I've spent an unfortunate portion of my weekend putting together a new theme for the blog - and here it is!
If you notice any quirks with the new theme, please let me know - I'm so tired of looking at CSS and PHP I can't be sure that I've gotten everything fixed (aside from the login screen, will do that soon).
Anyway, hope everyone likes it! I'm off to play some Xbox... or pretty much anything else that doesn't involve me sitting at my computer.
Sad times are here again as the weekend draws to a close and the usual grind picks up again with a week full of work looming ahead. I didn't get a whole heck of a lot done this weekend, but as always, I managed to have some fun, so here I am to share my adventures.
Though I haven't had as much time to work on this program as I'd like so far, I have made some decent progress on getting the engine ready for a new contest. First proposed a few days ago on the Reflect Games forums, I'm hoping the new robot AI programming comp proves to be a more fun replacement for the old, more involved contests.
The idea is that I will create a base application which everyone can download and play with - essentially just a room from top-down view, and a simple "robot" object - and anyone wanting to participate in the contest will write an AI for the robot that will compete against others' creations. Movement and attack variables/objects will be the same across all entries (I'll be coding those in scripts), and once everyone's AI script is finished, we'll draw up a tournament tree, I'll have the bots compete, and then record the results and broadcast them, via either YouTube or some kind of live Podcast.
One of the goals of the new competition format is to encourage creative coding without forcing entrants to commit to an entire game, which can be both difficult and frustrating at times. I think that with an AI programming tournament, people will have more opportunity to show off good coding without being bogged down by the need for other assets, they'll have a more interesting method of feedback (watching their bot compete with another, as opposed to a "secret" judging), and expansion of the competition can evolve more naturally - if the contest proves to be fun and engaging, we can add more weapons to the bots' arsenal, more customization, etc.
Though it's taking me a long time to get things rolling, I'm very excited about this project. We've already got lots of feedback about how this competition should work - be sure to visit the Reflect Games forums to voice your opinion too!
Over the last few days, I've managed to grind my way to Exalted status with two (more) factions, the Shattered Sun Offensive, and the Kurenai, netting myself a new title, some sweet additions to my gear, and a new mount that I'll probably never use.
Gaining exalted with SSO, even without visiting any instances, is pretty easy - it only took me a few days, and I only had to visit the Isle of Quel'Danas and complete all the daily quests there a handful of times. I liked the variation and overlap in the quests there though, and going from that back to grinding the other factions' reputation was a pretty rough transition. By contrast, the only quest I could take in Nagrand to gain Kurenai rep was the repeatable Obsidian Warbeads quest, which meant enduring the monotony of killing hundreds of ogres. Not exactly my cup of tea, and I will probably be looking for different quests when I start my quest for Consortium rep... even if it just means a simple change in scenery.
One good thing about grinding in Nagrand however, is that I was able to pick up a lot of mining nodes that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. I've now got a mining bag (20 slots) almost full of stacks of Fel Iron Ore and Adamantite Ore - which I'm not sure what I should do with yet. Selling at the auction house will net me a huge sum of gold, but my blacksmithing skill is only at 300, so it might just be better spent on leveling.
My chances for scoring some decent raiding increased significantly last week as well, as I was inducted quite unceremoniously into Encore, an awesome guild which a few friends from college are pretty well-entrenched in. Though I'm not always up for 5-6 hours of raiding, the occasional run through the higher-level dungeons should be new and fun.
Though I've played with the live CD version of Ubuntu before, I finally took the plunge this weekend. I dug an old hard drive out of the closet, popped it into my older computer, and installed it. I've taken some time to play around with it this weekend, and I've mostly enjoyed my time with it.
Downloading Ubuntu and installing it was a piece of cake. All you have to do is get on the official site, download the CD image, burn it, pop it in the preferred computer, and boot from it. The live CD will load Ubuntu just like it would from the hard drive (a bit slower, of course), and once you're in the OS and you've played around with it, you can choose to install directly from a link on the desktop. The only confusion I had during this process was with which file system I should format the drive, but after doing some quick research, I settled on ext3, which seems to be holding up just fine.
So far, I am impressed with Linux. Though I couldn't see myself switching over to it for good, I like many things about it, and I will probably continue to tinker with it. The customization Gnome/Compiz provide is great, and being able to move around virtually every button on the desktop is just plain awesome. The extra effects you can perform with capable hardware are not only fun to look at - they are often genuinely useful. And although there are a few bits of oddness here and there, the OS feels mostly cohesive and with a few more generations of work, I think it really could rival the quality of similar Unix-based OS's, like Mac OS.
Another thing I am particularly fond of is that fact that Ubuntu comes with just about everything you need pre-installed. From the "Faux-toshop" (yes, I made that up), GIMP to the entire suite of OpenOffice.org tools, there's really not much aside from games that need to be installed after loading up Ubuntu for the first time. And of course, that's where the problem lies.
Ubuntu has an impressive number of built-in games, like Solitaire, Blackjack, etc. but if you're like me, you want more meat on your games. Unfortunately, not many games are currently being written with a native port of Linux in mind. There are options available however, like WINE, which can run Windows applications nicely, and can even throw around a growing list of games (it ran my installation of Guild Wars flawlessly, if only a tiny bit slow).
But whatever - running my games in WINE is silly when I've got another hard drive in the same computer with Windows on it, so I'll be dual-booting my older computer on Windows and Ubuntu for now. I'm sure Linux will continue to be fun to play around with, or at least a good diversion from working on my projects and playing games.
Aside from all that stuff, I also got to spend a lot of time with my girlfriend, and we finally found some time to start researching home loans. Hopefully we end up qualifying for a decent loan, and we can find a nice place to live - I'm a little sick of the apartment life!
Oh, and it was also my brother's 24th birthday!
Anyway, it's about time I wrapped up this weekend wrap-up. Hopefully everyone else out there had a good weekend too. Thanks for reading!
I checked my email this morning and found a nice little nugget of goodness deep within: a message from Caligari informing me that the newest version of TrueSpace has now been made available for free!
You can use this link to register at Caligari.com, after which you'll be able to download the program, the manual, and some quick start videos. Make sure you've got your downloadin' gloves on; in total you'll be grabbing about 313Mb of stuff.
There are a good collection of free video courses available here as well.
I've not even used version 7.6 yet, but from what I have read so far, it seems to be a huge upgrade from 5, which is what I currently use for everything.
I finally had a chance to play around with version 7.6 this morning, and though it is very different from 5, it's also much more powerful. The editor features a realtime rendering engine that can do shadows, reflections, and a lot of other neat effects as you work in the editor... which opens up some great opportunities for fine tuning scenes to look just right before doing a final rendering. I've not been able to get the included offline rendering engine to load up in TS7 yet, but when I get home from work later today I'll play around with it some more and see if I can get it to work.
You'll probably need a pretty decent computer to run everything in real-time, but I've been running the program on the laptop we have here at work, and it seems to run reasonably on that, so most near-modern desktops should be fine.
All in all, this is very exciting for fans of TrueSpace, newcomers looking for a powerful, free 3D package, or anyone who's just yearning for a new design experience. If I wore hats, my hat would be off to Caligari for making such a wonderful tool, and then making it free. Hopefully this is the start of something big (and good) for the company.
As many of you already know, E3 is officially underway, and many of the top companies in the games industry are busy pushing announcements out of airplanes and watching them fall on the unsuspecting crowd at the show. Unfortunately for me, I am not at the E3 show, but as a faithful fan of the Xbox 360, I feel it my duty to talk about some of the more amazing reports that have come back from Microsoft's side of the show.
Read on for my list of awesomely unexpected Xbox 360 E3 announcements!
Thanks to a new partnership with NBC / Universal, TV shows and movies under these companies will be coming to the XBL Marketplace. This is great news for fans of movies like The Bourne Trilogy and TV shows like 30 Rock. Hopefully The Office (my favorite show) will see some Marketplace love as well!
Netflix will also be supplying its streaming movies service through the Xbox 360, and those of you who already have a subscription will be given access free of any additional charges. It seems Microsoft is really pushing the 360 as a more universal media device. So long as they keep the primary focus on games, you won't hear any complaints from me.
Rumors about a dashboard redesign, including a new avatar system, have turned out to be true.
I've not investigated this very deeply yet, but it seems that the blades system currently in the OS will be the new in-game dashboard, and the normal OS screen will look more akin to the screenshot above. Avatars will be the new way to identify players. The many other new features are included:
There are probably a lot more updates as well - these were only the larger of the ones I've read about. These changes all reflect the (slightly) new direction Microsoft is taking with Xbox Live, dubbed the Xbox Live Experience.
Among the many Xbox Live Arcade titles announced, a few stood out among the rest:
The exclusive downloadable content for Grand Theft Auto 4 was also mentioned briefly - purportedly as what will be a huge event. It was also announced that Fallout 3 (by Bethesda) will have exclusive content via XBL as well.
Not to be left out were the usual slew of big game announcements for the upcoming months, including one massive bombshell (at the end of the list):
Mind you, all of this was only announced in one day - it seemed for a while as if the internet might implode from all the awesome news, and the buzz surrounding it. And then, since we always want more, demos for Too Human and Tales of Vesperia were placed on XBL for play.
I've already tried out the Too Human demo, and though it does have a few odd quirks (including a slightly story that's impossible to follow with the TV volume turned down), I had some fun with it, and I think I just might buy the game. More on that later though - I'm going to go take some time to digest all this news (and maybe a little midnight snack as well).
One thing's for sure - it's a very good time to be an Xbox 360 owner!
I'm pleased to announce that Team Wanderlust has finally unveiled a 'public' demo of Wanderlust: Rebirth, a game that many (myself included) feel is already one of the richest experiences crafted with Game Maker to date.
The game, a solo / online action RPG, represents a re-imagining of the original Wanderlust game, of sorts. Upon starting, players can choose from a handful of classes, and can level up their character with points as they progress through the game's chapters. Each chapter that is completed unlocks the next, and can be repeated again in order to obtain a higher rating, and earn more points.
Rebirth also features an intuitive dialog system, killer retro 16-bit style graphics, customizable controls, and of course, online play. Using the Reflect account system, or by connecting directly, players can join up with each other and play through chapters as a party of up to 4 players. The co-op gameplay is actually encouraged, as the game awards alternate scores for different group sizes, so if you want to complete the game in its entirety (and have some fun to boot), gather up some buddies and have at it!
I've really enjoyed watching this game as it is developed, and it's great to see it finally released to the public and finding a warm reception therein. A lot of work has been put into this game by just a handful of talented people, and I hope to see it finished in the time to come.
Matt, Rebirth's chief programmer, has also given me some great ideas to expand the functionality of Reflect as well - you'll see some of his suggestions come to fruition in future updates.
Anyway, I highly recommend you take the game for a test drive. I'm sure you'll agree with the growing consensus that the new Wanderlust is truly an epic game, with lots to do, and lots of rewards for both the casual and the dedicated alike.
Wanderlust: Rebirth's topic at the GMC can be found here, or you can download the game directly here.
Good show Team Wanderlust!
Driving to work today, I only passed by one Cingular store, but I could see a small throng of people standing outside of it, waiting for it to open. Listening to the radio, I heard that the frenzy had reached a higher pitch in the bay area, where some people have been waiting outside of Apple stores since Wednesday, and lines have extended to span almost a block of city streets.
What earth-shattering, ground-breaking, head-exploding new product are all these sad souls waking up early for?
The iPhone 3G, of course. A slight upgrade to the iPhone.
As a somewhat frequent visitor of Digg during the work week, I'm actually quite sick of hearing about it, if you want to know the truth. Almost every other story submitted has been about the iPhone 3G, and each one seems to try to make something as mundane into something interesting more so than the last, and not coincidentally, insult my intelligence more.
Want to watch someone activate their iPhone?
Or navigate an application store?
Or take it out of the bloody box, and handle it?
All covered, courtesy of fanboys, Engadget, and the piece of trash that is Gizmodo. And it makes me sick. How pathetic has our society become that we waste minutes and hours of our lives standing in line for an upgraded telephone?
It's gotten to the point where I feel like I'm about the only man in his mid 20's in California who doesn't shit himself every time someone mentions the iPhone - a sad reality. I even had the displeasure of listening to KGO interview a guy who was first in line at one of the Apple stores in San Francisco, who admitted he already had an iPhone, but wanted a second version phone as well.
Yes, in this time of economic downturn, people are buying a second version of the same phone they already own because it has a few more features than the last. At the time of this writing, Apple's stock is down 1.9% - on a big product launch day, no less - and people are still casting away their barely-year-old old iPhones so they can browse the internet on it slightly faster. And people wonder why our economy is tanking.
This foolishness must stop. Currently, I'm using an LG Chocolate 2, and I really like it - it's easily the best phone I've ever owned. It does everything I need it to do, and it looks cool. But I am not going to rush out and buy the LG Chocolate 3 when they release it, especially not if my current phone is working fine. In fact, the next time I buy a phone will likely be when this one stops working. And I'm not going to participate in the ridiculous douchebaggery that permeates the iPhone crowd, and take videos of myself opening the box, using the phone, or buying applications. I'm a tech guy, and even I find this crap completely neurotic, obsessive, and just plain disgusting.
It's a phone, people. Get over it.
I'm proud to announce that Reflect Games has gained its 6000th member!
It's been a long journey for me, starting up Reflect, and working through a lot of ups and downs, fast times, and slow times. It's been a lot of fun, and I hope that it continues to be so as we push on into the future.
I've not had as much time to work on games recently, but I have worked on things slowly over the last few months. I've got a game in the works for the next YYG competition, and I still plan on finishing up some of my more undercooked projects at some point, and getting the site update for Reflect out eventually, too. I usually find time to visit the Reflect Games forums, to interact with the community and help people with their work, and I'm always interested in previewing projects people may want to utilize the Reflect system as well. As time goes on, I will have more time for creating things myself as well - I'm just doing a lot of commuting for work right now, and that has a habit of making my free time scarce.
In any case, this is a very happy time for the Reflect community and myself, and I hope that if you have not yet checked out Reflect Games, you will take this opportunity to do so. Many people have put a lot of hard work into making Reflect what it is today. It's a fun place to be, and I thank everyone for helping it continue to be that way.
I might be working on a special giveaway to commemorate this milestone as well - more on that later though. Thanks for reading!
Blizzard has announced that Diablo 3 is on the way!
And from the looks of it, this is going to be one of the most visually rich dungeon runs you've ever been on!
One of my buddies mentioned this to me last night on World of Warcraft, but I had not gotten an opportunity to check out the official site until this morning.
If you're a fan of the Diablo series, I'd definitely recommend giving the website a look - Blizzard has released a large collection of screenshots (which I've got hosted here as well, in a gallery at the end of the post), as well as some wallpapers, concept art, lore, and a lot more. It's a great way to kick off what looks to be another triple-A title.
I'm a big fan of multiplayer dungeon-run games like Diablo and Dungeon Siege, and though I like the pre-made levels available in these types of games, I've always reserved a special place for those that can generate dungeons randomly as well. Random dungeons give the player a sense of discovery that's simply not possible when they run the same levels over and over, and I love the idea of working my way through a dungeon that nobody else may have ever seen before. From what I have read about Diablo 3, this game will include this feature and that, coupled with the amazing graphics and the classic Diablo gameplay, is just about enough to get me to put in a pre-order right now.
Hopefully we'll be learning more about the world of Sanctuary soon - I'm especially looking forward to a release date. The fact that Blizzard is posting job listings for Diablo 3 on the website makes me believe we won't be playing this anytime really soon, but seeing as the game is far enough along to deliver these amazing screenshots, it couldn't be that far off, right? Maybe a holiday release? Please?
In any case, I'm going to have to round up my current batch of unfinished games and get through them so I have time for this... but then Spore will be out later this year, as well as Gears of War 2. And possibly C&C: Red Alert 3. And then there will be more updates to Team Fortress 2. And the World of Warcraft expansion.
Ah, well... sleeping was always such a waste of time anyway, right?
Screenshots courtesy of Blizzard
After a few well-deserved days off, I'm back on the mean streets of California, choking on the smoky air, navigating the dense freeway traffic, and cranking my air conditioning up to 11.
I bet you didn't even notice I was gone, did you? (Don't answer that!)
I had a great time though, and I wanted to post a bit about it here before I return to the doldrums of my normal updates... and before I get back into working on my competition entry, which I'll be showcasing on the blog as soon as I can.
Anyway, my girlfriend had to do some traveling up north for her work, and seeing how we both love it up in Seattle (and we both needed a break from the California heat), we decided to make an extended weekend out of it. Our legs are sore from all the walking around, but we both had a great time, and got to see and do a lot of cool things on the trip.
Our first stop, after dropping off our bags at our hotel and grabbing a bite to eat, was the Summer Solstice Parade in Fremont. My girlfriend, having lived in Seattle for a few months some years ago, had already been to the parade before. I had not, and was pretty excited about it. Watching a throng of crazy people parade down the street is always fun, right?
Turned out it was. The parade, which was founded on the principle of being entirely human-powered, was filled to the brim with neat ideas for floats, interesting costumes, and awesomely-demented people. The Fremont street fair, a large gathering of local crafters and merchants, was equally cool, and was about ten times larger than the last time I'd seen it, presumably because of the number of people at the solstice parade. I liked the "art cars" they had there as well.
One thing that took both my girlfriend and myself by surprise (in a good way) was the pre-parade bicycle cavalcade. Admittedly, this probably doesn't sound very exciting - until I mention the fact that 90% of the people riding these bikes aren't wearing anything but some body paint and a smile. All I can say is that public nudity is kinda awesome.
On the west side of the Puget sound is Bainbridge Island, a small bit of land accessible via only one bridge to the north, and by ferry from Seattle. Though neither my girlfriend or I have ever explored the island in its entirety, we always manage to find something fun to do there, and usually some good eats as well. For this most recent trip, we made it to Doc's Marina Grill for some excellent fish & chips, and then walked up the hill to the Bainbridge Pavilion to rest and catch a movie. We ended up watching Kung Fu Panda.
I actually really enjoyed Kung Fu Panda, for a few reasons. Probably the first things you notice about the film is that it's a visual splendor. The backdrops are beautiful, the animation is slick, and the characters are amazing - there isn't one scene in the entire movie that isn't a complete treat for the eyes. The all-star voice acting was also very well done, especially Jack Black's performance as the panda, Po, who leads the film. Also well done is the story, which is somewhat predictable, but which is told so well that it manages to stay just fresh enough to be interesting.
Kung Fu Panda is definitely a children's movie, but I liked it a lot, and would see it again. I actually feel somewhat inspired to create a stylish Kung Fu-type game now, but I need to finish my competition entry before I start something like that. Kung Fu Panda was a great movie though, and I highly recommend it.
If you've followed Reflect Games since its beginnings, you probably recognize the name Gunner McJack - a hardcore firearms master, and a professional ass-kicker. The fictional Gunner McJack is derived from a character a friend of mine and I created back in college. I got to grab a bite to eat with my buddy, who's taken on the nickname of Gunner McJack, which was fun. Not much more to say about that, except that I still do plan on making a Gunner McJack game one of these days.
One of the last things my girlfriend and I got to do in Seattle was visit the Experience Music Project, or EMP, which houses some really great exhibits on the history of rock 'n roll, as well as the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.
I wish we would have had a bit more time to look through both sections of the EMP. The collection of historic items from rock history was impressive, and the current exhibition, a Jimi Hendrix retrospective, was amazing. The compendium of related items was fun to look at, and even included pages from Hendrix's diary detailing a few nights of gigs. Also on display was a large collection of historic guitars, spanning the range from awesome to eccentric. Upstairs from the main floor are a series of booths where you can learn the basics of playing a variety of instruments, audio mixing, etc. There's also large media room where you can listen to and watch audio / video clips of artists discussing their songs and performing. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but I could have spent at least a few more hours looking at everything.
The Science Fiction Museum also had a great exhibit called Robots: A Designer's Collection of Miniature Mechanical Marvels, which contained a large number of robot models and toys, including various Transformers, Mechagodzilla, and other gun-toting, plastic automatons. It was a great way to end the tour through the museum itself, which housed a fine collection of science fiction memorabilia from every era since its inception. I'm not sure if most of it was replication or original, but it was awesome to see artifacts like the original Star Trek costumes, the gun Bruce Willis used in The Fifth Element, and the E.T. spaceship. It was also quite enlightening to see how entrenched our culture is in science fiction, and I think that even my girlfriend, who isn't really into science fiction much, got a kick out of some of the show.
So yeah, after a whirlwind of activity in Seattle, I'm back. I'll be picking up production on my competition game again tonight, and probably getting in a little gameage on the side too. You'll be able to read about all that here, and I'll try to get some images (or maybe some video!) of the new game uploaded soon. It was a great vacation, but I'm glad to be back, too. After all, being at home and getting things done now is what makes vacation in the future so much more enjoyable!
Thanks for reading, and if you're up in the Seattle area, check out some of the stuff I mentioned above, if you can.
After having read about countless people playing with the Spore Creature Creator (and watching the number of creatures added to the online database jump by the thousands with each page refresh), I finally got a chance to try it out myself... and it's pretty fun!
I also made this goofy blue dragon.
I haven't had a chance to give this a really lengthy go-round, but from what I have played so far, it's intuitive, easy, and fun. Taking your creature for a test-drive as you develop him is awesome, and the features the team has built into the game for taking pictures, creating videos, animated avatars, etc. is great. I'm still going to reserve final judgment for the final release of the game, but just from this small taste, I think Spore is going to turn out great.
As with the Mii channel on Wii, half the fun will be to see what kind of creations people can make that resemble existing creatures. I've already seen a Murloc creature floating around, and it was a pretty damn good recreation.
Anyway, I'm going to get back to playing around with this, as well as working on my YYG Competition 3 entry - be sure to try out the Creature Creator though and let me know what you think!