weblog - Page 131 of 162 - that Jason Pace

Odd Things Make Me Laugh

2006-02-22 Jason Random Thoughts

I am a child of technology. As I was growing up I had an Atari, a Nintendo, a computer in my house since they became reasonably affordable, and the first thing I did when I got a computer was beg for a modem. Since then, in some way or another, I have been online. One thing I have always found interesting about technology, and specifically being online or the internet, is the terms that get used by the media and by business marketers that rarely if ever get used by the actual users. The big one for me is “Cyberspace”. The only time I have ever used that term has been in a mocking manner, usually when talking about horrid movies like “Hackers” where getting into a computer system is depicted as travelling through a three dimensional flight simulator, as opposed to reality where most hacking is done in code or on the command line. But command lines aren’t sexy.

However, if you have been on the internet or paid attention to it at all you have heard the term “Cybersex”. If you do not know what that is, well, its kind of like phone sex but with typing. Anyhow, with the ongoing need for people with crappy typing skills to shorten everything, cybersex has long since been just referred to as “cybering” or “cyber”. You’ll see this in online games, again, largely in a mocking tone, because people who are serious about it generally do not talk in public about doing it.

This leads us to my work… The IT staff at my current job location are called “The Cyber Team”. So, every time I call them with a problem concerning my PC or a server I’m using, they answer the phone “Cyber Team, this is [insert name], how can I help you today?” and I start to laugh and want to answer with something like “I lick your earlobe, and undo your watch.” It is a fight to get through the call, then I have to take the elevator down twenty-two floors, step out through security and exit the building where I can finally unleash with the gut rending laughter.

Do they not realize what “cyber” has come to mean? Damn them!

Survey: Question Number Two

2006-02-20 Jason Gaming

Following the last question on stat systems: Would you prefer to play in a game where all the numbers are shown to you, or one where the numbers are hidden and values have to be inferred through experience, or some middle ground mix of numbers and inferences?

Several games in their Alphas or early Beta stages have toyed with removing numbers. If I remember correctly, EverQuest did this. You either “miss”ed or “hit” when fighting, and there are life bars, and there are descriptions for stats like “strong as an ox” or “slightly slow and dim-witted”. But in the end, and I believe usually from player/tester pressure, they put the numbers back in so that we can see that we hit for 8 points of damage and that we have 73 hit points remaining and that our strength is 18 and our intelligence is 9.

I’ve often thought I’d enjoy playing a game without the numbers, even though I’ve not played one like that yet outside the pen & paper gaming group on Saturdays. Mostly, its just because I’ve come to dislike the culture of numbers in games, where people judge you on your stats instead of your ability to play. It’s something I would like to try.

How about you? What system would you prefer?

Complexity

2006-02-16 Jason Random Thoughts

I was pointed to a transcript earlier today: Michael Crichton speaking about the environment.

A very interesting read. I might have to go read “State of Fear”.

Instant Gratification

2006-02-15 Jason Random Thoughts

When it comes to movies, its been years since the world has gone to a model of instant gratification. I want to say it was Batman that sealed the deal, but I don’t know for sure. I do know that that is when I noticed the change. Before then, having a solid opening weekend and good review was what companies wanted… followed by their movie staying at the box office for a few months, maybe more. Somewhere in the late 80’s that changed and studios began pushing for a mega-opening followed by… well… nothing. Advertising for films push the opening weekend so hard, and any movie that doesn’t crack twenty million at least is considered a failure. And if you notice, up until that opening weekend you’ll see commercials, and hear radio spots, but after that first weekend, any movie that didn’t finish in the top 5, doesn’t have critical acclaim or an Oscar bid will vanish. No more ads. It lost. The only exception to that rule is a movie that came out before a holiday but might experience a surge due to a holiday, like any romantic comedy or date film type movie that came out in January always gets a second push for Valentine’s Day… if its still in the theaters.

Television in the last few seasons has finally caught up to movies. This season saw Emily’s Reasons Why Not get a huge advertising push prior to its debut, then when it didn’t snag a monster share of viewers, not only was the advertising dropped, it was cancelled. After one single airing of the pilot episode, the network scrapped the show. Now, I’m not saying that Emily was a great show. It was kinda funny, and Heather Graham is nice to look at… but one episode? First off, it was airing in a slot that had previously belonged to Monday Night Football, so people who watch fluffy romance comedy shows weren’t likely to be on that channel at that time. And to be honest, as much as ABC claimed they promoted the show, if I didn’t normally watch shows on ABC I’d have never known it was on as most of their ad push seemed to be commercials on their own network during shows that, while popular, were not anywhere near the same demographic… I kept seeing the commercials during Lost and Invasion. Sci-Fi fans aren’t likely to watch romantic comedy shows.

Outside of Emily, CBS has pulled Love Monkey after, what, three episodes? It was a quirky show about the music industry using unknown acts and delivering rapid fire dialog. Obviously they pulled it because some page of numbers somewhere indicated that this show should have dominate the dial pulling in 30 million viewers… and obviously there are some TV execs with their heads firmly planted in their asses if they thought this show was going to be anything other than a niche show until at least a dozen episodes had aired and allowed word of mouth to spread. ‘Night Stalker’ also got cancelled a while back because it was only pulling in ‘X-Files’ ratings (a show that started slow, but ran 9 seasons, had a movie, and continues to sell seasons on DVD for $70 despite that the usual season price these days sits around $40-$50) and not ludacrisly lofty ‘American Idol’ numbers. And there are lots more examples…

It seems like Television, as with their Film counterparts, have lost faith in anything but the Out-of-the-Gate success. And its a shame, because lots of these shows that are falling by the wayside are good shows, and half of the ‘monster hits’ of the past wouldn’t survive under today’s rules. But then again, I think I have loved every show that has ever been pre-maturely cancelled, so my view may be biased.

Survey: Question Number One

2006-02-13 Jason Gaming

Would you rather play an MMORPG with no statistics caps and items overflowing with bonuses or one with finite, even small, caps and item bonuses being rare?

It is actually an important question to consider, both as a player and a designer. First, let’s tackle the player side…

As a player of the first scenario, your character has stats (strength, intellect, stamina, etc.) that start low and have no limit. As you progress through the game you’ll casually pick up items that boost stats, giving you more strength or stamina or intellect or whatever, or a combination subset of them, or all your stats. Then as you reach the higher levels of the game, the items become litered with stat bonuses, and your character sheet is lined with three digit numbers. This is actually the model most games on the market currently present to players. At level 5 you’ll get a “Shard Sword of Quickness” that does decent damage and adds a small bonus to your dexterity. By level 60 you’re drooling for “Mangar’s Mystical Maul of Mighty Mashing” that practically kills anything under level 40 in a single blow, adds more than 40 points to every stat, makes your hands glow blue, and occasionally explodes fire on your target for more damage.

In the second scenario, we’ll take the age-old Dungeons & Dragons model. Stat cap of 25, and anything over 18 is rare and exceptional. Your fighter is a tough guy with a 17 strength, and throughout most of his life from levels 1 to 60 he uses items of varying quality, Rusty Blades to Polished Rapiers to Adamantine Swords of Supreme Quality, each one better than the last, doing more damage, needing less repair, and other more esoteric qualities like the graphics. Then, at level 60, you and a group of friends fell a dark lord in a castle and you are rewarded with a Blade of Might that gives you a two point bonus to your strength when you wield it, pushing your strength to 19.

From the design standpoint… Scenario one leads to the marginalization of statistics. If you are going to be handing out stat bonuses like candy on Halloween, and characters are going to be allowed to climb from a starting point under 20 and finish up somewhere above 200 or 500 or wherever, individual point bonuses have to be tiny, almost meaningless, so that getting an item with 4 strength on it does very little, but getting one with 40 strength on it is noticable.

The second scenario, well, that can lead to disappointed players. Sure, going from a 17 strength to a 19 strength means the player goes from being a well toned human to a small giant when it comes to damage bonus and being able to kick down doors and lift open the lids of stone crypts, but that system, while possibly easier to manage and balance for gameplay, means that bonuses are extremely rare, and many players may never see one at all.

Personally, I’m actually sick to death of the dominant system on the market. I’d prefer to try a game with a more limited stat system where every point means something. So, what system do you prefer?

Final Destination Trilogy

2006-02-10 Jason Reviews

Thanks to Allison I went last night to a marathon screening of the Final Destination Trilogy. That’s right, all three movies back-to-back-to-back. Well, with little intermissions as well, but close enough for government work.

The first film plays mostly like a suspense film. If you don’t know the story, a group of students are going to France for a school trip and one kid gets a vision of the plane exploding, he freaks out and a total of seven people end up getting tossed off the plane. The plane indeed explodes, and now Death is stalking the survivors who were supposed to die on the plane. They figure out, too late for most of them, that if they pay attention there will be signs and they might be able to continue cheating Death. I say its a suspense film because there is no physical Death, he’s not hunting them with a scythe or anything, and the weight of the film falls on seeing the signs and wondering from what angle death is coming at them. Its a pretty good movie, though I don’t recommend watching it before getting on a plane. I’m not really scared of flying, but seeing this film originally the night before I got a plane to Mexico made me a little edgy. The crash sequence is that ‘good’.

The second movie plays almost more for comedy. This time, one year after the plane crash in the first film, a girl gets a vision of a horrific car pile up and decides to use her car to block an on-ramp for the highway, saving the lives of a bunch of people. Once again, too late for most of the survivors, they begin to understand the signs… well, they know about it pretty early, but no one believes until half of them are dead. Most of the deaths in this movie are somewhat funny in ways, people actually laughed through a bunch of it, and it even ends with a death that almost fall-out-of-your-chair funny. Once again, a good movie for slightly different reasons even one kinda nifty twist, but I don’t recommend watching it before or while on a road trip. The car pile up is… disturbing.

This leaves us with the new chapter, openning today, Final Destination 3. Once again a girl gets a vision of impending doom, only this time its of a gory roller coaster accident. Ever been afraid a coaster might jump the track? Yeah, well, this is worse. Way worse. Like the previous films, she flips out and ten people get thrown off the ride, which has its accident according to plan. And as usual, Death needs to even the score and people start dying. Of the three films, this one, by far, is the bloodiest, goriest, splatter-festiest of the bunch. Some of the suspense from the first one is missing, and the comedy of the second is gone. This movie is people being viciously brutalized, kinda like at this point Death is very angry that people keep screwing up his plan. It was a good movie for what it is, but similar to the other films, don’t watch this and then run off to Six Flags or some other amusement park. Come to think of it, after watching this movie there are a number of things you might be a tad squeemish about doing again, at least the first time or two.

Overall, the Final Destination Trilogy is good, not-so-clean, fun. Two thumbs up.

Special Treatment

2006-02-07 Jason Random Thoughts

One of the things I have come to hate over the years is “equality”, mostly because people just don’t use it right. To me, equality means equal opportunity. The door is there, whether I open it and go through it is up to me, but the door is there. Too many people, however, see equality as meaning true equality. If there is a door, and I make the effort to open it and go through it, they should be allowed to go through it too, even if they don’t do the work.

Tied in with this is the concept of trust. Trust is something you earn by being consistant, and when you are trusted, you will be given benefits that less trust worthy people don’t get. Lots of people see those benefits as being “unequal” because they don’t grasp that if they work and become trustworthy, those benefits will be given to them too.

My rent is due each month by the 5th. If you are late, you have to pay a late fee… fair enough. There is a deadline, you miss it, you are penalized. However, since in the past they have run into deadbeats who bounce checks when they are late, my apartment complex requires that late rent must be paid with a cashier’s check or a money order. I’ve lived there for three years, and in three years I have never missed a payment until now. I’m perfectly willing to pay the late fee. I’m late, I don’t deny it. But I asked if, given my payment history, I could be allowed to just write a personal check. They said no. I asked why and they said it was policy, no exceptions. I could totally understand if they demanded all rent in certified payment, but its only the late rent. I tried to pursue it, since I’ve made the last 36 or so payments on time and never bounced a check, but she cut me off, said no again, told me to have a nice day and hung up.

On the other hand, I went to the bank to get myself a cashier’s check for the late rent and the bank manager said that since I’d been a loyal customer for over ten years, they would happily wave the fee for the cashier’s check. Meanwhile, the guy next to me, who was also getting a cashier’s check and was paying the fee, said he thought it was real nice the bank rewarded loyal customers and he looked forward to doing business there for a long time to come.

So today is a loss and a win. More loss than win though, since the late fee on the rent is much much larger than the fee for the cashier’s check. But hey, I’ll take my wins where I can get ’em.

Hollywood and Your Money

2006-01-30 Jason Random Thoughts

People often wonder why Hollywood keeps churning out crappy movies. The answer is simple… because you people keep paying to see them!

This past weekend approximately three and a half million people (3,500,000) went to see “Big Momma’s House 2” making it the number one film of the weekend with its $28 million box office draw. It also happens to be the second largest January opening in movie history.

Look people, we have to work together on this. You can not just go spending hard earned dollars on junk like this. You need to support quality films, and I don’t just mean Oscar winning crap, because lots of those films are garbage too. Sometimes you have to stop and think, and if there are no good movies playing, don’t go to a movie. Go home and watch a DVD or play a board game or go out drinking with some friends. Anything. Anything, that is, except settling for some movie that isn’t really worth your $8 but you don’t see anything better playing.

Support quality entertainment, not garbage. At least not at the theaters. Wait for DVD… or cable… or broadcast television… If you go to the movies and nothing good is playing, vote with your feet and walk away. If you stop paying Hollywood for making crappy movies, they’ll stop making crappy movies.

Reign of the Dead

2006-01-27 Jason Reviews

Mmm… more zombies. Another Christmas gift this year was Len Barnhart’s Reign of the Dead. First, let me express my disappointment that this is an iUniverse published book. iUniverse is another POD publisher, though its not as bad as PublishAmerica since they are backed by Barnes & Noble it is still paying to be published and it still keeps your book out of most bookstores. That aside, this is actually a pretty good book. As usual for the genre, the dead come back to life and kill people. In this case, any dead person with an intact brain will get back up, but just the bitten. The author skips the gory details of the world being overrun and the first days of the walking dead by starting with a character who has been living in a secluded cabin for the past three weeks. After that it follows what is a fairly typical formula of survivors finding each other and banding together. He throws into the mix a government installation run by a mildly insane dictator type who actually becomes commander-in-chief after the fall of NORAD and all the major political players, at which point he decides that nuking all the cities is the answer. He doesn’t, because if he did it would be a really short story. Instead, there is a mini civil war, and dead soldiers becomes zombies, and only one scientist gets out. After a bunch of other stuff, the book actually ends happy. The zombies are gone and the remnants of humanity start putting the pieces back together.

I had one issue with the book. The first character, Jim, is described as a business man who has retreated to the wilderness to get some much needed rest. He is depicted as an avid hunter, but somewhere during the first few chapters he just sort of becomes this hardened military type that garners respect from the other characters. The thing missing is for him to have actually done something to earn that respect. Sure, in times of crisis, people often will latch on to any leader type, but Jim stumbles in with a group that already had a leader type and the trust he gets just doesn’t feel earned.

On a good note, I did very much enjoy the book’s use of a prison. To me, it has always been something that just logically made sense. A prison is like a ready made castle, and a perfect place to hunker down and try to survive a rising of zombies. Now, its true you could get trapped there, surrounded, but with the proper supplies for planting gardens and whatnot, you could easily survive there for years behind the fences and stone walls while trying to solve the being surrounded problem. So, I liked that they used a prison, especially dealing with the prisoners, guards and what happened after the zombies started prowling around.

Overall, this was a decent book. Definately worth the read. Happier, but not as well written as Brian Keene’s The Rising and City of the Dead (which I reviewed previously).