its ancestors. What is the word for that thing that binds all the stages of Man? That is what I meant.

If I remember correctly, one of the developers of the game mentioned that, once you input your new design, the game "skips ahead" to when that design has come to fruition. Also, I know it's kinda the wrong way around, but the environment actually adapts to your creature; the game brings new plants and terrains and even other players' creatures into the game to compensate for your creature and keep balance in the ecosystem. Which relates to what I mentioned earlier, actually: you force the evolution by creating a new design, and the game skips ahead to when it's complete, with a new environment to support the creature. Again, yes, the environment is changing to suit your creature, but if you look at it the other way around, you design a creature and the game creates an environment that would have led your creature to adapt in just the right way to produce your design. It's just that you skip the adaptation phases.

My final bit on evolution for this comment would have to be this: does all evolution have to be adaptive? Why can't it be a purely mutation-based evolution? Random bits of DNA changing over time for whatever reason (not adapting to the environment but perhaps changing because of it), resulting in widespread change millenia later. An X-Men/Heroes style evolution.

I am fairly certain that Wright was mocking the idea of Intelligent Design as he said it. Also, I think "pro-ID" may have been the wrong way for me to word it (it was not a quote). I'm fairly certain he just meant that the game incorporated the idea of ID. And that may not have even been intentional, I might add; just because he's created a game where you pretty much design a universe does not mean he was inspired by or was mimicking or paying homage to the idea of ID. This is the guy that brought us The Sims, and the game itself was first named Sim Everything by Wright, so I think it more likely that it's merely a Sim that resembles ID than a game that promotes or supports it. Down with ID!

[desi-pixie.livejournal.com]

Ive read Dorian

& Yes it is Blatent.

I also love Dorian.