My story is similar to most peoples that arrive that these boards. Up until about 6 months ago I was living in my western bubble. I honestly believed that technology would conquer all the worlds problems in the end, including famine in the third world and pollution from our industrial lifestyles.
I always knew oil would one day get expensive, but I thought the governments would have prepared for that long ago and they are secretly sitting on zero point energy or nuclear fusion, ready to be unleashed as soon as oil was not longer profitable.
Sure, now I can see how naive that is, but I was born in 1981 so kinda grow up in the days when all seemed great and was even pretty oblivious to the suffering around the rest of the world. I turned 18 on the year 2000 around the time of the internet boom, so yeah, the future seemed rather bright!
EDIT: wow it was longer then 6 months ago, look at my sign up date :O
The one day I clicked a link to matt’s site, and well, I then spent the next 6 months reading everything I could on the subject. I have never been one to stress about possible end of the world scenarios but this seemed very real, and I just had to try and prove it wrong. I failed, and here I am now fully convinced that peak oil is real and taking place as we speak. I also sadly have come to believe that matts 'doomer' predictions are pretty damn accurate, the man seems to have a very real understanding of how human nature will dictate how peak oil will affect us. That's what gets me the most pissed, we still have time, even now, to really cushion the blow of the inevitable. But there are little signs of that happening soon, or long term plans to try and put this issues on the forefront of all industrialized nations agendas.
Not much I can really say on the issue that’s not already been said, but I have taken some inspiration from the whole thing. I work as a video game level designer with others from around the world to make hobbyist ‘first person shooters’ (just a team used to explain a game that’s played from the first person view). We are just coming to the end of production on a game based on zombies, so I wanted to direct our attention to a more real survival situation next, and make a game based on the theories of how peak oil will play out. We really wanna get in-depth with it, with a plausible and interesting script, ‘puzzles’ to work thought for survival and overcoming such challenges as obtaining water and food. Sounds alittle ambitious I know but we are quite a talented bunch between us, With script writers, texture artists/models/animators, level designers ect. So I’m confident we can do something pretty impressive. My motivation is really cause I personally wanna learn something from doing it, and maybe help enlighten a few others. And hell if not, It’s still a pretty cool storyline for such a project, beats zombies
Sry I didn’t just come here to plug a game, I been trolling the forums for a while now while I took it all in. I thank everyone who posted their thoughts, it’s really be fascinating to read all your opinions, as well as making me feel less alone in this knowledge of what’s to come. I’m curious to know if there are many gamers here and what they would imagine a game like this should be like. It’s the closest you can get to a simulation I guess. For the guys here who know alittle about pc gaming, it will be a total conversation either on the source engine (for half life 2 no doubt) or possibly unreal 2007 (unreal engine 3.0) if it comes out this year. And I have no idea how long it will take, it’s only a hobbyist thing and will be free once done.
Anyway, Hi everyone!