thoughts and rants

this blog has been relocated

2008-09-02T00:05:00.002-04:00

I've moved thoughts and rants and removed the name since it's kinda lost meaning to me. It's now located on my own server at http://johpan.thruhere.net. It's johpanonline reborn and this time, I think it'll stick.

johpanonline is a little portal to all the things I do online. If you want to stalk me. That's the best place to do it. I kid.

Anyway, I'll be keeping this here because I've pruned some posts that have nothing to do with the relocation just for archive's sake. Don't forget to update your bookmarks and feeds.

Goodbye blogger. You've served me well.

Hands On My New MacBook

2008-08-17T20:49:00.004-04:00

It's about time I replaced some old hardware. My iBook G4 that has definitely seen better days. I gave up on the exterior looking pretty and decided to decorate with a few stickers. Within the first month of owning it, the latch broke off. Luckily, I found a command that would only wake via keypress which saved me a lot of trouble and battery life. But that wasn't all. Tiger itself started to die on me. Some of the smaller functions wouldn't work anymore: Expose's show application windows command wouldn't work, the AC adaptor was on the fritz and eventually went down in a blaze of glory (srsly); the list went on. Also, it's 4 years old and times are a chaingin'. Especially after playing around with the iPod and its apps, I would like to start developing on it and for that, you need an intel mac.

So here I am now. It's the Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz model with 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, and X3100 144MB shared graphics - in white - and now with an Plum InCase 13" Hardshell Case. The first thing I really notice is how crisp the screen is. Watching DVDs (or in my case, the love the world PV DVD) is something special even compared to the 42" 720P LCD HDTV we've got downstairs. I don't know what it is. Mmm glossy? The keyboard feels crisp and springy and responsive like any new keyboard should. I wasn't sure how the separated keys would feel after extended use but it has no effect on WPM and accuracy. The habits of two-finger scrolling settled in quickly; the second I went back to the iBook to move files, I found myself wondering why nothing was scrolling. The speakers are better than the iBook but not by much. The iSight is convenient but I haven't put it through any real testing. I need more skype friends...

Along with the package, I got the mini-DVI to DVI dongle to compliment the DVI to HDMI dongle and random HDMI cables I have at home. It all works like a charm on the 42" HDTV. Maybe I should clone the screen and watch another DVD and really test it out. I just purchased a mini-DVI to VGA cable for connecting to the old 17" LCD monitor I have and for connecting to projectors at school. Something I've always loved about OSX is the ease of using multiple displays: everything is automatic and usually optimized from the get-go or two or three mouse-clicks away.

Right out of the box, it was good to go though I have a few apps I like to have and think should come standard with the next version of OSX.

- Little Snitch for monitoring network traffic down to specific apps and ports
- MenuMeters for CPU and network usage showing in the menubar at all times
- Firefox for obvious reasons: customizations
- Adium, a multiservice chat client, also for the customizations
- Growl because I need visual notifications for a lot of things, especially when I've got the music going
- Cyberduck for general FTP and sFTP
- Transmission for torrents
- iScrobbler to record Last.fm listening data. I would use the last.fm.app but it doesn't allow flooding. iScrobbler does.

Another reason why I wanted a MacBook was for some on-the-go Windows action but I still wanted OSX as my base. I still use Windows for FruityLoops. It's not that I don't like GarageBand, I just haven't given it much of a chance since the workflow I've developed with FLStudio doesn't work with GarageBand. I still use Windows for PSP upkeep and for movie conversion but I'll definitely look into some conversion solutions for the mac. Dealing with a PSP is definately a lot easier on a Windows box since there are no .ds_store files to deal with and a lot of the custom apps written for PSP maintenance are written for Windows. But anyway, I'll share the experiences I've had with the Windows solutions I've encountered.

Boot Camp was the first because it's built in and because I thought it would be the most stable of the lot. It is stable but it wouldn't run Team Fortress 2 via Steam. Everything else was fine for what I needed. I wanted to run Parallels just out of curiosity. My past experiences with virtual machines weren't pleasant. Most of time, they would run staggeringly slow and the experience and time wasn't worth it. In the case of Parallels and the MacBook, oh boy, this is living. There's virtually no slow down whatsoever. It's also convenient that you can use your Boot Camp partition as the VM so the Boot Camp install didn't go to waste. Paired with spaces, running Parallels is like the best of both worlds, and by worlds, I mean Apple and Microsoft. I might end up installing an Ubuntu virtual machine for kicks. I haven't tried running Steam in Parallels but felt no need to, especially after learning about CrossOver Games.

Originally developed for MMOs to be played on any platform, CrossOver Games also allows for Steam games (among others, see Comparibility List for complete list of working games) to be played without the need to install Windows. It runs TF2 significantly smoother than my desktop does which puts me in a tough position. Despite having more hard disk space and a standalone GPU, the MacBook significantly out performs the desktop. I'll probably turn the desktop into a webserver and media center and continue to lurk #wotachat and keep its logs.

Overall, I'm completely satisfied with the new hardware. It's everything I've wanted in a laptop and more. It also helps that the Apple Store employee who I got for my Personal Shopping experience was one of the best I've ever dealt with and she was pretty cute as well. Apple Retail definitely got a feedback e-mail from me concerning her service. <3

How listening to Podtoid and RetroforceGO! makes me a better person.

2008-08-03T17:45:00.012-04:00

The only thing more annoying than PlayStation fanboys...

... are 360 fanboys.

I'm just kidding.

All extremist fanboys are on the same level of annoying.

Console fanboyism has got to be one of the most annoying fanboyisms on the planet. Everyday, an endless dick-wag-fest over software collection, hardware features, blah blah fucking blah. I don't know what it is. Extreme cases of buyers remorse in denial? I can totally understand how people can be fans of a particular console but to shoot down the competition before getting your facts straight just proves you're an extremist fanboy and extremist fanboy's opinions don't count. Anywhere.

I find the whole console war matter subjective. Everyone lives their lives in different ways. Everyone enjoys the gaming genres they enjoy. For the current generation of gaming, I have (or have regular access to) a PS3, Wii, PSP, and DS. Sorry Microsoft. It's not that I don't like you, but I have a PC and don't have the financial means or personal interest to purchase a 360 at the moment. Also, the 360 doesn't really fit in my gaming life at the moment. Heck, I don't play a lot of the games I already have since I've been busy with work and life in general. While commuting to school, the PSP comes in handy for on-the-go gaming with short levels and save points around every corner. Right now, I've got Space Invaders Extreme and flOw. I just got LostWinds from WiiWare and it's good for half hour sessions. I'm playing GT5 Prologue on the PS3 and it's quite fun regardless of how little content there actually is. And finally, just discovered the genius that is Rhythm Tengoku Gold on the DS. It makes me cream my pants.

Back to my non-argument...

Speaking in terms of 360 exclusive hardware features, it does nothing that a PC can't do. At the same time, a PS3 can't do much more than a BD-ROM equipped PC can do. I will point out a few advantages the PS3 has over the 360 from a very non-fanboy point of view.

A) Blu-ray.

I'm not a PS3 fanboy for liking Blu-ray capabilities though it seems to go hand in hand from previous experiences of saying I enjoy the Blu-ray format. I happen to enjoy my movies and games in High Definition - not just games. If HD-DVD stayed alive, the PS3 and 360 would be on fairly equal grounds except that the Blu-ray Disc can hold a lot more than a HD-DVD could. Don't even let me expand on the potential of the prototypes of Pioneer's 16-layer Blu-ray Disc. (here and here)

(After re-reading this section, available space on the medium would only be important to the developers. There is no solid evidence that correlates size of game to quality of game. My opinions and feelings towards the medium have clouded my judgment. I'm sorry. Though, theoretically, with the rise of graphical content and quality in the current generation of games, the size required on a disc will only rise. That is the basis of my argument of BD vs. DVD, and in this case, PS3 vs. 360.)

(I seem to be on a roll with knocking myself down tonight since there is no solid evidence that correlates quality of graphics to quality of game. Man, I suck. But then again, some people play games and judge them based on visuals alone. Those people might care. Can't forget about those people)

B) Less Proprietary Hardware / Accessories.

I just finished reading up on the 360's Wireless Headset capabilities just to see how it compared to the PS3. It takes up a whole quadrant on the Ring of Light? Correct me if I'm wrong but that means only 2 players with 2 wireless headsets? Looking on PlayStation support and it doesn't say anything about a limit to how many headsets you can connect. Maybe they just skirted around the issue by not giving a direct answer. Bad Sony; minus points for you. Then again, some people don't want to play with a split screen between 4 players in an online experience. Those people wouldn't care about anything I've said about the headsets, or wait...

You don't need to buy a special PS3 headset to connect to the console; I use the same bluetooth headset I use for my cell phone. I just saved a couple of bucks right there.

Then, there's the 360 hard drive, which is proprietary. I went to my local computer store and picked up a 250GB 2.5" SATA laptop drive and slipped it into a 40GB PS3 and what do you know - I've got a 250GB PS3 now.

I can't say much about the PlayStation Eye or the XBox Live Vision since I have neither and I don't video chat often but I guess Microsoft gets bonus points for making the Vision compatible with Mac OS 10.4.9 and the PS3. According to the PlayStation Eye FAQ page on the US PlayStation site, the Eye won't work on a PC. Nothing's popping up on Google either so the Vision is better than the Eye in compatibility. Comparing the two in features, the Eye outperforms the Vision due to the built-in microphone array and the ability to produce uncompressed video.

C) Hardware Quality in General

Maybe there was one or two issues with the PS3 that caused it to malfunction every now and a while but (knock on wood) there hasn't been anything remotely close to the epidemic of the RRoD. Everyone I know who owns a 360 has been through it, some more than once. The albeit few PS3 owners I know haven't had any hardware issues with their consoles. There was that mishap with Firmware 2.40 that caused a few consoles to brick due to 'certain system administrative data being contained in the HDD', but that problem was fixed in a week with the release of Firmware 2.41. Also, we got a reason as to why there was the hardware failure directly from the hardware manufacturers.

Has there been a fix to RRoDs?
No, though hardware changes have caused the failure rate to drop. I'll give props to Microsoft on that one except the RRoD epidemic shouldn't have happened.

Has there been a solid and concise answer to what causes it?
No, though there are many theoretical explanations online that I don't really care to explore.

I have my opinions on the two consoles but I tried to keep them out of the facts I was stating in the three advantages the PS3 has over the 360. They are advantages to me but not necessarily to everyone who ends up reading this. Maybe the size of the medium has no effect on you. Maybe you like buying proprietary hardware. Maybe you like hardware failing on you. I don't know. I don't know what kind of person you are or how you live. I know I like my PlayStation and how it fits in with my playing style. It does everything I need it to do and has the software I want for it.

If you know me, I'm not big on console shooters; I prefer my keyboard and mouse. The biggest titles for the 360 are FPSs: Halo 3, and Gears of War. I'm not saying I wouldn't get a 360 just because of that. I enjoy racers and find Forza to be intriguing but I can't say I'm really loyal to genres of games. I love the Gran Turismo and Need For Speed (Post-Underground) series' of racers while I couldn't care less about SRS and Juiced (which I did end up playing a lot of while waiting for the next parts of GT and NFS). Juiced 2 (on the PSP) took up a lot of my time, as well as The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift. I played GRID on the PC for a bit and I enjoyed it. I should revisit it though. Like I said, I'm playing Gran Turismo 5: Prologue on the PS3 and it's amazing minus the lack of car customizations. I can turn a blind eye to that because they have all the cars I want that fit my driving styles so tuning wouldn't be necessary. Midnight Club: LA looks ridiculous. The Viral Advertising approach EA is taking to promote Need for Speed Undercover is quite entertaining.

It's not my fault that the games I truly want to play happen to be on the PS3.

As for controllers, I'm a big fan of symmetry. I prefer the PS style analog sticks compared to the lopsided analog placement on the 360 Controller. I agree that the lack of weight in the SIXAXIS makes it feel dinky but it's something I got used to throughout my gaming sessions with the PS3. Also, it was pretty bad on Sony's part to not include a controller with rumble technology for the launch. Then again, some people don't like shaking controllers. Who am I to say that rumbling controllers are better than their non-rumbling counterparts? It's all in the experience you want.

But on to the real meat, I was talking to a person from my past who knew what kind of person I was and how much of a extremist fanboy I could be when it came to gaming, music, clothing labels, electronics, whatever. The person noticed that my outlook on things has changed dramatically since I wasn't getting on their case about not liking a particular song or music group who I enjoy to the fanboy level.

I've been reading destructoid for about a year now off and on (in reality, just reading the articles on the feeds that interested me) and learned of some of the Podcasts they were doing, namely Podtoid, and later RetroforceGO!. I believe I started listening to Podtoid around episode 32 and leading up to the success of the Orange Box. I believe that because I listened to Podtoid and RetroforceGO!, I am able to separate myself from those extremist fanboys and take a few steps back and look at things from a less narrow perspective. The crowd always had something more to say than just your average OH MAN THAT GAME WAS AWESOME. Their personal interests in games varies like snowflakes but they always seem to get along in their discussions about the gaming industry.

Reverend Anthony (Burch) and his love for unique gaming experiences (gameplay, storyline, etc) and his descriptions of such (both in writing and vocally) paint a lovely picture, most of which I steal when trying to describe similar gaming experiences I go through to other friends. He's supposed to be this hateful sonofabitch due to his Rev Rant on RfGO! and according to the descriptions I hear from the other podcasters but I've had angry friends in the past and he's nothing compared to them. Anthony's a big teddy bear in disguise. The fact that he can have such a deep love for Metal Gear Solid, Half-life 2, and BioShock means he must care for other things, like people, and... things.

Aaron Linde has taught me how to not care about other people: in the sense that it doesn't matter what other people like and dislike, and also in the direct meaning of that statement. I stopped caring about people. Period. (I kid.) For a recent example, his opinions on the FFXIII "scandal" in the recently passed E3 decreased my tunnel vision on the situation and, like I said, I don't care anymore. My sister was up in arms when her friend broke the news to her. I was mostly confused when I heard the news. I heard that there would be 360 exclusives for XIII and that it would be released sooner than the PS3 version. You just have to wonder... BD vs DVD: how will it translate between the two mediums? Personally, I still haven't finished X-2, and haven't even touched XII, though I did beat Crisis Core, but still, the Final Fantasy Series is on the back burner for now.

Jim Sterling focuses more on being aware, knowledgeable, understanding, and, sometimes, tolerant to certain topics and issues. His colourful and sexually explicit explanations for many things (Nicole Wiebe being my personal favourite) never cease to both amaze and disgust. I wish to be his pupil in pushing the envelope of the most horrific things to say in a podcast. Also, we can't forget his phone conversation with the one and only Jack Thompson on The Podcastle.

Tiff Chow, who is totally a friend on twitter, teaches me that women never play video games and never talk unless told to. Though, when she does get the occasional sentence out, her insights are highly valued and fairly deep for someone who doesn't play video games. She also apologizes too much.

Dyson's afk from RfGO! so I can't say much on him right now. He's an awesome host but I can't recall much since it's been a while. He is, however, the reason why I order Pizza Rolls whenever I see them on a menu.

He should be higher up on the list of shout-outs but CHAD CONCELMO IS THE BEST GUY EVERRRRRRR!!! :) :) :) If I had 1/100th of the positivity that oozes out of him per second, I'd probably be one of the happiest guys in the world. His love for... everything just makes me smile all day long. Happy people rock. :) :) :)

Colette Bennett totally breaks the female mold that Tiff makes in Podtoid. Then stomps all over it. Then runs it over with a steamroller. She's awesome personified. I can't really put my finger on a specific trait that she brings to the table other than awesomeness, instead she's gonna have to win the "most likely to be an awesome IRL friend" award.

Lastly, but definitely not least, Tohper Cantler brings absolutely no enthusiasm to the table other than the occasional curse word to show he means serious business. His monotonous style is one to be reckoned with. Just kidding. He's pretty enthusiastic for someone who doesn't love to be totally out there like Chad. It kind of reminds me of me when I'm not in a Chad mood. Tohper's taught me how outward reactions have nothing to do with how a person can feel on the inside. If, on the RetroforceGO! scale, a BEST WEEK EVER!!! is the same as a Yard Sale, then there's definitely a lot of emotion Topher has but isn't bring up to the surface. This may be helpful in cases of meeting people for the first time, and with shy people.

Thanks to these totally amazing 8 people who take time out of their own busy schedules to have some of the most memorable skype conversations, I can say that I've learned to not be a bitch about such trivial things and how to respect others more than I have in the past - when it comes to opinions. When people don't have their facts straight and don't bother to know any better, I still lay the smack down on them. It's only right to do so. (I kid.)

So in response to the console fanboys, I don't really care which console you love. I just want to read some decent arguments when you post on how much you hate the other. Also, if your post has nothing intelligent in it, at least make it appear intelligent by using proper punctuation and double checking grammar and spelling errors.

Warehouses and Star Wars

2008-07-24T22:50:00.003-04:00

I said I'd be blogging more often since I've unlocked the themes of what I'd be blogging about but due to lack of interest and energy after work, I haven't been doing anything here. I've been slacking on Bananas and BLM but not as much as I have been here. Heck, I haven't even updated the Mexico post ~~or put in the other links on last month's Blog Banter~~ DONE! Something's gotta change.

Oh wait, something did. I got an iPod Touch. The only thing that sucks is that there's no wifi at work. However, I can now write posts while afk and put them up when I get home. Hopefully, that'll get me to update my other posts and put TAR back on track.

But what I wanted to share with everyone today is the primary reason as to why I haven't been keeping up: work. I work at a tile warehouse and work one of two positions, depending on the time of day. At first, I was a dock worker; I'd help customers (various contractors, do-it-yourselfers, etc) put their orders in their trunks, flatbeds, containers, etc. It's not a bad gig but when we get rushes and when you have to lift boxes upon boxes of ridiculously heavy tiles, you start to feel the burn. I'd be working from 7AM to 6PM. I later became interested on actually walking around the warehouse and learned to be an order picker. So now, I work on the docks from 7 - 10 and as an order picker from 10 - 7.

As an order picker, I push a cart around and make orders. There are 3 different types of pickers: push cart pickers (there's ~5 of us depending on if we can get the vehicle required to be...), standing cart pickers (who use motorized carts to move skids. There are about 10 of those at work.), and finally, forklift drivers. Each level of picker can only take so much weight so there are trade offs with each type: push carts take the lightest loads but you're walking all day. Standing carts are fun to drive and you don't have to walk but the loads get significantly heavier. Lastly, forks are the badasses of the warehouse and lift anything. Well, not everything. Just everything else. The silent heroes at the warehouse are reach truck drivers. Reach trucks assist the pickers by moving skids from high shelves to a reachable level.

Knowing all that is only a quarter of the battle. The 2nd quarter is knowing the layout of the warehouse. There are a few confusing loop holes that you learn with time but when you start, they totally don't make your day. The next is knowing what's what so when you take your order to the checkers, you don't have to redo anything. But finally, and most importantly, how to survive here is to learn how to deal with the people. The weirdest thing about working here is that everyone is so nice. You'd think it be the contrary but based on stories I hear from friends working at offices, this isn't half as bad. It's probably because the work is so balls that bringing everyone else down around you would be too much work.

When I first took this job, I was like, oh crap, I want out. Now, though the hours still suck, every two weeks make it worth it. Either way, it's summer and I might as well be doing something.

And to end with a little anecdote, there was this one time I as just watching the trucks go by while on the docks and was reminded of scenes from Star Wars where the Rebel fleet would fly towards the Death Star and there would be X-wings, Y-wings, A-wings, etc. all flying as one. A reach truck, forklift, standing cart and push cart were travelling down the main hall and that's what I thought about. Yup.

Blog Banter: I Love Limited Edition Stuff!

2008-06-15T14:08:00.005-04:00

Welcome, welcome to the 6th installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza headed by bs angel! Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

I'll keep this short and quick since I listen to podtoid and RetroforceGO! like some sort of religious ritual and they've been through this topic a few times, I believe, or at least I remember Mr. Chad Concelmo talking about it... probably in the Podtoid he guest starred in. My opinion isn't too far off from what they were saying if I remember correctly.

Firstly, I'm a bit of a collector. I'm a sucker for anything that says "First Press" and/or "Limited Edition", especially for Japanese CDs or game franchises that I adore. I just recently purchased the Limited Edition of Metal Gear Solid 4 because Metal Gear Solid is totally made of awesome and win and as a Metal Gear fanboy, I must purchase the Limited Edition because it totally boosts my fanboy cred. (My collection of Limited Edition / First Press Perfume releases is, even in my opinion, quite impressive.)

But, on the flip side, I don't tend to buy regular editions of CDs or games unless:

a) I completely LOVE the Game / CD.

AND

b) There is no Limited Edition.

OR

c) There's nothing special packaged with the Limited Edition.

Heck, I got suckered into buying Need For Speed: Carbon in Limited Edition and I don't think there was anything special except a few extra, pre-tuned cars - nothing that would make it TOO much different from the regular edition in the long run.

Sigh.

I think that's it for now though I think I want to put a few more cents into this post, but I have to head out >_> WOO Wonderland (btw, that's where I'm going right now! I have to head out the door now. Gotta love procrastination)

Check out these other Blog Banter articles! Living Epic, Silvercublogger, Mahogany Finish, Video Game Sandwich, thoughts and rants, weblog.probablynot.com, XboxOZ360, Zath!, Delayed Responsibility, Gamer Unit, Hawty McBloggy, Triage Effect

Quite possibly the greatest story ever told.

2008-06-11T00:05:00.003-04:00

If you don't mind hearing the "C" word a few times, Reverend Anthony of Destructoid recalls an experience with a customer from days of old in episode 50 of Retroforce GO!

I managed to cut it out so you don't have to download the entire episode but if you're an RFGO! fan, episode 50 was epic and should be listened to. If you're not, then this story is fkn gold either way.

Rev's Story

What have I been doing the past week?

2008-06-01T18:22:00.003-04:00

Oh right, I have blogs to write in.

I have been out of the country, and still am, for a wedding I attended in Mexico. Cozumel to be exact. The place I stayed at had wifi except it was snail slow and made everyone frustrated. I decided that I wouldn't post to save myself from said frustration and maybe have a big post instead of a bunch of little ones.

I am currently in Charlotte, North Carolina waiting for a connecting flight to Buffalo. I don't want to upload pictures here on the public wifi so I'll wait until I get home for all that fun stuff.

This post will get updated within a few hours or a day.

thoughts and rants about thoughts and rants

2008-05-20T21:40:00.000-04:00

I really haven't been doing too much to thoughts and rants since I've started her up again other than participating in Blog Banter and putting a post here and there about random things, though mostly gaming related things. I didn't really want to make thoughts and rants a personal blog but I think I want to cross that threshold (though enough of my blogs contain enough of me to go around). I'll try and even out the category distribution as well.

Hopefully because of this re-badging, I won't hesitate as much to put down some thoughts (and rants) on here.

Blog Banter: sometimes, it's the little things...

2008-04-30T18:05:00.002-04:00

Welcome, welcome to the 5th installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza headed by bs angel! Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month, my ADD kicks in while I explain why I have problems finishing games. Sometimes, I just can't keep interested in a game long enough to finish it. The reasons behind it can range from it's just not good, or that another game I'm more excited to play comes out before I finish. Other times, life just gets in the way. Also, some games just can't hold my interest the same way others could when I was a kid; I say mostly due to not having as many gamer friends as I did when I was younger. I had some awesome gamer cousins live in the house next door to us way back when and we'd always just sit around the Sega Genesis and just kill every game we owned after school and every weekend.

If I had to sit down and think of the last game I didn't finish due to an actual game mechanic... I would have to say any console FPS because analog sticks aren't as fluid as the good old mouse and keyboard. Those minor setbacks didn't prevent me from playing, however. I learned, adapted, and forced my way through and came out on top.

But SOMETIMES, there are little things that just make me go UGH about games and I just stop playing. The most recent example of this would have to be Trackmania Nations Forever. You can get it free on Steam. I can't stand the menus. Maybe it's just be but whenever I press a navigation button, on keyboard or controller, it either feels like turbo mode is on and I can't accurately select menu items or it takes me to the wrong menu item in the logical sequence (it takes me right instead of down when I press down or something like that). Also, mouse clicks don't work. I can't even create an online profile because I can't type in the text boxes. After trying to figure out the quirks (which I didn't) for 10 minutes, I gave up and haven't played it since. Menus, though you try not to stay in them for long, are an important part of any game. Menus should be usable. They should be fluid and understandable. They should also look ok. I love audiosurf but when I first saw their menus, I wasn't sure I was playing the right game. The in-game screenshots looked like total eye candy but the same can't be said about their menu system. It is fluid and easy to get around, but something about it feels unprofessional, unpolished.

Another non-gaming mechanic that causes me to stop playing games are non-customizable controls. If I can't get used to a control scheme, I won't play it. It's one thing when you're having trouble with a game because you're learning the strategies, it's another when you can't even control your character in the way you want to. If a game doesn't have customizable controls but the default control scheme is perfect, awesome. If it doesn't follow any logical sense to use the default scheme, you better make the controls customizable.

That is all XD

Check out these other Blog Banter articles! Silvercublogger, Unfettered Blather, Triage Effect, Gamer Unit, Delayed Responsibility, Man Bytes Blog, CrazyKinux's Musing, Zath!, Draining Souls.net, Game Couch, Hawty McBloggy

Sony vs. Sony: are they really fighting against themselves?

2008-04-23T12:49:00.003-04:00

A few sources say Sony's opening a video store on the PSN this summer. Morgan Webb makes mention of NewTeeVee's take on the news by saying that it's ironic that the winner of the format war will be making HD movies available online:

I just never would have guessed that Sony would be the one to undermine its own format.
- Wagner James Au

~~Ok, hi. I don't care how lightning fast your internet connection is but do you REALLY want to download 50GB of something you could just spend $30 on in your local video store?~~

I didn't read the comments for this article before posting it up...

The "regular NewTeeVee readers [that] note[d] the keen irony of the news" back stabbed the poor soul that wrote the article with things I was about to say:

What a lame headline. Why don’t people understand that some people just like tangible products. The disc, the box art, the insert. I like being able to browse through a physical library. I also like not having to worry about losing movies if my hard drive dies. Besides, I need that hard drive space for games and demos, I’m not going to clog it up and waste energy downloading movies.
- Ken

This is stupid. Downloads arent going to take over for at least another 5 years. (more realistically, closer to 8-9 years) first, hard drives must become cheaper so that everyone can have as many movies as they want, with out having to delete one everytime. Also, internet is still too slow. I’ve heard people that have the fastest internet avaliable, and it still takes them 2 hours to download a full length HD movie. I’d much rather take five minutes to go rent/ buy a movie from the store down the street.
- Slayerking131

I was going to touch on the whole tangibility thing since heaven knows I love tangible products but the commenters did a decent job and I don't really have much to say except that 50GB is massive.

not as bad as last year and some PSP pr0n shots too!

2008-04-09T08:39:00.009-04:00

This year, I'm 4 days late for celebrating the birthday of thoughts and rants. Last year, I was 25 days late. That's quite an improvement, don't you think? I remembered on the 4th but once the 5th rolled around, I forgot until the 8th. I'm doing something about it now on the 9th. That's enough with numbers and dates.

My PSP's been on the fritz for a while since I dropped it on a tiled floor back in December which forced to switch back to my original black PSP faceplate to make the D-Pad operational again since one of the screw supports broke off. Also, I dropped it again which caused the analog stick to break in half (see right). Finally, long before both of those boo-boos, my UMD drive door was broken and would pop open if you pushed up on the bottom of it and one of the support peg things broke while I was trying to install it (yes, I broke my first replacement UMD drive. *shrug*).

Thanks to ebay, I've purchased replacements for all of the above (UMD Door, Analog Stick, and faceplate) and have received and installed all of them. It feels so brand new. May I present, Cissnei V1.0:

I've been playing too much Crisis Core. Or maybe not enough Crisis Core since I'm still calling her Cissnei. I'll explore her back ~~side~~ story further once I complete the game (tee hee).

I'll make an official post on how I un~~dressed~~screwed Cissnei open to fix her with pictures and everything but until then, please enjoy these PSP pr0n pix.

just... no.

2008-03-31T19:07:00.003-04:00

I've been wanting to write an article about the nublets on a particular forum for a LONG time now and I never really had the motivation to do a full write up until now, I can't just remain silent any longer.

For the record, I DESPISE forums. I don't quite know why but I'd rather talk to people on MSN or IRC or something interactive. As stupid as it sounds, I've subscribed to the QJ.net forums via RSS (just to stay on top of homebrew and theme releases) and it's my least favourite feed to go through. The reason? Lazy people. The great thing is that some even say that they're lazy in their own posts.

I get the random idiotic posts from the help forum about whether a custom firmware upgrade would work from firmware x.xx, or this ISO doesn't work for this firmware, or something that can be easily fixed if they just used the forum's search function or looked at the millions upon millions of guides online about PSP support or just GOOGLED IT. Firstly, there's a guide for box codes and custom firmware upgrades, what you can do with each firmware, and the upgrade/downgrade options are. That and there's Pandora's Battery and the Magic Memory Stick and Dark_AleX's Despertar del Cementerio that solves all problems. (Really, They do solve all problems.) Secondly, talk of game "backups" and the sort is taboo on the forum and is clearly stated in the forum rules and policies. Thirdly, no one uses the search function. It's official.

One post that really sticks out in my mind (and I find to be the textbook definition of lazy) was of this one user asking for help with this plugin that required the user to dump the 3.90 firmware just to get 3 files required to run it. It's a simple task on a PSP with custom firmware, copy files to specific places on your memory stick, load it, press a button, wait 2 minutes while the files copy, and it's done. Someone couldn't even muster enough patience to do that and said something along the lines of, I'm lazy, someone send me these files. It might be a bit harsh but I say, if you're not willing to put in the effort to learn how to use your hardware or take stupid shortcuts like that, you don't deserve the new features it allows. That and I hate "easy" installers people make specifically for the nublets. If they're so scared and require an "easy" installer, they probably shouldn't be messing around with such things. That and the original install was effing easy enough as is. They're called words. Read them.

Everything I know about the PSP, I've read through FAQs and guides posted on forums, and just by experimentation. I'm not scared of bricking my PSP since I have Pandora's battery and a Magic Memory Stick always ready to go. I learned how to make them from the readmes that were packaged with them.(Speaking of readmes, does anyone read them anymore?) I'm not saying I'm a PSP master or anything - I've semi-bricked myself about a hundred times installing new themes using the old flashing to flash0 method, pre-CXMB v3.1 that allows the packaging of fonts in a CTF file format and to be loaded via the Settings > Theme Settings. (I'm not talking about the lame PTF "themes" that Sony makes that replaces icons.)

(This is what triggered this post.) I was reading through the forum feed when I come across an entry with the headline "YouPorn" and being me, I clicked on it just out of curiosity since talking about things like that would be taboo on a forum like this. It did not disappoint in delivering an epic failure of a post.

Enough said.

But to end on a happy note, I made something pink and shiny.

Need help with your PSP? Send me a comment or e-mail or hit me up on AIM. I won't bite, I promise. Just please say you've done a little homework before you contact me.

Blog Banter: I do have a life, thanks.

2008-03-28T00:14:00.006-04:00

Welcome, welcome faithful readers to the 4th installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza headed by the one and only bs_angel! Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should go to here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post! This month's topic: "What, in your opinion, is the biggest stereotype about gamers? Do you fit it or not?":

I don't know about you but something that really bothers me is when people can't appreciate hard work. I'm not saying you should go out of your way to complement people on their hard work (it really puts a smile on their face if you do :D), but at the same time, why go out of your way to insult something you just can't appreciate?

As I mentioned in my previous Blog Banter post, I've been playing rhythm games for about 7 years now. I've been playing DDR since 2001 and just started ITG last year and progress has been going smoothly. I first heard of and experienced DDR from a friend of a cousin in California. We played DDR on the PlayStation for one night. While on vacation, we also road tripped to Vegas where my sister and I got our first taste of arcade play in the Circus Circus midway. Fun times were had. Once we returned home, we bought as many mixes of DDR as we could on the PlayStation with two home pads. I admit, there were days where I'd just play the entire day. I once played so much that I got sick. We had our PlayStation in our basement and it was cold down there during the summer and I'd sweat bullets and yeah... I got sick. But anyway, I can't remember how well I progressed but all I remember is that by the time 7th Mix (MAX 2) came out in my local arcade, I was able to sightread 9foot heavy songs. Right now, the only song I still have trouble with in DDR is Paranoia Survivor Max - Oni Chart. (I'm not counting SuperNOVA and SuperNOVA 2 songs since I don't have access to machines. That and I don't count home play as real scores since the quality of home pad is variable, unless metal, but I don't have a metal pad.) That and all throughout this time period of 7 years, I've had a life. I graduated high school, attended some university and I'm currently enjoying my college career. I still go out with friends, watch movies, check out shows, etc.

Now that the back story is over, I absolutely hate it when people insult me just because I can do 10 foot DDR songs and 11 block ITG songs (the maximum rating for official ITG songs is 13 Block). Relating to the topic of the month (in case I lost you in my back story), the stereotype that I find most gamers have to prove to others they don't fall under is the basement dwelling, pimple-faced, junk food consuming, anti-social gamer geek that only speaks in 1337c0d3. The lines I hear the most from these people insulting me goes something like, "Omg, you have no life. You have way too much time on your hands. This game is a joke. You seriously think this is dancing?" Believe it or not, it was once uncool to be good at video games.

I don't think I have to prove anything to anyone about what kind of life I lead so I just tend to ignore those kinds of ridiculous questions and the people who get in my way while playing. But, to answer your questions...

1) I have a life.

2) I used to have a lot of time on my hands in high school. (Oh the number RPGs I played through as a kid.) Right now, I spend most of my time doing other things such as school, web surfing, random music related stuffs and so forth.

3) ITG and DDR are games. That's all they are to me and that's all they'll ever be. It just so happens I'm passionate about games. You might be passionate about something but who am I to judge what drives you. And finally,

4) GOOD HEAVENS, DDR and ITG on heavy/expert is the furthest thing in the world from dancing. Some of the truly talented steppers make routines based on light/easy stepcharts since they have a lot of free time to work with but in the end, DDR and ITG are just games. You're given a simple task to hit arrow buttons at specific times. That is all.

plz forgive me if this entry is short/disjointed/very quickly done. i totally forgot about it and i totally have a huge assignment due tomorrow. i might edit this as i see fit during the weekend. i just couldn't miss out on blog banter! lol

Participants : The Average Gamer, Silvercublogger, shinybento, Unfettered Blather, Boom Stick Brigade, Gamer Unit, Zath!, Man Bytes Blog, Game Couch, Video Game Sandwich, Hawty McBloggy

[PC] Audiosurf review

2008-02-26T21:46:00.007-05:00

Wow. Casual gaming has reached a new level of fun with this gem from BestGameEver. Audiosurf is a game which allows you to ride your music. Select a vehicle and (almost) any song from your music library and let audiosurf work its magic, creating a high-tech highway for you to ride on. The more intense the song, the more of a downwards slope your highway takes and the faster your obstacles come at you and vice-versa. Each vehicle possess a different scoring strategy giving players a variety of ways to rack up the points. Not too much of a complex game description at all but still, jolly good fun.

In a nutshell, the game comes in 5 flavors, though I usually partake in one. Ninja being the first where it's your goal to collect the coloured blocks dodge the grays. You have 3 collection columns to collect said coloured blocks in which disappear when 3 or more blocks come in contact. Biggers scores for more than 3 blocks touching. Ninja Pro and Ninja Mono are the Medium and Elite levels respectively and kick the difficulty up a few notches. Pointman is similar to Ninja except with 3 colours and no gray blocks. Pusher is similar to Pointman except you can push blocks between the columns upon collection. Double Vision allows you to play as 2 vehicles or you and a friend to control one each. I'm a Ninja Mono on Ironmode kinda guy, personally. I'd explain Ironmode to you, except I'd have to kill you after.

The video to the right features myself playing in Ninja Mono without Ironmode with one of my favourite songs right now, "I'm Feeling You" by capsule. I should replay this song since I did pretty badly but I believe the video captures why I love playing this game. You can use any just about any song to play. I say just about any song because it doesn't support Japanese (and probably any non-english) characters in the filenames though a simple file rename will do the trick though people may find that annoying. Anyhow, no longer are we limited to the playlists of the developers of music games of old. Then again, with PC music game emulators such as stepmania, one can make stepcharts to any song they can get their hands on except that making such files take a lot of time and originality to make a truly fun song. Given how fast audiosurf runs the audio files through its algorithm and how dynamic of an experience each song gives, I tip my hat to the devs for such a successful algorithm.

Graphically, this game is a trip. To truly gain an edge in this game, it's best to have as high a frame rate as possible. I've gone as far as to hook up my old CRT and play at 800x600 running at 120hz. Smooth. Very smooth. Visual effects are superb though you're too focused on not hitting gray blocks to notice most of them. There should be a built-in replay system. Maybe I'll drop it into a suggestion box, though fraps does the trick.

Sound-wise, the game gives you the choice between 4 styles of sound effects or the option to go silent and just listen to the music while rocketing down the highways. I'm a fan of the Chimes sound set though each sound good depending on the genre on the song being played. The sound effects are cute and add that touch of unique spice to the already flavorful game

The only thing I can really complain about is the menu system. It's not completely horrid but it's nothing I enjoy looking at. A more flowy interface would be nice and something a little more dynamic and fun that actually matches the game's play style. Good thing menus don't actually affect my final opinion for this game or else I might have to hate it a bit.

One final rant would be on the global score boards. Good thing they added the wave view so then you can see if other players actually played the same song/version you did. Cheating scores by faking the ID3 tags would be garbage.

So you want a game that doesn't have much to it but is hours of fun, totally personalizable and totally eye and ear candy for a music whore like myself? Audiosurf is definitely for you. If music doesn't interest you and zipping down a digital highway of yum doesn't tickle your fancy, avoid this like the plague.

Let's do this.

2008-02-26T16:25:00.004-05:00

I've been absent for a while but let's get beyond that. I've got a lot to report on:

I haven't been paying too much attention to GDC but I'll pay attention to the summary posts from all the blogs to see what the highlights were.

~~It's been a week and a few days since Audiosurf came out and I love it. Review coming soon.~~

Recently acquired a Wii and have been dissecting it and the first game I purchased for it, NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams.

Patapon will be in my possession in a few hours. You might not hear from me for a while.

I guess that's a checklist of all the posts I need to make in the near future. Check me out later.

Update: One down. I don't think I'll be making a GDC post though. That and Patapon comes out tomorrow in Canada. I'll have it in my hands then. I did manage to play through the complete demo. Exclusive weaponry, yay!?

Blog Banter: getting to know me...

2008-02-12T00:00:00.001-05:00

Welcome, welcome to the 3rd installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza headed by the one and only bs_angel! Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should go to here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post! This month's topic: "What games would you suggest someone play if they wanted to get to know you better?":

Hi! I go by johpan or soundboy depending on my game of choice but if there's a spy sappin' your sentry, your groovestats could use more tri-stars, you bank your star-power for when you're in the red, and are friends with Nightopians, you might speak my language.

Starting from the outside in, if you know me, or even if you just see me walking around alone, you can tell I'm a Music Junkie. I *heart* music and can't live without it. If you saw me around downtown or on campus, riding the bus or subway, or driving by me on the highway, you'll either see me wearing headphones, bobbing my head to the beat, tapping my feet, drumming to the rhythm, or a combination of the above. So, when you fuse music and gaming, I'm on that like a kid in a candy store.

I play some guitar IRL so Guitar Hero might help you get to know that side of me though I don't play too hardcore IRL. My favourite genre of music to play is punk while in GH3, I'm working on Through The Fire and Flames on Hard.

I'm not an aspiring dancer or anything but I'm a huge fan of the defunct In The Groove (and was previously a fan of DDR) and in my spare time, as I've mentioned before, I make stepcharts. I've even posted one on this blog but I'll be posting them on my music blog, boylikesmusic, from here on out. I like to say that I put a little bit of myself in each of my stepcharts so when you play any one of my stepcharts, you get to experience a little bit of me.

But somewhere deep inside, I'd really like to hone my composing and remixing skills which brings me to Beatmania IIDX. That game is chock full of songs and genres I try to emulate though I always like to put my own spin on things. I might try to experiment with different vocals or synth sounds or instrument filters - the possibilities are endless. A friend, whose interest in composing and remixing of electronic music compares or surpasses mine, proposed we release a made-for-internet friends-only CD release. I showed interest for it but with school and the limited time we get to chat, we haven't really had the time to follow through. We dream big though.

Speaking of dreams, I have a lot of things I'd like to do and achieve before I die that seem rather farfetched. I dream big but procrastination and plain laziness gets the best of me. In a way, you could say that I'm a Dreamer in need of Direction, or a Hero. This quality reminds me of an old Saturn game featuring a flying, purple-clad jester who defends the dreams of children all over the world (or Japan at least...) For those who haven't guessed, I'm talking about NiGHTS: Into Dreams for the Sega Saturn.

I played through that game at least 20 times. Our Saturn was quite strange - it wouldn't retain save files. It was hard to track down a memory cartridge back in the day from what I remember and we tried replacing the system battery a few times but nothing happened. Looking back, it was a blessing and a curse. Blessing in that I played through such a legendary game so many times. Curse in that playing RPGs was impossible (we did manage to score a memory cartridge which ended up failing on us after a couple of years... lol >_>). That game defined my childhood. If you watched Superbad and remember Seth's obsession with drawing penises, that was me, but with NiGHTS. How I wished every night that I could be Elliot and find my Claris who was just as much of a dreamer as i was. Oh how I miss them so. I think I'm going to load it up again and play right after I post this entry. And no, I don't have a Wii and yes, I do want to try NiGHTS but I tried it out for 30 seconds at my local EB and didn't feel the magic I once felt from my childhood. Maybe I should invest more time into it...

Before I get to that, a final game that reminds me of myself and one should play to understand my inner workings would be everyone's favourite murder simulator, Grand Theft Auto. Why you ask? It's definitely because I'm a wanted felon and steal cars and kill hookers for shits and giggles. Yup.

*Publish*

In GTA land, there are many things to do: you could advance in the game while performing missions, you could earn money by doing odd jobs, you can also run around and cause all sorts of mayhem. I find myself so bombarded with choice that I don't know what to do. I find that I'm so multifaceted that people don't know what to do with me. There are so many sides to me, I don't know how to act some times. GTA has its feet in many different genres of gaming: it's an adventure game, it has RPG type elements (body building, questing, etc), it's a racer, it's a flight sim, it's a tactical third-person shooter with some first person views, it's a gambling game, you get the picture. The thing is that it doesn't do any of the above quite spectacularly. I do many things and like to think that I have my feet wet (or at least moist) in a decent collection in skills, though I don't really specialize in one. One thing is that makes GTA so awesome is that you can do all those things in one package. I'll let you fill in what I was thinking after that sentence. Do I seem egotistical?

I usually don't write this much about myself but when I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll. When faced with a big group, especially of people I don't know, I'm usually the quietest one there. If you see me in a Team Fortress 2 server, I'm quiet unless spoken to. I don't do the whole trash talking thing. Too much effort. Which leads me to my final "getting to know you" point. I'm shy when my reputation and emotions are on the line. Watch me in any multiplayer FPS with voice chat with complete randoms. I don't say anything. Maybe the occasional "Spy as _____" warning to the comrades but nothing else. I've never made friends through gaming online. Strange, no? Anyway, watch me in a TF2 server, and you'll know what it's like to be around me in a crowd.

Do you feel like you know me now?

Participants : Silvercublogger, The Average Gamer, Game Couch, thoughts and rants, Delayed Responsibility, Boom Stick Brigade, Boom Stick Brigade 2, CrazyKinux's Musing, Gamer Unit, Draining Souls.net, 8-Bit Brigade, Zath Games Tech, Arm the Flag, Hawty McBloggy

impulse buy w00t

2008-02-11T21:31:00.002-05:00

I heard about it on Destructoid... twice. That and if you read my Blog Banter (which won't be posted for another 2.5 hours. PIME TARADOX!?) this is just another piece of candy in the store of life. I'll post a full review when the 15th hits... or a few days after. ZOMG! FREE ORANGE BOX SOUNDTRACK UPON PURCHASE FTW.

For those who don't know what audiosurf is... welcome to the club. I just saw a few youtube videos of it and creamed my pants. Not really but it does look like fun and it's like $9USD. Support the industry!

i've joined the dark side ... and have become more machine than man ... just like anakin!

2008-02-01T23:36:00.000-05:00

i joined dtoid today. i feel welcomed. check me out every now and a while. btw, I'll still be doing my blog bantering here as well as all my techy stuff... gaming's shifting to dtoid tho, but not all of it...

click ME!

btw, on a side note, I slightly changed TaR's layout. Looks a bit sleeker, dontcha think? My banner closely resembles the banner I have on my dtoid blog. I'm just so creative like that. oh yay, oh yay. >_>

Photoshow Galore with PicLens!

2008-01-31T22:17:00.000-05:00

PicLens is a mega win of an add-on for everyone's favourite browser, FireFox. Made by the makers of the Previews add-on (if you don't know about the previews add-on, go look it up as well - it's a very handy add-on), Cooliris, this add-on takes pictures on most popular websites and arranges them on a full-screen "3D Wall" and allows you to view them in a slideshow without having to install any heavy duty software. You can use Google Images, Google's Picasa Web Albums, Facebook, Flickr, etc (well those are the sites I use it for :P) and it loads ALL of the results on the 3D wall. For serious. I did a quick search of a Japanese pop artist I like which returned 600+ images on Google Images and wow. That's seriously all I can say.

There's a tutorial video on the Cooliris site to show you how it works but there's just one more feature I'd like to point out. When focused on a picture, you can click on a button that takes you to the source of the image.

Isn't that awesome?

PS2: RIP 2001-2008

2008-01-30T22:25:00.000-05:00

Our PS2 died. Disc Read Error. I might open 'er up. I read through a few of the guides online but the tinkering sounds like a hassle. I'll try it later. *sigh* I was just starting to get back into Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. The Podtoid guys were talking about how epic the storyline and characters were in a recent episode and i got all nostalgic. lol. *siiigh*

UPDATE: fix'd. rubbing alcohol + q-tip = love.

this was supposed to be here tuesday... there was something in the air.

2008-01-17T11:12:00.000-05:00

so, macworld. keynote. yay. i was excited, then i fell asleep at 12:30pm EST. i woke up around 3pm and just refreshed the liveblogs on tuaw, engadget, and gizmodo. i originally wanted to liveblog on the liveblogs... then i figured it'd be kinda useless. so now that the dust has settled and macworld's drawing to a close, i'll put in my two cents on the announcements Mr. Jobs made during said keynote. actually, make that haikus.

time capsule.

i don't have leopard
i could use a terabyte
wireless n huh?

iphone.

don't have an iphone
i kinda want a new phone
save this for later

itunes/appletv

i don't have a use
for any of this because
VGA out yay!

macbook air

omg you're thin
very minimalistic
need more power though

tf2 changelogs, opinions, and funsicles

2008-01-10T10:48:00.000-05:00

I've been home for about 4 full days now and managed to rack up 14.7 hours on TF2 since then. That's 15.3% of my time. I feel special. A few comments on the changelog:

Team Fortress 2

Jan 7th
* Added an option in the Options->Multiplayer dialog to filter custom game files being downloaded from servers
Oh wow. I didn't read this one. I need to pay more attention. I'll try this one out when I play again.

* Fixed cases where ragdolls were falling through the world
Random fallings through floors sound like fun...

* Graphics optimizations for mid and low end hardware
I'm not sure if I noticed anything but the graphics still look nice on my lowish end machine and perform at an OK rate.

* Fixed players blocking doors in Well
Oh Griefing #2. We love you. I say putting things like what Team Roomba did in a game for real would make kids smarter. TF2 Trivia ftw.

* Fixed engineer building in exploit areas on final caps in Well
Never noticed this exploit. Comment videos on it plz?

* Increased starting round timer to 10 minutes in Well
As long as the teams aren't stacked, the linear control point maps can last hours. Kinda like 2fort. Except the linears are a little more fun.

Dec 31st

* Fixed "CUtlLinkedList overflow!" crash
*shrug*

* Added player position data to server logging of events (player_death, player_builtobject, teamplay_flag_event, object_destroyed, teamplay_point_captured, teamplay_capture_blocked)
Probably helpful in generating heat maps, etc.

* Improved mapcycle handling to ensure it always loads new mapcycles when the mapcyclefile convar is changed
*shrug*

* Fixed sniper quick-switch exploit allowing them to avoid zoom/unzoom times
Never noticed it though I wish I did...

* Fixed an exploit allowing players to spawn into the enemy territory at the start of a round
Whoa. I wish I found that one...

* Fixed syringegun projectiles sometimes pushing players high up into the air, allowing them to reach bad map locations
Hrm... Sounds like fun

* Removed an obscure rendering setting that would allow players to make cloaked spies appear fully black
I remember playing CS1.5 back in the day on my shitty compy and there was a rendering setting that would allow me to see through walls without hax. awp_city was fun.

Dec 22nd

* Fixed an audio problem in the previous update where sound corruption could occur on some systems
*shrug*

Dec 21st

* Restricted sound engine updates to a max of 100fps
*shrug*

* Fixed the problem with mp_maxrounds not correctly counting the number of rounds for Dustbowl after the scoring change
*shrug*

* Fixed cloaked/disguised/disguising spy reporting his achievements to everyone else
[player] has achieved Master of Disguise.
*gasp*
*BONESAW*
lol

* Added the ability for servers to have map-specific .cfg files in the cfg folder (missed in yesterday's release notes)
If I ran a server, I'd probably have a nice, big comment on this one.

Dec 20th

* Sudden Death mode is now a server option (a convar) and defaults to OFF
Sudden Death is fun. Except when you die in the first few seconds.

* Sapped buildings now take slightly less damage from the Spy who sapped them
I usually just let the sapper do the magic while I go batshit trying to kill the engi.

* The Medic's Medigun now charges at an increased rate during Setup time, to remove the need for self-damage grinding
But self-damage grinding is fun... I still do it.

* Fixed an rcon/console command that could cause server crashes
*shrug*

* Prevented players from playing the "civilian" class
Griefing #1. Tee hee. "WTF is up with these scouts!?"

* Prevented players from hiding their name in the scoreboard
Technically, the scoreboard still only shows 12 players on each side so as long as you suck, you can hide your name on the scoreboard if there is more than 12 players

* Fixed exploit where the Medigun UberCharge wouldn't drain if you switched weapons
I wish I knew...

* Fixed decals not being correctly applied to the world in some cases
*shrug*

* Fixed critical bullet tracers not being visible to players other than the firer
*shrug*

* Fixed first person spectator view of the Spy watch not showing the correct cloak value
*shrug*

* Fixed the teleporter's player shaped particles not drawing
*shrug*

* Fixed the flamethrower stuttering when firing directly into a building
*shrug*

* Fixed a rare crash that can happen when a player being healed leaves the server suddenly
*shrug*

* Fixed rocket trail effects sometimes existing permanently in world
When I die firing as a heavy, the muzzle flash usually continues until I respawn

* Added effects to players when they earn an achievement, visible to other players nearby
It's cute.

* Tweaked achievement HUD fonts and color palette for more readability
Didn't notice.

* Improved stat gathering for map play times to increase accuracy
I <3 stats.

* Improved stat gathering around draws to better understand why they're occurring
*shrug*

* Fixed occasional misreporting of syringe gun & fireaxe damage distances to the stats system
*shrug*

* Fixed an occasional crash caused by an achievement not being found during a game announcement
*shrug*

Dustbowl

* Now waits until either team wins fully before changing to another map on server timelimit expiring
Shouldn't it be like that already?

* Teams now score a point per captured control point, rather than per sub round
Yay. More points.

* Prevented Demomen being able to launch grenades into the stage three alleys while standing at the final cap point
I'm confused?

* Fixed gaps in stage gates that allowed snipers to kill defenders during setup
hehe boo.

* Fixed several model and brush perch exploits in stage three
*shrug*

* Added stair access to the upper area in stage three after the first cap
I was wondering why I never noticed that staircase before...

* Limited line-of-sight at the first control point in stage 3 to remove a griefable sniper spot
Heheh, griefable.

OH EXPLOITABLE.

Blog Banter: resolution guidelines

2008-01-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

Blog Banter is a group of bloggers passionate about video games. We enjoy getting together once a month to write about the same subject. You will be amazed at the different viewpoints so many people can have on the same exact topic. If you are interested in participating, contact bs angel for more information. Check out all the other Blog Banter 2 articles here.

Guidelines were meant to guide therefore, if I fail to follow through with these guidelines, I won't feel as bad if I were to fail. As a gamer, a blogger, and a student of computer studies, my resolution guideline to follow is to be a better programmer. Even though I study it and I claim to enjoy doing it, I haven't really done much programming outside of school. I always tell myself (and a few others) that I'm going to write that facebook app, or heck, write the next facebook. There's wishful thinking for ya. I'd like to try my luck at game programming but I have no idea what to make, though there's a board game I played with my family over the holiday break that i wouldn't mind making a web-based version of... maybe a facebook app? Oh look, there I go again.

Outside of programming, I consider myself to be semi-creative with technology. I have a friend I've collaborated with in FLStudio and we've make some fun tunes. We haven't done it for a while but that hasn't stopped me from using FLStudio on my own. I seem to be alright with anthems and bass lines while he's good at everything else - especially effects and post-production stuff to make the track at hand more professional sounding. With his help and with random exploration, I find myself to be pretty comfortable with FLStudio making it my favourite music editing/creating software.

As for gaming, I make stepcharts for stepmania and ITG R21. That's not programming at all since it's all gui and music based. It's still a long and painful process to make a truly original stepchart though. I usually just make charts to songs I want to listen to in the arcades while I step. Comment if you're interested in my past works. My future works will be posted up here... eventually.

Back in the day, I used to make Counter-Strike 1.5 and 1.6 maps for my friends and I to enjoy. Not too many made regular circulation; most of them I just played with bots on my private server to test. I don't play enough CS:S to want to make maps for it... TF2 however... :D

All that but no real programming. Maybe I should do something about that this year...

so i failed.

2008-01-03T04:56:00.000-05:00

I didn't end up playing any TF2 before I left. I'm currently lying down in my cousin's apartment in San Diego just about ready to go to sleep after a few good rounds of Guitar Hero 2. The Blog Banter topic has been posted and I've just about finished my first draft (which isn't that far off from my final draft... I just read it once or twice before I post) and bam. Vacation's been awesome. I return to reality on the 7th. Until then, I'd like to keep reality as far away from me as possible.

thoughts about the tf2 update (pre-game)

2007-12-21T08:55:00.000-05:00

If you didn't already notice, Valve made an update to everyone's favourite offbeat, goal-oriented, red vs blue lovefest. Here's quick run down from directly from the TF2 Update News window from Steam:

[-]December 20, 2007 - Team Fortress 2/source Engine Update Released
Sudden Death mode is now a server option (a convar) and defaults to OFF
Sapped buildings now take slightly less damage from the Spy who sapped them
The Medic's Medigun now charges at an increased rate during Setup time, to remove the need for self-damage grinding
Fixed an rcon/console command that could cause server crashes
Prevented players from playing the "civilian" class
Prevented players from hiding their name in the scoreboard
Fixed exploit where the Medigun UberCharge wouldn't drain if you switched weapons
Fixed decals not being correctly applied to the world in some cases

First and foremost, LOL at the "civilian" class.

Moving on, I like sudden death mode except I usually die because I rush without a plan or a medic on my ass. Or I am the medic and my patient isn't doing his job protecting me.

I didn't know that the spy would have to damage the building he sapped since it'd die if he just kills the engineer linked to it before he can destroy the sapper.

I kind of enjoyed watching people kill themselves to get uber during setup. That and a minute of setup is more than enough time to get uber. That and I used to switch weapons while ubered before I knew what ubering was and I never undrained... *sigh*

Those are all the changes that directly effect me.
I'll play a few rounds in a few hours and see what they're like.

oh and if you were paying attention to the last post, I leave later this evening. I can't leave before I get a good fill of tf2... lol