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| If it wasn't for the disk menu, we wouldn't know the name of the game. |
The Two Vikings
GermanyIndependently developed; published by CP Verlag in Magic Disk 64
Released 1989 for Commodore 64
Rejected for: No attributes or character developmentIn any kind of cluster analysis, you'd group sparkling cider with champagne and O'Doul's with beer. To anyone looking at the totality of variables, they'd be virtually indistinguishable. But an alcoholic knows that one difference makes all the difference. In the same way, games like The Two Vikings might look and taste like RPGs, but they lack that key ingredient that I'm looking for--that I'm addicted to. That I can't identify a different category for the Gamebase64 contributor to have used doesn't mean I have to accept it as an RPG.
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| The two characters set out. |
Vikings is by all appearances an Ultima clone for two players. (The game acknowledges its roots by welcoming "you brave warriors, fighters and Ultima fanatics" in the instructions.) It's an iconographic tiled game with a land to explore and towns to enter. You can buy weapons and armor at shops. But the characters lack attributes (even names) and thus only improve through inventory.
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| The instructions on the magazine disk. |
The two players, each with a different joystick in hand, start the game in a split screen. I think they're in different worlds. I was never able to get them to meet up, in any event. They each have 1,000 hit points and 500 food units. Their goal is to be the first to conquer their world's 12 cities. Each character starts next to a city and a ship. The game worlds have multiple continents, so you have to travel overland and overseas to find the cities.
As you travel, you encounter monsters that look like Ultima's warriors, rogues, mages, and orcs. Combat is a simple matter of pointing the joystick in their direction and mashing the "fire" button. (Everything in the game is controlled with joysticks.) When enemies die, they leave treasure chests that can be trapped but usually contain food.
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| Fighting a couple of enemies on an island (right). |
Food is the key attribute of the game. It depletes at a rate of about 1 per second regardless of whether you're moving or standing still. It also serves as the game's currency; you exchange it for weapons, armor, and more health. The weapon and armor system is pretty silly. You have enough food at the beginning of the game to buy the best weapon (sword) and best armor (plate mail), so there's no reason not to just do that and then go outside and whack enemies to replenish the food.
When you enter a city you haven't conquered, it's titled "Foreign Town" at the top of the city map. (The outdoor graphics look like Ultima II, but the cities are pure Ultima.) The six guards immediately attack you. They're not very hard. Once you kill them, the city becomes "Own Town."
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| Ultima clones are always hard on guards. |
I can't show you what happens when you conquer all of them because the game immediately ends when either player runs out of food. A single player can't reasonably play both characters, simultaneously keeping them from starving.
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| I suppose this means I technically "won." |
Two Vikings appeared in the March 1989 issue of Magic Disk 64. I'm not sure about the authors. The introduction is signed by Stefan Gnad and Oliver Menne, but I think they were the editors of the magazine, not necessarily the authors of the game. The "title" screen (it doesn't actually have the title) suggests the authors' initials were "G&P."
I do like the two-player aspect, and in a world with less to do, I could see convincing my sibling, friend, or spouse to join me for a round of The Two Vikings. It just doesn't give me the fix I really need.
Ten years before this game, a lot of 2-player Atari (and Intellivision) games were unplayable without a second human. Because when your cartridge only had 4k total memory, there was simply no room for even the most rudimentary AI to mimic a second player.
ReplyDeleteIn 1989, and with a C64, it might have been interesting to see how a game like this would have played with a computer-controlled partner.
To think, Blizzard had the idea to add just one more Viking and now they're one of the biggest game companies in the world.
ReplyDeleteYour joke was like a Blackthorne in my heart
DeleteMento at his best.
DeleteI'm not familiar with Stefan Gnad, but Oliver Menne used to write for PC Games back when I subscribed to it (he might even have been the editor in charge).
ReplyDeleteIn the C64 Wiki they're both mentioned as freelancers ('Freie Mitarbeiter') of CP Verlag / the magazine.
DeleteThere is a screenshot of the game with a German text intended as a joke, I assume ("Similarities to other games are unintentional and purely coincidental!!") signed by a "M.G.", guess that's (one of) the author(s).
Just as I was talking about them a few posts ago and here is another one of those C64 disk mag published games. Computec were quite prolific during that time with these. The publisher still exists today and among other print media they publish the longest running german games magazine PC Games since 92.
ReplyDeletethis sounds like a fun hour spent with a friend infront of the tv... but leider kein rpg
ReplyDeleteMy thumb rule n. 1: "If it has less role-playing elements than a Legend of Zelda, then it belongs to the action-adventure genre".
ReplyDeleteMy thumb rule n. 2: "If your character can get stronger by grinding enemies, then it is a Role-Playing Game".
Therefore, after reading your BRIEF, I have no doubts: "The Two Vikings" is an action-adventure game.
The Magic Disk 64 website (and by extension maybe the magazine back in the day?) even calls it a 'strategy game'.
DeleteIt certainly has tactical/strategic elements as well - especially due to the 2-player element. I'd probably categorize it as a digital board game, similar to Fooblitzsky or Jones in the Fast Lane. There's indeed more action than either of those games, but the lack of direct inter-player interaction prevents me from really being able to call it PVP/deathmatch like, say, Star Control 2's Super Melee. (Even though technically all 2-player competitive games are PVP) Kudos to the developers for managing to utterly break conventional ideas of genre, though.
DeleteI have before stated that my criteria for an RPG is "Will it grind?" and I will so presently restate.
DeleteAny definition of RPG is valid, but of little use if basically noone will agree with it (and almost noone will agree with VtM: Bloodlines not being an RPG). Unless you mean as an identifying criteria, not a necessary one.
DeleteYou can grind in the NES game Captain America and the Avengers. Stretching the definition of RPG to include that game wouldn't be very useful I don't think.
DeleteOr Double Dragon for NES, for that matter.
DeleteYou can grind for what in those games? What good does it do to stand and fight extra enemies?
DeleteIn NES Double Dragon, you never actually fought extra enemies, and you had to beat every enemy to proceed. However, it was still possible to grind by using punches but stopping short of ever knocking an enemy down (thus gaining extra XP for landing hits).
DeleteThis was really tedious, but it unlocked more powerful moves to make later fights easier.
So you're saying that Double Dragon has experience and leveling? What would exclude it from begin an action RPG, then?
DeleteIIRC, there's no form of inventory. You find (again, IIRC) weapons in stages you can use for a short time, but that's closer to just a bland power-up than anything else.
DeleteI would call Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game an RPG, which is modeled after Double Dragon.
DeleteAlso, Double Dragon has inventory: you can pick up stuff from the ground and it changes your combat effectiveness.
There's a strain of beat-em-ups that include RPG elements, and many of them would indeed classify as action RPGs. Besides Scott Pilgrim there's the much earlier Mighty Final Fight and River City Ransom (the latter of which which SP is heavily based upon), the Dungeons & Dragons arcade games, and even more modern titles like Castle Crashers and Dragon's Crown. These games feature experience systems, character customization, currency and sometimes equipment. Sometimes you can even revisit earlier levels to grind. Even the (excellent) new Ninja Turtles game features XP and leveling. All in all one of my favourite subgenres, as beat-em-up combat pairs nicely with RPG progression. The arcade fighting livens up dull RPG battles, and the RPG progression adds meaning to all the repetitive beat-em-up enemies that get tossed your way. They definitely qualify as RPGs, and some of them are better at it than most of the games on this blog.
DeleteAll this to say I look forward to reading Chet's review of Guardian Heroes when he reaches '96.
If the game world is on train tracks, it's not an RPG in my book.
DeleteIf there's no player-controlled exploration, it's not an RPG.
Re: Double Dragon, I believe there's at least one spot -- maybe two or three -- where you can theoretically fight an infinite number of enemies if you bypass the (unmarked) exit and keep looping the stage, limited only by the game's time limit.
Delete(There's also a place where you can glitch an imaginary enemy into existence and wail away to max out your XP, but that doesn't count of course.)
I think there's at least one place where you can leave without beating every enemy, i.e. late in Area 4. And more generally, yeah, your method of fighting dictates how much XP you get and how quickly you gain new moves. It's "RPG elements" for sure, but not an RPG.
@Arthegall: I had the exact same thought when I was reflecting on this thread! Part of what makes an RPG for me is that it's not on rails.
Also note that this leveling-up mechanic is unique to the NES port of Double Dragon. It's not present in the arcade original, not present in any other port I know of, and doesn't even appear in the sequels on NES. (Of course leveling-up mechanics later became ubiquitous in beat-'em-ups.)
Delete"Part of what makes an RPG for me is that it's not on rails."
DeleteSo you don't think that Betrayal at Krondor is an RPG, then.
Haven't played it.
Delete"So you don't think that Betrayal at Krondor is an RPG, then."
DeleteHuh? As I recall you can explore the entire world in one of the early chapters, maybe 2? I seem to recall there are some tough -- albeit winnable -- fights in Chapter 1 that are meant to keep you from backtracking. Sure, the plot only advances if you go to very specific places, and there are some later chapters that are more constrained, but BoK seems an odd example to pick since it's much less on rails than, say, Wizardry.
Double Dragon 1 and 2 didn't have XP, I'm pretty sure they're talking about Double Dragon 3: Rosetta Stone, which played a bit like River City Ransom. You could buy moves, weapons and other playable characters at shops. I thought it was via earning money by killing nooks, but it's been a long time since I played it, so it could very well have been XP. However you don't gain levels and I don't think you had attributes.
DeleteThey're talking about the NES port of Double Dragon 1. You get xp per hit, depending on the move you use. The ports of neither 2 nor 3 have any form of xp or currency.
Delete@tetrapod BaK actually has the opposite problem with railroading: it makes exploration mandatory. Sure, you can technically choose to avoid it and only do what's necessary to finish each chapter, but you'll never win the game that way. In practical terms, you need to carefully explore as much of the map as you can in Chapter 1, then do so again in Chapter 2 (even those parts that you already explored in Chapter 1, because there are new enemies and items), then yet again in Chapter 3, and so on. That's not what I call freedom of exploration.
DeleteI'm not sure whether you're the same Anon as above, but if so now I'm either more confused by the point you're making -- the argument is that a game is "on rails" if it's balanced such that you need to engage with a good chunk of the non-critical path content to be strong enough to finish (hardly all -- I've won BaK without doing a full 100% completion run, and while it's reasonably hard in the early going by the midpoint I remember it becoming largely a cakewalk)? And "on rails" is still a good definition despite the fact that even if you decide to lawnmow each chapter, different players can still pick substantially different paths to travel on and engage with the side content in whatever order they want?
DeleteAgain, I don't see how one can say there are design issues around exploration here without being forced to make even sharper statements around things like early Wizardry games, which literally require you to step on every single tile of every single level. So to the extent there's a point being made about how exploration does, or doesn't, work in RPGs, BaK seems an oddly-chosen example to illustrate it.
Aren't levels 5-8 of the first Wizardry completely optional and basically unneccesary?
DeleteIt seems to me terms like "on rails" sound useful at first but when you get into the details it turns out they are really interpreted differently by different people. Is a game like Shadowrun Returns on rails? It's rather linear, with a sequence of fixed locations, but you can explore the locations more or less freely.
It seems to me terms like "on rails" sound useful at first but when you get into the details it turns out they are really interpreted differently by different people.
DeleteThat's true of nearly any term that doesn't have a strictly quantitative definition, though.
I think Arthegall said it well enough: player-controlled exploration is key to an RPG. If a game lacks any exploratory element -- and, especially, if it shepherds you from event to event without any opportunity to backtrack or even nose around a bit -- then it's not an RPG.
So a hypothetical game that's 100% gladiator-style arena combat, in which you fight a graduated series of foes and do nothing else, doesn't strike me as an RPG even if you can choose your character class, configure your stats, earn XP for victories, and garner inventory items somehow ("The crowd throws you a sword +4 for your stylish win"). It might technically make the Addict's definition, but it wouldn't fulfill mine. There needs to be something beyond "fight battles + read flavor text/watch cutscenes"; there have to be meaningful choices beyond combat tactics, even if it's just "walk down this hallway before that one".
I agree with PK Thunder. The ur-RPG is a game where you control a character who explores dungeons, slays monsters, collects loot, and advances in skill as a result. Those pieces can be rearranged and rethought in a lot of creative ways, but explore-slay-loot-level is still the backbone.
Deleteexplore-slay-loot-level is the best compressed expression of the RPG gameplay loop I've ever encountered.
DeleteWell said, I've tried to make a similar argument in the past. The slay-loot-level mechanics are going to get adapted for almost all genres because it's a cool idea and you can combine it with almost anything: sports, brawlers, shooters, platformers, tactics, etc. So it's really the pairing of that with the "explore" concept that makes an RPG. Instead of just a series of conflicts you are doing something meaningfully different in between.
DeleteSo how about the Mystara D&D arcade games? On the one hand, they allow a choice of various paths through the game, so they're not "on rails". On the other hand, their leveling is "fake" in that it isn't XP-based but simply occurs at fixed locations regardless of what you've done.
DeletePK Thunder, does this mean that you wouldn't consider the Fire Emblem games without overworlds to be RPGs?
DeleteSRPGs are a hybrid genre (Fire Emblem is literally a Famicom Wars/Dragon Quest hybrid) but the structure is almost always more strategy than RPG. I don't consider Fire Emblem to be an RPG series myself.
Deletestepped pyramids has said it well, I think. SRPGs are kind of their own thing and combine strategy and RPG mechanics in some proportion to create a distinct genre. Something like Shining Force feels like a regular JRPG in many ways, while others are basically strategy games with named characters. I don't necessarily feel a huge need for either/or binaries since genres are always blurry at their edges, but, sure, when an SRPG starts leaning really heavily on the strategy end of things then, sure, at a certain point it becomes a strategy game with a few RPG mechanics.
DeleteBottom line for me, an RPG is about freely adventuring on my own terms in a simulated world.
DeleteWizardry blew my mind when I first encountered it at 8 years old in 1986. Compared to playing River Raid or Combat on the Atari, it was an astonishing level of imaginative freedom. The closest thing I'd ever experienced had been Adventure on the Atari.
Here I got to create my own little people--name them, pick their jobs, pick their equipment, shepherd their growth--and then guide them through a dangerous and unknown dungeon. Astonishing!
There's a reason I have a boxed copy on my shelf to this day. The manual and hand-made maps were an essential part of the experience.
There are different ways to implement that freedom, and different lines to be drawn, and different ways of approaching the design of a simulation, and Chet is excellent at drawing out those distinctions.
But Double Dragon ain't it.
I very much favor a I know it when I see it style definition for genres, because you can always find an outlier that clearly belongs in a genre but is missing some feature you would have sworn was essential.
DeleteFor example well neither are particularly good RPGs, I would say both qQest 64 and Hybrid Heaven are pretty definitively rpgs, but both are decidedly lacking an exploration, I believe hybrid heaven is almost completely linear in fact.
If you say an RPG has to have exploration, that would mean I don't think it is one, but what else would you call it? It's got a numerical combat system where not only do you or an experience points, each of your limbs earns experience points independently.
Exploration is a bit of a fuzzy word, and for me it doesn't necessarily mean non-linear. I think the important point is that the gameplay loop consist of something substantially more than just a series of conflicts (slay) and character development (loot-level).
DeleteI'm not too familiar with either game you mentioned, but I checked out some video playthroughs and there are sections where the character is navigating the world, finding stuff, talking to NPCs. It may not be a very deep "exploration", there may always be only one thing you can really do next, but it still fills the RPG gameloop in my opinion.
It's like if you were playing a tabletop RPG and the GM crafted a very linear campaign where there was always one way forward and contrived reasons you couldn't get off the path. Maybe unsatisfying, but still an RPG. But if they said they were going to cut out the in-between stuff and just do a series of battles, then I think you're doing somethine else.
There are tons of "management games" where you control the development of a person or entity but the game world is essentially static. There's plenty of shared DNA between management games and CRPGs (and strategy games), in part because they both take advantage of the computer's ability to keep track of a lot more numbers than a human would prefer. Princess Maker 2 is a good illustration of the overlap between the genres. But I think it having a free-roaming "adventure" activity makes it feel RPG-y in a way that the otherwise very similar early Monster Rancher games do not.
DeleteI wrote a bit about this recently, inspired by this thread:
https://mboeh.com/explore-slay-loot-level/
The part I found the most fruitful was later on, the list of items like "a game with quality X is more RPG-like than a game with quality Y".
If I had to compress the definition of an RPG even further than explore-slay-loot-level it should simply be a single word: choice.
DeleteIn an RPG, choice drives progression, and in particular non-tactical choices.
For example:
Toolkit Choice: Attributes, Classes, Skills, Equipment, etc.
Pathway Choice: This door or that? Stealth or combat? Dialog option. Etc.
Choice of Objectives: Optional quests. Flexible quest outcomes. Etc.
Not every CRPG has all of these, and as software and graphics capabilities increased, more CRPGs had more of them.
But meaningful choices are key.
asimpkins That is a good way of putting it, I think I agree with you on further reflection.
DeleteI don't think choosing where to go next makes a game more or less RPG. Being able to choose where to go is a result of higher emphasis on simulation. Sandboxes usually let you put anything you want where you want. I think choices are the result of a sim approach, whereas rewarding those choices comes from the RPG side. An RPG doesn't want so many choices it can't understand them and produce individualized results, and neither so few there's not enough to distigush two playthroughs.
DeleteJust curious, is it the same game every time you start it up, or are the worlds procedurally generated at runtime? I can't imagine a ton of replayability if the cities are always in the same spots.
ReplyDeleteAnd on a similar note, are the worlds identical for each player?
DeleteI guess these days it would be easy to make a U3/4 clone. Pity the ones made tend to be crummy.
ReplyDeleteFrom a technical standpoint yes, it's probably easier than it ever was, but from a practical standpoint is just as hard as it always has been. Designing a crpg, even an apparently simple one from simpler times, is no small feat.
DeleteYeah you are ultimately right. Programming is what it is, unless one has access to source code to copy outright, though at least there are plenty of "templates" to draw ideas or snapshots from eh? A good game comes down to good user testing.
DeleteIt's not programming what is difficult - there are lot of free to use game engines nowadays, and many of them have video tutorials for all kinds of games on youtube - including RPG games. It's even not game design or good testing what is the most important, although, nowadays they are much more important than earlier. But if you are going into such a project on your own, you have to have a marathon runner's spirit, single-mindedly pursuing the dream of making this game (knowing that it may well never be popular and never be liked by anyone!), discarding other pastimes and hobbies, and never losing enthusiasm for this, exactly this game (=not switching to something else which will, then, too be not finished, because you switch to something third still).
DeleteIt's like writing a big fiction book, a novel, when you never wrote one before: even if you can write good poems and short stories, these are works of the sprinter, but writing a book is a marathon. So, in the end, it ultimately comes to your personality traits, to your willingness and ability to sacrifice much for, maybe, no good return...
I don´t agree at all. I know many professionals and amateurs alike who juggle various projects, not just writing a game (or a book, if we stray that way). What you are talking about is a reflection of personality as well as drive and how little calm a person has in life. Some people find it really easy to juggle different projects. There is no need to discard pastimes and other pursuits. I write as a hobby and work, and I´ve never felt the need to throw away other things like hobbies or exercise. If your experience is different, I am very sorry for you. I hope you can find ways to heal and get an easier and less stressful life.
DeleteOh but you are short of the facts, new commenter. I don´t have multiple kids. However that´s not the point. Any labour of love is easily furnished with the burning of the candle at both ends. Passion drives impetus, and with the right money and close relatives, it´s very easy to remove little human distractions when occasion requires. Juggling tasks is part of the 21st century. If it´s not in your resumé, oh dear, I see what your problem is. I´ve never known anything but juggling the impossible, dividing my time and good multi-project management. There is no impossible problem until you want one.
Deletewith the right money and close relatives
DeleteYou've just defined "privilege" in a way that even folks from the 1950s would endorse.
"Juggling the impossible", "there is no impossible problem" - it's either a marvelous specimen of trolling, or some bona fide naivete bordering on... well... do you even know what the dictionary definition of "impossible" is, before trying to claim that you "easily do 5 impossible things before breakfast" or something like that? My bet is on trolling, of course; well trolled, then! =)
DeleteThe things people argue about when I'm away from the blog for a couple of weeks.
DeleteThere's no need for controversy here. Lorigulf gave an account of game design that's probably true for a lot of developers, but 12oclock sensibly pointed out that not everyone is the same. I don't see why such common-sense statements need to descend into personal slights and accusations.
I, for one, apologize for getting to personal and mean in my last comment.
DeleteYou are right, there certainly DO exist people able to create games single-handedly, just by the virtue of single-minded determination, and there are a lot of examples of them.
What I meant was, rather, that "there exist people like that" does not mean "anyone who decides to" create a game will ever get to the finish line - it may very well be so that the majority, even, will never reach the finish line! I mean, look at the RPG Maker community: there is a ready-for-use engine out there, yet you just look at the ratio of completed projects to the started-but-not-completed projects!
Oh, also, as I found out recently, there exists a game engine tailored specifically for U4-style games, what with parser-based conversations, U4/U5-style world object interaction, and default assets reminiscent of Ultima games (although there's an option to import your own assets, too). The tool is there, but once you run it and get to creating, you suddenly understand the difficulty of creating something akin enough to Ultima to invoke the nostalgia factor, and still different enough for things to be interesting.
Delete12oclock sensibly pointed out that not everyone is the same.
DeleteAddict, there have been some weird conflicts here, but I don't see this as one of them. Surely you can detect how this might have rubbed someone the wrong way:
If your experience is different, I am very sorry for you. I hope you can find ways to heal and get an easier and less stressful life.
I don't know whether it's sarcastic condescension or well-meaning condescension, but either way, rare is the person whose blood pressure doesn't spike upon reading something like that.
I also think advocating that people "burn the candle at both ends" is a lousy thing to do. It valorizes bad habits and leads to people who had much to contribute burning out early instead.
Nor am I a fan of "nothing is impossible" rhetoric, which is a classic example of survivorship bias: the top factors in success aren't talent or drive, but starting out with rich parents, good health, and ideally good looks, and then having good luck. (In many fields, a total lack of integrity helps too.)
Lorigulf, I would be very interested to know what that game engine's name is (if you do not mind sharing).
DeleteThat game engine sounds like "Adventure Creation Kit" by Chris Hopkins.
DeleteI don't exactly think the people on the other side of the spectrum are free of sin either. Believing that anyone who disagrees with you is trolling is a pretty awful attitude to have. So is saying you can't work on a game because you have kids or don't have rich parents, that's the kind of stuff that leads to dark places. Nor is burning the candle at both ends something you should really be doing.
DeleteThe blog itself might be fine for figuring out how to avoid mistakes in designing games, but this comment section is feeling more and more like a 4chan thread.
@Vivisector 9999: I could not remember the name of the engine right away, so I googled for it a bit and found "Ultima: the Reconstruction" site, where actually two such engines are listed - "Dragon Engine" by Litmus Dragon which is of beta 1.0 version, but is not developed any further, and "Nazghul/Hexima" engine which is of version 0.5.6. I could not start "Dragon Engine" on my PC, though, it requires some earlier operating system, it seems; but Nazghul, still, runs fine. Good luck!
Delete@Snorb: Adventure Creation Kit is a great program, but it actually mimics more of a Sierra-style or LucasArt-style "quest" game, not Ultima! If I got what program you meant right.
DeleteWell, it turns out that, yes, the engine in question is "Adventure Creation Kit", that's right. I thought it was called differently, but Sierra-like game constructer is actually called "Adventure Game Studio". AGS is for Sierra-like. ACK is for Ultima-like, yes.
DeleteIs there an internal clock causing time to pass/food deplete, or is it movement based? Just wondering if 1 player can win by simply doing nothing?
ReplyDeleteYes, either player can win by just letting the other one starve. The game registers a "pass" every second or so if you don't do anything.
DeleteThere are two vikings inside of you....
ReplyDeleteAnon is making a big case for deactivating anonymous comments recently...
ReplyDeleteDon't feed the trolls
DeleteWhat creates trolling behavior is the social pleasure derived from knowing that others are annoyed by it. The more negative social impact the troll has, the more their behavior is reinforced.
Ignore them, rather than giving them the satisfaction of an angry reaction. Deny them the pleasure of an angry reaction, and they’ll get bored and leave.
When you reward a behavior, you get more of it.
Big talk coming from the two biggest trolls on this blog. If all your posts were gone tomorrow nobody would shed a tear.
DeleteThat's a good one. I wasn't even aware I was trolling until you enlightened me anon.
DeleteI would shed a tear...
DeleteI would shed a tear if fireball and Harland disappeared. If anonymous comments disappeared, on the other hand, I wouldn't mind. In fact, let's harden that rule a bit.
DeletePart of the problem with anonymous comments, with me, is I didn't know how NOT to make them at first. It took me a while to figure out how the system works.
DeleteThat is in no small part because the system doesn't work, to all appearances. I've been having to use the "name/url" option often lately because I simply can't comment any other way, and the number of black-text names of usually prolific commentors I've been seeing say I'm not the only one.
DeleteYeah, the login option stopped working for me on mobile (Safari) a while ago, and unless I manually retype my name/URL once a day or so I get defaulted to Anon; it's pretty annoying!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWell, the reason why I made the above post was me noticing some blatantly insulting anonymous comments in rather short time, all of them of course since been deleted. So the problem I was, referring to is not you people posting something as anonymous. Of course I don't know if this is the usual amount of anonymous sh*tposts our host has to take care of and I just happened to notice before deletion this time. I rather hope not.
DeleteYeah, I saw those too! Unfortunately my sense is they're fairly typical of the amount of troll-y comments that get published and quickly zapped, and per Chet's note below they just stayed on the site for longer than usual since he's been busy with other stuff.
DeleteI've lost a lot of posts attempting to comment on Safari. Disaster.
DeleteIf you're using Safari for iPhone, go into settings and turn off the option "prevent cross-site tracking." That worked for me, anyway.
DeleteI had to disable uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger for this website to get it to work.
DeleteOkay you can definitely tell cider from beer using cluster analysis, that's what the entire field of metabolomics is based on as I understand it.
ReplyDeleteHeck you can even tell expensive wine from cheap wine using cluster analysis of the components as measured by gas chromatography - Mass spectrometry. I had to present an analysis of the paper on it during my undergrad.
Ok, carry on talking about CRPGs.
Rules state you must not go off topic
DeleteYes, fine. I shouldn't have said "any kind." In non-weighted, independent-variable, single-level, hard, strict partitioning cluster analysis, you'd group sparkling cider with champagne.
Delete"Heck you can even tell expensive wine from cheap wine using cluster analysis of the components as measured by gas chromatography - Mass spectrometry. "
Delete"But an alcoholic knows that one difference makes all the difference. "
Though in reality, very few people can really taste the difference between a cheap $18 bottle of wine and a $2,000 bottle of wine.
https://nypost.com/2020/10/23/couple-mistakenly-served-2000-wine-at-nyc-restaurant/
Chet: You obviously know way more statistics then I do, I just know that you can do a cluster analysis on the compounds in various types of alcohols since I had to present a paper on it as a group project when I was an undergrad; the paper was specifically on wine metabolites, but as I recall it cited papers from other types of alcohols. Plus the chemicals that are contained in apples should be quite different from those in grapes. (I can look up the papers if anyone wants, I think I still have those files around)
DeleteIt was just an analogy. Let it go.
DeleteWill there be any more postings between now and new year?
ReplyDeleteHappy holidays to all going forward.
I just hope our addict is okay and enjoying the season with his family. Happy holidays, everyone!
DeleteSorry to hear that. Hope you managed to sort out as much as possible without (too many) negative consequences.
DeleteI hope everything will turn out allright for you eventually. Have a peaceful and happy holiday season, everyone!
DeleteHey, I was waiting for a life sign as well, enjoy the holidays, everyone!
DeleteUgh, that's too bad -- hope the end is in sight!
DeleteOof, been there, hope it turns out OK.
DeleteGoot thing I didn't find this when it was new. I was a huge Ultima fan, this would have broken my heart.
ReplyDeleteSemi-OT (Not sure if alright if not please delete): Here is another proof why blogging projects like yours are important. It's about preserving our digital history: https://jacobin.com/2022/12/video-game-companies-history-epic-unreal-culture
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