Comments on: Pierce Entertainment LTD: Alphaville’s Media/Entertainment Conglomerate http://alphavilleherald.com/2004/04/pierce_entertai.html Always Fairly Unbalanced Tue, 04 Oct 2016 13:18:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Mr-President http://alphavilleherald.com/2004/04/pierce_entertai.html/comment-page-1#comment-51985 Mr-President Tue, 20 Apr 2004 23:57:30 +0000 http://localhost/wp_2/?p=2899#comment-51985 The Entertainment category lots definitely need that slower decay of green. The PEN (Pierce Entertainment Network) show has started off very nice! Make sure you watch it.. it's not a very big download. Derek Smith's Alphaville Awards is also something everyone should go see at least once. (AVG donated simoleans to Derek so AVA could have it's first show) Other news: Oprah's show with Eliza and David was cancelled. (David didn't show up) Also, Jecht, the 'Bachelor' dumped the winner of the contest the very next night (Relina), saying "I only did it for the publicity." The Entertainment category lots definitely need that slower decay of green.

The PEN (Pierce Entertainment Network) show has started off very nice! Make sure you watch it.. it’s not a very big download.

Derek Smith’s Alphaville Awards is also something everyone should go see at least once. (AVG donated simoleans to Derek so AVA could have it’s first show)

Other news:

Oprah’s show with Eliza and David was cancelled. (David didn’t show up)

Also, Jecht, the ‘Bachelor’ dumped the winner of the contest the very next night (Relina), saying “I only did it for the publicity.”

]]> By: Dyerbrook http://alphavilleherald.com/2004/04/pierce_entertai.html/comment-page-1#comment-51984 Dyerbrook Tue, 20 Apr 2004 23:37:09 +0000 http://localhost/wp_2/?p=2899#comment-51984 It's funny that Eliza isn't thinking of the audience's greening...but then Maxis didn't think much of it either. There was some talk about how entertainment lots would have much less deterioration of the motives, but it is hardly noticeable. If the game had really noticeable variety in greening, so that entertainment or love lots were completely greening, that is you would STAY GREEN on them, then people would circulate more to them. They could at least slow down the redding. That way you could sit through an hour long show. I think David has probably pushed this medium/genre to its absolute limits, but here's what I've found are real obstacles (for awhile we had the Flamingo Court Players putting on something called Living Soap Operas). Using the Internet radio or links or voice capacity is OK for people with good connections, but not for everybody and I find it distracting, it ruins the sealed world of the imagination that I think should be kept intact better in TSO. The Sims, even when green, keep jigging their legs and moving around all the time when at rest in their chairs. Maybe this is supposed to be a real simulation of human jittering, but it is incredibly distracting, especially with a whole audience of Sims all doing this repetitive motions. The balloons blink and distract everyone -- you can't have 4 much less 10 people speaking lines in a balloon because the glare of the blinking hurts peoples' eyes. That's probably why David went to voice links. People in the audience don't stay riveted. They can't hear the voice, perhaps, or it can't transfix them for all kinds of reasons, mainly that they have IMs coming in all the time, or they itch to IM others or check whether people are online or other distracting TSO actions. They also sometimes can't resist talking out loud to each other and then that "ruins" the play. We developed "Living Soap Opera" as a kind of rolling, non-structured moving gag that went from lot to lot with people staying in their role-play characters to overcome some of these greening/leg jiggling/balloon blinking problems. We actually wanted people to interact. But sometimes it was hard for them to jump in the story. I think one of the reasons the talk shows and game shows work better than static plays in TSO is because they allow for more interactivity which the game can't keep out. I find the lack of real music a problem too. If the audience could hear the mp3s I have on my hard drive put into TSo, what a difference! Trying to play the set TSO pieces on the piano of course have only limited application. Maxis bragged that people could do talk shows and plays and featured them in all the ads in the beta period, but they never did anything to make it easier. Making entertainment lots truly high-level green lots with very slow decay of motives would have been a fairly easy thing to tweak no? It’s funny that Eliza isn’t thinking of the audience’s greening…but then Maxis didn’t think much of it either. There was some talk about how entertainment lots would have much less deterioration of the motives, but it is hardly noticeable. If the game had really noticeable variety in greening, so that entertainment or love lots were completely greening, that is you would STAY GREEN on them, then people would circulate more to them. They could at least slow down the redding. That way you could sit through an hour long show.

I think David has probably pushed this medium/genre to its absolute limits, but here’s what I’ve found are real obstacles (for awhile we had the Flamingo Court Players putting on something called Living Soap Operas).

Using the Internet radio or links or voice capacity is OK for people with good connections, but not for everybody and I find it distracting, it ruins the sealed world of the imagination that I think should be kept intact better in TSO.

The Sims, even when green, keep jigging their legs and moving around all the time when at rest in their chairs. Maybe this is supposed to be a real simulation of human jittering, but it is incredibly distracting, especially with a whole audience of Sims all doing this repetitive motions.

The balloons blink and distract everyone — you can’t have 4 much less 10 people speaking lines in a balloon because the glare of the blinking hurts peoples’ eyes. That’s probably why David went to voice links.

People in the audience don’t stay riveted. They can’t hear the voice, perhaps, or it can’t transfix them for all kinds of reasons, mainly that they have IMs coming in all the time, or they itch to IM others or check whether people are online or other distracting TSO actions. They also sometimes can’t resist talking out loud to each other and then that “ruins” the play.

We developed “Living Soap Opera” as a kind of rolling, non-structured moving gag that went from lot to lot with people staying in their role-play characters to overcome some of these greening/leg jiggling/balloon blinking problems. We actually wanted people to interact. But sometimes it was hard for them to jump in the story. I think one of the reasons the talk shows and game shows work better than static plays in TSO is because they allow for more interactivity which the game can’t keep out.

I find the lack of real music a problem too. If the audience could hear the mp3s I have on my hard drive put into TSo, what a difference! Trying to play the set TSO pieces on the piano of course have only limited application.

Maxis bragged that people could do talk shows and plays and featured them in all the ads in the beta period, but they never did anything to make it easier. Making entertainment lots truly high-level green lots with very slow decay of motives would have been a fairly easy thing to tweak no?

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