Monday, April 16, 2012
Tribes Revisited
While I was trying to find the time to coalesce the thoughts and feelings I had around Tribes: Ascend, Tycho over at Penny Arcade went ahead and did it for me.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Another Potential Boon to Wargaming - Kickstarter
If you haven't heard about Kickstarter yet, you should take the time to check it out soon. Kickstarter is a crowd-sourced angel investorish system that anyone can get in on. The idea is that if you have a project or product or something that you want to launch but don't have the money for, you post the idea on Kickstarter and ask if people want to invest in your idea. You give a goal of a certain amount of money by a certain date and if enough people invest in your idea to where you reach the goal in the time allotted, your project gets funded. It's a great system that has funded a lot of cool new businesses.
The reason why I think it could be a boon to wargaming is that a little company calling itself Tectonic Craft Studios has already used Kickstarter to fund its idea of making a new line of wargaming terrain. All they asked for was eight thousand US dollars, but the Kickstarter community put together over $40,000 for them! I hope that they are able to take this start and make a great business out of it.
What other ideas are out there in the wargaming community where the creativity and the initiative has always been there ... but the money to get started has never materialized?
The reason why I think it could be a boon to wargaming is that a little company calling itself Tectonic Craft Studios has already used Kickstarter to fund its idea of making a new line of wargaming terrain. All they asked for was eight thousand US dollars, but the Kickstarter community put together over $40,000 for them! I hope that they are able to take this start and make a great business out of it.
What other ideas are out there in the wargaming community where the creativity and the initiative has always been there ... but the money to get started has never materialized?
Friday, April 13, 2012
Tribes: Ascend
A new entry in the Tribes saga came out yesterday, Tribes: Ascend ...
What you may not know about me is that I was a big Tribes 2 fan back in the day. It is the one first-person shooter (FPS) game that held my interest for any length of time and the only one where I actually enjoyed playing against other human players. I was even a member of a ranked team on the Tribes 2 ladder at the time. What made Tribes different from all the other FPS games out there? I'm glad you asked ...
Strategy
The vast majority of FPS games, then and now, have no strategy to them. Each person playing the game is just an interchangeable and disposable cog with nothing to differentiate them, nothing to encourage or support alternate play styles other than "run up to the other guy and shoot them in the face until they fall down". It's kind of like the philosophy of sword fighting explained in The Mask of Zorro: "The pointy end goes into the other man."
On the other hand, Tribes 2 (and noted exception to the above Team Fortress) highlighted only one game mode, Capture the Flag. There were others, but the real way to play Tribes 2 was to play Capture the Flag. This introduced some strategy, yes ... but where it really shined was the fact that the maps you played on featured bases with defenses, sensors and generators to power it all. So you could actually build up your base's defenses to make it harder for the other team to get to your flag. Or they could sneak in and take out your generator to make all your automated defenses come down. So you had players that became good at different roles, like generator defense, defense setup and maintenance, flag defense, flag capture or flag runner. (Yes, capturing and running were generally two different roles, at least in my clan.) I actually was very good at defense setup and generator defense. I studied the maps for the best places to plant my turrets, my mines and then stand in heavy armor to wait for the inevitable sneaker to try to get through.
All Tribes did was give the player some choices and a game with a captivating amount of depth was created. One could play offense, defense or "transportation" (some of the maps in Tribes 2 were so huge that you needed vehicles to cross them with anything that would be described as rapidity). One could wear light but fast armor, heavy but slow armor or split the difference with the medium armor. One never even needed to take a shot at another player, going only for the support route by running around the base and repairing things that the other team broke. (I particularly liked this role ... it was my own, personal type of griefing.)
I haven't gotten deep enough into Tribes: Ascend in order to determine if it will hold up to my memories of Tribes gone by ... but I'll be posting my thoughts here!
What you may not know about me is that I was a big Tribes 2 fan back in the day. It is the one first-person shooter (FPS) game that held my interest for any length of time and the only one where I actually enjoyed playing against other human players. I was even a member of a ranked team on the Tribes 2 ladder at the time. What made Tribes different from all the other FPS games out there? I'm glad you asked ...
Strategy
The vast majority of FPS games, then and now, have no strategy to them. Each person playing the game is just an interchangeable and disposable cog with nothing to differentiate them, nothing to encourage or support alternate play styles other than "run up to the other guy and shoot them in the face until they fall down". It's kind of like the philosophy of sword fighting explained in The Mask of Zorro: "The pointy end goes into the other man."
On the other hand, Tribes 2 (and noted exception to the above Team Fortress) highlighted only one game mode, Capture the Flag. There were others, but the real way to play Tribes 2 was to play Capture the Flag. This introduced some strategy, yes ... but where it really shined was the fact that the maps you played on featured bases with defenses, sensors and generators to power it all. So you could actually build up your base's defenses to make it harder for the other team to get to your flag. Or they could sneak in and take out your generator to make all your automated defenses come down. So you had players that became good at different roles, like generator defense, defense setup and maintenance, flag defense, flag capture or flag runner. (Yes, capturing and running were generally two different roles, at least in my clan.) I actually was very good at defense setup and generator defense. I studied the maps for the best places to plant my turrets, my mines and then stand in heavy armor to wait for the inevitable sneaker to try to get through.
All Tribes did was give the player some choices and a game with a captivating amount of depth was created. One could play offense, defense or "transportation" (some of the maps in Tribes 2 were so huge that you needed vehicles to cross them with anything that would be described as rapidity). One could wear light but fast armor, heavy but slow armor or split the difference with the medium armor. One never even needed to take a shot at another player, going only for the support route by running around the base and repairing things that the other team broke. (I particularly liked this role ... it was my own, personal type of griefing.)
I haven't gotten deep enough into Tribes: Ascend in order to determine if it will hold up to my memories of Tribes gone by ... but I'll be posting my thoughts here!
Friday, April 6, 2012
das Keyboard for Mac
I've been touch-typing for a long, long time. I originally taught myself to touch-type on my dad's old manual typewriter from college. I remember a time when pretty much all keyboards were metal and seemingly constructed to withstand a nuclear blast. I've always been pretty picky about the keyboards that I use, even going to the extent of learning the Dvorak keyboard layout. But it wasn't until recently that I really started pining for the old mechanical-switch-style keyboards that have come into vogue. I like the clicky-clack of the old keyboards ... and it wasn't until people started pointing out that old keyboards truly were different that I took a look around and decided to do something about it.
I eventually settled on the das Keyboard. Partially it was because of the attention to detail. Originally they touted that the various keys were loaded with different resistances depending on how strong the finger was that was intended to operate it. Partially it is because I could get the same keyboard in loud or quiet form. But eventually, it was because it was one of the few mechanical keyboards that offered a Mac model that said it would work with the various Mac function keys like volume and brightness control, etc. Also, they offered a key puller to let you rearrange the keys so that those of us who use a Dvorak layout could actually have the keycaps displaying it.
I got my new das Keyboard for Mac yesterday and have been playing around with it for a bit. I immediately pulled all the keycaps off and reorganized them. Despite seemingly encouraging exactly this practice, it seems the keyboard isn't designed to pull the caps off and rearrange them, just clean under them.
It's fairly easy to see that the "?" key and the "-" key are a little out of plumb. What's less obvious is that the bracket keys are a little shorter than their horizontal neighbors. None of this has affected my typing so far or irritated me, but it was one use case that I thought I would have and don't seem to. Had I known, I'd have thought more about getting the blank keycap version.
On the positive side, the keyboard is solid. It is heavy and feels like it could withstand a nuclear blast ... except all the plastic keycaps would melt. But it feels like the innards would be fine. And it feels like it will last a long, long time. We'll have to wait and see on that count.
Despite being heavy and solid, it is not bulky. The desktop footprint is only a little larger than the Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad that I had been using previously. It also has two USB ports in it, like the Apple keyboard. Unlike the Apple keyboard, they are full power so they can charge an iPhone. The das Keyboard manages this by having one USB cable with two plugs. One for the keyboard and one for power for the hub. If you don't need to charge things with the USB ports on the keyboard, then you only have to plug in one of the connectors.
Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the new keyboard and its ultra-clicky sound ... just like I remember it. We'll just have to wait and see if it stands the test of time.
I eventually settled on the das Keyboard. Partially it was because of the attention to detail. Originally they touted that the various keys were loaded with different resistances depending on how strong the finger was that was intended to operate it. Partially it is because I could get the same keyboard in loud or quiet form. But eventually, it was because it was one of the few mechanical keyboards that offered a Mac model that said it would work with the various Mac function keys like volume and brightness control, etc. Also, they offered a key puller to let you rearrange the keys so that those of us who use a Dvorak layout could actually have the keycaps displaying it.
I got my new das Keyboard for Mac yesterday and have been playing around with it for a bit. I immediately pulled all the keycaps off and reorganized them. Despite seemingly encouraging exactly this practice, it seems the keyboard isn't designed to pull the caps off and rearrange them, just clean under them.
It's fairly easy to see that the "?" key and the "-" key are a little out of plumb. What's less obvious is that the bracket keys are a little shorter than their horizontal neighbors. None of this has affected my typing so far or irritated me, but it was one use case that I thought I would have and don't seem to. Had I known, I'd have thought more about getting the blank keycap version.
On the positive side, the keyboard is solid. It is heavy and feels like it could withstand a nuclear blast ... except all the plastic keycaps would melt. But it feels like the innards would be fine. And it feels like it will last a long, long time. We'll have to wait and see on that count.
Despite being heavy and solid, it is not bulky. The desktop footprint is only a little larger than the Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad that I had been using previously. It also has two USB ports in it, like the Apple keyboard. Unlike the Apple keyboard, they are full power so they can charge an iPhone. The das Keyboard manages this by having one USB cable with two plugs. One for the keyboard and one for power for the hub. If you don't need to charge things with the USB ports on the keyboard, then you only have to plug in one of the connectors.
Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the new keyboard and its ultra-clicky sound ... just like I remember it. We'll just have to wait and see if it stands the test of time.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Personalized Search
I have a great idea for a search engine to implement. I have multiple tools at my disposal for trying to remember stuff that is on the Internet. I can make a bookmark in my web browser. I can use a tool like Instapaper. For programming, I can make a question and answer on Stack Overflow. But these are all a bunch of data silos. I can't readily search across all of them. And if I forget where I read that one article ... did I archive it on Instapaper? Did I drop it into Evernote? I have a solution ...
I want the search engines to provide a way for me to mark something as of "personal interest" to me. Then when I search for something, it will rank my personal interest items alongside everything else, but give my personal interest items a boost in the rankings. Or maybe just list them off to the side in a kind of, "Hey, I noticed you're searching for information on Git, it looks like you have a guide to Git bookmarked and it looks like it has the information you're looking for."
I would have to sign up for an account with the search engine of my choice for this to work, because I would want my "personal interest" items available no matter which machine I was logged into. But, for this feature, I would gladly do so. I would also like this to be an API that any service across the Internet could use. So Evernote could submit my notes to the API. Instapaper could submit my articles to the API. Perhaps it could even boost the accuracy of the ranking systems the algorithmic search engines use because it would be another source of data separate from links between web pages.
Anyway ... Google? Bing? Either of you listening? Whichever one implements this to my satisfaction first wins my business.
I want the search engines to provide a way for me to mark something as of "personal interest" to me. Then when I search for something, it will rank my personal interest items alongside everything else, but give my personal interest items a boost in the rankings. Or maybe just list them off to the side in a kind of, "Hey, I noticed you're searching for information on Git, it looks like you have a guide to Git bookmarked and it looks like it has the information you're looking for."
I would have to sign up for an account with the search engine of my choice for this to work, because I would want my "personal interest" items available no matter which machine I was logged into. But, for this feature, I would gladly do so. I would also like this to be an API that any service across the Internet could use. So Evernote could submit my notes to the API. Instapaper could submit my articles to the API. Perhaps it could even boost the accuracy of the ranking systems the algorithmic search engines use because it would be another source of data separate from links between web pages.
Anyway ... Google? Bing? Either of you listening? Whichever one implements this to my satisfaction first wins my business.
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