RODEN'S PROFILE

author=Irog
After all, AI is just a software tool, like an image manipulation software you use to create images faster that the artists of the past.

author=Strak
I would be tempted to agree with you, except the difference is that the produced image did not come from the mind of the person using the tool. No thought or inspiration necessary. Maybe a vague concept, but that's about it.

This is an important distinction. It's like commissioning an art piece and saying that you made it yourself. It blurs the line between tool and intermediary without actually being an "artist".

The first console I ever played was an NES, I think with Spiderman: Revenge of the Sinister Six or something on it. But it must have been borrowed or something cause it's only a vague memory and really left no impact on me.

The first one I owned was a Nintendo 64. No idea what my first games were other than the obligatory SM64, though I was never huge on that. The big renaissance for me as a kid was whenever I got my hands on Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie and Paper Mario.

Banjo-Tooie and Paper Mario were the games that made me want to get into game making. I was in love with how expansive and creative their worlds and characters were, how things were segmented up into story chapters and easier to digest as a kid, how every "piece" of the game had its own unique flavour and how every zone was just big enough to make me want to probe it and explore more and more.

Sometime around then I began hanging out with an older cousin, who had a PS1, and loved Final Fantasy games. So I got a lot of second hand experience watching him play Final Fantasy 7 and 8, and later 10 (I guess he never had 9, idk). Also watched him playing a lot of Legend of Dragoon and Nocturne/Digital Devil Saga games around this time. He really shaped my mind into wanting to make RPGs specifically, probably due to both the games themselves seeming so alluring and mysterious, as well as the classic effect of the older cousin/sibling always seeming "cooler" by default, so of course everything he was into was JUST AS COOL. lol.

Later on I got to borrow FF7/Legend of Dragoon from him and play them for myself for the first time.

After that the only thing that stands out is getting a good PC of my own and transitioning to PC gaming more and more. The big one was getting The Elders Scrolls IV: Oblivion for christmas on its launch year. I played the absolute SHIT out of that game. I logged hundreds and hundreds of hours, and probably doubled it in the years since. It was my first experience with a more "malleable" game where I could download mods, access the console, perform duplication bugs and even make my own content with the Construction Set. So it got me further into the background elements of games.

Around the same time I discovered the cracked version of RPG Maker 2003, after running out of the free trial on RM XP. I've been here ever since so obviously those did their job.

There's obviously been a lot of games since then that had their impact on me, but I can't go into every single thing.

The big 5 for me are probably:

Paper Mario

Banjo-Tooie

Final Fantasy 7

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

RPG Maker 2003

You're the hero, and this is your realm

Ozzy went to the forums after leaving the Discord? Who would have thought.

Cap_H posted that 2023 gaming diary thing and I was like god damn, that's the perfect excuse to keep me coming back to the forums again and again... Now I just feel like posting to keep the dream alive.

Getting nostalgic feelings remembering all the vaporware and shit, when every single user was making some 70 hour long epic that'd never happen in a million years. It's like a lost art. But as long as the forums are around it'll never truly be forgotten.

author=kentona
this bad boy

This I feel, although mine is more recent:



Lego Sopwith Camel...

Just can't really justify paying like 400-500 dollars for a silly lego plane that I don't even have a place to store.