More random stuff!

It seems that my to-buy list has grown a lot fatter lately. That’s probably not a good sign. Anyway, I’m more or less enjoying DET now; it’s way better than last semester’s.

That aside, Nick told me about the ‘Gerald Wong’ stuff in the mysdn forums. It’s pretty dumb actually. I actually managed to produce a flamebait while typing gibberish while I’m bored last few weeks ago in school. It’s a two word flamebait that goes “Fuck WoW”, and suddenly people everywhere in that forum starts to threaten me or fanatically try to insult and flame me back. It’s funny because I didn’t even try to make anyone angry. No wait, I rephrase: I didn’t even know I’m making anyone angry. I thought the forum is a bunch of 18-20 year olds…it seems that I overestimated the power of the digital age and their mentality. I thought most people my age surf forums, read blogs and comment & post etc. I guess I was wrong after all.

I don’t feel sorry though, except for putting a so-called “flamebait” in the forum. It was a mistake that I could’ve easily avoided after viewing some of the threads but frankly I’ve seen worse and proceeded anyway. Anyway, I directed that forum people to my blog. Probably another big mistake but I like giving second chances

Actually, after thinking about it, maybe others grew from another kind of environment. I should’ve known and guessed, considering I’ve worked with people whose minds are beyond the boundaries of human wit. I’ve lived and grown up in another way I guess.

Let’s consider a few things hmm…
I’ve visited my first forum at 12 or 14 @ EoFF, was exposed to all kinds of problems and people through that site and AIM. summonillusion was a really depressed person then and we talked a lot. mog42 was a cool fun guy in his universities. Then there are a few random weird people. Then EQ came to my life. It’s like everyone I’ve interacted in EQ was at an average age of 30 or something. Then FoHguild.org. Not to mention John and afterwards YZ and not to mention a few others. Then arcadescrubs.com people made me really think that people around my age group IS like that. I mean, we flame, scold and talk crapshit about each other all day and no one feels the least bit insulted.

Wow, now I know why people my age don’t do things like me lol. Falling mushrooms, eating butterflies, whee~. I’m all for randomness but those things are really retarded. I think I’ll be weary of people from now on. It seems that I’ve been a little too deluded. 90% of the people I’ve met are more or less tolerable to my mindset. 10% I’ve never really talked to them and are best left to their own business. Now suddenly when I enter poly I am opened to a new breed of really strange people like what mostly makes up the DMD branch. And I got the strange feeling that those breed of people makes up the majority of the world, or at least, Singapore.

It’s really creepy.

Posting some work

I’m rather happy that I’ve completed my multiplayer module’s assignment despite slacking 2 days off wondering wtf is it about. The codes are messy like hell but hey it works! It has some buggy issues I’ll probably solve tmr or something but this is actually pretty exciting. Heh and to think I didn’t give a damn about this multiplayer because I didn’t understand a thing. Now that I mostly understood and completed it, god it felt great. I feel like some god, a feeling I haven’t experienced in quite some time because I consider most of my past projects or work a failure (even if they were a success to some people).

Not only that it opened my eyes to the multiplayer side of coding. It’ll be pretty cool and at least I can relate some of my stuff to it. I’ll be pretty much looking forward to the course as I try to work out more on what networking really is. And fuck damn java networking isn’t half as fun.

On the java side, I surprised myself by able to actually understand in read its codes, but seriously it’s either java or their programmers are fucked up. My facilitators are giving us codes with very dumb variable names (x, i, zx, wu, etc) and doing lots of incredibly wierd stuff even my friend don’t know why they did that. On the bright side, I kept track of the java project thingy we are supposed to do and luckily I am able to understand how to work around it. Wasn’t that hell honestly, just need to invest some time in it.

Okay my sis have been telling me to put pictures. I promise that I will try to put as many pictures as I can per post as well as try my best to liven up the site. I’ve been revising on my HTML a bit here and there so HOPEFULLY I can come up with something neat and simple.

Random rant

I’ve been chatting a bit with some people here and there, and seen how…well…I can’t really explain in words.

By no means I consider myself exceptionally smart or intelligent, because I know I am really not. Unfortunately, many people living around me gave me the impression that I am ‘above’ them. One of the reason ‘Stereotyping’. The other is their logic. By the way, this article is all related to gaming and only gaming, because it is the best thing I know. And I know for a fact that this can be applied to many other things.

I know this is a really old and probably boring topic to talk about but honestly most people, at least those I’ve observed around me, are judging things based on nothing but nonsense. For me, I am very open to ideas, with a limit. There is a limit for ideas because some can really sound and be disastrous to the game itself (like *cough* falling mushrooms *cough* one-hit-KO *cough*).

I hate it a lot when people feel that their favorite game is the best and nothing in the world beats that and try all sorts of ways to convince people that it is good. Take Oblivion or Morrowind for example. I know a few who really loved that RPG. I liked Morrowind, honestly speaking, but it sure isn’t the best. Oblivion is just plain dumb, silly and downright boring in every possible way. The only thing about Oblivion that’s cool is the Dark Brotherhood, but it is mediocre at best. I think the reasons why it felt really cool was because:
1) There isn’t anything as cool in any RPGs for some time.
2) The rest of the game is THAT boring.

Then the fanboys. God I really hate fanboys who refuses to admit that their game isn’t the best. Even fanboys of the games I like best. Fanboys are a bunch of incredibly creepy people dedicated to do anything and flame at anyone bashing their games. Seeing a ‘gang fight’ of two opposite groups of fanboys is truely the most funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Funny because they are goddamn retarded to do so and watching them post stuff and flame each other is pure gold.

Now if only Oblivion fanboys go ‘You say Fallout is better than Oblivion? Okay I’ll go try a look’. Those are the non-creepy ones. The creepy ones…well…you imagine for yourself. Bring your imagination as far as possible on how devoted and creepy people can be when they are dedicated to an object. It’s that creepy. And of course, there are those who go “Play Fallout? nooo…Oblivion iz better becoz it has better grafix!1.! omg look at teh physics!”.

I have another example which is the MMO genre. I will lose every respect for a person who goes “EQ2 is made my SoE?! It sucks!”. Seriously those people deserve to be shot (edited this line in case I offend certain races). Unfortunately, I realize that there are many many people who think that way. People who are unwilling to try other games.

As for me, I hate Blizzard and I find WoW to be a tasteless (I wouldn’t say horrible) game now. I hate the concept of D2 and Warcraft 3. I hate their monkey-level customer support Does that mean that I will not try Starcraft: Ghost when it releases?

Btw, don’t you just love it when people think they know so much about other games? I mean people who go “I mean, what’s so good about EQ2, in WoW I can PvP all I want” or “WoW is fun…I mean…what do you do in EQ?”. Hearing people say that gives me the same heart piecing feeling I get when eating too much of the cheese lava crust pizza.

To rant abit about WoW, I remember my last months of WoW was spend jumping around randomly in Ogrimmar chatting to random people. WoW endgame is more action than EQ1 but seriously grouping/instancing in WoW is truely getting more bland every time you run it. EQ1 I can stay on the same spot for 4 hours with my cool group of dudes and not feel tired. Hmm I wonder why…what does EQ have that WoW don’t?

Like one of my friend say, eventually, MMOs will boil down into a giant mIRC; the community makes the MMO last. WoW has crap for overall community outside my guild.

Sleep time.
If none of this makes sense or sound retarded, I don’t care what it means to you. I’m just typing things off my head since I feel like blogging random stuff. I’ll try to go more in depth in future but it’s hard to do so without calling names and insulting people and races. I don’t want my blog to end up like another ‘xia xue’ bitch blog.

Maybe once I feel like it I’ll elaborate more on this. Heck maybe I will finally have a post all about WoW because I’m pretty tired and sick of repeating over and over again the crappiness of that MMO. It’s only popular because Blizzard’s first steps to making it a success is damn well executed as compared to EQ2 at the same time.

Next stop: Neverwinter Nights 2.

Time out of my pockets

To be honest, I haven’t really been working my complete ass off the project I am working on now. In fact, as far as games programming is concerned, it is almost impossible to me to stare in front of the screen and code 1000 lines. If I were a normal programmer working on same gay random program, I could because I just don’t care about optimizing it. But games are different. There like many ways to approach and if I liked a way of coding, doesn’t mean my teammates does too.

So I ended up having to ask everyone about almost every method I’m doing and vice versa. Most important is to make sure everyone sees the same picture of the game to prevent disputes and such in the long run. My current team is giving me many mixed emotions and great experiences despite being in it for only 3 weeks. I must really thank them after the entire thing is done.

We are working on a game based on mostly strategy. I will not divulge anymore information by request of the team, myself and the leader. What I can tell everyone is that the game is based on stats, lots of formulas, most of them requiring dice rolls. Currently, the stats themselves pretty much decide the course of a fight, with dice rolls affecting less or none if the stats difference for a certain comparison is too wide a gap. Oh the entire game is grid based. Everything else, I’m afraid, is classified information that I shall not type here.

Coming to this comes a pretty long way; 3 weeks in fact to finalize the idea. Initially it was supposed to be free movement (non-grid based), but we (I think) find that without grid is too demanding for a game of our type (no, it’s not your standard RTS for those wondering) and the feeling that not many will like it due to the uncertainty factor.

Then came the Hit Points and stats format. YH came up with a brilliant paper prototype to simulate his idea. I swear he rolled a natural 20 on his “Think of New Idea” check. It is an idea that somehow clicks with every gear it contains. Not to mention he spent quite some time developing on the idea. Heber and I somehow misinterpreted his display of the prototype, thinking that the prototype is to simulate better the game flow for us, for most of us have trouble visualizing this odd game which idea is still extremely vague, leading to a small argument.

YH wanted to stick to his stats system, while heber and I were thinking of a very customizable equipment->stats system. I wasn’t really sure though, during the argument, I had a bunch of thoughts on my head while heber is sticking really close to his customizable system and YH sticking to his stat system. I gave it tons of thoughts. It was only then I realized the paper prototype is not to showcase the game system, but to show the power of YH’s simple yet deep stats system. I also realize that due to the time constraint, it is hardly the time to think of a new idea, and equipment stat system require tons of work and is not tested yet while YH’s stat system was tested, proved to be fun, easier to code and worth a shot, also considering I haven’t thought deeply into his prototype yet (it’s just a darn prototype after all). It proved to be a lot deeper than I initially thought and after a few games more with the prototype and some discussion, I actually think porting this into a PC game might actually work, but it’s a risk I find, a risk that at least have a reward of having something in our portfolio.

Before that was the 1 hit kill percentage suggestion by Heber. Now, I am the type of unlucky person who hates losing dice rolls which was supposedly in my favour. I hate it even more if the penelties are harsh. Basically, as long as an armor is dented, there will be a chance for one hit kill no matter what gun you use. I can immediately picture this in DoW perspective: bonesinger walks to terminator, rolls a lucky roll and chops the terminator down with a single cut.

When YH implemented a less harsh system into the game, heber still wanted to stick to his one hit kill idea and a generic HP system. YH wanted his prototype’s less harsh (alot less harsh) luck factor idea and his ‘armor’ system. Me, I prefer that there is NO luck factor involved and a generic HP system. 3 different ends of the world, but my ears are always open for convincing. Thus YH conveniently takes out the paper prototype and displayed his less harsh method of approach. Before he did that, he had a really tough time convincing me and heber about using his armor idea on PC. It looks great in Tabletop, but can it make it in the PC?

This leads to the little dispute we had (sorry for the horrible chronological order of things but I’m just typing my mind now), the little dispute which I have remained silent thinking while YH and Heber were arguing on which idea is better. Heber asked for a vote, which I immediately stopped him. A vote is a horrible horrible way to resolve such things. I could see that the customization idea can definitely be worked on, but neither can I see a reason not to work YH’s idea either. So I have to make my stand somewhere and I chose YH’s idea for many many reasons:
1) Easier Coding
2) I need more time to research on his idea
3) It is already there, tested and approved
4) The only thing stopping us is the uncertainty of whether it can work on a PC…a really really stupid reason to not proceed with the idea I then realized.
5) I see no reason why it wouldn’t work
6) It is easier to manage and understand, yet there is this depth somewhere.
7) It is concrete. We played it, we liked it, and the only thing stopping us is reason #4.

I dunno if heber was disappointed, because honestly, I weren’t. I wasn’t disappointed about losing that idea because I am working on a concrete game now. We played the prototype a few times in the library (btw the new cafe there is godly) to develop a feel for the game and delve into the game mechanics. At first, I didn’t like it. Correction: At first, I couldn’t get used to it. So I gave it time and thought about it a lot at home (thus disrupting my coding process and neglecting my social life due to my inability to concentrate on two things at once). That’s where all the clicking takes place, how everything suddenly seems clear. I beamed a smile that day; I am working on something I like and can visualize.

Before I came home to type this, I was playing another round of the prototype at YH’s house. It was pretty fun, just need to balance a few things up before we can start adding more and more really interesting creations.

On the DoW side:
1) Tau owns SM. Kroot + Vespid rush is too much for any SM to handle…seriously…
2) I will be quitting Eldar until it gets buffed. Till then I’m probably gonna stick to Orks.

YH’s Orks is improving to the stage where he can beat my Eldar in Blood River after giving him tons of tips against Eldar. And thinking about it, god what the fuck does Eldar have to fight Orks?