Posts filed under 'Leisure'
Many people have decided that WoW economy is worth investigating. So far so good, in itself this statement is fine, people will keep busy with whatever they like. However please don’t confuse WoW economy with real life economy. That just doesn’t make sense.
WoW economy doesn’t have taxes, expenditures for workers, lobbies, rents for office spaces, supply lines to consider and plan for, lawyers or courts etc. In WoW a person can make money simply by going out and killing things or picking flowers or mining rocks that pop out of the ground. Closest real life equivalents would be the livestock farmers, agricultural farmers and “gold-rush” miners. Each of those has expenditures from day zero, in that he needs food to live (basest of expenditure) to many others.
A WoW player needs nothing to survive and he has to spend nothing (outside of a periodic repair bill to his equipment) to play the game. This basic difference is so important that it already breaks the comparison.
However, there is a lesson to be learned. No WoW player has had his equipment removed because he failed to pay his loan. No WoW player was ever in debt. No WoW player bought anything without paying full value right then and there. If only the real economy would be like that…
May 27th, 2010
I have no words. ME2 voice acting stars are just phenomenal as you can very well see in this video.
Fans of SciFi should recognize everyone here and I’m (finally) really excited about playing this game. Just like Mass Effect was a great adventure and a brilliant experience, I’m now expecting great things from Mass Effect 2.
I’ve said before that voice acting makes a game, and with the stars on display here, the script can really come alive. And the folks over at BioWare have PROVED that they can produce an amazing storyline.
P.S. Soooo looking forward to hearing “Worf” again…
December 11th, 2009
Seems like someone else thought as I did about MMO betas and it was Massively.com
They have asked MMO developers the same questions about betas and there are some interesting points to read in this Q&A. I will not express an opinion as I have already done so, for one, and the views of each developer is plainly laid out. Just go read it and see for yourself.
December 1st, 2009
What is the best MMO? Most would say WoW and I can understand that. But here is a thought; there is currently not one MMO that is as good as it can be. Some are better than others, but all of them have something missing.
Having been playing MMOs since the very beginning (barring Ultima Online), I have played a great many of them. I’m always amazed at how people say that this feature was “stolen” from that game as if this is a bad thing. If that was the case then UO did most of it first and if “stealing” features was forbidden then the MMO market not have seen some of its current gems.
While I’m very happy these gems exist and have played / play most of them, I want that one bar of platinum. So here is a list of features that I would like to see in one game.
Classless progression. The old archetypes of tank, melee DPS, range DPS, healer, controller are done to their end. I have a friend that plays a tank archetype but has twisted the skills and items he wears so much that he is not the best melee DPS. I also feel that defining a class for a gamer leads to more standard deployments of skills (the templates that many sites have) than if you leave them alone to choose what they think is cool. Games that did not have classes were riddled with people that had completely different skill sets and they were enjoying themselves more because it was their character.
Strong player driven economy. While most would think that WoW is a good example, I would be willing to bet that most of them don’t know about EVE’s market. Plan for big economy please, with a crafting system that can make many things but output only a limited amount of items, just like EVE. I think all future developers should take a deep look at EVE crafting/market system and learn from it. Don’t give me a crafting profession that makes the top tier item in 40 seconds, give me a way to make (random numbers to follow) 1000 items, all of some value or need, top tier items to be made in hours, not seconds, and a way to make 10 of them at the same time.
Purpose. DAoC still stands in my mind as the single best game in terms of purpose. Spent a year leveling up my character and then three years playing the same character in which he never changed his items, instead he was getting new skills from PvPing. Saying that in today’s world seems insane to most. No new item in three years? Yes, back then the world was much simpler (or confined); if you wanted items and raiding you went to EverQuest, if you wanted persistent war you went to DAoC. It worked, and to a degree still does as there are servers open for those games. Modern equivalents are Warhammer (for DAoC) and WoW (for EverQuest). But here is the difference; Warhammer even has raiding in it, while WoW does not have any significant war elements. Battlegrounds and arenas are PvP raiding providing nothing for character progression other than more items. The world itself needs to feel alive and changing. You cannot understand the feeling of spending two or three hours in one map fighting over the castles in the area. It was not two months ago that I enjoyed such a feeling in Warhammer when we were trying to defend a castle for three hours. I cannot make it justice in words alone.
Early Travel method. Champions Online is not to be praised for a great many deal of things. However it has nailed one thing; early travel powers. Running around a vast area does not add to any game. Give players the means to go where they need to or want to. Let them appreciate the content, not the pretty rocks the path is made of.
Keep it simple, stupid! Photorealism means nothing unless it is perfect or damn near perfect. It is something that robotic engineers (of all people) have stumbled on when trying to make their life like robots. People accept something easier if it has characteristics of human nature but obviously is not human, than a near copy which might even make them afraid of it. It is an instinctual response to dismiss something that tries to be something it is not. The closer something is not the thing it tries to be, the more apprehensive we become of it. It needs to be VERY similar or clearly dissimilar. Look at all the realistic graphics (Vanguard, EQ2, etc.) and you can easily see the differences, no matter how impressive it may be. Impressive wears out. Now look at WoW and Aion, both are completely stylized to their respective fields (Western and Eastern feel) and both are beautiful, and more importantly smoother than Vanguard ever was…
More to follow.
November 25th, 2009
There is an amount of admiration for hackers, those system wizards that know far more than many PhD holders. It is powerful to be able to gain entry to secret information and as we all know, power corrupts. This is why there is a distinction between hackers; the White and the Black.
White hackers are the Robin Hoods, believe in information freedom, uncover secrets that are dangerous or harmful to the public, or plain unfair. Proprietary software to them is evil and open source the holy grail. They do not damage systems and can even help protect a system by informing the admins of holes. As an example, most police officers working on IT crimes have elements of White Hackers.
Black hackers on the other hand are the ones that crash systems, invade databases to destroy them or copy data to pass along to others for financial gain. There is no nobility in their actions, simply the need to spread chaos. The ideology is one of supremacy; if you were hacked, you simply were not strong enough, tough break.
Although most, if not all, hacking is a crime, the distinction is real.
When people admire hackers (and by people I mean members of the general public) it is the White hackers they admire. Which is how games such as Uplink and Hacker Evolution (henceforth HE) exist.
I prefer Uplink as I find HE too confining. Uplink has a better system of hiding your tracks compared to HE . In HE a trace is magically always on and depends on varying amounts on what you do. A wrong server ping will give you 1% more trace, while a password break will increase the trace by 15%. The way to reduce the trace is to run a log parser that automatically goes through the system and depending on what you did cuts down (anything from 0% to 12%), or to pay $500 for a 10% reduction. There are a lot of action in HE that raise your trace by more than 10% and the log parser never balances out. So one always needs to steal money to pay for trace reductions. Also, if you leave the game on forever, no one is ever going to catch you; you only get caught if your trace reaches 100%.
While that approach is understandable as a means of control over the actions of the gamer in balancing action with reaction and exploration in an effort to enforce tactical thinking instead of endless time attrition of the target system, hackers don’t do that.
Uplink has a better way. You are an agent for a hacking firm and you pick hacking jobs from the bulletin. Complete them and you get money, which you NEVER have to spend to cover your tracks. Money in Uplink is only for upgrades, either of the software you use or the machine upgrades of your gateway (which, in Uplink, is the computer you control remotely, so you give it a better CPU and you run decryptions faster). Tracing is either active or passive. Active tracing is initiated when you do something suspicious or something that is set as a flag. For instance, logging in with an admin account will always start an active trace, no matter what you do. If the trace reaches your gateway, it’s game over. Passive trace is in essence a person that goes through the logs of every server you went through till he reaches your gateway. This is much slower but always happens, even if you did not activate an active trace. So the way for you to cover your tracks is to bounce the connection through as many servers as possible to prolong the time the active trace will take and, more importantly, to go back to one server along the bounce route (usually the first one) and delete the logs that will incriminate you. This way the passive trace will end at this server as the enemy operator cannot find your gateway.
This is closer to what I think is like real world hacking. That is not to say that Uplink does not have its faults. One big one is really ridiculous. Most players have found out that there is one server that never changes the password for the admin account and more importantly, never traces you. Hence, it is the perfect server to start the bounce, and most do. All hacks in the game start with this server as the first in the long chain of server bouncing. All hacks end with the players logging to that server with no bounce and deleting the logs that point to them.
So here is the question; why would the game police not hack this server since 99% of all game hacks went through that server? Ah well…
If you like Uplink, check out this guide but careful of the spoilers.
November 24th, 2009
Let me start by saying that the movie is good.
Having said that, I am reminded of a piece of popular wisdom; knowing too much about the future might ruin it for you.
I have not read the books, so I do not know all the little info that people that have read it know about. However, I knew enough so that the plot was very predictable. I find that New Moon is based on surprise. I knew too much – from either trailers or my sister – and suspected a good deal more with enough certainty, so when they happened I was not surprised. The movie became a simple “Ah, this is how they did it” in a purely technical or artistic fashion.
There were some real gems though. Dakota Fanning’s performance, although so small, really surprised me. The confidence of a powerful vampire oozing out of the first scenes, the cruelty and sadism of her power as she unleashes it on Edward, and the utter surprise and sense of failure when confounded by Bella. I honestly feel excited at the prospect of her future films.
Also the werewolves were much much better than I ever thought possible from the trailers. A big bravo to the guys at special effects. Jacob facing off Victoria in that one stand still scene was really iconic.
On a side note, when I went to see the movie, there were some fans of the saga that were taking a poll. One of the questions was something along the lines of: “Do you think that The Twilight with its mainly romantic theme is inappropriate given that the Vampire theme is mainly a horror genre?”. The answers were a simple yes or no, however I disagree with the question. People seem to forget that the original Vampire story was that of Dracula, which at its core is a love story.
P.S. Love the irony that the head of the Vampires is played by Michael Sheen who played the head of the Lycans in the Underworld movies.
November 22nd, 2009
It’s not the grind; people are forming many groups all the time and even specifically for killing.
It’s not the graphics; while very nice, they don’t make a game good or bad.
It’s not the money; the sub is at a reasonable level and in-game gold is not that hard to come by.
It’s not the bots; a little patience and planning and you can even have fun with them.
It’s not the limited flight time; there are many ways to work around that and gliding is much more fun and useful anyway.
It’s the crafting.
I cannot stay in a game that treats crafting as the best way to eat away at your money, that handles crafting of powerful items on a twice random roll (crit the first item and then crit the second to get it – leads to me making 48 gold rings to get the two rings I wanted).
I would understand it if it was HARD to find the mats. I would understand it if the items produced were so powerful that they could be sold for any profit (instead items dropped are very close to those made and as loot they are cheap to buy or find). I would even understand it if there was some justification for it (Vanguard system or the likes).
So yeah, I stopped Aion because I didn’t like the crafting, but that’s just me. Since it was there I wanted it to be good, and to me it is not. It even managed to piss me off.
November 19th, 2009
Those people are a special bread of people. Being a beta tester requires a way of thinking that is often not the norm. It also takes a person that is keen on detail and has clarity of thought so that he can put to paper his actions that lead to an erroneous action or response from the platform.
Now take that to the game beta tester. There are some that want to go in closed beta in order to play the game for free. They will not take notes on their actions as to identify bugs, they will not try many combinations of the same action but only the one they conceive as being the most efficient way to complete their goal (which is to level up, not to test the game), they will not report things they consider a simple annoyance but will just power through and ignore it.
Those people hurt the games we love but the industry seems to not do anything about it. I consider myself an above average beta tester and have been included in many a beta. Were such thing as a Beta CV I would have a very nice one, but such a thing does not exist. Companies that post applications for closed betas mostly do not ask anything about previous beta experience, and no company has ever provided me with any feedback or certificate or reference for beta work I have done.
Maybe it is time for a change? Or does the current system actually work with the in house QA team being sufficiently effective that the need for qualified beta testers is diminished and thus closed beta invitations are serving another function?
Perhaps there is a third option, that unpaid beta testers are actually so conscientious that there is no need to actually have an interview like platform.
November 19th, 2009
So many people have problems with this new movie. The fora are in flames with posts of people supporting and flaming the new movie, so much so that in a day a simple thread starting with “I like the new movie” becomes a 10 page rampage of all the problems it has.
I do not agree with most of it, but I also note that many people do not even pay attention to the arguments, they simply don’t like the plot and dismiss arguments with simple remarks of laziness or practicality (That would never happen, or, this is just lazy writing to explain that and this – no matter it explained it, it was lazy so I don’t like it).
Some of the easiest to explain “plot holes” include:
1. Enterprise, the flagship of the Federation, is so poorly staffed that almost the entire bridge is replaced within minutes of the film.
2. Sulu cannot even get to warp.
3. Spok relieves himself from captain because he is emotional, when he is struggling so much with being a good Vulcan and rejects his human side.
4. Kirk becomes captain (directly linked from 3).
5. Old Spok does not warn people although he is so close to a Federation outpost.
6. Chekov can beam two people falling at terminal velocity but is unable to beam a single person falling from a ledge.
7. On the flip side however, Scotty can beam people across vast distances on a ship moving at warp speeds.
8. Uhura told no one about the intercepted Klingon message which could have saved the ships going in the trap.
Those are just the ones that keep coming up and are easy to explain.
1. Enterprise is NOT the flagship of the Federation, it is only intended to become the flagship. As such the crew that it should have is not available on a short notice and is staffed with whatever is available on short notice from whoever was nearby. It is only natural to select crew that has some rank and/or experience for the role. However it is a crisis and the captain makes changes as he sees fit. And who really is changed? One comm officer! That’s all that is changed and we have been told time and time again of Uhura’s special abilities that make her more than capable for the job. As for Kirk becoming 1st officer, that is for later.
2. Sulu is a last minute replacement on a newly build ship of a new class of ship. As such, and although some briefing will have happened, it is all too easy to assume the Enterprise is just a little bit different from the other ships and Sulu just forgets the external inertia dampener. The fact that Spok even gets it right on the first try what the problem is might enforce that he knows what is different with Enterprise compared to other vessels and thus understands where Sulu might have gotten it wrong.
3. Vulcan’s ability to control emotion is not in their genes. Their genetic makeup is one of extreme emotion, so much so that they were very violent in the past. It is this past that lead them to control their emotions and conceal it with logic. Furthermore, no Vulcan is complete in this endeavor until he has completed the Kolinar ritual, something that Spok has never done. All that information is spread in the series and movies and is fact. However none of the people arguing that Spok should not be that emotional accept these as valid reasons. They must truly be Vulcans amongst us.
4. That is a bit flaky, but keep in mind that there are points that make this possible, possible being the key issue here. Most of the big moments in movies are about what is possible, not probable. In that sense, one reason can be Pike admiring Kirk’s father and recognizing in him a greatness waiting to be revealed which is why he makes him 1st officer. Pike did not make Kirk captain, that was a totally different matter, one that Pike could not even foresee (who expected that day to witness the destruction of Vulcan and the death of Spok’s mother?). Kirk’s rise to captain was part “fatherly” admiration/nurture and part emergency action. Finally, this is Star Trek, this is the Enterprise, this is Kirk and this is a movie. We all know Kirk will be captain and this way was pretty dramatic. A meteoric rise of a legend, things that happen just once in a thousand years.
5. Exactly what was he supposed to say? We don’t know how long Spok was on that planet, we don’t know how concerned he was with trying to preserve the time line. Did Nero tell him what was going to happen? Did he leave it as a surprise? I could go on. Just put yourself in his shoes. How do you explain what you know, where you come from? How will the outpost treat you? Could some eager security officer blame you of being a spy for Nero? There are too many unknowns to make any kind of guess. All that makes is a bit of bad storytelling and not much more. Again, it is simply possible that there were reasons for Old Spok to not have gone to the outpost and I would like to know what they were, but that’s all.
6. Terminal velocity is being thrown out too much as so important in the process because it provides a contrast to Spok’s mother falling but not having reached that speed. People watching closely can see that the beaming has started when Spok’s mother falls, that Chekov tries to re-establish a lock but he only had 2 seconds MAYBE before falling to her death. Kirk and Sulu were falling for about 15-20 seconds before Chekov managed to beam them up. I really don’t understand what the problem is here.
7. No, Scotty cannot beam people on ships traveling at warp speeds, Old Spok gave him the equations for that. End of story.
8. That statement suggests that Uhura knew the relation between the Klingons being attacked and the SOS from Vulcan. She did not. She most definitely reported that to whoever was in charge at that time but no connection was ever made, not even by Kirk when he first heard it, unless people are suggesting that whenever Klingon ships (or whatever ships) are destroyed, the Federation must immediately assume a trap.
Just my two pence.
May 13th, 2009
Having seen both new “blockbuster” movies, the new Star Trek and Wolverine, I must say that I was not impressed.
However, the reasons are very different. Wolverine is a movie that deserved to be much longer while Star Trek was just rather pointless to a fan. It showed us something that does not add anything to, or play a role in, all the previous events we have seen in any movie or series.
——–Spoilers———–
For Star Trek, the creation of an alternate time line makes all knowledge of who Kirk and his crew were in reality (by reality I am referring to the actual time line of the universe). The change of events does not even limit the differences to Kirk because Nero is active in this movie and he affects events that would not have happened otherwise. Even Old Spok says so, in his question “Are you not the captain?” when New Kirk tell him that New Spok marooned him for mutiny.
So we have some info about the actual timeline from Old Spok (Kirk was captain at that stardate, he and Spok were friends) which are sufficient for us to say that we don’t really know what happened to the original characters in their original timeline.
————-End Spoiler—————
Having said that, the movie is fun and engaging, but it fails to provide people that love the universe with more relevant info about the characters and that is a major flaw in my humble opinion.
As for Wolverine, the flaw in that movie is that it only has one viewpoint, that of Wolverine. So many characters and events are discussed in the movie but not given any background or substance. Hence we are left with a feeling of lost info, wondering what happened there or there, who that is, why did he did that etc. This is a movie that deserved many more hours of storytelling but we did not get that. Also, what is wrong with naming the characters with the aliases that Marvel gave them? So many of them are not called by their better known aliases.
May 12th, 2009
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