Lord of the rings lotteries

Just a neat side thing I found, where your lord of the rings characters can win some extra stuff.

How to get the lottery widget to show on the mylotro webpage here.

Lottery schedule here.

The spoilt dream

What do the graphics add?

I was reading a profile of someone which listed them as being a gamer for 25 years and also having the dream of making a video game.

Okay, this is just a guess, but I imagine by pure over expectation they will never make that game.

Why? Well, what was out there 25 years ago? Sprites that came in one colour and with pixels the size of your thumb (almost!). Often coded by one dude in his bedroom.







That was the definition of a video game back then.


So what's the definition of a video game today?

Well, it's full 3d, surround sound, massive FMV, physics...damn, I could go on and on.

Really what's happened? Gamers have adopted a medium as being the very definition of game that they are audience to, that they have absolutely no hope of ever becoming an author in.

They can hear, but cannot speak.

By being spoilt by fancy graphics, gamers have, en masse, become mutes.

The adopted towering definition of a game these days means that someone who loves 'games'...can never have their own baby. It could also be described as an infertile relationship.

Just raising it because it's interesting to see how by catering to the flash and glam desires, you can actually silence millions. Clever, aye?

And yeah, I know, indie authors are putting out little games with retro looks. But even retro looks are being fetishised, until 'retro' is not at all 'retro'. See here as an example of faux retro - I mean, I like the game, but again were in the style and looks technology race, which again makes mutes of most people. Even the small developer starts leaning toward the same artificial graphics hurdle.

It's just a guess, but I think, for wanting to make their perception of what a game is, they'll never make one. Even though they've got something to say.

Basic unity tutorial: Pong

Found a great little unity tutorial to make a pong-like. Beginer level (for people like me!)

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/01/20/rock-paper-shotgunity-post-12/

Couple of tips - in starting a new project you want to include the physic materials. Also where it has javascript listed for the key controls, you want to change the talking marks in it to just the regular one you get (I suspect the blogging platform auto converted them to fancy open and close talking marks, which just causes a bug in unity).

Climate change - you must believe!

Climate change - it turned out to just make an awesome setting with lots of adventure!

Okay, a little bit off the beaten track. But years ago as a young man I found out something pretty amazing about scientific endeavour. The idea behind it was that they could do experiment X a million times and get result Y, BUT on the million and first time, perhaps they would get result X! There's always that next test and maybe it'd get some other result.


And I know what your feeling - is this a ... gasp, climate denier post? Heck, even I get that queasy feeling writing it!

But that's my very point. The real practice of science isn't to tell you what to think. It drops a ton of evidence on your desk, but it leaves you to decide, as an individual. Indeed that's probably the only difference between science and religion - science doesn't tell you it's right, it gives you evidence and leaves you alone to decide. Horribly, horribly alone! But as alone as we all like to tell ourselves were individuals.

So what has the general idea of climate change become? Particularly when you are told to believe it's the case or your a 'denier'! I mean jeez, I can't think of a term more classically connected with religion than 'denier'! Thoust would deny god!!!1!?

Okay, I BET climate change is real. Like a gambler laying a bet on a horse. Here I think, if it's the wrong bet, well it'll mean less pollution at least, even if the effort didn't matter. And if the bet is right, well we don't have a second earth to traipse over to - this is apocalypse time! Or at least for humans living in the numbers they do now and the quality of life (and the level of thinking - oh, that'd slide back down the ladder, I bet). Like roaches, I have a hard time imagining our genetic line ending...but it becomes not a question of survival, but how much like monsters you become in order to survive. How much like roaches?

I live in a land of probabilities, I live in the land of choosing the 95%+ seemingly likely result. But there's always a 5 percent chance or even a fraction of a percent chance of just being wrong in my bet. But I also live with a part of me which gets queasy at the idea of questioning climate change (or to be more accurate, the common depiction of climate change) even a bit.

And I play the odds of whether that part of me is going to lurch forward at any particular moment and dominate my actions with its bloody minded, can't be wrong attitude. Because belief can never be wrong - that's what makes it a belief!

While others, when that part lurches forward, they feel the good feeling of knowing what is right and true!

Because belief always feels that way! But that's no better than someone who just firmly believes climate change isn't real.

I'd love to make you think the same way I do. But much like science, I'll drop this evidence off and ask 'Hmm, what do you think? Not on climate change itself, but in the very way people act out on the matter?'.

Speaking of my own beliefs that lurch up, this video from Penn and Tellers Bullshit series on recycling gave me a kick in the guts...wait no, aren't I supposed to be considering the evidence, rather than just assuming their right...there I go again. I guess it's fairly high odds of that part of me lurching forth!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1444391672891013193#

Adding stakes to mmorpg combat, because lets face it, your not going to die

Check out my +4 six pack! Yes, that is confusing!

What I'm thinking would be good for the average 3d mmorpg, given their atleast mildly gamist leanings? I think the computer generates a line on your health bar after you finish a fight. This line is X distance to the left of your current health - so if you recover health between fights, it'll slide over to the right. But if you take damage, it stays where it is.

Okay, if you can beat a monster before your health drops below this line, you get some bonus $$.

That's it! Except that for averge gear, it'd be set so you'd lose most of the time (the line is randomly generated, so it'd be generated a bit to close to full health alot of the time).

The thing about mmorpgs is that if were honest with ourselves, play cannot involve you five times out of six running back from the local respawn point. So really, unless you pick up two monsters by accident AND you were already damaged, your not going to die. Are we pretending to ourselves there's some risk to ourselves?

Hopefully also this doesn't rub some people the wrong way, as it's a reward for doing well, no punishment for not killing the monster in time. I've heard Tesh go on about how you don't need a punishment for there to be a game and I suspect what he means is he wants something for suceeding, not losing something for failing. Of course if you fail to suceed, you miss out on the bonus - that could still be construed by some as a punishment. You are missing out, so there is a sting in that. Really I think it shows that you do need a 'punishment' if only a very mild one and people who say they don't want any punishment actually do, just that kind. To me that makes sense. Whether that matters at all.

Anyway, I imagine it as you, with average gear, missing this bonus more often as not simply to give edge and sting to gameplay. So it ceases to be a walk in the themepark just a little bit.

Anyway ON TOP of this I think you have a mechanism which is kind of like the undying trait in lord of the rings online - ie, if you get defeated over a certain time span, you miss out on a bonus. In this case just have a recurring test - have to gain X amount of experience without being defeated. If so, you gain $$$! If your defeated, you can only try again after a day has passed. OH and what would be cool is if your character occasionally limps, moves slowly for a second or two - say in this hurt state they'd limp five seconds out of every minute of movement. I think it'd be cool!