Zero Punctuation: Jurassic World Evolution

RJ Dalton

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*Starts talking about how bad anti-intellectualism is, immediately goes into anti-intellecutalist rant about scientists ruining dinosaurs*
That's part of the joke, right?
 

Jacked Assassin

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RJ Dalton said:
*Starts talking about how bad anti-intellectualism is, immediately goes into anti-intellecutalist rant about scientists ruining dinosaurs*
That's part of the joke, right?
It has to be because there is no way it would be funny if it was favoring Trump or Hillary.

On the other hand science deals with reality & reality is boring.
 

Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)

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Cretaceous
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USA
Gender
Dinosaur
*puts on dinosaur nerd glasses*

That T. rex was a scavenger thing is completely false. It was a theory one scientist was pushing around that everyone else in the scientific community disagreed with.
 

Onliuge

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Happy 4th Yahtz, Can't wait for Mount and Blade: Bannerlord 2 to stop teasing me for 9 years and actually come out.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Wasn't there a dino park add-on for Roller Coaster Tycoon 3? So this is basically that except without the charm of Roller Coaster Tycoon...
 

thenewguy512739

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I actually do hate it when smart people apply logic to fantastical settings, not because they ruin the suspension of disbelief, but because their points can be so obvious, it's kinda patronising. I think we can all agree that the appropriate response to someone saying that you can't use galaxies as ninja stars in Gurren Lagann is "No shit."
 

ToastyMozart

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How have park management sims somehow regressed in terms of crowd AI? Rollercoaster Tycoon managed to have hundreds of individual guests all with pathing from the entrance, a variety of preferences, and stats for hunger, thirst, pocket money, willingness to spend it, and nausea way back in 1999. And that game could probably be run on the control hardware of a particularly high-end toaster oven, so it can't possibly be a tech limitation. (Yeah they had to write half the code in assembly, but modern CPUs are more than capable of handling it with higher-level languages. Even the Jaguar chips.)

RJ Dalton said:
*Starts talking about how bad anti-intellectualism is, immediately goes into anti-intellecutalist rant about scientists ruining dinosaurs*
That's part of the joke, right?
I'm fairly sure that was the joke in its entirety, yes.
 

Darth_Payn

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Oh, so now it's a bad thing when the dinosaurs fight? How is that not a crowd pleaser? I've had that idea since seeing Jurassic World.
Working title: Jurassic Arena.

But yeah, I agree, making darts' effects dependent on the vehicle the guy shooting them makes no sense.

Jacked Assassin said:
RJ Dalton said:
*Starts talking about how bad anti-intellectualism is, immediately goes into anti-intellecutalist rant about scientists ruining dinosaurs*
That's part of the joke, right?
It has to be because there is no way it would be funny if it was favoring Trump or Hillary.

On the other hand science deals with reality & reality is boring.
Reality is boring and depressing. Most of the posts made by PopSci on Facebook are full of doom 'n' gloom; I read the title, say "that sucks", then keep on scrolling.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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thenewguy512739 said:
I actually do hate it when smart people apply logic to fantastical settings, not because they ruin the suspension of disbelief, but because their points can be so obvious, it's kinda patronising. I think we can all agree that the appropriate response to someone saying that you can't use galaxies as ninja stars in Gurren Lagann is "No shit."
To be fair there's a line when suspension of disbelief just becomes silly. Like chainswords in 40k could never actually work because the blades would just bounce off whatever you swing at instead of cutting through, but we suspend disbelief because its cool and slightly reasonable.
But Gurren Lagann just went full silly. The first half was at least reasonable, but the second half was just cartoonishly over the top its impossible to not say 'yeah that wouldn't work'
 

ToastyMozart

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Silentpony said:
thenewguy512739 said:
I actually do hate it when smart people apply logic to fantastical settings, not because they ruin the suspension of disbelief, but because their points can be so obvious, it's kinda patronising. I think we can all agree that the appropriate response to someone saying that you can't use galaxies as ninja stars in Gurren Lagann is "No shit."
To be fair there's a line when suspension of disbelief just becomes silly. Like chainswords in 40k could never actually work because the blades would just bounce off whatever you swing at instead of cutting through, but we suspend disbelief because its cool and slightly reasonable.
But Gurren Lagann just went full silly. The first half was at least reasonable, but the second half was just cartoonishly over the top its impossible to not say 'yeah that wouldn't work'
I'd argue it's kinda the opposite, for me at least. The more a work is trying to portray itself as grounded in reality or physics the more glaring inaccuracies like that become (combined with how important the details of said elements are to the plot*).

Gurren Lagann and the like take a rather proud stance on not giving a single shit what sensibility or reason says: "We don't care about time, or space or... multi-dimensional whatevers! We don't give a damn about that!" and all. There's no point or reason to saying "yeah that wouldn't work" whatsoever because that universe actively rejects common sense. If the story doesn't care, why should I?
Whereas by contrast something that tries really hard to come off as grounded but fucks up all the important details will just crumble because in that style of story said details are actually really important. For example 'Detroit: Become Human' has the audacity to start off the game boldly claiming "this is not just a story. This is our future." before promptly falling apart like a chinese motorcycle because the entirety of its premise and all of the driving influences of the drama don't hold up to the faintest degree of logical scrutiny or topically-relevant knowledge (or even manages to maintain internal consistency).



*For example, how Max's time travel powers came about in Life is Strange doesn't really matter and can be chalked up to narrative conceit without causing much trouble for the story at large. Not establishing what the hell the giant tornado and associated phenomena has to do with ANYTHING WHATSOEVER outside the characters' bold faced guess at the black box of "Save Chloe in bathroom ->[???]-> Tornado happens" makes one of the primary conflicts and the entire finale an enormous load of thoroughly arbitrary and unearned bullshit.
 

Varadar

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Darth_Payn said:
Oh, so now it's a bad thing when the dinosaurs fight? How is that not a crowd pleaser?
It actually is. There are actually even attack and defense stats. And more fights a dinosaur has won, more popular he becomes. Oh, and there is a stat telling how much humans the dinosaur has eaten. Though I don't know if it makes the dinosaur more popular or less :)
 

Alakaizer

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Silentpony said:
Wasn't there a dino park add-on for Roller Coaster Tycoon 3? So this is basically that except without the charm of Roller Coaster Tycoon...
Back around 1994 I remember a game about building a dino park for the Macintosh. I think it was just called Dino Park Tycoon.
 

Thaluikhain

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So...unless you are ridiculously stupid/evil the dinosaurs don't run amok eating people? Well...that's true to the films, I guess, but an odd choice.
 

Bindal

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Silentpony said:
Wasn't there a dino park add-on for Roller Coaster Tycoon 3? So this is basically that except without the charm of Roller Coaster Tycoon...
Not that I know of. There was a general zoo one, tho.
There was a Dinosaur Addon for Zoo Tycoon, however. For the first one and I think also for the second.

And there was, of course "Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis". Which is basically the same game as this one, just older and not as good (but still pretty good for its day). In fact, one might consider JWE a successor of some kind to JPOG.

Thaluikhain said:
So...unless you are ridiculously stupid/evil the dinosaurs don't run amok eating people? Well...that's true to the films, I guess, but an odd choice.
Only applies to Jurassic World. Jurassic Park is more "don't hire a guy that gets easily bribed into sabotaging you" because that - and ONLY that - caused things to go to shit in the first movie. The park there didn't fail because it was badly designed, it failed because of sabotage. No sabotage and things would have been fine (for the most part).

As for 2 and 3? They weren't even set in any parks anymore, they were set on Site B, which was a breeding ground where after the first movie the folks just said "let's pack in" and left the Dinos on their own in a form of Nature Preserve - and shit goes wrong because people go there to do things (being sabotaged by the heroes trying to capture Dinos they legally own and trying to save someone because they were too stupid to not go to the island in the first place, respectively) - neither were about any park failing and then dinos killing people.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Bindal said:
Only applies to Jurassic World. Jurassic Park is more "don't hire a guy that gets easily bribed into sabotaging you" because that - and ONLY that - caused things to go to shit in the first movie. The park there didn't fail because it was badly designed, it failed because of sabotage.
You could argue that it also failed because it was that easy to sabotage. The security of your park shouldn't be at the beck and call of any one disgruntled employee. And the jeeps shouldn't lock on as an emergency measure. And your head of security should be able to face one dino without getting eaten. And maybe start off the park with herbivores alone. And see that the dinos can't just reproduce on their own like you're supposedly making sure they can't.
Of course Nedry is the one that gets the disaster ball rolling but there seems to be little to no contingency planning on Hammond's part. He's about to open a park where his beasts can freely reproduce, doesn't even know about it.
 

Bindal

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Bindal said:
Only applies to Jurassic World. Jurassic Park is more "don't hire a guy that gets easily bribed into sabotaging you" because that - and ONLY that - caused things to go to shit in the first movie. The park there didn't fail because it was badly designed, it failed because of sabotage.
You could argue that it also failed because it was that easy to sabotage. The security of your park shouldn't be at the beck and call of any one disgruntled employee. And the jeeps shouldn't lock on as an emergency measure. And your head of security should be able to face one dino without getting eaten. And maybe start off the park with herbivores alone. And see that the dinos can't just reproduce on their own like you're supposedly making sure they can't.
Of course Nedry is the one that gets the disaster ball rolling but there seems to be little to no contingency planning on Hammond's part. He's about to open a park where his beasts can freely reproduce, doesn't even know about it.
If the employee in question is in charge of *all* of the computer security, then the system can be as secure as it wants, he can bypass it because it's his job to be able to access everything (as Sys-Admits kinda need to have access like that). And with that, be able to do damage everywhere.

And of course he didn't know about the Dinos being able to reproduce - he thought his safety measures worked. Not his fault that some of the scientist guys was an idiot when chosing DNA from a species of frogs that are known to be able to change their gender to deal with non-reproduction issues. Not that reproduction would be too large of an issue on its own, as people would probably fairly early notice some baby dinos suddenly running around when they shouldn't. So, that alone doesn't seem to be a problem that can't be solved.

As for security - I am pretty sure that he wouldn't be alone once the park would be running properly because that would be insane. Remember, the park itself wasn't open to the public yet in the first movie. And I think to even remember a line mentioning that security staff *normally* is a bit larger to begin with anyway even in that "skeleton crew" amount, just that due to the storm and whatnot, he was stuck alone against three raptors.

Also: People probably expected things like a T. Rex to be part of the park (less Raptors because before the movie came out, raptors were a rather unknown kind of Dino). That might work in a game for balance reason, but in reality, people would be far less impressed with that kind of Dino Park that doesn't have "the important ones".

So, yeah, the first park failed primarily (and almost exclusively) because of Nedry. Not because it was designed badly as everything seems to think.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Bindal said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
Bindal said:
Only applies to Jurassic World. Jurassic Park is more "don't hire a guy that gets easily bribed into sabotaging you" because that - and ONLY that - caused things to go to shit in the first movie. The park there didn't fail because it was badly designed, it failed because of sabotage.
You could argue that it also failed because it was that easy to sabotage. The security of your park shouldn't be at the beck and call of any one disgruntled employee. And the jeeps shouldn't lock on as an emergency measure. And your head of security should be able to face one dino without getting eaten. And maybe start off the park with herbivores alone. And see that the dinos can't just reproduce on their own like you're supposedly making sure they can't.
Of course Nedry is the one that gets the disaster ball rolling but there seems to be little to no contingency planning on Hammond's part. He's about to open a park where his beasts can freely reproduce, doesn't even know about it.
If the employee in question is in charge of *all* of the computer security, then the system can be as secure as it wants, he can bypass it because it's his job to be able to access everything (as Sys-Admits kinda need to have access like that). And with that, be able to do damage everywhere.

And of course he didn't know about the Dinos being able to reproduce - he thought his safety measures worked. Not his fault that some of the scientist guys was an idiot when chosing DNA from a species of frogs that are known to be able to change their gender to deal with non-reproduction issues. Not that reproduction would be too large of an issue on its own, as people would probably fairly early notice some baby dinos suddenly running around when they shouldn't. So, that alone doesn't seem to be a problem that can't be solved.

As for security - I am pretty sure that he wouldn't be alone once the park would be running properly because that would be insane. Remember, the park itself wasn't open to the public yet in the first movie. And I think to even remember a line mentioning that security staff *normally* is a bit larger to begin with anyway even in that "skeleton crew" amount, just that due to the storm and whatnot, he was stuck alone against three raptors.

Also: People probably expected things like a T. Rex to be part of the park (less Raptors because before the movie came out, raptors were a rather unknown kind of Dino). That might work in a game for balance reason, but in reality, people would be far less impressed with that kind of Dino Park that doesn't have "the important ones".

So, yeah, the first park failed primarily (and almost exclusively) because of Nedry. Not because it was designed badly as everything seems to think.
But you see how that handwavy mentality brought down the park even before day one - being dismissive of every conceivable problem just because it's improbable and you're too X to care. It's like blaming the sinking of the Titanic on the iceberg.
 

Thaluikhain

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Bindal said:
Jurassic Park is more "don't hire a guy that gets easily bribed into sabotaging you" because that - and ONLY that - caused things to go to shit in the first movie. The park there didn't fail because it was badly designed, it failed because of sabotage. No sabotage and things would have been fine (for the most part).
Doesn't he count as being stupid/evil? Letting dinosaurs loose to eat everyone seems rather evil, getting himself eaten seems rather stupid.

And the contingency plans for animals escaping (and this is something every zoo has to worry about, not just dinosaur zoos) is "get eaten". You have to worry about a T-Rex escaping even if your computer security is 100% fine, cause things go wrong.

Bindal said:
As for 2 and 3? They weren't even set in any parks anymore, they were set on Site B, which was a breeding ground where after the first movie the folks just said "let's pack in" and left the Dinos on their own in a form of Nature Preserve - and shit goes wrong because people go there to do things (being sabotaged by the heroes trying to capture Dinos they legally own and trying to save someone because they were too stupid to not go to the island in the first place, respectively) - neither were about any park failing and then dinos killing people.
Well, I was thinking that counted as a result of the stuff in the first. Though, lots of stupid/evil going around in those, but yeah, not so much about the park failing. Though, wasn't the T-Rex rampage at the end of the second film due to evil/stupid attempts to get another park going? And/or amazingly successful gun control laws which means nobody in San Diego even tried shooting the giant lizard, including police, it seems.

As an aside, really annoys me in that movie how half the evil/stupid is done by the nominal heroes, and it's not really addressed.