Good Morning Everyone

@JohnMcDonald - Dork.

:P

Geez. You come and try to make some question better (and reasonable for the site), guy(?) seemingly takes critique of the question personal and responds with ad hominem. What happened to the good old discussion culture?

If you feel like helping him, go ahead. I just gave up and flagged it as "not a real question"

:(

I added the generic, check the FAQ, comment

Well that was a nice response... unfortunately it doesn't belong on SO either... -_-

Shouldn't this be flagged:

Isn't that basically a "which tech" question, which we'd like to avoid?

Looks like it.

An off topic english question:

Why not helping an allly or why not help an ally?

or none of these two?

@Chorche "Why not helping ally" missing verb.

Of course, in casual speech, it might be implied.

It's hard to construct it as a valid question even then though. Something like an answer to "What are we doing tonight, drinking or watching TV?" - "Why not 'helping an ally'?"

On the other hand, "Why not help an ally?" might be the wrong tense, and is also an uncommon construction and is missing the subject, so again casual/slang. In English, most questions are formed with the help of "to do", so: "Why don't we help an ally?"

"Why wouldn't you help an ally?"

"Why aren't you helping an ally?"

Other good alternatives depending on what you are trying to get across

The "to do" @MartinSojka mentions only makes sense if you are asking someone if they want to help an ally with you. The ones I mention would be good if you are questioning why you wouldn't help an ally

Alternative: Tell us what you want to tell in your native language, and we'll translate. :)

actualy ii think that "Why not helping an ally?" will work for me :D

Because the "normal" question would be "Why don't you help an ally"

@Chorche I'd say that's bad English

Not in a formal speech mode, not in the narrative part, but as direct speech, it works - in the right context. It's bad English, but maybe the character in question is just speaking bad English like that.

We'd need to know the context, but "Why not help an ally?" is better

@JohnMcDonald the "Why not helping an ally?" part?

So "Why not helping an ally?" is wrong, but i can use it in casual speech?

"Why not help an ally?" is better than "Why not helping an ally?"

is what @JohnMcDonald was saying I believe

@Chorche Well, if you want to sound like a Texan, or a Lol Cat, then "Why not helping an ally?" works

Actually... "an" is superfluous for Lol Cats: "Why not helping ally?"

@Chorche People do all kinds of crazy stuff with the language when they are speaking it. It's wrong in the strict sense, it's bad style if you write it down like this, but it's like (some) people speak.

When you write down direct speech for someone else, it's usually more important to be factually correct than to write proper English. When you're writing the direct speech (or thought, or narration) of a fictional character, "wrong" patterns of speech can help distinguish between them (... or between different personalities of the same character), but you need to be consistent about the wrong parts, so it's better to know what the right way would be first. :)

and what about "Why not help an ally?"? It's right or it's wrong too but better than "Why not helping an ally?"?

It's slightly better in the sense that I can actually picture someone starting the conversation with that question - it works (as in: is understood) without a context, whereas the other one doesn't.

Agreed

facebook.com/…

@Chorche Strange link (not clicking on it anyway, due to "facebook.com" in it).

okay :D

@MartinSojka ++

Anyone clicked on it? :D

@MartinSojka ++

Sorry Chorche

seems everyone here has something against FB

or bit.ly, or tn.y or those those obfuscators

actualy it's just a .swf file uploaded to facebook

it's a prank

try uploading it somewhere else then.

no, i didn't even uploaded it

a friend droped a link to it

i was really scared

and that looked funny to me

so i posted it here

i gues that was a bad idea :D

You're among developers here.

heh, computer guys are usually a little more picky about clicking weird links

well then i guess i'm not a computer guy :/

You just didn't went through 3+ years of CompSci guys and gals playing silly pranks on each other (also known as "university").

... or if you did, you were exceptionally unlucky. :)

i didn't

also I guess you didn't have lots of friends/relatives who think of you as a free technician

I am trying to find resources which discuss the acceptable balance in story and plot that is "borrowed" from other movies/games, so as to better my storytelling in future games. For instance, why do we make Star Wars games that take place before/during/after the Star Wars trilogy, when we already know the outcome? I can understand the "after" portion of this, but that begs the question of "why", when it's not our world to create?

Some games put you in control of the main character, but again - if we already know how the story concludes, what use is playing the game in the first place? Others put you in control of unknown side-characters (created specifically for the game), and these side-characters perform their heroic works in alternate locations, rarely (if ever) meeting the protagonist from the "real" line of events in the book/game/movie that is being used as the setting for this secondary game.

If this isn't a good place to ask, please let me know. There's no "Game Design" site, just "Game Development" (which has a "Game-Design" tag), and three hours of searching Google/Bing didn't turn up anything helpful.

hm, well all I can tell you is that I have no clue :p

you might reach a wider audience if you put it up as an actual question

I did, sort of, and was told that "Questions like yours, asking for opinions and soliciting debate/discussion are not suited for the site." gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/34689/… Perhaps I worded it incorrectly?

I mean I could go ask on the Unity3D or XNA forums on their official sites, but more often than not they're going to be answered by a 12 year old who's got nothing to add but "ST4R W4RZ IS FOR OLD PEOPLE"...or something along those lines.

they prefer questions which fit the Q&A model - this site is not a discussion forum - so if people feel your question is not objectively answerable it might get closed. I.e. there might lots of different books/pages/... that relate to what you're looking for, so there isn't necessarily a definitive answer. I have seen similar questions though

like "what are good books to learn openGL". Sometimes these get turned into "community wiki" questions

@JohnMcDonald hi

@JohnMcDonald do you know stuff about instancing in D3D10/11?

heh, nope

Byte56 or Josh might though

Sorry, I'm just barely getting by with OpenGL.

@SalarianEngineer I'd say the reason we do that is because people like those stories.

Ah

How's your goblin game going btw?

Children love to hear the same stories over and over again for their bed time stories, I guess that carries over to when we're adults.

@JohnMcDonald It's going. I'm working on getting animation implemented at the moment.

Still having fun and enjoying the process.

Yeah, for sure

@JoshPetrie you seem to know a lot about D3D :)

@SalarianEngineer Additionally, it's easier to use a universe that's already been defined. You don't have to re-introduce people to all the particulars of that world if they're playing a game based in a world they already know about. It makes things easier for the developer and easier for the gamer, since they can easily get into the groove of a particular story.

@JohnMcDonald You were working on the space game right?

Or is it something else now?

Right, Asteroid Outpost. I guess it hasn't had a blog update in a while though.

@SalarianEngineer It also allows people to experience their favorites from a different perspective. People will watch the action on screen, but that's not always enough. They want to experience it too. One of the closest ways we can get to that is through gaming. Just like when I read a really good book, I want to see a movie made from that book. Yes, I know how it'll turn out, but it's a new way of experiencing that story. If the stories are good enough, you'll want to experience them however you can.

For example, I'd really like to see a movie based around the Collapsium series by Will McCarthy. I'm not sure how a game would fit in to it, but I'd play a game based in that universe too.

I know what'll happen, but I'd still want to experience it again.