Latest Posts

The clothes make the hero.

Gaming

Lord of the Rings OnlineArguably, the title is true for most MMOs since they are all pretty heavily gear/item based.  But what I’m talking about here is just the look of your character in game.  Over two years ago I wrote a post trying to find drawbacks in implementing a system that divorced form from function.  And just four months ago, I made another post on appearance items.  Now, thanks to Melmoth over at KiaSA, I’ve learned that Lord of the Rings Online is implementing a Wardrobe System.

What’s really interesting here is that they even went a step farther with their design than I imagined anyone would.  First, putting an item in the wardrobe will copy the name and look (no stats) and then you can sell, give away or even destroy the original item.  Let me say that again, if you like the look of an item but don’t care for it for any other reason, you can copy it to the wardrobe and then get rid of it.  Second, with some restrictions, your wardrobe is available to all the characters on your account on the same server.  Got an awesome looking hat that you want to wear on all your alts but it requires doing a high level quest and having certain reputation?  No problem!  Just put it in the wardrobe and all your alts can wear it!

This is one of those features that every MMO from here on out needs to copy.  The days of mismatched, ugly but good gear or self gimping with weak gear to look good should be over now.  As Melmoth says, no excuses any more.

Infected

Reviews

InfectedI’m going to start the review of Scott Sigler’s Infected by simply saying that I enjoyed it.  I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with a weak stomach as parts of the book are fairly graphic in detailing damage to the human body, but it is a good read.  The book follows two main threads.  The first thread is about a typical team of government folks tracking down the source of a possible virus that might be a terrorist weapon.  The second thread follows one of the people who is infected with what the government is trying to track down.

You might want to stop reading here as I’m about to go all spoilery.  Yep, spoilers from this point.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Perry Dawsey is the name of the infected man.  A former football player and survivor of a childhood of abuse at his father’s hands have made him a tough son of a bitch, which is how he manages to make it through so many of the things that happen to him… or rather, that he does to himself.  The virus is this book is actually an alien life form.  Microscopic seeds land on a person, and given the right mix of temperature and moisture and other conditions, they can dig in and start their work.  Dawsey gets covered in these spores, it is never said how, and eight of them manage to begin their work.  These spores are like machines, they read DNA and adapt and begin building the structures they need do their work.  Dawsey’s spores are on his forehead (though that one dies off early), his right shin, his left thigh, his chest (near the collar bone), his back (high, right over the spine), his ass cheek, his forearm and his testicle.  As the story progresses, and as the spores develop into rashes, then bizarre orange scaly skin, then to blue triangles beneath the surface that start talking to him as they awaken, Dawsey takes them out, one by one.  Tearing one out, then another, stabbing, burning and more.  All of which Sigler describes in fantastic detail.  Did I mention there was one on his balls?  Reading it was uncomfortable to say the least.  Unsettling.  And yet, the story drew me in as Dawsey persevered, almost thrived on survival.

The other half of the book, about the team trying to find and fight this new threat, is well written, but fairly standard for this type of book.  That isn’t to say it’s bad, it’s just… unsurprising.  The only real breath of fresh air here is that the tale lacks a fresh young recruit who shows up the older members.  And this is a good thing.  The story doesn’t need it.

In the end, I’m satisfied with the book and looking forward to reading the sequel in the future.

Movie Round-Up: August 20th, 2010

Reviews

Lottery Ticket:

I’m sure someday I’ll watch this on DVD, but I won’t be spending $10 to see this in the theater.  No way, no how.

Nanny McPhee Returns:

I’m certain, like the first film, this will be good for families and kids.  I does look decent.  But I’ve got no desire to see it myself, especially since I haven’t seen the first one.

The Switch:

Looks funny.  I mean, a jilted friend who decides to deposit his own sperm instead of the carefully selected donor from the sperm bank, how could this not be funny?  Well, it could fall flat, but the preview looks decent.  I probably won’t see this in the theater, but I’ll surely watch it on DVD.

Vampires Suck:

These cheap, yet high grossing, parody films keep on rolling.  I wish I could invest in them.  I hate them.  Watching them makes my eyes and ears bleed, but I’d gladly make money off them if I could.  The only possible redeeming quality here is that they will be lampooning the Twilight movies, which themselves are almost as bad as these parody films.

Piranha 3D:

If I go to see a movie this weekend, this is the movie I’ll go see.  The cast is great.  It’s a remake of a monster movie that I love.  And it is likely to exploit the hell out of the 3D just like old 3D horror films, with stuff jabbing and exploding toward the audience.  Sadly, the wife has no desire to see this film, so it is up to me to find some friends to go see it while she’s at work or something.  Piranha 3D must be seen… in 3D.

The Single Shard

Gaming

One of the people from over at CCP, the people who brought us EVE Online, has written up An Argument for Single-Sharded Architecture in MMOs.  I fully support this idea.

The main reason I like it is the one thing that irritates me most of most MMOs is when I meet a new person in real life, realize we both play the same game and then realize that we can’t play together unless we a) start over/start new characters or b) one of us pays to move servers and leaves all our other friends behind.  Even the people with whom I played EQ with for many years can’t seem to get themselves on the same server when a new game starts, mostly because thanks to other games they have a couple of different circles of friends, and they want to play with all of them, but when twenty of their friends from WoW want to play on LotRO server X, and twenty of their EQ friends want to play on LotRO server Y, they have to choose.  And that sucks.

On the other hand, in a game like EVE, it is impossible for me to run into another EVE player that I technologically cannot play with (unless they play only on the test server).  All I need to do is warp to them and we play.  Even in Wizard 101 and Free Realms, which technically have multiple play shards, you can switch shards whenever you want and play with anyone you want.

Another reason for my like of a single shard comes to light every time I talk about EQ for very long to other people.  During my time in EQ I played on 4 servers.  My main server was E’Ci and I spent the bulk of my time there.  But I also piddled around on one of the PvP servers (one of the team ones, not the free for all) and one of the RP servers (were I spent most of my time in the bars of Neriak spinning tales for those who would listen – which surprisingly was more than I expected going into it, but unsurprisingly didn’t last long as power gamers flooded the RP server since RPers are much easier to push around and less likely to race to max level thus leaving high end content more available).  I also did time as a guide.  Each server had a distinct personality.  As a guide I was called in to deal with situations that didn’t happen on my main server, E’Ci.  E’Ci had a strong public grouping/raiding system, where other servers were entirely guild controlled.  E’Ci had, at the upper levels, guilds that, for the most part, maintained relations and raid schedules to give everyone a shot rather than fight, where other servers had guilds training each other and swiping raid mobs from each other and camping entire zones for days/weeks on end to monopolize spawns.  When I talk about the game of EverQuest, I’ve come to realize that not everyone played the same game that I did.  But a game like EVE or Wizard 101 or Free Realms or any other unified player base game, my stories are their stories.  If I talk about getting ganked in some system in EVE, I can bet another EVE player will know what I mean.  But when I talk about hanging out in the East Commons tunnel looking for deals back in the day, some people will say, “Don’t you mean Greater Faydark?” or “You mean the North Freeport bank, right?” or “North Karana was better.” because not every server evolved exactly the same locations for community gatherings.  But in EVE, the best place for you to go to buy stuff is the best place that everyone goes to buy stuff.

I hope more games take the single-shard design route.  Multiple servers were fine back in the EQ days when there wasn’t really much competition, but these days, even if I went back to EQ I’d have to choose which friends to play with since I’ve got friends on two or three different servers.  When I look at new games, my friends and I usually try to get on the same server, but eventually some of them vanish to other servers to play with other groups.  For me, this usually ends up with me losing interest in the game and quitting because I can’t play with all of my friends.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

Reviews

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire HunterSeth Grahame-Smith exploded onto the scene last year (after having several other books published) with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a book I still haven’t read.  It was so successful that the “classic text mash-up” genre now practically has its own aisle at the bookstore.  Taking a slightly different approach in his next endeavor, Grahame-Smith wrote Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.  Rather than taking an old text and playing with it, instead he’s taking history and filling in the gaps with his own crafted tale.

The story follows old Honest Abe from his childhood through his Presidency and weaves around it a tale of revenge and vampires and a country nearly brought to its knees.  I was skeptical as hell going in.  That same skepticism is what has kept me from reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  A tale like this is either going to be a monumental waste of time, or a masterpiece.  Based on my reading of this book, I’m now more interested to go read P&P&Z.

I’m not a history buff, and I’m not familiar with the true story of Abraham Lincoln other than what they taught me in school.  But the tale told here steps in and out and around his life in such a fashion that it is so easy to believe that it just might be true.  It isn’t true, right?  Vampires don’t really exist… right?

Anyway, I would gladly recommend this book to just about anyone with the only caveat being that some of the early book can be slow, but sticking with it is totally and completely worth it.  I haven’t read a book that ended this well in a very long time.

Movie Round-Up: August 13th, 2010

Reviews

Eat Pray Love:

A woman’s journey to self-discovery. I’m not going to be first in line to see this, but I haven’t been disappointed by many of Julia Roberts movies so I’ll be sure to catch this on Netflix when it is available.

The Expendables:

I had an opportunity to see a screening of this, but a conflict prevented me. Given the cast of action stars and what I’ve seen in the trailer this is going to be one hell of a ride. If I can find the time, I’ll be seeing this this wekend.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World:

I did see a screening of this, and it was great fun. As a long time gamer myself I loved the references and imagery. Outside that however the movie is a typical boy chases girl type of film. So if the gamer angle doesn’t appeal, you might want to skip it. As for me, I might go see it again.

Netbooking It

Gaming

A while back I got a netbook.  An ASUS 1005HA.  Sure, it’s not the graphical monster that the Dell/Alienware MX11 or whatever it’s called is, but it suits my needs just fine.  Those needs?  Browsing the net, email, writing, and the occasional game.  Oh, and it is awesome for traveling.  Much better than lugging around a full laptop with a 15″ or 17″ screen.

Obviously, such a machine is limited in it’s gaming capabilities.  Though, mainly the issue is resolution.  It has a 1024 x 600 desktop.  I can run it at 1024 x 768, but that squishes everything.  The 600 height is native.  Puzzle Pirates runs great on it.  So does Wizard 101.  Free Realms absolutely fails.  Most flash games run, though some websites hosting them expect a larger than 600 height so their ads and layout can make playing an issue.

As you can tell by my list, I’m looking for MMOs that will run on it.  I’ve heard that World of Warcraft will run, though not optimally, plus I’m not playing that game anymore anyway.  But what other MMOs are out there that will run in a 1024 x 600 resolution and run well without needing a super graphics card?  What’s a good MMO On The Go?

Movie Round-Up: August 6th, 2010

Reviews

Step Up 3-D:

If you are inclined to see a movie about dancing, you could probably do worse than this.  I mean, all of them – to me – are kinda hokey, but if handled right the 3D could actually add a nice bit of depth to the action.  I wouldn’t spend $13 on it myself, but it might be worth it to others.

The Other Guys:

If not for Will Ferrell, I’d be guaranteed to see this movie this weekend.  The plot sounds good, and I like every other actor in the film.  Even Will Ferrell isn’t always bad – I loved him in Stranger Than Fiction – but from the preview it seems he’s playing this in the usual “look at me and be embarrassed by my actions” comedy.  Likely, this is due to Adam McKay, who is responsible for all of Will Ferrell’s worst work, in my opinion.  I’ll surely catch this on Netflix, and I’m sure this will be huge for Will’s usual fans, but I wouldn’t spend my $10 to see this one at the theater.

You are doing it wrong

Random Thoughts

We all hate spam.  But I suspect that some of you out there are ruining the Internet for the rest of us.

The good thing about spam is that either by content or by source 99% or more of it is fairly easily identifiable.  Spam filters look for words or groups of words or sources or other characteristics of the content or sender to flag undesired emails and put them in the spam bin.

However, if you sign up for a newsletter, just because you don’t want it anymore that doesn’t make it spam.  I have seen tons of people do this.  Sadly, because spam filters often strive to be better they try to learn from items people manually mark as spam in order to better filter.  Many legitimate newsletters get thrown in my spam folder, not because they are spam, but because other lazy people have been marking them as spam instead of unsubscribing.

And while I’m at it… Gmail?  Just because I delete mail from a particular sender all the time doesn’t mean I don’t want to get their mail.  Stop marking them spam.  I’m deleting them because I don’t need them, not because I don’t want them.  Cut it out.  Unlike many people, I don’t keep emails that I’ll never need again ever.  If I send someone an email and they send me back a “Thanks!” reply, I delete it.  If I happen to send that same person too many emails, each of which they reply “Thanks!” to (which I like, mind you, I love when people acknowledge getting an email, that way I don’t have to ask them later “Hey, did you get my email?”) and each of which I delete, Gmail decides they must be spam since I keep deleting them and now I have to go to my spam folder every day and look for the falsely accused.

So, to recap… People, stop marking things as spam that are not spam.  Google, stop marking things as spam that are not spam.

Thank you.