Cedarstreet Publishing

PhotoSwap Is Gambling With Good Taste

blog.nospam@nospam.cedarstreet.net (Scopique) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:35:00 -0400

Enforcer turned me on to PhotoSwap, an iPhone app which is elegent in it's simplicity. You take a picture and send it off into the aether of the Internet, and you get a random photo from someone else. It performs well over Edge as well as WiFi and I assume 3G because all it does it send your photo off and send you one in return.

For the first 24 hours, this was a real hoot. I was taking pictures of all kinds of junk around the house, at work and, yes, even while driving (not too many, though). I was getting a lot of the same back. People's appliances, their dashboards, random stretches of highway, etc.

I've rather cooled on the app, though, for a few reasons. First, I've run out of things to take pictures of. Second, there's only so many coffee pots I can look at. Third, and probably most importantly, the entire community seems to be made up of males who have some variation of "Ladies! Flash me! I don't report!" in their profile comments. This is circular, of course: the community, full of men, isn't going to get any females to flash them. Sorry.

I know, there are those out there who have a girlfriend or wife who HAVE obliged these random peeping toms, but I think in my 24 hours of snapping, I only got one female image, and it was of jewlery on her arm. Rather then risk getting that one, unsavory image of the nethers of a representitive of the mostly male community, I think I'm going to remove PhotoSwap from my phone as an insurance policy.

You Can’t Spell Disappointment Without D, S or i

blog.nospam@nospam.cedarstreet.net (Scopique) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:50:52 -0400

These days, incremental updates are a waste of time. If you’re going to re-do something (as opposed to bringing something totally new to the table), you need to go big, or go home.

I’m disappointed by the recent revelation of Nintendo’s DSi, the third incarnation of the ubiquitous DS handheld gaming platform. Here’s the specs:

Two screens, size increased from 3 inches to 3.25 inches for each

DSi is 12 percent thinner than DS Lite (removal of GBA port helps in part)

Built-in cameras (one outside, one inside) with 640x480 resolution (300,000 pixels)

Web browser built-in

DSi offers new DS Shop for downloading games (prices go up to 800 Nintendo Points, which is $8)

DSi purchasers will get 1000 Nintendo Points bundled in until mid-2010

DSi features SD card slot to enable media storage for music, photos, games, etc.

I was hoping for much larger screens, although I’m fairly happy with what we have now. A .25 inch increase seems like more of someone’s compromise then a real upgrade. The addition of the cameras is nice (3 megapixel, which is better then my iPhone), but is that going to be a reason for people to upgrade? The web browser can go. There IS one for the DS already….how many people knew that? How many care? The only things I can say that are good moves are the downloadable content and the SD card slot (for the downloadable content). I’m now a HUGE fan of digital delivery, and seeing N tackling this avenue (since the PSP does, as does the iPhone and now even the Zune) is a welcome move…It should also have homebrew devs peeing their pants.

The current gen DS is in the hands of millions, if not billions. I am not sure if all of those owners will be shelling out the $175 USD that N is rumored to be charging for this, especially those DS owners without full time jobs (read: kids). If there was a real OMG!!!1! feature upgrade, then I’d be more excited, but this rates a weak “meh”.

Dear Gamers – FU. Love, Blizzard

blog.nospam@nospam.cedarstreet.net (Scopique) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:07:19 -0400

If you hadn’t heard, Blizzard was in court, suing the makers of a piece of software called WoWGlider (or something). Apparently, this software did stuff in WoW, like botting, or whatever.

To make a long story short, Blizzard won, and we all lost.

Anyone who uses a bot program in an MMO is a shameless loser. I’m not condoning the intent of WoWGlider. However, there’s more at stake here then just a subscriber’s right to gold farm.

I’d like to direct your attention to the article at Massively.com, specifically the comments by Neko Ali who hits the nail on the head as to why this ruling is more then just a legal victory for someone trying to protect their assets:

Some of the pertinent text from the official ruling by the courts about the basis of Blizzard's suit.
Blizzard contends that Glider diminishes the value of WoW and causes Blizzard to lose customers and revenue. Blizzard asserts that WoW is a carefully balanced competitive environment where players compete against each other and the game to advance through the game’s various levels and to acquire game assets. Blizzard claims that Glider upsets this balance by enabling some payers to advance more quickly and unfairly, diminishing the game experience for other players. Blizzard also contends that Glider enables its users to acquire an inordinate number of game assets – sometimes referred to as “mining” or “farming” the game – with some users even selling those assets for real money in online auction sites, an activity expressly prohibited by the TOU.

Basically, it boils down to 'Glider allows people to circumvent certain parts of the game, meaning they will be potentially playing for less time and therefore paying for less time.' Also the loss of revenue from people quitting due to botting.

It's all pretty grey area legally right now, which is the whole point of this case and why it's such a big deal. Since nobody's been taken to court for video game cheating before, the ruling here sets a precedent that will be used in any other similar lawsuits.

Part of the original issue, if I remember correctly, was that WoWGlider ITSELF doesn’t violate the TOU. It doesn’t interact with the application itself (unlike Blizzard’s own Warden spyware), but rather intercepts your network traffic, stroking it a bit, and forwarding it to the game server. Yes, this could be seen as dangerous to both Blizzard and the player base, but from what I remember reading earlier, WoWGlider just skirted the TOU, depending on how you read it. In reality, Blizzard should be going after those who USE this software, as the existence of the software wasn’t harming Blizzard.

But no…Blizzard took the developers to court to enforce their EULA, and won. Read that again, slowly, and carefully. That massive wall of text that we gamers always blow past as a minor annoyance on our way to use the software we have paid money for just gained a precedence for future legal battles between you, the gaming consumer, and them, the money-hungry mega corporations. You don’t think EA or Ubi’s not going to be framing this news story in their lobbies? Think again.

Otherland – The MMO

blog.nospam@nospam.cedarstreet.net (Scopique) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:39:49 -0400

I had once started reading Tad Williams’ Otherland series, but didn’t get past book 2 for some reason. Thinking back (what I can remember), the story wasn’t all that exciting, although one would think that it would be.

In the future, the human race lives pretty much inside your stereotypical virtual reality. However, people are suddenly unable to “jack out”, which forces our team of protagonists to investigate in cyberspace. Being that I’m a an of Neromancer, Tron and other concepts revolving around a fully realized VR world, I expected to like Otherland more then I did. The pacing was slow, and since the series was intended to stretch over several books, it didn’t seem like the books that I did read were very interested in covering ANY significant ground because of it.

I was a bit shocked by News From Left Field this morning which announced that Otherland was being developed into an MMO. Now I’m listening. If you strip away the plodding storyline from Mr. Williams’ series, you’re left with a world which is lived on two fronts: the static, physical world where the rules of physics and resources are weighing us down, and they dynamic, virtual world, where traditional scientific laws have no meaning, and anyone can do anything – assuming they have the cash and power.

I’ll let you read about it at Eurogamer, since they can sum it up better then I can (with pictures!). Despite the obvious hook of someone finally waking up and saying “Hey! Now that we’ve lived with the Internet for roughly a decade now, why are our games still focused on high fantasy? Shouldn’t we have realized VR by now? Why not in a game?", using Otherland as source material worries me.

First, the VR of this world is created at the whim of those with the money and the power. OK, that makes sense in a pure cyberpunk kind of way. But the larger, more powerful worlds that were created in Otherland were basically recreations of the physical world. So you could have a recreation of feudal Japan, or maybe the Wild West. I supposed in real VR, being able to pull this off would be remarkable. In an MMO, however, areas like these just don’t strike me as exciting. In today’s world, if I’m projecting my consciousness into cyberspace, I want 100%, full on Tron type shit. Not Second Life Redux.

Second, as the Eurogamer article points out, the details behind who is developing this, the features and the purpose, are about as solid as cyberspace itself. I left the article wondering if the whole thing wasn’t just Tad Williams talking to someone who had once played an MMO, while the were washing their hands in an airport bathroom. Honestly, I’d be surprised if we heard about this thing actually getting off the ground.

Which is rather unfortunate, because there were a few gems to be had in the article. The idea of bring able to move between worlds where the time period changes, where the physics change, where your avatar changes, is so novel as to be mind-blowing. The potential for user created content to extend the world in infinite directions is something that really HASN’T been done in a game implementation, since I wouldn’t call Second Life a “game”. Finally, we really, really need a “classic cyberpunk” MMO to remind us that there was once a time when the promise of cyberspace was more then just porn and forum trolls.

jQuery and .NET

blog.nospam@nospam.cedarstreet.net (Scopique) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:38:03 -0400

I’m not a BIG fan of JavaScript. It’s kinda esoteric in that C++ kinda way (with all the weird curley braces and semi-colons and borderline incoherent FOR…NEXT syntax). I try an avoid it as much as possible, which is an unusual confession from a web developer.

My interest was raised, however, by the announcement from the sidelines by Scott Guthrie, a VP at Microsoft and head of basically all of MS’ internet development offerings (ASP.NET, IIS, VS, WPF, Silverlight, etc) that MS was going to be packin’ the slick jQuery JavaScript library into their Internet development technologies going forward.

jQuery is a small library that you can use in your projects (of any web development sort) that greatly simplifies access to HTML elements on the page. Traditionally, getting access to the contents of a textbox, DIV or SPAN or other elements via JS was a real PITA. jQuery not ONLY allows you to access those elements, but through a method called chaining, you can access attributes of those elements, such as the CSS class, to take action against them.

Microsoft will be releasing jQuery with the dev platform “as is”, meaning there will NOT be a bastardized Microsoft “re-imagining” of jQuery – you’ll get the same code base from MS as you will from the jQuery team. The only difference is that, by bundling it with further releases and service updates, more developers will be exposed to it.

Why PvP Rocks in Warhammer Online

blog.nospam@nospam.cedarstreet.net (Scopique) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:44:00 -0400

I guess my iPhone purchase has started me down a path less traveled for myself.

Since I’ve been playing [toolbox:war], I’ve managed to join an excellent, friendly and helpful guild on Ostermark, Roisin Dubh. Although I really have yet to play with any of these folks (my time has been at a premium recently), they’re originally from [toolbox:daoc], which means they have RvR experience. This has lead me to consider more RvR/PvP in WAR then I might normally.

The lowest cost PvP in WAR is the scenario. Here, you can jump in from wherever you are in the world, duke it out with the Other Side, and get dropped off where you were at when you entered the scenario…Low risk, low cost, simple.

I’m still in Tier 2, so my currently scenario-du-jour is the Phoenix Gate, a CTF map complete with multiple avenues of travel, and even siege weapons you can use to take down your foes.

Holy shit, this scenario thing is fun.

The first time I ran PG, Order destroyed Destruction. We snagged their flag once, and they never took ours. The timer ran down, and we won with the most points in the time allotted. I was totally on defense here, standing on the steps of the tower and hitting Destros with long range arrows while calling out cardinal directions of incoming enemies. They were pretty good at creating distractions, but only managed to take the flag once…which we got back very shortly after.

The second round was a bit closer. When I managed to get in, we were already behind. I dropped off the cliff to make a run for our flag, and the Destros were already plowing through the middle road, en masse. They managed to snag our flag, but at some point, we got it back. Next, a team was forming to take the eastern road to get the Destro flag, so I figured I’d head over and see what the fuss was about. We engaged the Destros at their base. Someone stole their flag and bolted back. I ran into the pack of Destros who were giving chase and use Whirling Pin to root them, which helped our guys get the flag back for the points, but also left me with a group of angry Destros who beat me senseless. After that, it was merely wait out the timer for our win. We DID have one big furball at our flag, though, which required some serious hip-wading, and it was intense.

I can’t believe that once the scenario was done and I was back in PvE land, I was sad. PvE was really boring compared to the singular objective/intense combat that is offered by the scenario. I would have run PG again, except that it was late, and I was tired :(

I think one of the reasons I like these scenarios is because thus far, the people I’ve been playing with – a large PUG, essentially – have been great. No armchair generals, everyone has been either very polite, friendly and was interested in having fun, not in the actual act of “winning”. And seeing your attack bring down another player is ALWAYS good for a bit of morale.

iSuck

blog.nospam@nospam.cedarstreet.net (Scopique) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:18:14 -0400

Note: The contents of this post in no way negate any previous ire I espoused towards Apple and it’s practices regarding it’s handling of third party apps for it’s iPhone/iPod Touch. They’re still douche bags in that regard.

So I bought an iPhone.

I had Verizon for several years. I had started off with a free phone, and gradually worked my way up through their more feature-rich phones until I reached the Moto Q, which is a sorry excuse for a device, phone, PDA or otherwise. Seeing as the only option at that point was to progress to a full-blown BlackBerry, I wasn’t impressed with VZW’s offerings in that regard (no, not even their Thunder, or whatever it’s officially called).

I had been eyeing the Bold, which is exclusive to ATT&T. Mindstrike has had AT&T forever, so I figured that if it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. The problem is that the Bold isn’t available until November or beyond, and I wanted out now.

Unfortunately, Enforcer has acquired an iPhone. He, too, left VZW for AT&T, after having previously used LG’s touch phone (whatever it’s called). He and I are alike: gadget freaks. When he went off on how cool the iPhone was…and with it’s availability…I was unable to resist.

Sad to say, but I’m very happy with this decision. The iPhone is a remarkable piece of work, very stable, feature rich and powerful. I don’t know that I’ll be using the iPod features much, but as a mobile platform, it’s great. There’s so much going on with it that it’s impossible to put down (which isn’t good when I’m at work).

Unequivocal Proof of God

blog.nospam@nospam.cedarstreet.net (Scopique) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:25:49 -0400

Jack Thompson has had what few teeth he retained ripped from his spittle-flecked mouth.

Nifty Warhammer Online Sig Generator

blog.nospam@nospam.cedarstreet.net (Scopique) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:10:00 -0400

gamerDNA, which is some kind of social networking site for gamers, has unveiled their Warhammer Online signature generator. You can find it here, but not before you check out my oh-so-uber sig:

Vanguard: Saga of WTH Am I?

blog.nospam@nospam.cedarstreet.net (Scopique) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:19:22 -0400

So since [toolbox:vg] has unleashed it’s Isle of Dawn starting area (and bazillions of performance enhancing bug fixes), it’s rather like a new game to me, even though I’m still working my primary character in the same areas. But now that I’ve taken on [toolbox:war], I’ve noticed a big difference in how VG treats it’s players, compared to how WAR treats it’s players.

Like it or not, WAR begs a lot of of parallels to [toolbox:wow]. In the case of both of these games, the flow of the player through the PVE content is very steady, and very controlled. You are artificially “confined” to an area of a zone, where you’re given a series of objectives to complete. At the end, you’ll get one or two quests which send you down the road to the next area within the zone, and you repeat the situation. To some, this constitutes the dreaded “grind”, because the quests are very similar, just with different surroundings. But both Blizzard and Mythic have executed masterful strokes in pushing players through the content at a comfortable pace, and meting out the advancement in smaller, more manageable doses. In each zone, it seems that a lot of the quest areas are situated right off of the main thoroughfares, meaning that as you move through the world, your next quest is only a few steps off the road in either direction. It’s very friendly to those who don’t have a lot of time to go hunting for objectives on their own (the result of this on the makeup of the community is debatable).

In VG, however, there’s none of the linearity. You’ll get quests to complete in one area, but their objectives are usually all over the place. Some will lead you to an area nearby, while others will send you somewhere over the hill and far away…where you’ll pick up ANOTHER quest which sends you BACK over the hill. You’re not contained in a zone like you are in WAR/WoW, which is sometimes frustrating, as you don’t have that built in level of control to keep you from packing in your quest log. Sooner then later, you’ll find that your dance card is full up, but you’ll be running like hell from one end of the compass to the other to get it cleared out.

Playing VG the other night, I took a quest which sent me into the wilderness to retrieve a sword which a sentry had dropped when he was being chased by griffons. The quest marker lit up on my map, so I set out in that direction. As I was running (and running, and running), I realized that VG is an explorer’s game, and not really an advancer’s game. When I landed in the griffon’s nest, I realized that if I hadn’t gotten this quest, I wouldn’t EVER have found these old ruins where these mythical beasts had chosen to set up shop. The area itself was quite nice, with old-wood trees and steep hills with deep valleys. The ruins were on top of a hill, which allowed the griffons to patrol their neighborhood with ease. It felt to me that the setup of this area was just right: untouched area where wild and fantastic creatures had made their own.

In this regard, you’re rewarded for getting off the beaten track in VG. Sure, you get Tome entries in WAR (and now achievements in WoW, I suppose) for entering new areas, but they’re always areas you’re sent to as part of a quest – places you’ll end up going to anyway, and not places you just happen upon. If this same griffon mission was in WAR/WoW, the griffon nest would be visible from the road, and probably camped by 10 other people.

Surely, this kind of experience would be wasted on the “race to the end-game” crowd who blow through quests in groups and plot out their loot drops in advance, but for those who are interested in unique areas and that feeling of personal (not game engine) exploration, then Vanguard offers an excellent opportunity.