Why has Clark Ashton Smith had so little influence on gaming? Grognardia, to which I have recently become addicted, has some good thoughts on this.
(Interestingly enough, I took this photograph, along with some others of Smith’s sculptures that may be found on some CAS sites, while visiting the house of Smith’s old friend Bob Elder, in Auburn, California. I shared my shots with Ron Hilger and some of the other keepers of Smith’s legacy.)
We want Episode Three, Marc!
I have no idea what you’re talking about!
Me I want some more Vortigaunts, however it’s arranged, I don’t care.
Read the complete Clark Ashton Smith to pass the time, kids. It’s good for you. There would be no Half-Life as we know it without CAS.
BTW, Quentin, someone was asking me for a list of HL locations today and I pointed them at your wiki (your post arrived conveniently). I have not seen a lot of those places, or thought of them, in a very long time. Manhack Arcade!
Hm. Maybe Grognard is right… when playing a videogame, we tend to seek morality (both good and bad) in the characters and even in our own playing. Few days ago I was discussing with some friends about a well known roleplaying videogame (Baldur’s Gate) and we all find out that the alignment we had all chosen for our characteres was good. We all discovered that it was hard for all of us to lead consistently a evil character without feeling a bit evil ourselves.
And we are all a bunch of psychopaths, so those choices have nothing to do with our personalities xD
Perhaps an open moral judgement is not what a videogame player expects…
I dunno.
I think he is right. I rarely take the evil route when I play a game; it’s either inconsequential or it makes my experience completely unpleasant. I massacred a village in Fable 2, and absolutely hated the game after that…hated being despised wherever I went. They let me do something that ruined the game for me.
I think one problem with Smith’s worlds is that they are thickets of verbiage, and you need to wear heavy protective gear when wading into them. It gets harder to devote yourself to such exploration when you’re between the ages of, oh, 15 and 51?
I have been kicked harder. If people going crazy everyday isn’t something you fancy, then maybe that is the reason I spew my verbiage concerning the murder simulator that you write, that I happened to have been playing, and being conditioned to be a killer, for a few years. I played a game called Black and White 1&2. Same morality issue, but it’s actually harder to beat the game being a complete devil god.
One of the problems with Laidlaw’s worlds, compared to my wonderland, is that it is an endless graveyard full of death and the reflection of the fear driven policies of the global elite, including multinational corporations which own the world governments. Mostly it involves the killing of slave turn key anthropomorphic entities, such as the vast majority of stupid shoot em ups on the market.
It reflects, like so many rambo and dirty harry movies, that only a lone warrior, against impossible odds a little support, can hope to change the world. Always just that lone hopeless guy all by himself. It does get harder to devote yourself to life after you’ve murdered thousand of simulated lives, or witnessed the killing of thousands before you even reach the age of 15. Only the strong and best aimmers are gonna survive? You live by those ideals, you are going to die by them, and are going to get what you deserve.
I could so care if anyone says I’m right or wrong. Some mark can be displeased because the people in the Fable game are allowed to be thoughtlessly murdered but are not all able be silenced about past irresponsible murdering, unless they are killed as well. So, one can not shut up everyone’s crying about you being a cruel murderer. Darn, don’t you wish you could be a dictator instead? Sounds like history repeating itself: bury the past, rob everyone blind, and leave nothing behind.
Now wade through that!
Ironically, killing Black Mesa scientists has never bothered anyone or ruined the game, to the contrary!
Actually some of us guessed that Smith and Lovecraft might have had a strong influence on your work at Valve, and I bet someone you might know (I’ll say “Ted B.” to preserve his anonymity) delved into that a bit as well. And add to that some Giger imagery.
As for the wiki (sorry for spamming and being a bit off-topic), what do you think of it, Marc? I know it’s hard to make something worthy of your amazing work at Valve, especially the amazing stuff you wrote, and we still have a long way to go. And I hope the article about you is okay, or that you don’t really mind us using that content stolen from your vaults in 2003.
I can’t talk about Valve on this, my personal site; there are other channels for that. I admire the energy brought to these creative efforts though (yes, the wiki is clearly creative). Consider how much work went into DemonG’s vortigaunt movies. The Garry’s Mod communities, the Concerned comics, all these madcap enterprises–it’s great to be even peripherally a part of so much energy.
Hey thanks Mark. You know I’m a huge fan, crazy or not.
You use your crazy creativity for good, so good for you.
Wow Marc that was really kind of you. You have no idea (or maybe you have) what it is for us to read that from you. This is very important that the ones who created all this like or at lease acknowledge what we do, which is our tribute to all Valve’s work. We’ll continue expanding and improving with much more pleasure now that we know the great Marc Laidlaw somehow blesses it!
I dunno about Valve, but Mark is cool.
He is indeed! And sorry for the typos or weird phrasing, English is not my native language. That’s it for now.
Oh, and killing scientist at Black Mesa did bother me, but not much, considering that they looked like cartoons in those days.
How old is the Combine?
Have you ever, as a child, caught a fly and torn its wings apart to see what happened? That’s the reason why I killed scientists al Black Mesa. To see what happened next.
(Have I already told you that my friends and I are all a bunch of psychopaths? I lied. Maybe).
Andreas, maybe I need to set up some kind of forum for random questions (i.e., this thread is really about Clark Ashton Smith although from here you can no longer really tell that). But honestly, if they are questions about Half-Life backstory, you are better off going to Quentin’s wiki and trying to work them out with those folks. I don’t usually answer questions about HL backstory (a) here on my personal website or (b) outside the game, really.
DG, my filter caught a comment from you, for some reason unknown to me, although it has been allowing the others. After looking it over, I think the best place to continue this conversation is over on your blog, not mine.
http://angel-githara-jedi-alchemy.blogspot.com/
The lack of interest in discussing Clark Ashton Smith pretty much proves the sad point in Grognardia.
As was said of CAS somewhere I forget, “No one so loved a well-rotted corpse.”
Hey I’m sorry Mark. You’re my favorite game writer. I’m going to continue bugging you about the violence if you allow me the opportunity, and I’m not going to shut up about it. Clark Ashton Smith? Never heard of him, dude is probably better at writing than me though… Meh, I read stuff like “A boy and his dog” by Harlen Ellison.
Feel free to bug me about violence in fiction but not in games. There are professional ramifications, as you might imagine. This is my personal site, but people might take personal comments out of context. That’s one reason I will only talk about games in general terms–although I like pointing out good stuff. Positive emphasis only. You won’t find me slagging games I don’t like on here. Life’s too short.
“A Boy and His Dog” is a great story. CAS is in Ellison’s roots; you probably wouldn’t have to look to far to find Harlan praising Smith. Have you seen the recent documentary, Dreams with Sharp Teeth? It’s quite entertaining.
I have not. I wish I had a better attention span…….. Wait, that’s a documentary? Ok, I’ll google it asap, bro.
Games I don’t like? Please. Half-Life 2 is my all time favorite game, so save it. The only reason I cry about it is because so many kids and teens get their hands on it, as well as us adults, and it’s worse than pornography. It is psychological warfare, so save it. The silly first world is only about the here and now; “let the world burn,” you all say, right? Eat, drink and be an ass, for tomorrow we pass like gas. Life’s to short to have a conscious when we are all conditioned to bring children into “slave and master” world with little consideration of the child’s future bondage, much less that child’s future children. Lol, people are so shallow and self centered these days… Thanks to blue blooded pigs that no one seems to mind because everyone is in on it together. Not me; forget your American nightmare…….
I remember how the original HL2 was to feature a scene on the borealis that was so similar to the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 2. In the original demo of that game, the gore was so bad, I remember being sixteen and shooting a guy on the ground in the head, and the blood spurting out, it actually traumatized me. But make fun of me if you wish, or act like it doesn’t matter. I’ll still fight the powers that justify the indoctrination of the slave citizens to become thoughtless drone murderers. Only the strong will survive? Well, understand that humanity is not strong if it is obsessed with death and violence, such as the western world. In this way, the have Sith prophesized their own demise. Bunch of nihilistic jerks……… Life is too miserable in my particular hell to not rock the boat, seeing all the socially engineered poverty everywhere around me. I hate the NWO, Mark, and I don’t pledge no allegiance to that. There is no shelter here. The front lines are here; you are in war now. The psyops should end Mark, you know what I mean…..
I have plenty of love letters to write about the end of violence, but I’m sure this is more than what anyone is actually going to consider, goodbye for now……..
Never mind, I’m going to leave this subject alone. dam it grrrr. No one gives a care if the world goes to hell, so why bother…………….
You’ve got a blog/platform, DemonGithara. Speak your truth and people will come. This is just where I put my stuff out. Thanks for respecting that.
Just a quick question Mark: what is a blog?
Nevermind, google says it’s something called a “biography log.” You seem to need a life for that
Is that what google says? I thought it was derived from weblog. Anyway, moving on… I will find a more obscure author to post about.
The first episode of the final season of Lost is pure A. Merritt. Discuss!
How about Ellison. I think he is mental. I like his stuff too. I’m sorry Mark, I’m really sorry…… I’m a jerk, I am…. I am such a big fan too, so I’ll leave your blog alone, and try to make it up somehow…… You’re a really nice person.
CAS is my favorite of the pulp writers, just amazing, so much more depth the Lovecraft in a way. Mike Mignola is very influenced by him and you can really tell in certain Hellboy stories.
Hey, Eric! I have such strong associations with Smith and art as well…the Pan editions and the Ballantine Adult Fantasy covers are inseparable for me from the mood of Smith. I had to memorize part of a long poem for a performance in high school, and I did a long section of The Hashhish Eater. I wonder what they thought of the title.