Doug’s Blog

04.8.09

Whoa, lookit awl dat joos

Lots of stuff has been floating about lately. I’m officially completely off my SWG addiction (seemingly I wasn’t after last post for about a week or two). I’m kinda in that stage where I have all these projects to continue, all these games to play, and all these things to do, but I don’t know which to turn my focus to right now. There’s ToH, EXGN/RP, Espionage Inc, and the periodically reoccuring  3D modeling and animation thing. I know I said I’ve made plans for the new updated EXRP script, and I will get around to that sometime soonish, but I think for now I’ll try to focus on Espionage Inc. Thing is, with such a small team of developers, we all have to do our part–And in some cases, we all have to do multiple parts. Especially me, for some reason. While coding and design are probably enough to keep me occupied, I’m still aiming for a pretty quick development cycle. I’ve started to model again, this time with Modo. It’s really amazing compared to anything else out there. Max was alright, but I didn’t like the way that the modifiers worked. You never really had any real geometry due to them, and when you come down into the technical stuff (and even trying to export things to Source) that was a real pain. Maya was a lot better, but I found it really glitchy. It absolutely loves to bugger out and go completely batshit insane when you hand it some backfaces. Now I’ve started looking into other things, like Blender for instance. Pretty powerful, stable, well-rounded tool, however I just horribly dislike it’s interface and viewport controls. Waaaaaay to complicated and unconventional. Houdini looked nice as well, but it’s node system is just completely unnecessary in my opinion. Lightwave is nice too, but it feels like just more of the same. So eventually I came across Modo, which has this whole philosophy about every concept and control just coming naturally and working how you’d expect them to work. And that’s true, Modo is by far the easiest to use modeling program I’ve ever used–besides Wings, but that’s a bit outdated I think. It’s pretty good at other things to, like texturing, sculpting, and rendering. It has a pretty primitive pivot-based animation system, which is great for smaller things, but for organics I just can’t see it happening. You can, however, animate in an external program and import the MDD. I’ll be doing this if I ever want to do animation (which I will) with another nice program called Messiah. Very very nice animation tools there. Anyway, in addition to modeling I’ll also be taking on the daunting challenge of creating a soundtrack of sorts. I’ve been looking into Reason, which looks really good actually, but the only problem for me is that you really do need a MIDI device for that. Actually, not too big of a problem as I already have a very nice keyboard, but it’s rather large and I’ll have to find a lot of space for it. Plus I’ll need a MIDI input card for my computer, and frankly I know nothing about those. I’m sure it’ll all work out though, I honestly can’t wait until we start getting some more content out.

03.20.09

Game Over

My addiction to SWG has ended, I’m pretty sure. I got level 90 yesterday, and while that’s all fine and peachy I’ve now found myself asking the age-old question: “What now?” It doesn’t seem like there’s too much to do after you hit 90 besides the odd quest you haven’t already done and PvP, which I’ll get into in a sec, and RP which is nice every now and then but peoples’ definition of RP in SWG tends to be somewhere along the lines of “waste as much time as possible by sitting down and just talking to people, which you can do in guild chat anyway”. Oh boy, so much fun. There are also heroic instances, which are actually really fun, but you NEED a rather large and experienced group for all of them, so that’s a bit out of the question most of the time. As for PvP, I’m a bounty hunter so I’ve tried a few missions–first one was on Mustafar, so I couldn’t use my droids to track him. Second was inside the Deathwatch Bunker, which I really can’t be arsed to get a group to go through with me. Third was in Restuss, which is a PvP zone that forces you into PvP whether you like it or not–hooray for getting ganked by every single Imp on the server. Rinse and repeat this several times for about 15 targets. Finally I found one that was just sitting on their speeder in some town, and I started to attack them but they just ran away. Okay, don’t want to fight me? I’ll just destroy your speeder, thank you very much. Then I tried another one which was in the Mos Eisely cantina, and without armor! Looks like I scored big time, right? At first, I’d say so too. I dropped their health down all the way in like 30 seconds, but to my amazement there was no dieing involved afterwards. They were just running around shooting rockets at me while they had no health. At all. I kept mashing my specials on them that should’ve rolled them right there on the spot but no, they just didn’t die. After ranting over guild chat, I’ve found out that my target had activated a special officer buff that makes you invincible for some seconds. Uhh, great–WHO’S IDEA WAS THIS!? I know SOE wants to get rid of SWG, but honestly is shitting down PvP really the way? Well, I guess it worked for me. I’ll continue to play every now and then I’m sure, but my addiction is over.

That said, back to coding and whatnot. I’m trying to get EXGN started up again. The other day I set up a CSS server for a friend from Facepunch and he’s got a “Zombie Escape Mod” server running on it, and it’s actually got quite a steady amount of players going on it. I tried it out myself, and while I’ll never be too big a fan of zombie games (besides the occasional L4D) I like what he’s done with the place. I’ve just finished updating Wine and reinstalling a GMod server from scratch, but there’s still the weird “I DON’T FEEL LIKE LOADING THE SURFACEPROPERTIES PROPERLY” glitch. At least the surfaceproperties files came installed by default this time, but they don’t seem to make a bit of difference. Perhaps they do, as the problem appears to be fixed in *some* areas, but it still exists in others so that’s where I base my assessment on. Not until it never happens again will it truly be ‘fixed’. Also, for now I’ve removed the CSS and TF2 servers, but if there’s a demand for them I’ll surely bring them back–just ask.

As for coding, I haven’t done anything yet but I’m planning on getting back to ToH. Like I’ve said before, all the hard stuff is done; all that’s left are all the details. This has got to be the shortest paragraph about coding I’ve ever written…

It feels kind of weird not being addicted to anything anymore. I kinda liked the joy of getting up every day to go directly to playing something; always knowing exactly what to do. Not that I don’t know what to do now, but I do feel a bit disoriented without knowing what I’ll be doing all day anymore. Somewhat related: I really just can’t wait for The Old Republic–you know, the new Star Wars MMO coming out sometime next year. I know I was kinda bummed about it earlier, but now I’m starting to welcome it with open arms. SWG is great, but like I said, not too much to keep me occupied after level 90. I’m pretty sure BioWare will take care of the “what now” thing after you hit whatever level cap they set, as their whole philosophy appears to be about PvE story telling–which is ideal. My only problem is that they seem to be focusing a lot on Jedi, which makes it seem like every single person in the game will be a Jedi. Hopefully not the case, and probably not the case since they’ve announced the BH class, but still something to worry about. Another thing that worries me is loss of features–will there still be space combat? Will there still be crafting? Player cities? One thing that was both annoying and great at the same time were the vast landscapes in SWG. Really, biggest playing fields I’ve ever seen in an MMO. Most of them (meaning NOT Mustafar or Kashyyk) felt like massive planets; you know, the way they should. It gives you a really nice feeling of adventure and exploration when you travel around in SWG. I’d like to see that kind of massive playing area make a return, as well as player cities to take up some space. However, I’d like to see a bit more selection when it comes to houses. This doesn’t seem like it’ll be a problem though, as BioWare’s documentaries seem to emphasize how every player will be able to look and play their own unique way. So like pre-CU? Nah, hopefully better. Another thing that concerns me is the art style, as it does look a bit cartoony but I’m optimistic. Anyway, lots of things to bugger up my mind with regarding ToR, but unless you want to read a novel I’ll leave it off here. Off to watch some Clone Wars (meh it’s pretty good), ‘night.

 

…Damn, how cliche am I?

03.12.09

A bit lost

I’m a bit lost at the moment. With everything. On one hand I want to continue coding EXRP Lite and ToH, as well as fix all the EXGN servers as well as put up new ones (I’ve had an itch to play DoDS lately), and on the other I’m stuck in an endless addiction to SWG. And then even in SWG I’m lost: I have a BH (bounty hunter) and a trader. I spent a lot of money from my BH grinding that trader. Structures require too many walls and structure modules (10 walls for 1 module, 10 modules for 1 small house), shipwright is kinda useless for me since we already have an excellent one in our guild, munitions is bloody impossible to make any decent weapons with as you need literally perfect quality resources, all the 100% perfect equipment attachments you could ever possibly get your hands on, maxed out assembly and experimentation stats, and extremely good crafting station effectiveness. It really is impossible. I mean, maybe if I had a couple million from my BH to spend on it, but I don’t. Next up is domestics: any piece of clothing that looks the least bit decent needs stuff from a factory crate, and I have no use for food buffs. My last choice is engineering, but that’s what Son’s alt is. Then again, I can always just respec to that and try to regain the money I lost from all that grinding and respeccing (yes, I’ve tried them all except engy). Engy can make some stuff that can be worth a lot of money if it’s 100%. However, I’ve had enough trouble finding good enough resources and yadda yadda to make even a decent gun with munitions, so maybe I should just not even try to afford the respec cost again and just try something completely new. Officer looks interesting, but I don’t really want to take the time to make a raise a character all the way to the top again just to experiment. Entertainer looks alright too, but there’s no benefit to me. I mean, all I’d do is just AFK dance all day and I have 90, then I give random people buffs. Yeah, soooooooooo much fun. Thing is, I’ve spent almost a million just grinding my trader, so it really does seem like a waste. I’ve always wanted a Jedi though, so I am considering making a new light Jedi character with an extremely similar name as my BH and get an ent to make him look exactly him, for the sake of RP. Then I could ’switch’ between BH and Jedi professions for essentially the same guy, as if he’s a BH with force powers. That’d be pretty cool, I think. Still, huge waste with the trader… On the plus, my BH is level 78 now and can take down a level 90 smuggler being brought down to about half health. Only due to shields though, which I guess is kinda cheap. Not if you’re doing a BH mission, though. Anything for the money.

Anyway, that’s my rant of mass confusion and rantness. I’ve been meaning to write a post for like two weeks now but I kept getting distracted. It was my birthday on the 28th, which was nice. I had to get up at 6AM to go to some stupid school thing for that class I have no interest in–I think I mentioned this before, did I? The rest of the day I was just way too tired to talk or do anything. That really sucked. Well, I haven’t been doing much else but playing SWG lately, so I guess that just about wraps things up. Ah well.

02.23.09

Mir’sheb

Lots and lots and lots more SWG lately. I haven’t worked on anything at all, to be honest. But that’s okay, I’ll get around to it anyway. SWG’s just a really fun game, what can I say. The Star Wars nerd I am, it’s just not possible not to play it. I’ve finished the Legacy quests on my main and bounty hunter, Ekzel, and levelling has gotten a bit slower, so I’ve made an alt trader. For now I’m structures as it’s supposedly easier to level in, but you need so many resources it’s really annoying. Engineering only needs metal, basically. We’ll see how it turns out once I’m a higher level, right now I’m not sure which would be more useful. Structures is nice since you can make people houses and make furniture for your own house, as well as random structures such as camps, but engineering seems useful too since you can make droids and vehicles. I guess it all depends on which has the higher demand for purchased goods–more people going to my vendor, more business, more money for me. Speaking of vendors, why can’t they let you change the physical appearance of them like an ent can with other people? I had to remake my vendor at least 60 times before I got one that wasn’t fat and ugly. Then after all that effort, she won’t even wear my slave Leia clothes. Keep in mind, I don’t mean to intend that they’re mine as in I wear them. Unfortunately, I can’t. Fortunately, you can make vendors wear specific things at a certain level. How you can force people to wear clothes just because you have more experience, I’m not sure. My initial dilemma is regarding why you can’t make them wear uniforms right off the bat. Just imagine if everyone working at McDonalds didn’t wear hair nets to wor–oh wait, they don’t,

02.18.09

Allayloo ta nuv

Not much development recently, if at all. Espionage Inc is still in a bit of a hiatus, but really I can’t be arsed to pester anyone anymore–at least, not now. ToH is on a bit of a break too; I coded like 24/7 that one week that I’m all ‘coded out’ for a while. EXRP is about the same, as I’ve said in earlier blog posts I’ve just been really bored with GMod/Lua recently. Not to worry, everything will return to activity sooner or later.

So, what’s been going on with me? Both a lot of something and a lot of nothing. I’ve been really frustrated with school, since I was put in a class that I didn’t really want to be in, but was assured it was something completely different than it actually turned out to be, and now it’s too late to get out. Also, did I mention said class requires me to go to school on a couple Saturdays or else I fail–one being my birthday? Yeah, just brilliant. I’ve also been playing a lot of SWG lately, hence the post title. I’ve levelled up quite a lot since I last played, not sure how. It’s pretty awesome though, I have ~500+ DPS without using actions or buffs, a droideka, and I’ve done an assload of “higher-level” quests and instances–my house is full of trophies and crap. Really fun game, it’s a shame to see people leaving it. There was a free week of play last week that I was completely into that just ended today for me that I got really into, and I’m resubscribing when I get home.

 One thing that I’ve been playing with lately is something called “theta brainwave meditation”, which is basically ambient music with a soft hum in the background at a certain frequency called ‘theta’ that somehow tricks your brain into becoming more relaxed and everything. You can find some here. If you’re going to go out and buy that track you hear in the video, it’s called Astral Journeys. Very nice easy listening if you ask me, great for getting yourself relaxed after a lot of stress. Anyway, just thought I’d share that with you. If you’re in need of a good game to play, check out SWG. Now then, back to school…

01.13.09

Clams

The results of last post’s poll are in, and it looks like our little espionage game will be a SourceMod. The main problem is that the map editor is a lot different from what Son’s used to, which is a big deal I think. As a whole, C4 just isn’t quite mature enough for something like this. Either way, I’ve been looking into Source today and I’ve come to realize that mostly everything is exactly like how it is in Lua. Just ignore all the freaky-looking code for all the complex elements like rendering and internal crap like that, and everything is like Lua. After all, the core gameplay mechanics won’t need changing from HL2. It’s mainly just new weapons, NPCs, a couple fresh looks on ordinary things (new features, I’ll detail them as soon as we’re ready to go public), and just having to pull all the content together into one neat package. Come to think of it, C4 would’ve required a lot more reinventing of the wheel–everything with a SourceMod is already done, you just have to… Well, mod it.

Anyway, Viro’s making a model of an ordinary ballpoint pen that has nothing more to it than meets the eye, and Son’s making a kind of training facility map with lasers and such. We’ve got lots of ideas and concepts, and we’re more than ready to get them out there into something playable. As for myself, I’m just playing around with Source to get a little more of a feel for it so I can jump straight to work once we have some stuff that needs coding. Also a lot of management type stuff, like setting up an SVN for us to use, a ModDB page, a subforum on EXGN, etc… You know the drill.

Right now the biggest thing that needs addressing is the name of the game. What should it be? We were thinking ‘Espionage’, but that seems a bit too… Generic and plain. I don’t know, it’s alright, but it just doesn’t seem like it would do the game justice. I threw ‘Clam Umbra’ out there; latin for “secret shadow”, which kinda fits, but a lot of people don’t really like how it sounds. We are going for the whole psuedo-realism thing, so being cliche` isn’t a bad thing, but still. I don’t know, I got a lot of crap for it being in latin for some reason. Maybe not. Either way, I need your opinion: What do you think? What do you suggest? Your comments are appreciated.

01.11.09

It’s over 1400!

I’m not quite sure where to start. As always, I’m a bit late with my blog posts. I keep saying to myself, “I’m going to do blog posts more often”, but I never do. Ah well, at least that means I’m keeping busy, right? Anyway, as usual, lotsa stuff to throw out into this post. The post obvious I think would be the new blog design–do you like it? I thought it was time for a bit of a change, as the default theme is… Well, default. Nobody wants to read a blog that has a default theme. So yeah, here’s the new blog design, I hope you find it as visually appleasing as I do. I’ve also gone through and tagged all my posts, and I find it kinda funny how some of the sizes came out. For example, ‘exrp’ is bigger than ‘coding’, but usually all my exrp posts have to do with coding in some way. Well, the way I tagged it, I didn’t tag things as ‘coding’ unless there was actually some technical talk in them; if it was just concepts or ideas, I didn’t tag it. I guess that makes sense. Also, ‘exgn’ is only like one post. That’s crazy, seeing as it’s such a big deal.

Lets put a couple of those tags up though, shall we? EXGN’s been great lately. Even if I’m not on any of the servers, there’s always someone on them. The CSS server seems to be used occasionally by some random group of people, I can only assume friends, and that’s nice since it doesn’t require any immediate attention to get traffic. The TF2 server has been a bit less fortunate, but I’m planning on adding more SM plugins sometime soon to keep things a bit more fresh, so that should help as per popularity. I’ve shut down the L4D server since nobody was really using it, and since there’s literally no server customization available besides the hostname and MOTD–so any server would do if we decide to play it as a group again. Hell, even a listen. GMod is the one that’s really been thriving lately, which is great. EXRP Lite is still a little bit buggy, but I’ve been working with a community-maintaned bug tracker to get things done and that’s proven to be very useful. I’ve come across a few bugs that make literally no sense at all and shouldn’t ever be happening, as they seem to be physically impossible, but I’ll figure it out sooner or later I’m sure.

I guess the really big news right now is my new computer: It’s great. Really, it’s just amazing. It was delivered in two boxes right before I left for my aunt’s house on Christmas eve, and I started checking things out the next day. Then I realized that Windows goes apeshit when you change the motherboard, but you just have to use the repair disk. Uhh, problem! I don’t have a Windows disk, my previous computer was preassembled. So I went to Newegg and found a nice OEM Vista Home Premium for $99, which is great since it’s usually like $200-$400 retail. I also got more RAM since it’s Vista, but the warranty on the RAM I originally got didn’t let me return, so I guess I’ll just have to live with 6GB. The case is amazing, too. There’s so much room in there, cable management was a breeze. Also it comes with like 6 big fans mounted all around the case, so this thing is really cool–literally. Anyway, specs below. Picture coming soon.

• E8400 Core 2 Duo processor
• Gigabyte UD3R motherboard
• 6GB DDR2 Corsair RAM
• GeForce 8800GT GPU
• Antec 900 case

 

Also for Christmas I got The Force Unleashed, which is a great game but it can be really frustrating how the combos work and how inconvenient the save points are; Mirror’s Edge which is also amazing, especially due to it’s fresh concept, but you really need to know what to do before you do it–especially when ninjas are chasing after you. Lots of dieing and level restarts on that one, but I guess that’s what EA calls replayability. I also got Fallout 3 and Oblivion, which I haven’t played either too much since I haven’t had a lot of time, but they’re both amazing. No complains so far. I also recieved The Ship, which is what I’m going to focus on here. It’s a bit old, from 2004 or 2005 I think, and not that many people seem to still play it–I can’t immagine why, though. It’s simply an amazing game with an outstandingly original concept, utilizing a very unique art style. You might say the same style as Grim Fandango, but not as blocky–more like The Incredibles, but less high-rez of course. If you’ve never heard of it before, you’re  on a 1930’s cruise ship where you get a quarry to kill at the beginning of every round, and you need to go around and find things that can be used as weapons (wrenches, screwdrivers, umbrellas, even actual weapons like guns) and you score by killing your quarry. However you’re also someone else’s quarry, so you have to avoid being killed at the same time. There’s a security camera/guard and witness system that prevents you from killing people just anywhere, so that adds a lot to the game. I don’t know, this kind of game really makes me want to go out and make my own SourceMod. Anyway, I also got Ironman, The Dark Knight, WALL-E, Chocolates, LEGOs, and a couple calendars. (Jet fighters and Monty Python, if you’re curious.)

I’m definitely trying to get into the serious indy scene right now. I don’t know exactly what to do though, but I am. Son, Viro, and I are planning (if not already started) making an FPS similar to Goldeneye as per theming, The Ship’s art style, and Hitman: Blood Money’s kind of “go here and do this, but you figure out the in-between” kind of mission-based gameplay. We’re calling it ‘Espionage’ for now, but there’s no way to know if it’ll change later. We’re either thinking of using the Source SDK to make it a SourceMod, or just making it a standalone game in C4.  Anyway, back to what I was talking about. We want to use Source since it’ll get a lot more attention due to being a SourceMod, opening us up to the wide audience that is the HL2 community, but of course there are a lot of setbacks. As far as SourceMods go, it’s a bit hard to make something that doesn’t just seem like a reskin of HL2 in the end result. The code isn’t very well documented and there are literally no guides or tutorials out there to help get you started, so either you know exactly what you’re doing or you don’t at all. I’ve had C4 for a while, and it’s really starting to get really amazing lately with all their updates. It’s like Crysis in terms of power and features, now. Essentially C4 would be the better choice, especially since it’s a lot easier to use and build things on, but we may have a lot harder of a time getting recognition. The map editor is a lot more confusing than Hammer, which is Son’s job, so he’s playing around a bit to see if he can get used to it. Though another nice deciding factor is that if we get good, we can sell it with C4–something we can’t do with Source. I’m really not sure which to use, still. Think you can help me out? If you would, please vote in the poll and provide your insight in a comment below.

[poll id=8] 

And to conclude the first long blog post of the year: Gravitybone. It’s a weird indy game built on the Q2 engine that’s kinad like a mix of Grim Fandango, Portal, and Hitman–amongst other things. There’s literally no possible way to describe this game, so you might as well just try it out for yourself. Go download it over here. It’s a really short game, but it’s also really fun and unique. Stuff like this really gets my mind thinking about making my own game, even if it’s just a strange little thing like this with programmer graphics. You know, like Noby Noby or World of Goo. Yes, I’m still stuck on WoG. Damnit, brain, think of something else! Anyway, that’s it for me today. Remind me to make more, smaller blog posts more often and we can avoid this whole ~1400 word count thing, mmkay?

12.18.08

Proportionately long post title

Lots of stuff has been going on lately. Really, lots–it’s crazy. I haven’t even had time to update my blog all this time, and I know I kept saying I’d update more frequently. I’ll keep saying it again! Ha! Anyway, I have a lot to cover in this post, so bear with me if this turns out to be really long. Even if it does, I assure you it’s well worth the read. Now then, hopefully I can try and tackle this in chronological order without completely screwing up…

First up we have EXGN. Basically, we used to be EXRP (a strictly GMod RP community and server), and now we’ve officially expanded to EXGN (a multi-game community and server network). We used to have a CSS and TF2 server before, but they were always kinda in the background and nobody really paid any attentionn to them. Now it’s official and we have everything flawlessly set up internally to run all the servers at once, so we’re good to go. Since my last post, I got a new server; completely dedicated this time–that server is all mine! Really good specs too, quad core, assload of ram, buncha space, connected to 3 backbones, etc… I’m set for quite some time with that server I think. Then I had to configure all of it, which took a while since the hosting company I’m with didn’t provision the IPs properly, after that I set up the sites again, set up the new EXGN site, and then all the games. Everything’s running suspiciously smoothly now, so I’d say I’m quite proud of myself.

In order to set up the Garry’s Mod server without using a graphical X environment, using Xvfb, I had to use the -Y argument while connecting to SSH. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that this only worked when connecting to a Linux server from a Linux client. I had dualbooted Ubuntu before on my desktop, but I really have no use for it. However, I’ve gotten a laptop since then, and Vista really doesn’t run too well on it–bam, there’s a good reason to put Ubuntu on it; let’s do it! It took a while to get the partitions planned out so that I could have a primary NTFS partition for Vista, a primary FAT16 for it’s recovery and boot crap, a primary Ext3 for Ubuntu, a logical Ext3 swap, and a logical NTFS “data” partition to share between the two OS’s. Problem was for some reason Vista only wanted two primary partitions as Ubuntu would allow four, but then if I had four Vista wouldn’t allow me to have any logical partitions–it made no sense at all. After about an hour of deep thought and frustration, I finally got it figured out and installed Ubuntu with my carefully devised new partition table. Once Ubuntu was installed, however, the wireless card didn’t work–even after following all of the guides and forum posts online. After a couple days of trying to figure it out, I accidentally installed a module called linux-backports-modules-intrepid that automatically gets the wireless cards working. So, this is to any of you that have AR242x wireless cards out there: Just install that module, don’t do anything with modprobes or blacklists, and everything’ll work out just fine on your first try.

Next up: School. Ah, lovely, lovely school. I’ve been having some problems with my Algebra 2 teacher, such as when she gives us homework on stuff she hasn’t really explained, and that really set me behind–so much so that my final grade was failing and that I had to pull off an 88 on my semester exam toady. I really hope I did, I don’t know how I’d live with myself if I didn’t. The way it works here if you fail a class is you have to take it again the next semester. Then you take what would be the second semester not the first semester of the next year, but the second semester. Since I’m a junior right now, that means I would have only one chance to pass that second semester–if not, I wouldn’t be able to graduate. So yeah, this is really eating away at me and haunting me when I try to go to sleep at night, so I really hope the above situation doesn’t become a reality. I think I did well on the exam; at least an 88 I’m sure. I didn’t struggle with anything, everything seemed completely logical, and I’m positive I didn’t make any stupid mistakes like bubbling in the wrong answer or using the wrong method to answer a question. …Enough talk of this, I really want to get it out of my head so I can enjoy my Christmas and vacation.

Speaking of Christmas, my parents are surprising me with some new computer hardware I picked out and watched my dad order today. I’m really happy about that, as the hardware is really good. A general rundown: E8400 Core 2 Duo, 8800GT, 2GB DDR2 RAM (my old RAM was DDR, and wouldn’t be compatible with my new mobo), GIGABYTE UD3R motherboard, and an Antec 900 case. Nothing bleeding edge, but still really great and definitely a big upgrade from what I have now. I’m really excited for this, and can’t wait to play games on my new rig and see how amazing my FPS is. I’m taking stuff like the power supply and hard drives from my onw right now of course, and my old parts may go to my mum or dad. Depends if it’s better than my dad’s right now, which I think it is–he’s using a PCI 4x graphics card. Yeah, I didn’t even know they made those anymore either. Well, that settles it I guess.

I went to chop down my own tree last weekend (I think, my concept of time greater than two days is nil) and that was really fun. My parents and I drove up to the mountains of Cloudcroft, NM. There was about two feet of snow in some areas, so that made everything better. I brought my camera to do a kind of mockumentary (of Bear Grylls and Cloverfield if you’re interested), which is downloading right now and so far I think the footage is turning out quite nicely. The majority of it near the end is the epic struggle of dragging a tree up an 8-story hill. I’m glad there was snow, as it would’ve been impossible to drag the tree up to the top with dirt. Even with the snow, it was really tiring. There was really cold winds, and the temperature got somebit below freezing at one point, minus wind chill. As I said, it’s converting and stuff right now so I’ll have to edit it tomorrow. I’ll try to post it real soon, mmkay? It should be quite entertaining. I’ll try for tomorrow.

Last topic to cover, unless I think of something else, is the ol’ dreaded search for the perfect MMORPG. It keeps going. And going. And going… Ashen Empires released a massive update that fixes nearly every problem in the game, as well as adding and tweaking with a bunch of new things like nicer graphics, GUI redesigns, etc… They also released a new expansion pack titled Tides of Fate, which basically adds boats to the game. Pretty cool I think, as it opens up a whole new element to the game which is great, but the boats seem to be rediculously overpriced–the starter boat is around one million gold–I only have 1.5 million, and Son has around 4 or 5 I think, but he’s level 101 (I think) and I’m 34. People say the top-tier galleons cost around 15mil, which is ridiculous.

I tried Guild Wars today from a trial code Lawrence got when he purchased the game. I set my expectations rather low; just expecting it to be another failed WoW clone. However, it’s actually really good. It’s themed just like your generic medieval crap, but it adds some nice quirks and twists that make it unique. Really, it seems like a blend of SRO, SWG, and WoW, which is really nice. One could say Ashen Empires in some cases, but that’s a whole different genre I think. Anyway, F2P is a definite pro, and the combat is quite nice. Questing is also good, as it isn’t just grinding like most RPGs are–like WoW. Yes, I’m aiming that at you, WoW fanboys. Go play a game that’s the least bit fun, mmkay? The biggest con I’ve found so far is that all the male characters are rediculously ripped to the point that they just look really, really unsightly. I’m going to be looking at my character for the whole time I’m playing this game, and more specifically: their ass. I really don’t want to be staring at a ripped guy’s ass all day, so I made a female character. Actually, that’s not much of a con at all. Hmm… Well, the FPS is good given the quality of the graphics, so surely something’s wrong there. Yeah, let’s go with that for cons.

10.27.08

Damnit, get rid of that extra dimension!!

First up on my list of things to discuss: World of Goo. It’s so great to see a game that breaks all the rules and is actually fun for once. I mean, look at EVE Online; it’s a pretty decent game, but you have to work for two months to get some big omfg super lazor battle ship only to get it destroyed in one small raid. That happened to an acquaintance of mine on Xfire, and he literally was crying when that happened. Really, what part of ‘fun’ is being misinterpreted by game developers nowadays? Back in the day you had new games coming out all the time like Megaman for the NES, Fantasy Zone for the SEGA Master System, hell even Zero Wing was original enough to be called fun. Now all we have is a bunch of crappity crap that’s made exclusively to be monetized, and while it may seem fun in the beta, it’s then raped so “casual gamers” find it enjoyable. For the latter, see Spore. Seriously, what the hell is this shit? Somewhere along the lines, developers completely lost the meaning of the word “fun”.

Anyway, enough of my rant; back to Goo. Simply put, it’s an amazingly fun game. I’ve always had a thing for physics games and games that have stories and settings that make no sense. I think Earthbound fits into that category, so that must be why I like that a lot too–minus the physics. World of Goo is a refreshing reminder that games can be fun. It’s also an even more refreshing reminder that games do not need DRM. (Take the hint, EA) I don’t really know how to describe WoG, so just watch this video I made.

World of Goo on Xfire

Now, tell me that isn’t an amazing game. Come on, do it! Ah, see? You can’t. Overall, I highly recommend World of Goo to anyone that likes games, and most especially developers. This is what a fun game should be like. In fact, lets use it for an example. So, what exactly is World of Goo in terms of development? Well, it’s 2D… It’s a physics-based game… It has nice music… Oh, and of course, it’s very fun to play.

Well now, what do we have here? Oh, I see! It’s my own 2D game! It’s physics based, has nice music, and is v–ah hell, who am I kidding, it isn’t even done yet; how is it going to be fun to play if it isnt anywhere near complete? Basically, I’m eventually going to be turning this into a 2D multiplayer sidescrolling GMod. I discovered a 2D game engine today called LÖVE which uses OpenGL and–get this–Lua. It’s written in C++, but you make your actual games in Lua. You can also compile them to an EXE to make a standalone game, which is great. As for my game, all it is right now is a landscape with barrels that you can spawn by right clicking, move by dragging left click, and explode into particle-y goodness by shift-clicking. For such a simple engine, it has pretty damn good physics. I just hope I can continue to get 60+ FPS with an assload of physics simulations going on at once, like you’d expect in a multiplayer sandbox game. There will be a spawn menu and stuff where you can spawn some premade ‘props’, as well as scripted ones like explosive barrels (which are quite buggy right now), or you can create a custom prop by inputting the width and height of your desired rectangle and it’ll put it there. Physguns will work just by clicking and dragging, and there will be guns and jumping and stuff. Pretty much, anything you’d expect from a 2D sidescrolling multiplayer sandbox game. More on this later, but here are a couple screenshots. Feel free to ask me on Xfire or Steam or something if you’d like a copy to try out.

And about to wind it up… I got my XCM and a buncha cables this weekend. Apparently UPS delivers on Saturdays, so that was nice. I’ve gotten my 360 and Wii working perfectly with it, all I need is my TV tuner card (which arrives tomorrow) so I can record and broadcast. I can still play now, but it’s more fun when other people can laugh at you over the internet. Meh, just a theory. That’s just about it, then. I’ll keep you posted on the sandbox game, as long as you keep giving me suggestions. Now, back to testing Son’s epic GMod map. And when I mean epic, I really mean EP-

10.22.08

Cables Galore

I’ve done some more work for my dad, this time a shopping cart-based IPN script for use with Paypal. Basically, a person clicks the “add to cart” link on one of his client’s sites, then it, well, adds to their cart. Then they can checkout using Paypal and it automatically sends them a dynamic download link to the e-book they bought. Anyway, pretty nice project–I like working with PHP. It’s something I enjoy doing, and I get paid for it.

This time my payment was a bunch of cables. I know you’re thinking that I’m lame, but hear me out: These cables are so I can play and record console games on my computer. I plug the console into a splitter, and basically one end goes to the monitor and another goes to a tv tuner card to record/broadcast. Pretty neat, I think. Took me a while to figure out the best way to do it, too. For that reason, I have provided you an expertly-made diagram. Yes, it’s Paint.

All in all: I bought an XCM composite to VGA adapter, component coupler, and two component cables. I also needed to get an s-video cable so I could record/broadcast my PC without lag by plugging the GPU directly into the tv tuner, but I forgot. I also forgot the RCA audio y-splitter, but I can just pick these up at any Radioshack anytime. Total, this hit me about $130; but I had $45 left over from when I returned my original 360 VGA cable, so it actually run me $85. Pretty good investment if you ask me, 1080p on my monitor and the ability to record for machinimas and broadcast for shits a giggles–it’s all good, it’s all good! TV tuner was quite cheap, too; only $30. Component tuner cards usually $60 or more, around $100 if you want to get a good one–so I got a good deal there. I had to order everything from different sites though which really sucked, it’d be nice if I could’ve gotten them all from just one site but oh well, couldn’t find them. Only downside is multiple shipping charges, as well as the fact that everything will arrive in ‘pieces’. Should be coming in late this week or early next week, though, so don’t fret; you’ll be able to watch me play old games on a Justin.TV stream real soon.

Anyway, for the upcoming holiday season and my birthday in February, I’ve compiled a list of games I’d like. I also put in a PS3 since I don’t have one, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be getting one. And for that reason, none of the games on the list. LittleBigPlanet looks awesome though. The problem is that it’s not worth getting a $400 console just for one game, and nearly all of the other good games for the PS3 are multiplatform with the 360 or aren’t even out yet. Meh. I don’t know about Sonic Unleashed for the 360 though, as most sonic games since SEGA disbanded sucked. Hopefully it’ll break the cycle, though. As for the Wii, I’m really disappointed in Nintendo right now. So much shovelware, so little good games.

360

• Dead Space
• Fable 2
• Gears of War
• Gears of War 2
• Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
• Bionic Commando
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
• Indiana Jones
• Sonic Unleashed
• Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

PC

• Far Cry 2
• Left 4 Dead
• Call of Duty: World at War
• Mirror’s Edge
• Diablo III
• StarCraft II

Wii

• The Conduit

PS3

• a PS3
• LittleBigPlanet
• Infamous
• Velvet Assassin
• Killzone 2
• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune