f13.net

Steampunk could be a quirky and interesting genre for MMOs to explore. Gatheryn is doing down this path in a F2P / Wizard101 kind of way.

Some info from Massively. (http://www.massively.com/2009/03/25/gdc09-gather-round-for-gatheryn/) Originally they planned to launch this year, but I don't know how that stands right now.

EDIT: because I can't close tags.

See, sentences and phrases like this are why I can't read massively.

Also, complete and total meh.

(http://www.blogcdn.com/www.massively.com/media/2009/03/gatherynshop225.jpg)

Indie MMOGs, always winners.

But everyone gets a top hat!

We could be fancy, Schild. Fancy! :drillf:

I'll just leave this here... http://www.remnantsofskystone.com/blog/

This is only going to lead me to reinstall Arcanum.

Beta sign-up. (http://www.mindfusegames.com/index.php?option=com_user&task=register)

The world of Gatheryn awaits. :oh_i_see:

(http://www.mindfusegames.com/images/stories/story_1.jpg)

Looks like a poor man's Renoir Online.

Ummm... where's the Steampunk?

From a post on massively:

Also their website is remarkably uninformative. There's no mention of the game mechanics such as whether there are classes or whatever. They just mention there's gonna be crafting mini-games.

See, the less steampunk there is the more I'm interested. Because steampunk is fucking stupid.

Shut up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eidolon

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Eidolon_screenshot.png)

or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_Dreams

(http://www.abandonia.com/files/games/381/Ultima%20-%20Worlds%20of%20Adventure%202%20-%20Martian%20Dreams_3.png)

I'm with Falconeer on this one. Steampunk is awesome.

I would encourage everyone to go and look at the screenshots.

Free Realms is the kind of title that will bury Gatheryn (unless the steampunk audience is larger and more dedicated that I believe).

The robots look pretty kick-ass. I'm signing up.

I've never been much into steampunk but a similar style that I love is that of Leiji Matsumoto. I always loved how retro his sci-fi stuff looked. All dials and levers and push buttons. I'd love to see an MMO set in the Yamato/Harlock/G.E.999 universe.

I wanted that game badly in high school. Never did find a copy.

Let's do it, Stormwaltz. Gotta love the Internet and being adults with wages.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ultima-Worlds-of-Adventure-2-Martian-Dreams-Complete-PC_W0QQitemZ200327874776QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Vintage_Video_Games?hash=item2ea478c8d8&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72:1205|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50#ht_4268wt_1166

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ultima-Worlds-of-Adventure-2-Martians-Dreams-PC-Game_W0QQitemZ220407558754QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVideo_Games_Games?hash=item3351507262&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72:1205|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50#ht_500wt_924

What the fuck do pipes and gears have to do with punks?

It's an art style.  I get it.  It's also not that interesting.

I take that back.

The pipes and gears are interesting.  But the punks are not.

Steampunk, the term, was a spinoff of cyberpunk.

Punks who cyber?

Still stupid.

In a perfect world, this happens:

(http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/963220/0607-harry-callahan.jpg)

So you have a mouth fingers. Interesting.

 :uhrr:
 :oh_i_see:
 :awesome_for_real:

The fuck it was. It's the latest expression of bored, white, middle class ennui and pining for a time when stuff "meant something man". It has absolutely nothing to do with the mostly overrated but based in real fears of corporate abuse that is cyberpunk. Instead, itt's throwing a bunch of fat goth chicks into frills and top hats while simultaneously finding a way to make them more boring which, as a former DJ in that scene, I can attest should not be fucking possible because they're the most boring people imaginable.

If you like steampunk you are a bad person and should probably kill yourself because you really don't have much to look forward to.

See this?
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4OYGjUrdllo/SaA0DSU0sdI/AAAAAAAARIs/AcgU8EdAXLc/s400/Steampunk_Abe_Lincoln_2008.jpg)

If you call that cool you are broken.

The term got attention due to this novel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Difference_Engine). At the time, William Gibson's Neuromancer was the biggest thing in sci-fi for decades and Bruce Sterling was another cyberpunk writer. The public had never heard of the internet. But for cyberpunk readers like me who picked up The Difference Engine, there was a promising new genre in it. Today it's overdone by Boing Boing etc, so it's just annoying. But it was cool in 1991.

Is that Abraham Lincoln with some kind of jetpack / possibly Steam Power Arms for the Punching of Faces?

If you don't think that's cool, I'm 1,500% sure you just have bad taste. Really bad taste.

Also, Modern Angel has no fucking clue what steampunk is itt.

I'm sure a sprocket touched him in a bad place once upon a time.

Abe Lincon + jetpack = automatic win.

Modern Angel has been exposed to Steampunk Goths, who are hilariously stupid-looking (always been more of a darkwave person myself).

It is easy to find funny examples of all goth sub-cultures, of course, but - without sinking to the lol-fatty pictures - cyberpunk looks more fancy-dress party than most:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/hottopic_shockhound_production/images/366995/Steampunk.jpg

http://www.impactlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/steampunk-20.jpg

http://fc06.deviantart.com/fs37/f/2008/268/9/6/steam_punk_or_dandy_goth_by_Wilhelmvs.jpg


This is fun, though: http://idleparis.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/datamancer-pc.jpg

I call it awesome.


I think that is the jolliest goth I have ever seen.

I maintain: you are all hideously broken people who will die alone, unloved, shrieking about etherships as you're cast into the pits of Hell.

I'm afraid you've made your intent a bit too obvious with your last post.

That was over the top. But steampunk is still really stupid. Gay 90s nostalgia was more fun in the 70s.

(http://s3.amazonaws.com/hottopic_shockhound_production/images/366995/Steampunk.jpg)

I mean look at that. LOOK AT IT!

:oh_i_see:

Also, the usual "name a culture. Any culture. There'll be retarded examples of it." diatrite.


Wut

I'm saying that somehow, someway, inexplicable nostalgia for the 1890s was cooler when Lawrence Welk was trotting out white people to sing in full hoop skirt regalia than it is when neckbeardy nerds are making shit out of vintage stereos so they can get back in touch with something real.

I'll forfeit the opportunity to waterboard this thread with shit by asking you to define "real".

That nasty german Alois is preventing you from remembering that most people here didn't have functional brains back then. Heck, I wasn't even a sperm in my father's scrotum during that decade. Hence, your rose-tinted glasses are stopping you from observing that the shit in the 70's smelled just as bad, if not worse, than the shit in the present era, and what was once old is new again, and again, and again.

Seriously, Lawrence Welk? Etherships? It's a miracle that you can still type through the arthritis. You're the old man telling the kids to get off your fucking lawn. They won't. They'll break your gnomes and kill your cat. And then they'll cry while cutting themselves. And then some gook will try to steal your gran torino.

Hey, sped. This may blow your mind but I'm illustrating that Lawrence Welk's hideous version of the 19th century was better than your idea of goggles and PVC pipes in funny patterns. And you referenced Gran Torino? Seriously? But please wax poetic about how Steampunk is a reaction to homogenization of our culture due to iPods and God life is just so drab pip pip so I can forego the sleeping pill tonight.

Forsooth. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poGJSFLmrnc)

I'm sorry. Those doctor's aren't wearing fruity hats and goggles. The equipment used in the surgery isn't powered by coal and there's a distinct lack of pipes and gears. I find that terribly oppressive and yearn for the days when men were men and I could be painfully white without seeing the coloreds.

Man, I'd give you a hug if I could.
(http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs30/f/2008/099/3/b/Bear_Hug_by_CommodoreElfman.jpg)

I like hugs.

Actually, now I look closer at the picture I linked and MA hot-linked, I like the guy behind green-hair-bloke who has come as an omnibus ticket inspector.

Come on guys, Modern Angel does have a point, even if it's a point that applies to just about any alternative scene that's ever existed. I'm a fan of Steampunk for the simple reason that I like the look of cobbled together, functional gadgets as well as brass, copper, and well finished wood. Really well done costumes like Steamfisted Time-Lincoln are also interesting. But a solid majority of the people in the scene are just running around in poorly crafted, poorly fitting shit doing a bad job of talking like Shelock Holmes while wearing goggles for no reason and holding a cane. Teal haired vampiric gogglicle guy is enough to fag up a whole subculture by himself.

There are things I like. But I can't remember a single "scene" I like.

Scenes are people, and the more they are the uglier and stupider they get.

So no, Modern Angel doesn't have a point. Steampunk is a cool kind of fantasy (YMMV). Stupid people taint anything.

This is just empirically false.

Coming from the nerd point of view Steampunk was cool just because it's possible to create logic circuits using steam and tubes and valves.  You don't need electricity to make a computer.

Theoretically, a processor like the Intel 8080 only uses ~4500ish gates and would have been reasonably buildable in Elizabethan England.  If you consider that this would have been at a time when electricity generation was a dull parlor trick at best and that steam really is capable of replacing most of what we use electricity and gas for and it becomes fun to speculate on how things 'might' have been.

That weird people glommed onto some nebulous fashion ideal branched off of that idea and then forgot about where the roots of the concept came from and eventually mutated even that little kernel into some angsty goth ridden drama scene is pretty typical though.

Ding ding ding. THAT is interesting. Coming up with some throwback melange horseshit fantasy/art hybrid based on the idea that the world is so dreary with its faceless technology when Oliver fucking Twist would like to switch places with your country club bored ass is the opposite. Except that I'd argue the entire point was to do the latter rather than have scientific discussions of when the first computer could have been built. It was doomed from the start.

That's really more to do with fashion scenes and cosplay than anything to do with steampunk. People look absurd dressed up as characters from anime shows or fantasy novels too.

Michael Moorcock's Oswald Bastable trilogy (and much of the Jerry Cornelius sequence) is steampunk, Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentleman and Bryan Talbot's Luther Arkwright are steampunk, GDW's Space 1889 was steampunk, etc.

(http://www.designtavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/steampunk-guitar-11.jpg) (http://www.wired.com/images/slideshow/2007/06/gallery_steampunk/steampunkLaptop2.jpg)

I always enjoy steampunk, due to it somewhat going back to when complicated things were made by craftsmen, rather than mass production.

I enjoy a little Steampunk in a videogame or a movie, but you wouldn't catch me dead running around outside in that crap.

Sticking some copper piping on a mass-produced laptop doesn't mean you hand crafted shit.

Jules Verne stuff was steampunk-y and I find it rather fun.  Some people here seem to equate it all with a bunch of people who use it for fashion and run around playing dress-up.  I find that opinion odd.  Also, odd is how Steampunk seems to affect Modern Angel. 

Also, why does Itto have a new name?  That's weird, too.  Can I get a new name? 

Yeah, that. Powerfist Steam Lincoln is made of win.

I agree. Thats like saying LARPers are horrible hence all fantasy sucks.

*edit for typos*

Pretty much all fantasy DOES suck though. Genre fiction is almost universally terrible.

And I just haven't had a big stupid argument over something trivial in a long time, is all.

That is a man who is very at home with himself, right there.

Fashion != Fantasy genre

They might use it as inspiration, but yeah, people dressing up in badly made costumes look stupid.  Con goers have known this for decades (being mindful I've done cosplay).  News at 11.

He's a lawyer so he can draft the documents himself.  It'll cost you about $150 including court costs, depending on state of course.

(http://images.mmorpg.com//images/galleries/formatted/122009/dc640453-804e-4b11-ae46-7c5e13c940a0.jpg)

Well done costumes on the other hand...

Trying to posit your opinion as fact and getting called on it isn't an argument.

Yes it is.

I said that it's empirically bad. That means it's not my opinion but, indeed, fact. Also, you're two days late.

I am calling you out on this.

He didn't say it was a GOOD argument. Rather that it was one. Also, I think Modern Angel knows he's being incomparably stupid in this thread. If he didn't until this post, he most certainly does now.

What do you mean "I think"? He stated as much. This whole fight is a tribute to retarded slapfights.

It can be a big stupid argument AND people who think steampunk is awesome should be rounded up and shot. They're not mutually exclusive.

Was there a game mentioned in this thread somewhere?

I thought it was a clever reference to the Ministry of Arguments sketch in the Monty Python series:

good lord:

(http://fc07.deviantart.com/fs44/f/2009/066/8/9/DSGN_102__STFU_by_Rynnay.jpg)


 :why_so_serious:

am I the only one who keeps forgetting what this thread is about and keeps coming back in out of curiosity.  Rename title to crappy Victorian era mmog (I refuse to call it steam punk when I have yet to see any steam or any punk).

I'm getting too much enjoyment out of Modern Angel popping capilliaries everytime someone says "steampunk" to do that. I keep waiting for him to show us on the dolly where the steampunk girls didn't touch him.  :why_so_serious:

I think I know this one!

Wait wait... was it my penis? You were going to say penis, weren't you?

STEAMPUNK! STEAMPUNK! STEAMPUNK!  :drill:  :drill:  :drill:

Just for reference, here's a list of other things that are popular with nerds that are manifestly terrible: Star Wars, anything by Joss Whedon, D&D 4e, quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Rocky Horror Picture Show, anime.


Things I like: Mystery Science Theater 3000, Venture Bros, long walks on the beach, YOU!  :pedobear:

Only the holy grail? Life of Brian and The Meaning of life are fine?

Smelly nerds don't quote those movies constantly, thinking it's the height of hilarity. NI? NI? HAHAHAHAHA! SAY IT FIVE MORE TIMES! SAY IT! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Hey, stop trolling.

You're bad at it.

Cool? Cool.

He's right about anime, though.  Grown-ups should get beyond cartoons.

I'll agree that anime is terrible.

The writing and subject matter just needs to catch up to its beautiful art style.

See, I'm not so sure I'm bad at this, schild...

Your face is smelly.

Venture Borthers isn't a cartoon?

This I will agree on. It's like a PnP DIKU.

Oh, you're good.

Texhnolyze, Serial Experiment Lain, Bokurano, Saikano just to name a few plainly say you are wrong. You know what? I'll throw in Hachimitsu to Clover and EF a tale of Memories too. Mentioning Miyazaki or Takahata, or even Anno, would be overkill, so let's not.

You can name names and I can still say it's all dumb.

OK.

So, animes are dumb and MMORPGs are grown-ups stuff? 

Booyah, got one.

It's so easy, too.

 :why_so_serious:

Open beta.

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2661/3861315121_415e8f7530_o.jpg)

That doesn't look half bad.

Greet your friends by typing /wave, or have a tense staring contest with enemies.

Oh, hey, going back to May here... my wife was showing me something in two magazines: Jewelry Artist and Art Jewelry, to which I replied "People's Front of Judea?"

Splinter.

I loved Arcanum.  This looks atrocious. 

I'm sure I'll check it out at some point.

Subcultures making fun of other subcultures, always good times.

Too many really great stuff has been brought up in this thread, Difference Engine being the best and Powerfist time traveler Lincoln being another for anyone to say that Steampunk just outright sucks. Nerds dressing up is usually pretty  :ye_gods: but I've never understood the SA/4ch hate except that they all wish they had the balls to put themselves out there like that.

I wasn't reading this thread back when MA and Draegan were making asses of themselves. Too bad. Now that I realize how long ago that was I'll stop here.

This game looks pretty awful, was it 2d before (that blog linked on page 1) and now its 3d?  What is the story here.

I agree but I suppose that's off topic.

I toyed with it for a couple of hours. I didn't meet a single human in two hours. A single one. Ann offline game would have felt less lonely. The city is bland and repetitive. There are minigames scattered around and some of them are nice. I struggled to get somewhere outside the city and see if there's any kind of combat implemented but kept bouncing against the town wall and closed gates so I got bored and quit. There's potential for some coolness, but it all feels too 2003 and too alpha.

There are some people around now. The game is utter crap.

+ customisable potbellies
- everything else

I had a pretty sweet bald, pot-bellied character in SWG, but that shit is superlative.

I like the use of the reverse-myspace camera angle to accentuate his shape, too.

That's almost Anarchy-Online good.  Meaning: I had a pot bellied bald man wearing panties and fishnet stockings.

Are you a SteamPirate?

I wish I still had the pic of my favorite SWG character, Weezie Jefferson. A fat elderly black lady with awful makeup and a blond afro that ran around in grannie panties and red high heels, toting a knife just in case she had to 'cut some sucka'. Good times at the cantina.