All posts tagged Rant

Overwatch 2: can’t even connect

 Martin · 2 years

I never expect online games to have a smooth launch, but I'm still disappointed when they don't. Especially when they are built on top of an already-function game, as is the case with Overwatch 2.

Yesterday at 11:58 AM, I logged in to try out the newly updated game. It placed me in a queue of people waiting to play, 30,000 long.

The queue moved relatively quickly, and after about 20 minutes, there were less than 1,000 people ahead of me. A few more minutes, and then the opening video played. I'd never sat through it before, so I figured I'd watch.

About 20 seconds into the video, the game kicked me back out to the queue screen - I'd been disconnected and needed to rejoin. Great! I jumped back into the queue, which was now 40,000 people long.

I got to around 20,000th place before I was met with a message telling me my game lost the connection to the server.

Only until around 8:30 PM that night was I able to get in and try a couple of matches. One shit-show where nobody worked together, and then a game that started pretty well - and then I got disconnected.

Frustrated, I closed the game and got back to my Assassin's Creed Valhalla game.

Now, today, I've tried to connect to Overwatch 2 multiple times, and each time I've been disconnected after a few minutes of waiting in the queue. Only just now (with no time to actually play!) is the queue slowly grinding down without a disconnect.

I didn't have super high hopes for Overwatch 2 - and I still don't. But I can't even play the damned thing.

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Digital Art & NFT’s

 Martin · 3 years

A few months ago I heard about NFT's, and for a week or so, I thought the idea was quite exciting. As an artist, being able to sell my work digitally, to a worldwide audience, and also get a residual cut of subsequent sales sounded great. It still does. But since then, I've learned a lot more about NFT's, and now I just have concerns.

I've seen way too many other artists have their art stolen, minted as NFT's, and sold without their knowledge or consent. There's no authority to watch over who mints what, and minting outfits don't seem interested in policing users eager to help them make a quick buck. Naturally, there's no authority over the underlying cryptocurrency used to buy these illicit NFT's as well, so fraud runs rampant and there doesn't seem to be much anyone can (or will) do about it.

There's also the matter of the ever increasing amounts of energy being wasted to crunch cryptocurrency mining and transactions. Aside from the blatant theft of other people's work, it's one of the worst aspects of all this.

It's a shame because NFT's could be a big deal for digital art in the future. But the problems currently outweighs the benefits, in my opinion - so much so that I'm starting to worry a tiny bit about posting my art online, as I'm afraid it will end up being ripped off and sold without my knowledge.

I've already seen images that I've created and posted appear in random places online, and I can't imagine that situation will improve when there's a buck to be made.

It seems like every other week there's a hot new set of NFT avatars generated by some programmer artist's algorithm, made to have common configurations and rare ones, selling for thousands or millions of dollars.

My question is, if you want to have a rare, unique avatar created by an actual artist, why not just do the old-fashioned thing and commission it?Y

You'll probably pay a lot less - and you won't be participating in the dumpster fire that is the current NFT market.

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The Intricate Web

 Martin · 3 years

I've been developing my own websites for over 20 years, and doing the odd website work for a few clients lately, and so I keep up with that scene as best as I can.

The amount of stuff you need to know to be a solo web developer in 2021 is kind of mind boggling though, and I concentrate mostly on the design side, along with rudimentary things like HTML, PHP, CSS, and some Javascript.

I aspire to be able to be better at Javascript, and I'd like to learn Ajax properly someday. And get good at making things with three.js.

I like that we can have websites that do all this stuff - it's crazy compared to the rinky-dink sites I learned how to make back in the Geocities days. But I also sort of lament how complicated everything is, too.

I don't want to compile a website before deploying it. I don't want to have to worry about SEO, and compromise (or worse, homogenize) my designs because Google wants things to be a certain way. I don't want to add special code to my websites so Facebook understands the content flow better.

I hate that this stuff is common. It makes the web feel less like a tool for free expression. But if you don't learn it, and don't do it, others will - and then you won't get work.

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Ghost Stories and Conspiracy Theories

 Martin · 3 years

When I was a kid, I loved reading books about ghosts, aliens, and other paranormal stuff. Did I ever believe them? It's hard to say from this far out. They certainly scared me sometimes, though.

Stories of haunted ships scared me in particular, though I don't really know why. I never spent time on boats as a kid. Tales of ghost ships, still stalked by apparitions of their former crew, and doomed to repeat their final, ill-fated voyages over and over... that freaked me out. It still kind of does! Back then, the closest I ever got to that was playing around on a relative's boat that got parked on our property for a while.

As an adult, I've grown away from those things. A world where ghosts exist is one that doesn't seem rational to me. I often find myself bemused whenever anyone makes a serious attempt to claim that ghosts are the explanation for something. I am similarly skeptical of aliens, and alien-abduction stories, but the possibility that alien life exists (or existed in the past, or will exist in the future) seems infinitely more likely to me. At least there is a naturalistic explanation for that.

In my opinion, a mind that is taught to believe extraordinary stories, without also requiring the necessary evidence to justify the belief, is one that is primed to accept a number of things that might appear intuitive, but can't stand up to the faintest skepticism. It's a breeding ground for magical thinking and paranoid thoughts - the kind that are absolutely pervasive in American society today.

Nothing is off limits. Literally everything is justified by conspiracy theories, many of which are so dim-witted they make the old ghost stories seem absolutely believable by comparison. I'm just sick of it.

If you have beliefs about how things should be, that's fine - even if I don't agree with them, or even if most other people don't agree with them. If you want things to be a certain way, and that's how you choose to vote, go for it. But don't hide behind conspiracy theories to justify it. Just own it. Things would be a lot better that way.

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Immortals Fenyx Rising is just too much sometimes

 Martin · 3 years

After completing Assassin's Creed Odyssey (along with all its DLC) late last year, I've been sort of put off starting any new long games. Aside from a semi-brief Watch Dogs: Legion run, which was largely just about putting my new Xbox Series X to the test, almost everything I've played so far in 2021 has been smaller indie titles and adventure games.

Except for Immortals Fenyx Rising, which I became intrigued by after watching people play a bit on Twitch. I downloaded it and played a while right after completing Odyssey, but it felt too similar to that (and I was suffering from an overload of Greek mythology) so I shelved it until a few weeks ago, on a quest to finish it anew.

I actually really like Fenyx - it is very obviously built on top of Assassin's Creed tech, and so it feels quite similar - but the cartoonish style and silly humor suit it well. The combat is fun and once you gain more powers, it's a blast to vanquish hordes of enemies and traverse the terrain quickly.

At 47 hours, I'm at the point where I could trigger the end sequence and finish the game, but for now I am picking through all the stuff I missed and collecting achievements. I'm probably about 80% done with the content in the base game.

My problem is that, at about 20 hours in, it felt like the game could've been more focused - and that feeling has stuck with me since. Fenyx never gets boring really, but as I unlocked yet another map region full of icons to visit and complete, I couldn't help but wonder how much better the game could have been if Ubisoft had just kept the scope a bit smaller. Like, why not cut a region or two and spend the extra time/money on a more cinematic story? Better animation?

It's mildly frustrating because I feel like this game could've given The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild a run for its money. It's a good game that is so, so close to being a great game.

Sadly, Ubisoft seems unable to help themselves when it comes to giant maps and too many objectives. It's cool that they can create such expansive content for every one of their franchises - but I wish they'd just show some restraint sometimes. It makes me think that games like Splinter Cell haven't seen new entries in a while just because they haven't yet figured out how to drop Sam Fisher on a Skyrim-sized map.

Anyway, that's my rant. I shall continue my enjoyable slog now.

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The Beatles & Amazon

 Martin · 12 years

Is there a reason why The Beatles' music (in digital format) hasn't expanded beyond iTunes yet?

It's really disappointing to me that I can't buy their music anywhere online unless I want to buy a disc and have it shipped to me or unless I want to use iTunes, which I don't. Surely there's money to be made by ending exclusivity with iTunes, and if there's anything the recording industry likes, it's the sound of piles of money rolling in. So, what's the deal?

While I'm on the subject of music, I also would like to ask why Amazon's mobile app, at least the Windows Phone 7 version, doesn't give me access to my cloud-stored music.

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Last.fm, Pandora, and a slew of other services can all stream music stored online... so why not Amazon as well? They already automatically store all of my music purchases online, they have a huge network of content servers across the globe, and they've got an app out for all the major mobile platforms. It seems like a no-brainer.

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Apple Critical

 Martin · 13 years

Recently, a few of my friends have made comments to me about how I "hate Apple". I just wanted to take a moment here and clear the air on the subject.

I do not, in fact, hate Apple.

Am I critical of some of the stupid things they do? Sure. But I am that way for many things, including things that I really enjoy using / being a part of.

I do, however, hate Apple's throng of fanboys; that loud, angry minority of Apple users who will argue how great their new iDevice is while they're lugging it through the mall to their local Apple Store to get it repaired. But instead of going on and on about why I hate Apple zealots, here's a good real-world example (the first comment on this article from 9to5mac.com):

I'll stay with my two-year-old opinion. iOS and Mac OS X will never merge, but they will continue to complement in feature set (Mac to iPhone to iPad to Mac, and so on) and connectivity (iCloud, etc.). One day, iOS and Mac OS X will get canceled after Apple creates a new OS that reinvents computing. When they find a way that's got the precision and speed of the mouse and keyboard and the ease-of-use and mobility of the touch screen, they'll implement that input method into the new OS. I give it 5 years (up to 10) - otherwise, another company (I'm not betting for Microsoft - they never did anything extremely innovative, IMO) may become the new Apple.

I've bolded the worst part. The whole comment is bad, but the ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity that went into drafting that single bolded sentence is mind-blowing to me. It's like reading the words of a religious zealot. Totally ridiculous.

So long story short, I don't hate Apple; I hate its pretentious, die-hard fans. And just to keep things fun, here's a short list of other fanboys I can't stand, in no particular order:

  • PlayStation/Sony fanboys
  • Dallas Cowboys fanboys
  • Halo fanboys

Anyway, that felt good to get off my chest. Feel free to leave me a love letter in the comments about it.

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Mass Effect 3… Multiplayer? Sigh.

 Martin · 13 years

When EA acquired BioWare in 2007, on the eve of its successful franchise launch with the original Mass Effect, I tried my hardest to reserve my criticisms until after they shipped a few more products, and we would start to see just how extensive the inevitable changes to the company would be. With BioWare's history of crafting superb games, it seemed like I owed it to them to at least wait for the dust to settle before making any judgments.

Three years later in 2010, I found myself generally happy with Mass Effect 2. The story was an interesting continuation of the epic set forth in the original game, and most of the conventions that made the first game fun were carried over successfully. Some things from the original game were shed away however, like the synth-heavy soundtrack from the previous game, and Mass Effect 2 definitely felt like a vision a little less realized (and a little more mainstream) for it. I found some other small changes annoying as well, like the end-of-level summary screens, and the (over) simplification of some of the RPG elements (weapons, armor).

I have no idea that these changes were planned additions by BioWare or the results of EA leaning on the team to try to make their game more appealing to the masses, but either way, they did nothing but dilute what would have otherwise been another grand RPG experience.

This week, it was announced that the upcoming Mass Effect 3 would feature a multiplayer element, and I find myself utterly disappointed. Why? Because this is just another step towards mediocrity for what started out as a really outstanding series of games. Instead of spending time working on improving the storytelling in the game engine, adding more side-quests and expanding, what I find to be, a very interesting universe for the upcoming game, EA / BioWare are squandering their time developing a multiplayer mode that will likely not fit within the canon of the story, or even be something that players want to buy the game for.

It's almost as if we've gone backwards a step. I really thought we'd mostly gotten past the days of executives trying to check off all the boxes, making developers create bolted-on, forgettable multiplayer experiences just so they'd have another item to highlight on the back of the game's box.

Maybe EA isn't to blame here; maybe this was BioWare's decision. Either way, I think it's a mistake, and is ignorant to all the things that made the series popular to begin with.

Mass Effect is a single player experience. If I buy the third game, it's going to be because I want to continue that experience. I want to play a game with a carefully crafted world, where story is king, and the game isn't interrupted by lag, idiots cursing at me over their mics, etc. I'm not going to buy Mass Effect 3 for multiplayer; I've got Gears of War, Halo, and Team Fortress 2 for that.

But hey, I could be wrong; Mass Effect 3's multiplayer could turn out to be just fine. From the outset however, it doesn't seem like a very fun idea to me.

Ultimately, I really just hope that Mass Effect 3 (the single player role-playing game) doesn't lose its edge because BioWare had to spend months tacking on a multiplayer component. It would be a real shame to end such a brilliant trilogy on such a sour note.

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I’m a Team Fortress 2 Free-to-Play Noob

 Martin · 13 years

So the other day I was playing Team Fortress 2, and someone accused me of being a "free-to-play noob". I was chided as being one of the newbie players who only recently got into the game because it became free-to-play, despite my owning and playing the game since 2007.

But let me back up a little bit. I was playing Team Fortress 2 the other day, and having a less than stellar round. Some people on my team, who had been playing on the server before I got there, were using their microphones to play the game. These players were being too vocal, to the point that I couldn't concentrate on the game because of all the "mic spam". Being annoyed at my repeated effort and lack of results, coupled with the inane chirps and squeals of the mic spam, I did what any right-minded online gamer would do: I told them to "shut the fuck up".

Bear in mind, I merely typed this phrase into the game's chat; most of the time, these messages are either not read by those they are directed at, since that person is too busy playing the game, or it is swept off the screen quickly by in-game announcements. My message was immediately recognized by the person who I considered to be the primary offender, however.

What was seconds before only friendly banter and playful chatting suddenly became a shrill torrent of insults, disagreeing with my command and demanding that I "shut the fuck up" myself. The tone of voice degenerated into what I could only describe as "ghetto". It's funny how quickly someone's world can come crashing down at the slightest bit of confrontation.

So we argued a bit more, me click-clacking away at my keyboard, and the annoying mic spammer answering my few messages with an elevating level of shrieking. Another player said I should get banned.

Then, the original mic spammer decided that the best way she could deal with me was to call me out as a "free-to-play nub".

A little bit of history, before I continue: back in 2007, Team Fortress 2 used to come as a standalone inclusion in the Orange Box, with Half-Life 2. After that, it became possible to buy the game separately. Finally, as of June of 2011, the game became "free-to-play", meaning anyone could download the game and play with everyone else. Since then, the newest, greatest community-spawned insult is to call someone a "free-to-play noob", meaning they stink at the game because they've only recently begun playing, since the game was made free.

Obviously, I do not fall into this category, and I stated that plainly. Ms. Mic Spam backed off rather quickly after this, and was quite quiet after. And rightfully so, since most of my characters in Team Fortress 2 are outfitted with either The Proof of Purchase hat, my Primeval Warrior pin, or both. These items show that I bought the game back when it was still for sale, and that I have been playing since September 18, 2007, respectively. They are not tradable, and anyone who has them is very obviously not a Team Fortress 2 free-to-play inductee.

So what's the lesson here, other than that I like to have petty arguments with stupid people while I am playing games?

Simply this: if you're going to be an asshole and toss around the "free-to-play noob" insult liberally every time you disagree with someone in Team Fortress 2, make sure you know what the hell you're talking about first. It's not hard to check out people's loadouts first. Unless of course, you're some kind of noob.

Also, if you want to chat with people constantly, start up a private Steam voice chat conversation, or use Xbox Live, Skype, Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or some other chat client. You can even play games while you're doing it. Just leave everyone else out of the conversation, because I assure you, we're not interested.

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New Phone On The Way

 Martin · 13 years

So I'm finally getting a new phone, and taking the plunge and getting a smart phone, no less. I'm replacing my old LG Chocolate with an HTC Trophy, which as I am typing this, is currently riding shotgun with some anonymous FedEx driver, getting ready for glorious times ahead with Marty.

In case you're not up on your phones, the HTC Trophy is a Windows Phone 7 phone. I tried out the iPhone 4, and though I like my iPod Touch, I just can't get that far in with Apple at this point, and it annoys me that everyone has them. I also tried a handful of Android phones, and while I liked some of the features they offered, it all seemed a little janky. I think I'm just kind of tired of thumbing through pages of tiny icons.

Finally, I tried out Windows Phone 7, and frankly, I like it. It's different, but not pointlessly so. It's got a sharp look, and it's all simply coherent and snappy. Also, since I had an upgrade coming from Verizon, and since they were doing some kind of online promotion, I got the new phone for only $50. This is my golden parachute for if it doesn't work out, but I have high hopes for it and don't expect that to happen.

But before you get all huffy and start hammering out a comment on why I should have gotten Phone X instead, let's share a moment reflecting on the things I won't be missing about my old LG Chocolate. If we can't love the same thing, let's hate the same thing, alright?

The navigation wheel.

Visually, the shiny navigation wheel on the face of the Chocolate is actually interesting. It makes the phone look like it will be fun to use and lends it a foreign air of functionality. You don't know what the wheel does or how it would feel to use it, but you suspect that it makes things easy, and that there might be many hidden uses to that wheel that your mind couldn't possibly have imagined. The wheel even gives the phone a retro-iPod look.

Sadly, the wheel is not awesome. Not even remotely. Instead of being a touch-based input, like the iPod of old that it pays homage to, or even the other four buttons on the face of the phone, this wheel is exactly that: a wheel. It's a piece of shiny plastic that your thumb has to actually rotate to work, and it's not easy to find the right place between way-too-sensitive and turning-the-wheel-around-three-times-to-get-the-menu-to-move-ahead-one-item.

When the phone is unlocked but no menus are invoked, the wheel also has the added benefit of opening the useless calendar widget. This widget does nothing but show the current date and time, which you could have already seen on the home screen behind it, and it runs poorly to boot. So poorly, in fact, that if you accidentally leave the widget open for long enough for the phone to lock again, it stops actually telling the time, freezes up, and then the phone actually takes a minute or two to close it later when you realize what happened. As you might imagine, this is loads of fun when you're trying to make a call quickly or you just want to see what time it is.

The awful spell-checking

Or more precisely, the spell-checking dictionary auto-add feature, which is impossible to access. Though there aren't that many words that aren't in the dictionary by default, occasionally you have to enter your own words in the LG Chocolate 2, which isn't all that painful an experience; you just put the phone in a different text entry mode, type the word, and then continue your text. When you do this, the phone adds your new word to its internal dictionary. So far so good. Later on, when you use the word again, it's easy to use because the phone will help you fill it in automatically.

Unfortunately, the auto-add feature isn't particularly smart, so there are many instances where you don't want it to add something, because you're not going to type it all the time, but it goes ahead and does it anyway. Further, it remembers capital letters and treats periods and commas as part of words, so if you are using a word for the first time at the beginning or end of a sentence, the dictionary entry for that word will always be that way.

There also doesn't seem to be a weighting system for how often you use words, so for example (and this is the one I hate the absolute most), one time I pressed the buttons 9, 6, 8, 1 to type out the number "968y" with a comma at the end. Now, every time I type the word "you", (also 9, 6, 8) and then add a period to the end (1), the Chocolate 2 replaces my perfectly ended sentence with "986,". Nevermind the fact that I've typed 9, 6, 8, 1 hundreds of times now, and only once have I ever wanted it to be "968,". It suggests this to me every time. And so far as I can tell, there's no official way for going in and deleting the entry from the phone's internal dictionary.

If LG added this feature to the phone to make me want to throw it as far as I possibly can every time it happens, then let me be the first to say that they did a fine job of it. A damn fine job.

The missing 4 key

I think this one was probably a sign that my time with my LG Chocolate 2 was drawing to a rapid close, but a few months ago I was furiously texting, and I felt something odd happen beneath my left thumb. The hitherto solid, mostly immovable, and always reliable 4 key finally decided it was time to abandon ship, severed its bonds with the glowing rubbery button below, and ungracefully fell to the floor below. Since then, it's been weird typing words that use the letters g, h, or i.

I don't blame 4 for finally giving up. I don't really even text that often, but I probably would have fell off the Chocolate 2 long ago, if I were 4. I'm proud of him for sticking around as long as he did.

Non-sending text messages

Over the course of the last half year or so, my Chocolate 2 has become increasingly unwilling to send out my text messages, sometimes making me cancel the text and try to send it two or three times before it works.

It's an annoying problem, and it's made worse by the fact that one often doesn't watch his phone after pressing the Send button to make sure the text actually gets sent - it's assumed that it is, the phone is locked and put away, and the Text Messenger goes on his merry way. Quite often I respond very quickly to texts, only to find out an hour or so later that my efforts at fast text turnaround were in vain; the message did not actually go through, and the person expecting a response is now pissed off, and/or wondering what happened to me. If I want to snub someone by not responding to their text, I'd rather do it on my terms, than have my phone decide for me when such snubbing is appropriate. Especially since my phone does not seem to be good at making these kinds of decisions.

I'm hoping this isn't a problem with Verizon itself, but nobody else I know who has Verizon has this problem, so... there you go. I think this problem might actually stem from my dropping the phone a few times during its years of service, but hey, then it's a design/engineering problem. Still not my fault. Things that are my fault wouldn't fit well in this list of faults anyway, now would they?

Crap OS

Maybe it's called Qualcomm BREW, or maybe it doesn't even have a name. Regardless, I'm calling it Crap OS because it's a crappy operating system. From the aforementioned calendar widget issue to the many times where I haven't been able to delete messages from the phone (because the inbox got too full... that makes sense, right?), I've experienced a lot of annoyances with this OS.

About the only thing I like about Crap OS is that it's generally simple, and since Verizon seems to have it on all of their non-smart phones, it makes it easy to pick up and use virtually any of those phones, once you know your way around. My phone also had a few themes to change the feel of the OS, and they actually worked pretty well too, I will say. Still, I don't think I'm going to be lamenting the upgrade any time soon.

Let me close this list by saying that, despite my ranting here, I actually don't hate the LG Chocolate. It has many flaws, like just about any phone. But it served me well.

Anyway, that's the long and short of it. A new phone is on the way, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'll report back here (and elsewhere, I'm sure) when I get it. Anyone else out there have an HTC Trophy?

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