Gravitas in final playtesting
Filed under: Computers, Entertainment, Games, Programming, Technology, Video Games
I’ve submitted Gravitas for what will hopefully be a final playtest.
Here are some screenshots:
DUST 514 will be a Playstation 3 exclusive
Filed under: Computers, EVE Online, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Technology, Video Games
CCP have just announced DUST514 will be exclusive to the Playstation 3. Which is a shame (check out the EVE Online forums for some stronger opinions). Unfortunately it makes sense for a few reasons (well making it exclusive to one console makes sense – whether the 360 or the PS3 was the better choice is more debatable).
Developing for a single console is quicker and easier – especially important for a game that will probably have more updates than the average game.
There are suggestions that one or both of Sony and Microsoft aren’t happy about cross-platform multiplayer games.
Since the idea of the game (a console FPS interacting with a PC MMO) is quite revolutionary they could get a lot of support (both financially and in terms of marketing and other benefits) from the console manufacturer, but only if it’s exclusive.
That being said, it may not be the end for the Xbox 360 and DUST. Sony have suffered recently and definitely have lower consumer confidence (will players have to give Sony any personal information to play DUST?) and this decision will have been made long before Sony’s hacking problems. If sales are lower than CCP hope they may rethink the plan. And remember, “exclusive” in the games industry can be a vague and rarely lasts for ever.
The game is scheduled for a Spring release so at least 360-only owners have a while to decided if they want to get a PS3 just for this game…
EVE Online adding real money item store
Filed under: EVE Online, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Video Games
CCP recently announced that their long awaited “walking-in-stations” feature will now include an item store selling character customization options exclusively for real money (actually for Aurum another in game currency only available for real money).
Some people have lamented the idea of EVE finally entering this area and selling items for real money. After all today you can buy a monocle, tomorrow a ship. This is a slippery slope that will lead to death of EVE Online as we know it. Except, of course, it won’t. Since PLEXs were introduced anything in game has essentially been purchasable for real money. Take the price in ISK, devide that by approximately 350 million and multiply by half the price of a 60 day gamecard. These items are slightly different since they aren’t available in game without using real money at some point (but it is possible to trade them between players so you don’t personally have to spend real money).
One final note: the same customization opens are likely to be available to DUST 514 players once it’s released.
Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock
I recently started buying and reading a lot of Kindle Star Trek novels (on my Nexus One incidentally – I don’t have a Kindle). Although a part of me is mildy worried and annoyed at the closed DRM’d nature of Kindle eBooks (and often the price) the ease and convenience has won out.
Star Trek novels have a improved a lot since I read them previously many years ago. Not necessarily the stories themselves but that there seems to a serious concerted effort to maintain continuity between, but without requiring too much knowledge of other books to read any given book (although there are more series now which obviously do require you to read them all for it to make sense).
With that in mind, before reading DTI: Watching the Clock you should definitely read the Destiny series and possibly the Typhon Pact series and the Titan series. Everything you need to know about them is explained in the book but it does spoil them a little if you do intend to read them at some point.
Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock
Time travel in Star Trek has always been a slightly problematic topic. Featured as the primary plot device in many episodes (and several movies), it was always handled differently and never followed any discernible rules. This book tries to straighten this all out (or as Douglas Adams once said make it, at least, firmly crooked) and on the whole, succeeds.
The book feels like a collection of short stories about time travel, tied together with an over-reaching story arc (complete with seemingly insignificant events in one “story” that become important later). Many of them are about how the DTI dealt with the aftermath of different time travel events in the show. In fact practically every Star Trek episode that dealt with time travel is mentioned (except for new Star Trek movie) and explained to some extent. A couple of the big ones (specifically Star Trek: First Contact, the Temporal Cold War and the whole of Voyager) are more central to the story.
Aside from the technical aspects of time travel, the book also devotes time to expanding the main characters, Dulmur* and Lucsly, who were introduced to us in the Deep Space 9 episode, “Trials and Tribulations”. As the blurb says: “There’s likely no more of a thankless job in the Federation than temporal investigation”. Considering how interesting the time travel elements are, I expected to find these parts more boring than I did. In fact after seeing how they deal with some of the Starfleet officers (and more specifically how the Starfleet officers deal with them) I thought about Sisko’s reaction to them and found him downright annoying.
So the bottom line is, the only reason I can think for a Star Trek fan not to read this would be that you want to read some of prerequisite books first (Destiny, Typhon Pact, Titan).
*Dulmur or Dulmer? I always thought Dulmer since their names were supposed to be anagrams of Mulder and Scully. The author however uses Dulmur consistently and there is a point in the story where the spelling confusion is referenced explicitly.
| Amazon UK | Amazon US |
|---|---|
DTI: Watching the Clock |
DTI: Watching the Clock |
Destiny #1: Gods of Night |
Destiny #1: Gods of Night |
Typhon Pact #1: Zero Sum Game |
Typhon Pact #1: Zero Sum Game |
Google Docs Motion
Google continue to improve upon Google docs today with the release of Google Docs motion which will “introduce a new way to collaborate – using your body”. Anything else I saw will be underwhelming compared to the article form Google, especially some of the pictures of some of the more advanced gestures it supports…
XBMC Partnering with Sony, going closed source
I figured any effort to get back to regular posting would only be helped by starting on today of all days…
XBMC have announced a new partership with Sony. It will include the assimilation of the XBMC team into Sony’s Home Theatre and Console division and the closing of the XBMC source.
Presumably a PS3 port will be forthcoming…
Gravitas in Silverlight
Filed under: Computers, Entertainment, Games, Programming, Technology, Video Games, Web Programming
A version of Gravitas available to play right in your browser using Silverlight is now available.
Buy Minecraft
Filed under: Computers, Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Programming, Technology, Video Games
I’ve had a few things recently I’ve thought of posting but didn’t quite have enough enthusiasm to actually do it. Now I’ve found something I do have enthusiasm about.
Minecraft is a clever indie game that has developed something of a cult following of late. It’s an odd sandbox game of building random stuff and surviving attacks by skeletons. Or something. To be honest I’m not really sure (except for the building) since I haven’t actually played it. The reason I bought it (and would like you to buy it) is largely unrelated to the game itself.
Apparently a group of self righteous players are unhappy with the progress the game has made recently and have issued an ultimatum that they will launch a DDoS attack at the games servers until there are signs that development is continuing at a speed more to their liking. The assumption is that with the game down the developer will have a lower income and no choice to give in to their demands.
A few blogs (and even the Escapist) have a more detailed account of the situation:
Living Worlds – Don’t Let Terrorists Win
Tradeskill Perspectives – Gamer Entitlement Going Too Far
Escapist – Minecraft Brought Down by DDoS Attack
There is a small part of me that is worried that this is a clever conspiracy to gain attention and sympathy, but since the game is only 10€ anyway I figured it was worth the risk.
Improving Crafting in Star Trek Online
Filed under: Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Star Trek Online, Video Games
The following is almost my own idea. It’s actually a combination of several ideas I’ve see thrown around on the STO forums made a little more concrete.
First I’m going to provide a quick overview of how equipment in STO works:
Most equipment comes in ten levels, starting at “Mk I” and going up to “Mk X”. The stats increase through the levels and which you can use is restricted by rank. Lieutenants can only use up to Mk II, Lt. Commanders up to Mk IV etc. all the way up to Rear Admirals using anything up to Mk X.
Equipment also comes in four rarities: common, uncommon, rare and very rare. Increased rarity adds modifiers to equipment. Uncommon gains one modifier, rare gains two and very rare gains three (some equipment types like tactical consoles don’t specifier modifiers – in this case just think of it as only having one possible modifier and it’s just that modifier applied the corresponding number of times).
Now we have that out of the way, on to the actual crafting.
The basis for this idea (which many people have suggested on the forums) is a new type of item (called, for example, an “Improvement”) which provides modifiers to other equipment. You would craft the improvement (using the existing anomaly data), and then combine it with existing equipment to make better equipment.
For example, consider Impulse Engines. Impulse Engines have four possible modifiers:
[Aux] which allows you to move at 25% speed while engines are disabled
[Spd] which provides a speed boost
[Turn] which provides a turning rate boost
[Full] which provides a speed boost to full impulse.
My idea would require an improvement for reach of those. For instance:
[Aux] Additional Auxilliary Thrusters
[Spd] Increased Reactor Efficiency
[Turn] Additional RCS Units
[Full] Increased Reactor Output
These improvements would come in different levels like normal equipment (Mk I to X), but with a couple of important points (to avoid unnecessary complexity). Firstly they would only be available in even levels (Mk II, Mk IV, Mk VI, Mk VIII, Mk X) like existing crafting options. And secondly they could be used with lower level equipment (mainly for using a Mk X improvement on Mk IX equipment etc.). The different levels would require rarer anomaly data to provide, like the existing system. (What happens in Season 2 with Vice-Admirals with Mk XI (but no Mk XII) equipment, I don’t know yet 
).
Something else to consider is that this idea would apply to equipment of all rarities, so you could combine uncommon “Impulse Engines [Aux]” with the “Additional RCS Units” to get “Impulse Engines [Aux] [Turn]“. To maintain balance between rarities however I think improving uncommon equipment (to rare) should require two improvements, and improving rare equipment (to very rare) should require four improvements. So to go from common “Impulse Engines” to very rare “Impulse Engines [Turn] x3″ would take a total of seven “Additional RCS Units”.
PS – I recently sold a very rare “Hyper-Impulse Engines Mk X [Aux] [Turn] [Spd]” for 5,000,000 energy credits. If anyone sees a “Combat Impulse Engines Mk X [Aux] [Turn] x2″ I’d quite happily pay that much for them…
Improving sector space in Star Trek Online
Filed under: Entertainment, Games, MPOGs, Star Trek Online, Video Games
Perhaps I should just go ahead and rename my blog “Star Trek Online Forum Highlights”…
Pendra37 on the STO forums has come up with the first idea to improve sector space in Star Trek Online that actually seems it could be done without majorly overhauling the game engine.
The coolness basically boils down to one change: “If you hit the Drop out of warp button, you drop out of warp. A random deep space instance map loads up. The map may be completely random.” For more detail, read the post Sector space makes sense.
This reminds me of the fantasy RPG Rings of Power on the Genesis/Megadrive. In that game, for most of the time you controlled and oversized character walking through the landscape. At any time you could press B and the map essentially zoomed in showing you were you “really” were (and that the oversized character was just you represented on a map). Most of the time there was nothing interesting around, but there were things hidden in places that you could find and some quests required you to go to specific places.