June 2006

Nothin to see here!
Submitted Monday, June 26, 2006 - 1:07:49 AM by Klaitu

Well guys, I know that all.. like 4 of you who read the site regularly have been disappointed by the slow updates, but I mean, whatcha gonna do?

I go to work, sleep, go to work, and then sleep some more.

However, I do have some DVD's and stuff coming in the mail, so there should be some new reviews soon!

But just so you know, I'm not dead or anything.

Vanguard?
Submitted Friday, June 16, 2006 - 3:11:11 PM by Klaitu

Ever since Lucasarts took over Sony's work on Star Wars Galaxies, I've been searching for a real use for my computer. Carson bought me this bad boy, and it plays games like a dream, but there are so few computer games that are worth anything these days.. what to do?

I tried World of Warcraft for awhile, and it's a pretty fun game.. at least for awhile. It's got little bugs, and great content, but it was missing that special something.. that special something called roleplay.

Well, that, and the graphics were disgusting.

Now, there appears to be a new contender. A little talked-about contender in wider circles. It's called Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. I think it just might have what it takes to become the next heavy hitter.. though it won't have the story of Ultima Online, nor will it have the subscribers of World of Warctaft. Here's why I like it:

- These guys have some brains
The design team has some experience, they're the guys who created Everquest.. and I know what you're thinking, but they're decidedly taking a non-everquest approach. In fact, something they said really impressed me. Check this quote out:

(This applies to a great many things, but in general to the recent reactionary trend to respond to traditional MMOG mechanics that have had some problems by completely removing them as opposed to fixing them. Travel is tedious? Remove travel! People are camping and ninja looting and being rotten to each other in a dungeon? Remove the other people! (Instancing). Sigil, rather, is intent on fixing and tweaking traditional MUD/MMOG mechanics that have existed for so long, not throwing them out).

This is a refreshing thing to hear from a game designer, they have a tendency to "eliminate" instead of "revamp". Take a look at Star Wars Galaxies, where there were 30 some professions, but many of them were broken. The designers eliminated all but 9 of the professions (and they're still broken, or so I hear).

- They've invented another playstyle
Ordinarily in a game like this, you're talking the "big 3" playstyles. Combat. Craftin. Gathering. Vanguard has a 4th: Diplomacy. In order to do some things, like gain access to certain areas, or build a player city, you need to convince an NPC. You do this through debate battles. If you succeed, they give you what you want. If you fail, you lose Diplomacy XP. The best news is that you pick a class in each category.. Combat, Craftin, Gatherin, Diplomacy. On one character. Excellent.

- It has built in support for Player Communities
Game Designers can be silly sometimes. You can't just throw in a guild system and expect people to play your game for years. You've got to have non-instanced player housing and player cities. You can't just offer the people 6 different heads and call that customization, you've got to allow for morphing. Vanguard does all this. The player housing system is very similar to what they had in Star Wars Galaxies, except you can rotate and spin objects in any way you need. There are player vendors instead of a universal Auction House, and when you build a Player City and do it right, NPC's will move in as well.

- Huge World
While nobody that plays Vanguard can tell you anything because of an NDA, word is that the world is huge. Like mega huge. On top of that, there are no teleports, portals, gryphona, or recsu recdus. If you want to go somewhere, you're going by foot, horse, or boat. Another first since Ultima Online.. player controlled ships, this time without all the lag of a Ultima Online ship. Also, ship to ship combat, and boarding maneuvers. Can you say "hello pirates?" Boy Howdy, there's a ton of people been waiting for that one since the very beginning.

The World is made up of at least 4 continents, and each of them is like their own little world in itself. One continent is based on Europe, one on the Middle East, and one on Asia.. and while you might choose to play a warrior on any continent, you can't learn how to use a Katana on the European continent, and you can't learn the scimitar in the Asian continent. Amazing Diversity!

On top of that, Weather Conditions have enviornmental effects. If you spend a lot of time on the Middle Eastern Continent, where it is hot all the time, you will become more resistant to heat-based attacks (and more vulnerable to cold ones).

- The Licensor and the Producer are the same company
Remember when Richard Garriott owned the rights to Lord British, but not the rights to Ultima, and everything got all messed up because of it? Remember when EA wanted Ultima Online to go one way, and everyone else wanted it to go the other?

How about that time where Lucasarts felt that Star Wars Galaxies wasn't Star Wars enough, and so they alienated 70% of their subscribers by changing the entire premise of the game?

This kind of thing won't happen with Vanguard, because there's only one force behind the scenes.

Alright, all that being said, there are a few down points to Vanguard:

- It's level and class based
Prepare to be pigeonholed as a level 50 warrior/paladin/thief/mage. Vanguard sports probably 25 different classes, but we did all that in World of Warcraft.

- The designers still want to put emphasis on quests and items
If Lord of the Rings were an MMO, everyone would have to go to Frodo's house so they could get the "one ring quest". They would get their Fellowship together, and everyone would get the quest. They would then run as fast as they can to Mt. Doom and complete the quest while Gollum was still bugging the one guy that aggroed him. Then, everyone could access the Gray Havens to get more quests!

This does not work. It's okay some of the time, but you can not underemphasize quests. It's impossible, because they are for the most part, unneccessary.

Aside from that, you still have the "crafted vs looted" debate. Which is better? Looted always, ALWAYS wins in a practical game, giving crafters the shaft for anything but healing potions or blank scrolls.

- The Producers don't understand what grinding is
One of them made a comment that Grinding is when you are progressing, but you don't have fun doing it. I suppose that's alright as a definition, but the problem is.. NOBODY has fun grinding. Because you can see other people's levels and compare them with your own, it becomes a race to see who can max out the fastest. When that happens, it's time to start all over again.

The only reason grinding exists in the first place is to generate a difference between the people who have just started, and the people who have been playing awhile. Grinding exists wherever there are easily definable levels that players can compare themselves against.

To Eliminate grinding, there must be an incentive in not maxing out the levels. The best way to do that is with a professions system instead of a class system.. but on top of that, people actually need to be able to play the game with only about 70% of their skills.

In Star Wars Galaxies, everything would kick your butt unless you had achieved CL 80. In WoW, you could kill stuff in certain zones at different levels, but you were useless to any community until you got to level 60..

But in Ultima Online, you could be an asset to the team with 50 healing, 80 swords, and 40 parry. You didn't have to be the uber, it just helped. THIS is the one element that Vanguard is truly missing.

But, they got most of it down alright, so we'll see what happens. It's definately the one I'm keeping my eyes on.

More information:

Fan FAQ with annotated sources for the answers
http://www.silkyvenom.com/pages/faq.php?

Official Site
http://www.vanguardsoh.com

Awesome Example of in-game music:
http://vanguardsoh.com/audio/AhgramTheme.mp3

William Shatner's Spplat Attack!
Submitted Friday, June 16, 2006 - 2:03:59 PM by Klaitu

The story of how one pop icon dominates everyone!

Spplat Attack was a charit event where paintball players across the nation congregated in illinois to benefit Shatner's horse charity. Participants paid for their tickets, and everyone played one of the largest paintball games ever put together.

Additionally, shatner took along a camera crew to film the thing, and he produced a DVD which he then sold and the money went to the charity as well. That's how we end up at Spplat Attack.

Shatner heads up the Federation team, Radio guy Mancow heads up the Klingon team, and Championship Paintballer Tom Kaye leads the borg. Only one team can prove victorious! Who do you think will win?

If you picked the Borg because of their Championship heritage, you'd be wrong.

It's a very interesting show to watch. Mancow and Tom Kay get taken out pretty early in the game. Shatner, however, nobody can find him.. because he's actually going out on missions. Ordinarily in paintball, the general stays in the base. Shatner pretty much does whatever he wants, ignoring all paintball conventions and leading the Federation to a resounding victory, simply because he's that good.

In fact, Shatner only gets hit once during the entire program. There's one point where the Borg capture him, they take him to their leader, and Shatner the whole way is like "You know you're going to lose".. and they let him go! They don't even shoot him. That's how awesome Shatner is.

Anyways, It's fun to watch, especially when Shatner cuts loose with the Triple Double Cross. That guy IS Captain Kirk.

Overall Score: 7 of 10

Interesting Work Things
Submitted Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 1:42:47 AM by Klaitu

Today was the day of not-so-bad calls.

1. A call from an italian fellow from New York, only he was presently in Florida. This man had a history of car problems, he was calling to report a problem with his third car in 3 days.

His first car was a Hybrid Vehicle. Since probably none of you have ever driven a hybrid, you should know that if you have a manual transmission, the gears are in the exact reverse order of a normal manual transmission. He didn't like the car because he kept putting it into the wrong gears and grinding them up and stuff.

Alright, fair enough.

The second vehicle was a Pontiac. New Pontiac vehicles have a feature that is quite annoying to roadservice agents like myself. If you get out of the car, and forget to lock the doors, they will automatically lock after 60 seconds. This Pontiac was no exception. Our Italian New Yorker parked his car at a convienience store and popped inside, and when he came back he had locked himself out because he merely put the keys on the seat (if he had left the keys in the ignition, no problem).

The story doesn't end there, no sir. He was travelling with his dog, and now his dog was locked in the car too. What to do? Grab a giant iron pipe and break out the window, of course!

Third car: another Pontiac. This one hit a pothole so hard that the entire passenger side of the car warped out of place so badly that the passenger doors were wedged into the frame and would not open. The person who handled him sent him to a Pontiac dealership for a warranty repair, and Pontiac told him it would take weeks to fix!

And that's where I got the call. He wanted an exchange, but under no circumstances was he going to any airport. He had had enough of those, lemme tell you what!

It's pretty hard to convince a local counter to give a car to a guy that's busted up 2 other cars. Interestingly, I mentioned his name, and the counters were more than happy to hook him up.

Interesting, no? I thought so.

2. There's a man calling me, he's in a SUV and his GPS system is broke. He's absolutely lost without it, he needs that GPS, and he wants an exchange. He's presently in Hollywood, and wants to exchange at a nearby airport. This isn't a problem.. I do this kinda thing all the time, so it was a snap to set up.. but the guy needed directions (because his GPS was broke). For directions, I put you through to where youre tryin to go, and they guide you in. I did just that.

Now, when I transfer, I dont just transfer, I actually conference myself, the customer, and the location together and then pull myself out of the conference. I don't usually listen in on this kind of thing, but I didn't hit the button right away on this transfer, and lo and behold: Fran Drescher.

Yep. The guy I was talking to was Fran Drescher's driver. Crazy, huh? Of course, with Fran Drescher, I pulled myself out of the conference immediately for fear of going deaf.

3. One of our more important renters, a Gold Member, was in a hurry. He didn't have time to return his rental vehicle, so here's what he did: He drove the car into short term parking, but did not park it in a parking space, instead he parked in a red curbed no parking zone. Then he took the rental car shuttle to the terminal, and he gave the keys to his rental car to the bus driver. The bus driver of a PUBLIC BUS.

Naturally, when he called me he was quite concerned that the public bus driver may have stolen the vehicle, and that by his voluntarily giving the keys to a stranger, he may have colluded in the theft (which pretty much blacklists you from renting any rental car from any rental company forever).

When the local Hertz Location (which was about 90 yards from where he parked the car) went out to check on it, the car was gone. Much strife was had by all.. but it was all good, because the car was just towed by the Airport Authority because it was in a no parking zone. The keys, however, have mysteriously vanished.

Tip for the Day
Submitted Monday, June 12, 2006 - 2:47:36 PM by Klaitu

Okay, here's the Klaitu Rental Car tip for the day:

I got about a million calls yesterday about this, and my posting here will make no difference, but I'm going to vent, so nyaah.

If you have rented a car, DON'T lose the keys to it. If you lose the keys, you're looking at $95 bucks minimum. If you've rented a prestiege car like a Cadillac Escalade, or a Jaguar X-Type, You're SOL, we have to tow the car because nobody can make duplicate keys.. so then you get to pay $95 bucks plus the $77 buck towing charge.

And, if you're going to lock your keys in your car, and you have a convertible.. for goodness sake, DO NOT LOCK THEM IN THE TRUNK. Convertibles don't have any sort of interior trunk release.. at all. You get to pay to have a key cut to open the trunk. The Laser Cut keys can cost in the neighborhood of $300 bucks.

and while I'm here, don't fall asleep while driving. Aside from the fact that you'll probably kill yourself, it will take me about 45 minutes to collect all your insurance information..

On the up side, though.. you'll have to pay less money than if you locked your keys in the trunk of your Jaguar, even if you totalled the car.

Oklahoma + Video Games = ?
Submitted Monday, June 12, 2006 - 1:47:11 AM by Klaitu

I saw this article over on Gamespot:

Okla. game bill signed into law
Governor signs HB3004, making games with "inappropriate violence" harmful to minors; such titles will be subject to same restrictions as sexually explicit magazines, videos.
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted Jun 10, 2006 3:38 pm PT
Democratic Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry yesterday signed into law HB3004, which revises the state's definition of what is harmful to minors to include games with "inappropriate violence." Previously, the only content that would qualify something as harmful to minors involved sex or sadomasochistic abuse.

Henry criticized violence in games that he said had grown "to epic proportions" in a statement. He added, "While parents have the ultimate responsibility for what their children do and see, this legislation is another tool to ensure that our young people are not saturated in violence. This gives parents the power to more closely regulate which games their children play."

Under the law, no person, not even a minors' parents or guardians, would be allowed to give or show them an inappropriately violent game. Retailers would also not be able to have such games on display where minors could see them, unless the lower two-thirds of the boxes were hidden behind "blinder racks," of the sort commonly used for sexually explicit magazines.

The law defines "inappropriate violence" as any depiction in a game that, when taken as a whole, has the following characteristics:
"a. the average person eighteen (18) years of age or older applying contemporary community standards would find that the interactive video game or computer software is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors, and
b. the interactive video game or computer software lacks serious literary, scientific, medical, artistic, or political value for minors based on, but not limited to, the following criteria:
(1) is glamorized or gratuitous,
(2) is graphic violence used to shock or stimulate,
(3) is graphic violence that is not contextually relevant to the material,
(4) is so pervasive that it serves as the thread holding the plot of the material together,
(5) trivializes the serious nature of realistic violence,
(6) does not demonstrate the consequences or effects of realistic violence,
(7) uses brutal weapons designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain and damage,
(8) endorses or glorifies torture or excessive weaponry, or
(9) depicts lead characters who resort to violence freely"

While the definition of inappropriate violence specifies that it must take place in a game, the new definition of "harmful to minors" specifies "any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form [emphasis added], of inappropriate violence." This means that video footage showing the violent gameplay, a review of the game in question, or even a newspaper editorial decrying the violence in the game would be classified as harmful to minors, according to a lawyer GameSpot consulted on the matter.

Several weeks ago, GameSpot interviewed the bill's co-author, Republican Representative Fred Morgan, and asked if that was the bill's original intent. At the time he said he needed to examine the language of the bill before answering, but later on commented that he did not agree with that interpretation.

Neither the state nor national branches of the American Civil Liberties Union returned GameSpot's phone calls regarding the law. The Entertainment Software Association was not available for comment, but is almost certain to file suit in this case, as it has in California, Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, and other states where restrictive gaming legislation has been passed.

The law is slated to go into effect November 1.

Now, you've got to understand a lot about this state. It's pretty buttoned up, I mean societally.

- There is only one Tattooing establishment in Oklahoma. Previously, tattooing was illegal here, but I guess they lightened up. Piercings are legal here, though.

- It is illegal to sell "hard beer" or sprits on any election tuesday. I guess they don't want drunk voters?

- Oklahoma only recently passed a law which gave the state a lottery. Previously (for the past 99 years) voters had routinely voted down such proposals because lotteries are gambling.

- In the 1980's when cable was first getting popular, cable companies were prohibited from broadcasting the playboy channel, as well as other pornographic materials.

- Sexually explicit magazines and videos are already required to have the "censor plaque" in front of them.

So, really, this law isn't much of a suprise.. however, living in Oklahoma as I do, I don't really see it as a problem anyway. Why? Here's how I see it:

1. I'm over 18 years old, and have no intention of showing any kids anything.

2. If I had kids, it is most unlikely that I would allow them to watch or play video games with sufficient content to get the dreaded "porno screen" anyways.

3. I regard senseless, gratuitous violence in the same vein as senseless, gratuitous sex. Equal treatment for the two phenomena seems fair to me.

The only thing that worries me is the vague wording of the law and its interpretation by judges who have never played a video game before.

The Slam Jam
Submitted Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 8:58:30 AM by Klaitu

Alright, so it's been about a month since I started on with Hertz. Things are still going pretty smooth. The getting up early and going to bed while the sun was still up part was probably the worst aspect of the job thus far.

I've spent most of my work time learning how to fill out reports and learning what I can or can't do in any given situation. Why that takes an entire month to do, I have no idea, but I'm happy to take my money for sitting in a chair being bored for 8 hours.

At this point my shift has changed, and I no longer work from early morning to early afternoon. now I work from early evening to early morning. Everything is completely inverse, and I have 2 days to figure out how I'm going to stay awake until 1 AM. Used to be I would have no problem with that.

Probably my least favorite portion of my job is the strict rigidity of the clock. Because I'm someone who takes calls all day, I'm at a phone all day, and my phone is also my timecard. Since it's a machine, it's precise, and I, being a human, am not so precise. The computer measures time decimally, paying me about 12 cents every 6 minutes. If I have to go to the bathroom, and it's not my break or my lunch, I have to do it within 6 minutes, or I get docked that 12 cents.

Breaks are somewhat flexible. If I take 16 minutes at one break on accident, I can make up for it with a 14 minute break on the back end. Lunch however, is a whole other story. If I'm late back from lunch, it's like I'm absent from my shift. In fact, the computer records it just like it does when I first start my shift. If I were to ever be late to my shift, or after lunch, it would disqualify me from promotion or raises for 6 months!

Other than that, the job is pretty smooth. I help out people who broke down somewhere and need helped out.

Will the corporate world destroy my carefree whimsical attitide? stay tuned!