Shadowfx1970 wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Shadowfx1970 wrote: »

Sansoul wrote: »

hamgatan wrote: »

What happened to gaming.. well.. here's the abridged version.

Once upon a time many moons ago in the 1980s there were these things called game parlors. When we finished school.. we would grab our bags, our stack of coins that we'd raided from the parents coin jar stash, and spend until 5-6pm plugging coin after coin into game after game.. with friends and complete strangers standing by our sides yelling screaming and getting into it just as much as we would. Come 6pm we would scuttle home and face the third arse whooping of the week for being home late for dinner.. (and one once a month for the missing coins).

In the 1990s some of these lucky mates had parents who spoiled them rotten for Christmas and laden them with NES's and Sega Master Systems. We would spend summers glued to console game after console game.. Battletoads.. Ski or die.. California games.. Top Gear.. over the years the consoles evolved.. we got the SNES and the MegaDrive.. the scenery never changed. You still spend hours at your friends houses throwing controllers at the couch in frustration - but sharing the best moments of your childhood together.

Slowly the arcades disappeared as consoles took over the world. You no longer were in that environment where you met new people but the social aspect was alive as ever with your mates.. there was still that human connection.

A paradigm shift began in the mid 1990s with the clear separation between PC and console gaming.. we had discovered 9600 baud dial up modems and bulletin boards. I got a 14.4k when it came out and I was the king of the area. Then when 28.8's arrived I was dethroned. Big titles began to appear where you didn't even need to get up and go to your friends houses.. that's when we got Command and Conquer.. and the original Starcraft with the ability of making a direct dialup connection between friends landline phones. This was the Era of father's yelling 'oi get off the bloody computer boy I need to use the phone'!.The phone calls you made to your friends saying 'are you ready? im going to dial in'.. the begging your parents to get a second line installed..

This again evolved faster than we could catch up to. Almost before we knew it the bulletin boards all began dropping their traditional software on a CD models and joining the new revolution called the Internet. Suddenly the world just got a LOT bigger. Bulletin Board providers became ISP's. Local Bulletin Boards that once had close online communities suddenly took a gigantic dive into the pond.

The universities were already miles ahead on this.. they had already begun rolling out DEC AlphaServers by the truckload.. buying entire IPV4 Class A subnets and getting onboard. When we got to university we were just in time to see this evolution.. Once we got past the glorious red box of *** also known as Novell Netware, we were opened to this whole new world. Gaming changed. Sure the universities barred the ability for us to actually install and play anything decent on their LAN's.. but as they provided us with free Shell accounts, we discovered for the first time early Online Gaming in the form of MUD's/MOO's. I still recall 16 of us sitting in a lab at 5am clacking away on Honeywell Mechanical keyboards.. playing the LPMUD Ritual Sacrifice. Everyone's brows furrowed.. staring at the 14" CRT Screens.. in our own worlds. Silence except for the clacking of keys. Silence except for the first person yawning and stretching at 6:00AM and yelling across the lab 'Does Anyone Want to come for a McDonalds Breakfast run?'. This was the unanimous call for everyone to stop laying and reach for their wallets and a post it to write their orders on.

Even though we were all together in a lab.. the gaming experience had changed. We were no longer connected as before.. even though by copper wire we were. As we all began to get home dialup internet accounts we gradually stopped going into Uni at 3am to play our MUD's there.

This was what changed gaming (and for the bigger part.. people). For years we clung on.. arranging days where we would all pack up our PC's and converge on a predetermined location (the friend with the fastest Internet house). Hours of fiddling around with stupid BNC terminators and IPX/SPX networks just to fire up a local HL2 Counterstrike 0.9 Beta Server to spend a day of fragging and carrying on as gamer boys did. As networks and games evolved.. the humble LAN Party disintegrated. No longer did you look forward to going to a LAN to leech as many new movies and games as you could.. you could just fire up IRC and smash the FServe/FTP channels for what you needed. Hosted Servers became more stable and online gaming evolved. I miss those days.. even for a brief period LAN Centres appeared, trying to win back that social crowd in a fixed location.. but even those failed.

Once we no longer interacted as humans, and turned to text on a screen - we lost our social skills. People on the Internet became something else. Being so focused in their own little world they lost the human skills developments that were needed to be social. The Internet became a place where cowards could hide behind keyboards and say what they really felt without retribution or fear of a punch to the head. If this was the 1980s and you said those things in a schoolyard you would get your head beaten in plain and simple.. if you cut in at a Game Parlour when someone elses 20c piece was sitting on the machine as a sign that it was 'reserved' you got your arse kicked plain and simple. Fast forward to 2015 and we have an entitlement society where players want everything their way, and its all about me me me.

It's easy to say <insert X MMO here> killed gaming.. but this is simply not the truth. The problems had begun well before EverQuest Dropped and just devolved further after that. Only those who saw the evolution of how gaming changed will ever understand the landscape that is the norm today. The Internet was essentially what killed it. Once you took away the ability for people to interact together collaboratively in person, you took away part of their humanity and we have spiralled into a society that lacks values across the board now with the younger generations seeing these behaviours as 'the norm'.

MUDs were the bomb. My favorite online era too date.. with EQ1 being a close second.

Just good times, good social experience.

In grad school I wrote a MUD based on Forgotten Realms (started out as a semester project, oh the good ole days) at one point, had 35k unique users which was pretty good for those days. I also played Sojourn until the split.

Good times... Things won't ever be that good again.

A friend of my fathers actually created the first game called a M.U.D. at Essex university I was about 7 at the time, I think it was the first or at least the first in the UK I played a few as I got older and one of the original 1980s ones is still around it's called Avalon I occasionally still play when I want a text driven game.

lol I never mention it cause usually you get the same old response of Everquest or Wow was the first mmo's from the mainly younger generation.

Geez showing my age now.

Interesting I always thought Richard Bartle was the first one wo did that in Essex, but wiki says, it was Roy Trubshaw (never heard of him before), who later gave it over to Richard Bartle. Some MUDs are still quite alive, this is not a totally dead era of online gaming.

It is quite interesting, that the german mud, which is quite popular still, is as well called Avalon - avalon.mud.de - just checked at 4:32am in the morning 33 players online - that is a lot for a MUD.

Edit: what is as well interesting to know with a mud is, that the content is actually player created. If someone has played for long enough, to know enough about the game world, he can become a wizard or noble and can help to create the game world and create quest and other stuff for the game world. He normally ends his career as a player and becomes a developer - I found this to be a very interesting concept.

Oh it's Roy! Thanks for that I thought his name was Rob it was a long time ago and I think I only met him once.

EDIT: I didn't realise it was on Wikipedia, never really thought about it until it was mentioned in this thread, interesting read, one of the first text-based games I played was the wizardry series.

Appleblade wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

As far as trying to get a job goes, I found (as an employer), that people come with a strange attitude to an interview. Some of the questions I have are for example "in which way do you think you can contribute to our enterprise?" and they have no idea, next question "why do you want to work for us?", again no idea why for us and not for someone else, ok, next question "where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?" - and they have again no idea - what can I do with people like that - they want any job, but are not prepared nor would they have thought about, why they would be of use for us and where they are heading.

What sort of answers are you after? I'm curious. As an engineer mine would simply be that I'm very good at what I do, better than most, and I can design things for you with a minimum of muss, fuss and supervision. I'll need some help figuring out your company's particular way of doing things and what toolset you use, but that's everyone. Five years from now I hope to be doing the same because I like stability and I'm loyal to a good employer. Been at my current one 28 years.

It's a job, not a transcendent experience, you know?

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

I have seen pensioners act like spoilt brats full of venom.
I have seen children performing acts of grace and dignity.
Physical age is not a reflection of mental age.

I have seen evil born from the nicest parents you could meet.
I have seen the most giving and charming children born in a life of brutality.
Birthright is not an indicator of a persons true nature.

What we see is peoples raw individuality stripped from social expectations.
What you see is peoples true uncensored nature.
Sometimes it fills me with disgust...sometimes with humbleness and admiration.
Like some of the stuff @Audigy writes to name but one.

We live in a dog eat dog world.
It is a world of capitalism where only the richest lead a meaningful existance.
And only those that abide by the rich peoples rules get to eat the scraps at the table.
But only if they jump when told and betray their own consicence.
Where acceptance of slavery is relabelled as examples of loyalty.
Did you get to see the birth of your baby or was you on the other side of the world ?
Did you goto your fathers funeral or was you tied up in a meeting somewhere ?
Did you tell your friend you took a pay cut to get the last of the job cuts before they left ?

Money is a drug used to create addicts, while dividing and controlling the masses.
You want food, drink, shelter, warmth ? You serve someone and do what you're told.
Can you eat the fruit from that tree ? No it was sold to someone else who never really owned it.
Can you harvest the wild oats in the field ? No it was sold to someone else who never really owned it.
Can you build a house on that land ? No it was sold to someone else who never really owned it.
Can you drink the water from that stream ? Maybe....looks a funny colour though and smells a bit strange. Best pay for the other stuff.
You want to serve me ? serve for less than your neighbour and stab them in the back...then you can serve me.
You want to gang up and demand equal treatment ? go find someone else to serve..if i give you a reference...or starve
You want to start a new business and compete ? I will undercut and put you out of business. No problem

There is a strict chain of financial command whose sole point of existance is the owners financial well being or those that serve the owners.
There is a reason politicians own there own businesses and are given seats on a board of directors.
Employees (us) are dispensable costs. Nothing more and nothing less. Ripe for automation and 'efficiency drives'.

You hate your neighbour because you have been divided and conquered without you even knowing.
You have surrendered all your power to faceless overseers and now pay the price.
Time is the greatest weapon of all.
People rarely notice gradual change .
They just 'feel' something is wrong without every really understanding why.
And now its too late.
You are powerless to do anything about it as you are hopelessly dependant and 100% addicted to the drug.

Do you really think civilisation didnt exist until money was invented ?
How do you think the Romans actually conquered Britain ?
Clue. It wasnt from the outside.
Romes lost legion will vouch for that.

#Putstinfoilhataway

I am not so sure about that only the rich live a meaningful or happy life. The majority in this country (south africa) are relatively poor people, but if the majority is poor, this is different to when just a few a poor. There is happiness in their lifes and they laugh and joke a lot, they simply do not care a lot about what will be tomorrow, they live for the current day. There is hardship in their life, but they manage to deal with it and not let it spoil their overall happiness. I admire that actually.

That's my point.
Everyone has aspirations, dreams and desires.
Everyone has their own destiny to fulfil.
All of which is scuppered to allow a limited few to control and restrict the destiny of everyone else.

Those holding the purse strings dictate the future of every one of us.
Most peoples goals and dreams for society are irrelevant as a consequence.

Everyone needs a 1 for 1 voice at the table that dictates the collective future of all of us.
Because you cant have a 'mutually' beneficial society when the vast majority of society are 'ignored'.
People have been repressed or silenced and have no voice.
They are merely given a list of dictators to choose from.
That is why you get riots, uprising, rebellion.
The solution to uprisings is to divide and conquer so people wont act together.

For societies to form they need time to bond.
They need to gain trust, understanding and respect for each other.
That is how families bonded into communities, communities to villlages, villages to towns and towns to cities.
Self sufficient units bonded over time and developed a group identity ie culture or nation.
Unique Cultures flourished and had a home because that culture was rooted in a 'specific time and place'.
It was the 'shared identity' between those 'long term residents' that formed the root of that tree.
It is what turned the law of the jungle warfare and open hostility (***, pillage and murder) into mutually beneficial existence.
When those roots of trust are torn up, when those mutual identities are diluted down, civilisation withers and dies.

Contrast that to the modern world.
All of our neighbours are strangers from foreign lands with their own unique culture.
They displace/destroy the local culture and destroy the community roots.
They move on within months because they go where the work is so no new community identity can form.
There is no trust.
There is no bonds.
There is no stability.
There is no national identity left.
There is no cultural identity left.
There is no civilisation.
We have been bred out, displaced and pitted one against the other just to survive.

We have been divided and conquered as a group of communities.
There is only 'the self/ego' now as 'community/conscience' is dead.
[Save for a few strongholds desperately holding out until they too are crushed]

Shadowfx1970 wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Shadowfx1970 wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Shadowfx1970 wrote: »

Sansoul wrote: »

hamgatan wrote: »

What happened to gaming.. well.. here's the abridged version.

Once upon a time many moons ago in the 1980s there were these things called game parlors. When we finished school.. we would grab our bags, our stack of coins that we'd raided from the parents coin jar stash, and spend until 5-6pm plugging coin after coin into game after game.. with friends and complete strangers standing by our sides yelling screaming and getting into it just as much as we would. Come 6pm we would scuttle home and face the third arse whooping of the week for being home late for dinner.. (and one once a month for the missing coins).

In the 1990s some of these lucky mates had parents who spoiled them rotten for Christmas and laden them with NES's and Sega Master Systems. We would spend summers glued to console game after console game.. Battletoads.. Ski or die.. California games.. Top Gear.. over the years the consoles evolved.. we got the SNES and the MegaDrive.. the scenery never changed. You still spend hours at your friends houses throwing controllers at the couch in frustration - but sharing the best moments of your childhood together.

Slowly the arcades disappeared as consoles took over the world. You no longer were in that environment where you met new people but the social aspect was alive as ever with your mates.. there was still that human connection.

A paradigm shift began in the mid 1990s with the clear separation between PC and console gaming.. we had discovered 9600 baud dial up modems and bulletin boards. I got a 14.4k when it came out and I was the king of the area. Then when 28.8's arrived I was dethroned. Big titles began to appear where you didn't even need to get up and go to your friends houses.. that's when we got Command and Conquer.. and the original Starcraft with the ability of making a direct dialup connection between friends landline phones. This was the Era of father's yelling 'oi get off the bloody computer boy I need to use the phone'!.The phone calls you made to your friends saying 'are you ready? im going to dial in'.. the begging your parents to get a second line installed..

This again evolved faster than we could catch up to. Almost before we knew it the bulletin boards all began dropping their traditional software on a CD models and joining the new revolution called the Internet. Suddenly the world just got a LOT bigger. Bulletin Board providers became ISP's. Local Bulletin Boards that once had close online communities suddenly took a gigantic dive into the pond.

The universities were already miles ahead on this.. they had already begun rolling out DEC AlphaServers by the truckload.. buying entire IPV4 Class A subnets and getting onboard. When we got to university we were just in time to see this evolution.. Once we got past the glorious red box of *** also known as Novell Netware, we were opened to this whole new world. Gaming changed. Sure the universities barred the ability for us to actually install and play anything decent on their LAN's.. but as they provided us with free Shell accounts, we discovered for the first time early Online Gaming in the form of MUD's/MOO's. I still recall 16 of us sitting in a lab at 5am clacking away on Honeywell Mechanical keyboards.. playing the LPMUD Ritual Sacrifice. Everyone's brows furrowed.. staring at the 14" CRT Screens.. in our own worlds. Silence except for the clacking of keys. Silence except for the first person yawning and stretching at 6:00AM and yelling across the lab 'Does Anyone Want to come for a McDonalds Breakfast run?'. This was the unanimous call for everyone to stop laying and reach for their wallets and a post it to write their orders on.

Even though we were all together in a lab.. the gaming experience had changed. We were no longer connected as before.. even though by copper wire we were. As we all began to get home dialup internet accounts we gradually stopped going into Uni at 3am to play our MUD's there.

This was what changed gaming (and for the bigger part.. people). For years we clung on.. arranging days where we would all pack up our PC's and converge on a predetermined location (the friend with the fastest Internet house). Hours of fiddling around with stupid BNC terminators and IPX/SPX networks just to fire up a local HL2 Counterstrike 0.9 Beta Server to spend a day of fragging and carrying on as gamer boys did. As networks and games evolved.. the humble LAN Party disintegrated. No longer did you look forward to going to a LAN to leech as many new movies and games as you could.. you could just fire up IRC and smash the FServe/FTP channels for what you needed. Hosted Servers became more stable and online gaming evolved. I miss those days.. even for a brief period LAN Centres appeared, trying to win back that social crowd in a fixed location.. but even those failed.

Once we no longer interacted as humans, and turned to text on a screen - we lost our social skills. People on the Internet became something else. Being so focused in their own little world they lost the human skills developments that were needed to be social. The Internet became a place where cowards could hide behind keyboards and say what they really felt without retribution or fear of a punch to the head. If this was the 1980s and you said those things in a schoolyard you would get your head beaten in plain and simple.. if you cut in at a Game Parlour when someone elses 20c piece was sitting on the machine as a sign that it was 'reserved' you got your arse kicked plain and simple. Fast forward to 2015 and we have an entitlement society where players want everything their way, and its all about me me me.

It's easy to say <insert X MMO here> killed gaming.. but this is simply not the truth. The problems had begun well before EverQuest Dropped and just devolved further after that. Only those who saw the evolution of how gaming changed will ever understand the landscape that is the norm today. The Internet was essentially what killed it. Once you took away the ability for people to interact together collaboratively in person, you took away part of their humanity and we have spiralled into a society that lacks values across the board now with the younger generations seeing these behaviours as 'the norm'.

MUDs were the bomb. My favorite online era too date.. with EQ1 being a close second.

Just good times, good social experience.

In grad school I wrote a MUD based on Forgotten Realms (started out as a semester project, oh the good ole days) at one point, had 35k unique users which was pretty good for those days. I also played Sojourn until the split.

Good times... Things won't ever be that good again.

A friend of my fathers actually created the first game called a M.U.D. at Essex university I was about 7 at the time, I think it was the first or at least the first in the UK I played a few as I got older and one of the original 1980s ones is still around it's called Avalon I occasionally still play when I want a text driven game.

lol I never mention it cause usually you get the same old response of Everquest or Wow was the first mmo's from the mainly younger generation.

Geez showing my age now.

Interesting I always thought Richard Bartle was the first one wo did that in Essex, but wiki says, it was Roy Trubshaw (never heard of him before), who later gave it over to Richard Bartle. Some MUDs are still quite alive, this is not a totally dead era of online gaming.

It is quite interesting, that the german mud, which is quite popular still, is as well called Avalon - avalon.mud.de - just checked at 4:32am in the morning 33 players online - that is a lot for a MUD.

Edit: what is as well interesting to know with a mud is, that the content is actually player created. If someone has played for long enough, to know enough about the game world, he can become a wizard or noble and can help to create the game world and create quest and other stuff for the game world. He normally ends his career as a player and becomes a developer - I found this to be a very interesting concept.

Oh it's Roy! Thanks for that I thought his name was Rob it was a long time ago and I think I only met him once.

EDIT: I didn't realise it was on Wikipedia, never really thought about it until it was mentioned in this thread, interesting read, one of the first text-based games I played was the wizardry series.

Yes, and the first was MUD1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD1 - interestingly enough they had even a commercial paid version of it later. I think another one was "british legends" which was out in the early 80s already.

What I find quite interesting is, that even the idea behind second life - socializing, user created content - was as well in the MUD world present. There was a type of mud, which did not have combat but was just for social interaction and creating content and share it with others - I just do not remember the type of MUD it was.

I do believe although I might be mistaken and I'd have to research it more, the scientific community used and still use a type of MUD for social experiments and to develop new ideas in tackling world problems such as resource management.

It just amazes me how the deeper you dig into the gaming world the more you discover.

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

I have seen pensioners act like spoilt brats full of venom.
I have seen children performing acts of grace and dignity.
Physical age is not a reflection of mental age.

I have seen evil born from the nicest parents you could meet.
I have seen the most giving and charming children born in a life of brutality.
Birthright is not an indicator of a persons true nature.

What we see is peoples raw individuality stripped from social expectations.
What you see is peoples true uncensored nature.
Sometimes it fills me with disgust...sometimes with humbleness and admiration.
Like some of the stuff @Audigy writes to name but one.

We live in a dog eat dog world.
It is a world of capitalism where only the richest lead a meaningful existance.
And only those that abide by the rich peoples rules get to eat the scraps at the table.
But only if they jump when told and betray their own consicence.
Where acceptance of slavery is relabelled as examples of loyalty.
Did you get to see the birth of your baby or was you on the other side of the world ?
Did you goto your fathers funeral or was you tied up in a meeting somewhere ?
Did you tell your friend you took a pay cut to get the last of the job cuts before they left ?

Money is a drug used to create addicts, while dividing and controlling the masses.
You want food, drink, shelter, warmth ? You serve someone and do what you're told.
Can you eat the fruit from that tree ? No it was sold to someone else who never really owned it.
Can you harvest the wild oats in the field ? No it was sold to someone else who never really owned it.
Can you build a house on that land ? No it was sold to someone else who never really owned it.
Can you drink the water from that stream ? Maybe....looks a funny colour though and smells a bit strange. Best pay for the other stuff.
You want to serve me ? serve for less than your neighbour and stab them in the back...then you can serve me.
You want to gang up and demand equal treatment ? go find someone else to serve..if i give you a reference...or starve
You want to start a new business and compete ? I will undercut and put you out of business. No problem

There is a strict chain of financial command whose sole point of existance is the owners financial well being or those that serve the owners.
There is a reason politicians own there own businesses and are given seats on a board of directors.
Employees (us) are dispensable costs. Nothing more and nothing less. Ripe for automation and 'efficiency drives'.

You hate your neighbour because you have been divided and conquered without you even knowing.
You have surrendered all your power to faceless overseers and now pay the price.
Time is the greatest weapon of all.
People rarely notice gradual change .
They just 'feel' something is wrong without every really understanding why.
And now its too late.
You are powerless to do anything about it as you are hopelessly dependant and 100% addicted to the drug.

Do you really think civilisation didnt exist until money was invented ?
How do you think the Romans actually conquered Britain ?
Clue. It wasnt from the outside.
Romes lost legion will vouch for that.

#Putstinfoilhataway

I am not so sure about that only the rich live a meaningful or happy life. The majority in this country (south africa) are relatively poor people, but if the majority is poor, this is different to when just a few a poor. There is happiness in their lifes and they laugh and joke a lot, they simply do not care a lot about what will be tomorrow, they live for the current day. There is hardship in their life, but they manage to deal with it and not let it spoil their overall happiness. I admire that actually.

That's my point.
Everyone has aspirations, dreams and desires.
Everyone has their own destiny to fulfil.
All of which is scuppered to allow a limited few to control and restrict the destiny of everyone else.

Those holding the purse strings dictate the future of every one of us.
Most peoples goals and dreams for society are irrelevant as a consequence.

Everyone needs a 1 for 1 voice at the table that dictates the collective future of all of us.
Because you cant have a 'mutually' beneficial society when the vast majority of society are 'ignored'.
People have been repressed or silenced and have no voice.
They are merely given a list of dictators to choose from.
That is why you get riots, uprising, rebellion.
The solution to uprisings is to divide and conquer so people wont act together.

For societies to form they need time to bond.
They need to gain trust, understanding and respect for each other.
That is how families bonded into communities, communities to villlages, villages to towns and towns to cities.
Self sufficient units bonded over time and developed a group identity ie culture or nation.
Unique Cultures flourished and had a home because that culture was rooted in a 'specific time and place'.
It was the 'shared identity' between those 'long term residents' that formed the root of that tree.
It is what turned the law of the jungle warfare and open hostility (***, pillage and murder) into mutually beneficial existence.
When those roots of trust are torn up, when those mutual identities are diluted down, civilisation withers and dies.

Contrast that to the modern world.
All of our neighbours are strangers from foreign lands with their own unique culture.
They displace/destroy the local culture and destroy the community roots.
They move on within months because they go where the work is so no new community identity can form.
There is no trust.
There is no bonds.
There is no stability.
There is no national identity left.
There is no cultural identity left.
There is no civilisation.
We have been bred out, displaced and pitted one against the other just to survive.

We have been divided and conquered as a group of communities.
There is only 'the self/ego' now as 'community/conscience' is dead.
[Save for a few strongholds desperately holding out until they too are crushed]

But life is about change, not about stability - humans desire stability and certainty, while there is no such thing in nature, it is always on the move and changing and the only certainty is, that there will be change. What isn't changing will not stand the test of time.

Life is about survival. Not change. Change is a dream of the future not the present.
Civlisation is beyond nature. Its an artificail contruct that seperates us from the brutal world of the animal kingdom.
If you want us to revert to beast form though.....I think you will regret that.

So its better to spend billions and billions on transportation and relocation of materials, assets and staff ?
Or is it more efficient to keep everything local with minimal to zero transportation costs ?
Just tarmac everything to keep everything moving and destroy any sense of belonging ?
I always advised govenements years ago to stop with everything but 3D printers and Liquid materials.
I coined the concept of the democratic economic network where democracy was mobilised as a new type of business.
I gave concept of a virtual earth database where the virtual world was a UI into controlling the physical earth.
Be it gas, water or electric control or vehicle automation.
It was an interface and marriage of reality and dream.

BUT...
What happens when everything is fully automated and there is no jobs left because people are surplus to requirements ?
The future you rush to is the edge of a cliff.

Whose change ? Whose direction ? Yours ? Mine ? The presidents ? Chinas ? Americas ? Germanies ? Some multinational congolemerate with hidden owners ? The church of some religion ?