| RavenBlog |
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| Comments on Monday 12 April 2004: |
| Mmmm, computer games. I purchased Diablo 2 on a whim, because I was feeling like playing something fairly mindless. It went above and beyond the call of duty, being perhaps even more mindless than Quake. I would have been tremendously disappointed with it, I think, but for the fact that we started playing it as two-player right from the start. Co-operative two-player-ness is nice. Does anyone have recommendations of other games that do it? Free with Diablo 2, I also got Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. Slightly less mindless than Diablo 2, it was quite decent for an FPS; bit of stealth, bit of maiming, only a couple of 'boss' things, fair graphics. Wouldn't suggest buying it, but quite good as a free-with-another-game thing. The plot was fantastically Voyager-like, complete with an epilogue ending "oh you zany vulcans" (all laugh raucously). And the other game, Beyond Good And Evil, as recommended by Levez. A fine recommendation there, I'm very much enjoying the game. I wouldn't have compared it to Zelda myself, but now that people have done I can't help but see the similarities; the combat is simple and real-time, the game is more linear than it would like you to believe, the characters are weird and the whole interface is pleasingly simple, verging on self-explanatory. Thus far it has a decent plot, lovely graphics, amusing subgames and a fat farting pig. Can't beat that. So, three reviews tending to the positive side (yes, the Diablo 2 review was positive, though only just). Has this ever happened before in Raven-world? Yes, I think it has. But not very often. [07:23] |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| As for Harmless, all my friend Andrew will rave about are 'Harvest Moon,' 'Vice City,' or, tragically, 'Homer Simpson's Hit-And-Run.' You run around and smack stuff until it dies. That's about it. |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| ...wait a sec. Harmless? I meant mindless. Need more caffeine... |
| Earthworm Fanatic |
| For a non-co-operative multiplayer (and single player), there's Age of the Empires II. |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| Also, single-player mindless destruction is nice in Postals One and Two, though it's a bit graphic. |
| Kanada Ten |
| I know something's up. A fully positive review /and/ a typo. Tsk. I purchased "Heroes of Might and Magic: 1, 2, & 3" for my wife on Zombie Day. She's a fan of the genre. I noticed that some of the multi-player scenerios allowed for co-opt play across a network, online, or even using the same computer. The mindless level rivals Starcraft, except using turn based action. |
| RavenBlack |
| What typo is this? |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| Gah! I caught one! Perhaps not the same one, since it's incredibly common in most writing today, but IT'S THERE! (Shock, horror.) |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| Make that two, though it's correct in journalistic style, but not English. |
| Kanada Ten |
| "but now that people have done I can't" |
| Earthworm Fanatic |
| Typos are just spelling errors, aren't they??? |
| Digi |
| A typo is a spelling mistake, but more brought about by bad writting skills, as apposed to bad spelling skills. A mistake, not an error. |
| RavenBlack |
| That's not an error of any sort, anyway. And Digi - bad typing skills. Grammatical errors are bad writing skills. And scribbled out mess is bad writing skills too, but with writing used as equivalent to typing, rather than its alternative meaning where it regards composition rather than penmanship. |
| Khandi |
| I laughed my posterior off after reading Digi's claim that the typo was a result of bad "writting" skills :) Only typo I saw was not using a capital for "Vulcans". All races, fictional or not, deserve a capital letter. |
| Kanada Ten |
| I've missed a new convention of English borrowed from Japanese, then? Mustn’t one have "done something" in order to fulfill the prepositional phrase? Remove the conjunctions and create three sentences. The second would read: “Now that people have done I can't help but see the similarities.” Now that people have done what? It just doesn’t sound proper. Perhaps not a typo, but I think it is an error. |
| RavenBlack |
| Command decision, that one. Capitalising didn't feel as right in the context. |
| RavenBlack |
| What has been done can be implied from context, as it is there by the previous sentence. You're just reading it in the wrong intonation - put the emphasis on 'have' instead of on 'done' and it doesn't even seem like a mistake. |
| RavenBlack |
| No doubt there are some journalistic editors who would insist on "now that people have done so" or "now that people have", but any of the three are functionally equivalent, a matter for stylistic preference only. (I meant previous clause rather than previous sentence, of course, in the actual text, but previous sentence if you're breaking it down into three sentences.) |
| Kanada Ten |
| It does seem right if you drop the “done” all together and say "but, now that people have, I can't help." I wonder if that is just my American dialect prejudicing me. |
| Khandi |
| "now that people have done so", "now that people have", those would both be one word phrases in Najavo :) |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| EDIT: Those clauses, one being a complete sentence, ARE too strong to be linked by a comma." Sorry. Edited myself incompletely on the first try. |
| RavenBlack |
| (Oops, accidentally deleted. AttackOfTheSpam also said the following, just before.) Actually, the journalistic correctness and the English error was a comma thing; when listing, one must separate all subjects with commas, EVEN the one before 'and.' An example would be "I bought chocolate, pomenegranates, grapes, and bad Emo CDs." Notice the comma after "grapes." In journalistic style, though, it's okay to forget that last comma; you could just say "I bought chocolate, pomenegranates, grapes and bad Emo CDs." Also, Digi, you spelled 'opposed' wrong. There's no A in it anywhere, I promise. However, the first error I spotted was an incorrect union of clauses. "A fine recommendation there, I'm very much enjoying the game." Those clauses, one being a complete sentence, is too strong to be linked by a comma; you'd need a conjunction in addition to the comma or a single semicolon. Example one: "A fine recommendation there, and I'm very much enjoying the game." Example two: "A fine recommendation there; I'm very much enjoying the game." Yes, I nitpick most annoyingly. I actually have a grammar-spelling-punctuation-pronunciation correction tick. Since the tender age of about eight, I've spontaneously corrected others' lapses, even in the middle of class. That's gotten me more than one detention. Of course, there are several more little errors; you know, leaving out subjects, starting sentences with "but," and so forth, but those are planned and utilized to create the seeming of dialogue in the entry, so it's all good. |
| RavenBlack |
| To which I can respond about the comma-before-and, that's known as the Oxford comma and is very much a questionable entity. It's argued both for and against, and most journalistic styles would have us omit it. I disagree with the idea of having a standard rule in a journalistic style for whether or not to employ the Oxford comma - in some circumstances it's better, in others it's not. Either can give the wrong idea in the right sentence. Normally I would have used a semicolon in the "fine recommendation" sentence. I use semicolons a lot. However, I stand by my usage of a comma in this instance - the two clauses were supposed to flow together a bit. I suppose an "as" after the comma wouldn't have hurt though. Not an "and" - that'd change the meaning entirely. |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| Yes, they flow, but how would a semicolon have obstructed that flow? I understand that the writing style used here isn't meant to be formal - quite the opposite in fact - and that the usage of a comma indicated chattiness and informality, but that doesn't change the fact that it's grammatically incorrect. Semicolons are our friends. I love them dearly. Also, how would an 'and' have changed the meaning of the sentence? As far as I know, you meant that its was a fine recommendation and that you enjoyed it; the word 'and' changes nothing but a red mark from a nitpicking English teacher. It makes the sentence a little stiff, true, which is why I'd employ my beloved semicolon, but it's still correct. |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| (Responding to what you actually said first,) the English language - formal English to be used in an essay, business letter, or other published work - demands the use of the extra comma. Journalistic style steadfastly omits it. There is a movement to make it optional in formal English, but journalism sticks to its rules like Krazy glue once they've decided on them, and any self-respectin copy editor would strike right through that extra comma and snort indignantly. I know - I've seen them at it. I've done it myself. It's immensely entertaining, though it does gain one some odd looks from passers-by. |
| RavenBlack |
| The 'and' would make the two parts of the sentence non-causative. It wasn't a good recommendation *and* I enjoyed it, it was a good recommendation *because* I enjoyed it. The quality of a recommendation is dependent upon the reaction of the recommendee. |
| RavenBlack |
| After some discussion, a dash is what I should have used. That would retain my intended feel while not being a run-on sentence. |
| Holly |
| On the subject of the comma-and, formal English to be used in a "published work" does very much not necessarily demand the use of the extra comma. Indeed, the only thing I've ever had properly published - a short story in an anthology, last year - had all of its many comma-ands removed from it, as a matter of house style, somewhat to my ranty irritation. I'd also take issue with unstated subjects and sentences begining with "but" being describable as an error in any meaningful sense of the word; they're inappropriate for some contexts, perhaps, just as "can't" rather than "cannot" might be, but even then they're not actually wrong. |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| Ravenblack: would not "and" have left causation ambiguous? 'And' can imply either simulteous action or an ensuing action, such as "I bought chocolate and ate it." However, the dash would probably have been the best choice. Holly: the New York Times adds apostrophes to plural numbers and letters (incorrect: A's, 100's; correct: As, 100s), so publishing houses are not always infallible. As for the "but," is there an actual rule that states that beginning with "but" is acceptable? If so, I've never heard of it. |
| RavenBlack |
| Yes, 'and' would have left it ambiguous, but so would saying nothing at all. I didn't want ambiguous. That's the problem with the fullstop, as well, and to a lesser degree with a semicolon. I find all this "correct/incorrect" quite annoying - apostrophes for plural letters make the communication clearer. That should be the definition of correct, with regard to language. "As" is a word, and if you saw it like that you wouldn't for a moment consider it was a plural of a letter unless the context tells you so. There's little chance of misunderstanding "A's". (Though I prefer to use 'A's to avoid people being 'correct' about it.) |
| Holly |
| You don't need a rule saying something is allowed - if it's not, you need a rule saying it *isn't*. I dare say there are some usage guides published in the last sixty years that disallow it as an actual mistake, but they're none of the ones I've encountered. "Wrong" in regard to language use is always a bit tricky - it's a matter of consensus, not hard rules - but while there are no doubt some grammarians who object to "100's" and the uncomma-ed "and", it remains the case that *neither is widely considered a mistake, even by the sort of people who care about these things*. They're stylistic choices - as long as you're consistent, it doesn't matter which you go with. Many usage guides may *recommend* the Oxford comma - particularly, I would note, those written by Americans - but even they only rarely claim that it's a mistake to go the other way. |
| Kanada Ten |
| I wonder if star notation will become an accepted syntax. Will replace italics, or simply become an additional grammatical emotion indicating conditional emphasis or some such? Gramtastically delicious. |
| RavenBlack |
| It's pretty much italics for situations where italics aren't an option. There's also _underlines_. Some people prefer to think of /italics/ and *bold*, but /italics/ doesn't really look like an emphasis to me. |
| AttackOfTheSpam |
| I wonder why it is that an Oxford comma would be more widely used in American dictionaries? Oxford is in England, is it not? Hmmm... well, no one ever said the world was a simple place. Scratch that; I think someone did. I think it was a philosopher, so I shall ignore them and let my friends Nathan and Andrew the Philosophy Fetishists deal with it. As for emphasis, I was never terribly creative; stars always implied action to me, mostly because my first few years on the Internet were mostly wasted in chatrooms. Underlines and backslashes annoy me; they clutter up the page. If I didn't have the option for italicization, I'd just put something in caps, irritating as that is to look at. It's a little less irritating than anything else, I find. |