Dear Santa, thank you for the dolls and pencils and the fish. It's Easter now, so I hope I didn't wake you but... honest, it is an emergency. There's a crack in my wall. Aunt Sharon says it's just an ordinary crack, but I know its not cause at night there's voices so... please please can you send someone to fix it? Or a policeman, or...
Back in a moment.
Thank you Santa.
Wednesday, February 29
42!
As Douglas Adams wrote of a rather different president:
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
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Tuesday, February 28
4.2!
Eight years late, but finally here: A mainstream microprocessor that
runs at more than 4GHz.
At its launch in November 2000, the Pentium 4 ran at 1.5GHz, but it did less per cycle than the Pentium III or Athlon, and wasn't all that great. Particularly since Intel initially tied it to the overpriced and underwhelming Rambus memory.
In 2001 Intel reached 2GHz, in 2002 2.8GHz, and by 2004 3.8Ghz.
And there they got stuck. Unable to increase clock speeds, they went back to the drawing board, abandoning the Pentium 4 for the Pentium III-derived Pentium M, Core, Core 2, and now the i3/i5/i7 family.
And eight years later, neither Intel nor AMD had reached the 4GHz barrier at stock speeds (not overclocked or turbo mode). My new systems can reach 4.2GHz in turbo mode, but standard speed is only 3.6GHz.
IBM will happily sell you a 5GHz server if you have the money, but for mainstream systems, the AMD FX-4170 has the fastest clocks around.
Unfortunately for AMD, a slower clocked Intel i5 2500 will run faster for most applications, but I've been waiting a long time for this, so let me enjoy it for a little while.
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Sunday, February 26
Call Me Pixy De Medici, Patron Of The Arts
'Cause I just commissioned some chibis.
I was looking at new notebooks the other day, and you know, my old notebooks are just fine.* I'd much rather spend the money getting some artwork to dress up the place.
I can write, I can program, I'm okay on design, I've even created some half-way decent music, but I'm not an artist. So finding someone to partner with on the art side of things could really spark some activity around here.
And if it doesn't, then worst case, an artist gets some pizza and I get some cool drawings.
* Plural because a couple of years ago, in a moment of weakness, I bought two. That actually worked out really well; my notebook before that got beaten to death getting shlepped about; this time I got a light-weight model that fits safely in my backpack and a bigger one for use at home, and they both still look and work like new.
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1
So who's the lucky pizza recipient?
Posted by: Wonderduck at Monday, February 27 2012 12:08 AM (O9XO8)
2
Details soon.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, February 27 2012 01:37 AM (PiXy!)
3
Just as long as you don't follow any of the other Medici habits, OK?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Tuesday, February 28 2012 08:31 AM (+rSRq)
4
I do solemnly swear neither to seek election as pope nor to marry the king of France.
If if there's a spot open as Grand Duke of Tuscany, well, hey.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, February 28 2012 02:37 PM (PiXy!)
5
You weren't thinking of the Borgias, were you? I was trying to remember the name; eventually I had to poke Wikipedia.
On the other hand, the Medicis invented double-entry bookkeeping, so they have a fair bit to answer for themselves...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, February 28 2012 02:44 PM (PiXy!)
6
You're right, I was confusing the Medicis with the Borgias.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wednesday, February 29 2012 04:22 AM (+rSRq)
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Saturday, February 25
Deviated
I've wanted for some time to have better logos and logotypes, and if possible, mascots, for the mee.nuniverse. Ideally I'd like to get a co-ordinated set of logos and mascots for each of the domains and system components.
I don't know if I can afford to hire a serious professional artist, but I can afford some commissions on deviantArt. The problem there is finding the right artist, because there are a lot of them, and a lot of them are good.
I like
this for mascot characters. It's not exactly a chibi, but I think it strikes a perfect balance of simplicity and clean lines, wholesome cuteness, personality, and just a touch of sexiness.
For logotypes,
this guy seems to have it together - clean, clear, and simple.
I don't know if any of my readers follow deviantArt, but if you do and know of artists you think would suit, and who are open for commissions, please let me know.
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One of my favorite artists goes by the name Teru-chan. She has a DA gallery here.
Also Sheezy Art, Hentai-Foundry, and her home page. Plus she's got four collections for sale on DLSite.
I know she does commissions, but it may be tough communicating with her because her English is pretty poor, and you don't speak Japanese.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Saturday, February 25 2012 04:17 PM (+rSRq)
2
She's definitely talented, but her work tends to be a bit more risqué than what I'm looking for.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, February 25 2012 05:48 PM (PiXy!)
Posted by: Wonderduck at Saturday, February 25 2012 10:08 PM (O9XO8)
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FreeD
DAZ 3D, purveyors of 3D models for... Well, for 3D modelling, I guess... Has jumped onto the razor-blade business model with both feet. For a limited time, they've reduced the price of three of their modelling tools - DAZ Studio Pro (for 3D illustration), Bryce Pro (for procedural landscapes), and Hexagon (for creating and editing 3D models) to...
Zero.
DAZ Studio is no Maya, but it's quite functional, and you certainly can't beat that price. Obviously they're betting that more users of the software will mean more sales of 3D models, and that's where they make most of their money. I hope it works out for them, and if you're at all interested in 3D art, go over there and download the programs and try them out.
more...
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Wednesday, February 22
Farewellaria
Development of awesome 2D mining engineer training system
Terraria has apparently ceased after the very welcome expansion late last year. Two of the original three developers left to pursue other dreams and I can just imagine the feelings of the remaining developer, trying to meet the demands of a million (literally) fans.
Fear not, though, because there's a new game coming from one of the Terraria developers that is basically Terraria in space. Terraria in space with penguins.
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1
You killed it:
Site Temporarily UnavailableWe apologize for the inconvenience. Please contact the webmaster/ tech support immediately to have them rectify this.
error id: "bad_httpd_conf"
Posted by: RickC at Friday, February 24 2012 10:32 AM (/5bLf)
2
Pixynator, did you get the email I sentcha?
Posted by: Wonderduck at Friday, February 24 2012 12:24 PM (ZNgWw)
3
Wonderduck - yep, thanks!
RickC - not my fault, I tells ya!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, February 24 2012 02:31 PM (PiXy!)
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Two-For-One Kittening
Speaking of old-school RPG awesomeness, GOG are running a
two-for-one sale on all D&D games right now -
Baldur's Gate I & II,
Icewind Dale I & II,
Planescape: Torment, the complete
Neverwinter Nights,
Dragonshard, and
Demon Stone.
Plus, if you buy any of those games you get
Temple of Elemental Evil free. Okay, some might view that as a minus, but it wasn't
that bad.
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At least it was not Pool of Radiance 2: Assault on Myth Drannor. Bundling that with any sale would require an extra hard drive as well.
Posted by: cxt217 at Friday, February 24 2012 04:05 PM (47Cgj)
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My Kittens Just Had Kittens
So, Double Fine, the game company headed by Tim Schafer (
Day of the Tentacle,
Grim Fandango,
Psychonauts) has raised over $2 million on Kickstarter for a new old-school adventure game - five times their original goal, and still going strong.
This has not escaped the attention of other developers of classic games. Brian Fargo (founder of Interplay, creator of
Bard's Tale and
Wasteland)
plans to launch a Kickstarter drive very soon to develop a sequel to
Wasteland.
If you're not familiar with Wasteland, it's the predecessor to Fallout. Fargo didn't have the rights for a direct sequel, so the Black Isle division of Interplay developed Fallout as the next best thing. Possibly the next better thing, because Fallout is a gem.
And Obsidian, the present incarnation of the aforementioned Black Isle, are
also looking into the idea. As Black Isle the team created both the original
Fallout games, both
Icewind Dale games, and
Planescape: Torment, possibly the best computer role-playing game ever. They're currently busy with a couple of projects - they do a lot of work-for-hire - but they have a lot of projects they never got to complete in the
Black Isle days.
It's unlikely that we'll ever see the original vision for Fallout 3 or Baldur's Gate III due to licensing issues, and Torment was a massive project, with 800,000 words of text (about twice as much as Lord of the Rings), but a just-plain-fun party-based isometric dungeon crawler like Icewind Dale is something that likely could and would be funded through Kickstarter.
I loved the Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate I & II, Icewind Dale I & II, and Planescape: Torment) and if they were still making them today I'd still be buying them. So if and when those projects show up on Kickstarter, I will leap on them, cash in hand.
Brian and Chris (Avellone, of Obsidian), you hear me? However many of these projects you think you can deliver, me and my money are ready and waiting.
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Sunday, February 19
Katawa Shoujo
Right. That reminds me why I don't like this sort of game.
I don't have any problem at all with the game subject or material; they're fine, and deftly handled. It's the shallowness of the decision tree that I have a problem with. At least when Mass Effect screwed you this way, you could mostly either apologise or shoot someone. Sometimes both.
Right now, I give it a big meh.
more...
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1
KS isn't really a game, per se. It's more like a giant "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, February 19 2012 04:37 PM (ZNgWw)
2
It's more like a giant "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
That's the point he's making. You don't get to choose much. Rins path is the worst in that regard. Hannako's is by far the best as far as logically relevant choices.
On balance I liked most of the characters, and 3 of the 5 stories, but I agree that gameplay was lacking.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sunday, February 19 2012 05:12 PM (EJaOX)
3
I note that Katawa Crash has more actual game play (you can slow yourself, give yourself a boost a limited number of times and of course choose your initial trajectory)...you also get to kick Hisao around and there's a sharktopus, (which the VN sorely lacks).
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sunday, February 19 2012 05:20 PM (EJaOX)
4
And that's my point (which I also made
in my review).
KS isn't a game by Western standards, and comparing it to
Mass Effect, even in passing, isn't fair to either.
If you object to calling
KS a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, then I'll just call it five novellas wrapped together by a computer program. There is no gameplay, just a lot of reading.
Having said that, I had more
fun reading
KS than I have any of the last five books I've picked up.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, February 19 2012 05:30 PM (ZNgWw)
5
The problem I have is that you're presented with two or three choices, none of which are quite what you want to do, and which don't accurately represent what your character will do or say (a sin which
Mass Effect also commits, which is why I mentioned it) - and then you just press the space bar for a long while.
If you read the credits, you'll see they had a writing team, an art team, a music team... And no-one at all on game design.
I agree that it's a fun read, and the characters are engaging. But I think that all that creative work is sadly let down by the shortage of meaningful choices.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, February 19 2012 05:56 PM (PiXy!)
6
I'll give it another go, to get some more of the story out. I do like the story (so far). It just needs about three times as many branch points.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, February 19 2012 05:59 PM (PiXy!)
7
The real culprit there was, the, er... "development cycle", I guess you'd call it. The first chapter was produced as a demo/test the waters/holy shit this is really happening piece, and actually has a lot of decision points and branching etc etc. But the rest of the development doesn't run with that at all - if you don't end up on the Kenji bus, your ride will take you completely to the end of one of the girls' stories.
A game developed in more organic fashion would have spaced that out more, so that you didn't have a Future Destiny With _x_ by the school festival. But it would have also been a long, hard slog with the initial development team - they needed to have something out there to convince people that this was a real, serious project devoted to taking what sounds like a terrible joke of a concept and making a good experience out of it.
That said, there's something to be said for the roller coaster. Contrast with Type Moon's stuff, for example. The Tsukihime game had a bunch of branching options, but only a single determiner between whether you were on the Arc path or the Ciel path... and it wasn't the game asking you "so would you prefer to be bonking Arc or Ciel" either. It was entirely possible to go into the game and play it with a strong preference for one character, then do that particular choice wrong, starting you on the path for the other with massive, insuperable penalties (because, well... Ciel very much does not like Arc and Arc's just jealous in general.) So your game was doomed at that point... but it wouldn't say "oh yeah, you're so dead by now", you'd just play for a few more in-game days wondering why you're suddenly getting all these Ciel scenes when you'd been a lot more friendly with Arc.
Which is to say, designing these stories with a lot of branching points is hard, because an "oh darn, nobody likes you very much" ending is a highly negative experience, especially if you can't exactly work out what you did wrong. FSN had a few problems with this too. If you're playing the game worried that answering "wrong" when you get asked about your favorite vegetable will result in hours of wasted gameplay, you're not going to have as much fun.
Some games get around this by having a strong default option - Sakura Wars (not exactly a dating sim...) rigs it so it's quite difficult to get EVERYONE mad at you, and even blundering your way through the game without much of a focus will have you end up with Sakura. Other games get through it in this fashion - you've got choices that can lead to different scenes, but in ways that aren't story-important (the infamous White Ren/Black Ren selection event...) Some games just blow it and become crapware.
It's fair to say that KS doesn't have a whole lot of user interaction, but eh, it's a visual novel. More interaction doesn't necessarily equal a better experience.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Sunday, February 19 2012 09:43 PM (GJQTS)
8
More interaction doesn't
necessarily equal a better experience, but in this case, and for me, it definitely would.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, February 19 2012 11:25 PM (PiXy!)
9
Hey, Pixy. I can't log into blog.mu.nu. I'm getting an Internal Server Error page. Could you have a look at that? Thanks! :-D
Posted by: Tuning Spork at Monday, February 20 2012 11:40 AM (yh6+P)
10
Spork, I'll get that fixed ASAP, but in the meantime try the backup login at blog2.mu.nu.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, February 20 2012 03:49 PM (PiXy!)
11
Pixy,
Do you remember when I whined incessantly about the spam on Ace's blog, and you finally tried to block me while you and Den Beste shamed me for my awesome ability to whine about stuff?
Well, sorry for all of that, but more importantly, congratulations on fixing the spam problem! If it's not a secret, how did you accomplish it?
*fingers crossed that it was one of my ideas*
Posted by: Kevin at Monday, February 20 2012 07:26 PM (3o64G)
12
I'm not sure exactly what did the trick. I updated the spam filter to scan the database for repeat offenders, find all the IP addresses they use, and ban them en masse.
I also spent several hours manually identifying spam and zapping the hell out of it (and banning people the same way).
It worked a lot better than I'd expected; spam levels have gone way down.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Monday, February 20 2012 09:12 PM (PiXy!)
13
Thanks, Pixy! The main login is still out, but the backup worked like a charm.
Posted by: Tuning Spork at Monday, February 20 2012 10:25 PM (yh6+P)
14
Original address should be happy again now as well.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, February 22 2012 11:42 AM (PiXy!)
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It's Not An Addiction!
I was browsing around Kickstarter yesterday, looking for cool projects to throw money at, and there aren't actually all that many that excite me, having already tossed cashbombs in the direction of Rich Burlew's
Order of the Stick reprint drive and Rob Balder's
Efrworld motion comic project.
One that did catch my eye, though, is
The Adventures of the Salamander. It's a series of children's books based on a story the guy wrote when he was five, and recently found while going through stuff his mum had kept (as mums are wont to do). He's now a freelance artist and has illustrated a number of books, but this is the first time he's both written and illustrated something.
Unlike Rich and Rob, I don't know this guy and can't vouch for him, but if you scroll down you can see that he can sure draw some nice salamanders. I thought it worth a few bucks for a PDF set.
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