Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra :: Re: Did you even read the initial post?

[quote name="Zseni"][quote]First of all, as FoK has pointed out, <i>iterated</i> rock/paper/scissors isn't nearly as trivial as it's cracked up to be. Ask <a href="http://www.tiltboys.com/rwc-NEW.txt">the tiltboys</a> or the guy that programmed <a href="http://www.ofb.net/~egnor/iocaine.html">Iocaine Powder</a>. If you're looking for a game to signify trivial I suggest you use Tic Tac Toe which, as even Matthew Broderick knows, is just fucking broken. [/quote] It's a small world, but we are at the end of a day in which I didn't need to know it was <i>that small</i>. Please, let's leave that statement in its thin cryptic gauze; any explanation would be explaination. [quote]But I love how "Korean" has become shorthand for "mindless" in the context of real-time strategy. Interesting that I've never heard anyone complain about "mindless" Koreans being too easy to beat. [/quote] There's a deep, deep, bone-deep historical irony in that shorthand, too. Stop me if you've heard this one before, but there were a couple of I dunno <i>centuries</i> in East Asia in which the Koreas would learn all kinds of slick Chinese technology, the Chinese would get a little heavy-handed, the Koreans would dash across the sea to their buddies the Japanese, and the Japs would get the Chinese technology without the requisite kowtowing and taxes. Then the Japanese would send some kind of military aid to help Korea, Korea would beat back the Chinese, there would be an uneasy peace, and the whole thing happened all over again. In those years Korea was the synthesis point between the two greatest forces in Asian history: Chinese science (especially, even predominantly social and aesthetic) and Japanese military power. [quote]Any game played at a high enough level is going to be boring to a patzer, which is what these whining douchebags are. Boo hoo! He beat me by hitting the ball to a place I can't reach <i>over and over again</i>. How is that fun? Maybe if you could figure out how to return a fucking serve the game wouldn't appear to be so "broken". Hitting the ball hard isn't the <i>point</i> of tennis, it's the point at which tennis <i>begins</i>. If you're playing someone who can hit hard then being able to hit hard is the entry fee you have to muster before the actual game, the deep game, the interesting high-level game even starts. In an RTS, clicking fast and knowing what beats what is the exact same thing. Jesus, who complains about clicking in a <i>computer game</i> for godsake? Do you complain about button pushing in Virtual Fighter? Aw, he just pushed the buttons faster than me. Yeah, well sort of, I guess. Awww, he knows the combos, he knocked me down and took the football, he memorized the dictionary, he studied openings, he bet more than I could afford, he practiced, he worked, he won. Let me let all you rts-dilettante, Korean-hating motherfuckers in on a little secret: you weren't out-clicked, you were out-played. You don't have to like it, but please shut up about it. /mc[/quote] That's all well and good and true, but sometimes it's fun to win, and it's not fun to work at winning. What I'd like to do here is fall into a discussion about Asian and Western lifestyles, how those fucking slopes can afford to dedicate themselves to Starcraft mastery because they don't have to make too many other decisions in life, stuff like that. The real question under it all though is <i>where is the game</i>? Because it ain't in the same place for mindless Koreans as it is for mindless Americans; it's not in the same place for Kasparov or Sampras as it is for the piker. I want to suggest that not only are the games in different places, they are different games entirely, played for different goals. All the whiny whiteys want to play their particular game and know who is the best at it, but those yellow bastards have taken the gameboard and started doing something completely different and actively destructive to their game. It's not merely a question of high-level and low-level play. Tho where I come from whining about it either way is strictly prohibited. Christ it's good to see you, Monty. I don't always want to play against Sampras but I'll never get tired of watching him, that kind of thing.[/quote]