Minecraft Ordeal 3

I've been back in my Minecraft world, and I'm a little disappointed by a couple of things, first of all, that lava pool, I've breached it above and below with glass, it's even bigger than I previously thought, it goes under other rock in a circle now over 100 squares around.

This is a major problem, you can see my lower mining hall below, were I've propped the lava pool up on glass, and you can now see above where I've made a passage directly through for my higher mining shafts, but it is a lot of dangerous work, I was at one point down to 1 heart and burning before I had my water out to quench myself.

And that only then resulted in more damn problems...

Then the temple... What a let down... There was basically just a shaft down the middle, and TNT below a pressure plate... No adventure there at all, not what I expected.  I dunno, I expected something like CubeWorld, I assumed CubeWorld had copied Minecraft, but now it seems not.

Here's my expedition and you can see I expose the trap after digging down parallel with the shaft, in the chests was gold, bones, iron and one saddle as well as a lot of rotten flesh.

I had all the sandstone I could away with me, filling my inventory... But still no adventure, no fulfillment.

CubeWorld lacks any depth, Minecraft lacks any adventure... I don't know what to do... I'm tempted to sub to Eve to make sure my name gets on the statue... And I'm even tempted to download WoW again.

I would love to have the time to sit down and write my own new game, a mix of D&D with Lort of Ultima, with I dunno, something else... But I really don't have the time when I'm in a programming mood... Work is taking over, I worked a 6 day week, where I should have done 37 hours I've done 54; and the project is still not done.

I need something I can put on and zone out with...

So Wow is the perfect place for me, I find other games, like D&D online, LOTRO and the like to look terrible... I like the cartoony world of WoW... It's just not the same as the old days... And I've been out of it for 2 years... and really for the amount of time I'll get to play it, would £9 a month be worth it?... I doubt it.

But, take a look at my Battle.NET account and it says there's "Wow Starter", which is free to play?

It's a whole other account?

News Flash: Lord of Ultima Closing

Just a few minutes ago I heard news that Lord of Ultima will be being closed down, it is always sad to see a game going down... I doubt news of this will filter far beyond the community playing.

 

I for one briefly enjoyed Lord of Ultima, but eventually found it a very grindy game, with a lot of elitists playing it.

However, I do wonder whether this news opens the market for an open source, or free to play, game in the same vein.  When I last played it I did strongly consider developing my own version of it, which sorted out some of my problems with the game... This maybe that time... Watch this space.

Google Goofs with Plus

I'm an avid YouTube watcher, I enjoy many topics, but the number of the subscriptions I have whom are mentioning the Google+ comments bullshit on YouTube... We have...

Jingles... "It sucks doesn't it"

Boogie (aka Francis)... "I tried to put up with this new Google+ bullshit"

Dave (aka EEVBlog)... "Hello McFly... Hello... I'm approving... It's retarded... It just doesn't work"

This debacle is just on going... I personally hate the system, they've removed functionality I enjoy, such as the addition of a time into the comment so you can link what you're saying to a specific moment, then it used to allow me to reply to a comment, right now I don't know how to address a comment to a specific recipient.

And then the "Real name" thing.. I've seen Hitler posting... And the big JC... Santa and fucking Gandalf... Like he's not busy enough... it's like What the fuck!?!!?

This is Google's biggest visible change ever, and its abigger flop than anything that they've had flop before.  I hate google+, I only use my google account for gmail and this blog, it happens they own YouTube so that's linked in there too, but I don't specifically use Google+... I like blogspot, and I like YouTube, and I used those services on their own merit.  The fact they're piggy backing Google+ on those more used, more popular interfaces says a lot, if Google+ was as all invasive and defined the social space then fine, but it doesn't, so to make it impact on YouTube is a pain in the back side, stupid.

And as that mad Aussie bloke says better... "this is just Evil".


Addendum, after writing this yesterday, Boogie has been back on camera, lets see him in action:

Another Addendum, I've made one reply to one message in the new system... Look what appears in my inbox linked to my YouTube account... This is new, it never did this shit before...

That's just an hour in my small inbox, on a small comment on one video, I usually post all over... And I went into my Video Manager area to look for my YouTube inbox... No, my YouTube inbox is gone, its sending messages out to my own personal e-mail... just swamping me in mails, I can't imagine how terrible this would be for a content maker.

And then I've spotted more issues with the new system itself... Like if someone has relied to a comment, you used to be able to click "Show Comment", so the new message could be linked back in a tree to the comment it was about, this is called a discussion, and its how we as humans converse...  Now however, you only get the name of the person you're replying to, and you click it and the site takes you to their profile page... Not to the comment... So the context which 90% of comments sit in has been lost, totally lost.

I'm beginning to really hate the new system, and I'm happy to see big contributors, like boogie standing up to this shit.

Statistics and Cockbites in World of Tanks

I got really annoyed the other day, I've tried to think about how to blog about the problem, but I came up blank.

My blankness was because at the time I had no proof my run of thoughts were correct, that is until now.

What was bugging me was the statistics - specifically kiddies pointing them out and rubbing my face in them - in the game World of Tanks, let me explain.  I was playing a game - in my successful German anti-tank line - and a tactical situation came up where a heavy tank on the left flank was being backed up by several allies, and all he needed do was pull back and the enemy blocking him would follow - as they could not see us ready to pounce - and we'd have the enemy dead and the friendly heavy could move on.  The problem was, this friendly heavy was a) not moving backwards and b) not very friendly - hello spider if you're reading this, you're a cockbite, and here's why you're a cockbite.

Now, playing my Stug, I love my Stug, and I have a really positive experience with it, its pimped out with modules and a 100% crew, and I play it when I'm getting frustrated with my current pass time of grinding up through the terrible British tank line.

And there's the problem, first I'm back in the game after a long hiatus - I mean I used to play when the Tiger II was rare to see, and I got my Tiger I and did Clanwars for a bit, lost interest in arseholes bossing me around and quit.  And now I'm back into a game which is very different, physics, new tech, new nations, new tanks... its all very new.

So, rather than get my Tiger destroyed and my meagre stash of credits lost in repairs as I relearn the game I decided to break my exclusive playing of the Germans and try a different nation.

I had seem some of QuickyBaby's coverage of the Tier 7+ British tanks and liked the look of them, so went for the British line.

Now, I found out that the British line is not a great line to learn on, or even re-learn on, they are not quick tanks - compared to other nations - they have really bad guns - compared to everything - and they suffer from the common thin low tier armour problems of all nations.  In short they are a real pain, and in exclusive pick up groups (PUGs) its very hard to get a good game.  I've seen other commentators on the World of Tanks phenomenon of the "bad game streak", but gentlemen I can assure you I've had the WORST every run, here's the proof of that, and my middle finger raised at spider - whom I'll explain more about in a mo.

That is my run of games, you can see the slow decline of the graph, that's my grinding - and loosing - in the British Cruiser tanks and the Valentine (which I have to say is the worse machine of war I've ever had the misfortune to encounter).

I lost, and lost and lost and lost, and teams lost around me, and guns never penned, I mean in the Valentine I had like 10 kills, but I had over 100 sharpshooter and sniper badges... I could hit things, and hit them lots of times, but never ever did I get a kill because the poxy guns - and that trend even continued into the Churchill I, which has terrible guns until you've got hold of the final Vickers gun.

So, I'm loosing and loosing, then you see that up turn... that's when I actually got the final gun on the Churchill...

Its a pretty obvious upturn in my fortunes, and directly linked to a single piece of equipment - that last gun on the Churchill.

My play style has not changed, my tactics have largely not changed, indeed I start most battles and warn people "I'm a bit shit"... So this feeling of frustration with how bad the tanks have been and how suddenly a single piece of equipment have changed the whole feel and behaviour and fortunes screams "unbalanced".

But, I'm not a developer or statistician for WarGaming, nor am I inclined to moan at them about this.

No, I only bring this all up because of a player - yes spider - this heavy driver from the other night.  When I asked him to move back he was antsy - most children rail against authority - and that's what this moron did, he ignored my suggestion he did not pull back.

Having watched the replay - several times (I may record and post it if I can) - it is more and more obvious he should have just dropped back and let the enemy come so the array of TD's watching his back could help.  But he refused.

And not only did he refused but he started to brow beat me with my game performance statistics for proof of his superiority - and when after all the other tanks, like his, were dead and it forced arty and myself in a TD to try to cap the flag against remaining enemy tanks he was calling me out as a noob.

I had to take this frothing bullshit from the guy, I was polite - he was not - and in the end I told him to go away and put him on my ignore list, because he just would not listen, he was raving about my performance, about my ability.

Well, kiddo, let me tell you some things... First this is a game, you stupid pointless waste of oxygen, its a game, that means its all for entertainment.  Second, I've played a lot of games, and I don't care whom I play with, they can be as backwards as they like or bossy (QB I'm looking at you) but if they're insulting - like you were kid - then they can go get fucked.

Finally for these statistics, look at the performance, that long downward slope is all the low tier British tanks, tier 1 - 2, its down to sheer luck who lives and dies at that level its like a massive free for all... But then into the line of tanks on the British tree, its all like a horrid dream, poor armour, no gun... the basics to allow it to compete are missing.

You could say "You don't know how to play", but as I've said, I'm shit - but I've not change my play style, not immersed myself in new tactics I'm going with the flow in a PUG group grind and suddenly I have a significant upturn, not through skill, not through experience, but simply by finally getting to a tank in the tree and specifically a gun on that tank where things work.  And there is some balance.

Literally the pawl of helplessness has passed away from me.

So, mouthy spider - go fuck yourself - this is why my stats were low - you watch them bounce back you mouthy schmuck.

People of the Internet...

I would start this post with several tag lines...

"How every other player online is a douche"

comes to my mind... or perhaps...

"How every douche finds me in game"

... or, I could get more personal....

"The douches who I met in Pick Up Groups playing World of Tanks last night"....

Maybe that's too specific, because this post is not totally all about World of Tanks, but it most certainly is about the douches we all meet out there.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not always nice in games, I'm not perfect, I mean last night I shot a friendly and I was appologising, but then when someone else shot me I was raging, I'm not perfect and don't claim to be.

But, I do know what's going on, I can look around and when I suggest to someone they do something its usually for a good reason, so some of the reactions I've had last night have been interesting, and relate directly back to the same feel of how people have acted in other games - so this is definately not a World of Tanks phenomonon, its more about how people playing at home alone think they can be utter and total insulting bastards to the other people they're playing with.

And, they can be, no game company I've ever seen has dealt with this problem.

So, what is it that has been ryled?... Well it was a specific incident, playing a game, I secured one flank, sorted it out, crossed the whole map to help the otherside, got there, checked things out and it was obvious one guy needed to move, backwards, meaning the enemy he was in deadlock with would be forced to come out and get shot by the five of us backing this guy up.... Would the guy move back?... Nope... Would he say anything nope... Did he move?... Nope... What happened?... He died, leaving the rest of us to do tasks we really needed him to do.

His reaction?... To call me every name you can think of.  He started to snigger about my score, and historical score - I'll get back to that in another post - and he started to quote his personal military doctarin, which was basically "ADVANCE WITH MY HAIR ON FIRE", rather than listen to anyone else.  And after the game was over, the prick even thought it acceptable to start sending me insulting personal messages, to the point that I actually decided to add him to my ignore list - now I'm a pretty foul mouthed fucker, so to get your douche ass on my ignore list then you've got to have stepped over a line.

And what did this guy do to over step that line?  Was it call me names?  No not really, he did but you know sticks and stones... No what he did was he started to quote statistics at me from Noobmeter.com about my player profile.

Now, I left WoW when skill was ignored in favour of sum total values of armour/equipment and raids went all exclusive and shitty.  So to come across it in World Of Tanks annoyed me.

Not least because the prime game mode for everyone is to play in a Pick Up Group - and we all know Pick up Groups are like a bag of cats, you can't say what people can do, how they think, or even what language they speak.  And in World of Tanks as a near always solo player, I'm always in a Pug, so my average win/loss ratio is low.

Then add into the mix I'm back in the game after an 18 months hiatus - and grinding a whole new low-tier set of tanks - and in low tier you just explode in seconds so your "efficiency" and "k/d" ratio are all over the place, then quoting statistics back to me were pretty pointless, but any moron could see my profile was such and such a percent, in active over the last 3 months and only active in the last week, if you looked.

But this douche did not look, he did what any teenage douche does, he looks up the first stat he finds and beat it out on his keyboard over and over and over and over and over.

And I was like, you know screw this, I don't have to listen to this shit.

Tonight I'm going to dig that replay up, it was the last game I would stomach last night, and to save the cunt's blushes I'll turn off the interface and we'll see my heroic solo effort to hold the right flank, and then my moving across the whole map to help to help this douche, and then his spewing shit as I in my hugely inappropriate anti-tank mobile had to go do the job he in his heavy tank should have been doing all along - and I got blown up trying, because he had died minutes earlier.

And this was not the only douche I met, I had people pushing me out of cover, I had people running into me on purpose, I had people assuming I was foreign - because of my in game name - and taking the piss - at which my informing them I was British got glassy stares.  It was a shit night for me.

---

I know its poor form to come and update a post later, but I just read this and I thought, I wish the prick last night would be locked up for the comments he made to me... Would make my day... Oh, no, Wait... I live in a democracy, shit.

What did you do on July 4th?

I went to work, I went to the shops... Why?

Seriously got accosted with this in an online game last night, I admit by an American, but at the time I had no idea he was American... He was playing on the EU server, and chatting away, and then he saw me - and I have no idea even now who the guy was - he was convinced he knew me...

On and on he went, "What kind of patriot are you?  Doing nothing July 4th!"

"Sorry, so you think I'm American, or even give a shit?"

And it went down hill from there, why do I attract these retards?... There was another in World of Tanks - where I'm currently grinding up the shit level IV to V step in the British lines - in the Valentine tank, one of the slowest I've ever been in, and this arty guy (French chap) was going on and on and on...

The whole night, retard after retard, and this yank was the last in a long pile....

"Let me reiterate, we don't give a shit about July 4th, we're not Patriotic to America, you're playing on the EU Server there's a whole smorgasbord of people here"  I said.

"Ah, you're fucking Swedish" his reply...

I've had this kind of shit ALL weekend, I've been working very long hours all month, all this weekend, and its boiling hot, when I've got home and spent time with the wife - but my mind is still active - I want to sit down and go brain dead over games not with this parade of morons wandering through my filter every other minute.

WarThunder - Team Trends

I have noticed a series of trends whilst playing WarThunder, which trend your mission seems to take depends largely on three things:

i) Whether the pilots on the opposing team know what they're doing.

ii) Whether the pilots on your team know what they're doing

iii) How you initially assess the situation at hand.

What I mean by "know what they're doing" I essentially mean they are not the "hair on fire, rush in screaming" type. Which naturally don't last long in a dog fight, and nor are they they "hop into a reserve and ram" type - though I've seen more and more tier 3-4 pilots doing this as they only start to respect repair times as they either run out of cash, run out of free repairs, or usually run out of both.

But how one initially assesses the situation is important, I played the game before I watched any of the YouTube content out there, and I was so-so. After watching it, and learning some, I'm a better player.  One thing that I have learned from videos is to assess the situation, beware of position and situation oneself to take advantage of others lack of attention.

So, often I can make a good two or three passes and get a few kills, or ground hits in, but then the first trend comes into play, if the opposing team have a clue they get me, they'll have someone latch onto me and have me out of there as the biggest threat.  I do, sometimes - rarely, get gifted the blessing of escape because they're not very good but the vast trend is that I get latched onto and hacked from the sky.

Enter trend number 2, the most common way to get a fighter off ones tail is to drag them away from their own forces and towards ones own team, so they - your own team - can shoot them off your tail for you... But, as per point 2, I've seen a huge trend of my own team being as clueless as a bag of cats.  I've dragged enemy fighters kilometres away from their own support, jinking left and right, rolling and rudder turning to keep them from getting a deflection shot on me... And just seen the opponent on my tail act like an opposite pole magnet to my team, who as clueless as they are scatter away from this easy meat who is intent on hacking me out the sky.

My frustration either ends with my turning the tables on my pursuer - but this is rarer than rocking horse shit - or in my plummeting to a fiery death from their spitting hot lead into me during the pursuit.  This isn't to say I don't ever get support, but despite what some commentators say about bringing pursuers to your team to let them scrape them off you, rarely does this seem to happen in the kind of games I'm getting into - I wish it would.

And then the third, self inflicted, trend kicks in... This is usually where one has played well, got a good team, and the opponents are clueless - or seemingly so - and you push them back and back sweeping the skies and land clean of their forces.  Situationally the area is clear - but you forget the golden rule (or arcade battles) this is a computer game and suddenly they rejoin the game, sometimes with vastly better position and aircraft than yourself - this popping up from thin air is a common problem on the Port Attack map, where the inland defenders appear almost directly above the main - usually final - carrier targets the aggressive incoming team have to destroy.  Loose, or forget, that they're going to potentially pop out of thin air above you whilst you torpedo that carrier and you're a sucker punch they'll love to own.

That all said, I have no counter to these trends, I'm trying to be more objective and think about unseen opponents spawning above and/or behind me, but sometimes its hard to remember they might come up - and switching to the team score chart to check is sometimes impossible.  As for the other trends they're not spoiling the game for me, I just wish I were part of an organised crew - squadron - but I can't really dedicate myself to the time, I'm very much a solo casual game player - not least because voice comms are a no-no at the time of night I get to play; with the wife in bed just feet away.

Beufighter - WarThunder

I'm beginning to find my stride in WarThunder, my preferred method of fighting is to zoom and boom, this is to play a fighter or destroyer (twin engine fighter) gain altitude and dive down and attack low fliers and then zoom back up with the speed I've gained.

I have a slight bias to the British Beaufighter - because of its high speed and heavy armament of four 20mm cannon - and the Japanese Ki-43 for its elegance and twin 50 .cal machine guns - but also because my Japanese crews have quite a lot of points put into reload to I can burn through all the shells in the dive and twist up reloading for the next run.

I have, by far, clocked up the most kills doing this and by far the most consistent kill rate in the Beaufighter - which I've only been out in maybe 10 times and shot down over 15 aircraft for only two return shoot downs in it.

The trouble is however, I'm having a really disturbed time playing this afternoon.  I would normally be at work, but I'm having a week off stay-cation.  The trouble is, this means the wife see's me doing "nothing".... Yesterday, whilst doing "nothing", I managed to... Go get a new Battery fitted to the car, get the other car's exhaust checked, buy petrol, paint two door frames with primer and then gloss, move two big boxes out of the loft, help mow my father-in-laws lawn - and get the mower petrol - hoover the lounge and reception room, empty and put the dishwasher on twice - to catch up - clean the shower and clean the kitchen.  Then I cooked.... All that whilst doing "nothing".

The wife managed to iron four shirts and two pairs of trousers and acted the hero throughout... I however just wanted to get back to my beaufighter, however, I was prevented from doing so come early evening by the need to sit and pretend to want to spend some time with the wife, as she proceeded to watch Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Eastenders, Coronation Street again and then some drama about a missing girl... All that, left me at 10pm either going to watch the new series of Sons Of Guns - which I eventually missed - or get back to my piloting... I took to the controls and never looked back.

I've also had two network drop outs mid-game... They were going well too, with a couple of kills.

My favourite Beaufighter kill was a HE-111, which I saw 7km away about 3km up, whilst I was skimming away from a low sweep kill of an F4F - which is a story all of its own - but I climbed from the sweep and up to around 2700 meters, the He-111 pilot must have simply not seen me, or assumed I was low, cus he flew straight and level as my four cannons lit him up... Comically the distinctive glass clad nose section of his bomber flew on for around 50 meters as the rest of the plane splintered up.  On that occasion I was then jumped by a P39 and had to dive away to nearly 550km/h to escape but I took some damage and had to land on an airstrip to repair before rejoining the fray taking out a Blenheim and a PBY.

And this is what the game is like, stunningly pretty - even on low settings - and every mission has a dozen little stories all to be told, its no wonder there are so many good - and some bad - YouTube channels publishing content from the game - even the eponymous Frankie has had a go.

Elite IV

I'm excited in... an angry sort of way... I've just read the report that David Braben is out on the interwebs looking for funding to finish the latest Elite game...

The fact that they admit there is an Elite game, that they are testing the multi-player and there will be a single player is very intriguing... This is the first solid news about the game released in a long time.

For you see we've had announcements of games and teasers of Elite IV development since 1999

That makes me excited, what makes me angry is that he's out here seeking funding?... If he was so sure of his game it'd be funded, some publisher would take him on, but then maybe they'd not because Braben has been the proverbial elite game snake oil salesman for much longer than he's been actually developing and releasing games.

You see the original Elite happened by accident, Graham Bell and David Braben came up with some very clever ways to get the low powered MOS 6502 processor to calculate its way to powering 3D graphics, wire frame on the BBC, but other machines (like my ST) ran rastered solid polygons when we got the game.

And there's the anger... When we got the game... I've already handed over my cash to the franchise for Elite, and Elite II Frontier... I even bought First Encounters...  I still have my packaged, near mint, copy of Frontier in my desk next to me at home!

As a gamer I've played space games since Elite, I've played Eve Online and the ilk, I've seen the news of Notch's up coming game.  But, to be asked to fund Elite IV, now seemingly called "Elite Dangerous" before we've any concrete proof of its existence is... Not going to wash with me.

If they offered an alpha, to help test it, if they offered those who funded it more than ethereal promises to shape the game, then I'd perhaps listen, but they just offer this snake-oil Springfield monorail-esq comment and leave it there.

Then you look at the crowd funding site itself... £100 to participate in the beta test... erm... Why should we pay you to do work for you...

Its going to get funded, I know now all the fans; like I actually am; will fund it... but they may not be thinking as I am that this is just another round of bull.

I'd like to see more of the game first, more proof there's a product.  For instance I'm sure if you walked into the Dragons Den with the published information about Elite Dangerous, just that video of Braben on the BBC site with what might be the game running behind him on several screens and the press releases and the history of the court settlements and asked the Dragons for funding, they'd be out.

That's where I sit right now, I sit out...

Because as I see it, I've already funded the Franchise to the tune of jus shy of £130 (inflation adjusted for 2012 prices) and I've seen little return.

Frontier £30 in 1993... is worth £47.70 today.

Encounters £35 in 1995... is worth £52.50 today.

Elite in (I think I got it in 1989 for my ST) £15... is worth £29.10.

That's a hell of a lot of my cash, £129.30 to be exact... I don't see the appeal for any normal mortal to want to have dinner with him for £5000... I can see game developers, or wannabe developers, wanting to do that... Perhaps he thinks EA or Ubisoft might spring for several such seats at a dinner... But to be honest, to have to go to Cambridge to have Dinner, I'd like to be paid, not paying.

Some of the other funding items are also just gimmicks, "Reserve your name in game"... I'll tell you now, I hate that.  "Reserve a digital copy of the game"... digital copies are NOT number limited, there is no limit to the number of digital copies you can make of software this is the very fabric of software, "Holy shit we can only ship 1,045,727 copies cus we're out of disk space!"... No, that's not going to happen, they can stamp out hundreds and thousands of copies per hour in digital form you don't need to pay to reserve a copy, this is madness.

"Get a decal on your ship"... What the fuck is this?  Crystal Tigers and Murloc pets from Blizzard and now "Digital Grafiti" from Frontier Developments...

(My figures for the Inflation Adjusted Pounds came from http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/ where I related to the "Retail Price Index" - the lower of the two values given).

DayZ the Spectator Sport

I've been playing a lot of DayZ this weekend, so much so that the wife likes the tension of it and comes to watch... Making this the only spectator sport currently in our house - at least until the paralympics start.

Now, I started out Friday as an utter noob, and I've seen so much stuff going on, I thought I'd share some of my tips for playing as a utter noob.

1. Don't rush into towns, move up slowly, look for log cabins or open doors and then crawl in.

2. Don't loose guns by trying to put them into starter bags, they don't fit and just instantly disappear.

3. Pistols need to be swapped with the torch to use it, to swap the pistol into a bag takes 5 bag slots, plus 1 slot per magazine, if you don't have the slots the gun and or ammo will disappear.

4. Get a hatchet, this is the best way to sneak up behind zombies and kill them in the early game, its silent and the zombies often have food or drink on them.

5. When you get scared, and can't aim any longer, food and drink calm you down.

I'll post more as I get on with the game, I'm still very much a beginner, I've not even survived a whole day through yet... My problem is I am often very careful, until I get to have some kit, then I seem to get impatient, so rather than going slow still I get up, or I'll try to eat or drink or some stupic thing that gets my character stood up or crouching, rather than prone... I must remember to be more patient and take it slow.

A lot of players seem to like to take their utter started character to the city, tool up and go out into the wilds, where as I seem to be prefering to stay in the wilds.  The problem with their approach is, you become a huge target and often don't get back out the city with your loot, my problem is that I'm often hungry and thirsty as I'm grubbing around finding nothing but empty tins...

The "Fit Rage Quit"

I'm going to discuss a very delicate topic with you all, a topic which can be miss-interpreted, a topic which can cause fear, rage, apathy and hilarity in equal measure... A topic which can raise heroes or crush empires... I am of course talking about the “Fit Rage Quit”.

For those of you unfamiliar with the urban dictionary, and gaming in general, the “Fit Rage Quit” is the phenomena of a seemingly normal person, usually playing a game, suddenly and with such force “going mental” flying into a “blood drive rage” and then “quitting the game”. The Fit Rate Quit phenomena can happen to everyone, its happened to me, it can happen to you, even your dear old granny can Fit Rage Quit.

The challenge we have here in this post is to define the event... Which is pretty hard to do, its a very personal thing, and can take on numerous forms. Additionally, like some sub-atomic particles if you observe the phenomenon it can change its characteristics.

Certainly the best demographic group for the “Fit Rage Quit” are the early teenage groups. Usually, but not exclusively male, the combination of their collective need to win, hormones, unbroken voices and the self-belief untarnished by the truth of life, usually leads them to believe they are the best thing since sliced bread... And the catalyst for the “Fit Rage Quit” is usually, unfortunately for them, their loosing.

Loss is an easy thing to deal with at my grand age of 33, I've loved, and lived and lost lots of things, family members, friends, pets, money and a good horde of my brain cells to alcohol. But at thirteen, the world is your oyster, you've been playing this game fifteen minutes, you finally have an age higher than your shoe size, you're going to stand astride the Earth and let the other minions in the game bask in your glory.

Except, at thirteen, you're not actually very good at some things... Like communicating, like sharing ideas, like working in a team... And as I'm fond of saying to people there is no “I” in T E A M... But at 13 you think a team is you and your mates running around screaming “head shot” into Team Speak and talking to everyone else like they're a douche... Until... OH MY GOD.... You just lost.

Queue the “FIT RAGE QUIT!!?!?!?” Zoooomg how can this have happened to you, your fine bronzed collossus physique has been lain waste by a thirty something half baked on Pino Grigio. How can this have happened to you? How can this possibly have occurred? The world is wrong, the other people must be cheating, they must know the developers, they must have hacked your computer and delayed the key strokes from my keyboard to my computer, they must have....

When, really, its just you. You're young, you lost it... End of... Hey you got the other guy going for days, until today... But YOU just lost!?!!

Some fine examples of the “FIT RAGE QUIT” come from the world of the first person shooter, maybe its the feeling of self-personification, you can find a plethora of videos with screaming nerdy voice recordings of the pre-pubescent teen screaming. Another great source of them is the online MMO games, World of Warcraft sends up a few good ones, not to mention the interesting in-tolerability of the Eve-Online Fit Rage Quit, as per this kill:

http://www.wearrsoyarr.com/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=241763

My personal favourite at the moment is in the Free to Play MMRTS “Lord Of Ultima”, in LoU you get a game world which is a massive time sink, supposedly medieval times and armies of millions of men slamming helmet to helmet (remember it took William the Conquerer only about 7000 men to conquer Saxon England)... And due to the time-sink nature of the game play, you get three kinds of players (and I generalise here, but bare with me)....

The first kind are the impatient. Anybody can be impatient, but the young are the best, they rush at things and annoy others, they don't want listen to the other two categories of players.

The second kind are the middler's, they tend to know the best play tactics they excel at their game, but they don't want to wait for things, they will charge like a bull in a china shop given half a chance.

The third are the patient, they are usually older players, and they will sit and wait. Watching from the side lines and will generally improve their game over time.

The interesting thing about these three categorisations is that I find I can pin every player into one of them, from any game, and I can see an relationship with the “Fit Rage Quit”... The slower, more sedate the player the less likely they are to “Fit Rage Quit”... The faster they are, the more likely they are, their impatiences is a catalyst for the “Fit Rage Quit”...

But, when a speedy one goes, its like a firework... Wooosh, Bang... Over... Usually generating hilarity in those around them. When this happens in a short game, like Call of Duty, the impact is minimal, hence the funny factor rises. In the time sink style game however, such Whoosh-bang departures can be a pain for others, still funny but a pain.

The trouble I have then found is that those “Fit Rage Quit” mentality people who are also sedate in their game play, when they go, boy do they go, there is more than rage, there are broken hearts... Queue the Mike Curb Congregation singing “Burning Bridges”... and you just watch the game you knew fall down around your ears.

So, beware, the Fit Rage Quit today may be funny... Tomorrow it may leave a terrible feeling in your Tummy...

EVE Expansion, Social Clicking and more DDO

It might actually be time for a me to return to Eve-Online, with ever more news being released about the next Expansion due out in May, May the 18th to be precise, my appetite has been whetted.

EVE Online | Tyrannis

Unfortunately, I sense some foreboding about the new features. Planetary Interaction, or PI as it's being called, looks awesome and it very well might be, however, I have a feeling it'll be the exclusive domain of 0.0 alliances, and out of the reach of anti-social high-sec miner spunk monkeys, like me.

I did however like the look of the new Scorpion. Having flown a Scorp in fleet engagements, I know how quickly they get made primary [everyones hates ECM], but I also know how ugly they are/were. So, I have a semi-stoked game boner for that little gem...

I have tonight however been doing three things... the first was play some "Social City" on Facebook and when I use the word play I do so in the loosest sense of the word, you know like you'd play with peeling paint... or... you'd be made to play with the kid from class who got the Chicken Pox first.

Here we see the burgeoning "Xel City" at level 3... a lot of clicks later... and you end up with this...

Erm..... Thrilling....

The next thing I did however, was more interesting, I played some more DDO. I made myself another Rank of level 1, and played a little more of the initial story line. This time stopping occultist baddy people hitting a crystal. For my efforts I got a nice pair of new bracers.


I have to say that I am over my initial downer about DDO, I'm coming to grip with the interface, after three good play sessions of about 2 hours each it is comming more naturally, however, I still have this nagging feeling that really it shouldn't have been up to me to change my needs from the game. It does seem to lack some basic information, access to quite what to do doesn't come easily. And I'd have to say some of that problem comes from information overload. There are a lot of NPC's, a lot of interactions to get used to and the tooltips lag terribly [even on an overclocked Quad Core CPU on 8GB of RAM with dual 8800 Graphics cards in SLi Mode????].

I did however come across some rather lush graphics, the lighting in DDO is done very well... the shadow stenciling however, is not... more about that in an up coming post.

The other thing I did was re-watch the Top Gear USA Special, there's something so heart warming watching a BBC crew being run out of "a hick town" in a hail of stones.