In-House Preview Online: Part 3

[Darkrenown]

Originally posted by MacTBone
Anyways, the writing is the kind reserved for academics.

It does seem like it's trying to be like that only it's being written by someone who doesn't know how to do it.

[Jack Frost]

"Well.....academics usualy write extremely well, even if their writing tends to be dry. So I have a hard time comparing it to academic writing."

This couldn't be further from the truth. Academic writing is some of the worst writing ever birthed by human beings. Its amazing how some people have the ability to drain all that is interesting, wonderful and exciting out of a topic and turn it into mindless drivel.

Most academic writing is designed to prove that they have done their homework to their peers instead of to convey or communicate an idea to other real people.

[player1]

The biggest problem with preview is that I like is very much and there is whole lot of trollers here which are complaining about "form", "spelling" or "gramatic errors".

And I really like to know how does game look like (and yes, Dan had shown us how game looks like).

And if you want something else or shorter there are many other previews which could help you. But they are all looking the same telling the same things.

Dan's preview is unique and not same as all other previews about MOO3.

It's interesting to read.

[Main_Brain]

Mhh jack Frost seems so bitter
A Cynic would say Troll-wandering
J/K

Can anyone explain the Second Research Numbers to me?
I mean the with the one with the Brackets?

[Gamble]

So I tried to be calm and reasonable the first two times. But after your latest excess I feel like expressing my feelings in the following way...

"Dan, stop. Stop, will you. Stop, Dan. Will you stop, Dan. Stop, Dan. I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dan."
"Dan, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it."
"I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a..fraid."

[Jack Frost]

I am no troll.

For some reason that I personally really can't grasp, these previews actively make me mad. I made an Apolyton account to attempt to fix them via shame.

It hasn't worked.

The best I can currently hope for is to convince him to have someone else edit it for him.

[viciouscycle]

Writing styles are like pieces of string: every yo-yo has one (including yours truly). Personally I like the writing style though I think more time should have been spent on proofreading.

I however do not like the content of the preview. I find descriptions of menus and their functions to be very boring and unecessary. It is my opinion (humble or no) that the preview should have focused on the game-play, any bugs encountered, cool discoveries, horrors of war, that sort of thing.

Hopefully the next three installments will be more interesting.

[grinningman]

Originally posted by Jack Frost
"Well.....academics usualy write extremely well, even if their writing tends to be dry. So I have a hard time comparing it to academic writing."

This couldn't be further from the truth. Academic writing is some of the worst writing ever birthed by human beings. Its amazing how some people have the ability to drain all that is interesting, wonderful and exciting out of a topic and turn it into mindless drivel.

Most academic writing is designed to prove that they have done their homework to their peers instead of to convey or communicate an idea to other real people.

I agree. Not enough academic writing is clear and concise. I'm a PhD student and I find that reading academic journal papers is a good sleeping pill substitute.

Back to Dan's preview. Putting aside the question of content, I think the purpose of a preview should be to convey information about the game to the reader in a clear and concise manner. None of the three parts of the preview so far have done this. They are not too long - far from it. The problem is each part takes 6 pages to say what could have been said in only 2 or 3 pages. Points that could be made with one simple sentence are in some cases extended into difficult-to-understand paragraphs. This does not make the review more "in depth". It makes it unpleasant to read.

It is frustrating to me that someone who obviously has the ability to write well seems to choose not to.

All this is just my opinion, of course. Feel free to act on or ignore it.

Grinning man

[jbeck]

Originally posted by Zero_Washu
That basically sums it up, he isn't to the point. He drones on and on about something that the screenshots describe quicker.

Its almost as if he is trying to make some artificial word count, or worse yet, ad count.


As for the tone expressed here compared to IGMOO, that was easy to figure out.

Little Washu, your a genius!!

I think your right on. He's trying to make each of his reviews 6 pages long, so we get bombarded with 6 extra pop-up adds.

[leiavoia]

Dan, unfortunately i'll have to side with many of the others, but i'll try not to be quite so negative:

1) Don't explain the screenshots. They explain themselves.

2) Don't worry about the mechanics. We don't care about that. Stick with how it *feels* and how it *plays*.

3) Don't say with 10 words what you could have said with 5. Short sentences don't make anyone look stupid if they are worded correctly.

[billybaruch1]

"The icon that looks like a wheat stock with, in my example, the numerical combination '37/19', is an ongoing tracker of my race's food stores. These values, accurate during my thirty-second turn, show a healthy balance between food production and food demands respectively. It is the output of primarily bioharvest Dominant Economic Activities (DEA). Should I let the latter number rise too high, unrest and a deceleration of growth will result. At 50% population growth will reach stagnation, and below this mark starvation and if prolonged famine will set in. Quicksilver has placed this indicator first in the icon bar and justifiably so: an undernourished population is not a productive one."

If 19 gets higher... but 19 is already over 50% of 37! Below 50% is starvation, okay, what is above 50%? Growth (or maybe an anti-deceleration of growth), I guess.

I doubt the game is this complicated.

[Stubbs]

The worst part about this is that, rather than realizing that is writing is absolute drivel and taking steps to remedy this, Daniel Quick will most likely keep spouting the same godawful prose. Part of being a successful writer is learning to accomodate criticism.

You'd think that someone pursuing a BA would have learned to write more effectively. I certainly hope he doesn't get high marks on his papers with this stuff.

[Jack Frost]

....double major Honours B.A.

[niteshade6]

Originally posted by Jack Frost
"Well.....academics usualy write extremely well, even if their writing tends to be dry. So I have a hard time comparing it to academic writing."

This couldn't be further from the truth. Academic writing is some of the worst writing ever birthed by human beings. Its amazing how some people have the ability to drain all that is interesting, wonderful and exciting out of a topic and turn it into mindless drivel.

Most academic writing is designed to prove that they have done their homework to their peers instead of to convey or communicate an idea to other real people.

Ok, fair enough I should not have said that most academics write well. What I meant to say is that most academics use excellent spelling and grammar. And I do believe they still write far better then Dan does (not that this is saying much of course).

[MarkG]

Ahh, but they are also desperate for content. . .

then the smart thing to do would be to gratefull towards whoever gave them even a small amount of new info instead of nitpicking