Astroturf

You may or may not be aware of Sony's recent attempt to generate a grassroots campaign for their PSP. The whole thing was ridiculously obvious because the marketing company that was hired was incapable of using 13375p34k properly. That's right, what they generated was a hideous abomination of a hideous abomination.

Below is an analysis of on of the "blog" posts from the offending website. It should become very obvious that A) using ur and luv does not a 1337 g3m4r make and B) I know way too much about 13375p34k, gamers and the internet.

Begin analysis.

You don't need to have spent years on the internet to know that when someone makes common mistakes/shortcuts like luv and ur, they don't do it halfway. You'll never see the following sentence on the internet by someone doing it unintentionally.

Hello everyone, I was just thinking that ur all going to luv my latest blog entry.

This sentence of my creation highlights something everyone who's ever used IRC, read Barrens chat, or hacked the e-mail of a 14 year old knows. People who use ur and luv and similar shortcuts and mispellings will not be using proper punctuation, spelling and grammar. It doesn't happen.

Yet, here is what we have from the website. I will be pointlessly dissecting it.

here's the deal::: i (charlie) have a psp. my friend jeremy does not. but he wants one this year for xmas.

People do not use colons on the internet. That key is the jaded and lost son of the realm of QWERTY. People also make assumptions, assumptions such as their identity being well known. They won't be specifying that they are "charlie", you should already know that. If you don't, you're a noob. Jeremy fails to be derided for not having a PSP. Lastly, no one speaking like this would specify "this year", or type "one" out. Number keys are there 4 a reason.

so we started clowning with sum not-so-subtle hints to j's parents that a psp would be teh perfect gift. we created this site to spread the luv to those like j who want a psp!

No one on the internet can spell subtle, let alone know where to use hyphens. A common thing to notice is the use of larger words here were smaller ones would have sufficed. "started" could be "were" or "did". "created" is two syllabels longer than "made". The last sentence would more improperly be "we maed this site 2 giv luv 4 u who want a psp liek j!"

consider us your own personal psp hype machine, here to help you wage a holiday assault on ur parents, girl, granny, boss -- whoever -- so they know what you really want.

Again with the long words. Very few words over 2 syllabels are in the common lexicon on the internet. "consider", "personal", "holiday", "whoever", all unknown to the internet mind. Again with the hyphens as well. There are no "girl"s on the internet, only "gf"s, and when was the last time we saw "granny"? What kid this supposed age would have a "boss"?

we'll let you know how it works for us. pls return the favor.

more to come,
c&j.

Anyone who uses ur is not going to type out "you". "you" is four characters too many as it is. Also, the kind of comraderie shown in this last sentiment is completely foreign. This is the internet, not a high tea. There are no favors, there are only noobs and 1337 h4x.


Ironically, this horribly conceived effort at joining the netizens was least among the symptoms of the greater evil. Very quickly enterprising people spent all of five minutes finding the administrative contacts of the website, linking them to a marketing company, and matching up employee pictures to the people on the website. Almost as soon as the website was up the jig was up.

I wasn't originally going to blab about any of this, were it not for Sony's "apology" or "confession" contained below.

Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.

Sony Computer Entertainment America

I would like to take the opportunity to rail against this.

Firstly, many is a small reckoning. 99% of people aware of the website found out, instantly. The other 1% saw that everyone else had figured it out already and moved on to other things.

Secondly, stop. You weren't cool before, you aren't cool now. Your speech wasn't too funky fresh, in fact I can't think of anyone describing "ur", "luv" and similar shortcuts as such. No, your speech as a baldfaced attempt at pretending to be something you weren't and you failed miserably. Lets look at that again, you failed miserably to mispell words. That just boggles the mind.

Thirdly, it was deathly obvious from that incredible mind-destroying "rap" video that Peter was not, in fact a hip-hop maven. If you survived the video anyway.

Fourthly, a mere cursory look at the webpage immediately screams "marketing". Even Xbox 360 fansites don't plaster system related imagery everywhere like that.

Fifthly, it's not that you were trying to be a little too clever, it's that you A) went out of your way to lie to us and B) failed utterly and completely to fool anyone but yourselves.

Sixthly, your initial product (the webpage) wasn't cool. Making a cool product is a prerequisite to continue making cool products. I can't say I'll continue running away from you screaming at the horror of your creations unless I had already begun my speedy trek in a direction orthogonal to you.

Lastly, it's too late. Who with any sense whatsoever is going to believe anything you say from this point onward? We're supposed to get "just the facts" from a website whose initial point and purpose was an intentional and intricate deception? Snowball's chance on an overclocked CPU.

As an addendum, the worst part of the apology is that they still tried to act cool. When I apologize to someone for a trangression, I do not act as I normally do. My wit, jokes, sarcasm, jolly nature and other attributes are pushed aside because apologies and confessions are serious business. This is especially true when trying to reestablish someone's trust after something as destructive as a lie. Yet Sony, signing as Sony Computer Entertainment America no less, did not cut the crap and continued in part their charade even as they confessed.

I'm of the opinion that whoever is in charge of Sony's PR and marketing needs to be fired, around eight months ago. There hasn't been a single piece of good news generated by Sony's own PR machine starting May 2006 during and after E3. Things that could have been excellent news were lukewarm, and things that might have been only minor issues spiralled uncontrolled into whirlwinds of bad press. This is just another lead pipe on a thoroughly crushed camel.

Sony need to get their PR act together, because ultimately it's going to hurt them severely if they don't. It shouldn't be this hard to market the incumbent.

Terse

Firstly, that's something I'm not. However, it's also something the internet is not as well. This is a problem.

I have noted unconciously, until recently, a slow change in the internet. As the years have gone by websites have increased in complexity. Complexity is not in an of itself a problem. It is nice to have a complex setup, such as this blog, which enables users to do things simply. Complexity of that kind is good. It is complexity of a different kind that isn't. Namely, the web page itself.

Years ago web pages were extremely simplistic. There was very rarely anything beyond grey backgrounds, a few paragraphs of text, a hyperlink to the info-mac archinves, and one small 3k image of the person running the webpage. This was ideal for the time as anyone with a 14.4k modem was living in the lap of luxury. Slowly the capabilities of the internet were expanded, and with them webpages grew and blossomed.

Complexity of the function of web pages exploded. Whereas previously very few web pages were anything other than personal web pages or directories of files for download, now we had review sites, shareware developer home pages, news sites and more. It was still primitive, but that didn't last long either. After seperate, dedicated phone lines were no longer required to surf the sea of information, the internet created a huge demand for excellent web designers and pushed forward into the dot com boom/bust.

However, somewhere in that explosion all the good web designers vanished.

Don't believe me? First take a look at Google. In my mind, it is the epitomy of everything a web page should be. It is simple to use and navigate, while at the same time hosting a very deep and vast set of functions. When the web page loads there isn't any confusion as to what's going on. There are no distractions. There is only Google, a few options, a friendly search box and the "Search" and "Lucky" buttons. There are no ads, no special offers, nothing to clutter the page. It is, in short, a very orthogonally designed website.

Now take a look at Amazon. I'm not going to argue that Amazon isn't extremely functional, because it is. The features it attempts to grant the user do their jobs and do them well. Amazon is not the most famous online store for no reason. However, the website can not be said to be simple.

Before I cut deep into Amazon's web design, I will say that they are hardly the worst website out there. In fact, they are quite probably above average. This does not change my opinion that their website still leaves much to be desired.

When you load the Amazon web page you are immediately assaulted with options and advertisements. In the center of the screen are suggestions of things for you to buy. On either side of the search bar are a penguin and a golden chest screaming to you for a click that you might see what special deals they offer. There are tabs which are not immediately intuitive as to their function. Long lists of categories stream down the left side. Were you to try and assimilate everything on the very first page, it might take you fifteen minutes.

For someone first visiting the site, this can be extremely daunting. Lets say they wanted to find a toy. If they were intent on browsing for one, they're probably going to look confused at the screen for a moment as they try and figure out what is going on. Looking near a common center of attention, the search bar, they find links to deals, new releases, top sellers.... of what? What are these things? This person wants a toy, and if they click on these things thinking they might find one they will only find more confusion.

After some looking, they will probably find the "Browse" menu on the left. Unfortunately, toys are not listed immediately and must be scrolled down to be found. The whole time this is done ads and suggestions take up the other 3/4ths of the page, begging for attention. Just now I scrolled right past the toys, even though I knew exactly where it was, because of the distractions.

Similar insanity continues when you actually click on the toys link, but lets focus on the actual search.

If I search for "Transformers" the actual list of items is repeatedly usurped by sponsored links, and squished by categories, listmania and other oddities on the left. Clicking on a actual item isn't terrible, until you scroll down through the rest of the page and another array of confusing features without much organization presents itself. Thankfully the option to buy is situated in the primary area you first view, although accompanied by options to add it to any number of lists.

To be what I should have been in the first place, terse, the Amazon web page is not simple in the least, especially for someone who has never tried to navigate it before.

I'll repeat myself and say that Amazon is well above average in terms of its design. For all the complexity, it isn't a hideous abomination of web design as several of my college's web portals, a number of lesser online stores, and news sites are. The sheer amount of disorganized and useless clutter that can be found in so small a space as a web browser is staggering.

Web design, I believe, is largely a lost art. Much like Hollywood versus independant film-makers, we can not look to the large businesses to make the best stuff (with rare exceptions). There is an eloquent simplicity and depth to saucylittleone's livejournal, a straight utilitarian forcefulness to the Angry Christian Liberal, and my blog (simple as it is) contains more clutter than I care for.

I'm thinking very seriously about designing my own web page. I have a pretty solid idea for the main index, it's more the functions thereof and what I want to accomplish with it that need to be addressed. I want to avoid the "Lets throw in every last bell and whistle!" approach.

The major things that would be features of this webpage would be video game reviews (in depth, as in more than just a set of ratings and a justification for them but really nitty gritty details), this blog, a forum, and maybe a wiki to store all of the extremely technical and pointless knowledge of video game mechanics I uncover.

One of the chilling factors on this project at the moment is the effort. I'm not sure I'm prepared to spend the time managing, updating and generating content for the site. I also don't know a whole lot about finding web hosting, and the best thing I know for domain registration is whatever I can find via Google. Anyone with more extensive knowledge who might share said knowledge is kindly asked to impart said wisdom in the comments for this post.

In any case, I think I went more technical and less philosophical in this than I meant to. I'm not going to edit it though, because I'm lazy.

Presentation

I'm going to remind you all how important presentation is. If you do a good job, a crappy idea can become reality. If you do a bad job, the following happens.

This is an actual e-mail I received today concerning an FAQ I wrote. My response is included.

Him:

> You obviously don't know the characters names, now do you? First of all,
> Shaman King's name isn't "Shaman King", it's Yoh Asakura. And second of
> all, the
> "Crying Girl" you're referring to is called Aya Tojo. Then it's not
> "Kasugi",
> it's spelled "Kazuki". And also, the "Death Note Girl" is called Misa
> Amane.
> And the "Girl from the Ice Cream Series" name is Kagura. And the series
> you're
> referring to is called Gin Tama. And the Police woman's name is Reiko. And
> the
> "Guard Breaking Guy" from Rurouni Kenshin's name is Sanosuke. And it's not
> "Yugioh", it's Yugi Muto. Or Yami Yugi. Whichever comes first.
>
> Get your facts straight before posting an FAQ.
>

Me:

I appreciate your clarifications but not your attitude.

I highly recommend you do some research on constructive criticism. The difference between "You should consider putting more effort into getting the names of characters and series correct" and "Get your facts straight before posting" is monumental.

Additionally, those are hardly all of the names I was lacking. If you are going to criticize me in this manner you might want to be more complete in your ridicule. "Whichever comes first" doesn't exactly strike me as "getting your facts straight" either.

In closing, there were many ways you could have written your email that would have presented both you and your message better. As it stands, I find that I have no desire to act on any of the information you presented.

In the future, think about how your tone and grammar will affect the reception of your message.

-Darian


I can't find fault with what he said, save for perhaps "Kazugi". If I remember correctly his name was in Katakana and was most definately a "gi" and not a "ki". His grammar wasn't the best, but he did capitalize and punctuate. However, his attitude was absolutely atrocious. From the get go he let me know that his opinion of my work was complete contempt. This tone was carried by the rest of his email up to the last line, where it reached a climax of condescending character.

I wasn't entirely nice in my response either. Mine sports more of a polite, severe reprimand feel. I stand by my decision to not entirely curb my indignation in that being less forceful might have failed to get my point across. I'm skeptical any manner of response would have an affect, but I did my best regardless.

This is the only negative e-mail I've ever received concerning any work I've posted to the internet. I've received criticisms and suggestions before, but never anything that outright condemned my work. I'm surprised honestly, given the constant lamentations seen on official forums for video games I'd have expected a greater amount of ill-conceived and worded flames.

Maybe I'll get more if I actually get around to making my website.

Twink

I’m a min/max gamer. Anyone who ever watched me play Jump SuperStars, Armored Core 3, or any other game with tons of customization know that I work diligently to minimize my weaknesses and maximize my strengths. I do this obsessively, it’s a large draw for me to get the optimum setup. No tweak is too small, no change too minor. Any and everything within the game mechanics is accounted for and utilized.

I am not necessarily the best min/maxer for any given game, but between that and my level of skill I present to my opponents a worthy foe.

Another name for what I do is “twinking”, a term that harkens to Dungeons and Dragons. This term has become ubiquitous in MMORPGs for players who min/max, although other games lack the term (possibly due to a lack of connection to Dungeons and Dragons). Unfortunately, these same MMORPGs are giving twinking a bad name.

Before I delve into that, I’ll explain a key difference. In most games where twinking occurs you are balancing benefits of detriments. Doing X yields Y benefit at the cost of Z. Z may have an in-game monetary element, but generally that is negligible. The true cost of Z is in what you are excluded from doing. Z may prevent a different and desirable X with Y benefit you really want, or it might reduce the effectiveness of another Y, or any other number of undesirables. In these cases, twinking is getting the maximum total of Ys with the minimum effect of Zs. Additionally, an important factor is the individuals preferred playstyle. A player who likes to move fast and strike quickly will shape his customization differently than one who prefers a slower method of combat.

In MMOs Z tends to only (or almost only) encompass in-game monetary costs and time spent. As such, the effects of Y can become quite incredible because they do not have to be balanced against Z. Any other effects of Z are so small they are hardly noticeable. The bonuses of Y can become so overwhelming that playstyle becomes irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if you like slow or fast, durable or deadly, you can get every benefit at no cost. So long one has the most basic of skills, one can be a killing machine.

This second model appeals very greatly to a vast, immature group of players. These players most likely aren’t skilled, but through sheer time and currency can more than compensate for that. While the first model presents twinking as a skill in and of itself, the second presents it as a substitute for skill. The players themselves do not endear themselves to the populace, as they are quick to insult and berate anyone who even tries to have a discussion of the matter. They can be imperceptive to the point where they will cluelessly insult people on their side of debates simply because they are debating.

What is terribly interesting is the similarity in attitude they show to the attitude of cheaters. This interview with a cheater, while childish in it’s own way, is a prime example of the attitudes displayed by the majority of those who twink in the second model.

In the end, what bothers me about the second model is a lack of accomplishment. I don’t get the sense that I’ve accomplished anything worthwhile in being able to smash through people with ease by twinking in the second model, whereas in the first model there is a satisfaction in knowing that my skillful manipulations granted me advantage. For the first model, I’ve had people whose skill in actually playing one of these games was inferior to mine, but more than made up for it in superior twinking skills. Neither of these senses come across in the second model.

The final conclusion is that should I ever make a game with twinking, which is extremely likely, I’ll follow the first model quite vigilantly.

State of the Warcraft address

This is, in effect, my wishlist for things I'd like to see done better in a future massively multiplayer online game, based on the problems I find in Worlf of Warcraft. Realize that these issues are not game crippling (at least not yet), but are things that reduce World of Warcraft from ZOMG PWN to very fun.

1) Massive?

Want: A single, continuous world on which ALL players (at least of a particular country/world region) play together.

There are at least 3 million US players of World of Warcraft, the other (almost) 4 million coming from China and Europe. However, the game isn't just split up by region or by language, but more fundamentally by servers. There are around 100 different servers which, depending on which one you decided upon, limits which other players you'll be with. Once you're on a server, you're stuck there unless you want to pay $25 to move elsewhere.

Being a computer guy, I can understand why this is necessary. Even if we were to assume that only 1 million of US players are on at peak hours, to have a single server/server cluster attempting to handle the massive amount of bandwith and processsing required would be rather enormous and cost prohibitive. It's a shame, but unless Blizzard was willing to pay 10x what they rake in through subscription fees they couldn't afford a single world, not to mention that the world isn't designed to handle that many people in it.

However, because of the current setup there's a problem I've noted. Eventually, servers get "full". When new players attempt to create their first character, a realm is automatically suggested for them. Invariably realms that are new or have low populations are suggested, and occaisionally medium ones. Once a server hits "high" population, players must specifically choose that realm by going against what was recommended. What this means is that there's a point where low level zones are practically deserted as everyone who actively plays on the server has reached max or near max level. This can happen, or show signs of it happening, as quickly as six months.

The reason this bothers me is that I have a large number of characters, spread out over many servers. Some of these characters are low levels on old, high population servers. This means that trying to find other players my level is often difficult. The problem is compounded by the fact that all new players are being directed away from the server, leaving the server to "stagnate".

Now, come the expansion people on all servers will be making new characters to take advantage of the new features/races etc. But that's a temporary solution to a more permanent problem. A problem that won't be fixed in World of Warcraft, but may be fixed in a sequel or competitor's offering.

2. 1337 5k33lz

Want: Pure skill based player versus player content.

I am not the most skilled video game player ever, but I am talented. It's something I egotistically pride myself on, and still enjoy taking an ego bruising now and again for. There are some things that do frustrate me.

You may remember a long time ago a post I made concerning a game called Gate 88, which, while interesting in concept, lent itself to give advantage to whomever won a confrontation. Not a small advantage, a freaking huge one that was completely unrecoverable from. This is not true of World of Warcraft, but there is an issue.

When fighting other players, their equipment is a very large factor. Having 1337 equipment that is hard to get grants a rather large, though not unsurmountable, obstacle to their foes. Evenly skilled players fighting will most often have a result of the player with better gear winning.

Now, were all gear equal and it more a matter of strategically choosing which gear to combine with what style of combat and then skillfully putting the theory into practice, I wouldn't care. If a player has devised a better combination of gear and combat style than my own, they deserve a win. Real life sports are won as a combination of preparation, strategy and skill, not just skill.

However, World of Warcraft sometimes runs into the "idiot with excaliber" scenario, wherein some moron has managed to get incredibly rediculous gear which is completely overpowering in comparison to everyone he's fighting. Without any strategy save "kill" and with the skill of a retarded monkey they plow through the field, successful only because of their equipment.

This is a scenario I have fought, lost to, over come, and everything in between. I like challenges, but I dislike ones where the challenge isn't a matter of skill but is instead a matter of things being unfairly weighted against you.

3. Dynamics

Want: A non static world.

The neatest thing about games like Worms, Scorched Earth and Vigilante 8 is that the world was always changing. When you dropped a bomb somewhere, you left a hole. Buildings crumbled, things blew up, and craters were created. The world was dynamic.

It would be nice if the same could be said of a game like World of Warcraft. I would like to see that my skillful efforts in battle would actually grant some advantage to my side. A days worth of crushing my enemies, seeing them driven before me, and hearing the lamentations of their women nets me nothing save the satisfaction of a job well done. Imagine at Troy, the armies have just errupted out of the horse, Troy lies open before them, the men unprepared and drunk, you are certain of victory. But instead of actually conquering anything you turn around and go home, knowing yours was a job well done. It sort of kills the buzz of conquest when nothing is conquered.

4. Customer service.

This is not to say that World of Warcraft's customer service is bad, but there is one area which I find lacking.

The essence of any community or relationship is communication. I can't claim to be perfect in this regard, but I grow everyday in the recognition that without communication there is hardly anything to call a community or a relationship. More and better communication = good.

Ther are two issues I have found with Blizzard's communication.

The first, and least important, is that it is slow. In game help can take a long time to arrive, and about 2/3rds of the time doesn't arrive while I'm still playing. If you know me, you know that I generally play my games in long stints as opposed to piecemeal. This is obviously an issue, but understandable to an extent because of the large number of players versus the feasible size of a support staff. However, improvement can still be had.

The second is more dire, and relates to the forums. Within those forums we find the people who care and know the most about the game. Very often, issues nestled deep in the players minds and thoughts are brought up. However, it is here that Blizzard's communication completely breaks down. The forum representatives, especially recently, are far more likely to respond to random zaniness in the general forum than they are to address legitimate concerns of the players in the entire breadth of the forums. I've maintained a close watch on the forums since before I left for Japan, and I can't say I'm impressed with what I've seen. In the past month, the number of "blue" posts in threads outside of the General Discussion is near zero. The ratio being 100:1 or more.

I'm not against Blizzard people from participating in the zaniness, but there's a real issue here. People want to be heard, even if the response is "No." When no response is made to issues that many forum people are concerned about, all we're left with is confusion. Is Blizzard working on this? Is this not an issue for them? Do they even care? Intentional or not, a failure to respond is equivalent in the minds of many as ignoring someone or some group. It's not good.

Now, there are all sorts of mitigating circumstances. The forumers don't know what kind of work goes into being a Blizzard representative. We do know they have all sorts of juicy tidbits about upcoming expansion details they can't tell us, and it's likely everything they say that isn't a silly quip or jest has to be carefully examined beforehand as to not let out any information being saved for a press release later. However, it would nice to let people know this kind of thing is going on. Give us a shout saying, "Because a great number of elements of the game are being changed in the expansion, many of which address current concerns and issues, we are not likely to be seen responding to requests made as it might reveal too soon exciting information before we're ready to give out all the details." Players would love that. As it is, in the middle of the Rogue Class review (a time for which communication is paramount) all Blizzard representatives simply vanished from the Rogue forum. I don't think I've seen a "blue" post in there since.

Quite simply, I've done the 9-5 monitor a forum thing. I was addicted to forums for a long time, and I know how long it takes to throw bones to people. Bureaucratic processes or not, there's no excuse for not making an excuse for disappearing altogether. There are plenty of excuses out there, good ones, for not addressing the issues people are bringing up. Give them please.

Thank you if you bothered to read all that. If you didn't, I don't know if you missed much.

Connections

I have come to the conclusion there is nothing worth doing on this green earth if it can not be connected to someone else.

Example: If there was no one I knew personally to play video games with, or to later discuss them with, I wouldn't play them. There'd be no point. It wouldn't feel good to beat Legend of Zelda if there was no one to connect that with.

It isn't limited to diversions, this applies to everything. Work, driving, running, swimming, philosophy, theology, music, everything. If there is never a connection, someone that shares or understands whatever it is, there's a deep and consuming sense of futility that gnaws. A cavernous hunger that devours whatever it is and takes from it all semblence of joy and mirth.

I'm currently suffering from a lack of connections. It's probably largely due to the newness of being in Texas, but I'm rather isolated. I have relatives nearby, but they don't "connect" like my friends and siblings did. I love them all so, but they aren't and shouldn't be a replacement for friends and a significant other.

It really comes down to the fact that I'm currently remote and far away from everyone whom I "connect" with. My best friend's in Massachusetts, my brother will be in College in New York, my sister's in Maryland, and my best buddy in college who truly understood me better than anyone else present there (and as well as anyone else for that matter) is a civil servant in Pennsylvania. Even those who, despite not having a full and deep "connect", were important are far away. The isolation is a weight that is hard to bear.

Talking to God while commuting helps, as does this.

Post-Post Modernism

The more I've observed people my age and teenagerish, the more I've come to the conclusion that ways of thinking are changing. There's a general discontent with how the world is ordered, and it only grows with age.

Post Modernism will be with us for a while yet, but I doubt that it will remain long enough to bother people 50 years from now. By then, it will be defined as a minor bump on the road between the end of the Enlightenment and the beginning of controlled anarchy.

What irks the youth of today are the continuing mixed messages we get. There are two sets of schools of thought competing for our allegience. The first set is made of the much derided relativistic schools. The second set is filled by the empirical schools. Both bombard us with their dogma, and the number of "bites" they are getting is diminishing.

The movement that is ever so subtlely beginning is one that rejects both "there are no absolutes" and "everything is absolute". In many ways it's a "common sense" movement. It goes without saying that there are absolutes and there are grey areas. Ultimately what will preserve Post Modernism for a while is the entrenchment of empiricism in established institutes, but when it has served its purpose in destroying empricism's credibility it will fade.

Right now the movement's in a celluar state, just fertilized and beginning to develop. Exactly what it will look like at birth, adulthood, and seniority are beyond anyone's ability to predict. However, some trends are clear. Young adults are rejecting institutions for their inefficiency and insincerity, yet find that anarchy is inefficient as well. Some bridging of the two will occur, assuming the second coming doesn't happen first.

That's all I can write for now. There's a large thunderstorm and I think it may knock out power just long enough to erase what I've written.

Travesty

There's been a lot of experience with travesty these past few weeks. Nothing serious really, but I've encountered various levels of it. A series of events have transpired such that I wonder how many sane people are left in the world, and whether I'll be able to find one of the opposite gender suitable for courtship before my mortal coil is sprung.

Anyway, onto the travesties.

1) The Draenei as the new Alliance race in the World of WarCraft expansion:

This is the smallest of the travesties, and in and of itself isn't bad. I'm looking forwards to running around doing the Tunak Tunak Tan dance, which this race features. However, the travesty was the brutal surgery the history of Azeroth went through to make this possible. Surgery is a nice way of saying that they literally had to rip the whole thing to pieces and sew it back together to work.

The idea as it was presented was that the Draenei were a race who were quite naturally talented with magic. The evil Sargeras offered them power for their allegience, which some of them took greedily while the others fled. These others were chased by their corrupted brethern, who became the Eredar demons of Sargeras' Burning Legion army, and were aided by the Light to evade their pursuers. They eventually settled on Draenor, where after a few millenia of peaceful living were utterly crushed by the Orcs, who were now pawns of the Burning legion. The chaotic, demonic bloodlust of the orcs corrupted many Draenei, mutating their form into the strange and twisted figures seen in WarCraft 3. Most of them look more like the Eredar. These ones crash landed their nethership which they used to escape the orcs after some Blood Elves sabotaged it.

That's jolly good, until several points were sent straight into the heart of this. 1) Sargeras was purportedly disturbed by the existence of demons, including the Eredar, which is partly why he went mad in the first place. 2) Spaceship?

I realize not every game developer can be Bungie and have a supremely anal attitude towards lore, but Blizzard already completely ignored the previously important gender roles of the Night Elves when they made World of WarCraft. It's a travesty what they keep doing to the lore.

2) Halo 2 for PC becomes a Vista exclusive:

If you don't know what Halo 2 is, you don't play video games. If you don't know what Vista is, it's the next version of Windows that Microsoft will find some way of forcing you to upgrade to.

This didn't really bother me until I found more intelligent people than I making the following points.

A) For the cost of upgrading to Vista you can buy an original Xbox and Halo 2 or an Xbox 360 and Halo 3 (when it comes out), depending on what version of Vista you're upgrading to.

B) If Vista was really all that great, it would sell itself and wouldn't need to lean on Bungie for a reason to buy it.

In the end, why does it take so long to port a game to PC when it's been shown time and time again that the Xbox is little more than a PC-in-a-box? Not only that, it's being forced onto an OS no one even has yet.

Travesty.

3) Gunbound:

You may not know of Gunbound, but you may have played many games like it. Worms and Scorched Earth are games which function on similar principles. You have some tank or other object which is horribly beweaponed and lobs shots around an arena at other tanks or objects. Gunbound doesn't deviate here.

One of the unique features of Gunbound was that you had an Avatar. It wasn't just a tank, you had a little person riding it. That person could be decked out in many different outfits, and depending on the server you played on these trappings had bonuses they would grant you. Outfits could be purchased with gold or cash, gold being earned through fighting and cash being legal tender. It was very novel, incredibly cool and overall fun.

After many years of not having access to the game, I finally installed it on Raijin and took it for a spin. The game's as good as ever in the gameplay department, with even a few new tanks since I last played. However, somewhere between then and now travesty struck.

When outfits were purchased before, they were permanent. Your account would be able to sport them unto eternity. Now, the same is true, except the prices are 10x higher to do that. If those Matrix Glasses cost 9000 gold before, they're 60000 gold now for a permanent buy.

Fear not! You can still rent them for a week for 9000 gold... or a month for 18000! It... it just really sucks. There isn't a better way of putting it. Luckily, any items you had before this was done are permanent, so that 27000 Archangel outfit was a real steal. Seriously, imagine if you were paying $2800 to rent that used car for a week. Ugh.

The depths of this travesty know no bounds.

4) PS3 Price:

You knew it had to be here, but the price of this sucker is quite insane. We've been up and down this issue before, but we're likely to see this keep coming up. Sony's PR has done a bang up job of keeping the public grumbling at them over this. I wonder if they're not trying to replicate all the buzz Nintendo got for changing their consoles' name from Revolution to Wii. The difference there is, a Wii by any other name sells just as cheap. Also, the name becomes catchy after a while. The price of the PS3 doesn't grow on you. The more I think about spending $600 for a console, not counting games and extra controllers, the more I grimace. It took a week for Sony apologists to stop sulking in corners and come out to try and defend their beloved PS3. It took 2 minutes to blow their arguments out of the water, 1:52 of which was laughing at the absurdity of their statements.

We've heard the "It's a cheap Blu-Ray" player argument. We've heard the "It's cheap for the power it has" argument. And we've heard straight from Sony the "You'll buy it anyway even without games" argument. These arguments have already been thoroughly rebutted. Honestly, the PS3 is going to be a good system, but come on guys. Seriously, you can come up with better reasons for supporting it than that.

The worst argument yet was that most cutting edge technology is expensive as the early adopters will buy it at any price within reason. Then the prices plummet as it goes mainstream. The idea is that the same is true of the PS3. There are several problems with this argument.

A) The types of cutting edge technology being referred to here are largely technologies where there are multiple competitors making hardware which all does exactly the same thing. Sony TVs, Brand Silly TVs, Panasonic TVs, they all let you hook up VCRs, DVD players and cable to them. Aside from the actual quality of each brand's product, there's little difference. A casual buyer would be just as happy with no brand in particular so long as it worked.

Video game consoles, on the other hand, are extremely focused on brand. There are large, gaping differences between the consoles, and what you buy changes what you can interact with drastically. Imagine if you could only get PBS on a Sony TV, Fox on Brand Silly, and HBO on Panasonic. That's what video game consoles are analogous to. To compare them to technologies like TVs is a severely flawed comparison.

B) Aside from the similar hardware counterpoint, there's the fact that in those competitive hardware fields it's possible to come in late with a good product and enjoy profit. It doesn't matter that there have been TVs for years before, if this new brand does everything the others do it'll sell. That's not to say it's easy to make TVs and whatnot, but there's nothing inherent in the market that makes it impossible for latecomers to succeed so long as they aren't lazy about it.

In the video game industry it's very different. Coming in late is like going to an event at college which offers free food halfway through. Were you expecting food? Sorry, the only things left are the salads no one eats and the deserts that everyone hates. You can't just come in anytime you want and expect things to work just as they would if you came in first. There is food to be had, but it is all scraps.

Now Sony can't be said to be extremely late. They certainly aren't coming in halfway through. However, they're using the same exact strategy for their console they used for the PS2. Overshadow your earliest competitor with far better graphics at E3, charge a lot at launch, use the next generation video format to push consoles. It worked beautifully for the PS2, but Sony is ignoring a great many factors that are vastly different.

i) Sega vs Microsoft

When the PS2 began Sony's second generation of dominion, it was competing against Sega, a financially rocky company that wasn't particularly big. Now that the PS3 is coming, it's fighting another early competitor, but this one is Microsoft. We don't even need to think twice concerning the chance of Microsoft suddenly going bankrupt. It isn't happening this decade.

ii) Sega vs Microsoft Pt 2

Sony amazed us with incredible bonanza's at the E3s prior to the launches of both the Dreamcast and the Xbox 360. However, people believed Sony at the E3 before the Dreamcast. When the one after that came, people were disappointed but there was still a marked difference in graphical prowess between the two systems. It was enough for gamers to feel comfortable with the overhyping Sony had done before, because to an extent they still delivered.

The E3 before the Xbox 360 launched, a similar tactic was used. However, the public took the awesome images with a grain of salt. Only the most zealous of fanboys claimed that all, if any, of the images were not prerendered. Again, the public was ready to forgive that hyping if the system delivered. Unfortunately, this E3 showed that Sony's games looked little different from Microsoft's. The result is a largely dissapointed public, many of whom wondered why they waited, and many others who didn't bother to wonder and just went and bought Xbox 360s.

iii) DVD vs Blu-Ray

DVDs rock. It's hard to refute, although I'm sure my dad could do a good job. They are significantly better than video tapes. They don't wear out as quickly, they give all sorts of options, you can skip ahead with scenes, select specific episodes and largely not have to deal with many of the issues that plagued video tapes. There's a reason why everything's on DVD these days.

Of course, the ill-designed DVD menu is a menace that has come of this, but that is a different travesty for another day.

When the PS2 came onto the scene, there was no question as to the place DVDs would have in the home. People were already buying DVD players and DVDs. Everyone knew they were better, if not necessarily widely circulated yet. While there was some cling to videos that existed, the alure of different language tracks, deleted scenes and director commentary won the day. While some may complain about the cost of buying an entire anime series at only 3 episodes a disc, these are the same people that don't remember that buying cartoons on tape usually involved fewer episodes of lower quality video and audio, and often more expensive per video than we enjoy now per DVD.

The PS3 enjoys no such luxury. It will be one of the first Blu-Ray players on the market, there will be few if any movies on Blu-Ray when it launches, if any in stores. There is not drastic chasm of difference between DVDs and Blu-Ray, like there was for video tapes and DVDs. Most of the public doesn't even know what Blu-Ray is. Ask someone and they'll probably think you're talking about fish.

Travesty.

So I've yet to see the price justified properly. If this trend continues, I may have to beat my Nintendo fanboyism senseless and write a post critical of Nintendo while praising Sony just so that there's something on the internet which successfully does so. I'm actually quite shocked that there haven't been better arguments that the Wii will do poorly, or that Sony will prevail. Whether that's a travesty or not isn't important. What is important is that it's now 1 AM, and I should be asleep, quenching my thirst, or both.

Gloom, not doom.

A lot of people are mad at Sony. Not everyone, some people are just annoyed. There are certainly a great number of indifferent people, and plenty who are still staring dreamily at pictures of the PS3.

Now, Sony's done many things to raise one's ire. They took out the rumble pack from their controller and shamelessly imitated Nintendo. They priced their system at $500-$600. They use a Cel chip which, while powerful, has an architecture that currently gives developers migraines. And most recently, they told us we'd buy it without games.

You can guess that everyone and their twin brother has projected a horrible, firey death for Sony and everyone involved. It doesn't take much to know that angry people write angry things, and that even the best of attempts to think straight when one is livid with rage go awry. As such, reading the comments on /. will lead you to believe that the gamers of the world are ready to swim to Japan and wring Sony's neck in the greatest seaborne invasion since Normandy.

I'm certainly not perfect, and I'm sure I've cast my share of doom at Sony here and there. However, despite continual attempts by Sony's wonderful PR (seriously, who hired them?) to destroy their chances at another successful console Sony will certainly do well. Consider what I have to say.

Nintendo once had a monopoly on the video game market, followed by another near monopoly. The NES and SNES quite simply dominated. Some people had Sega's Genesis, but hands down Nintendo was still king. Today, Nintendo is third in the US, and generally low on market share in general. They've always made profit, but were they to continue to hemorrhage market share they certainly would go out of business.

What went wrong with Nintendo, at least partially, is what's going wrong with Sony now. Namely, hubris. If you look at it historically, no console manufacturer has maintained dominance for more than two generations. Both Atari and Nintendo enjoyed the high life. One collapsed, was consumed, and was spat out as a brand. The other lives on, but many say barely. Sony's at the same juncture as Atari and Nintendo were, and is repeating their mistakes.

I highly doubt Sony is going to follow in Atari's footsteps, if only because Atari's vanity was so great that cartridges were literally bulldozed into landfills. They are more likely to go the way of Nintendo because of the similarities between the two companies. Beyond both being japanese, they both supplanted a previously popular competitor (although the situations were different), and they both released (or will release) the most technologically powerful system, last, in the generation they lost (or will lose) the limelight.

The Nintendo 64 was the best system in terms of graphics, heck, hardware in general. Four built in ports meant easy four player games. It was a dream. It was also built with the attitude, "They'll buy it because we're Nintendo". It was sold with that attitude, and by the time Nintendo had figured out that something was amiss, Sony was laughing all the way to the bank. However, the Nintendo 64 did very well for the very reason they thought it would. It was Nintendo, and so people bought it. However, as good as slightly less than half the market may seem it's a staggering drop from a monopoly.

Sony is probably going to experience something similar. People will definately buy the PS3, lots of them. I'd be surprised if Sony failed to sell at least 50 million PS3s before they're done. However, considering the success of the PS2, selling only that many is a staggering drop in success. If Sony doesn't realize what's happened when they start work on the PS4, they'll be near to where Nintendo is now.

Unfortunately, Sony has many more problems to face than Nintendo did in the same position. Specifically, Nintendo never failed to make a profit on any of its consoles, and also had our favorite Nintendo franchises to carry them along. Sony, on the other hand, is not as straight out profitable as Nintendo. Despite having somewhere between 1/10th and 1/5th the market share Sony has, Nintendo made more money on their Gamecube than Sony made on the PS2. Additionally, Sony's major franchises are actually third party products. Metal Gear Solid and Grand Theft Auto are already taking the first steps to leaving them. What were originally thought to be Sony exclusives turned up elsewhere. Snake will be in Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, and Grand Theft Auto 4 will be on the Xbox 360 with exclusive content. The latest and greatest Final Fantasy has always been on the Sony train since the N64 failed to provide the storage space for those eye dropping computer rendered sequences. While Final Fantasy XIII will be a PS3 exclusive, Nintendo's been reigning on Sony's parade with many of it's own exclusives such as Crystal Chronicles and numerous remakes of the old classic Final Fantasies.

In short, Sony will do well this generation, but is on road to destruction. Sony will not suddenly drop off the map this generation. However, they're going to have to work doubly hard next generation to prevent from falling into that long list of companies that didn't last in the world of video games. I think they can do it, it's up to them to actually do so.

E3: The Road Ahead

Now the speculation begins.

With just about everything said and done, the time for prognostication has come. I have no claims of seerhood or prophet like predictions. I just have my gut feelings, and here's what they're saying.

Sony's screwed.

This isn't just about price. This is about what Sony showed us this E3. Sony unveiled to us that with an extra year of development, they created a system that doesn't show any better performance quality than the Xbox 360 that costs an extra $200. A system which shamelessly tacked on motion sensors into its controller at the cost of force feedback. A system whose only major exclusive games are Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy 13.

That's a brief summary. Depth time.

Coming into this, those of us who pay attention to video games and the companies that make them had expectations of Sony. Their system was given a year longer to develop than Microsoft's, and as such we expected to see a year's worth of improvement over Microsoft's system. Through the course of Sony's press conference, the feeling grew that Sony didn't have it all together. Their conference lacked style, lacked structure, and looked like it lacked preparation. The most interesting parts of the show were third party games. Most importantly, the vast majority of games that were shown did not look any better than what had been out on the Xbox 360 this past Christmas. Sony fanboys and the rest of us alike had been expecting that Sony was going to plaster Microsoft with games so beautiful we would cry, or at least significantly better looking. Because that was not seen, we strained to find other redeeming qualities in the system, and found nothing that set it apart.

Sony revealed a new online service, something Microsoft has had and refined for a few years now. Not to mention that Microsoft's is running right now, with a full feature set while Sony's still resides in the realm of vaporware. Sony showed connectivity between the PSP and PS3, something Nintendo pioneered with their Gameboy Advance and Gamecube (both of which were also far cheaper). Sony showed off their eyetoy, but only left us wondering was it all smoke and mirrors through a lack of details. Lastly, they tried to wow us with their motion sensitive controller, but left us scratching our heads at the removal of the force feedback (and the possible irony of them copying Nintendo after bashing motion detection as a gimmick).

Overall the feeling I got in my gut, as well as from what I read of other people, was that Sony had dissapointed. The price was a kick where it hurts, and the higher price of the full version a shotgun to the face. A lot of people have made the argument that it's a bargain because of the built in blu-ray player. That worked for Sony with the PS2 because we knew that DVDs were the next medium. There were no ifs or buts about it, DVDs were what was next. Now, we have no clue. There's too much uncertainty as to what the next medium will be, or even if as to whether we need it.

Meanwhile, Microsoft showed off their second generation of games for the Xbox 360, not all of which were sports games or first person shooters. Microsoft caught wind somewhere that the hardcore gaming crowd only has so much money to spend, and that the market as a whole will shrink (or in the case of Japan, is shrinking minus what Nintendo has accomplished) if nothing is done to reach out to more people than teens age 14-19, and college students age 20-24. Their efforts are somewhat bungled, and not entirely effective, but will ultimately give them a huge advantage. They will have a good number of games for people who aren't interested in Football 2010 or Gunfirekilldead 2007. Additionally, with their online service connecting PCs and consoles, they've leveraged their OS (again) to propel them through a new market.

Nintendo showed that they've got games, and lots of them. They showed that their new console works, and works well. They showed that they understand what needs to be done in the console industry, and that they know how to do it. Nintendo isn't just reaching out to the greater public, they're building huge bridges while maintaining the beauty of the place they're building bridges from. Nintendo killed any question as to whether they have third party support, and in an industry where franchises are becoming stale and losing the weight they carried, Nintendo still has all their old classics such as Mario, Link and Samus standing strong and fresh as the day they were conceived.

Because of all that, I can't see this generation going Sony's way. Early adopters and some casual gamers who already have a playstation of one form or another will buy the PS3, but aside from holiday frenzy it will hardly sell. Like the PSP, it may start strong at Christmas, but sales will just end there. Meanwhile, disillusioned hardcore gamers will jump ship to the Xbox 360 and to the great series residing there. With a potential price drop to boot, the Xbox 360 will sell at least as much as the PS3 if not more during the holidays and will continue to sell thereafter. In Japan, sales of the Xbox 360 will pick up some but not significantly, while the PS3 will fare better there but not enough to make up for the poor showing in the US. Meanwhile, Nintendo will fare better than either of their "competitors". Through simple elegance, and low price, the Wii will sell like crazy in the US, and will hardly be found in stores in Japan. While there will be contention for the US market, Japan will be soundly won by Nintendo.

Microsoft may turn a small profit halfway through the generation, Nintendo will make money as always, and Sony will lose large gobs of money and accomplish little.

I never thought I'd want to predict Microsoft doing well, but honestly they have an understanding that games need to move away from the current "nerdy guy shoot things crush" mindset. It's nowhere as complete or perfect as Nintendo's, but I'll pick the huge monolithic megacorporation that has some sense of what needs to be done over the one that has been riding on the success of their first console ever since it was successful.

Unadaptable

A recent past time of mine has been to spend about thirty minutes a day laughing at the complete idiocy of a very specific group of people. To be specific, the majority of people who play Paladins in World of Warcraft and post to the official forums.

So that at least part of this is interesting to the general public, I will start with a rant which is related to my pastime, but doesn't require intense knowledge of World of Warcraft or video games to understand. Following that will be boring video game related things few of you will care about.

I also am thinking of one person in particular who should probably be doing something else than reading this, especially given the subject. You know who you are, what you should be doing, and what will happen to you when I return home in eleven days and find out you neglected something for this.

Anyway, begin rant on "unadaptability".

Forenote: I liberally use some terms such as "idiot" in the following rant. I do note that while these terms are used I have an understanding that the internet turns people into jerks, including me, and that any idiotic tendencies in a person are highly exaggerated by internet exposure. As such, I would expect that the people I refer to and rather blatantly assault are better people in real life.

Now that the apology is out of the way, the rant can truly begin.

One of the major traits I cherish and am proud to possess even a little of is adaptability. It allows me to beat chess players who use a predictable strategy, to change my monopoly plans in a flash, and eat strange japanese foods I never knew existed. Adaptability is a nice thing to have.

That's not to say I'm perfectly adaptible. I enjoy consistency quite a bit, very much evident from my homebody and anti-social personality. If there's any situation where the unadaptable side of me is extremely evident, it is a social one. I rarely modify my behavior for different groups of people or situations. I am always me.

I think that being too adaptable is just as bad as being too unadaptable. While being too unadaptable obviously has its drawbacks, being too adaptable kills consistency in life. It's hard to "settle" on anything if you are always adapting "perfectly" to a new situation. However, I don't meet a lot of overadaptable people.

The vast majority of internet idiots I have encountered are extremely unadaptable. Whether in regards to other person's opinions, new trends, or the ever changing state of the internet. Quite simply, these people lack any ability to change as everything else does. Arguing with them is like arguing with a three year old, logic has nothing to do with it. They can not conceive of a different way of doing things than is already in place, and any suggestion that things could be done in a different way or might even have to be done a different way is the worst insult imaginable.

The story goes something like this.

1. X part of life of the internet changes.
2. Unadaptable person complains about X.
3. Adaptable person explains logically how it won't be very difficult to adapt to X, and will only require minor changes.
4. Unadaptable person "refutes" their opponent vigorously, making sure to tell them they are wrong and everything was better before X.
5. Adaptable person is confused as the logic and the new situation both back up the argument that adaption is both easy, and the result is better than life before X.
6. Unadaptable person continues to "refute" their opponent with "facts".
7. Adaptable person points out that the "facts" are entirely and solely related to the way the unadaptable person already does things, and how the same thing can be done with slight modifications, better.
8. Unadaptable person doesn't waver in their belief that X is a terrible injustice and that the world will now end.

And so on.

It really is quite striking how vicious the unadaptable can get about not adapting, only equalled by the retribution the adaptable sometimes mete out in return.

A nice example is a fierce interaction of me and my brother vs an entire forum. A person had posted the following problem from a math test:

"There is a town in which the inhabitants have no means of communication. There is a rule in this town stating that anyone with a mark on their forehead must kill themselves. The population met once a day, for three days, after which everyone who needed to be dead had killed themselves.

How many people had marks on their heads?"

Up until the point we entered the discussion, people had been arguing about how there wasn't enough information to solve the question, how there wasn't any way people couldn't communicate, or how people could have just waited for rain and looked in puddles or found a mirror somewhere. We joined a little ways into the discussion, with a very logical and mathematical solution.

Our solution stated the following.

"We must assume there is at least one marked person, because otherwise this problem would not state that it was after the third meeting that everyone who needed to be dead had killed themselves.

At the town meeting, everyone can see everyone else, but not themselves. If a person sees no marked people, they know that they must be a marked person (as there is at least one). However, if a person sees a marked person, they can not tell as there is at least one and not only one marked person. They might be marked as well. The same can be said for any number of marked people a person sees.

Scenarios:

If there is one marked person, they will see only unmarked people and know they are marked. This person will know to commit suicide after the first meeting.
Everyone else sees a marked person, and can not conclude whether or not they are marked.
Result: After the first meeting the marked person commits suicide and everyone who needs to be dead is. Everyone else comes to the second meeting and can conclude they don't have marks on their heads. If there was a mark, the marked person they saw would not have been able to conclude they were marked and would not have committed suicide.

If there are two marked people, they will see one marked person and can not conclude their status as marked or unmarked.
Everyone else will see two marked people, and also can not come to a conclusion.
Result 1: After the first meeting no one commits suicide, and everyone returns to the second meeting.
At the second meeting, the marked people each see that the other person did not commit suicide. They can conclude that the other therefore must have seen a marked person, and since they can see no other people they must also be marked.
Everyone else still can not come to a conclusion.
Result 2: After the second meeting the pair of marked people commit suicide. Everyone else goes to the third meeting and sees that the marked people are gone, and they now know they weren't marked.

If there are three marked people, they will each see two marked people. Because of that, they will act like the "everyone else" from the previous scenario, and wait until the third meeting before being able to confirm that they are marked. Everyone else will see three marked people and will wait until the fourth.
Result: After the third meeting the three commit suicide, and everyone who needs to kill themselves has.

There's the solution. For X number of people who are marked, X number of meetings must take place, after which everyone who needs to be dead has killed themselves.

Admittedly, neither this explanation nor the one I immediately gave is entirely flawless. However, the flaws are presentational only, with the logical not being expressed in pure perfection. The reaction to the solution was rather interesting.

Absolutely no one agreed with it. Not one other person thought we were right. It wasn't our logic that was wrong, we just apparently misunderstood the problem.

Any one of the following reasons were brought up for why we were wrong, and sometimes all at once:

1. The people probably could have seen themselves in a mirror or a puddle and known in the first place.
2. There's no possible way people can't communicate unless they can't see, hear, feel, taste, or smell.
3. How can people meet if they can't communicate?
4. How can people even know the rule if they can't communicate?
5. Why would a person commit suicide when they could just as easily forget the rule?
6. Better yet, they could purposely not do so, all the other sheep would commit suicide, and you could take their stuff, become rich, and go to some proper village where people can talk.
7. "After the third meeting everyone who needed to commit suicide was dead" doesn't mean they couldn't have been dead beforehand.

The general conclusion reached was that there was no solution to the problem.

We countered with the following:

1. The problem was on a Math test.
2. Math tests require concrete answers.
3. Therefore, this problem has a concrete answer.

It all went downhill from there. People brought up points such as, "The teacher might just be sadistic" or "People can make mistakes when making a problem". Despite the fact that we had a concrete solution, and the only refutations were entirely speculative in nature, no one changed their minds.

While I'll give some blame to my poor original wording of the solution, and the subsequent failure of my three revisions thereafter, I came to the eventual conclusion that the problem was largely in the inability of the other people to move out of the mindset they had started with and consider the problem from a different angle. The idea of actually listening to the problem when it said, "People can't communicate" just was too much of a reach. In short, by the time we arrived they had already become "set" into one way of thinking about the problem, and couldn't adapt into another.

The discussion burned down in flames.

I have, as I said, now taken particular interest in watching people show off their complete inability to adapt.

Thus ends the rant, and begins the second part which is even more boring and tedious than the first. Anyone who is unfamiliar with World of Warcraft should end here, and anyone else might want to for the sake of sanity. There is one person in particular I mentioned before who should be elsewhere to begin with, WHY ARE YOU READING THIS?!?!

Anyway...

Over the course of months the various classes of WoW have been being revamped to be more fun, more interesting, and more diverse. These changes are based half in changes made to their respective ways of fighting, and half in their talents.

The Paladin class has long been awaiting their revamp, having been rather upset at the unannounced change from the strike system to the seal system between beta and launch. A few things have been given to them here and there, but this patch is the one which will be bringing them up from the depths to which they plunged and into a world of fun.

That is, if you don't listen to the whining on the official forums.

The amount of froth being spat about the forums is incredible. Even in the most rotten of internet forums, I have never seen whining of such magnitude. It is so incredibly bad that what the actual facts say is almost completely unknown. Most of all, it is completely histerical, knowing some of the facts, watching it all.

Before I even begin, the changes were not perfect at the outset and still aren't (it wouldn't be being tested right now if they were complete). However, whining is not feedback, it is whining. The only people who listen to whining are bad parents.

Firstly, the non talent based changes are summarized as follows. Paladin seals cost a little more, and judgement costs a heck of a lot less. Debuffing judgements now last indefinately, so long as the Paladin is hitting the target. Additionally, Paladins can judge faster, at range, can stun faster, can now use their anti-undead spells against demons as well, and a particular skill (Seal of Command) now hits more often for less damage, but unmodified evens out in the end.

That all is pretty neat. However, there was general outcry about each of these changes. Paladins cried about seals costing more, declared loudly that judgement was already useless and being able to use it more often was worthless, sniffed at the indefinate debuffs, whined that judging at range defeated the purpose of being a melee fighter, called the new demon destroying powers pointless, and screamed that Seal of Command was now worse.

Despite the fact that with the exact same build as before, you'd be doing the same damage as before, for the exact same cost, people whined. Despite the fact that with a few easy tweaks you could be laying on more damage, more consistantly, and without the need to wait around for lady luck, people whined. Despite the numerous fine tunings and excellent small changes that added up to something big which I can not even begin to list, people acted like Blizzard had done as much work as a dead monkey on Sunday.

Specifically, Seal of Command had the exact same DPS, just more reliable. However, the extra power you could pour into just the seal allowed for greater DPS, and the new power of the Judgement added more on top of that. While the very last option mentioned cost (*gasp*) mana, the others didn't.

Even more hilarious, there's the possibility that higher ranks of the Seal do more damage, proc more often, or both. It's possible that such isn't the case, but as any thread asking people to try and find out is instantly swamped with naysayers and whiners who are just parroting whining to the contrary, we may never know.

The whines about the talent changes were even worse.

A good number of new talents were added, a lot of old ones were combined into one talent, gave the same or greater affects for fewer talent points, or both, and some more vital ones were made more accessible. The changes were extremely promising, and obviously still being reworked.

Whining ensued. People complained about every little change. They complained the combined talents were just combinations of useless talents into a single, useless talent. They complained that the accessibility of some of the more vital talents was still bad. They complained about each and every new talent. They whined incessantly about everything.

It was hilarious. A lot of whining centered around a particular palent called Pursuit of Justice, which increases Paladin running and mount speed somewhat. The decription is honestly poorly worded, as it states that it does not stack with "movement increasing effects", but testing shows that this nonstacking is limited to things such as potions and spells, as opposed to stats on gear (including enchants). The result? While it will not stack with potions and the offchance of a hunter running along side you with Aspect of the Pack, it will do more than replace an enchant on your boots.

You wouldn't know it if you listened to all the whining. Consistantly people cry out that it doesn't stack at all, and as such is useless (despite the fact that to achieve the same affect requires one enchant and four items).

It's absolutely incredible the amount of unadaptability being shown. Basically, every poster's complaints can be boiled down to this, "Blizzard didn't boost the talents I was already using, but instead made the ones I didn't use worthwhile and added other useful ones as opposed to making the already useful ones godly." The other whining can be similarly summarized, just replace "talents" with "skills".

It just strikes me as utterly hilarious, especially since half of the people complaining haven't even played the test server to find out what is up for themselves.

Certainly, everything isn't perfect. Sanctity Aura is still a little selfish, the judgement refreshes are currently bugged, and the strange bug which prevents one from using Seal of Command of a particular rank until you log out still persists. However, the remaining problems that may not be fixed are rather small, and not unfixable in the future.

If all the whiners actually follow through on their word, my Paladin's services will be in demand.

What ho!

Some Games Need Sequels

Sequels get bashed a lot these days. People complaining about Final Fantasy XII, the reiteration of the same FPS: The Shooting gameplay, or the mere updated statistics of EA's latest sports title are a dime a dozen. I could spend a lifetime describing why these games become boring, why these sequels suck etc. But for the sake of getting to my point, I'll just you all know as well as I do that there's a point after which sequels become stupid.

However, before this point, sequels have a large potential to rock. While we have our share of failed sequels, we need only look as far as the five incredible Megaman games on the NES, the many Sonic games on the Genesis, and we won't even mention Mario. Sequels can rock hard, so long as they do not wear thin the premise.

I can think of a good many unique games out there that simply need sequels. These titles were original, cool, full of story and style, and downright fun to play. Yet these games are also the victums of failed companies, being cult classics, or just bad luck. However, given that titles such as Ninja Gaiden have been revived, and that sequels to old greats have been attempted (if failed), there is hope.

This is a list of a few games that really need sequels. These are not games that are currently slated to get them. We all know Halo 3 is coming, that we'll get another Final Fantasy, and that Mario will make another appearance. The following games currently have no slated sequels or, honestly, a snowball's chance in hell of getting one (or so it seems).

:Evil Genius:

This is the most recent of the games on this list. This game succeeded brilliantly at the same time Goldeneye: Rogue Agent failed miserably. Both had the premise of you being the villain in a world of spies, minions, and supervillains. However, Evil Genius was the complete antithesis of the burning trainwreck that was Rogue Agent.

Evil Genius put the player in the role of the criminal mastermind. You were your own Moriarty, and that was a great thing to be. Being an Evil Genius, you had to build a lair on some deserted island somwhere, recruit minions, do dastardly deeds in the world, build traps for pesky agents, and eliminate the top super agents sent to destroy your evil plans. Throw in all sorts of 60s spy thriller spoofs, and you have one heck of a game.

Sadly, the company that made this gem imploded shortly after announcing they were going to make the sequel. Evil Genius 2 now resides in limbo.

:Eternal Darkness:

If you have a Gamecube, you need to have this game. It shouldn't be hard to get, it was a launch title and they overmanufactured it (partly why no sequel is in sight).

The premise? Fighting zombies. What seperates it from all those other zombie killing survival horror games? A killer, killer story that spans ages, puzzles, exploration, the absolute best english voice acting I've ever heard in a video game ever, and most importantly fourth wall breaking effects based on a unique meter which measures your sanity.

I won't go deep into that last one, because that would spoil it. However, know that as your sanity meter drops, things that shouldn't happen do, and it gets really, really freaky.

The replayability is incredible too, there are enough of these effects that it won't be until the third play through that you'll be able to recognize 90% of them.

The game isn't a trigger fest, but more Myst meets Resident Evil.

Sadly, the company that made the game has not announced a sequel, probably because the game was a launch title, overmanufactured, and can be easily found for less than ten dollars new.

:Snake, Rattle and Roll:

Back in the early years of my life, before I recognized different companies made the games I played, there was Snake, Rattle and Roll. Made by Rare (a company now famous for all sorts of reasons), the game was insane. Literally.

How many games have you play as a snake which has to eat different colored balls which move in different and uniquely funny ways (wings, magical carpets, walking around, springs etc.) to pass a level, all the while avoiding rogue records, toilet seats, and giant feet?

The music was great, the style was off the wall, the controls were tight, the objectives clear, and overall the greatest and most wonderful game on the NES period. This is coming from a guy who love Duck Hunt and Excitebike like crazy.

Sadly, Rare never showed interest in a sequel. The game deserves one, badly.

Thus concludes my list. Look up these games, play them, and enjoy them. They rock.

Illiteracy

I like World of Warcraft. The game is fun, involved, and addicting. It's not perfect, but nothing is.

I've always been obsessed with Paladins. As a kid, I pretended to be a holy warrior cleansing the world of secret evils. As a preteen, I still loved those knights in shining armor, and anything resembling them in a game got my strict attention. As a teenager, I played Diablo 2, almost strictly as a Paladin.

And then there's WoW.

Paladins in WoW have, for a while, been significantly handicapped compared to other options. What ability they had was spread too thin, and what customization they had was too weak to make much of anything viable. I still had fun as them, not that I played for terribly long before migrating for the fall to a land in the east, despite the obvious weaknesses.

Blizzard promised to fix the problem and they'd already done a bang up job with the Warlocks (who now only suffer from one not terribly major problem), Priests, Hunters, Warriors, Druids and so on.

Now the first part of Blizzard's fix for the Paladins has started in the testing area, where any players can see a beta version of upcoming changes, and let's see what the people have to say on the matter.

And I quote:
"im gonan quit my pally if they dont fix this"
"i dont know if u noticed this but... ur 'dmg tree' 31 talent its still a buff... not even a damage one"
"will not be playing my paladin much"

Jargon aside, I would like to highlight a few things here.

I left out the long, incomprehensible single paragraph epics that have flittered across the Blizzard Paladin Forum, but I think that these quotes illustrate two points.

1. People aren't happy.
2. They are also illiterate.

The incredibly lengths to which these people have gone to decimate the English language are obscene. I by no means claim to be perfect in all my grammar and spelling. However, I at least try and think about whether or not I spelt a some words correctly. Even now the possibility of a mispelling of "illiterate" gnaws in the back of my mind.

I can put up with a certain amount of grammatical stretching on the internet. I love proper punctuation, I love proper capitalization, but I can understand that for some people typing on an instant messenger or to a forum doesn't immediately place priority on such things. However, a complete disregard for proper communication is something I can not gaze upon without my brain screaming at me in pain.

Yeah, I'm a masochist, and the internet is my tool.

Preservation of our once noble language aside, I want to get a little more in depth with "People are unhappy" assertion. People are largely complaining, and people are also largely complaining about other people, and people are also complaining back. Very few people seem content.

Most of the complaining is directed at what is being called a pathetic excuse for a patch that hasn't even been finalized yet. There isn't any change someone isn't complaining about. However a few things struck me.

A post by a Blizzard Representative in the forum stated several important facts.

1. They are not ready to reveal everything yet.
2. The minor details are listed within said post.
3. The minor details are basically the content of the current test area patch notes.

So, from the horse's mouth, we have that we do not yet have the information as to what the major changes will be.

Now Blizzard, who did a bang up job of fixing every other class with only minor bits and pieces of problems here and there, are reacted to in one of the following ways.

1. They are called liars.
2. They are called lazy.
3. They are accused of hating Paladins.
4. The person claims that they are quitting the game.
5. The person claims that Blizzard doesn't listen to a thing the players say.
6. The person cites that Blizzard is too obsessed with the special system of combat for the Paladin.

I, perchance, have also spent some time in the Warlock forum. I noticed some similarities with regards to Blizzard's work being done on fixing one final problem with the Warlocks. The reactions to Blizzard's work and posts were along these lines.

1. They are called liars.
2. They are called lazy.
3. They are accused of hating Warlocks.
4. The person claims they are quitting the game.
5. The person claims that Blizzard doesn't listen to a thing the players say.
6. The person cites that Blizzard is too obsessed with the special system of combat for the Warlock.

Familiar?

My own experience with WoW was spent playing the game. I was never inclined to visit the forums for any reason, because I could just be playing the game. This experience seems to be similar for most players that I meet. The average and above average player does not spend their time in the forums, but actually playing the game.

From all this, I conclude the following:

1. The vast majority of people in the forums do not spend much time playing the game.
2. The vast majority of people in the forums are not good at the game.
3. The vast majority of people in the forums will call Blizzard lazy if they say nothing, and liars if they say anything but "We gave the Paladin a spell where he summons God, and wins."
4. The vast majority of people in the forums believe that Blizzard has no grasp of the game they made.
5. The vast majority of people in the forums complain regardless of what happens.

Having played the Paladin, my opinion is that the minor details that we have are very exciting, and definately worthwhile. For minor details, it's quite a bit of goodness. Not an exceptional amount, but a good bit. If that's just the minor details, the major ones should be super awesome.

If there really are no major details, I won't be too upset either. What Paladins are getting already is pretty good, although not on par with what the other classes recieved. The only thing that will bug me is the misrepresentation of what the Paladin would be recieving. However, as Blizzard has generally shown themselves to be excellent, I'm more than willing to forgive them that. Companies have done far worse to their game than marginal improvements (I feel for the loyal players of Final Fantasy and Star Wars: Galaxies).

So, in summary, the people of the Blizzard forums are an illiterate lot who are inherently distrustful of anything a competant authority says unless it is "We're about to make your life super easy" and would complain if they won a million dollars because it wasn't two.

Azkabomb

With people at home raving to me about how they'll be watching the upcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie, I decided to finally watch the third installment.

I'd been turned off from the movies because the second film had been somewhat disgraceful. Simply too little time had been spent developing the characters, expecially the exceptionally narcissistic Defense against the Dark Arts professor. I can't say it was horrid, just disgraceful.

The Prisoner of Azkaban started well, with the usual "Behold the Dursley's and their insistance on being wordly fuddy-duddies" that starts nearly every book and film. However, the warning bells should have been blaring when I noticed the first in what became a flood of very small things that deviated from the books. Harry left home without Hedwig, something I don't believe happened in the book.

It was early in the film, and I was ready to forgive. There's only so much time, and there's only so much one can do therein.

For a while yet, the movie was good, enjoyable and fun. However, little things like the Hedwig incident kept happening, and a dread of larger things being cut grew larger and larger.

I came to this movie with a clean slate. I had cast away my prejudgements, cast away any thought of this movie would be anything like the second. I sat down and I let myself be entertained. In the end, the battle of Entertainment vs Hollywood Stupidity was won by Hollywood.

Quite simply, some of what I considered to be the best and most important elements of the story were simply cut entirely, even giving rise to possible reprecussions in the next movie. The Marauder's Map is taken by Snape, but at no point does he insinuate anything about Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. Never does Lupin reveal the truth about the map, the shrieking shack, and the Whomping Willow. Never do we find out how Lupin knew anything about the map, how Snape, Lupin, and Sirius knew about the shrieking shack, what the purpose of Trelawney's mysterious prophey was (or that she was even remotely hackish in the first place) and worse things too.

In the books, when Harry sees Lupin for the last time, they have a discussion concerning the events of the night before. Here the greatest and most Christian message of the Harry Potter books is completely omitted. In the movie, Lupin and Harry discuss how Harry's saving of an innocent man made all the difference. In the books, the biggest and most greatest thing Harry did was not save an innocent man, but spare a guilty one. One who was clearly undeserving, unrepentant, and only concerned with his own self. Harry displayed the one trait that the terrible dementors lacked entirely, and he displayed it towards one no one else would have spared.

And this was lost.

I could go on about how the new actor for Dumbledore failed to portray the character in even the faintest similarity, how Harry's Patronus's resemblence to Prongs failed to be discussed. How vital elements of the story were replaced with an extended scene of a purple bus screaming through London. But really, none of that matters compared to the sheer travesty of changing the very nature of the story. Both the major points of forgiveness and how people live on within us are maligned for the sake of saying "Saving innocents is important!"

I think that any shred of my faith in Hollywood to produce a film based on a novel with any accuracy has been long lost. I'm looking to New Zealand from now on, and if that means I won't find out about excellent films until five years after they leave the theatres, so be it.

Blue Sparks

The basic summary of this post is this: If you ever played a video game and had fun, the Nintendo DS is for you.

Because the ultimate goal of this is to make people as excited about the DS as I am, I've been trying to edit out as much boredom as possible from the rant. Unless you don't play video games at all, I sincerely hope you give my words a shot.

C:\Rants\Nintendo\DS>run DSFanboy.EXE

I've had my Nintendo DS for a couple of months now. I had a bunch of reasons for purchasing it, but all of them really faded away into the greater whole of the truth of the DS. The small, unassuming electronic device is fun.

In these, the early days of the DS, I've already found two entirely excellent games in the form of Ouendan and Jump Superstars, and that's restricting myself to Japan-Only titles. Entire generations of a console will find me only truly impressed by one or two of the titles availible, so realize the weight of that.

On top of that, if not one of you people or anyone else I know picks up a DS, I can still find people to play. For $30 I can by a device the size of my thumb which plugs into my PC and allows my DS to wirelessly access my computer and through it the internet to play other people. The service is free, and if I already had a wireless router I wouldn't even have to pay the initial $30. This is only for select DS titles, but oh what titles they are.

Mario Kart DS will be one such title, and I've heard nothing but good about it. Take everything good about Mario Kart: Double Dash (minus two people in one cart), everything good from Mario Kart 64, and everything good from Super Mario Kart, and throw in you and eight friends. That's the kind of insane fun the DS offers, and cheap.

Better yet, not all of you would have to own a copy of the game or even most games, as the DS's download play comes with most games, allowing one person to share the joy to other people nearby.

If you're scared of technology, or even slightly confused by it, you don't need to fear. The DS is exceptionally easy to use. Even the internet play mentioned before is as easy as throwing a CD in you computer, letting it install, plugging in the thumb sized device and hitting one button on your DS. After the first time, it simplifies further down to the last two steps.

Quite simply, the DS is simple to use, fun, cheap (comparatively), has great quality and low priced games, doesn't require you to spend a fortune on batteries (it's rechargable), has a long battery life, and is one robust piece of equipment.

Admittedly, you and eight other people buying a $130 DS each is not cheap, and if you aren't a serious hardcore nut like myself, you can probably survive not having the latest and greatest in video gaming. However, if you are even thinking of buying a console, even one from this generation that is coming to a close, consider the following.

On top of the initial cost of the console, you need to buy games, controllers and memory cards. Controllers easily cost between twenty and thirty dollars, and good games (even including used games) between $20 and $60 dollars. Even if you get a used PS2 or Gamecube for $50, you still need to spend at least $15 four times over for controllers, $20 for the smallest memory card, and $20 for a game. That's $150 right there, and that's for the last generation (and being very generous towards prices being cheap). For the new generation, you're plopping down $300-$400 (the Revolution might be $200) for the initial console, $35 per controller (up to seven in the case of the PS3), and $50-$70 for a game. That's $600 for a fully equipped Xbox 360 with four controllers and a single game. You can buy four DSs for that price, one copy of Mario Kart DS (and even another game) and you, your wife, your brother-in-law, and your kid can all race wildly around a fun world of Turtle Shells, Mushrooms and burning rubber. If the family of four next door did likewise, you can all play together.

To sum it all up, the DS rocks. If you play video games, you should have one. It may not have Bloodthirsty Killer 2006, but it has style, it has fun, and that is ultimately what is most important.

Execution Finished

C:\Rants\Nintendo\DS>