124246-morning-coffee-30-3-15-beep-bort-edition

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Good morning, organics. Please adjust your emotive index to pleasant expression, as an optimal consumption experience has been configured for your approval...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So I wanted to make today's MC thread in honour of both science fiction and our future overlords, the robots.  They are wonderful, and we just don't get enough of them these days.
 
On that note, I feel like pop culture has been moving away from sci-fi the last bunch of years and gravitating too often toward superhero stuff, not to mention the zombie craze. Both are fun but this hurts my soul. I love sci-fi and want to see more hybrid forms of it in media, especially more introspective stuff like Moon, fun stuff like Cowboy Bebop, and dark stuff like PKD used to write. But every time I start checking out upcoming games and movies I'm baffled that fantasy/superheroes have such a choke-hold on development.
 
Anyway, this makes me thankful for Wildstar! And I hope that in the future the game continues developing themes that are a little more challenging, and lean less on fantasy conventions. So how can the game add more sci-fi? 
 
I'd personally like to see some new space-themed skies for housing plots. Maybe a different moon, with some more unique space stuff floating around. More metal decor/unlocks would also be great, particularly dark metal building blocks. (And on that note, D5 is bringing us purple and red glass decor, which I think will add a nice sci-fi feel... I'll probably swap all of the Academy's glass walls out for purple. That way visitors can stop smacking their heads when they come by... I'm looking at you, Chestnut :P )
 
Hoping we see D5 soon... until then, have fun er'body!	
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Well, my birthday hit this week, we're moving this week, and there's a ton of IRL crap raining down on my head.  I had time to do two things this weekend:
 
First, I logged in and played with my wife on a new pair of alts for a while, which was good.  I think those characters are ready to roll into Thayd now.
 
Saturday morning, I logged in and there were just a few people on from our guild (we actually have people on at 9am Eastern, and I thought I'd be the only one).  Anyway, nobody needed me and I was going to have to take off for the whole day anyway.  So I did something I haven't done in months.  I wanted to play a Spellslinger, so I hopped on Trajan Spenser and ended up Domside for a while.  I didn't do much while I was there except ran veteran shiphands for golds (I'm only one medal away from getting his achievement) and ran a PSA with some random people who were asking to run it.  It was good times, and as early in the morning as it was, I expected to see no one, but there were quite a few people running around Illium.  It was fun to hang around for a while.
 
Nonetheless, my Wildstar time might be limited for a while.  My wife's birthday is April 4th, right when we're moving, so there's a lot going on that we need to take care of right away.  I'll try to be on as much as possible, though.  So hopefully, I'll see you all on Nexus!	
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On that note, I feel like pop culture has been moving away from sci-fi the last bunch of years and gravitating too often toward superhero stuff, not to mention the zombie craze. Both are fun but this hurts my soul. I love sci-fi and want to see more hybrid forms of it in media, especially more introspective stuff like Moon, fun stuff like Cowboy Bebop, and dark stuff like PKD used to write. But every time I start checking out upcoming games and movies I'm baffled that fantasy/superheroes have such a choke-hold on development.
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I think Wildstar is doing much the same as WoW, trying to straddle sci-fi and fantasy at once. It works for me overall, but yea, I do miss hard sci-fi and want more of it from this game. This is part of the reason why I strongly dislike The Strain and its accompanying plot: feels like an extension of the scary monster fantasy trope. A swap to emphasize Nexian technology and Eldan tech gone awry would be a nice change for me. Drusera is cool too but her content also feels more like fantasy than sci-fi, to me. :(
 
Oh and probably the biggest sore point, I feel like the dungeons in this game are almost completely devoid of good sci-fi. I think literally every dungeon (excepting the new one, kinda) is way more fantasy than sci-fi. Adventures are mostly like this too, as are expeditions. Boo hiss.
 
I'd say right now ME is my favourite sci-fi game/series evar, and until recently I was also really enjoying FNV. I don't expect either game to really step into the MMO market, at least not for years to come, so Wildstar has a good chance to monopolize on its distinctions. Hoping the teams in charge of thematic and lore direction will start to give us more gritty content along this direction.	
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Had a good weekend. We made good time on our second Phage Maw kill, giving us two hours to work on Prototypes. What do you know, we got em down! Fastest by far we've learned a boss- and now we are 4/6. Not bad for cross-guild progression raiding :)
 
Still plugging away on my add on- have the basic code in place for creating LFG listings, but I haven't tested it yet to iron out the scripting errors. I have a feeling that this will be a tough feature to popularize, as it won't really be useful until may people are using it . . .   but all I can do is create it :)
 
Life will be busy this weekend, as we have to get the house clean and spotless for an important visitor next Monday. I'd rather be playing WS . . .	
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Well this weekend was ups and downs. I got a ton of work done on the chua ship but as it turns out I did a whole bunch of it different than how the owner wanted it :(, so I'm going to have to go back and redo those portions. Also I took apart another area that I made... so overall I got a lot done and I'm immediately taking apart 50% of it :/. Ah well. Artistic expression right? What a pain...
 
On the other hand, in RL, got to see a lot of friends I haven't seen in a while, also took Friday and Monday off so I am still on my weekend! Wooooo. Also job hunting -_-, because I'm going to be leaving my current job in a few months here and having a steady source of income is... preferred. 
 
Anywho! Off to build toon town...	
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Well this weekend was ups and downs. I got a ton of work done on the chua ship but as it turns out I did a whole bunch of it different than how the owner wanted it :(, so I'm going to have to go back and redo those portions. Also I took apart another area that I made... so overall I got a lot done and I'm immediately taking apart 50% of it :/. Ah well. Artistic expression right? What a pain...
 
On the other hand, in RL, got to see a lot of friends I haven't seen in a while, also took Friday and Monday off so I am still on my weekend! Wooooo. Also job hunting -_-, because I'm going to be leaving my current job in a few months here and having a steady source of income is... preferred. 
 
Anywho! Off to build toon town...
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Afternoon people :)
 
Why do guys follow you in a parking lot and say 'Hey cutie! gimmie your digits so I can call you!' does this actually work for you guys??
 
Anyways, been busy on Nexus helping leveling guildies and starting a new toon just for giggles :)
 
I've always loved Sci Fi, Heinlein, Vonnegut, Adams (Richard & Douglas) Piers Anthony and so many more. I always see colors when I read and I'm disappointed a lot in movies when so many always look dingy and dirty, like any movie about medieval times, did people not comb their hair?? 
 
Work is beckoning me :( 	
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Why do guys follow you in a parking lot and say 'Hey cutie! gimmie your digits so I can call you!' does this actually work for you guys??
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Afternoon people :)
 
Why do guys follow you in a parking lot and say 'Hey cutie! gimmie your digits so I can call you!' does this actually work for you guys??
 
Anyways, been busy on Nexus helping leveling guildies and starting a new toon just for giggles :)
 
I've always loved Sci Fi, Heinlein, Vonnegut, Adams (Richard & Douglas) Piers Anthony and so many more. I always see colors when I read and I'm disappointed a lot in movies when so many always look dingy and dirty, like any movie about medieval times, did people not comb their hair?? 
 
Work is beckoning me :(
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It's a movement I always thought was best described in Blade Runner.  One of my favorite movies of all time.
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Love it too. It's a shame they cut out much of the book's soul though, from what I remember. :mellow:  
 
 
 
 
Depending how cynical you are about modern politics, sounds accurate. :lol:  
 
The cyberpunk world is usually defined by corporate control over land and law, including areas outside of earth's system, and the integration of human qualities with technology (AI, synthetics). One of the core themes I see in Gibson's work is escapism/empowerment through technology, frequently leading to questions of mortality that apply to both rich and poor. He also tends to emphasize the importance of the underground/black market as a means to resist the ascendance of the wealthy land owners, and to prevent the obfuscation of historical consciousness that comes with a growing middle class (those who are wealthy enough to be comfortable stop asking who owns the tools). I think Gibson was very concerned with the disappearance of traditional culture as people accept commerce in its place.
 
Like Vic said, very much extrapolating from current society. Gibson travelled to Japan in the 80s and saw a corporate reality emerging that was visually stunning and culturally blinding. So he put that into a novel. Good times. :P
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Well, it could be, and it is referenced in Wildstar quite a bit.  Especially if you're an Exile.  Hell, Exile stuff can feel almost full-blown steampunk with all the western influences out there.  All their structures appear dingy and slightly dilapidated, Thayd has litter and random screens hooked up to jury-rigged power couplings, it is very reminiscent of that cyberpunk ethos.  Really, though, they just don't make enough use out of the futuristic apparatus of their sci-fi setting.  I think they could go a lot further with it.
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When I first started building, I was in a very cyberpunk mode. My crime mall concept done around August was modeled after the Puyallup Barrens store in the Sega Genesis Shadowrun game. :D
 
Anyway, I gave up on that theme when I decided there wasn't enough gritty, trashy small detail decor in the game. Then when I arrived in Thayd on one of my alts I was like...well damn, I probably should have rolled Exile. :P
 
I feel like focusing more on sci-fi would give this game a clearer, more unique identity in the MMO market. And that would be great because right now SWTOR is the only real sci-fi competitor, and it's kind of old news, F2P butchered model, and doesn't offer the degree of housing immersion or (IMO) gameplay fun this game does.
 
But I understand that fantasy also sells and is liked by a lot of players, so we won't likely see this game take a turn to hard sci-fi. :(
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I wouldn't mind more fantasy and sci-fi.  Sometimes, I think we kind of get that "neither" category, like the game takes a turn and is nothing but western.  Gallow barely feels like a futuristic or fantasy area... or quest zone.  That was the saddest part of it, that it's one of my favorite questlines, but it's one of the least connected to the game's central theme.  I hope our next quest zone is an asteroid belt or that we get a kind of cyberpunk city run by questionable people.
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The next zone (D5) is Star-Comm Basin (aka Levian Bay).  We'll be dealing with the Ascendency (whooo! hooo!).  I think D6 will be in the Halon Ring along with the Redmoon raid.  Or maybe D7 *shrugs*  At some point we need to finish the Entity arc.  (( Please don't make the Strain a recurring theme.  Please don't make the Strain a recurring theme.  Please don't make the Strain a recurring theme. ... ))
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What's the matter John.... HUH?!  TOO MUCH PURPLE FOR YA, HUH?!
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