Author: Jason

Movie Round-Up: June 19th, 2009

Reviews

Year One:

Every time Jack Black puts out a new film, I approach it with caution.  I find I’m either going to love or hate his work.  There really is not a middle ground.  But the trailers for this film have actually had me chuckling.  They have a very History of the World Part I or Life of Brian feel.  I probably won’t make it to the theater for this one, but I’ll be chomping at the bit to catch it on DVD.

The Proposal:

You’ve seen this movie before.  She’s the boss, a book editor, treats people like crap, and is a Canadian about to be deported, so she promises to a promotion to her assistant in exchange for marriage.  The twist here is that she always thought he was just another assistant, but it turns out he’s from a very wealthy family in Alaska (they own most of the town) and he was in New York chasing his dream of being an editor and avoiding the family business.  So they head to Alaska to meet his family and try to fool the immigration department… comedy ensues.  And while you have seen this movie before, that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.  Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds are both great and their on screen chemistry pops.  You know how its going to end before it starts, but it is an enjoyable ride to the finish.  In my opinion, easily worth the matinee price if chick flick romantic comedies are your style.

Combat Revised

Gaming

Tobold has an interesting post up today about making combat in MMOs better.  I’d like to take his combat cards design a step further, and use it to support a classless design as well.

Think about it, if all your attacks, defences and utility moves in combat were based on a deck of skill/action cards, you can go a step further and make each card have requirements.  For example, a defensive card called “Shield Block” that would buff you an absorb the damage of the next incoming attack (or X amount of damage) would require you to have a shield equipped to use.  A “Fireball” card could require a wand be in your primary hand, while a “Backstab” requires a dagger.  I’m sure we could spitball and come up with many things like this.  As an added bonus, the items could have a modifier.  Using a flat shield with “Shield Block” has no bonus, but if you had a Spiked Shield your “Shield Block” would inflict X damage if the attack absorbed was a melee attack.  Again, let your mind run wild on all the things you could do.

The result would be that your “class” would be defined by your equipment and the deck that you carry.  New cards and new items could be found through questing and adventuring, and made through crafting.  Crafting itself could be made up as card game combat using a separate deck and crafter’s tools.

To throw another element into the mix, you could allow for character level to affect the bonus on cards, or even add a “card level” where the cards in your deck gain experience through use, the more you use a card the higher level it gets the better the bonus.  Card level would, in effect, mirror a skill based system, while your character level would carry a bonus on all cards.  So if you had been heavily magic focused and decided to become a plate tank by switching your gear and cards, the 50 levels you earned as a mage would transfer as a level 50 warrior, you’d only be lacking card levels.

Another thing this design would allow for is a structure where any opponent can be non-trivial.  If defence and mitigation are card effects, an unlucky draw could leave you open to attacks by even the “lowest level” foes.  The reverse is also true, that low level characters can fight even high level foes with a good deck and a lucky draw.

This design would even allow for RMT in the form of selling booster packs of random cards (or buying specific cards for larger amounts), but restricts the power of “bought goods” through the equipment requirements and card level bonuses.  (Traded cards would not retain their level.)

Lastly, similar to the way Guild Wars handles things, make the places you can swap equipment and decks be limited to the adventuring hubs, so that a player picks a role and outfits themselves prior to heading out.  (This works fantastically with my thoughts on town–centric design with judicious use of instancing.)

The more I think about it, the more I like this.

XI

Random Thoughts

From 1998 to 2009, as of today, this blog officially goes to eleven.

I put up a pretty good summary post last year at ten, but the Spinal Tap fan in me just couldn’t let this year go by without a mention.  Now that that’s done, I’ll mosey along…

Seaside is dead to me

Gaming

I decided this past weekend to grind my first town in Free Realms.  I happened to be standing in Seaside so that is the one I picked.

By grinding a town, what I mean is to do whatever I can to remain in town and work on quests.  First off, I completed the collection quests of Seaside, then I visited every quest giver and completed every quest that is available to a person who is playing for free.  Quite often the game tried to encourage me not to do this by having quests that would lead me off to another town, but I would always run do that quest and teleport back, rather than the expected behavior of seeing quests in the new town and sticking around to work them.

When I logged out on Sunday morning, the only quests that remained in Seaside were the ones I can’t do.  That doesn’t mean there are not more quests, but there might be some that just are not unlocked (because of level or because I haven’t done the lead in quest from another town or random world NPC).  At this point, unless I get a quest that sends me to Seaside, I don’t expect to go back there until I get bored and start looking for things I missed (or things that have since unlocked).

Sanctuary is next.

Use the Tools Provided

Random Thoughts

The fundamental problem with Web 2.0 and social networking tools is a lack of blocking and filtering options, and when they exist the reluctance of users to use them.

When I look at a site like Twitter, I think they have done it right and provided the proper tools to manage their brand of social networking, and yet I see so few people using them.  If you were to look at my account, you’d see that I have around 44 people following me (I say around because that can change at any time).  I could easily have 200 followers, but it wouldn’t mean anything.  Every person who follows me, I read their account, if they are say the kinds of things I want to hear I follow them back.  If you follow me and I don’t follow you, it doesn’t mean I won’t follow you in the future, it just means that what I read so far didn’t excite me enough to add you to my main feed, but I’ll check back later to see if that changes.  If, however, I read your account and find what you have to say in poor taste or your account is nothing but advertising, I will block you.  (Keep in mind, I don’t base this on a single tweet, it has to be a long held pattern.)  Blocking on Twitter has the effect that not only do I not see you, but you can’t see me.  More people need to do this.  I see spamming accounts following thousands of people, and unless that is thousands of other spam accounts, it means people aren’t blocking.  And this behavior isn’t limited just to Twitter.  Any social network site that publicly displays how many “friends” or “followers” you have is subject to it.

The problem, of course, is that the number becomes too important.  That number shouldn’t matter.  Why should I care if someone has eleventy billion friends?  The thing I should care about is whether or not the content that person produces is worth reading.  In the end, that’s the thing I consider the biggest failure of Web 2.0.  It is supposed to be about the content, but most sites wind up including some number like views or friends counts that becomes the focus over the content.

I’m not alone here.  Trent Reznor, a person who has embraced social networking but is now turning away from it, had this to say:

We’re in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience.

The power to make social network sites better is in your hands.  Use the tools provided.

Movie Round-Up: June 12th, 2009

Reviews

Imagine That:

Eddie Murphy once made his career on raunchy adult themed comedy and movies.  He has long since left that behind in favor of more family friendly fair.  That said, I have actually enjoyed a few of them.  While Norbit, the Doolittle sequels and the Nutty Professor movies left me flat, I actually enjoyed Meet Dave.  This movie looks cute, so it’ll definitely get a rental viewing, but as cute as it looks I don’t think it’s enough to earn $10 from my wallet on opening weekend.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3:

I kept meaning to Netflix the original so I could see it before this remake opened, but I never did.  The trailer looks pretty decent, and I like most of the actors.  I want to see it, but John Travolta as a bad guy is fairly hit or miss.  Hit, Broken Arrow.  Miss, The Punisher.  So, for me, I probably won’t run out and see it, but will wait for the rental.  However, it does look like a good action film, so you might want to check it out.

Away We Go:

Technically, this movie opened last week, but only on 4 screens.  This week marks the first expansion into places where average people might actually have a chance to see it.  I saw it at a screening and … I think it is a damn shame that I’ve seen some outlets compare this film to Juno.  It sets the absolute wrong expectations since Away We Go is nothing like Juno.  What Away We Go is about is a couple (I don’t want to say ‘young’ because they are 34) who are about to have a baby and had moved to be close to his parents.  But his parents have decided to move to Antwerp, so now they are looking for other family and friends to live near.  Conveniently, both of them have jobs that are not location based, so off they go in search of a new place to raise their forthcoming child.  Along the way they encounter four completely different families and learn about the things they want and the things they don’t want.  Its sweet, its funny, and its also sad in places.  Most of all, though, its worth watching.

Storming the Brain

Random Thoughts

So, as previously noted, I’m working on a little side project for myself and as I get into it and through it, I figured I would blog about steps that I have taken and maybe get some discussion going.

To begin with, I had an idea.  It was a very general sort of thing which I then nailed down to a few specifics.  In this case, what I am building is a web based tool, so I nailed it down to being web based, likely written in PHP, and with a database for a back end, likely to be MySQL.  With the initial idea fairly solid, the next phase is the brainstorming…

How I usually approach this is to get out a blank piece of paper and ask “Given no limits at all, what features can this thing have?”  And I start filling out the page with lots of craziness.  After I have a nice sizable chunk going, I start to go through the list and try to group them.  The first group is the “1.0” version, these are the features that are absolutely required in order for the product to be worthwhile, the foundation, the core.  Of course, in my world, version 1.0 is almost never the release product.  1.0 is the version you test the waters with to see if people actually want what you have.  Once you’ve locked in those base features, you take all the rest of your ideas and start looking for ways to group them together.  In my opinion, you never want a release of a product to be scatter shot, adding tiny features all over.  It is better if your release overhauls one section and really fleshed out one piece with new ideas and fixes, at least until tiny scattered fixes are all that is left.

Once I’ve got most, if not all, of my original brainstorm ideas grouped together, its time to actually make the core a reality.  Brainstorming is part of the iterative design process.  When the core is done, we’ll do another round of brainstorming before deciding what elements will make the next release.

Have any things you do in your brainstorming design phase of a project?  Feel free to share…

200

Random Thoughts

It has been very close for a while now, but I finally hit the mark, and maintained it for a few days (maintaining is the key).  Two hundred pounds.

The best part about this is that I am doing it slow and steady.  I’m watching my diet, but I don’t feel like I’m starving or cheating myself.  I’m exercising, but I don’t feel like I’m “working out”.  I’m just getting leaner, and stronger, and feeling better.  I don’t think I would ever actually want to do one of those crash diet and exercise programs where you lose fifty pounds in two weeks because I don’t think I’d actually keep the weight off.  But the way I am approaching it, breaking one bad habit at a time and instilling one good habit at a time, it feels good and I doubt I’ll have trouble sticking with it.

I’m still doing my 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups daily (most of the time, some days I skip but I’d like to think I still hit 5 days a week).  Before spring got here I was doing a cardio step thing once a week, but I’ve since replaced it with mowing the lawn and other yard work.  I use a push reel mower for the lawn.  Look it up, you’ll think I’m crazy.  But crazy like a fox…  I’m to the point now where I’ll keep the yard work and try to add a cardio bit somewhere in the middle of the week.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now.  199, here I come…

Movie Round-Up: June 5th, 2009

Reviews

Land of the Lost:

I grew up on the show, which means I approach a remake with much hesitation.  Add to that the fact that I don’t really find Will Ferrell to be all that funny, and you’ve got a movie I am not itching to see.  But I’m sure it will make a ton of money.

The Hangover:

If you are going to go see one movie this weekend and aren’t dead set on seeing Land of the Lost, I suggest seeing The Hangover.  This movie is hilarious.  Just awesome.  Every actor seems so perfectly cast, and the whole thing is so absurd but it never quite goes into disgusting territory with its humor.  It is one night they will never forget, if only they could remember.

My Life In Ruins:

I wasn’t a big fan of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  It was humorous.  It was cute.  But overall it was… eh…  So I went in to My Life In Ruins with the bar set pretty low.  And that’s probably why I enjoyed it so much.  It is humorous.  It is cute.  Greece is beautiful and the whole film is well shot.  And Richard Dreyfuss steals the show.  If you go see two movies this weekend, and one of them is The Hangover, make the other one My Life In Ruins and just skip Land of the Lost.

The Group is the Thing

Gaming

Let’s begin by saying that if you are the type of person who prefers to play MMO games solo or “alone together” then I am not talking to you.  I get it, you like being able to play by yourself and any game that “forces” you to group is a game you won’t play, blah blah blah… understood.  Now, for the people who play games to actually play with other people…

Always on my mind is ways to encourage grouping in games.  Fact is, while I think solo play is perfectly viable and that games should make playing alone possible, I don’t think solo play should be the best method of advancement.  Over at Epic Slant, Ferrel posted about Encouraging Groups and while replying on it I hit upon an idea that I wanted to expand on…

First, you have to consider the question “Why group?”  In most games these days there are only two reasons to group up with other players: 1) Social aspects, 2) Defeat non-solo content.  Especially in games following the WoW model, solo play is so easy that even some content designed to be non-solo can be done solo if you are willing to out-level it.  But there is raid content and group instances, specifically at the level cap where you can’t just out-level it.  And with the social aspects, well, back in EQ with auto-attack and slow cast times there was time to chat, but in newer games they wanted play to be more “active” and now you spend combat hitting buttons a lot and it make chatting in text difficult.  But games are coming along with voice chat, and people have solved that problem outside games for a while now with things like Ventrilo, however sometimes (like if you game while the baby is sleeping, or just late at night) voice chat just isn’t a good option, and besides, no matter how many people try to tell you different, deep barritone voices coming from dainty female characters is just something you never fully get used to.

Next, you have to ask the opposite question, “Why avoid groups?”  In World of Warcraft soloing up to the level cap is actually far easier than grouping because a) as long as you are not an idiot, you don’t have to deal with idiots, b) no loot splitting, c) no experience splitting, and d) you can always do exactly what you want.  They’ve made solo play so easy that it puts the group experience bonuses to shame.

So, in the end we have two reasons to group, and about a half dozen reasons not to.  Of course, my first thought is usually just to up the group experience bonus and make people want to group for faster leveling, but given a long enough period of discussion I will always talk myself out of it because speeding up the game, in my opinion, isn’t a good thing.  (People should want to play your entire game at the speed that allows them to enjoy it, not skip past a giant chunk of it to get to “the real game”.)  And then I’m off trying to find other ways to make people desire to group…

What about a game where items not only have bonuses for you, but also for your group?  To rephrase the example I put on Epic Slant: Instead of a game giving out a chest piece that provides a 20% defense bonus to the player wearing it, the game would have a chest piece that provides a 4% defense bonus to the group (player included) and stacks (so if 5 people have the same chest, the entire group now has 20% defense bonus), or a chest piece that provides a 10% defense bonus for the group and stacks but only to a max of two (so if 3 people in the group have the same chest piece, 1 of them can swap his out for one that gives a different group bonus).

I can already hear the solo players griping about how since they don’t group they are handicapped with a chest that only gives a 4% or 10% bonus and not the 20% that grouping players get.  But, as long as the game is still playable solo with the base item stats, then frankly I would be perfectly comfortable telling them to go play World of Warcraft or some other game that better supports solo play as the primary style of play.

So, what do you think?  Good idea?  Bad idea?  What other ideas do you have that would encourage people to want to group?  Just keep in mind, I’m not talking about demanding an existing game make changes, but looking at how to design a new game that would encourage group play…