JURASSIC PARK "ethics"

[Shamus The Brute]

~ While sitting around tonight flipping through various television channels, I came across the original "Jurassic Park" movie and while although it has been a very long time since I have watched the film from beginning to end, a scene within the movie itself reminded me of the two-sided debate concerning the issue of cloning. It is because of this issue - cloning (specifically 'game emulators' within our community world) that has inspired me tonight to write this thread.

If ye think about it, CLONING is pretty darn cool, isn't it??? In fact, cloning (i.e., emulating) is a remarkable breakthrough and accomplishment within the gaming world itself!

For those key developers whom possess the necessary computing and technological skills to pull off such feat I do tip my hat towards their (general) direction because - from what I understand - it does takes a considerable amount of time and patience to keep focused on such coding challenges.

As such, this only reinforces the fact that emulating a particular game is NO easy task. However, much in the same way that the question was brought up within "Jurassic Park" by the character Malcolm, sometimes the lack of humility expressed towards the purpose or intent of what was originally created comes into play. As such, the nature concerning the issues surrounding ethics and morality becomes also an issue concerning the specifics towards the cloning of something.

From the scene above, Malcolm proclaims:

"The problem with scientific power you've used is it
didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read
what others had done and you took the next step. You
didn't earn the knowledge yourselves, so you don't take
the responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders
of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you
could, and before you knew what you had, you patented
it, packages it, slapped in on a plastic lunch box, and
now you want to sell it."

- and -​

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not
they could that they didn't stop to think if they
should. Science can create pesticides, but it can't
tell us not to use them. Science can make a nuclear
reactor, but it can't tell us not to build it!"

​

Within the dino movie, a reliance upon the "overabundance" of technology actually created a false sense of security rather than resolved it:

So I ask, what ethical or moral concerns do ye have about game emulators in general which both do and do not concern themselves with POTCO? Rather than name specific emulators, if you do happen to feel the need to contribute to this thread please do so in "general" terms rather than throw out specific names.

Mates, unless we come to a point to where we each can fully understand each other, chances are highly probable that - in the end - we might be high tailing it out of here, running away from the community altogether with the threat of becoming extinct!

 

[einkahill]

i think they should make a potco emulator of before 2009 because thats the only time it was good

 

[Dreamcatcher]

There is a saying that goes, "You can't go home again", and mostly I believe this is true. You can recreate the house of Potco, but you cannot recreate the home. It was a special game that came along, this and other Forums devoted to it attest to that fact, but it is now a fond memory. We keep the memory of the game alive with the living ........... and the dead Forums, because we want to go home, but we can't. We keep our friends, and our memories of the time, as long as we can, that's what humans do.

I can only speak for myself, but I have no intention of playing any of the "RePotcos", and I don't feel it should even be tried. It was an amazing 5 years of my life, and I look back on it with more love for it than I could ever have possibly imagined, but playing something in hopes of regaining that feeling can only cheapen the original love I had for being a pirate. It is a time capsule to me now, and I open it occasionally and smile, and occasionally I cry, and I doubt I am alone in this.

If one of the 30 or 40 remakes manages to actually recreate the game, I am happy for everyone playing it, and enjoying it, as some new to the game will be experiencing the same love for it that I will remember until the grave. Unfortunately, I will be hiding from the dinosaurs though, I hear they are cloning them. I plan on hiding behind NEWMAN!!!, I figure it will take at least 5 minutes to digest him, and I can run pretty fast. :chicken dance:

 

[Shamus The Brute]

...but playing something in hopes of regaining that feeling can only cheapen the original love I had for being a pirate. It is a time capsule to me now, and I open it occasionally and smile, and occasionally I cry, and I doubt I am alone in this.

I feel the same way as you do and it's not because I am personally anti-clone POTCO but rather as you said, deep down within my heart I do realize now that POTCO was something "unique" and special and because of that...some things are better left alone if for nothing else than to preserve the memory of what once was.

While I do feel that at least one of these emulators will eventually see the light of day for a brief time (there were just 'too many' computer/tech savvy individuals whom played POTCO whom, in my opinion, do enjoy an attempt to clone or emulate POTCO for various reasons but also to inflate their own egos), a lot of the developers of these emulator projects are truthfully missing the point in contemplating IF they should be doing so. That requires much reflection and maturity in my opinion along with a healthy dose of empathy which, in retrospect, was oftentimes missing within POTCO's community player-base during much of 2012-2013.
Nobody ever said that "letting go" was going to be easy. As much as I know though, in accepting and working through the actual process of change...(somehow) you slowly begin to accept that things ended up as they should have even if it makes you feel vulnerable and isolated temporary for a moment in time.

 

[Dreamcatcher]

Actually, it shouldn't have been. Disney had a gold mine in Potco, but for their own reasons, they abandoned everything they had mined in our vein, and left most of the gold in the ground. I have never accepted change very well, especially when it seemed it was just for the sake of change, but the older you get, you begin to understand you cannot stop it.

Revive came close, had the decision not have already been made, it may have succeeded. Preserve was a joke, in hindsight, we were just upset like everyone else, and wanted our voices heard. Unfortunately, in the end, we alienated the very people who were helping the game most. Had I a Flux Capacitor, I would change that, but my Delorian has a flat tire, and the Libyans took off with my plutonium.

Like so many others, Potco was the first online MMO I had ever played, and I was hooked from the very beginning. How many of us DIDN'T call in sick to work to play this game? Made an excuse not to go out with friends on a Saturday night to Yo Ho Ho? Felt your heart beat faster as you logged on to see which guildies were playing at the moment? I am guilty of all of them.

I am not against someone finally succeeding in recreating Potco, if one person can experience the feelings that I felt from playing it, then it is a worthwhile endeavor, I only know that no game will give me the feeling I got from Potco ever again, even Potco.

 

[Sparky Wonderwolf]

I have plenty of moral and ethical concerns with some of the emulators but most of my concerns are with the obvious big man unlike others who aren't very well known and require more research for me to really say anything about them.

While I don't think this concern is something that would fall under ethical and moral it is one I do have in general, and that is the role of many project heads. What I've seen for many of these projects is that the project head is also the lead developer and while I find this to be somewhat okay in terms of leading development, sometimes it engulfs the PH's (Project Head) time and eventually you don't see them ever and depending who you enlist to oversee the community and development of it, they may as well be the equivalent of the ones at the reins—a PH of their own. I guess this would fall under ethical as it can lead to problems which have already been seen.

I don't condemn recreating POTCO, period exclamation mark; but I do condemn those that can not improve themselves and have serious ethical and moral problems. If there were one thing I'd ask for is for the successful recreation of a POTCO project to be led by a PH who understands how development works and interacts with the Dev team a bit but not for 99% of his/her time while dealing with the project. This is a major problem I've identified with a large project.

 

[Jim Cannonhawk]

There is a saying that goes, "You can't go home again", and mostly I believe this is true. You can recreate the house of Potco, but you cannot recreate the home. It was a special game that came along, this and other Forums devoted to it attest to that fact, but it is now a fond memory. We keep the memory of the game alive with the living ........... and the dead Forums, because we want to go home, but we can't. We keep our friends, and our memories of the time, as long as we can, that's what humans do.

I can only speak for myself, but I have no intention of playing any of the "RePotcos", and I don't feel it should even be tried. It was an amazing 5 years of my life, and I look back on it with more love for it than I could ever have possibly imagined, but playing something in hopes of regaining that feeling can only cheapen the original love I had for being a pirate. It is a time capsule to me now, and I open it occasionally and smile, and occasionally I cry, and I doubt I am alone in this.

If one of the 30 or 40 remakes manages to actually recreate the game, I am happy for everyone playing it, and enjoying it, as some new to the game will be experiencing the same love for it that I will remember until the grave. Unfortunately, I will be hiding from the dinosaurs though, I hear they are cloning them. I plan on hiding behind NEWMAN!!!, I figure it will take at least 5 minutes to digest him, and I can run pretty fast. :chicken dance:

I wanna go Home,,,,Why won't they let me go Home,,,,This is the Worst trip,,,,I've ever been on!~

 

[Dreamcatcher]

You wanna go home to a jail cell? Disney serves Scrapple for dinner, and they tell you it's bacon. Anything possibly coming now will be "Re-Scrapple", be careful what you wish for...................

 

[Shamus The Brute]

This coming Friday, the latest big-budget dino movie - "Jurassic World" - will premiere here in theatres across the US.

As I ponder about the movie and the thought of (Jurassic Park) cloning and ethics, I cannot help but wonder how SAFE innocent people will be.

(Avast! This same concern of mine goes for players whom arrr highly interested to play a successful POTCO emulator, as well).

 

[Dreamcatcher]

Well, can't speak for The Emulator, but the past three nights I have been rewatching the Jurassic trilogy, (maybe seeing fourth Saturday) and it hasn't exactly worked out well for them. Um, can someone remind me why Jeff Goldblum was a "Star"?

 

[JohnnyGoldsmith]

jurassic park was scary! I had nightmares for days!