Comment on checkmate, big geology!!
Nindelofocho@lemmy.world 5 months agoThank you that was super informative. Is there anything that can be done to mitigate an impending eruption? Ive always heard that if one of the big super volcanoes goes it could be quite catastrophic for the entire world. Surely theres been some research into like pressure relief holes or something…antacid tabs?
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
I am sure there are lots of geologists who have thought of it, it makes sense right?
The problem is that nobody gives a shit about listening to geologists unless they are talking about where to find oil. Even if a geoengineering project of this scale and magnitude (with such catastrophic consequences if it goes wrong) where possible with near current geological science and hardware this degree of interest and investment of society is only ever committed to visions techbros provide and I don’t think a single techbro has ever taken a geology class and actually remotely paid attention.
It was geologists in the 1970s who first pointed out the obvious connection between human released CO2 emissions and global warming. Nobody gave a shit :)
Nindelofocho@lemmy.world 5 months ago
You are right sadly :( but dont discredit yourself so much! A ton of people do listen and a ton of people think yall are cool! I think you’re cool. Its just that those people and I dont tend to be the people that have the resource to make decisions
Jorgelino@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
On the game side of things, while i agree more realistic landscapes would be awesome, making games is really hard work and you need to be careful where you’ll invest your time in if you want to actually get anything finished. The truth is most people who are not geologists can’t tell the difference between a realistic landscape and an unrealistic one.
We have some tools for world generation, though i’m not sure how realistic they are. Mostly a mix of noise functions (Simplex, Perlin, etc) and erosion simulation. But i barely understand how that works, so your “geological sandbox” seems a lot less obvious to me.
Another thing to consider is that in game design, realism will always take a backseat for good gameplay. A map that naturally guides the players where they need to go is usually much more desirable than one that is realistic but unintuitive. Plus when you add magic, gods, or even enough sci-fi, the bar for what counts as a realistic landscape really goes out the window anyway.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
Why would a map that reflected natural landscapes be more unintuitive than an awkwardly fabricated one that doesn’t reflect any landscape a person has seen looks like?
sigh and I am really trying not to come off like I am claiming everything has to be realistic to the stupid little details on a geologist would know.
My point was that building landscapes to tell stories in without building the landscape as a story too is a silly thing to do, both for immersion of the player and for overall work.
There is no reason a sort of clay like modeling simulator couldn’t give you an artistically conveyed sense of two continental plates colliding, and if the tools were playful and immediate to use (like I pointed out, just being able to smash continents together by clicking and dragging them in different directions at each other like Besieged but for geology) it would be easier for world designers overwhelmed by a blank canvas to start because their canvas already has a story rather than suffocating blank space.
Jorgelino@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Mountain ranges blocking off high level areas, terrain elevation being changed to make sure certain landmarks are more visible/look better on camera, resources such as water/ores, etc needing to be close together for balancing reasons (For survival/crafting games), etc. Reality doesn’t always conform with one’s artistic vision.