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Holmes
Dictator in Absentia
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 Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 11:10 pm |  |
| edgeworth wrote: |
| grandpa wrote: |
| edgeworth wrote: |
I get the idea of suspension of disbelief, but golden bullets... You know, in a fantasy game, sure, but this is hard sci-fi and while I understand why it is the way it is, it's not the thing I would ever mention advertising the game. |
This is not hard sci-fi or anything near hard sci-fi. Saying so is wishful thinking rather than actual truth. |
What exactly is there in game that you would describe as blatantly contradicting laws of physics (simplified crafting recipes aside)? |
Uh, we live in a magical earth-gravity pocket of air on the moon.
And I'm not really getting how gold bullets are defying the laws of physics to the point of making this a fantasy game, if the above isn't.
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wilde
Administrator
Over Emote-tional
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 3:26 am | |
Again, the main reason for having a substance that we don't use for anything else, is for game balance.
If it helps, don't think of it as real gold. It's just...a label people use for the colour because hardly anybody is educated and nobody remembers what the hell real gold is.
Or something.
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:33 am | |
| Holmes wrote: |
Uh, we live in a magical earth-gravity pocket of air on the moon.
And I'm not really getting how gold bullets are defying the laws of physics to the point of making this a fantasy game, if the above isn't. |
That's hardly far away from hard sci-fi. Gravity generators and blabla atmosphere biodomes are probably as common as laser pistols at this point.
I'm not saying it does defy anything. One would wonder why anyone would use something so rare and much more useful for many other things, e.g. again electronics, as a projectile. This is literary using your hard earned cash to light the fireplace. Quite honestly, I don't think it would stand out as much if you just renamed it to lead or lunatium and reserved gold for jewellery and crafts where it doesn't stand out quite as much as a "BALANCE HERE STAND ASIDE!". After all, a shortage of lead is just as believable.
I'm really not trying to be overly critical or a pain in the ass, but "we a sci-fi ghetto world where people use gold for bullets" is really somewhat immersion breaking.
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HAL
Administrator
Senior RPA
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:52 am | |
*has always wanted us to make bullets lead, and just say lead is rare*
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wilde
Administrator
Over Emote-tional
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:57 am | |
Gold is only really valuable today because people have made it so. It's not like gold is magically worth more than anything else.
With the invention of the alloys used in game, gold has probably become basically worthless. It's probably long out of fashion, no longer considered a sign of wealth or status, it's just another metal.
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 10:09 am | |
| wilde wrote: |
| Gold is only really valuable today because people have made it so. It's not like gold is magically worth more than anything else. |
This isn't entirely true. Gold has a number of properties that make it rather unique, one of the most important ones being that it just doesn't react very well and thus doesn't corrode. Golden jewellery isn't popular just because it's a metal that is relatively rare and expensive, it also doesn't "rust" like copper jewellery would. You can find pieces of golden jewellery from the antiquity still looking like they did back in the day, whereas swords and cutlery from the period largely look like something from a scrapyard. As such it's very useful as a conductor in sensitive equipment, e.g. various high-end audio devices. In a sci-fi setting, I can imagine that quite a few bits of lab equipment would use it in one way or another.
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grandpa
Registered
Entrenched Oldbie
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:58 am | |
One: Lasers=/=hard sci-fi. Nor do gravity generators. Ubiquitous does not change the fact that it's not hard science, any more than mermaids are hard science because they show up in stories a lot.
Two: Gold bullets were picked because, supposedly, there's almost no lead on the moon and a lot of gold. Supposedly?
Three: Gold having usage in tech isn't exactly anything new, but just because it's useful in tech doesn't mean we're often melting down our jewelry right now. I don't see Rusters doing it either, especially given how tech's a rarity and guns aren't.
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| It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools. | |
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 1:09 pm | |
grandpa, unless you're referring to something different entirely, hard science fiction just means that you don't have things that are blatantly unscientific. Star Wars is soft science fiction, because it has lightsabers, which are beams of light that somehow bounce off each other, and the Force. Dan Simmon's Hyperion Cantos is soft science fiction, because it claims that "love" is one of the basic physical forces like electromagnetism. Lasers obviously do not defy the laws of science. As far as I'm aware, we're still a little unclear on what gravity actually is, so I'll just leave gravity generators open to debate. ParallelRPI is very much on the hard side of the spectrum.
If gold is just present in greater quantities than lead on this version of the Moon that's a good enough justification for using it. I really suggest we make that a little clearer and make sure that people actually know about it, because this is something that will almost certainly puzzle every new player to come. Maybe put it on the history page.
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Holmes
Dictator in Absentia
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 1:59 pm | |
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Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 2:26 pm | |
No, I'm not, Holmes. From the article you've posted:
>Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both.
I think we're digressing at this point though.
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