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Podcast #1 Noctis - Now Available

 
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:21 pm    Post subject: Podcast #1 Noctis - Now Available Reply with quote

Welcome to the first TGQ Podcast, where The Gamer's Quarter staff discuss an interesting or significant game on months between magazine releases. In our first show, M. O’Connor, J. R. Freeman, Ancil Anthropy, and Brandon Richard discuss the freeware title Noctis, a space exploration simulator that's tremendously vast and surprisingly lonely. Download the podcast right here, and the cover here. When you're done listening you can download the "game" from its website, you might also want to check out our Omake photo gallery.

Our next podcast, due in mid-August, will tentatively cover Half-Life 2. Check back then or sign up for our mailing list in that little box to the left of here. We're moving into new territory here, and any feedback is appreciated so please click on the "Comments" field below and lets us know what you think.
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The Great Unwashed
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I enjoyed it, immensely. I was very susprised by how articulate and clear it all was, to be honest, and if nothing else I'm certainly going to download and try out Noctis later this afternoon. I'd be interested to know how you actually recorded this all - a large Skype conversation, I imagine? At any rate, I'm looking forward to hearing what you all have to say about HL2 later next month. Peace.

Edit: Oh, and I loved the little "Gamer's Quarter Podcast" theme. You should make that available as a downloadable mp3, heh.
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great Podcast!

You had trouble thinking of games to compare Noctis to : don't tell me you've never played Elite, Frontier, or Captain Blood?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier:_Elite_II

Frontier was my favorite game when I was a kid, and Noctis reminded me of it immediately. Like Noctis, Frontier is based around an enormous working model of a universe. It offers many of the same satisfactions, too- I used to love just landing on a planet and watching the sun rise and set.

It's a lot more typically game-like in how it's mainly based around the accumulation of wealth and status through missions, trading and combat, although how you choose to play is really up to you. The model of the universe is actually more advaned than Noctis in some respects- for example the planets aren't just bump-mapped spheres, you can head to an icy-looking pole on a green world and it actually will be an icy pole when you come to land on it. Furthermore the light on the planet will change while you're on it. Unlike Noctis, the game engine makes no distinction between off-world and on world- it's all the same giant model of the universe, if that makes sense.

I guess Frontier is a very different take on the same concept. It's anything but lonely, since you can talk to other pilots you meet in space, accept missions and do jobs for people when you dock- even hire crew if you owned one of the bigger ships. The two games still have a interestingly large amount in common, though. It too was pretty much all programmed by one person, for example. I didn't get so much into Noctis because the game engine seemed like too much of a step backwards from how I remember Frontier, but I could see there was potential for an excellent game in there.

So there's an Atari ST game called Captain Blood which is much more similar to Noctis in tone and spirit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Blood_%28video_game%29 I remember playing the ZX Spectrum version with my father, journeying to unknown planets, flying down empty valleys in our spaceship, then nuking the planets from orbit when we realised there was nothing there. To give you an idea of how empty and lonely it is, we didn't find any of the aliens that wikipedia article mentions. We just assumed they weren't in our version of the game. And how's this for a sense of loneliness; all the time you're playing, your character is dying from a wasting disease. His hands start getting visibly shakier as time goes on. Talk about bleak.
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ApM
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Great Unwashed wrote:
Edit: Oh, and I loved the little "Gamer's Quarter Podcast" theme. You should make that available as a downloadable mp3, heh.

Download away! I am a barbershop quartet.

I was originally going to be a part of the podcast, but then I had to put in a 16-hour day at work the day we recorded it. So I did the theme instead. Glad you liked it!
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Scratchmonkey
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 1:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think it could be improved by having a pre-recorded intro about the subject of the podcast and provides a basic context for the listener -- possibly the history of the game, the basics of how it plays, where you can download it, etc. then when you have a roundtable discussion, have somebody be the moderator. It would help to have somebody direct the flow of the conversation, have a list of topics to go over and to keep track of who wants to talk next. Everybody having a basic list of talking points prior to recording might help too, as there was a lot of hemming and hawing that came across as awkward/dead space.

Of course, this was also your first podcast, so there's going to be kinks to worked out and you guys are probably well aware of want you want to change for the next one.
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Lackey
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 11:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Crystal Pixels is by the same Fottifoh as Noctis. I don't remember this being mentioned in the podcast.
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dessgeega
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 4:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lackey wrote:
Crystal Pixels is by the same Fottifoh as Noctis. I don't remember this being mentioned in the podcast.


uh, whoops.
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Lackey
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

No worries.

It really is worth figuring out though. In some ways it's the obverse of Noctis. It's a galaxy, but one which is small, but contained. It's lonely, but it's deeply personal, and clearly the creation of a specific individual. Everything you discover feels new, but you know it was left there to be discovered. You have some control over the universe; objects can be moved or destroyed, new stars can be created.

There's a monument to a dead kitten.
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Cryoburner
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi there!

I'm a mod over at AnywhereBB, and came across your site last night while randomly searching for the term 'Noctis' at the Internet Archive, which brought up this Podcast. I checked out The Gamer's Quarter #6 and ended up reading over half the issue before listening to the discussion on Noctis. I was surprised by the level of professionalism throughout the publication, as well as its consistently thoughtful articles. The artwork and layout were also very nicely done. I'll check out the prior issues once finished with this one.

Now on to your first Podcast. It was pretty well done, and it was nice hearing several people take part in a round-table discussion. For the most part, you seemed to have a fairly decent grasp on what you were talking about. I did feel that the discussion started to wander further in, and as Scratchmonkey noted, better organizing a flow of topics in advance could have improved the pace. It could have probably been a little shorter as well, and some post-production editing might have helped. Overall, it was rather enjoyable though.

A couple things to note, there are around 70 billion stars in the Noctis galaxy, so the number of systems already explored is incredibly small in comparison. Obviously these planets are not all crafted by hand, and the distribution of stars and planets is based off of a single seed for the galaxy, from which new seeds are obtained to determine everything down to the location of individual trees on planet surfaces.

As for one of your predictions that NoctisV will never be released, that's probably not an accurate assumption. Noctis is one of Alex's pet projects, and he's already put quite a bit of effort into it, so it's unlikely that he'll abandon it. While it has been in production for a while, he's also been actively releasing a number of other projects in the mean time. Some of his larger projects include L.in.oleum, which is his own unique programming language also being used for NV, and Postline, which is the forum engine that the entire AnywhereBB site is based around. He's also released numerous smaller projects, and has been busy with things not directly related to the site in between. I have little doubt that we'll one day see NoctisV released, however long it might take.

Also, I should point out that the link you provide to the website will put visitors directly into a sub-frame. This alternate link would provide visitors with the left frame for further information related to Noctis, or www.anywherebb.com could be used to direct people to the main site. There's also www.anywherebb.com/noctis.html , although a recent update has caused extra menu bars to appear at the top and bottom of the page when that URL is used.

Anyway, it's nice to hear positive comments about Noctis, and I'm glad to have found your great publication. With such quality content, I'm sure The Gamer's Quarter will do well in the future.
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Nana Komatsu
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 2:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would also like to say that anyone who says "none of the programming languages work for me, so I'll make my own!" are certifiably insane.
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ApM
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nana Komatsu wrote:
I would also like to say that anyone who says "none of the programming languages work for me, so I'll make my own!" are certifiably insane.

Well, in this particular case you're right, since Linoleum is about the craziest "serious" language I've ever seen*, but I disagree with you on general principle. Especially since enabling that impulse is kind of my livelihood right now. I could certainly list off at least a dozen languages that you should know before you begin such an endeavor, though.

* Seriously! It's portable assembler! Without even the basic sugar that C provides! Today's compilers are way better at writing assembler for today's crazy complex CPUs than humans! Loonier than Chuck Moore, I tell you!
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Cryoburner
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 1:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lino's not really all that crazy of a language. It's just different. : )

Programs might be coded at a low level, but a number of core functions, such as handling the display and other major peripherals, are accessed through the RTM. It's a much more streamlined language than actual assembly, which I honestly never really liked.

Compilers still can't reliably optimise code better than a human in many cases, even if they can do a fairly good job. I suppose it really comes down to preference though, and if someone likes coding at a lower level, and knowing exactly what's going on in their program, then they should be able to.
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astral89
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 4:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry for interrupt, but could anyone explain me what is the purpose of existence of this game?
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J.Goodwin
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

astral89 wrote:
Sorry for interrupt, but could anyone explain me what is the purpose of existence of this game?
Ascribing meaning to existence is, IMHO, a fatal mistake.

However, if you are asking why it came into being, in this case there is an answer:

The developer wanted to play something like this, and therefore created it.

===

I didn't find this podcast very compelling.

In particular, the various commenters didn't seem to have a very good idea of exactly what the game was, technically. Only one person seemed to have attempted to find out anything about how the game was developed and the history of the game. People were confused about whether the game was or was not online, and to what extent, if at all.

I also had this feeling that the person who organized the roundtable had deliberately picked a game that was so obscure that I would never have come across it on my own. Maybe that's the point, but there are many less obscure indie games out there that are no less labors of love, but do tend to adhere in some respect to the "game" tradition.

If anything, I was left with the question of whether or not this was in fact a game at all. The difference between this and say, SEGA's Homestar (an astronomy edutoy), is not very distinct to me. I would argue that Homestar is not a game, even on PSP it is an application. That's not to say that educational titles can't be games (Braintraining clearly seems to be a game), but that to me, there is a line there, and I think Noctis may be on the other side of it.

I guess that kind of comes to the crux of it. What is a game, and what is a toy?

You play games, and you play with toys...unless you're one of those sicko collectors (:D)

It sounds like you play with Noctis, instead of playing it.
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Lackey
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 8:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
In particular, the various commenters didn't seem to have a very good idea of exactly what the game was, technically. Only one person seemed to have attempted to find out anything about how the game was developed and the history of the game. People were confused about whether the game was or was not online, and to what extent, if at all.

I found the same issue, really, but I didn't exactly have the words for it. It was almost frustrating because I wish I was present to straighten out the facts myself. I usually don't get this feeling with good roundtable discussions.

Quote:
also had this feeling that the person who organized the roundtable had deliberately picked a game that was so obscure that I would never have come across it on my own.

I don't know, Noctis has cropped up numerous times in my experience. Maybe it depends on the circles you travel on the internet. In any case, I think choosing an obscure game of interest is a valid approach since it gives people an excuse to try it.

Quote:
I guess that kind of comes to the crux of it. What is a game, and what is a toy?

I strongly disagree with this distinction and furthermore I can't see why it would be necessary. You still play it the same way and in the same context as you would a game, so it's well within the territory of this site's coverage.

I can see how videogame language is somewhat lacking though. There's really only one collective noun, "videgoame", despite how many large internal differences there may be. The problem I see is language being used in silly ways, like something not being "enough" of a game to qualify. Rather, I think there's a lot of possibilties in the medium that are limited by the idea that because I thing is played in a certain context it should match a certain type. These thoughts are scattered, but I hope you see the direction I'm pointing with them.

Does it really matter?
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I think it does matter, because when you play with a toy, you could be playing the same way without the toy.

When you play a game, the game is an integral part of the experience.

Essentially, a toy is an accessory to games, while games are necessary to the type of play.

Then again, maybe Doom is just Cowboys and Indians too, and it's as much an accessory as the plastic tomahawk, cap guns, and hats (toys in my world).

But I do think that games are different than toys still, because they contain the narrative rather than existing independent of the narrative.

You can play war games with gi-joes or with twigs. You can buy the cobra command playset, or you can dig trenches in your sandbox. The narrative is independentof the accessories.

In this respect, consoles and PCs are toys, and the games are quasi-independent of that (you can usually play them on your choice of platforms these days). But having A toy is still fundamental to the experience.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether there is a line. But that leads me not in the direction of saying that toys are games, it leads me to games are toys. It kind of pokes a lot of holes in the mature games mythos. And from the first few issues of GQu. I'm seeing a lot of stories about youthful days, and things that bring us back to our youth (pschological problems, I've been there, done that, and without my family to fall back on, I'd surely be dead now) in that we are to rely on others in ways that, stereotypically, adults do not.

Are gamers deluding themselves about the nature of gaming and it's role in their lives?
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Our next podcast is going to cover Microsoft Excel. Get your pencils ready!

Seriously though, games are toys regardless of whether they "have meaning" or not. Anything one does for relaxation is "immature" in certain people's eyes, and perception either means something or doesn't depending on your personal perception. It's a big circle of semantics and wonder.

Regardless of the quality of our Podcast, Noctis is something that's worth covering in this light.

-Wes
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dhex
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
It sounds like you play with Noctis, instead of playing it.


basically.

edit: which is another way of approaching design, and of drawing people in. it also tends to be messy.
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

SuperWes wrote:
Our next podcast is going to cover Microsoft Excel. Get your pencils ready!

We totally should.
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Alc
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was certain you were going to talk about Excel's various easter eggs. The Excel 97 one is really impressive.
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Lackey
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm in favour of this idea.

J., I think the "all games are toys" thing stands because they still only work as long as you play by the rules. Anyway, I don't know what else there is to say.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 12:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Alc wrote:
I was certain you were going to talk about Excel's various easter eggs. The Excel 97 one is really impressive.
I'd forgotten about that one! I spent more time messing around with the Excel 97 egg than I'd care to admit. I'm so tempted to downgrade back down to it, now.
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Ketch
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thing is, doesn't Noctis just highlight the total loneliness of single-player games anyway? There are no people in games, (and NPCs aren't very convincing). In removing the busy-work of gameplay Noctis just leaves us with an aesthetic experience that reminds us how lonely games are.

Think of Super Mario Bros or Prince of Persia, these games try to fool us by having enemies in them. But what if we took out the enemies (in PoP that would rock!) it would be like having a mountaineering simulation, just your character versus the cruel environment. (Now change all the colours to set the mood-i.e like World 1-2 in SMB ).

Shadow of Colossus is also a game that reminds us of how lonely games are.
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 7:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ketch wrote:
Thing is, doesn't Noctis just highlight the total loneliness of single-player games anyway? There are no people in games, (and NPCs aren't very convincing). In removing the busy-work of gameplay Noctis just leaves us with an aesthetic experience that reminds us how lonely games are.

Shadow of Colossus is also a game that reminds us of how lonely games are.
Contrariwise, Oblivion tells us that games are not lonely. You don't need to do violent things in that game, if you don't want to, and don't mind just letting the hordes of Oblivion continue to imperil the populace (although, if you never close that first gate, you'll never see any more).

There are a large number of non-violent quests, and two non-violent guild paths. You can spend the entire game picking and selling flowers, if you like. And meanwhile, life in the game will go on as you witness it. Deer drink at streams, the locals gossip and ask for your help with their petty problems.

In fact, if you're devoted enough to the thief and mage paths, you can quite easily play the entire game non-violently. Invisibility does wonders.

Single player games can be a very good simulacrum of sociality (or whatever the opposite of loneliness is).
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 12:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Narrative is always independent; it's a question of how much the text chooses to influence it.
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astral89
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 8:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Noctis is not lonely, it is empty.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 8:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

astral89 wrote:
Noctis is not lonely, it is empty.


You should totally get in on the next podcast.

-Wes
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astral89
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 5:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

to SuperWes:

What do you mean? Why should I?
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i am sorry but i just dont see the point in playing an empty game Confused imo some interraction, even if its a limited NPC's, is nessecary for a game.
atleast put some pigeons there!
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