I'm starting to think that the proliferation of the Internet is going to be a huge driving factor of the creation of a One World Government. Sovereign governments right now are at a loss for how to police their own citizens when committing crimes on the Internet, when it crosses borders. Every day I see stories, like this Lifehacker article, showing the struggle to keep the Internet a free, yet policed environment. Which prompted this idea to pop into my head.
Given that the Internet is a global structure, it's difficult for sovereign nations to interact with eachother and police these things well. Take, for instance, The Pirate Bay. This BitTorrent host is by far, the single largest facilitator of piracy in the world. And the FBI and RIAA would love nothing more than to shut them down, and take a peek at their servers to see who's been pirating, then go after them too. The problem is, TPB's servers are (or at least were) located in Sweeden. The RIAA and FBI have zero jurisdiction to physically confiscate them, making copyright infringement very difficult.
Given that our thirst for connectivity via the Internet just continues to grow, and will continue as time moves forward, this is eventually going to become a very big issue. More so than just making sure people get paid for intellectual copyright. It's not too far fetched to see that eventually, most of our interaction will be via the Internet. We will, essentially, live online. I think when it get's to that point, it'll seem like a no brainer to consider a kind of One World Government.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Even Microsoft's Programmers Get Simple Things Wrong
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The Bourne Legacy: Thoughts from a Longtime Fan
Warning: Spoilers may be present.
As the title might imply, I'm a huge fan of the Bourne Trilogy. I like to think of sagas in their own little universe and I rank them a bit differently than standalone movies. So when one asks me what my favorite movies are, sagas don't really get considered. I believe that to tell a story that involves multiple installments, it's difficult to do it with movie scripts. As a result, sagas which are film adaptations of novels, tend to rank a little higher in my book. The Bourne Trilogy is right up there with Star Wars, The Matrix, and the Lord of the Rings as my favorite movies/sagas of all time.
So naturally, when I saw Jeremy Renner was starring in an expansion of Robert Ludlum's Bourne universe. I was pretty excited. Granted, I went into it expecting less than excellence, which was good in retrospect. Had I gone into it expecting the sheer awesomeness that the Bourne Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum gave, I probably would have been quite disappointed. I knew that seeing as how this movie didn't have a novel to take base from and was completely movie script, that I probably wouldn't see the cohesivness and continuity that the trilogy offered. And I was right. I also expected a slightly different camerawork and editing style, since it wasn't directed by Paul Greengrass (although there was nearly no disconnect between the Bourne Identity, and the last two installments in the trilogy despite a change in director). I was right about this as well.
In short, this movie was good. Not excellent, but certainly not bad either. It gives a lot of the awesome action sequences showcasing how much better these Treadstone/Blackbrair/Outcome agents are at all things kick ass than anything else the US government can throw at them. Which is half of what an audience expects when taking in a film with the "Bourne" title on it. Although I was fairly disappointed in the lack of hand-to-hand combat between these agents; something that characterized the trilogy and, in my mind, set it apart from other action movies. For example, I always loved how Jason Bourne would use clever objects as weapons to gain the upper hand on agents who were his equal in hand to hand combat. He used the pen to kill the Treadstone agent from Rome in the Bourne Identity; he used the rolled up magazine to counter the Treadstone agent's knife in the Bourne Supremacy; and he used the cookbook and towel to finally kill the Blackbriar agent, Desh, in the Bourne Ultimatum. Unfortunately there's none of that in this movie. And near the end, I thought they were building up to exactly that, but the scene ends when the opposing agent is taken out in the car chase scene. I don't know if this was intentional to ensure they stayed away from trying to clone the trilogy movies, or what. Either way, I was certainly looking forward to it, and it wasn't there.
The character of Aaron Cross is rather different from that of Jason Bourne. Where Bourne was mostly quiet and reserved with a sort of brewing intensity, Cross is comparably more of a humor spouting, loud mouth. Frankly, I think Renner lend's himself well to the character. And if I understand the story correctly, his superior abilities aren't a combination of inate ability and wiley veteran experience as in the case of Jason Bourne. Rather, they're gained from medicine that he takes (which is the centerpiece of the storyline) that enhances the metabolic abilities of his cells and brain functionality. The only hint that you get that he may be superior to his peers, is at the beginning when he's told he cleared a trial in record time. Again, any concrete proof of his dominance over his peers in the form of actual combat is non existent, and all you see is him besting those less trained than he.
Another strength of the Bourne movies was that their plots were never too far fetched that one would shrug it off as if there's no way it could happen. You always got the sense that this stuff was well within the realm of possibility. And that is definitely here in this movie. The plot focuses on a medication regiment the agents take that uses viruses to deliver the payload to the cells, and this becomes Cross' sole focus throughout the movie.
So all in all, The Bourne Legacy is a good movie, worth a theater trip for sure. However it just doesn't lend itself to the excellence I've come to know from the other movies bearing the "Bourne" branding. The story ties in well enough to be considered with the other three, while still being it's own self sustaining piece and not a simple recycle of the trilogy. No amnesia and revenge here. There were just some elements that I was really expecting there to be that just weren't there. Again, I don't know if these are script faux pas or conscientious attempts at avoiding copying the trilogy. Either way, I felt they held the movie back a bit.
As the title might imply, I'm a huge fan of the Bourne Trilogy. I like to think of sagas in their own little universe and I rank them a bit differently than standalone movies. So when one asks me what my favorite movies are, sagas don't really get considered. I believe that to tell a story that involves multiple installments, it's difficult to do it with movie scripts. As a result, sagas which are film adaptations of novels, tend to rank a little higher in my book. The Bourne Trilogy is right up there with Star Wars, The Matrix, and the Lord of the Rings as my favorite movies/sagas of all time.So naturally, when I saw Jeremy Renner was starring in an expansion of Robert Ludlum's Bourne universe. I was pretty excited. Granted, I went into it expecting less than excellence, which was good in retrospect. Had I gone into it expecting the sheer awesomeness that the Bourne Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum gave, I probably would have been quite disappointed. I knew that seeing as how this movie didn't have a novel to take base from and was completely movie script, that I probably wouldn't see the cohesivness and continuity that the trilogy offered. And I was right. I also expected a slightly different camerawork and editing style, since it wasn't directed by Paul Greengrass (although there was nearly no disconnect between the Bourne Identity, and the last two installments in the trilogy despite a change in director). I was right about this as well.
In short, this movie was good. Not excellent, but certainly not bad either. It gives a lot of the awesome action sequences showcasing how much better these Treadstone/Blackbrair/Outcome agents are at all things kick ass than anything else the US government can throw at them. Which is half of what an audience expects when taking in a film with the "Bourne" title on it. Although I was fairly disappointed in the lack of hand-to-hand combat between these agents; something that characterized the trilogy and, in my mind, set it apart from other action movies. For example, I always loved how Jason Bourne would use clever objects as weapons to gain the upper hand on agents who were his equal in hand to hand combat. He used the pen to kill the Treadstone agent from Rome in the Bourne Identity; he used the rolled up magazine to counter the Treadstone agent's knife in the Bourne Supremacy; and he used the cookbook and towel to finally kill the Blackbriar agent, Desh, in the Bourne Ultimatum. Unfortunately there's none of that in this movie. And near the end, I thought they were building up to exactly that, but the scene ends when the opposing agent is taken out in the car chase scene. I don't know if this was intentional to ensure they stayed away from trying to clone the trilogy movies, or what. Either way, I was certainly looking forward to it, and it wasn't there.The character of Aaron Cross is rather different from that of Jason Bourne. Where Bourne was mostly quiet and reserved with a sort of brewing intensity, Cross is comparably more of a humor spouting, loud mouth. Frankly, I think Renner lend's himself well to the character. And if I understand the story correctly, his superior abilities aren't a combination of inate ability and wiley veteran experience as in the case of Jason Bourne. Rather, they're gained from medicine that he takes (which is the centerpiece of the storyline) that enhances the metabolic abilities of his cells and brain functionality. The only hint that you get that he may be superior to his peers, is at the beginning when he's told he cleared a trial in record time. Again, any concrete proof of his dominance over his peers in the form of actual combat is non existent, and all you see is him besting those less trained than he.
Another strength of the Bourne movies was that their plots were never too far fetched that one would shrug it off as if there's no way it could happen. You always got the sense that this stuff was well within the realm of possibility. And that is definitely here in this movie. The plot focuses on a medication regiment the agents take that uses viruses to deliver the payload to the cells, and this becomes Cross' sole focus throughout the movie.
So all in all, The Bourne Legacy is a good movie, worth a theater trip for sure. However it just doesn't lend itself to the excellence I've come to know from the other movies bearing the "Bourne" branding. The story ties in well enough to be considered with the other three, while still being it's own self sustaining piece and not a simple recycle of the trilogy. No amnesia and revenge here. There were just some elements that I was really expecting there to be that just weren't there. Again, I don't know if these are script faux pas or conscientious attempts at avoiding copying the trilogy. Either way, I felt they held the movie back a bit.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
The Unintended Consequence of DLC
In the past, oh say, 5 years, the gaming industry has seen a massive shift in the way games are cared for throughout their lifespan. It used to be that you ponied up a decent chunk of change for a new game and you played it for a while. Then, if it was a popular enough game, along would come an expansion pack for about half the price of the original game, and it would extend the life of the game for a year or so and have a considerable amount of content in it to do so. These used to be things that you bought, in a store, on disc.
However, in the last 10 years, internet speeds have increased dramatically and made the distribution of expansion content fast, easy, and convenient. This has particularly had a profound impact on the console market, where expansion content was nearly non-existent in previous generations. Now that everyone can download expansion content on nearly a whim, it's resulted in smaller and smaller content releases. A game developer no longer has to wait an entire two or so years to compile enough content to justify printing thousands of copies and sending them to Best Buy stores and Gamestop stores. They can produce a couple maps, a few new quests, and release it to the masses quickly and efficiently and without the cost of printing it onto physical storage media. Sounds great, right? Wrong.
The problem with this, is that the ever shrinking size of content, and increasing frequency of releases makes the content itself more expensive in the end. And the ease of distributing content makes game developers and publishers update a game's content far too frequently, all for the sake of making money. I'll give you a by-the-numbers example:
Take one of my favorite games: Battlefield 3. I talk about it all the time, and my friends are sick of me talking about it all the damn time. I just simply love it. Or at least, I did. Unfortunately, my old friend and I are somewhat disenchanted from one another as of late. See, recently, DICE and EA announced a whole slew of new expansion DLC packs for the popular FPS. Four. That's right, four. Which brings the total up to 5, by the time they'll stop making content. All of which are themed to showcase all the crazy variety and awesomeness of Battlefield. Back to Karkand, Close Quarters, Armored Kill, Aftermath, and End Game. Each of these will be $15 a-la-carte. Or you can opt for the "Premium" option. For a one time fee of $50 you can get all 5 of them, plus a bunch of fancy extras, some of which are actually pretty cool. So if one were to buy the expansions a-la-carte, you will have spent $135 to play Battlefield. If you opt for Battlefield Premium, you will have spent $110 all told. And the fans, such as myself, will be playing for years, despite the entire time of development for the game's extra content being just more than one year, by the time End Game hits. Now that's all fine and dandy if you've got the change. But what about those that don't? Such as myself. Right now, millions of gamers are enjoying Close Quarters and I'm not. I simply can't afford to buy it right now, even a-la-carte. And I don't want to play, unless I'm playing with all the "big kids". And anybody whose a "big kid" playing BF3, is up to date and enjoying the latest, let me assure you.
All this leads me to feel alienated from the game I love so much. I just don't want to pick up my controller to play if I can't be mixing it up with the good players in the latest maps, enjoying new weapons to upgrade and unlockables to be had. I just plain feel left out. And so I got to thinking about this whole thing, and I had the epiphany: "What the hell is the point of all of this content?" Why does DICE need to release a few new maps and guns and assignments every couple of months? What the hell was wrong with Battlefield 3 that it needed to be updated. Just think about how much content there'll be in a short time when there's 5 expansions floating around. On average, each pack has about 4 or 5 new maps, about 10 new weapons, a few new vehichles, and other assorted additions. And if my memory serves, the game shipped with 8 maps, and around 30 weapons. So by the time all of this junk is all out there, you're looking at like 30ish maps and 80ish weapons, give or take. What. The. Fuck. DICE? Or rather, should I point the finger at EA? The massive beast of a publisher that bought them.
There's no need for all this nonsensical content! Battlefield 3 is a great game. It simply doesn't need a bajillion things in it. Star Craft had one normally sized expansion and a campaign editor, and people still play it religiously, despite it being more than 14 fucking years old! Blizzard didn't waste their time adding senseless crap onto it. They spent their time more wisely devoting their time to making sequels that took them years to perfect.
But now that expansions are so quick and easy to distribute, it makes it more worth the time and investment by publishers, like, oh I don't know, EA, to tell their minion game developers to pump time and effort into just throwing as much crap at a game as they can. Now, you've got gamers ponying up far more money than they would have (even accounting for inflation) 5 or 6 years ago for new content. Now, we expect new maps to play around in every few months from our developers. And you have people like me, relatively poor people, who have to make a decent investment just to buy the game outright, and then suffer while they watch all the cool kids go on to the new shiny toys while we're left in the corner playing with last year's crappy model. Which just makes you want to not play at all. And it's all unnecessary. You don't need to cloud a game's real genius with arbitrary bullshit. Let it be what it is. Don't milk your fan base for all their worth. You'll end up making enemies of them.
DLC was supposed to bring ease and convenience to gaming. It's done that most definitely. But inadvertently, I think, it's caused publishers and developers to get dollar signs in their eyes when they realize how easy it is to distribute any content they want to make. And it's caused some of us to become outsiders looking in, as friends play in sandboxes we just can't afford to. I'm now in staunch protest of quick, easy expansions for games.
However, in the last 10 years, internet speeds have increased dramatically and made the distribution of expansion content fast, easy, and convenient. This has particularly had a profound impact on the console market, where expansion content was nearly non-existent in previous generations. Now that everyone can download expansion content on nearly a whim, it's resulted in smaller and smaller content releases. A game developer no longer has to wait an entire two or so years to compile enough content to justify printing thousands of copies and sending them to Best Buy stores and Gamestop stores. They can produce a couple maps, a few new quests, and release it to the masses quickly and efficiently and without the cost of printing it onto physical storage media. Sounds great, right? Wrong.The problem with this, is that the ever shrinking size of content, and increasing frequency of releases makes the content itself more expensive in the end. And the ease of distributing content makes game developers and publishers update a game's content far too frequently, all for the sake of making money. I'll give you a by-the-numbers example:
Take one of my favorite games: Battlefield 3. I talk about it all the time, and my friends are sick of me talking about it all the damn time. I just simply love it. Or at least, I did. Unfortunately, my old friend and I are somewhat disenchanted from one another as of late. See, recently, DICE and EA announced a whole slew of new expansion DLC packs for the popular FPS. Four. That's right, four. Which brings the total up to 5, by the time they'll stop making content. All of which are themed to showcase all the crazy variety and awesomeness of Battlefield. Back to Karkand, Close Quarters, Armored Kill, Aftermath, and End Game. Each of these will be $15 a-la-carte. Or you can opt for the "Premium" option. For a one time fee of $50 you can get all 5 of them, plus a bunch of fancy extras, some of which are actually pretty cool. So if one were to buy the expansions a-la-carte, you will have spent $135 to play Battlefield. If you opt for Battlefield Premium, you will have spent $110 all told. And the fans, such as myself, will be playing for years, despite the entire time of development for the game's extra content being just more than one year, by the time End Game hits. Now that's all fine and dandy if you've got the change. But what about those that don't? Such as myself. Right now, millions of gamers are enjoying Close Quarters and I'm not. I simply can't afford to buy it right now, even a-la-carte. And I don't want to play, unless I'm playing with all the "big kids". And anybody whose a "big kid" playing BF3, is up to date and enjoying the latest, let me assure you.
All this leads me to feel alienated from the game I love so much. I just don't want to pick up my controller to play if I can't be mixing it up with the good players in the latest maps, enjoying new weapons to upgrade and unlockables to be had. I just plain feel left out. And so I got to thinking about this whole thing, and I had the epiphany: "What the hell is the point of all of this content?" Why does DICE need to release a few new maps and guns and assignments every couple of months? What the hell was wrong with Battlefield 3 that it needed to be updated. Just think about how much content there'll be in a short time when there's 5 expansions floating around. On average, each pack has about 4 or 5 new maps, about 10 new weapons, a few new vehichles, and other assorted additions. And if my memory serves, the game shipped with 8 maps, and around 30 weapons. So by the time all of this junk is all out there, you're looking at like 30ish maps and 80ish weapons, give or take. What. The. Fuck. DICE? Or rather, should I point the finger at EA? The massive beast of a publisher that bought them.
There's no need for all this nonsensical content! Battlefield 3 is a great game. It simply doesn't need a bajillion things in it. Star Craft had one normally sized expansion and a campaign editor, and people still play it religiously, despite it being more than 14 fucking years old! Blizzard didn't waste their time adding senseless crap onto it. They spent their time more wisely devoting their time to making sequels that took them years to perfect.
But now that expansions are so quick and easy to distribute, it makes it more worth the time and investment by publishers, like, oh I don't know, EA, to tell their minion game developers to pump time and effort into just throwing as much crap at a game as they can. Now, you've got gamers ponying up far more money than they would have (even accounting for inflation) 5 or 6 years ago for new content. Now, we expect new maps to play around in every few months from our developers. And you have people like me, relatively poor people, who have to make a decent investment just to buy the game outright, and then suffer while they watch all the cool kids go on to the new shiny toys while we're left in the corner playing with last year's crappy model. Which just makes you want to not play at all. And it's all unnecessary. You don't need to cloud a game's real genius with arbitrary bullshit. Let it be what it is. Don't milk your fan base for all their worth. You'll end up making enemies of them.
DLC was supposed to bring ease and convenience to gaming. It's done that most definitely. But inadvertently, I think, it's caused publishers and developers to get dollar signs in their eyes when they realize how easy it is to distribute any content they want to make. And it's caused some of us to become outsiders looking in, as friends play in sandboxes we just can't afford to. I'm now in staunch protest of quick, easy expansions for games.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Starting Up The Election Research
I started writing a post, and instead thought, "Hey this would be a hell of a lot easier to just ramble about." So I made a quick video with my webcam and just rambled a bit. The big point I'm trying to make, and I take a while to get around to it, is that your right to vote is important to exercise. I often think of the hundreds of thousands of people who've died so that you can do so.
Independence Day, Not the 4th of July
Ask any one of my personal friends and they'll tell you that at some point, I've given them shit for using the term "4th of July" to refer to Independence Day. It's one of my biggest pet peeves. Now, I know it's not a federal crime if one uses this common place vernacular to refer to the holiday. I mean it when I give my friends shit, but it's always in a playful tone. I get that it's not the biggest of deals, but it's important to me to call the day what it is.
I've always been very happy to be American (although I avoid pride) and I love the country I live in immensely. I take Independence Day to be a significant holiday for the country and as such, I mean to call the day what it is: A day that we celebrate the formal separation of the 13 colonies that would become the United States of America from the Kingdom of England; not simply a date of the calendar. Holidays have names for a reason, and that is they are days where we specially recognize something. Christmas, as we all know, is a holiday where the birth of Jesus Christ is celebrated (whether or not it's the day of the year it happened), which just happens to be the 25th of December. Nobody, however, would call it such. Nobody calls Thanksgiving "The Last Thursday in November". Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Easter, and countless other holidays all have meanings and they all have their own meaningful name. Each 4th of July I don't celebrate a date on a calendar, or the position of the earth in it's annual orbit about the Sun. I celebrate the founding of the place that I live, which I love dearly. The funny thing is, the only holiday which we actually do celebrate a date on the calendar is New Year's Day, and even that has it's own special name. Nobody ever refers to it as "The 1st of January", yet everybody commonly calls the most significant civic holiday we in America have, "The 4th of July" and it drives me absolutely bonkers. Please, my fellow Americans, start saying "Independence Day".
I've always been very happy to be American (although I avoid pride) and I love the country I live in immensely. I take Independence Day to be a significant holiday for the country and as such, I mean to call the day what it is: A day that we celebrate the formal separation of the 13 colonies that would become the United States of America from the Kingdom of England; not simply a date of the calendar. Holidays have names for a reason, and that is they are days where we specially recognize something. Christmas, as we all know, is a holiday where the birth of Jesus Christ is celebrated (whether or not it's the day of the year it happened), which just happens to be the 25th of December. Nobody, however, would call it such. Nobody calls Thanksgiving "The Last Thursday in November". Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Easter, and countless other holidays all have meanings and they all have their own meaningful name. Each 4th of July I don't celebrate a date on a calendar, or the position of the earth in it's annual orbit about the Sun. I celebrate the founding of the place that I live, which I love dearly. The funny thing is, the only holiday which we actually do celebrate a date on the calendar is New Year's Day, and even that has it's own special name. Nobody ever refers to it as "The 1st of January", yet everybody commonly calls the most significant civic holiday we in America have, "The 4th of July" and it drives me absolutely bonkers. Please, my fellow Americans, start saying "Independence Day".
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Android 4.0 ICS On My HTC Incredible
Rooting my Android phone was probably the best thing I've ever done to it, besides taking the little guy home with me, of course. I love the control it gives me over the software I decide to load onto my device, which has amazing impact. For starters, the operating systems available give me great battery life, and are a much lighter package than any OEM system with all of their "bloatware". And of course, I've been able to upgrade my phone to 2.3 Gingerbread before HTC released their update for it. To be honest, I'm still not sure if they've released their build for the Incredible yet.
Mostly, I've used CyanogenMod 7 throughout the life of my phone. I've dabbled in OMGB and MIUI and both are really good. Although I was dissapointed to hear that the Incredible will probably not be getting CyanogenMod 9, which is the new ICS version of CyanogenMod. I was pretty dissapointed at the notion that my device, a mere year and a half old, was too much of an antique to get any kind of support in the modding community. But then, I found AOPK. I'd heard of them, but they didn't have a build for the Incredible, until recently. I first attempted to install 39, and ran into issues with my display. Seemed like a kernel issue, considering that it seemed like it was having issues displaying info on my screen correctly. However, the RootzWiki thread on AOKP for the Incredible informed me that builds 38 and 39 aren't working for this device, and 37 is the most current working build.
So far, I'm quite impressed at how well ICS works on my Incredible. I was worried that since it really only meets minimum specs for ICS, that it'd be akin to running 1.6 Donut back in Android's prime. But honestly, while I do notice that it's not as snappy as it could be, I don't notice any significant lags or delays that would cause me to worry about using it as my daily driver. Which is exactly what I'm gonna do for the foreseeable future; enjoying Chrome Beta and other features and software that until now I was unable to use.
UPDATE: After a day or so running this as my primary driver, I decided to go back to CyanogenMod. The less than snappy response time does take a toll as the day goes on. The memory usage is almost always up near maximum and it caused a couple of crash reboots, a bit too frequently for my taste of a daily driver. I do have a clockworkmod backup of it in case I want to revisit it, but the recent update to CM 7.2.0 is super snappy and quick and just works better with my hardware as a daily driver.
Mostly, I've used CyanogenMod 7 throughout the life of my phone. I've dabbled in OMGB and MIUI and both are really good. Although I was dissapointed to hear that the Incredible will probably not be getting CyanogenMod 9, which is the new ICS version of CyanogenMod. I was pretty dissapointed at the notion that my device, a mere year and a half old, was too much of an antique to get any kind of support in the modding community. But then, I found AOPK. I'd heard of them, but they didn't have a build for the Incredible, until recently. I first attempted to install 39, and ran into issues with my display. Seemed like a kernel issue, considering that it seemed like it was having issues displaying info on my screen correctly. However, the RootzWiki thread on AOKP for the Incredible informed me that builds 38 and 39 aren't working for this device, and 37 is the most current working build.
So far, I'm quite impressed at how well ICS works on my Incredible. I was worried that since it really only meets minimum specs for ICS, that it'd be akin to running 1.6 Donut back in Android's prime. But honestly, while I do notice that it's not as snappy as it could be, I don't notice any significant lags or delays that would cause me to worry about using it as my daily driver. Which is exactly what I'm gonna do for the foreseeable future; enjoying Chrome Beta and other features and software that until now I was unable to use.
UPDATE: After a day or so running this as my primary driver, I decided to go back to CyanogenMod. The less than snappy response time does take a toll as the day goes on. The memory usage is almost always up near maximum and it caused a couple of crash reboots, a bit too frequently for my taste of a daily driver. I do have a clockworkmod backup of it in case I want to revisit it, but the recent update to CM 7.2.0 is super snappy and quick and just works better with my hardware as a daily driver.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Facebook Can't Get Out Of It's Own Way
It's so popular to hate on Facebook these days that if ever I bring up any kind of qualm I have about how Facebook works, I'm labeled as a hater. It's just how these kinds of things go I guess. I don't let it get to me anymore, but it used to perturb me quite a bit. So to anybody who's going to construe any kind of legitimate and logical complaint about Facebook as mindless hatred, leave now.
The root of all of my frustrations with Facebook is that it's spurred a massive gold-rush of personal data mining by creating an environment in which developers can try to get you to agree to give them access to your personal profile information by installing apps and dangling a carrot out in front of the common user. Prime example of this is whenever I want to read an article hosted by Yahoo! that a friend of mine has shared on Facebook. All I want to do is click the link and be taken to Yahoo!'s article and read the damn thing. But, alas, I must be stopped by Yahoo!'s Facebook app, as it is the portal through which I must get to the article. No I don't want to install your app. I just want to read the article, not give you access to all of my personal information. And so I deny the app's requests and carry on through my news feed disappointed that Facebook actually impeded the social sharing that it's supposed to facilitate. Completely the opposite of how it was supposed to happen. Somewhere along the line, after Facebook rose to social networking dominance, it began to take on all kinds of other projects and sew them onto it's existing frame, in a stupid mission to become the only destination anybody has on the Internet. Games and Apps saw that anybody who produced content for the Internet could produce that same content within Facebook. And now what we have is this Frankenstein of a once well polished social network that tries to be too many other things, and that mission has gotten in the way of the only thing people really want to use a social network for: Sharing information. That is it. The one thing any social network is useful for. And now Facebook is allowing the free reign it's given 3rd party developers to make apps, to get in the way of itself. Which, to me at least, is absolutely infuriating. I should not be stopped from viewing the content that I am tempted with in my news feed. That is completely anti-productive for Facebook to do.
And another problem that has been beginning to piss me off lately is the intrusion of advertisements into my Timeline. I was perfectly fine with ads off to the side of every page. But when they actually appear within the content that I'm searching for in my or someone else's Timeline, it makes for an awesomely effective distraction and it's that much more difficult to find what I'm looking for. Which, again, is the exact opposite of what Facebook is supposed to do. Connecting people who share information and making that information easier to find is the prime directive, if you will, of a social network. So once again, you have Facebook getting in it's own way. And Facebook now being a publicly traded company, these kinds of things are just going to get worse now that there's investors to please.
Now, fortunately (or unfortunately, really), my friends still produce interesting enough content such that I haven't been willing to stop going to Facebook to see what they're up to, or what they're reading or sharing. But it's becoming more of a chore to check Facebook for me; becoming more of a headache every time I leave the site, because it's almost always because I can't stand being denied reading an interesting story for the sake of installing someone's app.
The root of all of my frustrations with Facebook is that it's spurred a massive gold-rush of personal data mining by creating an environment in which developers can try to get you to agree to give them access to your personal profile information by installing apps and dangling a carrot out in front of the common user. Prime example of this is whenever I want to read an article hosted by Yahoo! that a friend of mine has shared on Facebook. All I want to do is click the link and be taken to Yahoo!'s article and read the damn thing. But, alas, I must be stopped by Yahoo!'s Facebook app, as it is the portal through which I must get to the article. No I don't want to install your app. I just want to read the article, not give you access to all of my personal information. And so I deny the app's requests and carry on through my news feed disappointed that Facebook actually impeded the social sharing that it's supposed to facilitate. Completely the opposite of how it was supposed to happen. Somewhere along the line, after Facebook rose to social networking dominance, it began to take on all kinds of other projects and sew them onto it's existing frame, in a stupid mission to become the only destination anybody has on the Internet. Games and Apps saw that anybody who produced content for the Internet could produce that same content within Facebook. And now what we have is this Frankenstein of a once well polished social network that tries to be too many other things, and that mission has gotten in the way of the only thing people really want to use a social network for: Sharing information. That is it. The one thing any social network is useful for. And now Facebook is allowing the free reign it's given 3rd party developers to make apps, to get in the way of itself. Which, to me at least, is absolutely infuriating. I should not be stopped from viewing the content that I am tempted with in my news feed. That is completely anti-productive for Facebook to do.
And another problem that has been beginning to piss me off lately is the intrusion of advertisements into my Timeline. I was perfectly fine with ads off to the side of every page. But when they actually appear within the content that I'm searching for in my or someone else's Timeline, it makes for an awesomely effective distraction and it's that much more difficult to find what I'm looking for. Which, again, is the exact opposite of what Facebook is supposed to do. Connecting people who share information and making that information easier to find is the prime directive, if you will, of a social network. So once again, you have Facebook getting in it's own way. And Facebook now being a publicly traded company, these kinds of things are just going to get worse now that there's investors to please.
Now, fortunately (or unfortunately, really), my friends still produce interesting enough content such that I haven't been willing to stop going to Facebook to see what they're up to, or what they're reading or sharing. But it's becoming more of a chore to check Facebook for me; becoming more of a headache every time I leave the site, because it's almost always because I can't stand being denied reading an interesting story for the sake of installing someone's app.
Monday, June 4, 2012
E3 2012: Ubisoft Press Conference Reaction
Ubisoft had the 3rd press conference of the day and blew Microsoft and EA out of the water. After this showcase, I'm not only excited for some stuff to come out, but I've also been convinced to go back and play some titles that I missed in the past.
I was worried at the outset, as they began with a showcase of Just Dance 4. It consisted of a live demo with hot chicks in skimpy outfits dancing with the game they were dancing to behind them and FloRida performing with a ridiculous microphone. I was not expecting much if this is what they were opening with.
But things got better with Far Cry 3, whose predecessors I've never played, but would if I had a decent PC. Looks like a solid and exciting game.
Then they moved to what I was itching to see more of, Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Disappointingly there wasn't much except a premiere trailer, which is different from the gameplay that Microsoft's conference showcased earlier today. At least the trailer was very bad ass. From what I gathered, Sam is now the head of "4th Echelon", and it looks like Anna Grimmsdottir is back too. It looks like it focuses on more of what Conviction began, with the fast paced takedowns and "think on your feet" pace. Thankfully it doesn't seem to do away with the emphasis on stealth. I was pretty disheartened when Sam spoke and I didn't hear Mike Ironside. It doesn't appear to be a younger Sam Fisher, but it does seem like the iconic voice I love so much. While it's a let down to be sure, it won't stop me from buying it. I'm really anxious to see what more comes out of E3 in the next couple days, because it's gonna be agonizing waiting a whole year to play it. It's slated for Spring of 2013.
Next up was some showcasing of a new Rayman title utilizing the Wii U, which actually looked really fun and then some junk about E sports and a cheesy demo of a game called Shootmania with some world champion Counter Strike players.
Then the big one...Assassin's Creed 3. Now while I've never played these games, I am most definitely going back and playing them because both the trailer and gameplay demo looked incredible. Being such a fan of Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid and Batman Arkham City/Asylum...just about any stealth based game, I'm not sure why I never picked them up, but that's gonna change.
The last presentation began very odd, with a trailer that seemed more like a lecture about how the world has become so connected and how personal information collection is being used against the average Joe. I was thinking, where are they going with this. And then a gameplay demo ensued for a game called Watch Dogs, which is by far the best game announced/demoed thus far, and I don't see it being dethroned either. Basic premise is that you are a kind of vigilante who uses the city's infrastructure to spy and cause mayhem to things to accomplish your objective. The pace seems varied and there seems to be a good mix of intelligently thinking about the situation, and violent action.
I was worried at the outset, as they began with a showcase of Just Dance 4. It consisted of a live demo with hot chicks in skimpy outfits dancing with the game they were dancing to behind them and FloRida performing with a ridiculous microphone. I was not expecting much if this is what they were opening with.
But things got better with Far Cry 3, whose predecessors I've never played, but would if I had a decent PC. Looks like a solid and exciting game.
Then they moved to what I was itching to see more of, Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Disappointingly there wasn't much except a premiere trailer, which is different from the gameplay that Microsoft's conference showcased earlier today. At least the trailer was very bad ass. From what I gathered, Sam is now the head of "4th Echelon", and it looks like Anna Grimmsdottir is back too. It looks like it focuses on more of what Conviction began, with the fast paced takedowns and "think on your feet" pace. Thankfully it doesn't seem to do away with the emphasis on stealth. I was pretty disheartened when Sam spoke and I didn't hear Mike Ironside. It doesn't appear to be a younger Sam Fisher, but it does seem like the iconic voice I love so much. While it's a let down to be sure, it won't stop me from buying it. I'm really anxious to see what more comes out of E3 in the next couple days, because it's gonna be agonizing waiting a whole year to play it. It's slated for Spring of 2013.Next up was some showcasing of a new Rayman title utilizing the Wii U, which actually looked really fun and then some junk about E sports and a cheesy demo of a game called Shootmania with some world champion Counter Strike players.
Then the big one...Assassin's Creed 3. Now while I've never played these games, I am most definitely going back and playing them because both the trailer and gameplay demo looked incredible. Being such a fan of Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid and Batman Arkham City/Asylum...just about any stealth based game, I'm not sure why I never picked them up, but that's gonna change.
The last presentation began very odd, with a trailer that seemed more like a lecture about how the world has become so connected and how personal information collection is being used against the average Joe. I was thinking, where are they going with this. And then a gameplay demo ensued for a game called Watch Dogs, which is by far the best game announced/demoed thus far, and I don't see it being dethroned either. Basic premise is that you are a kind of vigilante who uses the city's infrastructure to spy and cause mayhem to things to accomplish your objective. The pace seems varied and there seems to be a good mix of intelligently thinking about the situation, and violent action.
E3 2012: EA Press Conference Reaction
I wasn't looking for much from EA's press conference. Despite being the largest video game publisher in the world, I'm not a fan. Although, as it happens, they publish one of my favorite games, Battlefield 3. And with so much activity in the Battlefield world lately, I most definitely sat through them droning on about their sports franchises (including an entire 20 minutes on FIFA 13) so that I could hear from DICE.
The big Battlefield announcement was Battlefield Premium. For a one time fee of $50 (it's $49.99 but let's call it what it is) a player can gain access to, what I am rather surprised to be, an impressive host of content for the price. First and foremost, you get all 5 of the expansions. At the normal price of $15 apiece, that'd run you $75. So for just this, you're saving $25 versus doing it a la carte. On top of that, you get a number of exclusive in-game items like solider camouflages, gun camouflages, special dog tags, a unique melee knife, and unique assignments. Players also get the privilege to reset stats, get priority queuing into servers as well as exclusive double XP events.
Frankly, I think that's a ton of content for the price. When I first heard rumors about this premium service DICE was gonna slap onto Battlefield, I was worried they'd ruin it. Thank God they haven't. I've never been a fan of exclusives. But it looks like the industry is finally finding a way to do it right. It used to be that it gave people who had the dough a decided advantage in the game itself. Since I'm planning on buying all of these expansions anyways, I have an actual economic reason that's not silly for also getting all the extra gimmicky in-game goodies that I feel kinda silly for wanting to pay for anyways. Unfortunately for me, I already shelled out $15 for Back to Karkand, so I'm only saving $10 in the end, but that's still some money. Which means I'm gonna have to buy it before next week, when Close Quarters comes out or else I'm actually losing money on just the expansion pack values and actually paying some for the gimmicks. Which I suppose wouldn't be so bad, because while I hate to admit it, I have actually paid for things like Xbox Live avatar items before. (Hangs head in shame).
Although one very exciting, and quite surprising piece of news from the press conference, was the demo of Medal of Honor Warfighter. I'd heard about this a few weeks ago, but EA had a nice little live gameplay demo of some singleplayer action, followed by some edited video of some multiplayer. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the singleplayer action looked. It's nice to see the Frostbite 2 engine at work in another game than just Battlefield, and to see another developer using the engine than just DICE. Despite it being the same engine, the developer seems to have tweaked it well enough that it doesn't look to be just another Battlefield impersonator, which is what many criticized the first Medal of Honor (not really the "first" per se, as MoH goes back a very long way) as being. I personally never thought that, having owned and played both Battlefield Bad Co. 2 and Medal of Honor. The multiplayer seems to have introduced a rather compelling aspect, which is the choice of which country to fight for. EA seemed to suggest during their demo that since gamers exist all over the world, it'd be good to cater to those that aren't Americans. Let's face it, most modern military FPSs feature militaries from one of the world's major powers (U.S., Russia, UK is just about as big as the pool gets). Nearly every country with a respectable military has a branch that features Tier 1 SpecOps operators and letting someone from Canada or Germany or Australia play as their own flag is, I think, a very cool, yet brilliantly simple way, of enhancing the game and maybe even drawing in some gamers who would have previously passed this title over. How exactly your choice of homeland will effect the actual game play remains to be seen, as not much in way of this was revealed during the demo. I suppose we'll see. But all things considered, I enjoyed the first MoH and it's sequel looks to be even better. I might actually have to pass it up, unfortunately, because of the investment in Battlefield Premium I'm ultimately going to make.
The other big game at the showing was Crysis 3, and I've never played any of those and they don't really peak my interest much, as well as Madden and FIFA 13. Although I do enjoy EA Sports' titles (except for FIFA, I just can't get into soccer...yes soccer), I almost never have money to buy them. The show also saw other demos and announcements including a SimCity re-boot from Maxis (I didn't know they were still around), a Need For Speed: Most Wanted re-boot from the makers of Hot Pursuit, and an official partnership announcement between EA Sports and UFC.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Battlefield 3 Teamwork Frustrations
I played Battlefield 3 for several hours today, which is pretty common for a summer day off for me. Some ups, some downs. I played with some randoms who, surprisingly, all had mics on, and we ended up having a blast of a time together.
A common headache I always inevitably run into when playing this awesome game for any stretch of time is the lack of common teamwork. I don't mean the kind of "let's all put head sets on, and plan on how to attack the hill top on a sand table" kind of teamwork. I mean the really simple kind of stuff that involves pressing a single damn button. Like throwing down medkits and ammo boxes, or spotting enemies. Whenever I play as an Assault or Support class, I'm constantly throwing down ammo boxes and medkits everywhere. They recharge really fast (on the order of like 10 seconds). Most frustrating is when I really need it, and I call for it with the in-game request mechanic and don't get any help. The only explanations can be a simple lack of attention to the situation for the sake of need for kills and sprinting head first into the breach, or that people simply don't realize some of the mechanisms built into Battlefield 3. Honestly, I think it's mostly the latter.
I think that's the case because earlier today, when I teamed up with the randoms I spoke of, they were really impressed with how well I was doing and went so far as to ask me how I was "that good". I don't mean to seem vane, but I get that a lot. I guess I just "get" this game better than most. It just makes sense to me and I notice things and think about how to move and position myself to survive and be most effective in my role in the game. Furthermore, if one examines the Battle Report pictured at right, you'll see that I got 57 kills, and 13,000+ combat score. This means that 5,700 points of this score came from kills. That is less than half. It is true that one can accumulate a lot of points from suppression assists, kill assists, and headshot and multikill bonuses. But even taking that into account, That is still, at most, only half of my score. The other half came from reviving teammates (which earns points equal to that of a kill, and more than that if you revive a teammate), and healing teammates with medkits. Just think about that. DICE has structured this game to heavily reward teamwork, and they've weighted the teamwork aspect as an equal to the "shooting at bad guys" aspect.
So I think I've noticed these things in Battlefield 3, where others haven't. The thought came to me to try to hold Battlefield 3 clinics with Google+ hangouts or something. But I'd have to drum up interest first and that's something I just don't have. I've wanted to make some YouTube videos similar to the work of channels like Matimi0 or dontblink, but I neither have, nor can afford, video capture equipment. So I'll speak to the dark void that is the Internet in the hopes that someone hears these tips to improve their score and experience in Battlefield 3:
When playing with any class:
A common headache I always inevitably run into when playing this awesome game for any stretch of time is the lack of common teamwork. I don't mean the kind of "let's all put head sets on, and plan on how to attack the hill top on a sand table" kind of teamwork. I mean the really simple kind of stuff that involves pressing a single damn button. Like throwing down medkits and ammo boxes, or spotting enemies. Whenever I play as an Assault or Support class, I'm constantly throwing down ammo boxes and medkits everywhere. They recharge really fast (on the order of like 10 seconds). Most frustrating is when I really need it, and I call for it with the in-game request mechanic and don't get any help. The only explanations can be a simple lack of attention to the situation for the sake of need for kills and sprinting head first into the breach, or that people simply don't realize some of the mechanisms built into Battlefield 3. Honestly, I think it's mostly the latter.
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| This is why I was asked how good I was |
So I think I've noticed these things in Battlefield 3, where others haven't. The thought came to me to try to hold Battlefield 3 clinics with Google+ hangouts or something. But I'd have to drum up interest first and that's something I just don't have. I've wanted to make some YouTube videos similar to the work of channels like Matimi0 or dontblink, but I neither have, nor can afford, video capture equipment. So I'll speak to the dark void that is the Internet in the hopes that someone hears these tips to improve their score and experience in Battlefield 3:
When playing with any class:
- The game has a contextual communication function. If playing on Xbox or Playstation, this is used by pressing the Back button, or Select button respectively. The following tips will refer to this.
How to deal with healing and first aid for both the injured and the healer:
- If you get injured, any teammate who has a medkit will now have a box with a medical plus sign over their head, and will appear on your minimap as this symbol as well, making it very easy to seek out a medic. Not all Assault class teammates will have medkits, because they can opt to trade the medkit for the M320 or M26, which tailors their loadout to killing enemy infantry. But the game is smart enough and will not make any teammate without a medkit appear as such. Furthermore, medkits that already exist on the ground will appear as a circle with an oblong diamond shape inside. This makes it easier to seek out aid, as you may not have to bother trying to get a response out of a friendly medic. If you want to request a medkit from a teammate with one, look at them, and press the communication button (Back or Select on consoles). In-game, your character will yell out "Hey I need first aid", and you will now appear on the minimap of the medics on your team as a blinking first aid symbol, which really helps in trying to get the attention of your team.
- If you're playing as a medic, and by that I mean you have opted for the medkit instead of the M320 or M26, it's important that you use it as much as possible, because it can really rack you up some serious points. You should be constantly throwing it down. It recharges every 10 seconds, so throw it as you come to objectives, common choke points, and when you spawn on a squad mate (healing a squad mate will earn your 30 points instead of 20). A heal of a teammate will earn you 20 points several times over, depending on how much healing your medkit does. It will heal multiple teammates, so throw it at groups. I always find myself throwing it down at pretty much every piece of cover I take in preparation for a firefight, because it works on yourself as well and can make the difference if you're exchanging volleys with enemies. If you hear someone's character in-game cry out for a medic or first aid, take the time to throw one. You don't even have to stop running toward your objective. Just throw it. If you glance at your minimap and see a flashing medic symbol, try to make your way to the injured teammate.
- Don't get too greedy for easy points, however, that you run out into crazy obvious danger to get them. You're gonna be no use to your team as a dead medic. The same goes for revives. DO NOT revive teammates if there are enemies right there. Kill them first, then worry about healing and reviving. Nothing is more frustrating than to get revived only to get gunned down immediately. It adds a lot of time to a teammate's spawn, and will only frustrate your team.
How to deal with ammo:
- The same principles from above apply. Ask for ammo from support class players if you're out or running low.
- The symbol for an ammo box on the minimap is a circle with three lines in it.
- Support class teammates will have a box with three cartridges (bullet plus casing) symbol above their heads if you're less than full on ammo. Likewise, if you're support class, teammates who need ammo will have this symbol over their heads and on the minimap. They will blink in the same way on the minimap if they call out for ammo.
- Ammo boxes will refill any kind of ammunition, including frag grenades, SMAW/RPG/Javelin/Stinger/SA-80 rockets, gadgets like radio beacons and SOFLAMs, anything!
I tried getting picture examples of the minimap symbols and such, but nothing exists on the Internet for this apparently, and as I mentioned before, I don't have recording equipment to capture it myself. I hope these tips help to understand the mysteries of Battlefield 3.
Friday, May 18, 2012
The CoDified Future of Battlefield
I'm a long time player and fan of both the Battlefield and Call of Duty franchises. Along with Halo, they are the cream of the crop when it comes to FPS games. I've been playing Battlefield since Battlefield 2, Call of Duty since the original Modern Warfare, and Halo since Halo 2. Without a doubt, however, I would rather play a Battlefield game than any other FPS, if I were given a single choice. Consequently, I am often labeled as a "hater". To that I say, "sure, whatever". Label me as you will. I love other shooters, but none have given me the amount of satisfaction as the intense and frenzied team play you find in a Battlefield game. But I worry about the future of DICE and it's precious Battlefield franchise.
For those who are unfamiliar with the current news out of the Battlefield camp, DICE has announced 3 major expansions for Battlefield 3: Close Quarters, Armored Kill, and End Game, two of which release this year. The first will be out this June, or at least we hope. June 12 is the official date announced by DICE and EA, but we'll see if that turns out to be true. With Close Quarters, we will see a departure from the large maps with jets, tanks, helicopters, and APCs that characterize a typical Battlefield map. Instead we've been promised smaller, mostly indoor, maps where infantry combat will be featured. The action will be intense, fast paced, and because the Frostbite 2 engine will not have to render such large scale maps, we've been promised that these maps will feature larger amounts of destruction and vertical gameplay.
For the last few weeks, I've been pretty pumped, anticipating the inclusion of new maps, weapons, and new tactics to get used to. We gamers love to spice things up with new ways to play a game. I envision the kind of enigmatic firefight that takes place in The Matrix between Neo, Trinity, and two dozen or so SWAT dressed baddies in the lobby of the high rise as the pair attempt to rescue Morpheus. Pillars shredding to nothing as bullets and grenades fly everywhere. When this releases, I'm gonna have some good ol' fun with it. No doubt.
But the last couple days, the thought has been irking me...this seems a bit more "CoDified", if I may invent a new word. Why the fuck not, the English language is already wonky as hell anyways. While the CoD vs Battlefield debate rages within the gaming community, it is undeniable that the masses of gamers out there now know about Battlefield. While in the past it was a game that the PC minority enjoyed, the huge step DICE and EA took to ensure a great Battlefield experience on the consoles has opened up the franchise to a much broader audience. Ergo, a whole lot of CoD and Halo players have begun to give Battlefield a try, whether or not they end up liking it. Let's face it, the large scale maps, vehicles, and immersive destruction and audio of Battlefield 3 and it's Frostbite 2 engine can be quite a shell shock for any gamer used to the pace and play of Call of Duty. Consequently, many don't like it.
And yet there's another group who will come to love it, yet don't adjust to the style of play Battlefield-ers are used to. They'll be engaged by the immersive qualities the gameplay and engine offer, but continue to play it as though it were only about the kills, and not about the team work and tactics that characterize a Battlefield game. And it is THIS group that I'm concerned about. This demographic will grow with the release of Close Quarters this July. The game style promoted by it is much more reminiscent of a Call of Duty title than a Battlefield title. Given that the masses are now aware of Battlefield's existence, there's going to be a ton of gamers giving Battlefield a try if they can play it like Call of Duty. And one of two things will happen if there is a sudden influx of CoD and Halo players. They'll adjust to Battlefield's pace and team oriented play, or they'll keep playing it like CoD and just dilute the game for the rest of us. I think the PC platform will be largely untouched by this problem, but for us console players, we're going to have to deal with a whole slew of the CoD crowd not being team players and just running around for kills. It's going to be frustrating, and I'm not sure if I'm so pumped for Close Quarters any more.
I could be full of hot air here, and believe me, I hope I am, but I draw from past experience in forming this opinion. Let's consider what happened to a little game known as Project Reality:
Project Reality is a mod by Black Sand Studio based on Battlefield 2. It's goal is to use the game to create as realistic an experience as possible. And let me tell you, they sure as hell succeed. It's so excellent at this, that it's come to be referred to as a "walking sim" by both those who love and hate it. While it's incredibly frustrating to play at first, because of the insanely slow pace, as you come to learn its ins-and-outs, you start to fall in love. Get in that first awesome squad, and in that first firefight, and you feel so immersed. You literally feel like you're an infantryman in Afghanistan fighting an insurgency as your squad leader barks orders and you and your squadmates as he coordinates with another squad to pincer attack an entrenched enemy. I understand that some people just don't like uber-realistic gameplay, and that's perfectly OK. I however, have been a massive military nerd since I can remember, and I was completely hooked. I spent night after night during my summers providing logistic transport, building firebases, crewing tanks, and Mumbling it up with a bunch of like-minded realism seekers. And as the time passed, and new versions came, and word began to spread more and more, the community started to grow. As more players came to try it out, I saw more and more dilution of the gameplay and a wearing away of the mentality of wanting to play it "right". The phrase "go back to vanilla" became used so much that it became a punch line. And keep in mind, Battlefield players have always been considered the "nerds" of the FPS community of gamers. This was nerds eroding the gameplay for uber-nerds. Unfortunately I've been away from the PR community for the last two years or so, so I can't speak to the condition of the game now, but I can attest to the dumbing down of the mod, and it was sad to see happen.
This may seem silly, but this is my hobby and I love Battlefield 3. I'm weary of what Close Quarters could end up being. I'm worried it's going to open up the game to those who don't care to play Battlefield the way a Battlefield game should be played. It's hard enough as it is, playing on my Xbox 360 and being frustrated that the moronic medic next to you won't throw his med pack down despite you calling for it in-game and with your mic as you sit at 4% heath because you just covered his back at the stair way and took a few rounds to the chest. I would venture to guess that only something like 20% of console Battlefield 3 players use the spotting mechanic, or even understand what it does or know it even exists. I so very much wish I could own a decent desktop computer and join the Battlefield 3 PC crowd that I very much believe will be mostly untouched by what I fear will be a swarm of CoD and Halo players diluting the Battlefield 3 experience. I guess we shall see.
Monday, May 14, 2012
The Kaleidoscope Program's Maiden Voyage
I've always wondered about blogging. I'm a massive tech nerd and have always wanted to try it out but never got around to it. Until now that is. I'm not really sure what kind of content I'm going to post here, but I can assure it'll probably be nerd-tastic! Which is kinda why I named the blog what I did. The title is taken from the song Brazenhead by the rock band Clutch, whom over the past two years have become my favorite band. The song describes the process in the brain which is used to identify things. Which, if you think about it, is a rather mysterious one. The process is described as though it were a program running on some kind of drone attempting to identify new things in other worlds. It is also the only song where the phrase "While maintaining geodesic stasis" is used. Neil Fallon has quite a way with words.
Anyways. I'll post things as they come to mind. We'll see where this goes.
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