Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Tytan]

@Frost, That's fucking retarded.

[Frost]

I actually have the Mistborn trilogy on my phone, though I'm sticking to paper novels as much as possible over the course of this field problem. Speaking of which; what I'm reading currently is the Wheel of Time series. What little I've had the chance to read so far, I've enjoyed. 

I'll likely be indisposed for the evening, though. We have a not-at-all-suicide-mission this evening (four IFV's against three IFV's and a tank)

[Stringtheory]

I actually have the Mistborn trilogy on my phone, though I'm sticking to paper novels as much as possible over the course of this field problem. Speaking of which; what I'm reading currently is the Wheel of Time series. What little I've had the chance to read so far, I've enjoyed. 

I'll likely be indisposed for the evening, though. We have a not-at-all-suicide-mission this evening (four IFV's against three IFV's and a tank)

What are the mission objectives for both teams? And if it's straight up elimination, do you have any effective way to take out the tank that doesn't involve losing 3/4 of your IFVs?

[Frost]

It's not, by intent, a competition. All missions here are designed to be a simulation of missions that would be conducted overseas--one side just represents OPFOR--opposing force. The dirty brown not-Americans, basically. We have mortars at our disposal, but they're really only useful against set-in, immobile targets. Pretty much everyone fully expects to "die"

[Stringtheory]

Pretty much everyone fully expects to "die"

On both sides or just your's?

[Frost]

The side that doesn't have a damn tank, yeah.

[Guest]

@swicked
Here're some fantasy and fantasy-ish series I've read.

Wheel of Time has got some good stuff in it - I didn't finish it, for various reasons, but it's generally regarded as a modern classic. It's all about prophecy and archetypes and hair braiding.

Assassin's Apprentice and the following two books in the trilogy are both quite good, IMO; bit miserable sometimes, but I thought it was quite engaging (and better than the two sequel trilogies that followed different events in the same world, with some of the same characters).

The Black Company is a very interesting series of books - again, not one I've finished, but I might go back to it. The first book especially has a very cool premise, following an aging mercenary company that's been hired to help put down a rebellion against basically a fantasy Evil Empire.

Temeraire is a bit more geared towards younger audiences, IMO, but it's earlier books at least are worth a read. Alternate history Napoleonic Wars in which enormous dragons crewed by men with guns form an old-fashioned air force for the world's powers. Later books start globetrotting a bit too much, I think, and have long periods of "they walked around and were miserable in Australia because there was so much bloody desert everywhere."

The Dark Tower is a seven (sort of eight, now) book cycle by Stephen King. It is REALLY weird. Seriously, it's got its own internal logics that you eventually start to learn, only to throw half of them out halfway through and make you learn a whole new set. Extremely metafictional. Stephen King appears in the story. Follows Roland, a sort of knight errant crossed with Clint Eastwood, as he travels his dying world. Having read other novels of King's is recommended before tackling it, but definitely not necessary for at least the first novel or two (modern printings of novels that tie into The Dark Tower are marked with a revolver tied up with a thorny rose inside a keyhole, somewhere on the back of the book - most of the big ones do, as do plenty of the lesser-known ones). "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." Get the illustrated editions, they're worth it IMO.

The Sword of Truth is great if you want to watch a fantasy author earnestly attempt to perform cunnilingus on Ayn Rand's decaying corpse, with a lot of weird BDSM stuff thrown in. This series is a train wreck, but worth a read if you're looking for a trillion-page joke that keeps on giving. Highlights: the main characters cutting their way through a bunch of peaceful Vietnam War protester expys, our hero getting amnesia so he can rip off The Fountainhead for an entire book, speeches to two people who agree with what's being said that take up several pages each, evil chickens, children having their teeth punched down their throat by the good guys, football, murder football, magical virgins, Darth Vader, tacticlol bullshit, a lot of castration (by our heroes), Bigger and More Powerful-style progression that would make an anime blush, a whole book about why democracy is stupid and fascism is great, pain-addict lesbian sex, and medieval Soviet Russia. And this is not meant to be a morally gray story, either, which is why it's even funnier. Unfortunately, you have to get through the first few books, which are just painfully banal, to get to the parts where the author stopped taking his meds.

The Talisman is another Stephen King one, written alongside Peter Straub (also a horror author, albeit more of an artsy, surrealism-loving one). It's inspired by Huckleberry Finn, with universe-hopping, werewolves, nuclear hellfire, uzis, angels, cancer, utterly corrupt juvenile correctional facilities, preacher-men with sniper rifles, and a lot of weirdness. Some people don't like it; personally, I love it. Obviously, it's more pseudo-fantasy than fantasy proper. Its sequel, Black House, is much more straight-up horror.

Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave is a cool retelling of Arthurian myth through the eyes of Merlin, starting with his youth. It's a lot closer to Game of Thrones than to the BBC Merlin TV show. Haven't read it in quite a while, but I do remember it being heavy on guile and trickery rather than sorcery.

Dresden Files, if urban fantasy counts as fantasy. Harry Dresden, professional wizard and private detective. I keep up with the series, personally, even though some of the stuff the author does prose-wise doesn't cut it for me. Nerdy references, grimdarkness, had a crummy TV show that ran for one season on SciFi back before it became Welsh.

Jack Vance's Dying Earth books. Fucking top-tier oldschool fantasy. Inspired a lot of DnD concepts. The world is a lot like what Adventure Time would later come up with, albeit with less cutesy stuff and with no Finn and Jake. Instead, you get a plethora of rogues and assholes, most famously Cugel the Clever, who really isn't all that. Amazing prose, hilarious dialogue and situations, uncomfortably dark sometimes.

Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives. It's only two books in, but they're both ponderous friggin' tomes, so they'll last you. Sanderson's the guy who wrote Mistborn. This is basically more of the same, but stretched out both in length and scale to a more epic fantasy format. Takes cues from Wheel of Time, which makes sense because he's the guy they hired to finish that series IIRC. So far, it's been pretty darn good.

Codex Alera series. First one's called "Furies of Calderon." The first book takes forever to pick up, but the later ones are paced better. The plot arc is not that original, but the world is cool and the villains are neat. Apparently, it was written after an argument Jim Butcher had about whether or not you could write a good story with a lame idea. He asked for two, received "Pokemon" and "the Lost Roman Legion" and made this. The connection to the former is a bit tenuous, and he could have done a bit more with the Roman offshoot civilization idea, but it's fun.

Uh, yeah! I could probably name a few more, but hopefully you can find something that sparks your interest in that list.

@Frost
Good luck with the asymmetrical warfare!

[Stringtheory]

@OAC Thanks for all those Fantasy recommendations, definitely adding 2/3 of them to my 'to read' list.
Anything you'd recommend in the sci-fi and/or more modern speculative fiction (think Neil Stephenson) genres? The summer's coming up and I'm hoping to get some printed books read (rather than just anime and internet reading) over it.

[Frost]

Thanks, Cobalt. My current team leader is a semi-trained monkey who was only chosen for leadership above myself and the other guy on the team (who just passed SF selection and is just waiting for his trip to Airborne school) due to seniority, so I think I'll need it.

[Guest]

@String
I'm not as deep into sci-fi, unfortunately, but here's a few.

William Gibson anything. Seriously. Neuromancer invented cyberpunk (and has sequels), The Difference Engine put steampunk into high gear (and both of these were much, much better than most of the stuff that gets put out in these mini-genres). My favorite stuff of his is more recent, though. Pattern Recognition, Spooky Country, and Zero History were all quite excellent - they're sci-fi in aesthetic, but take place in pretty much the present, dealing with emergent technologies and cultural uses of them. They ooze style. The most recent, "The Peripheral," is also excellent - deals with post-humanism, embodiment, time travel, class struggles. Definitely not a bad place to start.

Obviously you've read Neil Stephenson, but in case you didn't know, he's got a new book coming out in the next month or so, which should be good. Called "Seveneves" - apparently he's on a funky word kick, this after Anathem and Reamde. (Both of these were also quite good, if you haven't read 'em - Anathem is scifi with mathematician monks, Reamde is more of the modern speculative-style and involves hard-fantasy MMOs, ransomware, and Islamic extremism.)

Let's see. Jack Vance has the Demon Prince Quintet. It's an interesting revenge story, space opera-style, oldschool sci-fi. Vance's prose game is on point, and especially in the later novels the characters of the main character's adversaries become very cool. Might not be the best books to start reading Vance with, though. Better to get a feel for his style of humor and subtleties first. The series has an excellent ending.

As an avid Vance reader, George R. R. Martin actually wrote a series of short stories inspired by Vance that were collected in Tuf Voyaging, which I believe is back in print now that Martin is hella famous. I liked 'em quite a bit. Basically, this moribund, cat-loving introvert named Haviland Tuf ends up in control of a genocide-ship with exceptional genetic engineering technology. He sells his services to those in need, and develops as a character. It's quite fun.

Coming back to Earth (but not quite as we know it), before he died Terry Pratchett worked on a sci-fi/satire series with Stephen Baxter, called "The Long Earth." There're three books, with a fourth due later. It's to be honest better in its concepts than its executions, and it's not Discworld-style at all (as is to be expected, as Pratchett was close to death even when this series started IIRC). Not a lot of joking around or laugh-out-loud humor, more irony and quirkiness than anything else. Anyway, the concept is that at some point in the now-ish future, a design for a device called a "Stepper" is published on the internet. It's made of easily-accessible materials, and allows you to step sideways into an infinity of other worlds - some similar to ours, some drastically different, none inhabited by people. By far the best parts IMO are the exploratory missions out into the unknown, which each book has a few of. It also deals with statehood, whether or not conflict is primarily based in resources, and has a take on AI that borrows from Neuromancer a bit. Definitely worth reading the first, and if you liked that one, it's worth continuing IMO.

I'm gonna recommend House of Leaves even though it's really, really stretching it to call it sci-fi. One thing it does have is the theme of discovery and exploration, and it even talks about space - but it's more interested in metaphysical space then outer space. Yeah, waaay more into "inner" space, by any definition. It's a weird fuckin' book, one that asks you to tease out conspiracies from its layered narratives and references while actively making fun of you for trying and obfuscating crucial details for any literal-minded reader. It's part Lovecraftian horror, part post-romance, part poetry collection... Basically, the plot is this: a drug-addicted tattoo artist named Johnny Truant finds a massive, partially-written scholarly article about a documentary called The Navidson Record, made by famous photographer Will Navidson after he finds a hallway that wasn't there before in his family's house. The book "House of Leaves" is Johnny Truant's compilation of the notes he found, alongside his own additions. The man who wrote the article is dead, and was blind. The film never existed. And then it gets weird. It's one hell of a trip. 100% suited for endlessly overlong analysis that leads you nowhere - hell, I actually wrote my final paper on a gothic fiction class on this book. (And yes, there's a reason why "house" is blue in this paragraph.)

I'll also plug the Dark Tower here, because it's got plenty of sci-fi going on in it. Most of it post-apocalyptic, to be sure.

Brandon Sanderson, previously-noted author of Mistborn and Stormlight Archive, also has a futuristic superhero story starting with Steelheart. I've read that, wasn't as impressed as I might've been. Main character had a Dickens-style quirk that seemed unnecessarily quirky (he fucks up metaphors constantly). Still, it was fun enough, and if you're into Marvel-style superhumans (and especially stuff like The Punisher Kills The Whole Bloody Marvel Universe or whatever, 'cos this is similar) then you could give it a whirl. The general idea is that superhumans show up one day, with powers ranging from mediocre to god-tier, and every single one of them is a sociopath. Got some pretty cool ideas in it. IMO, it needed another pass or two. Might have been one of Sanderson's forays into nonstandard publishing, he likes to do that.

Beyond that, I'd say to look to the classics. Bradbury and Asimov both have some great novels and amazing short stories. The Foundation series is some good old-fashioned scifi, Fahrenheit 451 should probably be read even if it's not a perfect book and has been ruined by high school curriculum. The Robot series, also Asimov, (and technically part of the Foundation series, sort of) is a cultural icon - "I, Robot" is a collection of short stories, and then "The Caves of Steel" is a novel set in the same universe, albeit set in the pretty distant future. The latter is also a detective story, which is neat. If you're reading Bradbury, also pick up "The October Country," which is a horror-ish collection, but makes for fantastic reading on a muggy late afternoon outside. (I like horror)

[StoneSlinger88]

Thanks, Cobalt. My current team leader is a semi-trained monkey who was only chosen for leadership above myself and the other guy on the team (who just passed SF selection and is just waiting for his trip to Airborne school) due to seniority, so I think I'll need it.

Track the tank and run the fuck away. It can only shoot one of you at a time.

[Scienza]

I actually need to hear the english dub.

Although, some of the parts where revy is speaking mangled english probably won't make sense.

Aye, that's part of the reason why the dub works so well. The characters are a whole lot more "western" than your typical animu protagonist, so American Dutch, Revy, and Benny all work extremely well, especially since the VA quality is a lot higher than most dubs. Also, it has pre-pony Rarity and Spike playing entertainingly similar roles.

@String
I'm seconding OAC on the Gibson. Part of the fun of Neuromancer is just how much it makes sense some thirty years later. 'twas written in the language of the future.

Also, anything by Philip K. Dick is a must. Hollywood's been mining his work for the last twenty years because it's some of the best damn Sci-Fi/speculative fiction in the canon. All of his stuff will sucker-punch your sense of reality, which also means that some of his later stuff like VALIS starts to get very weird as the poor man increasingly went completely bonkers. Still, fantastic and mind-bending stuff. Personally, my favorites of his are Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Ubik, and The Man in the High Castle.

Also, Cobalt, you are a book wizard who has somehow doubled the number of books on my to-read list.

[Ironmonger]

Thanks, Cobalt. My current team leader is a semi-trained monkey who was only chosen for leadership above myself and the other guy on the team (who just passed SF selection and is just waiting for his trip to Airborne school) due to seniority, so I think I'll need it.

Track the tank and run the fuck away. It can only shoot one of you at a time.

Someone has played too much World of Tanks.

[Guest]

@Sci
Cheers! Ooh, yeah, Philip K. Dick's good stuff. Only ever read his short stories - maybe that'll be my summer reading project, if I get through Malazan: Book of the Fallen quickly enough. (That one's fantasy; I haven't started it yet, but have heard good things)

[Icy Shake]

Man, I did not know that Black Lagoon came back. I'll need to check that out at some point.

On sci-fi, for other classics I didn't see mentioned (sorry if you've already hit any of them), Frank Herbert's Dune is a must, and its first 0-3ish sequels hold up pretty well. (Don't make my mistake and stick with it after it starts to go downhill, whenever you identify that as. I read far too many sequels and prequels, and can only say in my defense that I was young and reckless.) Walter M. Miller Jr.'s A Canticle For Leibowitz is built around a monastic order devoted to the preservation of old knowledge from before a nuclear war devastated America, and the rebuilding of society. Hits some interesting points on religion, tradition, distorted and incomplete views of history, that sort of thing. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame gives a nice sampling of pre-Nebula short stories (Volume 1) and novelettes/novellas (Volume 2). I enjoyed most of them, but if you go with them maybe start Volume 1 several stories in, as I remember the first few being among the slowest and weakest.

I'm not far into it, but one of my next projects is Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat, which is enjoyably pulpy. You can check out the original short story here if you're interested, and the site has more details about the rest of the series.

On a different topic, I recently determined I'd be going to Everfree Northwest next month, and thought I'd ask here before casting a wider net elsewhere: is there anyone here who's going and hasn't made lodging plans yet or has space left and would be interested in sharing a room?

[Frost]

Thanks, Cobalt. My current team leader is a semi-trained monkey who was only chosen for leadership above myself and the other guy on the team (who just passed SF selection and is just waiting for his trip to Airborne school) due to seniority, so I think I'll need it.

Track the tank and run the fuck away. It can only shoot one of you at a time.

Well, it's done, and we all died repeatedly. We dismounted just so my buddy could be notionally killed by a phantom round and I had to drag his ass back to the Bradley. It's okay, though, because after getting an "IED" on the way back (leaving me and a few others to hook up a 300-pound tow-bar up while the rest of the guys sat in the Brads) we finally got to come back to the COP, having relocated from yesterday's dirt to an even harder patch of dirt.

[O. Hinds]

Argh. I've just spent about two hours fixing my computer after a software update glitched. That is, I hope I spent about two hours fixing it, rather than spending about two hours making it look like it had been fixed. While my tests are coming back good, it does seem to be running a bit slower; that could just be me being hypersensitive, though.

[Scienza]

I completely understand this.

[Ironmonger]

I completely understand this.

For those wondering, the Dell XPS 410 runs on a dual-core Intel processor, Nvidia GeForce 7900GS, and has 2 GB of RAM.

[Stringtheory]

For those wondering, the Dell XPS 410 runs on a dual-core Intel processor, Nvidia GeForce 7900GS, and has 2 GB of RAM.

*Shudder*

[Icy Shake]

Good god. It probably had a better Intel dual-core processor and GPU, but that sounds a lot like the laptop I got in the fall of 2007.

@swicked: I'm sure we could arrange something. If nothing else, I can let you know who to keep an eye out for.

[Ironmonger]

lulz:

[Guest]

Was doing some face and expression practice.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Turned out, okay, kinda.

[Guest]

WALP. For those who haven't heard, Valve has implemented a new microtransactions policy for games in which they sell content they didn't make and don't support for a huge cut without even trying to curate it. These microtransactions are called "mods." Already many feature content not even made by the person who published them. Yeah, this is going to end really well. Future merger of Origin and Steam confirmed?

[O. Hinds]

...Really? But one can still install mods separately, yes?

[Downloaded Skill]

It's going to be a dark day for gaming if we're going to have to pirate mods of all things. Couldn't they just add a donation button or something like that? Because this doesn't seem like valve allowing modders to be compensated, this seems more like Valve trying to moneygrub. Valve takes a 75% cut for God's sake. You don't take a 75% cut for providing a service that doesn't even have good customer service. Thats like 15 to 25% at most.

I hope a new company starts to compete with valve and steam because this psuedo monopoly they have is making them think they can get away with anything.

[Downloaded Skill]

...Really?  But one can still install mods separately, yes?

Yes, but the big problem with this is, "why should I put my mod up for free when I can put it on steam works and get money for it". Free mods are being taken down by some people and this is going to set a trend. This has also resulted in the content theft cobalt talked about. It's an ugly, ugly system and I hope it's gone by next week.

[Scienza]

Jesus fucking Christ, at least EA has the decency to create the content that they gouge you for.

On the bright side, due to the content restrictions of the Workshop, some *ahem* certain mods are probably going to permanently stay on the Nexus.

[Guest]

One way I hope to see modding purists going is to release updates for their mods that intentionally break your game if you have various Valve-published mods. If something as essential as SKSE or SkyUI did this, it could single-handedly kill support for this garbage as anything more than a skins factory.

I see a lot of people defending it as "content creators deserve to get money," which I understand, except that said money should be coming from the damn people who benefit financially from their content: Bethesda. Bethesda should curate mods over the course of a game's lifetime, highlighting the best and offering the authors a small stipend to continue work on them. Because frankly the only reason I buy Bethesda games is for the damn modding potential, and I'm deffo gonna stop if this shit becomes the norm. All Beth has to do is keep releasing expansion packs and curating mods that use assets from said - that's all they need, and they'll have a long, happy revenue stream and a happy user base that doesn't pirate the buggy, poorly-written messes that they call games. Instead, we have this ultra-exploitative practice in which modders get a fraction of the money made off selling their work, there are no guarantees of quality or continued support for the user, you're already seeing "Early Access" mods (FFS), people are using code from mods that specifically say you're not allowed to monetize anything that uses their work... And if this was carte blanche for modders of Skyrim to monetize their work anywhere, I'd be a lot less upset. Instead, this is carte blanche for Valve to try to worm their way into "them modding dollars" and turn modding into user-created microtransactions, wherein they garner huge profits due to their monopoly on the content by doing absolutely nothing except signing a piece of paper with Bethesda. I ain't having none of that, and if you're not happy about this, you shouldn't have none of it, neither. (That's oldschool English, with multiple negatives enhancing the negation, incidentally)

[Downloaded Skill]

I would be okay with this if there was an optional donate button or the option to support them with a patreon-esque system, but this blatant pay walling and money grubbing just disgusts me. Valve provides far too little to these modders to charge 75% on earnings.

Fucking tired of being nickled and dimed and now not even mods are safe... Jesus Christ.

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