Thanks dwarfy
There are four things that inspire me very much : books, landscapes, movies, people.
Yes, people.Sometimes I meet someone, or just see someone in the street, and I go ''Wow, that guy should be in my game'' (or ''wow, I''d like to make a movie with that guy'', movie freak that I am).
But to be really creative, I need to read books.


Runemaster

"Damn, and I thought you were a cannibal..." -Selkrank, to dwarfsoft
"Romania, a quite large but totally unimportant country just outside Europe. Soccer, beer, no vampires." -Diodor

Oh, and another thing.Love inspires me.Very very much.I think that without love I couldn''t actually create anything.But that''s propably just me.

Runemaster

"Damn, and I thought you were a cannibal..." -Selkrank, to dwarfsoft
"Romania, a quite large but totally unimportant country just outside Europe. Soccer, beer, no vampires." -Diodor

I''ll agree with that about love. Not necessarily love of real people, but that I have to work myself up to loving my characters before I can write sustaniedly about them.

I totally agree, and here is an idea that has been inspired by many different element, both life, tv shows, and many other game types. You can find it here: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=49325

Please read this game idea!.. Its really cool. Think Tribes2 meet Battlezone but bigger, with lots of new stuff.

Unfortunately, most people on the threads seemed to think my idea was good, but not feasable. (Trying to put me in a box!) Right now im in discussion about the possibilities of getting it made. The following is comment I made that echoes yours sentiment exactly:

"On a side note, I would like to point out the human tendancy towards concluding things to be "impossible", "too hard to do", and "unrealistic". I remember when I actually predicted CTF through a 3d simulated world on comupters before Wolfenstien came out.. and my brother who was and is a computer technician, said that it would well into our 50''s (im 30 now) before computers and networks (the "Internet" was not a popular word at that time ) could handle what I wanted to see. Sure enough, in 95'' I was the first in our circle of friends to find an IP address for a Quake (the first actual 3d engine) CTF game.

So far, the majority of people who have posted thier replies have tended towards this disturbing lack of imagination and skepticism. AND Im suggesting things that have already been done to some degree already, and people tend to think its not possible.

Just 20 years ago no one could have predicted what we are seeing now in computing and other technoligcal/ medical marvels.. so to say that my little game idea is "impossible", or "too hard" I think is a bit presumptious.

Think outside the box people! Everyone is used to "gaming as usual". Every other RPG game is the same.. every other FPS is basically the same.. its time to move on!

TheEnderBean"

Hmmmmm... Inspirations for some of my current game ideas include...



Philosophy (just in general), Advanced Technology (biotechnology, nanotechnology, military tech currently in development),Martial Arts, World Politics, world history.

More specific examples are:

Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Transhuman Space (RPG), Feng Shuei (RPG), John Woo movies, The Matrix, Jet Li movies (and Kung Fu in general), Anime (Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, DBZ, countless others), Quake, Counter-Strike, Half Life, No one Live Forever, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken, Street Fighter... more stuff that I can''t think of right now. (that''s just inspriation for one project)

quote: Original post by Nazrix

Thanks, dwarfie
You''re inspiring too. You''d be more inspiring if you showed up more often though

DITTO!!! LOL!!!

(aside from that, not much useful I can add, other than to totally agree with everyone who gets away from design in order to recharge ! The best way to really be inspired (for me) seems to be to step away and get totally different stimuli.)






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Just waiting for the mothership...

Thw Sword of Truth series!

I am inspired in almost every aspect of my life by the books I read. The way an experienced author can cause you to feel emotions you normally wouldn''t experience is amazing, and I feel that we as game designers need to attempt to parallel them as storytellers. I have yet to find a game that causes me to feel emotions anywhere near those I encounter when reading The Green Mile, and the only movie that I feel has come close to the level of books is Gladiator. Half-Life didn''t really cause emotions as much as it made me feel like I was part of a world that I had influence in. Baldur''s Gate was good at causing emotions, but it''s graphical presentation seemed to keep me from any real emotional relief. Books, not movies my friends, are the way we should be moving this industry. Sorry for my deviation from the topic



"The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is the lawgiver...No playwright, no stage director, no emperor, however powerful, has ever exercised such absolute athority to arrange a stage or a field of battle and to command such unswervingly dutiful actors or troops." - Joseph Weizenbaum

"Artificial stupidity (AS) may be defined as the attempt by computer scientists to create computer programs capable of causing problems of a type normally associated with human thought." - Wallace Marshal

"640,000 bytes of memory ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981

"Is all what we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?" - Edgar Allan Poe



-Brent Robinson

What most inspires me in the world, is man''s capacity to better himself. To overcome great odds, and to sacrifice his needs or very life for something greater. Stories of people who gave selflessy for others.

"A man does not deserve to live until he''s found something to die for" Martin Luther King

To me, man''s altruism, the ability to give up something for the betterment of others is the greatest achievment and goal that a person can do.

I remember reading an essay about how different cultures viewed honor, duty and commitment. And I remembered a part where it said that in the western culture, we tend to view things that they are simply given to us. In other words, we INHERIT them, or progress simply provides. However, in the eastern culture, they do not inherit from the past, they are OWED to it. I think we need to think this way more, because I definitely think we take things for granted. In the immortal words inscribed on the Iwo Jima Memorial...."freedom does not come for free". A long time ago...don''t laugh....I read a great Wolverine comic where he was being taught a lesson by Elektra. In the story, Elektra recounts a tale told by one of her mentors who told Elektra that, "...we are indebted to the universe". It was very touching and a profound lesson that seems lost in today''s world.

Look at games today. What really do they teach? Some would argue that games are meant to be fun, not to teach, but why can''t they do both? I have the Saving Private Ryan DVD, and in one of the special features, a WWII survivor at the very end said something along these lines....

"next time you think you have it hard by having to wake up at 7 o''clock in the morning....think of what was asked of these young men".

Why can''t games be both fun and a way of teaching tales of heroism, honor, gallantry, or devotion? So to answer the question, "what inspires me"? It is the capacity for man to realize his indebtedness to something greater than himself...to overcome his selfish ego by realizing in the end that we are all indebted to become better than that. I hope that one day games can convey these messages instead being superficial oohhs and ahhhs of pretty graphics or mindless mayhem.

I will close this by stealing a quote from ST:TNG

"The greatest enemy you will ever face is your own potential"

Dauntless: I just wanted to share an amusing thought: If you took a teaspoonful of your philosophy and combined it with a teaspoonful of my philosophy, the resultant explosion would be atomic-bomb caliber. (I''m more the "If there was a god, the world ought to slap him with a parental neglect suit" type.) To twist one of your phrases: "A world in which one man must die is a world that is not fit to be graced with man''s presence." Also: "Altruism is composed of guilt, seasoned with touches of fear, romanticism, and stupidity." Hmm, now that I think about it, if we tried writing the two philosophical sides of a story, the result might be pretty dramatic. Interested? If not, no big deal.